Last
week I learned about European revolutions in 1830 and 1848. My class was tasked
with the question of whether or not these revolutions were really failures as
most historians have concluded. We began this lesson by analyzing Klemens Von
Metternich’s idea that “When France sneezes Europe catches a cold.” We deduced
that Metternich was talking about the French Revolution and how it sparked lots
other revolutions through Europe. We also created a scale that we could use to determine
the success or failure of a revolution.
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| Our scale used to determine the success of a revolution |
Each group in my class was given a revolution
to research. My group was assigned to the French Revolution of 1848. We read a
document summarizing the revolution, and were given several primary sources to
use to create a project. We learned that in the French Revolution of 1848 the
lower class was revolting against the middle and upper classes. The lower class also
believed that Louis Phillipe’s government had become corrupt and they wanted to
replace his rule with a French Republic. This revolution divided the country. “The
[French] troops, fatigued from seeing no enemy, yet feeling hostility on all
sides, stood faithful but sad at their different posts.” (Alphonse de
Lamartine) Victor Hugo also describes how successful the lower class French people
were in shutting down French cities and towns. He says that “The barricade
Saint Antoine was monstrous; it was three stories high and seven hundred feet
long.” He also states that “Nineteen barricades stood at intervals along the streets.” After
gathering information from the packets we made surveys for our classmates to
fill out so that everyone in the class could learn about each of the revolutions.
Here is a link to the survey we
created on the information from the packet.
As you can see the class mostly got the answers correct, but they got confused on some questions.
I
agree with the historians who think the revolutions that we studied were
failures. For most if not all the revolutions there was little to no improvement that was a
result of the revolution. The French Revolution of 1848 was a partial failure because
the lower classes got the ability to vote, but at the same time a monarch took
control of France. The Hungarian Revolution of 1848 was a failure because the
Budapest rebels were defeated and exiled, imprisoned, or executed. The Decembrist
Revolution also failed because Czar Nicholas ended up killing his own people by
accident. It is unfortunate that these revolutions had to end so poorly, but as
more and more revolutions occurred little steps are taken to make places around
the world better.
Quotes
Alphonse
de Lamartine: History of the Revolution of 1848 (Boston: Phillips, Sampson
& Co., 1849), pp. 28-29, 3C-38, 46-49, 51.
https://www.mtholyoke.edu/courses/rschwart/hist255/la/1848barricade.html
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