Nationalism and Empire in Europe, 1850 to 1900

Nationalism and Empire in Europe, 1850 to 1900

Independence for Romania

In the early 1850s the "Romanian Question" was being featured in European newspapers and was being discussed particularly by Romanians in exile and by French writers and scholars. The Romanian lands of Moldavia and Walachia (Wallachia) were ruled nominally by the Ottoman sultan in Turkey and had been Russian protectorates since 1829. Attempts in 1848 to establish independence had been crushed, but the Crimean War (1853-1856) provided new hope for Romanian nationalists. At the Paris Peace Conference, which ended the Crimean War, Russia lost its protectorate status regarding Moldavia and Walachia, and the conference compelled the Ottoman Empire to grant Moldavia and Walachia autonomy, which was to be guaranteed by the conferring Europeans states.

In 1857, assemblies in both Moldavia and Walachia voted to unite the two regions. Austria and Turkey were opposed to the unification while Britain and other countries accepted it. On January 24, 1859, the unification took place. An aristocrat who had fought for independence in 1848, Alexander Cuza, was chosen by the assemblies as the ruler of the United Principalities of Romania. And the unification was formalized in 1861.

The Unification of Italy

For ages Italy had been divided politically, and since 1494 it had been a battleground for Europe's great powers. In the southern half of Italy was the Kingdom of Naples-Sicily, ruled by the amiable and intelligent but uncultivated and cynical Bourbon king, Ferdinand II. Just north of Naples-Sicily were Rome and the Papal States, ruled by Pope Pius IX, who depended on French and Austrian soldiers to maintain his position over his territories, and he believed that to fulfill the Church's spiritual mission the papacy needed to continue that rule. In the far north of Italy, in Venetia (including the city of Venice) and Lombardy (including the city of Milan), Austria ruled. And in the far northwest was Piedmont, a part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, a liberal constitutional monarchy, and a haven for Italian nationalists who had been involved in 1848-49 upheavals.

Like Walachia and Moldavia, Italy was impacted by the Crimean War. In that war, Sardinia-Piedmont fought with France against the Russians. And the ruler of France, Emperor Napoleon III (President Louis-Napoleon until 1853) believed in nationhood for Italians as well as for the French. In the wake of the Crimean War, Napoleon supported Piedmont-Sardinia against an opponent of Italian nationalism: Austria. The premier of Sardinia-Piedmont, Camillo Benso de Cavour, goaded Austria into a war, which France joined, Napoleon hoping to enhance France's position as a European power by helping to liberate those Italians ruled by Austria.

Austria's army had suffered from inferior leadership, from lack of preparation and training and from insufficient transport, with soldiers arriving for battle sick, exhausted and hungry. Italians and Hungarians in Austria's army deserted in large numbers, and in June, 1859, France and Piedmont-Sardinia defeated the Austrians at Solferino (near the town of Mantua in eastern Lombardy), the Austrian side losing 14,000 killed and wounded and more than 8,000 missing or taken as prisoners. France and Sardinia-Piedmont lost 15,000 killed and wounded and lost more than 2,000 as missing or as prisoners. Napoleon III recoiled from the bloodshed and deserted Piedmont-Sardinia, and to Piedmont's premier, Cavour, the cause of Italian unity appeared lost. But the war had given hope to urban masses down the Italian peninsula, who rose up against foreign rule, these Italians going into the streets, chanting "foreigners out of Italy," and chanting for "Victor Emmanuel," the king of Piedmont-Sardinia, whom they wanted as their king.

In July 1859 a compromise peace was established at the Conference of Villafranca. France acquired Savoy and Nice. Austria gave Lombardy to France, which then gave it to Piedmont-Sardinia. Then came a pro-democracy uprising across Sicily. A thousand nationalist volunteers led by Giuseppe Garibaldi arrived in Sicily on May 11, 1860, and in three months he and his volunteers were in control of the whole of Sicily. Then Garibaldi and his men moved into the southern half of the Italian peninsula, and, in early September, Garibaldi and his army triumphantly entered Naples. Plebiscites in the former kingdom of Naples-Sicily and in the papal states overwhelmingly favored these regions becoming a part of a united Italy. The new kingdom of Italy was proclaimed on March 17, 1861. Italy had become a parliamentary monarchy under king Victor Emmanuel II. Its capital was Turin, in Piedmont. That portion of the papal states outside of Latium were now a part of Italy, while Rome and Latium remained under papal control, and Venetia remained under Austrian rule.

Prussia against Austria

In the 1850s, Prussia and some smaller independent states in Germany were rapidly industrializing and growing in population. Rails crisscrossed Germany, and Germany was the hub of rail traffic on the European continent, taking trade away from British merchant ships. Germany was changing from what the British had thought of as a land of tinkering clockmakers and forests. It was becoming more urban and middleclass. It was on a course that by the end of the century would have it as the third power in manufacturing output in the world, with a 13.2 percent share, behind the Untied States with a 23.6 percent share, Britain with an 18.5 percent share, and almost twice that of France, which would have a 6.8 percent share. [note]

The Rise and Fall of the Great Powers, by Paul Kennedy, Random House, 1987, p. 202.

Austria had been isolated diplomatically during its war against France and Sardinia-Piedmont. It wanted to revive its partnership with Prussia's monarchy against liberalism and nationalism, and it wished to lure Prussia into helping in reversing the settlement at Villafranca and regaining Lombardy - Austria's monarch, Franz Joseph, wanting to keep his family's empire as great as it had been when he had inherited it.

Prussia was the largest of the German states, a constitutional monarchy and mostly Protestant. During a domestic crisis in 1862, a member of Prussia's landed aristocracy, Otto von Bismarck, took the office of minister-president. Representing the king, Bismarck, declared that his government would rule without parliamentary consideration. He was concerned with Prussia's position regarding neighboring German states and Austria's influence in the Confederation of German States.

The Confederation of German States consisted of 39 states, 35 of which were monarchies and 4 of which were free city-states. The confederation was a security arrangement for mutual defense, with representatives at a parliament at Frankfurt - one of the free city-states.

There was also a customs union among the German states, the Zollverein (pronounced tsôl´ferin´), a union that facilitated trade and helped bring economic progress to Germany. The Zollverein was a source of tension between Prussia and Austria, with Prussia opposed to admitting Austria to the Zollverein and several German states insisting upon including Austria.

Bismarck was less opposed to nationalism than were the Austrians representing Emperor Franz Joseph. Bismarck favored expanding Prussian influence with Germany's smaller states and removing Austria's influence within the Confederation of German States, especially in northern Germany. He believed that Germany was too small for both Prussia and Austria., and he was not opposed to using German nationalism in the expansion of Prussia's power. Prussia's liberals had been nationalistic, but Bismarck, although a landed aristocrat, believed that German nationalism was compatible with his brand of conservatism. Bismarck was looking forward to stealing the nationalist issue from the liberals, who represented merchants and the middleclass and dominated the lower house of Prussia's parliament - a powerless debating society called the Reichstag. The liberals were speaking against militarism and war, and Bismarck countered that "the great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and resolutions ... but by blood and iron." The liberals responded by denouncing Bismarck for believing that "might makes right."

The question of war came in 1863 following the death of King Frederick of Denmark. Christian of Glucksburg ascended the Danish throne, gave the duchy of Holstein (largely German in population and a member of the Confederation of German States) its independence. But he annexed the duchy of Schleswig, a duchy with a mixed German and Danish population. The annexation violated the 1852 Treaty of London. A rival claim to rule both Schleswig and Holstein was put forward by the Duke of Augustenburg. The German Confederation's parliament in Frankfurt supported the duke's claim for both duchies, and Prussia and Austria went to war against Denmark.

That war ended successfully in 1864 for Prussia and Austria, the Treaty of Vienna making Austria the administrator of Holstein and Prussia the administrator of Schleswig. Austria continued to support the Duke of Augustenburg's claim for the two duchies, but Bismarck wanted control over both duchies and both to be economically integrated with Prussia. He wanted the military and naval forces of the two duchies under Prussian command and the canal that was to be built between the North Sea and Baltic Sea - the Kiel Canal - to be Prussian territory.

Austria feared that it would lose the respect of the smaller states within the Confederation of German States. Prussia sent troops into Holstein. Austria could either accept German domination of Holstein or start a war. It asked the parliament in Frankfurt to mobilize the confederation's forces, and on June 14, 1866, parliament agreed. Within the confederation, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Baden, and Wüerttemburg sided with Austria against Prussia. And Prussia declared the Confederation of German States dissolved.

Austria had a secret treaty with France, Austria agreeing to cede Venetia to Italy in exchange for France's neutrality and for compensations in its favor in Germany. Bismarck was afraid of provoking a coalition against Prussia, as had been formed against Prussia's Frederick the Great in the latter half of the 1700s, but Bismarck had gained the gratitude of Tsar Alexander II by supporting his repression of the Polish uprising in 1863. To the French Bismarck made vague promises of more territory along the Rhine. And Bismarck believed that the recent war against Denmark showed that it was unlikely that Britain and Russia would intervene in a war between Prussia and Austria.

The war lasted seven weeks, Prussia's railroads and good organization enabling it to get its troops to battle quickly. Italy sent troops against the Austrian troops in Venetia, and Austria's troops stopped the advance. In early July, 1866, Prussia defeated Austria decisively at the village of Sadowa, in northeastern Bohemia, also known as the Battle of Königgrätz. Bismarck wanted victory before outsiders, especially the French, intervened, and he made peace with Austria. His terms were considered by some, including Prussia's king, Wilhelm I, and some Prussian military officers, to be too generous. But rather than wishing to punish Austria, Bismarck was being pragmatic. He wanted a future ally in Austria, and he wanted Austria to survive as a healthy state, able to control the peoples of its empire. He did not want to absorb Austria's Catholic Germans - which would have made the Catholics in Germany more numerous than the Protestants. Austria did not have to pay Prussia reparations and Austria lost no territory, except Venetia, which it ceded to France. And, following a plebiscite in Venetia, France allowed Italy to annex Venetia.

In the settlement of 1867, the mostly Catholic states in southern Germany, which had sided with Austria, were reluctant to unite with Prussia because of traditional differences in politics and religion, and they were to remain independent, but they were to form military alliances with Prussia. What had been the Confederation of German States was no more, and other former members, including Mecklenburg, Hanover and the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, united with Prussia, as did the free cities Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen and Frankfurt. And Prussia absorbed Schleswig and Holstein.

A new constitution and federal parliament was created for Germany, carefully designed by Bismarck to maintain the power of the crown, the army and the nobility. The Bundesrat formed the upper house and represented the princes of various states, and the Reichstag, elected by direct manhood suffrage, formed the lower and representing others. The chancellor was to be appointed by the king. Parliament could not dismiss the chancellor nor withhold money from the government, and the king became president of the federation.

Prussia's middleclass politicians, meanwhile, were swayed by Bismarck's success. They were delighted that Bismarck was willing to cooperate with them and were partaking in a swing toward conservatism and respect for the authoritarianism of Bismarck and the German monarchy.

The Creation of Austria-Hungary

Hungarians had been refusing to participate in their own subjugation in the wake of the Austrian and Russian defeat of the Hungarians in 1849. And the subjugation of the Hungarians had been a financial liability for Austria. Then in 1866-67, with the defeat of Austria by Prussia, a weakened Austria was ready to compromise with the Hungarians - in other words, the Magyars. In 1867, Franz Joseph and a Magyar delegation signed the "Ausgleich," or Compromise, which divided Austria's empire in two, creating Austria-Hungary. The Magyars were given power within Hungary to make rules regarding other ethnicities as they saw fit - ethnicities such as Croats, Serbs, Slovaks and Romanians. "You take care of your Slavs and we'll take care of ours," was the sentiment of those accepting the empire's division, with Austria having not only Germans but Czechs, the Poles of Galacia and most Slovenes. Austria and Hungary were now to have the same monarch - Franz Joseph - and Austria and Hungary were to have common ministries for finance, foreign affairs and war, the Magyars agreeing to leave defense and foreign policy to Franz Joseph's government and agreeing to pay their share of the empire's budget. Austria and Hungary had their own prime minister and parliament, and every ten years a tariff and trade agreement was to be negotiated, in addition to an agreement on the amount of money each was to contribute to the empire's treasury.