The Dike and the Flood: Domestic

Section 11.54

Introduction• Congress of Vienna sought to end

conflicts that were plaguing Europe for over 25 years

• Louis XVIII is restored to the French throne

• Tories governed to maintain the old England

• Metternich maintains the policy of conservatism in central Europe

• Alexander I is a wild card• Tsar, pushing religion into politics, self-

chosen world savior, Jacobin, liberal• Metternich hoped to convert him into a

conservative• Circle of discontent and tension was

established• Response of the Congress was viewed

as reactionary by liberals• Activities of the liberals were viewed as

revolutionary by the Congress

Reaction after 1815: France, Poland• Republicans (regicides) that rallied to Napoleon’s

return (100 days) were brutalized by the counterrevolutionaries

• Resulted in a White terror against republicans and protestants

• 1820 a fanatical workman’s assassination of Duke de Berry (King’s nephew) deepened the split

• 1824 Louis XVIII died and Charles X (father of murdered Duke de Berry) came to the throne

• Louis XVI youngest brother was first to emigrate in 1789

• 1824 he claimed absolute power• Began campaign against republicanism, liberalism,

and constitutionalism• Poland struggles under its viceroy Alexander I• Nationalist interests in Poland promote expansion• Poles could not get along with Alexander’s viceroy• Russian landholders were not excited by the

republican presence on their boarder• Revolutionaries (professors and students of

University of Vilna)meet in underground societies• Efforts to stop revolutionary forces builds tension

Charles X

Reaction after 1815: The German States• Germany is was left as a loose association of

independent states (Bund)• Nationalist movement is centered in the

universities• Volksgeist and Deutschtum are commonly

discussed• students formed Burschenschaft in 1815 which

were clubs of serious political discussion– a kind of German youth movement– held congress at Wartburg in 1817 listened to

rousing speeches, marched to Teutonic costume– Informer named Kotzebue to the Tsar is murdered– Receives hundreds of letters of congratulation

• Metternich issues the Carlsbad Decrees• Dissolved the Burschenschaft and gymnastic

clubs• Placed government officials in the universities• Censored books and newspapers• Repression becomes the status quo

England• Landed classes feared an

onrush of imported agricultural goods and the collapse of farm prices

• Gentries Response to open agricultural markets spurred the implementations of “Corn Laws” (1815-1846)

– tariff on imports that maintained high prices for domestic produce

• Wages could not keep up with prices

• Post war depression in economy

• Contributes to the spread of radicalism

• Demands are made for reform in the HOC and social welfare system

• riot broke out in London in Dec 1816, • In Feb, the Prince Regent was

attacked in carriage• gov suspends habeas corpus and

employ agents provocateurs (spies) to charge radicals

• Manchester industrialists use unrest to push for political representation

• Mass demonstration of 80 thousand at St. Peter’s Fields is fired upon by soldiers

• They asked for universal male suffrage, annual elections of HOC, repeal of Corm Laws

• Perfectly orderly protest• (Peterloo Massacre of 1819)

comparison to Waterloo• 11 killed, 400 wounded, including 113

women

England

Six Acts• Parliament responds with Six

Acts (1819)• Outlawed seditions and

blasphemous literature• Stamp tax on newspapers• Search of private houses for

arms• Restricted the right of public

meetings• Revolutionaries planed the

assassination of the Cabinet• Caught by police on Cato

Street (1820)• Five members of the Cato

Street Conspiracy are hanged• Reactionary policies dug in to

stop the flood of revolutionary spirit