Reform and Reaction WHAP/Napp

“By midcentury,popular sentimentwas building throughout Italy for unification. Opposingit were Pope Pius IX, who abhorred everything modern,and Austria, which controlled two Italian provinces. The prime ministerof the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, Count CamilloBenso di Cavour, saw the rivalry between France andAustria as an opportunity to unify Italy. He secretlyformed an alliance with France, then instigated a warwith Austria in 1858. The war was followed by uprisingsthroughout northern andcentral Italy in favor of joiningPiedmont-Sardinia, a moderate constitutional monarchyunder King Victor Emmanuel. If the conservative approach to unificationprevailed in the north, a more radical approach wasstill possible in the south. In 1860 the fiery revolutionaryGiuseppe Garibaldi and a small band of followerslanded in Sicily and then in southern Italy, overthrewthe Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, and prepared to founda democratic republic. The royalist Cavour, however,took advantage of the unsettled situation to sidelineGaribaldi and expand Piedmont-Sardinia into a newKingdom of Italy. Unification was completed with theaddition of Venetia in 1866 and the Papal States in 1870. The process of unification illustrates the shift of nationalismfrom a democratic idea to a conservative method of building support for a strong centralized government.

Until the 1860s the region of Central Europewhere people spoke German (the former Holy RomanEmpire) consisted of Prussia, the western half of the AustrianEmpire, and numerous smaller states. Some German nationalists wanted to unite all Germansunder the Austrian throne. Others wanted to excludeAustria with its many non-Germanic peoples andunite all other German-speaking areas under Prussia. The divisions were also religious: Austria and southwesternGermany were Catholic; Prussia and the northeastwere Lutheran. The Prussian state had two advantages:(1) the newly developed industries of the Rhineland, and(2) the first European army to make use of railroads,telegraphs, breechloading rifles, steel artillery, and otherproducts of modern industry.

During the reign of King Wilhelm I (r. 1861–1888)Prussia was ruled by the brilliant and authoritarian aristocrat, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (1815–1898). Bismarckwas determined to use Prussian industry and Germannationalism to make his state the dominant powerin Germany. In 1866 Prussia attacked and defeated Austria. Toeveryone’s surprise, Prussia took no Austrian territory. Instead, Prussia and some smaller states formedthe North German Confederation, the nucleus of a futureGermany. Then in 1870, confident that Austriawould not hinder him, Bismarck took advantage ofFrenchEmperor Napoleon III’s hostility to the NorthGerman Confederation to start a war with France. Prussianarmies, joined by troops from southern as well asnorthern Germany, used their superior firepower andtactics to achieve a quick victory. ‘Blood and iron’ werethe foundation of the new German Empire.

1. Otto von Bismarck, Prussian chancellor, is most well known
(A) For saying “I cannot make a speech, but I can make Germany.”
(B) For his attitude that German unification would be achieved "not by speeches...but by blood and iron.” / 2. The Kingdom of Italy, declared in March 1861, was headed by
(A) Garibaldi.
(B) Victor Emmanuel II.
(C) Cavour.
(D) Napoleon III.
Key Words/
Questions / I. Underlying Causes of Desire for Change in Western Europe
A. Impatience with reactionary rule started by Congress of Vienna and
Prince Metternich’s efforts to restore the regimes after French Revolution
B. Effects of the Industrial Revolution and a growing sense of nationalism
  1. Economic downturns and bad harvests in 1840s (“Hungry Forties” – The Irish Potato Famine was the best-known and most deadly)
II. Britain
  1. During reign of Queen Victoria, two major parties in Parliament –
Conservatives and Liberals – began to extend vote to more classes
  1. Accomplished by means of Second (1867) and Third (1885) Reform Acts
  2. But during early 1900s, a new political party, Labour, working-class
  3. Also question of Irish home rule: should it be free and what about Protestants in Northern Ireland or should North remain British?
IV. France
A. Progress toward democracy was less consistent than Britain’s
  1. After an 1848 Revolution, France briefly had a republic in which all adult males could votes but in 1851, Napoleon III made himself emperor
  2. From 1871, France: a democratic republic with universal male suffrage
  3. Yet Dreyfus Affair (1894-1906) – in which a Jewish officer was wrongly accused of selling military secrets to Germany – exposed an ugly streak of anti-Semitism within French society, but also deep divisions in France
V. Unification of Italy and Germany
A. Italian unification led by Camillo Cavour and Giuseppe Garibaldi
B. Country was partially united in 1861, then fully united in 1870
C. Under Victor Emmanuel II, Italy became a constitutional monarchy
D. Germany’s unification was spearheaded by Prussia
E. Mastermind of unification was Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck
F. Germany joined together in 1871, following victory over France
G. Prussia’s king: Kaiser (emperor) – Wilhelm I of German Reich (empire)
VI. Austria-Hungary
A. Multinational empire – Czechs, Poles, Slovaks, Croats, Serbs, Italians
  1. Pressures of nationalism strong
  2. In 1867, the largest and most powerful minority, Hungarians, forced Austrian government to grant them equal status within empire
  3. Augsleich (“compromise”) turned it into Austro-Hungarian Empire
VII. Germany and Bismarck
  1. To prevent radicalism and revolution, Bismarck allowed all adult males
to vote in elections to the German parliament, or Reichstag
  1. Passed laws that granted workers unemployment insurance, disability insurance, pensions, a shorter workday, and so on
VIII. Russia
A. Most autocratic: no constitution, and until 1905, no elected body
B. But emancipation of serfs in 1861 yet the tsar was assassinated
IX. Women’s Suffrage – votes for women and women’s equality
  1. Mary Wollstonecraft: A Vindication of the Rights of Women (1792)

  1. Great Britain’s First Reform Act did which of the following?
(A)It gave all adult males the vote.
(B)It improved districting and the operation of the voting system.
(C)It granted women the right to vote.
(D)It abolished the House of Lords.
(E)It provided for voting by secret ballot.
  1. The Dreyfus Affair
(A)Was a scandal that rocked the British financial world
(B)Was a diplomatic crisis that nearly spoiled Germany’s relationship with Austria
(C)Was a miscarriage of justice that split French society and demonstrated a spirit of anti-Semitism there
(D)Was a court case in Russia involving a serial murderer
(E)Was a love triangle that embarrassed the Hungarian aristocracy
  1. According to the terms of the 1867 Augsleich, the Austrians agreed to rule their empire jointly with
(A)The Hungarians
(B)The Croats
(C)The Czechs
(D)The Serbs
(E)The Slovenes /
  1. The hallmark of Alexander II’s reign in Russia was
(A)His victory in the Crimean War
(B)His suppression of peasant revolts in Siberia
(C)His creation of Russia’s first constitution
(D)His establishment of Russia’s first university
(E)His emancipation of Russia’s serfs
  1. Which of the following best describes the struggle of nineteenth-century feminists in Europe and the U.S.A.?
(A)Feminists were concerned only with gaining the right to vote.
(B)Feminists struggled for the vote, but also for social reform in areas such as education and temperance
(C)Feminists chose to focus mainly on social reform, ignoring the struggle for the vote.
(D)Feminists gained the vote in several major nations just before World War I.
(E)Feminists failed to gain the vote anywhere until after WWI
  1. Charles Darwin’s accomplishments can best be summed up as follows?
(A)He was the first to propose the theory of evolution.
(B)He was the first to satisfactorily explain the concept of evolution, by means of the theory of natural selection.

Thesis Practice: Comparative

Analyze similarities and differences in methods and outcomes of Italian and German unification.

______

Mini-Q:

Analyze the debates over Italian national identity and unification in the period circa1830–1870.

Historical Background: After the Congress of Vienna, Italy consisted of the followingstates: the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, the

Papal States (controlled by the pope), Parma, Modena, Tuscany (whose policies werestrongly influenced by Austria), and Venetia and Lombardy (both ruled directly by

Austria). Italy remained politically and culturally divided well into the nineteenth century.

Movements for the unification of Italy began in the 1820s and 1830s and continuedeven after the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861. The peninsula finally becamepolitically unified in 1870.

Document 1

Document 2

Document 3