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Signs of Political Unrest
Metternich’s reactionary Congress System began to fail in the late 1820s and the early 1830s, beginning in Greece and worsening in France. Greek nationalists, pushing for independence from Turkey and supported by Russia, Great Britain, and France, won their independence in 1829. In addition to the Greeks, several Balkan states gained independence, and Egypt broke out of Ottoman rule. The stability in Europe that Metternich had worked so hard to preserve was starting to crumble.
The July Revolution in France
It would soon get worse. In France, the reactionary Charles X’s policies had antagonized much of the French population, who were used to liberal and republican reforms. Charles thought of himself as divinely appointed to restore the “old ways,” and he accordingly gave more power to the aristocrats and Catholic clergy. When the French Chamber of Deputies moved against these changes, Charles passed the four “July Ordinances” in 1830, which dissolved the Chamber of Deputies, censored the press, disenfranchised the bourgeoisie, and called for a new election.
As a result of the July Ordinances, the bourgeoisie and radical republicans from the lower classes quickly took to the streets of Paris in the July Revolution, rioting and setting up barricades to stop the military, traffic, and commerce. Charles X quickly abdicated, and the bourgeois leaders of the rebellion moved quickly to install a constitutional monarchy with the Duke of Orléans, Louis Philippe, as their chosen leader.
To the reactionary rulers of Europe, the July Revolution and Louis Philippe’s ascension to the throne seemed like a dire thing. To the French bourgeoisie, it was merely a necessary action to maintain the rights they considered naturally theirs, and which they had won nearly 50 years earlier. Working-class republicans, however, wanted more and began to prepare for another revolt. The July Revolution, even if a disappointment to radical republicans, heartened revolutionaries throughout the rest of Europe. It sent a message: the preemptive suppression of revolution by the Congress System was no longer working very well.
Revolution in Belgium & Rebellion in Poland
The impact of 1830 July Revolution in France rippled through Europe, inspiring revolutions in Belgium and Poland. Belgium’s revolution was essentially successful. The country was allowed self-government (as long as it remained a neutral state) and the other powers agreed not to invade it. Polish nationalists, looking to the successful revolutions in Belgium in France, also decided to revolt in 1830, but Tsar Nicholas I quickly crushed the Polish rebellion, and other nations such as France and Britain who might have come to Poland’s aid were too preoccupied with their own affairs to act against Russia.
Reform in Great Britain
Surprisingly, it was in Britain, where no revolt happened, that the most change occurred. In large part this change resulted from the societal transformation created by the Industrial Revolution. Even so, the July Revolution certainly spurred the political process. The French July Revolution showed the British bourgeoisie that if there was a revolution by the lower classes, the bourgeoisie could quickly assume control and use a working-class revolution to middle-class advantage. The realization that the bourgeoisie was acquiring more and more power and could use that power to create a revolt led the Tory party to grant some concessions.
To satisfy the middle class, Parliament passed laissez-faire laws, creating a more secular state, and even created a police force. Problems remained, however. Most critical were the Corn Laws, which kept prices too high for manufacturers’ tastes, and the “Rotten Boroughs,” rules that gave more rural Southern England districts far more political representation than populous northern manufacturing cities like Manchester. The Reform Bill of 1832, sought to remedy these problems, and, as a result of the redistribution of British political power it created, several more reforms took place, beginning in 1833 with a Factory Act that limited child labor. In 1847, a Ten Hours Act passed into law, limiting the number of hours women and children could work per day. Ultimately, these progressive concessions allowed the British to avoid revolution, since those least represented in British society still felt as if they had some means to bettering their situation.
