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The February Revolution of 1848
In France, Louis Philippe’s government remained a bourgeoisie-dominated affair, disappointing to the workers who had manned the barricades in 1830. Less than 1 percent of adult males could vote, and Louis Philippe staunchly opposed enlarging the voting base. Popular discontent finally resulted in the February Revolution of 1848. The working classes again put barricades up in the streets, and an unruly Paris mob frightened Louis Philippe into abdicating and the provisional government into passing socialist programs.
This included the creation of National Workshops, which were centralized, state-owned manufacturing establishments that guaranteed work. However, the government did not take National Workshops very seriously, and so there wasn’t any real work to do. As a result, they became jam-packed with thousands of discontented workers, fermenting still more agitation. In late June, three days of especially violent class warfare broke out in Paris. The army soon restored order, but the political landscape had changed.
The Election of Louis Napoleon Bonaparte
After June 1848, the French began to draw up a new constitution. The constitution included provisions for a strong president who would be elected via universal male suffrage. The ensuring election was the first that most of the uneducated, newly enfranchised voters had ever experienced as active participants. They had four candidates to choose from, among them being Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Napoleon’s nephew. His only “platform” was to say that his uncle, Napoleon, had been liberal, and that he would be liberal too. Since the name Bonaparte still resonated so strongly among the general population of France, Louis Napoleon won the election over the other, more experienced candidates.
Though claiming to be liberal, the newly elected President was far more interested in reestablishing order. After gaining support by promising universal male suffrage, he promptly removed socialists from the government and encouraged religious influence in school teaching. In reality, February Revolution’s radical socialist changes were doomed from the start. Outside of Paris, the majority of France was much more conservative than the workers in the city, as well as generally anti-socialist. After the Paris reformers went beyond what the rest of the country was willing to accept, it was only a matter of time before their revolutionary changes were reversed. Furthermore, by 1848, France had had so many governments in the past 50 years that new governments were easy to bring down. As a result, Louis Napoleon, now confident in his support base, was able to declare himself Emperor Napoleon III. The revolution in France had ended with a new government, but also with a new dictator.
Ripple Effects of the February Revolution
The years from 1815 to 1848, although free of major wars, were the site of a different conflict, between Reaction and Revolution. As 1848 approached, Revolution had been brewing, but the Reactionary forces led by Metternich had been successful in preventing any major revolutionary “disasters.” The boundaries established by the 1815 Congress of Vienna, if a little worse for the wear, remained for the most part standing by the opening of 1848.
There have not been many years like 1848. Among the major European powers, only Great Britain, where some reforms had blunted the wrath of the working class, and Russia, where the monarchy still held firm control, escaped from 1848 without undergoing a revolution. Revolution in Paris served as the signal for revolutions throughout Europe, essentially proving Metternich’s hypothesis that revolution could spread from one country to another.
Like the July Revolution of 1830, the February Revolution of 1848 reverberated throughout Europe, resulting in a series of revolutions, most powerfully in Germany and Vienna. In Britain, the French upheaval revived the Chartist Movement. In London, however, there were no barricades; instead, a new petition went to Parliament.
