Louis Napoleon, Nationalism, and Trump

PSA-Nicole did something revolutionary...she showered

Hegel from the last chapter believed each age is characterized by a dominant set of ideas, which produces opposing ideas and a new synthesis...and thus the cycle of history goes...as illustrated in the relationship between Chapter 23 and 25.

bet she had quite the reaction to the hot water...like Europe did to the revolutions

Europe responded to Metternich’s period of relative, though repressive peace, diplomatic stability, and romanticism with one of war, rapid change and realism from 1850 to 1914. The rough economic times of the 1840s were followed by the good years of 50s and 60s, while the revolutions of 1848 (all of which failed due to a lack of nationalism/unity of purpose) were replaced by a period of overflowing nationalism.

This new nationalism wore many different masks: it could occur in states of different forms of government and people had nationalistic sentiments for various reasons. (American nationalism from victory over  the British and success of democracy was different from any nationalist sentiment in Europe at the time-where there was no democracy and no postcolonial sentiment)

 feelings of common loyalty and purpose that resulted
from nationalism made everyone feel...fabulous about their country

Louis Napoleon Bonaparte swept into power after the failed revolutions of 1848. He was elected by universal male suffrage because his name implied the stability/nationalism that the first Napoleon enforced-and this was all the French wanted (both in 1804 & 1848) after their failed revolutions.

“Were they revolutions if they failed, though?” (Mr. Yarnall)...they failed because they were not unified (think different cultures, different social classes, different revolutionary goals=once they got some power, they fought over what to do with it, and weakened the revolutionary front). 

• Yes-they still brought revolutionary ideas to the forefront which eventually wrought concrete changes.
• would the nationalism and suffrage the characterized Napoleon 3’s reign have existed if not for the revolutions?

Napoleon was the antithesis of these failures-he promised unity, economic stability, and social progress, as outlined in his positive program for France in the pamphlets, Napoleonic Ideas  & The Elimination of Poverty.He believed: 

• that the government should represent the people, linked to each citizen by direct democracy and that it should attempt to help them economically-provide jobs/stimulate economy
• that a nationalistic, authoritarian ruler was the best way to strengthen this government-populace link, without the special interests of parliaments and political parties confusing this vital communication.

Napoleon was elected to a 4-year term during which he shared power with the conservative national assembly, which refused to change the constitution for him so he could run for a second term...thus, Napoleon began conspiring with key army officers and on December 2nd 1851 illegally dismissed the assembly and seized power in a coup d’etat.

• resistances were crushed by the army and once Napoleon restored universal male suffrage and called on French people to legalize his actions, they did: 92% voted to make him president for the next 10 years.

Voting brings forth two important terms-mass politics and mass loyalties, the former giving birth to the latter. Mass politics is what we have in the US-everyone votes, and the political order is based on major political parties which get people to vote for them by telling people what they want to hear and throwing candy at them.

earlier hereditary monarchs

..like Bernie promising a $15 minimum wage and Trump hating the Mexicans. They are giving us what we want to hear in two extreme ways...appealing to people’s frustration with the government by throwing out points that the government would never accomplish...being so totally against the grain of what a typical candidate would do that they’ve come to represent total change-which is what people want.

totally against the grain...like the naps

...Back to Europe…

"A leader is a dealer in hope" as the first Napoleon said. 

Responding to the needs/emotions of the people was a new idea brought about by voting-something Metternich never needed to worry about because he wasn’t being elected, so he could afford to be unpopular.

...looking forward...Otto von Bismarck, the Prussian who manipulated different pieces of Germanic lands into one country did things he didn’t necessarily agree with in order to achieve his end goal later on.

...It seems the Machiavellian ideal that it is better to be feared than loved had begun to crumble and now, it was either better to be feared and loved, or only loved.

So was Marx a nationalist?... No way...he believed one part of society should revolt against the other, and the two groups of society are always at war with one another.

Oh so many revolutions and changes…. (2.23.16)

IRELAND

Why was the great famine so devastating?

The condition of the Irish peasantry was truly abominable, living in wretched cottages with limited clothing, in a complete state of poverty. The Irish population skyrocketed due to the extensive cultivation of the potato, early marriage and exploitation of peasants by landlords. The potato could feed a whole family on a very limited plot of land. The Irish men and women married early, lived in makeshift houses where the family barely scraped by, eating only potatoes. As population and potato dependency increased so did the fragility of the state of the Irish well-being. For this reason and the almost complete dependency upon potatoes, the blight that spread over the potato crop for years was truly disastrous. The Great Famine caused widespread starvation and mass fever epidemics.

The British government, continued to store its faith in laissez-faire ideology and the repeal of the Corn-Laws, but were not helpful in that it was too little too late. The Great Famine shattered the growth pattern of the Irish population and intensified anti-British feeling, thereby promoting Irish nationalism.

The Irish and the potatoes before the blight fell upon Ireland. 

FRANCE

The Revolution of 1830 in France:

Louis XVII’s Constitutional Charter of 1814- a ‘gift’ from the king but actually a response to political pressures was a liberal constitution that acknowledged many of the changes of the French revolution and guaranteed civil liberties. The economic and social gains made by the middle class and peasantry in the French Revolution were completely protected, greatly intellectual and artistically free. In addition to this, a parliament with upper and lower houses was created. Instead of catering to the revolutionary changes, Louis appointed moderate royalists as his ministers who sought and obtained the support of a majority of the representatives previously elected to the lower Chamber of Deputies. The Charter could not be considered democratic as only a fraction of the population (wealthiest males) had the right to vote.

Charles X- Louis’ successor, Charles X, is commonly considered a true reactionary, with a pre-1789 mentality, unwilling to lose the throne yet willing to ‘reinstate’ the legitimate rule. Wanting to re-establish the old order in France, Charles turned to military effort in the economic and diplomatic dispute with Muslim Algeria to rally French nationalism. In three weeks, victory and the rebirth of French colonial expansion were complete. Emboldened by victory in Algeria, Charles repudiated the Constitutional Charter in an attempted coup in July 1830. In addition to this, Charles issued decrees that stripped the majority of the wealthy middle class of its voting rights, and censored the press. In “three glorious days”, the government collapsed, Paris boiled with revolutionary excitement and Charles then fled. The upper middle class, seated Charles’ cousin, Louis Philippe on the throne.

Louis Philippe- Louis Philippe accepted the Constitutional Charter of 1814 and adopted the red, white and blue flag of the French Revolution. Admitting that he was just the “king of the French people”, a nation that many, including Perier considered had never really undergone a revolution.

The Revolutions of 1848

A Democratic Republic in France

“Prerevolutionary” outbreaks occurred all over Europe and it took revolution in Paris to turn the expectation of a revolution into a reality. Louis Philippe’s “bourgeois monarchy” was characterized by inaction, complacency, a lack of social legislation, and politics dictated by corruption and selfish interests. The government’s refusal to consider electoral reform led to barricades and the abdication of the throne with favor of his grandson. But the common people would not tolerate a monarchy, therefore there was a proclamation of a provisional republic, headed by a ten-man executive committee and certified by cries of approval from the revolutionary crowd.

The government's refusal to consider electoral reform. 

A lack of unity in desires and social groups of the revolutionary coalition in Paris led to the eventual failure of the republic.

Louis Blanc represented the republican socialists of the provisional government and is well known for his assertion that permanent government-sponsored cooperative workshops should be established for workers (alternative to capitalist employment & decisive step toward a new, noncompetitive social order). To the new Constituent Assembly, a variety of men and women were represented but a clash of ideologies of liberal capitalism and socialism cause a clash of classes. On June 22, the government dissolved Blanc’s national workshops in Paris, giving the workers only two choices: join the army or go to workshops in the provinces. Because of this dissolution, there was a spontaneous and violent uprising that included the erection of barricades. After three “June Days” the republican army triumphed. In place of a generous democratic republic, the Constituent Assembly completed a constitution featuring strong executive leadership.

The Austrian Empire in 1848

The revolution in the Austrian Empire began in Hungary, where nationalistic Hungarians (Magyars) demanded national autonomy, full civil liberties, and universal suffrage. When the monarchy in Vienna hesitated, Viennese students and workers took to the street and peasant disorder broke out in parts of the empire. The Hapsburg emperor Ferdinand I promised a liberal constitution. The old absolutist order seemed to be collapsing.

Soon, the monarchy abolished serfdom and the freed men and women lost their interest in the political and social problems of the urban areas.

The Hungarian revolutionaries were nationalists who wanted a unified and centralized Hungarian nation. At the same time, the Habsburg monarchy took advantage of the fears of the minority groups. Throughout Austria and Germany, the middle class wanted liberal reform with constitutional monarchy that employed limited voting rights and social measures. The middle classes were repulsed by the urban poor’s rise in arms and their demands including Blanc’s socialist workshops and male suffrage.

What so many middle class citizens wanted in liberal reform...

Conservatives followed Emperor Ferdinand I, who was encouraged by the archduchess Sophia to abdicate for her son Francis Joseph. Windischgratz bombarded Prague and put down a working class revolt as Austrian troops re-acquired their land. Following this, the Austrian army attacked the radicals of Vienna and recaptured that city as well. Francis Joseph was soon crowned emperor of Austria.

Prussia and the Frankfurt Assembly

The goals of the Prussian middle class began with an adoption of a liberal constitution (combining German states into a cohesive nation). Frederick William IV promised to grant the Prussian liberals their constitution and create the German nation. Urban workers wanted an even more radical revolution and the wealthy wanted no revolution.

The Frankfurt National Assembly, a group of liberals from a variety of states, met to create a federal constitution for their promised German nation. The assembly contemplated the issue of the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein, but when Fredrick VII tried to integrate them, the Germans revolted. Once the National Assembly completed its constitution and elected Fredrick William the leader of the united German national state, he rejected the assembly itself and took complete control of the state.  

Thank you! I hope this helps! 

Much love, 

Franny <3

Hello everyone, welcome to another episode of “I actually read and thought I knew things, but apparently I don’t!” Today we will be reviewing what we forgot we talked about in class because its the weekend and no one is actually going to open up their textbooks until its 9pm and we have to cram for tomorrow’s class.

First up: Greece! (sadly, not the musical)

Us in class (but mostly Nicole)

• As Mr. Yarnall so delicately broached the topic, why do we care?
• The Greeks had been under the control of the Ottoman Turks for quite some time. Despite this, they stayed united with a common culture and language. Feeling inspired by all the revolutionary feeling in the air, the Greeks got to it and Alexander Ypsilanti (Greek patriot and general in the Russian army) helped them to revolt against the Ottomans in 1821
• Metternich and the absolutist powers that be were not huge fans of revolution, so even though the Turks were Muslim (horribly scandalous stuff for the time) they did not back Greece and instead backed the Ottoman Empire.

• The Russians felt bad for their Orthodox friends and jumped in to help, and many educated Americans and Europeans jumped on the pro-Greece bandwagon because they loved the culture of classical Greece.
• Russia and friends (France and Britain) came to the help of the Revolting Greeks in 1827 and demanded Turkey accept an armistice, and when they did not, R&F destroyed the Turkish fleet
• Russia established a protectorate over Turkish lands after declaring another expansionist war against the Ottomans
• Greece was declared independent in 1830
• This revolution in Greece could be signs showing the movement for the people’s voices in the government

England:

• England had a stable but flexible sociopolitical structure
• society was dominated by the aristocratic landowners, but the common people had many opportunities to become successful businessman that could buy land and join the aristocracy.
• The need for political reform was based in Parliament— only 8% of the population could vote for representatives
• Two political parties to know:
• Whigs and the Tories
• Whigs: more commercially interested
• Tories: fearful of radical movements and were intensely conservative
• Rotten boroughs— left over from the feudal system, it was an area of land that used to have been ruled by a lord with several people working the land which had decreased in population (as people moved to more urban areas) but retained the same number of representatives
• usually were areas under the control of a rich aristocrat who could control the votes of those representing him in Parliament— an unfair representation of the people

  

  Us, when Yarnall kept asking what a rotten borough was

• The Reform Bill of 1832:
• The industrial areas of the country were now represented in the House of Commons and the bill eliminated the rotten boroughs
• Voters increased by 50%— about 12% or the men in Ireland and Britain could now vote
• This relieved tensions and helped to reform without a revolution
• The Chartist Movement:
• The People’s Charter of 1838 demanded universal male suffrage

  

  What? Women voting??? INCONCEIVABLE!!

• They wanted complete democracy for an equal society
• Many people signed petitions, but Parliament rejected them— they thought that democracy would lead to anarchy
• While some were busy trying to get the right to vote, others were protesting the Corn Laws
• What are the Corn Laws?
• The Corn Laws regulated foreign import of grain until the price of grain in England rose to a certain point.
• Why are people so mad about corn? I love corn!
• The law was changed in 1815 to raise the price that corn needed to be in England before it could be imported— this made it almost impossible for other markets to compete with the British market
• When the famine in Ireland began, this affected them negatively and made it difficult for them to find cheap grain to buy because the prices were set extremely high
• The Corn Laws were repealed by Robert Peel (Tory Prime Minister) in 1846
• During the protests of the Corn Laws, the Tory government temporarily prevented any assemblies and the right of habeas corpus.
• Parliament later passed the Six Acts (reminiscent of Metternich), which put heavy taxes on a controlled press and eliminated all mass meetings
• Many people gathered in protest of the Six Acts in Saint Peter’s Fields in Manchester, called the Battle of Peterloo

@ Yarn (please give me an A)

Hope you’ve enjoyed the beautiful weekend and hopefully you haven’t forgotten all of European history while doing so! (I know I have but oh well)

Dear Readers,

Yarn when we claimed to not know that the responses were due before class.

Nationalism-

What is nationalism? Nationalism is patriotic sentiment, principles, or efforts for a certain state. Nationalism was one of the radical ideologies that developed & flourished in post-Napoleonic Europe.

How does nationalism develop at this time?After the 1815 peace settlement with France, nationalist advocates argued that each people had its own cultural identity that was essentially self-evident, manifesting itself in a common language, history, & territory. Later on, though, European nationalists sought to turn the cultural unity they had perceived beforehand into a political reality. At this time, nationalism developed into loyalty to the nation-state, not so much ethnicity. The 19th century witnessed a flourishing of mass loyalty to the government & to the state, resulting in more public participation in government. Uniting subject nationalities was & always will be an issue, but the birth of representative government brought people to pledge allegiance to their state, a theme for the century & the dawn of a new age.

Nationalism at its finest.

Socialism-

What is utopian socialism? Utopian socialism is a socialist ideal based on the belief that social ownership of the means of production can be achieved by voluntary & peaceful surrender of their holdings by propertied groups. Early French socialist thinkers believed that there was an urgent need for a further reorganization of society to establish cooperation & a new sense of community.

Who are Saint-Simon & Blanc? Count Henri de Saint-Simon believed that the key to progress was proper social organization, requiring the parasites (the court, aristocracy, lawyers, & clergy) to give way to the doers (the leading scientists, engineers, & industrialists). Louis Blanc focused on practical societal improvements in his Organization of Work, urging workers to demand universal voting rights & to take control of the state peacefully.

Feel the Bern.

*See Mildred's post for a beautiful explanation of all the -isms using graphics.

Romanticism-

What is romanticism? Romanticism was characterized by a belief in emotional exuberance, unrestrained imagination, & spontaneity in both art & personal life. Emotional intensity, an overwhelming interest in nature & human potential, a rejection of materialism characterizes the Romantic Movement in Europe at this time.

Was Metternich a romantic? Metternich loved frolicking through meadows with revolutionaries & enjoyed exploring feeling, freedom, & natural goodness. HA YEAH RIGHT. Metternich was pretty emotionless, a forceful leader with a strict outlook on what society should be & how it should be run (conservatively).

Is the romantic period just another baroque? The Romantic Movement was a flourishing of ideals (expressed in the above questions) while the baroque (please tell me you people remember what the baroque was) was more of a physical development of the artistic aspects of society. Although Romanticism provoked the publication & creation of many new works within the realm of art, music, & literature, romanticism rejected materialism, something the baroque thrived on. Also, romanticism was adopted by a majority, mainly the lower classes, while the baroque was a representation of wealth & high social standing. The baroque & the romantic period both included a flourishing in the arts, but developed on very different premises.

What is an important romantic painting we should know? Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix, celebrating the nobility of the popular revolution in general & the revolution in France in particular.

Pictured: Coldplay's Viva la Vida album circa 2008.

I hope you have understood dese stuffs above, so long my friends. (*Read in Dong accent*)

Me after I finished this post & also when I realized it's the weekend.

xoxo,

Flo :)

The Joke Is You Have to Read this Now

Pictures coming soon to a multiple-day late filibuster near you. 

Napolean Specific

Why did people like Napoleon?

1. On a national scale, Napolean was popular as he stabilized the government and economy and made France into a great Empire.
2. On a more personal level, the different classes of France liked Napolean for different reasons.
1. He "reconfirmed the gains of the peasantry" which were made during the French Revolution when the public was given more land and status than was historically standard. 
2. Napolean also "reassured the middle class" by establishing the Civil Code of 1804 which granted all male citizens equality before the law and absolute security of wealth and property. 
3. He also gained the favor of French elites by exchanging royal favors and pardons for their loyal service, acknowledging the elites' hand in sovereignty and thus avoiding domestic conflict. 
3. On an intellectual level, French society might generally have liked Napolean for his synthesis of liberal and conservative theories of government. He not only gave rights and power to the Third Estate but also centralized the country based on political developments of the Old Regime.

How did Napoleon keep the people nationalistic?

• Nationalism is a loyalty and pride in one's country with the belief that it is better and more important than other countries. On a large scale, nationalism derives from the identification of a people with a common cultural identity exclusive to their shared country. People usually identify with each other when they share a common history, language, writing system, or social class- but when a nation has a very diverse cultural setting or unstable political climate as was the case with the French Empire during Napolean's reign, then that nation's leadership must take an active role in maintaining nationalistic attitudes. Nationalism is a useful tool for leaders as it unites public opinion in such a way that it can be more easily manipulated and distracts the public from internal problem's arising from leadership ambitions. 

1. Napolean was an example of a leader who used nationalism to his advantage. He recognized the areas where the public was unhappy after the revolution, so gave into their demands just enough that they would be de-radicalized, but not enough that it would threaten the rule he was trying to establish. People naturally tend to favor order and though the estates of France did not get every important governmental change they wanted, because Napolean was able to consolidate and thus simplify politics while also allowing them some breathing room to work for better lifestyles, the people of France came to be loyal to him. 
2. He was able to draw out this contentment and make the best of the public's loyalty by distracting them with war. Foreign enemies were the perfect scapegoats for the problems of the state, they were alien in their lack of cultural connections with the state's identity and so could be used as sink holes for the public's negative emotions.  War often brings about wealth in capitalistic countries and requires immense cooperation to undergo, forcing people to devote their attention to it in order to ensure their own lively-hood. It requires that men leave their country to fight, and as intellectual culture and politics were exclusively male-dominated eras of society, The Napoleonic wars left few behind to question the direction of leadership
3. Napolean also kept up nationalism by severely weakening the power of the Church,  that body whose influence was felt in all aspects of the average life during this time and whose schisms and political squabbles often rocked France at its foundations. He was able to do this by getting the Papacy to agree to the Concordat of 1801which established:
• Napolean's right to nominate bishops and control Church finances within France 
• A redistribution of established French bishoprics that better suited the Napoleonic government
• theological schools for priests and ministers 
• A better pay for bishops and other minor church officials who had previously been leached dry to fund the spending of the papacy
• A confirmation of the legitimacy of the redistribution of church property that occurred during the Revolution.

Why did the French get rid of Napolean if he was so good? 

The French did not get rid of Napolean as much as they did not help him take over France again after he had led them to spectacular military defeat on two separate occasions. The Russian winter was the first, and it marked the end of the French Empire.  Waterloo was the second, and it prevented Napolean from taking over France after he had lost the first set of his Napoleonic wars. 

Political Theory

How did we get back to one man rule?

1. The chaos of the French Revolution eventually lost its novelty when the Third Estate realized that the gains they had made during the revolution were pointless unless France had a stable government to protect them. 
2. Emmanuel Sieyes, the author of the liberal manifesto What Is the Third Estate?, directly assisted in Napoleon’s  dictatorial vie for power despite Sieyes’ claim in the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen that “no body nor individual may exercise any authority which does not proceed directly from the nation.” He did this because he believed that the executive arm of the government must be strengthened at the expense of the legislative in order for stability to be established in France, likely reflecting the general sentiment of the public post-Revolution, given the conditions mentioned above. 
3. It also helped that all of the Revolutionary governments were pretty much just semi-Republican dictatorships, and the takeover of Napoleon just consolidated sovereignty into one competent man's hands from its former diluted state. In order to succeed, most republics needed some form of checks and balance system within the government that such parties as the Committee for Public Safety and Directory just didn’t have, making single-monarch absolutism more efficient at the time. 

What did the Revolution change?

The Revolution allowed for France to experiment with different forms of Republican government such as the representative oligarchy that was the Directory and the totalitarian state that Robespierre brought to the field. Even though these experiments usually turned out poor, much like toothpaste once it has been squeezed out of its canister, the idea of self-determination could not be stuffed back into the public's subconscious once it was out, forcing later monarchs to awkwardly scoop it up from the counter and try to make the best of it by learning to compromise with the people.  

On the other hand, the French Revolution also changed the public's faith in their own ability to rule, forever killing of the idea of total democracy and republic. 

Does the rise of Napolean and the failure of the Republic model not prove that the Revolution failed? 

Not necessarily. Even though Napolean ignored any attempt to establish a system of checks and balances within France, he did compromise with liberal radicals on a few significant points they had been fighting for. Namely, he granted fair taxes to the poor, made all male citizens legally equal, and kept the representative element of the National Assembly even if he just used it as a puppet mouthpiece to please the people. 

The Seven Coalitions of the Napoleonic Wars

First Coalition (1792–1797):

•  Great Britain, Spain, Prussia, Italy vs.  Revolutionary France, Austria, and Russia
• Napolean was not yet the leader of France, only a prominent general 
• French Victory 
• Turning point was Napolean's success in Italy
• Treaty of Campo Formio 
• cements Austrian/French alliance
• Austria gets some territory
• France gets Belgium and land around Rhine River
• Russia is not compensated due to tensions with Austria 

Second Coalition (1799–1802): 

• Balance of Power upset - leading powers unhappy 
• Britain, Austria, and Russia
• Russia upset from lack of compensation in former affair
• Austria upset because France's rapidly expanding power and instability was becoming threatening even though they were allies 
• Occurred almost concurrently with Napolean's power take over as First Consul in 1799
• French Victory 
• Treaty of Lunéville 1801
• France gains lands in Tuscany and  Italy 
• occupation of Italy and Prussia
• Austria granted Venetia and the Dalmatian coast in order to reestablish alliance
• Treaty of Amiens 
• France and Britain 
• peace for 14 months before Third Coalition

Third Coalition (1805)

•  Britain, Austria, and Russia
• Napolean's extreme lack of respect for the balance of power causes Russia and Austria to 360 again
• French Victory
• Turning point was the Battle of Austerlitz 
• France crushes Austrian-Russian forces 
• Austria gets off easy again with Treaty of Pressburg which re-establishes their relationship as defined by the Treaty of Campo Formio 

Fourth Coalition (1806–1807)

• Russia, Britain, Prussia, Sweden 
•  Napolean manages to piss off Sweden. 
• Sweden. 
• French Victory 
• Turning point was the Battle of Friedland 
• France crushes Prussian-Austrian Force 
•  Treaties of Tilsit 
• France makes peace with Russia
• France now dominates almost all western and central Europe

Fifth Coalition (1809)

• Austria goes all Medea on Napolean again after his Russian team up and allies itself with Britain 
• British Victory
• Just kidding, its France
•  Treaty of Schönbrunn 
• France finally punishes Austria for being such a bipolar backstabber 
• takes huge amount of territory, nearly 1/5th of the population
• Metternich manages to convince him to keep traditional Habsburg lands intact

Sixth Coalition (1812–1814) 

• Surprise Russia betrayed Napoleon 
• Napoleon is so emotional unstable from being jilted he invades Russia in the winter.
• Hahaha. Yes, this is the one
• Napoleon is defeated and suddenly his allies realize that France isn't the toughest kid on the playground anymore 
• allies all join Coalition 
• Turning point was the Battle of Leipzig 
• 1814 Napolean was exiled from France to Elba 

Seventh Coalition (1815)

•  Napoleon calls it a comeback despite already having been in Europe for years
• This time period is called the Hundred Days because it literally lasts the same duration of time it took a crippled man to teach the American government how to be a parent. 
• All his old enemies and frenemies boo him off the stage
• Turning point was the Battle of Waterloo 
•  Napolean exiled for the last time 

How did the Napoleonic Wars unite the rest of Europe?

• Napolean was the prerequisite to dictators like Hitler and Stalin who caused a spread of nationalism in their own countries and nationalism in other countries as well. The difference with this foreign nationalism was that it was developed in opposition of Napolean's French Empire. 
• French Armies tended to massacre civilians in their various attempts at taking over Europe, uniting the state the victims were a part of in a common anti-French identity. Above you see a painting called The Third of May, a propaganda work by Francisco Goya illustrating Napolean's massacre of the Spanish people so as to inspire nationalism against the French. 
• Nationalism against the French Empire also united several foreign powers in the form of the various Coalitions of the Napoleonic wars. Victims of Napolean's vie for power forged alliances with those countries who united under a fear of Napolean's rapidly evolving strength. The belief in a balance of power within Europe had throughout history been a common ground on which European countries united in order to preserve, and the Napoleonic wars were just another example of this tendency. 

Quadruple Alliance

Upon thoroughly trouncing the French in the War of the Seventh Coalition, why did the Quadruple Alliance let them get off easy after all of the trouble they caused? 

• What was the Quadruple Alliance?
• Conservative aristocratic monarchal alliance
• Russia, Prussia, Austria, Great Britain
• What was their purpose?
• After defeating France, determined to put it back in line through a peace settlement
•  Did not want war, tried to make a settlement that would prevent it
• Successful, century of relative peace 
• Combined leniency to France w/ defensive measures 
• The motive behind this leniency 
• Balance of power kept Europe in equilibrium and kept from aggressive competition or the domination of Europe 
• Supported by foreign ministers: Metternich, Castlereagh, Talleyrand
• The Leniency in Question
• Peace of Paris 
• France has 1972 boundaries
• Does not have to pay reparations 
• Restored Bourbon dynasty of king
• Barriers to Prevent French Aggression
• Low Countries United Under Dutch Monarchy 
•  Belgium, Holland
• Frequent French victims and border neighbors
• Could oppose France more effectively
• Prussia 
• A lot more territory on Eastern Boarder 
• Stand defensive on Rhine against France 
• Compensation to Victors in the Form of Territory
• Britain - colonies and strategic outposts Austria - parts of Italy and Poland 
• The Quadruple Alliance also directly led to the European Congress system
• Agreed to meet periodically  to discuss common interest 
• nationalism 
•  Helped protect balance of power diplomacy
• Consider appropriate measures for the maintenance of peace in Europe 
• Guiding forces in keep Europe peace
• Stability - Balance of Power
• Legitimacy - Conservative Restoration
• Legitimate rulers are the hereditary monarchs
• Traditional Nobility

"Conservatism bad," says the Liberal Media. So then why should I, a Millennial Bleeding Heart, care about the Conservative Restoration?

Because it brought about that long period of European peace and stability, you hippy. 

What are the principles of Conservatism?

• Tradition is one of the basic human institutions
• Nobility was one of the oldest institutions in Europe 
• Proper government was pre-1789 
• Monarchy, bureaucracy, aristocracy, obedient peasantry
• Liberalism responsible for generation of war
•  National self-determination of liberalism threatened to destroy old customs, balance of power, peace, and nobility 
•  Blamed middle class for stirring up lower class 
• Before middle class existed peasants never revolted
• keep an eye on middle class

Metternich and why you should care know about him.

• Austrian Foreign Minister from 1809-1848
• Saw the necessity of censoring the press 
• Restored Austria as a dominant European power during the 7th Coalition
• hosted and pretty much led the Congress of Vienna 
• directly responsible for the leniency with France - needed them to act as a counterweight against Russian enemies
• His moderation was what led to the long lasting European order
• Strongly conservative as liberal ideas of the dual revolution would have caused chaos in already complex Austrian politics. 
• His conservatism was what influenced the Conservatism of the Quadruple Alliance