4: The Rise of Nationalism and the Unifications of Italy and Germany Flashcards
William I
King of Prussia from 1861 – 1888. He was the fFirst ever German emperor from 1871 – 1888.
William I had previously been an officer in the army and later engaged in diplomatic missions. Following a stroke suffered by his elder brother Frederick Wilhelm III, Wilhelm became King of Prussia. He and Bismarck achieved German unification and the establishment of the German Empire. Wilhelm appointed Bismarck as Prime Minister (a position in which he was solely responsible to the Wilhelm and not Parliament) so that he could let him run foreign/domestic politics without much involvement. At the end of the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, Wilhelm was declared German Emperor (head of state, and president) of the federated monarchs. Following assassination attempts on his life, Wilhelm got Bismarck to pass the “Anti-Socialist Law”, intended to fight the socialist and working-class movement (the law served to outlaw the Social Democratic Party of Germany). Measures included the banning of workers’ organizations, press, and public gatherings. These were, however, repealed in 1890 following great pressure from the working-class movement.
Bismarck
Otto von Bismarck was one of the leading statesmen of the 19th Century. He was appointed Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs by Wilhelm I in 1862 following a budgetary crisis that Wilhelm thought only Bismarck could solve. He was an unpopular politician but had the King’s support and thus domestic German politics were reformed to accommodate him (e.g. the dissolving of the Diet of the German Confederation). Following victory in the Austro-Prussian War, the German Confederation was dissolved, and the North German Confederation was established (with Austria in a now permanently weakened side role).
After a conflict between Prussia and France concerning ascension to the Spanish throne, Bismarck used his skills to engineer France to declare war on Prussia (a move that united the German states against the common aggressor). France was defeated, and German unification soon followed (it should also be noted that France was humiliated, having Wilhelm I crowned at Versailles, and losing the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine). In 1871, Bismarck became Chancellor of the German Empire. In 1878, because of fears of the socialist movement, he instituted the Anti-Socialist Laws, but because of their increasing support he was forced to make concessions to them, including health and accident insurances. These were however unsuccessful and divisions remained.
In foreign policy, Bismarck was largely concerned with keeping stability in Europe. Fear of French anger led him to remain pacifistic with the UK (not seeking naval expansion or colonial empires), and friendly with Austria-Hungary and Russia (seen through the Dreikaiserbund). However, following Russia’s successes in the Russo-Turkish War, Bismarck feared growing Russia dominance. This in turn led to the Treaty of Berlin in 1878, which diminished Russian gains in southern Europe. As a result, Russo-German relations soured, and Bismarck turned to Austria-Hungary and Italy as new allies, resulting in the Triple Alliance.
Upon the death of Wilhelm I, Wilhelm II became German Emperor. He opposed Bismarck’s careful diplomacy, and instead called for German expansionism. Following a series of domestic disputes with Wilhelm II, Bismarck was eventually forced to resign in 1890. It is interesting to note that among other things, Bismarck was one of the first to warn Germany of a war on two fronts with France and Russia.
Cavour
Count Camillo Benso di Cavour was a Piedmontese politician who played a large role in the development of Italian unification. He supported resistance against Austro-Hungarian dominance of Piedmont, and later became Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia. Following Austria’s ultimatum to Piedmont to disarm in 1858, war broke out and France came in on the side of Piedmont, but soon after signed a separate peace with the Austrians, thus ending the conflict.
Cavour’s disillusionment with politics soon took a positive turn, and he once again entered negotiations with Napoleon and eventually agreed to cede Nice and Savoy to France, in order to annex Tuscany and Emilia. Swift military/diplomatic moves against Garibaldi (with the support of France) led to the linking of Italian territories, and the subsequent unification of Italy under King Victor Emmanuel II. Cavour was named as Italy’s first Prime Minister. He died shortly after.
Garibaldi
Giuseppe Garibaldi was a Risorgimento general who led military campaigns leading to the unification of Italy. While disillusioned with the return of his home city Nice to France (given by the Kingdom of Sardinia in exchange for French aid in Italian unification), he remained an Italian patriot. In the First Italian War of Independence (1849), he was responsible for several impressive defeats of the numerically superior French armies. Following a series of travels, he returned to Italy in 1854, and in 1859 participated actively in the Austro-Sardinian War, winning several key victories over the Austrians.
In 1860, Garibaldi launched assaults on Sicily and Naples, and won decisive victories against the Bourbon French and Neapolitan armies. He would have advanced to Rome, but his efforts to unify Italy were blocked by his “ally”, the Piedmontese, who did not want to share the glory of reunification efforts with his volunteer army. He strongly disliked Cavour but was an ardent admirer of King Victor Emmanuel II.
In the Third Italian War of Independence (coinciding with the Franco-Prussian War in 1866), Garibaldi defeated the Austrians in battle, and the resulting armistice led to Venetia being given to the Italians. It is then when he reneged on his initial dislike for Napoleon III and the French, urging support for the French Republic at all costs.
Victor Emanuell II
Victor Emmanuel II was the first King of a united Italy, having previously been King of Piedmont, Savoy and Sardinia. Having joined France and Britain in the Crimean War, he made a secret pact with Napoleon III in 1858, which stated that if the French helped the Italians against the Austrians (who were occupying Lombardy-Venetia), he would cede to the French Nice and Savoy.
In the resulting First War of Italian Independence, Napoleon III made a pact with Franz Joseph of Austria that accorded Piedmont only Lombardy, while Venetia was to remain under Austrian control. Following his excommunication from the Catholic Church for fighting the Papal Forces, the Kingdom of Italy was finally established in 1861, with Victor Emmanuel as its King.
In 1866, Italy was given Venetia, and in 1871 the Papal States that had been protected by Napoleon III fell to Italian troops, and subsequently Rome became the capital city.
Sedan
The Battle of Sedan (1870) was fought during the Franco-Prussian War and resulted in the capture of Napoleon III and a subsequent loss for the French forces. The French Army of Chalons was driven back into Bois de la Garenne and surrounded, eventually capitulating to the superior Prussian forces. The French lost some 17,000 men (21,000 captured), and because of the capture of Napoleon III were left without an effective government, leading to the establishment of a new provisional government in France through a bloodless revolution. Two weeks later the Prussian army besieged Paris.
Paris Commune
The Paris Commune (March – May 1871) was a local authority that exercised power in Paris for two months. At the end of the Franco-Prussian War and the fall of Napoleon III’s empire, Parisians opposed the national government, headed by Adolphe Thiers, and the National Assembly at Versailles, as too conservative, too royalist, and too ready to accept a humiliating peace with Prussia. Thiers, after failing to disarm the Parisian National Guard, fled to Versailles in March, and the Parisians elected a municipal council, the Commune of 1871.
The Communards (whose aims included economic reforms) expressed many shades of political opinion—followers of Louis Blanqui, of Pierre Proudhoun, and of the Marxist First International.
While the victorious Prussians affected neutrality outside the city, the Versailles troops began a siege of Paris in April to regain national control. The fighting, which intensified over five weeks, culminated in the Bloody Week (21-28 May), during which the Versailles troops entered the city despite the desperate but ineffective defense of the communards, who threw up barricades, shot hostages (including the Archbishop of Paris), and burned the Tuileries palace, the city hall, and the palace of justice.
On May 28 the Commune was finally defeated. Severe reprisals followed, resulting in more than 18,000 Parisians dead and almost 7,000 deported. Communes were also formed and suppressed in other cities in 1871, notably in Saint-Étienne, Le Creusot, and Marseilles, and memories of the bloody Paris repression embittered political relations between radicals and conservatives for many years afterward.
Alexander II
Alexander II was the Emperor of the Russian Empire from 1855 until his assassination in 1881. Following defeat in the Crimean War, he embarked upon a period of radical reforms, the most important of which perhaps was the Emancipation of the Serfs in 1861. Further reforms included army and navy reorganization (1874), local self-governance (1864), the building of railways, and better use of natural resources.
However, Alexander II was also responsible for the repression of national movements, in particular the Poles. The January uprising of 1863-4 resulted in the executions of thousands of Poles, and the deportation of even more to Siberia. Furthermore, the territories of Poland-Lithuania were excluded from all of Alexander II’s liberal policies. His reforms were cut short by a growing revolutionary movement to the “left” of the educated middle classes. He was killed by a second bomb thrown at his feet.
Florence Nightingale
- Florence Nightingale (1820-1910) was a pioneer of modern nursing. Her most famous contribution came during the Crimean War, when in 1854 she began reporting of the horrible conditions and lack of medical attention faced by wounded soldiers. While working at the Selimiye Barracks (now Istanbul), she emphasized the need for nutrition and hygiene as essential for recovery. Although initial death rates at the hospital rose under her care, subsequent sewage and ventilation repairs that she requested saw a large drop in mortality figures. She was also instrumental to the establishment of the Royal Commission of the Health of the Army, which led to an overhaul of army military care, and the introduction of detailed army medical records.
Ems telegram
- The Ems Telegram (1870) was the document used by the French as a pretext to declare the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. The French had opposed the German Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen’s proposed ascension to the vacant Spanish throne (which could lead to a Prusso-Spanish war alliance) and demanded his withdrawal. Following his withdrawal, the French were still not satisfied, and demanded a guarantee from Wilhelm I that no member of his Hohenzollern family would ever be a candidate for the Spanish throne. In a conversation with the French Ambassador to Prussia, Wilhelm I refused these demands. The King’s secretary wrote an account of this conversation, which was then edited by Bismarck to give the impression that the King had insulted the Ambassador, and likewise that the Ambassador had threatened war should the demands not be met. It was part of Bismarck’s larger plan of German Unification, and he succeeded in angering the French, who declared war on 19 July 1870.
Gladstone
William Gladstone was a (Liberal Party) British Prime Minister from 1868-74, 1880-85, and 1892-94. He was an advocate of free trade liberalism, and as Chancellor of the Exchequer between 1861-65, he managed to reduce income tax in Britain. When elected Prime Minister for the first time in 1868, Gladstone aimed to secure economic stability by promoting peace (to reduce expenditures, taxation, and enhance trade). He was an avid opponent of the Roman Catholic Church and their claims of Papal infallibility. He was also an opponent of the Ottoman Empire, and also criticized then Prime Minister Disraeli’s failure to act in the face of the repressed Bulgarian uprising in the Ottoman Empire.
Königgrätz
Battle of Königgrätz (July 3, 1866) was the decisive battle of the Austro-Prussian War, in which the Prussians defeated the Austrian Empire. Under the guidance of Wilhelm I and Prussia’s Chief of General Staff Helmuth von Moltke, the Prussian forces defeated the numerically superior Austrian and Saxon forces under Ludwig von Benedek. The resulting armistice signed in Prague three weeks later allowed for the Unification of Germany without Austria.
Pius IX
Pope Pius IX (1792-1878) was the Pope of the Catholic Church from 1846 until his death. Initially considered a “liberal” Pope, he was perhaps best known for his increasingly conservative views, such as formally defining the dogma of Immaculate Conception and Papal Infallibility. He became an opponent of rationalism and modernism. Public disorder in 1848 made Pius concede a constitution but was then forced from Rome by angry mobs.
After gaining support from France and Napoleon III, French troops crushed the uprising in Rome (Rome had been declared a republic by the radicals in 1849) and remained stationed there to protect the status quo. Pius returned in 1850.
Opposition to the Papal States remained high, in particular from Victor Emmanuel II of Piedmont, and Pius had to rely on French and Austrian troops to maintain order and protect his interests. Following the departure of Austrian troops to fight Napoleon in 1859, Victor Emmanuel II annexed Rome and the Papal States, making Rome the capital of unified Italy. Pius was allowed to use the Vatican but was denied sovereignty over the territory. The offer was officially rejected by Pius, and retained his claim to the conquered territory, calling himself a “prisoner of the Vatican”.
Ausgleich
The Ausgleich (=Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867) established the dual monarchy of the Austro-Hungarian Empire. It was the result of several failed constitutional reforms of the Habsburg Empire and granted the Hungarian government equal legal status to the Austrians in Vienna, while the common monarch retained responsibility for the army, navy, foreign policy, and customs union. It was predominantly done to gain Hungarian support for the Austro-Prussian War, and to dampen the discontent of various ethnic groups in the Empire (it was however unpopular with many groups, since it appeared as though the Austrians had only approached the Hungarians, and not other groups such as the Czechs).
Darwin
Charles Darwin was an English naturalist, geologist and biologist, best known for his contributions to evolutionary biology.
His proposition that all species of life have descended from common ancestors is now widely accepted and considered a fundamental concept in science.In a joint publication with Alfred Russel Wallace, he introduced his scientific theory that this branching pattern of evolution resulted from a process that he called natural selection, in which the struggle for existence has a similar effect to the artificial selection involved in selective breeding. Darwin has been described as one of the most influential figures in human history.
Social Darwinism refers to various theories and societal practices that purported to apply biological concepts of natural selection and survival of the fittest to sociology, economics and politics, and which were largely defined by scholars in Western Europe and North America in the 1870s. Social Darwinism holds that the strong see their wealth and power increase while the weak see their wealth and power decrease. Various social Darwinist schools of thought differ on which groups of people are the strong and which are the weak, and also differ on the precise mechanisms that reward strength and punish weakness. Many such views stress competition between individuals in laissez-faire capitalism, while others, emphasizing struggle between national or racial groups, support authoritarianism, eugenics, racism, imperialism and/or fascism.
