Three different viewpoints on government were introduced after the Napoleonic Era.

They were:

Liberals Radicals Conservatives

Usually were professional and businesspeople of the middleclass.

They tended to support efforts to make governments more democratic.

They argued that democratic reforms did not improve society enough.

Many radicals wanted a new system of government called socialism.

Socialists believed that society should be more cooperative than competitive.

They felt governments should regulate the nation’s economies to bring about a more even distribution of wealth among the population.

They wanted to restrict or even to do away with private property.

People who benefited from the old forms of government and society wanted to stop or slow the rate of changes.

A group of European conservative leaders met to make decisions about Europe in 1814.

Lord Castlereagh-Great Britain King Frederick William III-Prussia Prince Talleyrand-France Czar Alexander I-Russia Prince Klemens von Metternich-Austria

Metternich dominated the conference.

The congress wanted to establish a balance of power among the nations.

They also supported the principle of legitimacy. They restored rightful monarchs when possible.

Louis XVIII (Louis XVI’s brother)-France

Former ruling families returned to Austria, Prussia, Spain and the Italian states.

The congress was against groups that wanted independence after the French Revolution.

Metternich feared nationalism would destroy Austria and the other European powers.

The older, stronger powers wanted to avoid this instability.

The more these smaller groups were deprived of political power and the freedom to express their native cultures, the more strongly nationalistic they became.

The delegates wanted the French people to accept the government of Louis XVIII.

France lost all the territory taken by Napoleon and boundaries were reset back to 1792.

France had to pay for damages, or reparations, it had done to other nations during the wars.

Louis XVIII passed the Constitutional Charter of 1814 giving the people of France freedom of press and parliamentary representation.

Louis died in 1824 and his brother Charles X took over.

He wanted to restore the absolute monarchy.

This angered French liberals. Charles also supported very unpopular laws.

Ex.

Payments had to be made to nobles who lost land during the revolution.

Limited the freedom of the press. July Ordinances-dismissed the legally

elected lawmaking body.

Paris erupted in violence. People set up barricades and fought the king’s soldiers.

After 3 days, the government collapsed, and Charles gave up the throne.

Louis Philippe, the Duke of Orleans, was elected to be the new king.

A poor economy and government corruption caused unrest among liberals.

King Louis Philippe was growing unpopular.

In February 1848, the government ordered reformers to cancel a political meeting.

Once again riots broke out in Paris.

Philippe abdicated (resigned) and fled to Great Britain.

The Second Republic was created (1st Republic-during the French Revolution in 1790s).

Under a new constitution(set of laws), an elected president and legislature governed the Second Republic.

In December 1848, Louis Napoleon (a nephew of Napoleon Bonaparte) was elected president.

He wanted to follow in his uncle’s footsteps and turned the Second Republic into the Second Empire.

He became Emperor Napoleon III and ruled until 1870.

No revolutions took place in Britain in the 1800s.

Why? A series of compromises between liberals

and conservatives made gradual reform possible without bloodshed.

Conservatives in the British government accepted these reforms to ensure peace (unlike conservatives in other countries).

The Reform Bill of 1832-Lowered the property requirements for voting and doubled the number of British voters.

1867-A bill lowered the property requirements even more and gave the vote to working-class men.

1807- Parliament outlawed the British slave trade.

1833-Parliament abolished (eliminated) slavery in the British colonies.

Russia was politically and economically backward.

The czar had total control over Russia’s lawmaking body.

Serfs (farmer laborers) were 75% of the population and were tied to the land.

Landowning nobles had complete control of the serfs.

To avoid the chaos of the French Revolution he began to make changes.

He also wished to modernize Russia and make it like Western Europe.

He improved the bureaucracy of the government by appointing better trained officials.

However, Napoleon’s invasion in 1812 left Russia economically and politically weak.

The young educated classes of Russia formed secret societies to develop plans to make Russia more democratic.

When Alexander I died in December 1825, these groups staged an unsuccessful revolt.

Nicholas I (Alexander I’s brother) came down hard on the Decembrist revolts.

No real changes took place until his son, Alexander II took over in 1855.

He freed the serfs in 1861.

Despite this reform, there were drawbacks.

Serfs had to pay high prices for the land they were allowed to buy.

1864- Alexander II established local governments called zemstvos.

They were elected bodies that made decisions on how to manage a district’s education, health, and welfare.

However, they were controlled by the local landowners.

Many Russians felt that these reforms were inadequate.

Students formed groups to spread socialist ideas among the poor.

The government cracked down on these associations, the young groups used terrorist tactics.

On March 13, 1881- Alexander II was assassinated by one of these groups.

Alexander III (Alexander II’s son) took over and came down very harshly on any groups that spoke out against the government.

Russian leaders stirred up nationalistic feelings in their subjects to distract them from their dissatisfaction with czarist rule.

During the 1800s several czars waged wars to expand Russia’s empire and increase nationalistic feelings.

1853- Russia wanted to control the water route connecting the Black Sea with the Mediterranean Sea.

To accomplish this, Russia demanded the right to protect Eastern Orthodox Christians living in the Ottoman Empire.

When Turkey refused, Russia sent troops into the Crimean peninsula.

Britain and France opposed Russian expansion into the Black Sea and sent troops to support Turkish forces.

Russia’s lack of supplies, railroads, and reinforcements led to its defeat.

The Treaty of Paris (March 30, 1856) ended the war.

Another example of nationalism is the feeling of identity and sympathy among the members of the same ethnic group.

Russian leaders claimed the right to protect Slavic peoples living anywhere in Europe.

It led Russia to help Serbia in its conflicts with Austria-Hungary.

Russians began to look down on people of other ethnic backgrounds.

Russian leaders tried to force non-Russian inhabitants of the Russian Empire to replace their own cultures with Russian cultures.

1890s-The Russian government reinforced discriminatory laws against Jews.

These laws limited where Jews could live and took away their freedom to attend schools.

Attacks on Jews, called pogroms, were sanctioned by government officials.