Revolutions broke out in Spain & Naples in 1820, Greece in 1821, and France, Belgium, and Poland in 1830

METTERNICH’S CONFERENCE SYSTEMAND THE THREAT OF REVOLUTION

See Henry A. Kissinger, A World Restored: Metternich, Castlereagh,

and the Problems of Peace, 1812-1822 (Boston, 1957)

1815 “Holy Alliance” of Tsar Alexander, Emperor Francis, King Fred William III

1818, Aachen (Aix-la-Chapelle)

Russia proposes universal pact to preserve the political status quo

1819, Carlsbad

Nine German states impose censorship on press and universities

1820, TroppauThe Continental monarchies agree to intervene wherever revolution occurs

1821, Laibach The monarchies order armed intervention in Naples and Tuscany

1822, VeronaBoycotted by England; the other Powers instruct France to invade Spain

THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION OF 1815:Baden, Württemberg, & Bavaria adopted liberal constitutions

German Romantics provided some support for Metternich:

Karl Friedrich Schinkel, Medieval City on a River (ca. 1815)

The Wartburg Festival, October 1817:The Burschenschaften wave their banner of black, red & gold

These patriotic fraternities celebrated the legacies of Martin Luther & the Wars of Liberation, and swore to promote the welfare of Germany. Metternich was appalled.

The Murder of August Kotzebue by Carl Sand, March 1819:This playwright reported on German conditions to Tsar Alexander

THE CARLSBAD DECREES OF SEPTEMBER 1819

1. A police inspector will be appointed for each university.

2. All university & school teachers will be fired if they “propagate doctrines subversive of existing government institutions.”

3. The Universal Students’ Union (Allgemeine Burschenschaft) will be suppressed, “since the very conception of the society implies the utterly unallowable plan of permanent fellowship and constant communication between the various universities.”

4. No magazine or newspaper will go to press “without the previous knowledge and approval of the state officials.”

5. Each German state is responsible to all the other states for any publication attacking another state’s administration.

Thereafter Metternich categorically opposed any grant of a written constitution or bill of rights.

“The Man of the New Age” (1819):

Metternich’s “presumptuous man”

Meeting of the Thinkers’ Club (German cartoon, ca. 1825)“The important question to be discussed in today’s meeting:

How long will we be allowed to go on thinking?”

J.A.D. Ingres, "The Vow of Louis

XIII," 1824:This ancestor of Louis XVIII has

dedicated his reign to the Virgin Mary in 1638 and sworn to

suppress Protestantism.

The coronation of King Charles X, Paris, June 1825

Controversial decisions by Charles

X:

• To revive the ceremony of the “royal touch” for scrofulous beggars.

• To restore the death penalty for blasphemy.

• To reduce interest rates on state bonds to compensate the Church and emigré nobility for their lost lands.

• To withdraw the Constitutional Charter in July 1830.

Théodore Gudin, “The Naval Assault on Algiers, 29 June 1830” (painted in 1831): Charles X sought

popularity through conquest in North Africa.

“Fighting on the Rue Saint-Antoine, 28 July 1830”

The Return of Marianne:Eugene Delacroix, “Liberty Leading the People” (1830)

Louis Philippe, duc d’Orléans, agrees to take office as King “by will of the People” and restore the tricolor flag.

The July Monarchy of 1830-1848

was “liberal” but NOT

“democratic”.

Arc de Triomphe (1806-1836)

François Rudé,“La Marseillaise”[actually, “1792: The Departure of the Volunteers”],Arc de Triomphe,

1833-36

Eugène Isabey, “The Transfer of Napoleon’s Remains,” December 1840 (1842)

Goya, “King Charles IV and His Family” (ca. 1800):The future King Ferdinand VII stands on the left

Francisco de Goya

(1746-1828),Self-Portrait in

1815:A royal court painter since

1786, he executed an

epic cycle of 82 aquatint prints from 1810 to

1820, The Disasters of

War

Goya’s hero, Minister of Justice Jovellanos (1798) and an archaic prison. “Let the punishment fit the

crime!”

The hedonistic prime minister, Manuel Godoy,making war on Portugal in 1801

THE SPANISH MONARCHY HAD LOST POPULAR SUPPORT EVEN BEFORE THE FRENCH

TAKEOVER1801-02: Napoleon persuades Godoy to declare war on Portugal and Great Britain (ended by the Peace of Amiens)1807: Godoy renews French alliance in February, and a Franco-Spanish army conquers Lisbon in November; French garrisons are stationed throughout northern Spain.March 17, 1808, Tumult of Aranjuez: A mob compels Godoy to resign and Charles IV to abdicate in favor of his son.May 2/3, 1808: Popular uprising against the French in Madrid occurs against the wishes of all royal officials.May 10, 1808: Both Charles IV and Ferdinand VII appeal to Napoleon in Bayonne, who persuades both to abdicate in favor of Joseph Bonaparte.May-October 1808: Revolutionary juntas spring up throughout Spain, while the British land troops in Portugal.

DISASTERS #2: “With Reason or Without” [Rightly or Wrongly]

DISASTERS #3: “The Same” [i.e., Rightly or Wrongly]

DISASTERS #7: “What Courage!”The “Maid of Saragossa” took charge of a batteryon August 14, 1808, and repelled a French attack

DISASTERS #11: “They don’t want to”(A half dozen plates depict rape)

DISASTERS #48: “A cruel shame” –Over half the 100,000 Spaniards in Saragossa died in the second siege of Oct 1808-Feb 1809, and famine

ravagedMadrid from September 1811 to August 1812

Goya’s portraits of the Duke of Wellington (August 1812) and King Ferdinand VII (1814): The Spanish

Cortes proclaimed a liberal constitution in 1812, but Ferdinand withdrew it in 1814

DISASTERS #66: “Strange devotion” –Ferdinand allied himself with Catholic conservatism in

1814

Goya, “The Inquisition Tribunal” (1812-1819):Such public ceremonies had ended in the early 18th century but became possible again under Ferdinand

VII

METTERNICH’S CASE FOR INTERVENTION IN SPAIN:Dispatch to the Austrian chargé d’affaires in

Madrid, summer 1822

“The revolution in Spain, considered solely in relation to the pernicious influence which it has exercised on the kingdom which suffered it, would be an event worthy of all the attention and all the interest of foreign sovereigns…. But a just repugnance to meddle with the internal affairs of an independent state would perhaps have determined these sovereigns to make no pronouncement on the situation in Spain, if the evil produced by the revolution had confined itself and could confine itself to the interior. But this is not the case; this revolution, before it even reached maturity, has already provoked great disasters in other countries; it is this revolution which by contagion of its principles and its example, and by the intrigues of its principal authors, has caused the revolutions in Naples and Piedmont…. Everywhere the deadly means employed in Spain to prepare and carry out the revolution have served as models for those who hope to effect new conquests. Everywhere the Spanish constitution has become the rallying point and the war cry of a faction conspiring against the stability of thrones and the peace of peoples.”

French troops take Cadiz, August 1823: They toppled a

government that sought to restore the 1812 constitution

“The Execution of Torrijos and His Companions in 1823” –

Despite a promise of amnesty, Ferdinand launched savage reprisals against the leaders of the liberal

revolution

In Russia the reactionary Nicholas I came to the throne in December 1825 and crushed the

Decembrist Revolt

Tsar Nicholas I(r. 1825-1855),

brother of Alexander

When they heard of Alexander’s death, 3,000 troops occupied

Senate Square in St. Petersburg to demand a constitutional

monarchy

Polish army cadets seize the Warsaw Arsenal, November 29, 1830. In February 1831, 200,000

Russian troops invaded Poland, and Nicholas withdrew its constitution.

THE POLITICAL SPECTRUM IN 1820

Radical Democrat

Moderate Liberal

Conservative Reactionary, or Ultra-royalist

French Jacobins, English Chartists,German Burschenschaften

Karl vom Stein, British Whigs,Louis Philippe,Tsar Alexander I

Edmund Burke, Lord Castlereagh, perhaps the young Metternich?

Old Metternich,Ferdinand VII,Charles X, Tsar Nicholas I

Universal and equal manhood suffrage, Unicameral legislature,Popular sovereignty

Separation of powers, Limited suffrage, Parliamentary control of royal power, Faith in progress

Separation of powers, Limited suffrage, Parliamentary checks on royal power, Admiration of tradition

Alliance of throne and altar; The will of the monarch is the sole legitimate source of law