The Purpose Of The Revolutions Of 1848

The Revolutions of 1848 were something that should have been expected, as the signs are clear when one looks upon it in retrospect. The purpose for revolution varied from country to country but in all they key points weren’t too different, there were three main things that historians can contribute to helping start the revolutions. One was political activism. All over the continent people felt that political repression was occurring and they started speaking against it. The others were the rise of nationalism and the hardships the working class were experiencing in the 1840’s. Different political views, such as nationalism, socialism and liberalism affected the progress and ultimately lead to their failure. Although most revolutions failed …show more content…
Goals such as unifying Germany into one country were held by the nationalists. Nationalists usually supported goals that were pro-nation. Nationalism in Italy had come to a divide, with three different views, all wanted to unify the country, in one case under the pope. Although nationalists had other goals such as basic rights, their goals were most prominent in divided countries. Liberalists had many goals, and were often divided amongst themselves. In France, the liberal revolution was less intense, they were made up of mostly property owners and wanted social change but were worried that the government would not be able to function if they rest continued on with revolting for change. Although, this goal was wanted by Italian nationalists, it was wanted by nationalists who admired liberalism in France and Britain, and that goal was to make a constitution. Germany’s liberalist ideas were quite the same, there was a group who wanted a reform on the country’s political system and this reform included the installation of a constitution. The influence of socialism on the revolutions was not as prominent except for in France. Within France some socialists took up concern with the revolution, mainly because the failing economy affected their life too. …show more content…
The governments were initially weakened by the revolts, as they had not expected them, so they were originally in no position to deny the demands, but as they gained strength back, that is when the revolts failed. France managed to overthrow their government, the biggest achievement of any revolution of the year, and they set up a provisional government while they worked out the constitution for the government. The reason France came to fail was the one that they elected into government Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who advertised views the public wanted and hid his own, eventually declaring himself the sole ruling force over France. The lasting effect was basically none in France but the countries revolution inspired many others. Italy, who was attacked by Austria during their revolutions failed in the long term for that very reason. They were mainly defeated by Austrian forms, but were saved by the French and could not unify, but the state of Piedmont retained their constitution, and eventually in the century under one of the leaders of the Revolution, Italy became unified. Germany came very close to adopting a constitution that was very much like our own but this reform failed because their king, and the Austrian empire did not support the measure so change could not occur, but the idea of German unification was planted in the citizens mind and would come about later in the