Chapter 25: AP EURO
What was the significance of the Zollverein in German history?
At the same time, powerful economic forces were undermining the political status quo. Modern industry grew rapidly within German customs union, or Zollverein, founded in 1834 to stimulate trade and increase the revenues of member states.
What were the three basic approaches to Italian unification? Which one prevailed?
Between 1815 and 1848, the goal of a unified Italian nation capture the imaginations of many Italians. There were three basic approaches. The first was the radical program of the idealistic patriot Mazzini, who preached a centralized a democratic republic based on universal male suffrage and the will of the people. The second was that of Vincenzo Gioberti, a Catholic priest to call for a federation of existing states under the presidency of a progressive Pope. The third was the program of those who look for leadership to autocratic kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont, much as many Germans looked to Prussia. The third alternative was strengthened by the failures of 1848, when Austria smashed Mazzini's republicanism. Almost by accident, Sardinia's monarch, Victor Emmanuel, retained the liberal constitution granted under duress in March 1848. This constitution provided for a fair degree of civil liberties and real parliamentary government, with deputies elected by a limited franchise based on income. To the Italian middles classes, Sardinia appeared to be a liberal, progressive state ideally suited to achieve the goal of national unification. By contrast, Mazzini's brand of democratic republicanism seemed quixotic and too radical.
What was Bismarck's relationship with the Catholic Church, the liberals, and the socialist?
Bismarck and the liberals attacked the Catholic church (the Kulturkampf) in an effort to maintain the superiority of state over church, but abandoned the attack in 1878. Bismarck outlawed socialist parties in 1878. Bismarck gave Germany an impressive system of social-welfare legislation, partly to weaken socialism's appeal to the workers.
Why did the Prussian middle-class liberals make an about-face and support their old enemy Bismarck after 1866?
Bismarck had long been convinced that the old order he so ardently defended should make peace, on its own terms, with the liberal middle class and the nationalist movement. He realized that nationalism was not necessarily hostile to conservative, authoritarian government. Moreover, Bismarck believed that because of the events of 1848, the German middle class could be led to prefer the reality of national unity under conservative leadership to a long, uncertain battle for truly liberal institutions. During the constitutional struggle over army reform and parliamentary authority, he had delayed but not abandoned this goal. THus during the attack on Austria in 1866, he increasingly identified Prussia's fate with the "national development of Germany". In the aftermath of victory, Bismarck fashioned a federal constitution for the new North German Confederation. Each state retained its own local government, but the king of Prussia became president of the confederation, and the chancellor- Bismarck- was responsible only to the president. The federal government- William I and Bismarck- controlled the army and foreign affairs. There was also a legislature with members of the lower house elected by universal, single-class, male suffrage. With this radical innovation, Bismarck opened the door to popular participation and the possibility of going over the head of the middle class directly to the people, such as Napoleon III had done in France. All the while, however, ultimate power rested in the hands of Prussia and its king and army. In prussia itself, Bismarck held out an olive branch to the parliamentary opposition. Marshaling all his diplomatic skill, Bismarck asked the parliament to pass a special indemnity bill to approve after the fact all the government's spending between 1862 and 1866. Most of the liberals jumped at the chance to cooperate. With German unity in sight, they repented their "sins". The constitutional struggle was over, and the German middle class was accepting respectfully the monarchical authority and the aristocratic superiority that Bismarck represented. In the years before 1914, the values of the aristocratic Prussian army officer increasingly replaced those of the middle-class liberal in public esteem and set the social standard.
What were the major political developments and issues in Britain and Ireland in the late 19th-century?
Britain- 1867 - All middle class males could vote 1884 - 3rd Reform Bill - almost all men could vote Ireland- Liberal PM Gladstone in Britain introduced self- govt. bills in 1886 and 1893 - both failed Protestants refused to submit to Catholic rule, and vice versa. Ulsterites (Protestants) vowed to resist home rule 1914 House of Lords compromise did not apply to northern counties, rejected, but then original bill passed and was suspended as WWI began.
What were the causes and the outcome of the Dreyfus affair in France?
Causes: Jewish captain accused of treason and spying for Germany - family gained support from prominent republicans and intellectuals (Emile Zola), army anti-Semites, most Catholics vs. civil libertarians and republicans, Outcome: He was found guilty and eventually pardoned. It revived republican feelings against the church and the government cut ties between church and state.
What was the importance of Garibaldi's liberation of Sicily and Naples in 1860?
For superpatriots such as Giuseppe Garibaldi, the job of unification was still only half done. The son of a poor sailor, Garibaldi personified the romantic, revolutionary nationalism and republicanism of Mazzini and 1848. Leading a corps of volunteers against Austria in 1859, Garibaldi emerged in 1860 as an independent force in Italian politics. Partly to use him and partly to get rid of him, Cavour secretly supported Garibaldi's bold plan to "liberate" the kingdom of the Two Sicilies. Landing on the shores of Sicily in MAy 1860, Garibaldi;s guerrilla band of a thousands Red Shirts captured the imagination of the Sicilian peasantry. Outwitting the twenty-thousand-man royal army, the guerrilla leader won battles, gained volunteers, and took Palermo. Then he and his men crossed to the mainland, marched triumphantly toward Naples, and prepared to attack Rome and the pope. But the wily Cavour quickly sent Sardinian forces to occupy most of the Papal States (but not Rome) and to intercept Garibaldi. Cavour realized that an attack on Rome would bring about war with France, and he also feared Garibaldi;s radicalism and popular appeal. Thus he immediately organized a plebiscite in the conquered territories. Despite the urging of some radical supporter, the patriotic Garibaldi did not oppose Cavour, and the people of the South voted to join Sardinia. When Garibaldi and Victor Emmanuel rode through Naples to cheering crowds, they symbolically sealed the union of north and south, of monarch and nation-state.
What was the status of the Russian serf? in the early 19th century? How beneficial was the reform of 1861 to the serf?
In the 1850s, Russia was a poor agrarian society with a rapidly growing population. Industry was little developed, and almost 90 percent of the population lived off the land. Agricultural techniques were backward, and serfdom was still the basic social institution. Bound to the lord on a hereditary basis, the peasant serf was little more than a slave. Serfs were obliged to furnish labor services or money payments as the lord saw fit. Moreover, the lord could choose freely among the serfs for army recruits, who had to serve for 25 years, and he could punish a serf with deportation to Siberia. Sexual exploitation of female serfs by their lords was common. The first and greatest of the reforms was the freeing of the serfs in 1861. Human bondage was abolished forever, and the emancipated peasants received, on average, about half of the land. Yet they had to pay fairly high prices for their land, and because the land was owned collectively, each peasant village was jointly responsible for the payments of all the families in the village. Collective ownership and responsibility made it very difficult for individual peasants to improve agricultural methods or leave their villages. Thus old patterns of behavior predominated, and the effects of reform were limited.
Why was the Crimean war a turning point in Russian history?
It clearly illustrated the backwardness of Russia, which had fallen way behind the rapidly- industrializing western European nations. It also led to massive reforms by Alexander II. Built state-owned railroads - Trans-Siberian line connecting Moscow and Vladivostok Established high protective tariffs to build Russian industry Put country on the gold standard Encouraged foreigners to use their capital and advanced technology to build factories in Russia
Why was Italy before 1860 merely a "geographical expression"?
Italy have never been united prior to 1850. Part of Rome's great empire in ancient times, the Italian peninsula was divided in the middle ages into competing city states that lead to commercial and cultural revival of the West with amazing creativity. A battleground for the great powers after 1494, Italy was re-organized in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna. The rich northern provinces of Lombardy and Venetia were taken by Metternich's Austria. Sardinia and Piedmont were under the rule of an Italian Monarch, and Tuscany, with its famous capital Florence, shared northern central Italy with several smaller states. Central Italy and Rome were ruled by the papacy, which had always considered an independent political existence necessary to fulfill its spiritual mission. Naples and Sicily rolled, as they have been for almost 100 years, by a branch of the Bourbons. Metternich was not wrong in dismissing Italy as "a geographical expression".
Why did the voters of France elect Louis Napoleon president in 1848? What were some of the benefits Napoleon bestowed on his subjects?
Louis Napoléon Have a great name of his uncle, who romantics had transform from a dictator and Into a demigod as they created a Napoleonic legend after 1820. As Karl Marx stress of the time, middle-class and peasant property owners feared the socialist challenge of urban workers, and they wanted to talk brother to provide protection. In the late 1848 Louis Napoleon had a positive" program" for France, which have been elaborated in a widely circulated pamphlets before the election and what guided him in his very long reign. Above all, Louis Napoleon believe that the government should represent the people and that it should try hard to help them economically. This leader would be linked to each citizen by direct democracy, his sovereignty uncorrupted by politicians and legislative bodies. These political ideas went hand in hand with Louis Napoleon's vision of national unity and social progress. The state and its leader has secret duty to provide jobs and stimulate the economy. All classes would benefit by such action. To many common people, he appeared to be a strong man and a forward-looking champion of their interests, and that is why they voted for him.
How were territorial expansion an issue of slavery related in United States?
Regional antagonisms between industrial North and slave-owning South came to a climax after 1848 when a defeated Mexico ceded to the United States a vast area stretching from west Texas to the PAcific Ocean. Debate over the extension of slavery in this new territory caused attitudes to harden on both sides. In Abraham Lincoln's famous words, the United States was a "house divided" by slavery, contradictory economic systems, conflicting values, and regional loyalties. Lincoln's election as president in 1860 gave Southern "fire-eaters" the chance they had been waiting for. Eventually eleven states left the Union, determined to win their own independence, and formed the Confederate States of America. When Southern troops fired on a Union fort in South Carolina's Charleston harbor, war began.
How does one account for the rapid growth of socialist parties in Europe and the last quarter of the 19th-century?
Socialism grew less radical as the century wore on and became more interested in reform through elections rather than revolution. Conditions for the proletariat gradually improved, making the need for a violent revolution unnecessary. Also, workers never actually formed a unified social group and they had a variety of interests and goals and they tended to focus their attentions more on elections than on revolutions. Patriotic education and indoctrination during military service also influenced them.
What Was the new Germany a democracy? Where did the power side in the Germany of 1871?
The German Empire was a union of 25 German States in 1871, governed by a chancellor (Bismarck) and a parliament (the Reichstag). Worldwide agricultural depression after 1873 resulted in the policy of economic protectionism in Germany. The lower chamber was elected by universal male suffrage, even though to a limited extent, it was still more than the British people could until later in the century (1884). A very complicated voting system gave a few big taxpayers who contributed a third of the tax returns chose to a third of the members of the electoral colleges, which chose the deputies to the Prussian lower house. It gave the great landowners and industrialists an unusual position of special privilege within the state.
How was Germany unified? Describe Bismarck's methods. What were the long-term results?
The Zollverein had not included Austria, and after 1848 this exclusion became crucial factor in the Austro-Prussian rivalry. In 1864, when the Danish king tried again, as in 1848, to bring provinces into a centralized Danish state against the will of the German Confederation, Prussia joined Austria in a short and successful war against Denmark. However, Bismarck was convinced that Prussia had to control completely in the northern Protestant part of the German Confederation, which meant a excluding Austria from German affairs. Austro-Prussian war of 1866 only lasted seven weeks. Utilizing railroads to mass trips and maximum firepower, Prussia defeated Austria at the Battle of Sadowa in Bohemia. Bismarck offered Austria generous peace terms. I sure pay no operations and lost territory to Prussia, although Venetia was ceded to Italy. The German Federation dissolved in Austria agreed to withdraw from German affairs.
What enabled the North to defeat the South in the Civil War?
The long Civil War (1861- 1865) was the bloodiest conflict in all of American history, but in the end the South was decisively defeated and the Union preserved. The vastly superior population, industry, and transportation of the North placed the South at a great, probably fatal, disadvantage. Yet less obvious factors tied to morale and national purpose were also extremely important. The enormous gap between the slave-owning elite and the poor whites also made it impossible for the South to build effectively on the patriotism of 1861. As the war went on, many ordinary whites felt that the burden was falling mainly on their shoulders as big planters resisted taxation and used loopholes to avoid the draft. Desertions from Southern armies mounted rapidly from 1863 on as soldiers became disillusioned. In the North, by contrast, many people prospered during the war years. Enthusiasm remained high, and certain dominant characteristics of American life and national culture took shape. Powerful business corporations emerged, steadfastly supported by the Republican Party during and after the war. The Homestead Act of 1862, which gave western land to settlers, and the 13th Amendment of 1865, which ended slavery, reinforced the concept of free labor taking its chances in a market economy. Finally, the success of Lincoln and the North in holding the Union together seemed to confirm that the "manifest destiny" of the United States was indeed to straddle a continent as a great world power. Thus a new American nationalism grew out of the war to prevent the realization of Southern nationhood.
What was the purpose of the socialists internationals? What were the general arguments of the revisionist socialists?
They used their annual meetings as a means of spreading Marx's doctrines of inevitable socialist revolution. Revisionist socialists generally believed that class conflict was not necessary and that gradual and reasonable and conciliatory measures would in due time bring about a socialist state. Clearly described in Edward Bernstein's Evolutionary Socialism in 1898. International Working Men's Association was established in 1864 as the First International of socialists. Marx struggled to control the organization and use its annual meetings as a means of spreading his realistic, "scientific" doctrines of inevitable socialist revolution.
Why did nationalism become a universal faith in Europe between 1850 and 1914 and why did it gain the support of the broad masses of society?
Western society progressively develop, for better or for worse, and new and effective organizing principle cable coping with the many sided challenge of the dual revolution and emerging urban civilization. That principle was nationalism- a dedication to an identification with the nation-state. The triumph of nationalism is an enormously significant historical development that was by no means completely predictable. After all, nationalism had been a powerful force since at least 1789, but it had repeatedly failed to realize its goals, most spectacularly so in 1848. Yet by 1914 nationalism had become in one way or another an almost universal faith in Europe and in the United States, a faith that had evolved to appeal not only to the predominantly middle-class liberals but also the broad masses of society.