The revolution of 1848 was one of the noisy and bloody one and spread almost allover the Europe. There were three major reasons for the 1848; economic crisis, the emergence of liberal political activity and the tendency to the right. France was the one of the countries that broke out from the revolutionary fighting. This essay will give information about the 1848 revolution and its failure. The 1848 revolution was more wide and vicious than the 1830 revolution as it has includes struggles between old with new and also new with new.
The 1848 movements first arose in France as after the 1830 movements, socialism was gaining power; the republic supporters were increase, therefore society affected by polarization. Democratic structure was needed in order to balance the polarization whereas a bedlam was control the society because of the hard work conditions and economic crisis. “The year 1846 witnessed a severe famine-Europe’s last serious food crisis. Lack of grain drove up food and other prices while wages remained stagnant, thus reducing consumer demand.With consumers buying less and less, profits plummeted, forcing thousands of industrial workers out of their jobs. High unemployment combined with high prices sparked the liberal revolt. ” The year1848 was a time period marked by a moderately liberal state which was controlled mainly by the educated elite which greatly put the middle and working classes out of action.
Under the severe conditions of the year 1848, the middle class and bourgeoisie demanded; the right to vote, the extension of the political veins and the freedom of speech and thought.However, the king Louis-Philippe had not sympathy. On 18 February 1848, French revolutionists decided to assembly a meeting in France, but, the government was cancelled it one before from its date and as an answer middle class poured to the streets. As a result of non-suppression of the middle class by the military forces, government had no choice but to negotiate, however, even that sacrifice did not enough for the revolutionist and the rebel was expanded. King Louis-Philippe fled to England and the demonstrators proclaimed the Second Republic on February 24th.However, that did not cured the crisis and unemployment even made it worst. Under those circumstances, the search for past and authority was occurred and France was slowly getting close to right again.
Through the aspiration of the name Napoleon, his cousin Louis Napoleon came out and won the elections with caused a birth of a kingdom under the guise of republic which may be considered as the result of the 1848 revolution; “abolishment of monarchy”. Immediately after, objections again arose from “French Left” which was rapidly suppressed.In a while, in 1852, Louis Napoleon to call himself as emperor and established a two wings assembly which was unnamed dictatorship of Napoleon 3rd. The era of 1848-1852 is a period of arbitrary enforcements, improper personal profits and lust of luxury. That is one of the reasons that the 1848 revolutions was a failure. The 1848 with its main features could be accepted as failure which is related to bloodthirsty of revolutionist; majority of society were pleased the end of the 1848 with achievement of peace.In addition to that, the 1848 was not successful for revolutionist, however, that would accepted as loss of power for the right wing; Metternich was not in charge in Austria, Hungarian rebellions… etc.
The revolutions probably failed due to lack of organization. In Austria, for example, the revolts in Prague, Vienna, and Budapest maintained no communication among them, allowing the Austrian army to attend to each in isolation, without a united front. Finally, the return of conservative and reactionary forces was probably due to the middle class.Another reason why the revolutions failed was because moderate liberals of the middle class feared the radicalism of the workers, preventing any type of lasting alliance. Therefore, when radicals took control of the revolutions in Paris and in Eastern Europe, the middle class liberals turned their backs, preferring absolute rule and law and order, to the uncertainty of radical revolution.REFFERENCES -Encyclopedia of Revolutions of 1848, 1 November 2005, http://www. ohio.
edu/chastain/introduc. htm -French Revolution of 1848, 17 December 2010, http://en. wikipedia. org/wiki/French_Revolution_of_1848
