The Smallest Possible Difference

[wolf_brother]

Poland Is Not Yet Lost

"Poland has not died yet,
So long as we still live,
What foreign force has taken from us,
We shall take back with the sword..." (1)​

Rapport, Mike. 1848: Year of Revolution New York: Basic Books, 2008.

... The political restrictions imposed on Europe could not help but provoke opposition. Just as Metternich and his ilk felt the heavy weight of recent history in their political calculations, so that same history proved to be an inspiration to their opponents. The French Revolution of 1789 and its Napoleonic progeny had provoked dread among conservatives, but – in the true Romantic fashion of the age – their memory could stir the blood of liberals, radicals and patriots who felt constricted in the stifling atmosphere of Metternich’s Europe. The first post-war generation of European liberals had personally engaged in the struggles of the revolutionary era. With the final allied victory in 1815, they had lost either because they had supported Napoleonic rule – and its often empty promises of freedom – or because, having opposed the French, they had hoped in vain that from the ruins of the old European order would rise a new, constitutional system. There were unsuccessful revolutionary outbreaks in...

... The most dramatic surge of resistance to the conservative order came in Poland, where in November 1830 the patience of the patriotic Polish nobility within the Russian partition snapped when the Tsar mobilised the Polish army in response to the revolutions in Western Europe. The insurrection lasted ten months and was crushed – after some bloody and intense fighting – by a 120,000- strong Russian army under General Ivan Paskevich (who would help repress another revolution in 1849). In the retribution that followed, a staggering eighty-thousand Poles were dragged off in chains to Siberia...

... Later liberal opposition again tested the strength of the conservative order, sometimes with tragic consequences. In the Habsburg province of Galicia in 1846, Polish nobles tried to raise the standard of patriotic revolt against Austrian rule. Although they promised in their proclamation to free their serfs, the mostly Ukrainian peasantry did not listen. Instead, they killed and mutilated some 1,200 Polish nobles – men, women and children alike – and set ablaze or plundered some 400 manor houses in what would become known as the Galician Slaughter. The serfs' loyalties remained fixed on the Habsburg Emperor who, it was said, had used his divinely ordained authority to suspend the Ten Commandments, allowing the peasants to kill their hated landlords with impunity. The upshot of this abortive Polish insurrection was the annexation by Austria of the last candle that burned for Polish independence, the free city of Kraków, which was the epicentre of the revolt...

... When the cosmopolitan flowering of the Springtime of Peoples clashed with brute national interest, the later would be carried with much more convicition. This was violently illustrated even more amply by the intractable problem of German–Polish relations. The Poles would prove to be one of the European nationalities that emerged with little to show from 1848. At first glance, this is surprising, because the Poles had been among the most dogged of all the European revolutionaries and attracted the most widespread sympathy. The flame of the Polish revolution had been kept alight by the Great Emigration of Polish exiles...

Greater Polish Uprising

... News of the Vienna revolt reached Austrian Galicia on 19 March. Within hours in the provincial capitol of Lwów a petition was signed by 12,000, mostly Poles, demanding provincial autonomy within the Hapsburg Empire. The Austrian governor, Franz Stadion, who had already abolished censorship and permitted a civic guard as part of his liberal regime, allowed the petition to be presented to the Emperor...

... On 20 March over one hundred Polish political prisoners were freed on the order of King Frederick William as part of Prussia's new liberalization. Among those who death sentence was commuted was Ludwik Mierosławski (2), who immediately sent agents of the Polish underground movement to both Posen (Polish: Poznań) and Galicia (Polish: Galicja) to arm and train Polish volunteers. In the latter Poles seized local power in the grand duchy, removing unpopular officials, and organized militias.

Four days later Frederick William received a deputation from the Polish community in the Grand Duchy of Posen, led by Archbishop Leon Przyłuski, who argued before the Prussian King that as Germany was about to be united 'on the principal of nationalism,' it was also 'the hour of Poland's resurrection.' Further, the deputies asked Frederick William, as Grand Duke of Polish Posen, to carry out the 'national reorganization.' The next day Frederick William's new liberal ministry granted the deputies' request, and established a committee of both Germans and Poles to discuss some form of autonomy for the grand duchy...

... On 24 March, Prince Adam Jerzy Czartoryski, 'the uncrowned King of Poland,' (3), left Paris for Berlin, hoping to press the liberalized Prussian government into war with Russia to liberate his homeland. Back in his adopted homeland, however, on 26 March the radical-leaning Polish Democratic Society, leaders of some seven hundred unemployed Polish emigrates in Paris, organized protest march joined by the Parisian radicals 20,000 strong on the Hôtel de Ville, the provisional French government's headquarters. The protesters demanded arms and funds from the provisional government to free Poland from Russian (and, unsaid but implicated, German) control. However the crowds dispersed after Lamartine, the French Foreign Minister, assured them of France's sympathies and offered instead financial aid to help the Polish immigrates return to their homeland. After Lamartine also negotiated an agreement with the still extant German Confederation allowing the Poles free passage through the German states; within the following week hundreds of patriotic Poles left Paris by train...

...By the 28th Czartoryski arrived in Potsdam, where the Prussian royal family had fled from Berlin, and presented his case before King Frederick William. However the King rejected Czartoryski's plan, exclaiming in horror; "By God, never, never, shall I draw the sword against Russia!" By April neither the Prussian King nor his ministers would meet with Czartoryski…

... As events throughout Europe spiraled out of control, on 1 April Mierosławski arrived in Galicia to take command of the National Committee's militia, which by then numbered around 10,000 troops. However the German minorities in Polish-held lands began to protest, with several non-violent scuffles throughout Galicia. The Germans soon formed their own militias and committees, and wrote a petition to the German parliament in Frankfurt, declaring: "We are Germans, and want to remain German. You cannot, must not, abandon us." In response Prussian King Frederick William sent General von Willisen to Posen to negotiate with the Poles and defuse the situation. However conservatives close to the King in Potsdam also persuaded Frederick William to reinforce General von Colomb's regiment in Posen, swelling his forces until they outnumbered Mierosławski's... (4)

... Elsewhere during the 1848 period the Poles attempted to join the revolutionary movements. On 5 April the Frankfurt Committee of Fifty received a delegation from Polish National Committee of Posen which argued that the Poles 'cannot and will join' the German Reich. After barely an hour's debate the Committee of Fifty agreed, declaring that 'the partition of Poland [was] a shameful injustice,' and recognized 'the sacred duty of the German people to collaborate in the restoration of Poland.' Likewise the next day the Polish delegation from Galicia, now also bearing representatives from the Kraków Citizen's Committee, reached Vienna to a rapturous welcome from the city's population. Austrian newspapers celebrated the prospect of the Hapsburg monarchy taking the lead role in restoring Polish freedom, and the anticipated war with Russia. Meeting with Emperor Ferdinand the Poles expressed their hope for Galicia's (and Kraków's) autonomy within Austria, and that the Austrians would spearhead the reconstruction of an independent Poland…

... By 14 April Frederick William made it clear to the Polish delegation that autonomy would be granted only to the 'purely Polish' eastern districts of Posen, a position the National Committee, after much debate, rejected. However the Committee had also decided to un-arm its forces, in a bid to appeal to the Prussian King's better nature after hearing of the events of Berlin. This move though was ignored by Mierosławski, who expected a Russian intervention against any liberated Poland, and prepared to assist Prussian forces in defense of Posen as allies. To that end the Poles were unprepared to fight the Prussians when five days later General Colomb unleashed his army against the Poles, targeting Mierosławski's volunteers and innocent civilians alike. The Prussians destroyed the Polish village of Książ, burning the town to the ground after murdering all 600 Polish prisoners taken during the village's capture. Polish communities in Wielkopolska, Pleszew, Wrześniam and Miłosław were also attacked, as demobilized Polish volunteers returning to their homes were harassed by Germans led by Catholic priests and local worthies. This provoked a backlash in the previously restive Polish rural population, which rose up and waged guerrilla warfare against the Germans, many joining Mierosławski's freischärlers. . However Mierosławski's well-trained militia was more than Colomb bargained for, and in a skillful defensive action near the village of Grodzisk on 29 April the Prussians were beaten back. Mierosławski believed that to save morale and the honor of the Poles it was necessary to resist militarily, while the Committee members were opposed to violence and still hoped to win over Frederick William. As such the Committee disbanded itself on 30 April, stressing the Prussian treachery and violence in its last proclamation…

... In the Hapsburg domains the Austrians took a different route. On 17 April Emperor Ferdinand gave Galician governor Stadion permission to free the serfs, a decision Stadion took on 22 April, announcing emancipation in the name of Ferdinand as of May 15th, with compensation for the landlords. However this proclamation was not well-received by the Polish Democratic Society, who (correctly) perceived such a move would undermine the Polish resistance's support amongst the peasantry. On 23 April Democratic Society agents in Kraków recruited some 1,200 fresh volunteers, and organized patriotic marches. The democrats also established newspapers which published patriotic articles at a feverish pace. Under mounting pressure, the Kraków Citizen's Committee quickly changed its name to the 'National,' accepted more radical delegates into its formally bourgeois membership roles. The now democratized and re-named Committee then declared Easter Sunday 'Emancipation Day' and urged the landed Polish gentry to free their serfs. However this move was not beloved by the Polish nobles, whose memories were still fresh with the 1846 Kraków Uprising...

... Across Galicia and in the provincial capitol of Lwów Polish democrats skirmished with Austrian troops, throwing up barricades through the city and using capturing arms, including pikes and cavalry lances. The four thousand Austrian troops stationed in the city withdrew into the Lwów High Castle and bombarded the city with cannon for over two hours before the Poles surrendered. In the aftermath and National Committee was disbanded by the Austrian authorities, and the leaders exiled. The independence movement was, for the most part, defunct in Hapsburg-held Poland. As a further ploy against the Poles Stadion allowed the first meeting of a Supreme Ruthenian Council to take place in Saint George's Cathedral in Lwów, which made demands for a separate Ruthenian administration. (5) By 15 May this council published the first Ruthenian periodical, which sold out within its first week...

... By 3 May Mierosławski's forces had clashed with Colomb's troops had clashed twice more, both times ending in routes for the Prussians. Less than a week later however Mierosławski was defeated when his forces were caught in the open outside the village of Miłosław by Prussian artillery and pulverized. By the next day the last of Mierosławski's forces had surrendered, and the National Committee of Posen disbanded. Mierosławski himself was once again captured and, having tasted freedom for merely fifty-one days, was locked up once again.

The Battle at Miłosław​

As a consequence of the uprising the Grand Duchy of Posen was replaced with the Province of Posen, and Frederick William's government rejected any ideas of autonomy. However, as a Prussian territory it was completely incorporated into the German Empire, and when the German parliament finalized the German Constitution in 1849 Posen was explicitly mentioned as an autonomous territory. (6) In the subsequent elections for the Prussian parliament Polish delegates achieved a majority of the seats from the province, and sent a respectable number of delegates to the German parliament.(7) Likewise the Austrian-held Grand Duchy of Cracow gained a measure of autonomy following the 1848 period; however Austrian Galicia fell to Hungary, and to this day the area is...

Spec-hist.com/forum/showthread.php?t=190997

How would you get an earlier Poland reconstituted, with a POD after the Congress of Vienna?

Your best bet might be 1848 as part of the general revolutions happening throughout Europe, but I'm not sure how.

No, it'll have to be post-1848. Before the liberalization of Europe the conservative order wouldn't, couldn't, allow a reconstituted Poland for fear of the revolution spreading, especially through the Russian and Austrian empires

(1) OTL the national anthem of Poland, "Poland Is Not Yet Lost."

(2) Raised in Congress Poland, Mierosławski had taken part in the 1830-31 November Uprising before escaping to Galicia, and later emigrated to France, where he was active in the Polish community in Paris, becoming famous for his "Histoire de la revolution de Pologne." He was elected leader of the Greater Poland Uprising of 1846, but was arrested by Prussian authorities and held under death sentence until his release.

(3) Actually a Lithuanian noble, born in Warsaw in 1770, Czartoryski had fought during the Second and Third Partitions, and following the later of which he was forced into entering Russian service as an officer. Rising through the ranks Czartoryski befriended the young Alexander I, and became the Chairman of the Russian Council of Ministers and the Foreign Minister from 1804 to 1806 during Alexander's reign. He retired from politics in 1810, until the November Uprising of 1830 saw him elected the President of the Polish Provisional Government, and later as Chief of the Supreme Council. After the uprising's failure he joined the Polish community in Paris, where he was hailed as the 'uncrowned King' of Poland, and became even more famous for his writings, especially his "Essay on Diplomacy" in which he proposed a resurrection of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth as a Slavic federation.

(4) IOTL the German forces outnumbered Mierosławski's over two-to-one. However ITTL As Prince Charles of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen still controls some 25,000 Prussian troops in Baden, and more importantly the Prussian military has (yet) to be put on war footing, the army has less-and-less forces to call upon as they overstretch their military capacity trying to deal with every issue that arises throughout Germany.

(5) Ruthenian is the period name for Ukrainian. Most of the peasantry in Galicia under the Polish gentry were Ruthenians who, in a scene reminiscent of the Hungarians with the Romanians, were fanatically loyal to the Hapsburg Emperor. However, this moment also marks the beginning of the Ruthenian independence movement.

(6) IOTL the parliament did not. However butterflies, both those seen so far and those to be revealed later, will result in a different parliament more amiable to Polish autonomy, coupled with a certain German flavor of racism which required a 'purely German' Germany.

(7) IOTL Poles were split on the subject of the German parliament. While some rejected it and called for another insurrection, others argued that now was the time to 'go against Prussians not with scythes but with votes.' ITTL with the pan-German parliament largely in favor of Polish autonomy the Poles will support it against Prussian (and Austrian) authority.

 

[FDW]

Interesting, consider me subscribed.

 

[wolf_brother]

A Latin Island in the Slavic Sea

"We must make cleverness our national trait. Let us present Romania as a Latin island in the Slavic sea. Our millenia-old traditions of independence are now a pawn between two great powers." (1)​

Barbara, Jalavich. "The International Status of the Romanian Lands in 1848." Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. 2005 Ed.

The Romanian revolutionary activities paralleled similar dramatic events in much of Europe. For the European great powers these revolts overshadowed those in the Danubian principalities. The Habsburg Empire and the German states, notably Prussia, were fully absorbed in dealing with their own problems. France, in a similar situation, and Britain were aware of conditions in Moldavia and Wallachia, but their leaders were primarily preoccupied with their possible effects on the situation in the Habsburg Empire and with the ability of the Ottoman Empire to resist Russian pressure. As such, the two powers most actively involved in the Romanian lands were the Ottoman Empire, the suzerain power, and Russia, which had special rights of intervention and protection resting on previous treaties, notably the Treaty of Adrianople (1829). Of the two, the Russian government took the initiative for action in the Principalities. The major decisions were made by Nicholas I, assisted by his foreign minister, Karl Robert Nesselrode, and his military advisers. The tsar throughout his reign had consistently denounced liberal and revolutionary movements on the ideological grounds, but in 1848 he was faced by a threat to Russian security because of the success of the revolution throughout the Habsburg Empire and Prussia, to act effectively. The tsar was particularly disappointed by the capitulation of the Prussian king, Frederick William IV to the revolutionary demands, and he feared the consequences of the dissolution of the Habsburg Empire...

Romanian Revolutions of 1848

Background

... The two Danubian Principalities, Wallachia and Moldavia, came under direct Russian supervision upon the close of the Russo-Turkish War of 1828-1829, being subsequently administrated on the basis of common documents, known as Regulamentul Organic (Organic Statue). After a period of Russian military occupation, Wallachia returned to Ottoman suzerainty while Russian oversight was preserved, and the throne was awarded to Alexandru II Ghica in 1834. This was a controversial move given that despite the popular provisions of the Akkerman Convention Ghica had been appointed by Russia and the Ottomans instead of being elected by the Wallachian Assembly...

... Hostility toward Russian policies erupted later in 1834, when Russia called for an "Additional Article" (Articol adiţional) to be attached to the Organic Statue, as the latter document was being reviewed by the Porte. The proposed article sought to prevent the Principalities' Assemblies from modifying the Statue any further without the consent of both protecting powers. This move met with stiff opposition from the Romanians; in 1838, the project was nonetheless passed, when it was explicitly endorsed by Sultan Abdülmecid I...

... A new generation of boyars (nobles) of both of the principalities who had studied abroad, mostly in France, inspired by Wallachian radical Ion Câmpineanu took direct action, forming the Societatea Studenţilor Români (the Society of Romanian Students) in 1846, which pushed demands of Romanian unification, as well as a wider agenda of political reform...

... The peasantry was also aggravated, and starting in 1846 the mostly proletarian commercial, industrial and agrarian associations took to protesting against both the Romanian hospodars (princes), who both had plans to raise taxes yet again in the principalities, while the summer of 1847 saw sharp returns by liberal boyars in the principalities’ assemblies. Peasants in Moldavia and Wallachia refused to perform labor services (the corvée), with increasingly violent confrontations throughout the harvest of 1847 and into the spring. The Romanian movements alarmed St. Petersburg, which warned both princes in March that Russia would send her armies across the Prut if changes to the Organic Statues or the Additional Article were discussed. However, eager for change, intellectuals were roused by the February revolution in Paris...

Revolutionary Outbreak

... The first actions took place in Moldavia where, on 8 April Moldavian boyars opposed to Hospodar Mihail Sturdza, mostly young liberals, as well as representatives of the middle class met in the Hotel Petersburg in the capitol of Iaşi, cramming the small building full of nearly a thousand delegates. The meeting was the culmination of several weeks of small, private, meetings and several public manifestos denouncing despotism, all occasioned by the spreading news of events in Paris, Vienna and elsewhere. The moderates at the meeting prevailed on the summit to support a petition setting forth all their grievances and proposing suitable reforms. More importantly though the boyars agreed to dissolve the principality's assembly after delivering the petition, swearing to work against the government until Sturdza gave in to their demands. A committee chaired by the poet Vasile Alecsandri drew up the Petiţia-proclamaţie (Petition-Proclamation), which called for moderate economic reforms such as a national bank and the abolition of all tariffs, a parliament with more power than the current assembly enjoyed, including the right to make proposals to the prince and the power to examine currently existing laws. The petition also included a call for a strict adherence to the law - a sharp reference to the persuasive corruption of Sturdza's regime. Sturdza received the petition the next day and agreed to 33 of the 35 points, however he rejected the dissolution of the assembly in favor of a parliament and the abolition of press censorship. Led by the boyar Alexandru Cuza (2) the liberals stormed the palace, forcing Sturdza to withdraw to the nearby army barracks. Steeled by the assurances of his Russian consul Sturdza unleashed his military against the protesters; in three days of vicious street-fighting the army took control of the city, however only after an known number were killed (3) and some 200 arrested, with a further hundred imprisoned over the next several weeks as Sturdza cracked down on all dissent. The liberal leadership, including Cuza, were 'beaten like dogs' while being dragged through the streets before being exiled to the Ottoman empire, an action that was to have severe repercussions when in 1863...

... in the Wallachian principality on 9 June, liberal boyars gathered in the small Danube port of Islaz, which unlike the larger ports of Turnu Măgurele, Giurgiu and Calafat, was not under the direct control of the Turks. The boyars there were soon joined by the rural peasantry, local priests and several army officers. As the gathering continued to grow the liberals, led by the radical Nicolae Bălcescu, issued the Proclamation of Islaz. Largely written by poet and newspaper editor Ion Heliade Rădulescu, the proclamation demanded the independence of the bureaucratic administration and legislature from the executive, which was to reformed with a elected monarchy on a five year basis styled as a Domnitor (Lord) (4), equal rights of the people, including the abolition of censorship, free education for all, emancipation of the serfs, the Roma and the Jews (5), and the abolition of the nobility (6). The proclamation also demanded the creation of a national guard and national justice and prison system. Importantly while the proclamation called for an end to Russian 'protection,' and autonomy within the Ottoman Empire, it did not call for full Romanian independence.

The liberal boyars in Islaz also agreed to a plan by which, by using the officers present, the revolutionaries would take over the larger military bases throughout Wallachia. This, in addition to several planned public gatherings in the largest Wallachian cities planned to happen simultaneously, would force Bibescu to accept the Proclamation. However events soon spiraled out of their hands when just two days later in the capitol of Bucharest the city's priests summoned the vas majority of the rural peasantry by continuously ringing church bells. Joining with the urban masses the crowd converged on the palace, many of them brandishing copies of the Proclamation, which was read aloud in the great square in front of the princely palace. Meanwhile the army, flush with liberal officers, stood aside and allowed liberal leaders in the city to enter the palace and demand the hospodar accept the proclamation. Powerless Bibescu was forced to sign the document, and appointed a new liberal ministry; however Wallachia's new princely government would not meet for several days, as many of the appointees were in jail for political activism. Because the Proclamation effectively disestablished the Organic Statue, the Russian consul to Bucharest, Charles de Kotzebue, left the country for Austrian-ruled Transylvania the next day. Less than a week later Bibescu did the same, abdicating his throne and, taking with him his few conservative allies, he retreated to the Hungarian border town of Braμov…

… On 15 June a massive crowd gathered on the Field of Liberty outside of Bucharest where in the mid-afternoon the new Wallachian constitution, based primarily on the Islaz Proclamation, was acclaimed to the cheers of thousands (7). Elections to the new Wallachian parliament were scheduled for 6 September, while a provisional government was elected on the spot, consciously based upon that of the French Second Republic. As such revolutionary leaders quickly secured positions of power, notably liberals such as Constantin Rosetti and Constantin Rosenthal, both of whom had participated in the Parisian and Viennese revolutions, respectively, as well as conservatives opposed to Bibescu such as Neofit II, the Metropolitan of Ungro-Wallachia, who headed the provisional government.

Proclamation of the Wallachian Constitution​

The new regime promised the crowds emancipation of the serfs, provided they bring in the fall harvest. However in a scene echoing that of events in France and Germany during the 1848 revolutions the peasantry had become radicalized by the revolution, and Wallachian serfs refused to work unless they were fully liberated...

... The Wallachian revolutionaries maintained an ambiguous relation with leaders of the Hungarian Revolution of 1848, as well as with the latter’s ethnic Romanian adversaries in Transylvania...

Reforms in Wallachia

... One of the first decrees issued by the provisional government instituted the horizontal tricolor with the inscription DPEПTATE - ФРЪЦIE ("Justice - Brotherhood" in Romanian Cyrillic as used at the time). It also proclaimed all of the historical civil and noble ranks abolished, declaring the only acceptable distinctions were to be made on the basis of 'virtues and services to the motherland.' The government also instituted several liberal reforms, creating a national guard, militia, abolishing censorship as well as capital and corporal punishment, while freeing all political prisoners. Notably, the official abolition of Roma slavery was sanctioned by decree on 26 June, the culmination of a process started by Romanian liberals as early as 1843 that had been opposed by Bibescu.

Revolutionary Wallachians carrying the tricolor​

However disputes soon arose within the provisional government over the issue of land reform and the corvée, unpaid labor required of the peasantry on behalf of the nobility. Moderates opposed all social reforms, while radicals who favored them were divided over the amount of land to be ceded to the peasantry, as well as over compensation to the boyars for the loss of both the land and free labor. Finally on 28 June the government issued a proclamation calling on the peasants to fulfill their corvées while also indicating to land owners that reform was to come after the harvest. As a result the moderates, led by Ioan Odobescu, rallied the remaining conservatives in the principality and arrested the entire provisional government on 1 July. However the coup was undone by the reaction of the Bucharesters who organized street resistance, co-opted mutinying soldiers, mounted barricades, and stormed the executive's headquarters in the former princely palace. This latter assault, led by Ana Ipătescu, resulted in the arrest of all coup leaders and a reestablishment of the liberal provisional government...

Foreign Reactions

... On 7 July Russian forces entered Moldavia to 'secure the peace,' with the stated aim of forcing their way into Wallachia. The provisional government fled Bucharest, leading the city to fall back into the hands of counter-revolutionaries. Once again however the capitol was retaken by insurgent Bucharesters, organized by Ion Brătianu (8), leader of the revolutionary group Frăøa (Brotherhood), which had been actively working towards a democratic revolution in Wallachia since 1843, who used his network of connections to rally a militia to take back the city.

Faced with the clear hostility of the Russian Emperor Nicholas I, the Wallachian revolutionaries sought instead a rapprochement with the Ottomans. To this purpose Ion Ghica was sent to Istanbul as early as 29 May, where he clarified the revolutionaries’ position as not one of rejecting Ottoman suzerainty, but instead of simply overthrowing a tyrannical government. To this end Ghica was overwhelmingly successful, leading to an agreement with Ottoman Sultan Abdülmecid I, signed 31 July, in which Wallachia promised to honor all obligations to the Sultan in return for Turkish support. The agreement transformed Wallachia into a 'princely lieutenancy,' allowed its own liberal government but owing loyalty to the Sultan. Abdülmecid sent his Grand Vizer, İbrahim Sarim Pasha, to Bucharest at the head of two hundred Turkish cavalrymen to sign the agreement; upon his entrance he was greeted by a cheering crowd waving both the Wallachian and Ottoman flags. Thus warmly received Pasha opted to impose a series of changes designed to appease Russia. He replaced the provisional government with a triumvirate, composed of Ion Heliade Rădulescu, Nicolae Golescu, and Christian Tell, the three leading liberal revolutionaries still within the city. Based on Pasha's explicit advice a delegation was dispatched to Istanbul to negotiate the movement's official recognition in a treaty revising the Organic Statues, led by Nicolae Bălcescu, Ştefan Golescu, and Dimitrie Bolintineanu. At the same time Russian diplomats were busy in Istanbul attempting to persuade the Porte to adopt a more reserved position. The prospect of another Russo-Turkish war was inconvenient for Abdülmecid, who was busy implementing the Tanzimat (Reorganization) reforms. Stratford Canning, the British Ambassador to the Porte, even advised Ottoman officials to intervene against the revolution in the face of Russian aggression, hoping to serve British Prime Minister Palmerston's policy regarding the preservation of Ottoman rule against outside pressures. Ultimately though Abdülmecid met with the delegation... (9)

Aftermath

... ultimately the Concord of Bucharest, a joint treaty signed by the Russians, Ottomans, Moldavians and Wallachians, split the Romanian provinces between the two powers. Russian administration of Moldavia, on the basis of the Organic Statues, was confirmed while the Russians recognized Ottoman suzerainty over the 'princely lieutenancy' of Wallachia, which...

... in Wallachia the parliamentary elections took place slightly later than promised, on 10 September, which returned a strong liberal showing to the new body. For his actions in securing the capitol Brătianu was elected the first Dominator of Wallachia...



(1) A modified quote from Nicolae Ceaușescu, the dictator of Romania OTL from 1965 - 89.

(2) Alexandru Cuza IOTL became the first Domnitor of the United Principalities of Moldavia and Wallachia until 1866 when his liberal-authoritarian regime (modeled upon that of Napoleon III) was overthrown in a coup d'état.

(3) Sturdza's regime had a habit of disposing of bodies in the Danube.

(4) The Romanian revolutionaries, especially the intelligentsia, during the 1848 period and OTL until the Romanian War of Independence had a certain weakness for somewhat archaic but uniquely culturally Latin (Byzantine) titles.

(5) IOTL and ITTL the Wallachian revolutionaries are renowned for being the first in Europe to emancipate the Jews during the 1848 period. The double-emancipation of the Roma as well, as a particularly Romanian issue, was something that further set the Wallachian revolutionaries apart.

(6) Yes, you read that correctly; the Wallachian nobles called for the abolition of the nobility.

(7) Conservative estimates place the number around at least 100,000; a significant portion of the entire principality's total population.

(8) Born to wealthy Argeş landowners in Piteşti, Brătianu entered the Wallachian army in 1838, and in 1841 went to Paris to study. IOTL Brătianu argued in favor of union and autonomy of the Danubian principalities following the failure of the 1848 revolutions, and was sentenced to jail multiple times for sedition before being confined to a lunatic asylum in 1854, though by 1856 he had been released and become a prominent member of the liberal opposition of Wallachia (and Moldavia) under Cuza's reign. After Cuza's overthrow Brătianu acted as Prime Minister twice under Carol I (Prince Karl of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen), where he was renowned for playing off the Russians, Ottomans and Austrians against one another in Romanian's favor, as well as his liberal reforms of the country.

(9) This is the opposite of IOTL, in which Abdülmecid caved to Russian pressure and sent troops to crush the revolution in Wallachia, only for the Russians to intervene regardless just days after the Ottomans, after which they essentially occupied both the principalities, and continued to play a large role in Romanian politics even following the unification of the Kingdom.

ITTL though with developments in Germany and Hungary Abdülmecid, and Nicholas, are eager to 'get a slice of the pie' in the face of collapsing Hapsburg power, while a uniting and expansionist Germany sitting on Russia's flank gives the Tsar enough pause to prevent an invasion into Wallachia or the Ottoman empire proper. Note that this update goes slightly further ahead of previous ones, till roughly mid-August.

 

[wolf_brother]

il Risorgimento, Act 2

[Spacing]

"In the name of Italy, of humanity, of justice, we demand immediate assistance."
- Daniele Manin, president of the Venetian Republic, writing to Sardinian King Charles Albert
22 April 1848​

Rapport, Mike. 1848: Year of Revolution New York: Basic Books, 2008.

... Of all the constitutions wrung from Italian rulers in the first months of 1848, the Piedmontese constitution, or Statuto, of 4 March would prove to be, historically, the most significant for the future of Italy, since it became the constitution of the united North Italian kingdom in 1850. Power was to be shared between the King and the parliament, which comprised a senate and a chamber of deputies. The monarch retained control of the armed forces and foreign policy, and could call and dissolve parliament, but any financial act, including taxation, had to be approved by both chambers. Moreover, if the King prorogued parliament, it had to be summoned again within four months, so there could be no long-term rule without it. Civil rights were also guaranteed. The Statuto resonated across the frontier into Austrian-ruled Lombardy, where Milanese liberals now dared to dream of the possibility of a military invasion by the Piedmontese army, which would chase out the Austrians at the point of '100,000 bayonets'...

Italian Unification

... As early as 21 February the conservative order responded to the Italian uprisings, with Austrian Chancellor Metternich sending Count Joseph von Hübner to act as the Austrian diplomat to the Italian states. von Hübner's mission was to entourage the Italian monarchs to resist nationalist revolution, offering, often threatening, Austrian military intervention to crush the revolutions if necessary, and to present the Austrian view to the press. However he did not leave Vienna until 2 March as Metternich took in the news of the February Revolution. By the time von Hübner arrived in Milan, the protests stirred by the tobacco riots had grown into something much larger. Inspired by the Parisian revolt the Milanese liberals organized a peaceful protest the day of von Hübner's arrival, hoping to persuade the Austrians to grant Lombardy greater autonomy within the Hapsburg monarchy, including press freedom and a civic guard. By 17 March word of Metternich's fall reached both Austrian-held Italian territories...

Lawrence, Sondhaus. "Italians in Austrian Army." Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. 2005 Ed.

By 1848, Lombardy and Venetia were providing the Habsburg army with eight of its fifty -eight line infantry regiments: a total of twenty-four battalions, another seven independent infantry battalions, and one regiment of cavalry, a total of between thirty and thirty-five thousand men. After 1830 over half of the Italian infantry could be found in northern Italy in any given year, mainly because it was more expensive to garrison troops away from home. By the mid-1840s, twenty-one of the thirty-one infantry battalions (around twenty-five thousand men) were stationed with Radetzky's army. At the time of the revolution, they accounted for one-third of the manpower at his disposal. During 1848 around fifteen thousand Italians deserted the Habsburg army, most of them in northern Italy…

Lombardy-Venetia

… Within hours a crowd in Venetia surged across Saint Mark's Square, demanding the release of political prisoners, including radicals such as Daniele Manin (1) and Nicolò Tommaseo, both imprisoned since 18 January for petitioning the Central Congregation of the Austrian province for political reform. As the mob stormed the governor's residence on the piazza, confronting Governor Aloys Palffy on the main staircase, Manin's friends and political allies rushed to the prison where, in a moment of calculated prudence, the jailers released both men...

... The next day Croatian and Hungarian imperial troops attempted to haul down the Italian tricolors that had been left fluttering on Saint Mark's Square since the prior protests. When a gathering crowd began to jeer and heckle the soldiers an enraged officer gave the order to fire; nine Venetians died within seconds as the crowds scattered throughout the city. Hearing of the events, Manin approached Palffy with a proposal to create a civic guard to maintain the peace throughout the city. When Palffy tried to dodge the issue by promising only to consult the Venetian Viceroy, Archduke Rainer in Verona, Manin organized a 2,000 man militia regardless...

... In Lombardy the leaders of the liberal opposition met to discuss their response to the events in Vienna. Republican teacher and intellectual Carlo Cattaneo (2) persuaded the meeting against armed rebellion in the face of overwhelming odds, and, after much debate, the council agreed to a peaceful demonstration the next day to be led by Count Gabriel Casati, the podestà (mayor) of Milan. As the podestà Casati worked frequently with the Austrians, however he was well-known for his patriotic sympathies. Cattaneo, wryly commenting on the division of Casati's two sons between Austrian and Italian positions in the imperial bureaucracy, commented that; "Casati would have divided himself in two to serve both courts at the same time; unable to split himself, he wanted to split his family instead." However Casati was able to convince the vice-governor of Lombardy, Heinrich O'Donnel, not to call out the garrison during the demonstration by arguing that such a move would inflame the city's populace. In an effort to further pacify the restless Milanese, O'Donnel also lifted all censorship within Lombardy. However not all Austrian authorities were so easily persuaded. In response to the continuing strife in Milan Marshal Joseph Radetzky (3), the recently appointed Governor of Lombardy-Venetia, fortified the provincial capitol's city gates with artillery, and reinforced the city guard, mostly with Croats and Hungarians...

... On the morning of 18 March the call was raised throughout Milan; 'Men to the street, women to the windows!' Some 15,000 people marched through the city's streets, many armed, while countless others cheered and waved them on with the red-white-green Italian colors. Importantly, the priesthood of Milan joined the insurrection, wearing the Italian colors over their somber cassocks, carrying arms, and though never confirmed, it is commonly believed the Milanese priests were among the first to give the order raising barricades throughout the city. At the Palazzo del Governo the handful of imperial guards were swept aside by the crowd; hundreds of people stormed the city hall and forced O'Donnel to establish a civic guard of Milanese of independent means. As surety, though, the crowds took O'Donnel hostage...

Rapport, Mike. 1848: Year of Revolution New York: Basic Books, 2008.

... With this act, the frustrated Radetzky, who had been watching events furiously from the sidelines, struck back. His troops doublequicked through the streets to protect such buildings as the police headquarters, the law courts and the army engineering depot. Tyrolean marksmen were posted high among the marble needles of Milan’s great cathedral, from where they would snipe at all and sundry – be they insurgents or hapless citizens caught in the crossfire. The Milanese quickly threw up barricades in the narrow streets of the old city. Bells rang from the church towers to summon people to the defences. Among the first to stand on them were young democratic republicans like the twenty-seven-year-old Enrico Cernuschi. (4) They were joined rapidly by artisans and workers, who formed the backbone of this spontaneous uprising. The republican Carlo Osio sped home from the demonstration and gathered a pistol, a stiletto and an iron bar – making him look more like a street thug than the doctor he was – before running back to help his brother Enrico and others build the barricades. Carlo careered headlong into a police patrol, narrowly escaped their gunshots, then beat a hasty retreat home again, this time to gather the rifle, bayonet and ammunition that he had stowed there. He was a veritable human arsenal. The more conservative patricians implored the insurgents to stand down and avoid the 'inevitable massacre.' Yet few listened – not the comfortable merchants who opened their warehouses to allow the revolutionaries to search for weapons and matériel, not the chemists who helped to make gunpowder, nor the students, workers, women and children who helped to build the barricades and then took part in the fighting. Crossing the piazza in front of the cathedral, Hübner was caught up in a crowd armed with batons. The sky, echoing to a confusion of noise, 'was the colour of lead, and a fine rain, turning later into a downpour, never stopped falling'. While the Milanese held the narrow streets of the historic heart, the Habsburg forces – largely Croats and Hungarians – were firmly installed in some of the major buildings and enveloped the city by holding the walls.

In the first few days the fate of the insurrection – which had no plan and no overall leadership – was desperately uncertain: The parts of the city where the insurrection made most progress were not all in communication with each other beyond there were very broad streets, thinly populated and very difficult to barricade and to defend, down which the enemy’s fire could fall. It was calculated that all the city that first night had only three to four hundred rifles of all kinds available. From the Casa Vidiserti – which served as the first, impromptu headquarters of the uprising because that was where Casati, its reluctant figurehead, had taken refuge – a civic guard was hastily organised...

... The captive vice-governor O’Donnell, who had been transferred to the safer Casa Taverna in the Contrada de’ Bigli. It was there that the republicans under Cattaneo tried to seize the political initiative on 19 March, creating a five-man council of war, including Cattaneo himself and Cernuschi. Notably in the council was also Swiss-born Italian Stefano Franscini. (5) For now, its main purpose was to impose some firm leadership and military direction: Cattaneo had to deploy his great powers of persuasion to dissuade the younger, hotter heads from declaring a Milanese republic then and there. How, he asked, would Lombardy then gain the support of the other Italian states, which were still ranged under monarchist regimes and whose constitutions had barely begun to see the light of day? Instead of enjoying freedom, Italy would be engulfed in civil war. This analysis was perceptive, but the establishment of the Council of War still created a rival – and republican – seat of power against Casati’s liberal, monarchist municipality...

The Five Days of Milan

... Count Enrico Martiniti and Count Carlo d'Adda, two leading Milanese liberals, reached Turin on 19 March after slipping out in the confusion of the early days of fighting. There they pleaded with King Charles Albert to send military assistance to Milan and force the Austrians out of Lombardy. However Charles Albert rebuked them at first until...

... by 20 March imperial troops were struggling under the horrifying affects of street combat as Radetzky attempted to tackle each barricade at once. Hübner later wrote; "no one could be seen: they were men armed with rifles, woman armed with stones and jogs of boiling water, hidden behind closed blinds, seeing without being seen themselves. It was this invisible enemy, which seemed to murder rather than fight, which worked on a soldier's imagination, which upset his nerves and demoralized him." Insurgents on the roofs and upper floors trade fire with the Austrian troops on the streets below; stray bullets shatter the walls of buildings and tear through the air between rooms, terrifying the residents, and killing several. Even as the Austrians attempted to circumvent the barricades by smashing holes through the adjoining walls of buildings, Radetzky was forced to abandon his home to the revolutionaries. With this event Radetzky changed his strategy, and withdrew his forces to the city walls to besiege the insurgents within. While Radetzky was secure, other high-ranking Austrians officials in Lombardy, such as Hübner nor O'Donnel, were not, with the later arrested by a revolutionary crowd on 21 March. They marched him through the now open streets carrying the Italian tricolors, chanting "Long live Italy! Love live Pius!" Hoping to end the violence Radetzky ordered his officers to open negations for a truce; however Casati hesitated, and Cattaneo flat-out refused to entertain any talk of a pause in the fighting. As such, both centers of political power in Milan effectively rejected Radetzky's peace offering. However even as Radetzky's peace was rejected, outside of the city the revolution was spreading, with roaming patrols of independent peasantry forcing the Austrian garrisons out of the small provincial towns surrounding Milan such as Como and Monza. Notably among these units was a Swiss-Italian force of less than one-hundred led expertly by James Luvini-Perseghin... (6)

... World-renowned for its University, one of the largest in Europe, Milanese throughout the Five Days found ingenuous ways to match the more heavily armed Austrians. Astronomers climbed the highest towers of the city and used their tools to send bulletins of enemy movement to fellow insurgents below, while instead of wasting time climbing stairs they instead attached their reports to small rings along iron wires. Cernuschi, notably, organized a messenger system using children from the city's orphanage. Perhaps most infamously though, Milanese messages for aid were sent out of the city into the peasant countryside tied to small balloons - most of which drifted into Piedmont, but several also into Switzerland, and there were recorded instances of Milanese balloons reaching as far as France or the South German states...

... That night Martiniti snuck back into the city with grim news for the revolutionaries; Charles Albert agreed to send military aid against the Austrians only if the Milanese formally asked for his assistance. Charles Albert had strenuously argued to Martiniti that he would need to justify his invasion to the other European powers. In the early hours of the morning Cattaneo argued tirelessly that Milan should rebut Charles Albert's offer, but eventually the Milanese leadership agreed to compromise whereby the call for assistance was issued in the name of Milan 'to all the peoples and all the princes of Italy.' Unknown to the Milanese of the time this would have far-reaching consequences throughout the Italian peninsula during the unification...

... By dawn's break Casati had formed a provisional government which unambiguously assumed leadership of the insurrection, a move which Cattaneo immediately bowed to. Cattano and Casati both agreed, and the provisional government declared by mid-morning, that all political arguments were to postponed until the fighting was over; 'After the victory (A causa vinta), it will be for the nation to discuss and pronounce its own destinies.' Starting roughly around seven o'clock the insurgents made a determined effort against the Porta Torsa, where Austrian-held bastions were closest to the heart of the city, by blasting cannon and firing from windows and rooftop positions at the Austrians on the gate and in the customs post. Imperial troops replied with Congreve rockets and soon the surrounding houses were in flames. Once again showing their inventiveness, the final assault took place under the protection of moving barricades. The battle was the deadliest of the Five Days, with an exchange of fire unheard of previously in Europe insurrections; the one-man arsenal Osio would later claim to have fired 150 cartridges alone. The young democratic nobles Luciano Manara and Enrico Dandolo were the first to make the final dash, with Dandolo waving the tricolor as the rest of the insurgents followed up behind, an action that would later earn Dandolo the Ordine della Confederazione d'Italia. The gate was beaten down, and within minutes Lombard peasants who had been trapped outside join the revolutionaries within, pouring through the gate in the thousands. Radetzky ordered his troops to withdraw from Milan to the Quadrilateral of fortresses at Verona, Perchiera, Mantua and Legnano that barred the path into Austria proper, but only after spending the night bombarding the city with his heaviest artillery. However he ordered the cathedral, churches and public buildings spared, believing that Milan was soon to be occupied again...

... And so on 23 March King Charles Albert declared war on Austrian and sent his army across the River Ticino into Lombardy, starting the First Italian War of Independence...

The Five Days of Milan​

Venetian Revolution

... On 19 March word arrived in Venice from Trieste of the promised imperial constitution via steamer from Trieste. To cries over 'Long live Italy!' and 'Long live the Emperor!', Palffy read out the Emperor's proclamation to an ecstatic crowd. However, word also began to spread through the city of the insurrection in Milan. That night Manin and other Venetian revolutionaries gathered to discuss strategies, and finally in the early morning hours agreed to a plan for an insurrection of their own on 22 March. The Venetians plans made heavy use of the 1,500 Italian sailors and dockworkers - the arsenalotti - who bore staunch grievances against their Austrian masters. However, independent of Manin's plans the arsenalotti made the first move spontaneously on the planned day when they confronted Austrian Dockmaster Captain Marinovich with their own demands. Marinovich was left virtually defenseless when the Hapsburg naval commander in Venice, Admiral Martini, ordered the Croatian guard on the docks to stand down for fear of provoking an insurrection like that of Milan. While attempting to escape Marinovich was beaten to a pulp (7) and left for dead in the boat shed. Manin, horrified by the brutality of the dockworkers, sent out his civic guard to enforce the peace. Arriving just a few hours later Manin took over formal control of the arsenal when the Hapsburg Italian troops refused to follow their mostly Croatian and Hungarian commander's order to stop him; instead the Italian units turned on their comrades and joined the insurgents.

As Manin's guards spread throughout the city, a detachment captured the ill-defended Austrian cannons lined up in front of Saint Mark's Cathedral. Wheeling the guns about they brought them to face the governor's palace, where Palffy had summoned an emergency meeting of the city's municipal government. As they debated, outside the square the civic guard, now joined by Venetian civilians in the thousands, unfurled a huge flag of the Italian tricolors topped with a red Jacobin cap, while Manin hailed before the crowd 'Long live the republic! Long live Saint Mark!' As the Hapsburg authorities trembled with fear inside the governor’s palace, the only republican city councilor, the lawyer Gian Francisco Avensania, demanded that all non-Italian troops be withdrawn from Venice and that all forts surrender to the Venetians, along with their ordnance, weaponry, and pay chests. Immediately after this pronouncement Palffy resigned as governor, handing control over to Austrian garrison commander Count Ferdinand Zichy. However Zichy, who had come to love his adopted city, in turn relinquished power to the city municipality just a few hours later, effectively granting power to Avesani who had quickly become the leader of the municipal government. However, Avesani recognized that no government would have legitimacy among the Venetians without Manin, and so in the early hours of 23 March he resigned and Manin was proclaimed President of the provisional government of the Venetian Republic. Within hours the imperial army had abandoned the city and retreated to join Radetzky's forces heading for the Quadrilateral. The official report sent to Vienna opened simply: 'Venice has fallen.'

'Italian Crusade'

... In Rome popular radical leader Angelo Brunetti, better known by his moniker Cicuracchio, and Barnabite monk Father Alessandro Gavazzi (8), presided over a ceremony on 23 March held in the Roman Coliseum; 'the setting sun came through the arches in bright stripes. The innumerable crowd filled the center; on the arches, on the walls, in the half-ruined lodges people crowded - people sat, stood, or lay everywhere. In one of the prominent lodges was Pater Gavazzi, tired, pouring sweat, but ready to speak again.' Gavazzi electrified the audience with his rallying cry that he had spread across Italy: 'Fuori i barbari!' ('Out with the barbarians!') The two patriots recruited members for a volunteer Roman Legion to fight the Austrians, to which Gavazzi offered his services as chaplain to the legion, declaring that the Christian cross and the Italian tricolor stood side-by-side.

Two days later 10,000 Roman volunteers, nicknamed the crociati (crusaders) left Rome under the command of the republican Colonel Andrea Ferrari. They joined the 7,000 troops already sent north under the command of Piedmontese general Giacomo Durando, whom Pius IX had invited to command his soldiers. However, Pius' orders to Durando were vague; the Papal troops were to march north to the frontier of the Papal States, from where they were to offer the Piedmontese invasion of Austria their support - but to what extent and how were left, deliberately, unclear. By 5 April though, Durando had made up his own mind. In a proclamation penned by novelist Massimo d'Azeglio, Durando summoned his men to nothing less than a holy war against Austria, a nominally Catholic country. Pius Xi, he declared to his men, 'had blessed your swords which are to exterminate the enemies of God and of Italy. Such a war is not merely national, but highly Christian.'

... At a public gathering on 26 March attended by Grand Duke Leopold himself, Tuscan moderates led by Baron Bettino Ricasoli whipped up support for the 'Italian Crusade;' Leopold agreed to send of force of some 7,700 men to join the Piedmontese campaign in Lombardy...

... On 7 April the illustrious professional revolutionary and Italian patriotic nationalist Gieseppe Mazzini reached Milan...

... At the Battle of Gotio, on 8 April, Piedmontese forces drove the Austrian back, crossed the Mincio River and penetrated into the Austrian Quadrilateral. However, the Austrian garrison in nearby Mantua refused to capitulate though they were surrounded, and Charles Albert was forced to halt his advance in order to enclose and lay siege to the city in order to protect his supply lines. On the political front, Charles Albert invited Giuseppe Mazzini (9), recently returned to Milan from his exile in London, to accept the Savoyard monarchy in Lombardy in return for a role in drafting a democratic constitution for the united North Italian kingdom, an offer impossible for Mazzini to accept. Just days later in move designed to counter Charles Albert with an absurd demand of his own, in a widely published open letter Mazzini wrote; "Let Ch. Albert break openly every diplomatic tie, every connection with other princes: let him sign a proclamation to Italy for absolute unity, with Rome as a metropolis, and for an overthrow of all other Italian princes: we should be soldiers under his banner, se no, no (if not, then no)."

Another important republican revolutionary soon received word of the Italian revolutions; Giuseppe Garibaldi, then fighting as head of a volunteer Italian Legion in the Uruguayan Civil War. Immediately he and sixty-three other Italian volunteers set sail from the River Plate...

... Soon cracks began to show between Charles Albert's apparent liberal reputation and his actual goal of a Savoyard North Italian state. On 16 April Count Di Castagnetto, a prominent member of Charles Albert's court in Turin, wrote a stern warning to the provisional government in Milan, expressing his displeasure with the apparent republicanism in Lombardy. "This, my dear Casati, is too much. The only talk at Milan apparently is of a republic; and they even want Genoa to go republican too. Bad faith comes into this, and so does foreign intrigue and foreign money." He ends his later with an appeal to Casati personally, decrying him to "save our country and mine! Save it a second time, for this danger is no less than you overcame a month ago."

... The Austrian counter-attack began, weathered but still strong, on 17 April when imperial forces under Count Laval Nugent began to build up along the eastern Venetian border. Five days later Nugent's army captured Udine, a small but pivotal town, with a strong strategic position due to its well-kept roads which fanned out across the Venetian countryside after only a few hours of nighttime bombardment. The responses by the Italians to the conservative backlash were varied. Manin wrote his now infamous letter to Charles Albert pleading for assistance, while further south Durando disobeyed his orders and crossed the papal frontier, intent on joining the 'crusade.' Others, though, would instead...

... In response to Durando's actions, Pius IX issued an allocution on 29 April in which he repudiated 'the treacherous advice of those who would have the Roman Pontiff to be the head and to preside over the formation of some sort of novel republic of the whole Italian people.' He also openly declared his abandonment of the League of Italian States. The reaction in Rome itself was one of stunned disbelief that quickly turned to anger; riots broke out across Rome within hours of the pronouncement. On May Day, as protests continued to wrack Rome, Pius appointed a new cabinet led by left-wing liberal and personal friend Count Terenzio Mamiani, who was popular for his support of the war and his oft-stated belief that the new Papal constitution had to be 'enlarged' - that is the parliament should have more power vis-à-vis the Pope - and that the state had a role in guaranteeing the means of subsistence to its poorest citizens. At the opening of the new Papal parliament on 5 June, Mamiani expressed support for Italian nationalism, but insisted that it must take the form of the now Papal-denounced Italian League, with the Pope as the head. The radical minority in the parliament, led by Charles Lucien Bonaparte (10) and Pietro Sterbini, a physician, rejected the idea of Papal unification, and...

... As Piedmontese forces continue to advance they successful defeated the Austrians at Pastrengo on 29 and 30 April, driving the Hapsburg forces further out of Italian territory. To the south, Durando's Papal forces and Ferrari's crociati reached the Piave River just hours before Nugent's Austrian vanguard. The Italians burned the bridge, denying the Hapsburg access across the river; however Nugent maneuvered his forces around the Italians by leaving one division behind as a decoy while marching his remaining forces further north. Following this Durando formally put his forces under Charles Albert's command…

The Battle of Pastrengo​

… Even further south, an exasperated Pepe, whose troop’s only numbered 14,000 instead of the promised forty thousand, received orders from King Ferdinand's new war ministry telling him to await further orders just as Pepe had reached the south bank of the Po river...

... falsely informed that the population of Verona, the HQ of Radetzky himself, was ready to rise up, Charles Albert sent his troops against that fortress, only to be driven back by an Austrian counter-attack. Changing his strategy after this embarrassing set-back, Charles Albert decided to focus the bulk of his forces upon the continued siege of Peschiera. The Italian cause suffered another setback when, on 9 May, Nugent's Austrian troops ambushed Ferrari's Roman volunteers at Cornuda. Fighting stubbornly all day under the promise that Durando was on his way 'at the double,' Ferrari's forces were forced to surrender by evening, after most of the volunteer legion had thrown down their arms in retreat. Durando's forces, just scant hours away (11), embarked by trains (12) to Vicenza to quickly move to catch Nugent's forces once again. However it was not to be, as by 25 May Nugent had reinforced Radetzky's position, adding his 18,000-strong corps to the Marshal's 51,000 men in Verona. However Durando continued to hold Vicenza, threatening the Austrian lines.

Thus reinforced, Radetzky's host attacked the Tuscan forces in Lombardy, defeating them twice at Curtatone and Montanara. As the Austrians drive the Italian patriots back they mockingly called 'Viva Pio Nono!' With these two defeats the small and unstable Duchy of Tuscany was effectively knocked out of the war. However, even after this defeat the Austrians were held ay bay by the Piedmontese at the Second Battle of Goito, where upon the exhausted garrison of Perchiera surrendered. Radetzky quickly withdrew his forces to Mantua to rest. By 10 May though Radetzky was on the offensive again, storming the Roman-held city of Vicenza. After twelve hours of fierce hand-to-hand fighting through the city streets Durando is forced to capitulate. His men were allowed to march out of the city with full military honors, however they were forced to withdraw south of the Po and promise not to fight for another three months...

... Even as the war raged, the provisional government of Milan declared on 12 May that a referendum would be held throughout Lombardy over the next seventeen days. The question posed was simply over the timing of the 'fusion' with Piedmont; whether it should take place immediately or at the end of the war. No other option (federation, republic, autonomy, etc) was offered. It was an orchestrated, backed by an agreement that the provisional government was promised by Turin that a constituent assembly would meet to discuss changes to Charles Albert's still recently issued Piedmontese constitution to take into consideration the 'fusion' of Lombardy. The reaction among the republican Italians was immediate, and fierce. Mazzini condemned both the breach of the Lombard political truce, and the idea of Northern Italian Kingdom...

... On the last day of voting, desperate Milanese democrats attempted to storm the municipal chambers with allegations of voter fraud and election rigging, however the mostly bourgeois and liberal civic guard prevented them from entering. Mazzini denounces the move, declaring that force should not 'interrupt the course of our pacifistic evangelism.' With an overwhelming turnout of 84% of eligible voters, the results of the referendum were unquestionable; 560,000 in favor of immediate fusion, to less than 700 against. As word spreads from Milan of Lombardy's immediate 'fusion' to Piedmont, the Duchies of Parma and Moderna quickly began their own voting efforts for annexation by Piedmont...

... The Italian War could have drawn to close in mid-Summer, when Baron Johann Wessenberg, the Austrian Foreign Minister sent orders to Radetzky to 'end the costly war in Italy' by negotiating a ceasefire on the basis of independence for Lombardy, though not Venetia, most of which has already been recaptured. At the time the Austrian court had decided to focus their efforts exclusively upon the Hungarian issue; however, luckily for both independence movements, Radetzky refused to withdraw from Italy. Writing back to Vienna Radetzky declared; 'We have sunk low, but by God, not yet so low that we should take orders from Casati!' This gained Radetzky backing from Latour, the Minister of War, and...

Southern Italy

... on 25 March the Sicilian parliament opened in Parlermo with the proclamation that the ancient rights of the island were restored, however Sicily would be willing to form part of an Italian federation...

... By 29 March, Princess Cristina di Belgiojoso, originally from Lombardy, sailed forth from Naples on steamer carrying 184 volunteers bound for the war with Austria. Back in the Neapolitan capitol, General Guglielmo Pepe (13) returned to Naples from exile at the invitation of King Ferdinand in order to form a liberal government. Pepe however demands the King send him north at the head of an army to aid the Piedmontese in Lombardy. By 7 April Ferdinand was able to force Pepe to resign, but was unable to resist popular pressure to join the war against Austria. Killing two birds with one stone, he granted Pepe's requested, formally asking the general to command his 40,000-strong army. However Pepe quickly found his efforts to organize the force hampered by the foot-dragging King, who was 'determined to do all he could to ensure that the army remain[ed] numerically weak, lacking in everything, and incapable, in all, of lending powerful support to the Italian cause." It was only by 28 April that Pepe was able to disembark his land forces from Ancona for the march northward, while a Neapolitan squadron consisting of seven frigates, five of steam and two sail, as well as two brigs set sail for Venice to raise the Austrian blockade.

By 13 April, as King Ferdinand continued to refuse to negotiate with the Sicilians, the parliament in Palermo decreed the Bourbon monarchy deposed; 'Sicily does not demand new institutions, but the restorations of rights which have been hers for centuries.' While Ruggiero Settimo was elected President of a provisional government, the parliament immediately set out to find protection in the form of a powerful House to rule Sicily. During Settimo's rule the Sicilian parliament also adopted a new flag; that of the traditional Sicilian three-legged triskelion head defaced on the Italian tricolor. However even as the parliamentarians work to bring about a liberal order along the coasts, much of the interior countryside was controlled by the squadre, which had supporters and blackmailed delegates within the parliament, leaving the criminal gang de facto in control of much of the island...

The Sicilian Flag​

... During the first meeting of the Neapolitan parliament King Ferdinand demanded that the delegates swear an oath to maintain the existing constitution. In order to back up this demand, Ferdinand concentrated some 12,000 troops in the city center. In a scene echoing others across Europe, as the monarchy attempted to crack down on dissent a radical backlash took place, and barricades were once again thrown up throughout the royal capitol. In the early morning hours of 15 May the first shots were fired out in Naples, as Ferdinand's troops, led by Swiss Guards (14), advance down the Toledo. While the Swiss engaged in grisly hand-to-hand fighting at the barricades, the Bourbon army used cannon to blast apart barricades further apart, as well as knock-down buildings and structures that by their proximity to each other formed natural choke-points throughout the ancient city. Red flags of martial law and defiance are flown throughout the city by the insurgents, but for the most part the would-be revolutionaries were disorganized. Thus when by three o'clock a committee of seventy deputies of the various barricades tried to organize resistance from the seat of the municipal government in the Monteoliveto district, just four hours later royalist troops smashed through the barricades protecting the district and captured the entire committee. Lord Napier, the British consul to King Ferdinand, later reported to London that some two hundred soldiers were killed, and four hundred wounded, with the Swiss bearing the brunt of the casualties. He offered no death toll for the insurgents, but reported that some seven hundred were taken prisoners. However most damning was Rapier's report on the actions of Ferdinand's troops, which from London was widely republished and read across all of Europe.

"No doubt a number of innocent persons, and even some women and children, fell victim to the soldiers on their first irruption into the interior of the houses. The Neapolitan troops, during the course of the evening and the night, committed great excesses, extorting sums of money by threats of personal violence, and even wantonly wounding and insulting inoffensive person."​

Napier's 'excesses' included summarily shootings, and the looting of most of the city's rubble by the lazzaroni (15), signifying their return to royal loyalties by disarming the National Guard and parading through the streets waving the Bourbon flag and cheering 'Long live the King!' Within the end of the week Ferdinand dissolved the parliament, declaring that the deputies had formed a 'committee of public safety' (16) to throw the country into civil war...

... even as King Ferdinand withdrew from the Italian cause his Neapolitan squadron dropped anchor in the Venetian lagoon after driving off the much smaller Austrian blockade, to a rapturous welcome by the republic's population...



(1) Born into a large Jewish family in Venice, his father took on the name Pietro Manin in honor of the sponsor of his baptism, the Doge Lodovico Manin. Manin himself was baptized and converted to Christianity as a child. From an early age Manin fermented a hatred for the occupying Austrians, and began the 'legal struggle' movement in Austria while studying law at Padua. He played a large role in the Italian struggle for unity and independence across the peninsula during the 1848 period, and is generally regarded as a 'Founding Father' of Italy. IOTL after the 1848 period he was exiled to France, with his wife dying at Marseilles as they reached the city.

(2) Born in Milan, during his youth Cattaneo took part in the Carbonari, a network of secret revolutionary societies for Italian unification. Graduating from Pavia in 1824 he taught secondary school while working on his own newspaper, Il Politecnico. Cattaneo's reputation was so great that he his advice was often sought by the Hapsburg authorities in Lombardy before 1848, in which he fought for Italian unification. IOTL after the revolutionary period he was elected to the unified Italian parliament in 1868, but he wasn't seated as he refused to swear his allegiance to the Savoyard monarchy.

(3) Born of a noble family in Bohemia before being orphaned at an early age, Radetzky was raised and educated by his grandfather, and after the count's death, at the Theresa Academy in Vienna. He enrolled in the Austrian army in 1785, and by the following year was an officer. Rising quickly through the ranks Radetzky fought during the Napoleonic Wars, becoming Chief of the Austrian General Staff in 1809, though he was unable to carry out his desired reforms due to opposition from the Treasury, and resigned the position in 1812. The following year he became Karl Philipp von Schwarzenberg's chief of staff, and during the Congress of Vienna he acted as an intermediary between Metternich and Tsar Alexander, the two of whom were not on speaking terms. Finally raised to a general in 1829 Radetzky served in putting down numerous revolts in the Italian states during the 1830 revolutionary wave. IOTL he was Viceroy of Lombardy-Venetia from 1848 to 1857, and in spite of his successes against the revolutionaries is remembered kindly as a fair ruler (for an enemy) and a gentlemen.

(4) Nicknamed 'the little Robespierre,' Cernuschi was born of wealth parents, he studied law in Milan before giving it up to work in the more 'commonly' profession of a sugar refinery. Playing a major role in Milan and later Rome, IOTL Cernuschi emigrated to France where he acquired a large fortune in banking and commerce.

(5) See Chapter #2 for details. IOTL obviously Franscini was not there, making Catterno's council only four instead of five. Note the ITTL author's reference to Franscini as 'Italian'

(6) See citation #5.

(7) Literally, a pulp. ITTL Austrian-German conspiracy theorists and speculative history writers maintain that the body found was actually not that of Marinovich.

(8) Becoming a monk in 1825, Gavazzi taught as a professor of rhetoric at Naples before being exiled for his liberal views. He served a prominent role in Rome during the 1848 period, and IOTL afterward he would become Giuseppe Garibaldi's army-chaplain in 1860.

(9) Nicknamed the "Soul of Italy," Mazzini was perhaps the most fervent of activists for Italian unification. Born in Genoa, then part of the Ligurian Republic, Mazzini grew up in a radical household; his father was a Jacobin, while his mother was a Jansenist. Admitted to university at only 14, Mazzini graduated with a master's degree in law at 21, initially practicing as a 'poor man's lawyer.' In 1830 he became a member of the Carbonari, though he quickly became disillusioned with the scattered network's lack of an overall political strategy. In the 1830s he took part in a number of failed insurrections throughout Italy before being exiled to London. IOTL after the 1848 period fled to Switzerland before returning to London until 1860 in which he joined Garibaldi's Expedition of the Thousand.

(10) Prince of Canino and Musignan, the son of Lucien Bonaparte and the nephew of Napoléon I, Charles L. Bonaparte was raised in Italy before moving to the United States. A naturalist and ornithologist by career, C.L. Bonaparte however maintained the family tradition of politics, moving to Rome in 1828 Bonaparte played a large role there in the 1848-49 period. IOTL after the losses in the Italian states Bonaparte fled to France, only to be exiled by his cousin Louis Napoleon.

(11) Durando had, unfortunately, paused just long enough to augment his already professional forces with skilled Swiss (Italian-speaking, of course) mercenaries. If not for this Durando's forces could have caught Nugent's between the hammer and anvil of Italian patriots.

(12) One of the first recorded instances of trains being used in such a way on a tactical level.

(13) Entering the army at an early age, Pepe took part in the Neapolitan Republic in 1799 and fought against Bourbon troops. Eventually captured, he was exiled to France, where he served under Napoleon for several years, before through a convoluted path arrived under the service of Ferdinand I, King of the Two Sicilies. Pepe served across Italy during the 1848 period, before IOTL being exiled once again, this time to Piedmont, where he died in 1855.

(14) Swiss Guards, unlike other Swiss mercenaries, were notorious for their vaunted conservatism, one of the many reasons they continue IOTL to act as the Pope's guards.

(15) King Ferdinand made great in-roads towards recapturing the loyalty of this groups after the events of January, an investment which paid off handsomely for the Bourbon king.

(16) Note the use of the Napoleonic tradition and its symbolism by both liberals and conservatives during the 1848 period.

 

[FDW]

Nice update.

 

[Ganesha]

I haven't had time yet to read all of the updates, but this timeline looks to be excellently researched, plausible, and most of all, original. Keep up the great work, wolfbrother!

 

[wolf_brother]

La D'été Rouge

[Spacing]

"The revolution is to begin anew. Friends, our cause is that of our fathers. They carried on their banners these words: Liberty or Death. - Friends! Liberty or Death!."
- Louis Pujol, former Gouverneur Général de l'Inde française, at the onset of the June Days
23 June 1848​

Social Question

The Social Question referred to the continuous and abject misery of both the urban and rural poor in post-Napoleonic Europe. The topic of hundreds of volumes of text by the period's radical writers, the Social Question was largely ignored by the conservative order of the era, which, for the most part, preferred to act as though the entire Napoleonic episode had never occurred. This of course only led to more rampant and widespread destitution...

... The constant hardship of Europe in the post-1815 age can be attributed to a plethora of factors, ranging from famine and crop failures to disease outbreaks (such as cholera throughout Germany), and business cycle fluctuations. However most historians agree that primary cause of the endemic poverty of the period was the early phases of the Capitalist Revolution, sometimes also referred to as the Second Industrial Revolution, which drastically changed the class-power structure in Europe and...

McKnight, William. The Revolutionary Tradition: France in the Nineteenth Century. St. Louis: Traditions Publishing, 2009.

... The revolution in France had brought together classes of wildly difference interests. The bourgeoisie republicans desired electoral reform and increased liberties (a democracy), while the proletariat socialists desired a Right to Work, and a republic willing to tackle the Social Question (a sociocracy (1)). Extremists in both factions also wished for a France that would liberate the oppressed people of Europe (Poles, Italians and Swiss) from the conservative order, while moderates sought a pacifist route. Tensions between the groups began to escalate soon after the initial February Revolution, leading to the June Days...

June Days Uprising

The June Days Uprising (French: les journées de Juin) was an attempted revolution staged by the citizens of France, mostly Paris, whose only source of income was the National Workshops, from 23 June to 25 June 1848. The Workshops were created by the Second Republic in order to provide work and a source of income for the unemployed, however only menial jobs were available which barely provided enough income to survive... (2)

Background

... On 26 April workers in Rouen demonstrated against the moderate victory in the French parliamentary elections. The protesters were confronted by National Guardsman, and in the disorder the panicked officer gave the cavalry the order to charge, leading to at least one death. Rouen had always been a hotbed of revolutionary proletariat action, and by the noon hours the city was in a full-scale insurrection, with workers using torn-up paving stones to build barricades, and armed themselves with home-made weapons from the very factories they worked at. The next day however, in what became known as the Rouen Massacre, the National Guards brought up artillery and blasted apart the insurgent’s barricades, killing twenty-three...

... On 4 May the newly elected National Assembly met for its first session. Its' membership reflected the wide chasms in French society at the time, with delegates ranging in composition from Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte, elected on his name alone after his return from exile in London, the anarchist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon (3), and writer Victor Hugo... (4)

The Illustrated London News story of the French National Assembly(5)​

... Indeed, by 12 May, speaking to the démoc-socs leader Victor Considérant, the radical (6) Prefect of Police's second-in-command, Joseph Sobrier, commented that the new National Assembly could not afford to offend 'public sentiments' (meaning demonstrators, meaning the Left). "Their dignity imperiously commands they do not appear to give into the pressure of the People," rather they would have to show unity with the marchers in "a spontaneous, magnificent momentum of patriotism, a solemn commission of Peoples, a great triumph carried off by democracy." Sobrier's commentary gives the contemporary reader an insight into the mindset of the 1848-period socialists, who believed that the revolution was only half-complete after the February Revolution, and like that earlier upheaval the liberals would once again join the radicals against the conservative order...

... At eleven o'clock on 15 May a crowd of 20,000 marched on the National Assembly. Led by Aloysius Huber, President of the Club des Clubs, the central coordinating body of the Parisian radicals, the march was intended to be a peaceful demonstration in support of the Polish revolts, word of whose defeat was just beginning to reach Paris. The Executive Commission, the new government chosen by the recently elected National Assembly (7), was well aware of the planned march as the radicals did not keep it a secret, but choose not to provoke a reaction by bringing out the military; though the Assembly itself was guarded by the militia. Upon reaching their goal some three thousand of the marchers broke away from the crowd and stormed the chamber...

Rapport, Mike. 1848: Year of Revolution New York: Basic Books, 2008.

'I could never have imagined that such a mass of human voices could make such an immense noise,' wrote an astounded Tocqueville, who was sitting in his deputy's seat. Lamartine strode up and down as he made a futile effort to parley with the invaders. At this the crowd’s discipline evaporated, Alexandre Raspail – whose fiery petition had been hastily adopted by the demonstration because Huber had absent-mindfully left the official one behind – strode into the chamber and read out his address. He could scarcely be heard above the din. The situation went from bad to worse when the pallid revolutionary socialist Louis-Auguste Blanqui rose to the tribune. (8) Tocqueville, who was seeing him for his first and only time, wrote that Blanqui had "gaunt and withered cheeks, white lips, a dirty pallor, a mildewed appearance, no visible white linen, an old frock-coat stuck to his pockmarked and emaciated limbs; he seemed to have been living in a sewer and just come out of it." Given Blanqui’s politics and character – uncompromising, austere, violent, sometimes sarcastic, socialist and revolutionary – it is scarcely surprising that moderates should have recoiled. Yet he had good cause to have a sinister appearance: his wife had died while he was in prison, and ever since he had worn black from head to toe, without even a white shirt to diminish his mourning; even his hands were sheathed in black gloves...

... Now, on 15 May, he demanded that Poland be restored, but when he had said his piece, he was surrounded by a crowd which chanted, 'Rouen! Rouen! Speak of Rouen!' – a reference to a massacre of workers at the hands of the authorities in the Norman city in April. The chaos then descended into full-blown anarchy, as speakers including Barbès demanded, variously: immediate war on behalf of Poland; the outlawing of those who were 'traitors' to the fatherland; the sacking of the new, conservative ministers; and the creation of a special committee to oversee the new government. As the National Guard finally arrived to clear the chamber of the invaders, Huber, losing his cool in the heat of the moment, forgot his earlier efforts to ensure that the demonstration would be peaceful and shook his fist at the president, shouting that the National Assembly had betrayed the people and was thereby 'dissolved.' This left an opening for the demonstrators to declare a new government made up of the republican left, including Barbès, Louis Blanc, Ledru-Rollin, Caussidière and Albert. (9) When the chamber was cleared by the National Guards, some three to four hundred people led by Barbès moved on to the Hôtel de Ville and began issuing decrees. When, at last, the National Guards finally arrived, Barbès told them that he was too busy to be arrested since he was now a government minister. Unimpressed, the Guards marched him off to the château at Vincennes, where he was imprisoned along with Albert, Raspail and Huber. Blanqui managed to give the police the slip and remained at large until 26 May. The journée of 15 May was over: what had started as an orderly demonstration had degenerated into a near riot that may have been a clumsy attempt at a coup d’état. It finished as a farce, but a farce that would have tragic repercussions for the Second Republic.

Reaction to 15 May

... The only socialist within the new government, Precture of Police Marc Caussidière, was forced to retire from his position because his militia had done nothing to stop the invasion of the National Assembly. However, his men, loyal to Caussidière, barricaded themselves inside the Precture until submitting following a brief siege led by General Bedeua...

... Furthermore, within five days of the attempted coup the Executive Commission put the National Workshops under investigation. The committee placed in charge eventually discovered that the Workshops employed some 115,000 people, several magnitudes more than the national government had believed. The royalist Frédéric Alfred Pierre, comte de Falloux, a member of the committee, concluded the report that the public workers were "from the perspective of industry, nothing less than permanent strike (10) costing 170,000 francs a day, [and] from a political point of view, the active source of menacing agitation." Within a week, following the Commission's investigation, Émile Thomas, the manager of the National Workshops, was dismissed from his post. Further, on 5 June the National Assembly passed laws regulating public gathers in an attempt to crack down on socialist activity...

... When, on 4 June, the French by-elections closed Louis-Napoléon was elected in four separate constituencies, including Paris. As Parisians throughout the city cheered 'Bonaparte,' workers gathered on the boulevards, and, mixing démoc-socs slogans with chants of 'Long live Poleon! We'll have Poleon!,' an affectionate nick-name for Louis-Napoléon. Before the week was up, Proudhorn, in a widely read and circulated newspaper article, warned that; "eight days ago, Citizen Bonaparte was nothing but a black dot in a fiery sky; the day before yesterday, he was still only a smoke-filled ball; today he is a cloud-carrying storm and a tempest in its flanks." Recognizing the power, and the threat, of the Bonaparte name and Louis-Napoléon's increasing popularity, on 12 June Lamartine and Ledru-Rollin presented a bill before the National Assembly barring Louis-Napoléon from his seat. The two argued that a 'pretender' who had twice tried to seize power could not be a deputy, while Lamartine declared "We will never allow the republic to be sold, under any name, into the hands of few fanatics!" In response Louis-Napoléon's supporters gathered on the Place de la Concorde; mostly unemployed workers from the National Workshops, the crowd was so large, and their chants so loud, that across the Seine in the National Assembly could hear the cries of 'Vive l'Emperuer!' The Assembly promptly rejected the bill. However four days later Louis-Napoléon stunned the Assembly by resigning his seat, arguing that doing so was for good of France. "I desire order and support a Republic which is wise, great, and intelligent, but since I have been involuntarily the cause of disorder, I place my resignation in your hands, with deep regrets."

The June Days

... Things came to a head when on 20 June the National Assembly dissolved the National Workshops, and further ordered that the workers should either be drafted into the army, or sent to drain the marshes in the Sologne. The response of the critically unemployed was immediate, with demonstrations spontaneously arising throughout the major industrial cities of France. The marching workers demand not only a Right to Work, but also a democratic and social republic; and further they called for Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte. Two days later, some one thousand protesters (11), organized into two professional columns, marched through Paris, shouting that they would not be sent to the Sologne, and would take up arms against the National Assembly if they must. From their chants it was clear the protesters expected support from the Mobile Guard (garde mobile), and Once again, there were also cries for Louis-Napoléon. In response to these events, Louis Eugène Cavaignac, now Minister of War, put the Parisian military garrison on a state of alert by noon. At mid-day the crowds dispersed, but agreed to reassemble on the square outside of the Panthéon that evening. By five o'clock some five thousand workers filled the square before setting off, again in two organized columns, to rally the working-class suburbs of Faubourg Saint-Marcel to the South and Faubourg Saint-Antoine across the river to the East. By that evening Parisian police estimates pt the later column at 11,500 people alone before the two phalanxes regrouped once again at the Panthéon.

Writer and photographer (12) Maxime du Campe, who was walking home that night, described the marchers as 'advancing in good order, leaning forward a little, without weapons, and kept in step. All of them, neither shouting nor clamoring, repeated the same phrase, dismally in hushed tones: Bread or lead! Bread or lead!' Gathering once again at the Panthéon, the proletariat protesters met with delegates from the defunct National Workshops, including the former Governor-General of French India under the July Monarch, Louis Pujol, who further organized the already highly professional columns, telling them to prepare for the following day. By eleven o'clock the crowds had dispersed, just as orderly and calm as they had appeared. It was not to last. In the early morning hours of 23 June some eight thousand workers marched unopposed on to the Place de la Bastille, where Pujol called on them to bare their heads and kneel 'at the tomb of the first martyrs of liberty.' In a voice that echoed across the square he called on the workers to start the revolution anew, and chanting 'Liberty or Death!' the protesters under his guidance began to build fresh barricades...

... while across the Seine General Bedeau began to move his artillery pieces into positions surrounding the insurgents, by the end of the day almost all of eastern Paris was held by the workers, whose numbers were between forty and fifty thousand at this point. The authorities on the other hand had only 25,000 regular troops, augmented by 15,000 Mobile Guards. Though the democratized National Guard has swollen to some 237,000 men, many of them failed to respond to the call-to-arms; of the 64,000 alone from the central arrondissements, only four thousand turned out. Meanwhile, thousands of Guards in the working-class eastern districts defected to the insurgency, with three out of seven thousand Guards in Belleville reported by their company commanders for joining the uprising...

... at mid-morning, François Arago, Prime Minister of the Executive Commission, went to the barricade on the Soufflot near the Panthéon to persuade the insurgents to stand down. After speaking for nearly an hour though, his audience's response was delivered thus by a known member of the insurrectionists; "Monsieur Argo, we are full of respect for you, but you have no right to reproach us. You have never been hungry. You don't know what poverty is."

... At noon the barricade at Porte Saint-Denis was attacked by National Guards, following taunts aimed at the Guards by two prostitutes who manned the barricade. After fierce hand-to-hand fighting the Guards were victorious, but only after thirty men from both sides were lost. Later, at twilight Cavaignac began his assault, leveling the insurgent fortifications in the north-eastern Faubourg du Temple with heavy cannon fire. Lamartine, who was present for the event, counted "four hundred brave men, killed or mutilated, who strewed the faubourg." As Cavaignac moved onto the barricade on the rue Saint-Maur, Ledru-Rollin telegraphed (13) the provinces on Cavaignac's behalf, asking for the help of the National Guards units against the uprising. The request was met with an enthusiastic response, and while most units did not arrive for days eventually over 100,000 provincial troops arrived in Paris, mostly by train. With the military situation in Paris spiraling out of control, Louis Blanc and Victor Considérant proposed before the National Assembly, where Cavaignac had made his HQ, appealing to the insurgents to put down their weapons. However they were silenced by an anonymous deputy who yelled out; 'One doesn't reason with insurgents, one defeats them!' However the parliament was far from convinced that the insurrections could be defeated y Cavaignac. Reconvening early the next morning a proposal was put forward to the National Assembly to withdraw the legislature to the safety of the suburban palace of Saint-Cloud, while some even suggested a wholesale flight to Bourges. The Foreign Minister, Jules Bastide, confided to the British ambassador, Constantine Phipps, the Marquess of Normanby, that he was not sure they would live to see the end of the day, further suggesting that the Marquess should leave Paris at once. Even Tocqueville was forlorn, sending a note to his wife, also advising her to leave the city. Therefore it is little surprise that at ten o'clock the Assembly, after a mere twenty-five minutes of debate, invested Cavaignac the absolute executive power, dissolving the Executive Commission. The French government had now effectively invested Cavaignac as a king in all-but name a mere six months after overthrowing their last king. Cavaignac's first act was to declare a state of siege in Paris, and swiftly began to move the National Guards units in and around Paris against the insurgents. du Camp, once again writing after the fact, stated that; 'bullets fell so thickly around us, and with such a repeated, shrill noise, that I remember stopping at looking at the ground; the paving stones were marked with brilliant, blue, metallic spots, the trace of lead which grazed them.' Moments later du Camp's was shot, his lower left leg splinted and his boot quickly filled with his own blood, a position which made him feel 'melancholic.'

At the urging of both Caussidière and Sénard in the National Assembly on 25 June Cavaignac issued a conciliatory proclamation offering blank immunity to insurgents that surrendered to government forces. Hoping to stop the violence, clutching copies of the proclamation the Archbishop of Paris, Monseigneur Affre, went to the barricade blocking the entrance to the rue du Faubourg Saint-Antoine. However, just as the Archbishop convinced the insurgents to come out Cavaignac's forces opened fire, striking Affre as well. After being dragged to safety behind the barricade by the surviving insurgents, Affre's last words were 'May my blood be the last to be shed.' Elsewhere, as he personally tried to dislodge the last resistance at the Place d'Italie, General Jean de Bréa was seized by the revolutionaries. When asked for advice about this particular crisis, Cavaignac is reported to have stated; 'The Republic cannot be sacrificed for the life of an imprudent general.' The insurgent executed de Bréa by firing squad mere hours later, upon receiving word that prisoners taken by the Mobile Guards were being put up against the walls. Throughout the day Mobile and National Guards would summarily execute between 150 (conservative estimate) and 3,000 (socialist estimate) prisoners and civilians. As well at least 1,500 workers died in the day's fighting, with 11,727 more arrested, 5,000 of which were released within a few days, however over 500 would be deported to Algeria. On the government side the Guard and army units lost just over one thousand men..

Scenes of the June Days​

Aftermath

...Paris continued to be under an official state of siege until the end of the year, with some 50,000 National and Mobile Guards patrolling the streets. After the uprising a new constitution was implemented declaring France to be a democratic republic, with...

... To the Parisian elite, the June Days were something of green scare. (14) However many of the participants were members of the so-called petite bourgeoisie (the owners of small properties, merchants, shopkeepers, etc) which outnumbered the working classes (proletariat unskilled laborers) by about two to one...

Barry, D.H. "French Woman Insurgents." Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. 2005 Ed.

... Women's activism re-emerged in the June Days of 1848: a survey of the June insurgents by found two hundred seventy three women among the political detainees. Doubtlessly traditional concerns of protecting family, income, and the right to work motivated these rebels of June 1848 (though very few had been members of the national workshops). But evidence from judicial records suggested the presence of a more politicized awareness also. Though women formed a small minority of the June insurgents their role was not invariable secondary or supportive. Some went beyond Alexis de Tocqueville's description of their carrying the preoccupations of a housewife into battle and took the initiative in raising and organizing rebellion in their quarters. At Belleville, Joséphine Clabot, a pursemaker, was accused of having been continually on the barricades, armed and dressed as a man. This she subsequently confessed to, adding that she might return to the barricades. Witnesses described her as more relentless than her husband, a veteran of May 15 and the national workshops. Françoise Beaulieu, a washerwoman of the Quartier des Lombards, appeared on a barricade that she built with her husband, described as "the terror of the neighborhood."

Women Insurgents during the June Days
The banner's text translates to 'Bread or Death'​

Kale, Steven. "Conservative Resistance to Revolution in France." Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. 2005 Ed.

... By the time of the June insurrection, therefore, conservatives were well placed to assist in the repression of working class radicalism. Many on the Right had foreseen the coming confrontation and hoped to insure its outcome by provoking disturbances in order to destroy working-class insurgency once and for all. The repression of the June Days not only weakened the extreme Left and brought to power those Cavaignac moderates who were willing to act in concert with the party of order to place severe restrictions on public liberties, it also served the long-term goals of reaction by confirming bourgeois fears of democracy and increasing provincial and peasant hostility toward the republic. Subsequent municipal and departmental elections guaranteed the ability of the notables to reassert their local predominance in all but a few regions while conservative pressure in parliament and the general state of siege turned the administration once again into an instrument of counter revolutionary surveillance and enforcement. After June 23, therefore, resistance to the revolution continued unabated until...

Haine, W. Scott. "France: Political Mobilization, Intellectuals, People." Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. 2005 Ed.

... A host of historians has recently shown that political mobilization, stalled in the cities after June 1848, picked up momentum in the countryside. A national political network in the small towns and villages of central and southern France, was developed by the republican left, called Montagnards or dem-socs. These networks created elaborate national channels for information and propaganda and formulated a coherent strategy for winning the rural population. In the process they created France's first national political party. Allegiance to the village or locality had thus declined in importance. Nevertheless, this transformation in political orientation occurred not in spite of but because of the use to which republican politicians harnessed local and traditional culture to an incipient national political culture. Vertical ties of local patronage receded in the face of the rise of horizontal ties of social class and political solidarity. The political mobilization in 1848-1851 was especially notable and effective because of the extraordinary interaction between intellectuals and the masses. Again Paris, Lyon, and other cities during 1848 provided intimations of this interchange, which would become much more extensive in the provinces after 1849...

Abolitionism in France

... even as the first workers revolted against the staunchly liberal Second Republic, Victor Schelecher (15), the new Minister of the Navy and the Colonies, issued a decreeing freely all slaves throughout the French Empire; 87,000 in Guadeloupe and 74,000 in Martinique alone. The decree not only freed the slaves, but also granted all of them French citizenship, including the right to vote...

Robert, Aldrich. "French Colonies." Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. 2005 Ed.

In 1848, before the age of 'new imperialism' France already claimed an overseas empire extended from the Americas to Africa and the Indian Ocean. Few French lived in the colonies, expect for the Békés, white landowners of the Antilles and Réunion, who dominated the far more numerous African slaves who worked the sugar plantations. The colonies provided France with raw materials (especially sugar and other tropical products), markets, strategic bases and 'points d'appui' for the French military and mercantile fleets around the world. The policy of the 'exclusif,' which reserved to the 'mother country' almost all trade and profits from the colonies, molded relations between the metropole and its possessions. Administrators, soldiers, traders and Catholic missionaries completed the French colonial presence...

... The revolution of 1848 made the colonies into territories of the republic and gave them representation in the national assembly. Algeria was divided into civil and military regions, and the civil regions subdivided into départments of Algiers, Oran and Constantine. The new administrative system, including prefects, resembled that of metropolitan départments and lasted more than a century. The government also tried to turn Algeria into a settler colony. From October to December 1848, some sixteen thousand Frenchmen (16), most of whom had mounted barricades during the June Days, were transported across the Mediterranean. Paris spent fifty-five million francs to give them land, livestock and tools in the hopes that they would become pioneer farmers and that the metropole would be rid of rebels. Lack of better preparation for the transportees' arrival and strong-armed military control hampered the operations; many colonists died or returned to France...

... The greatest achievement of the 1848 revolution for the colonies was the abolition of slavery. Slavery, the foundation of economic and social life in the vieilles colonies of Martinique, Guadeloupe, Guyane and Réunion, had been abolished by the Convention in 1794 but was re-instituted by Napoleon. The anti-slavery campaign grew stronger in dissident and republican circles in the early 1800s and triumphed in the February revolution of 1848. On March 4, the assembly agreed to the principle of emancipation. A definitive decree followed on April 27, 1848. Declaring that 'slavery is an attack on human dignity,' it 'destroys the principal of natural law and duty, it is a flagrant violation of republican dogma,' and that great unrest could erupt in the colonies if slavery were not ended. The law abolished slavery in all French colonies and possessions; a total of 262,564 slaves were thereby freed, most of them in the plantation colonies of the West Indies and Réunion...

... Before the emancipation decree reached the Antilles, however, slave revolts had broken out in Martinique and Guadeloupe, and the governors of these colonies abolished slavery on their own authority on May 23 and 27, respectively. The slave riots, particularly in the Martiniquais capital of Saint-Pierre, reached such magnitude that some historians argue that the slaves were on the verge of conquering their freedom even without the change of government or the emancipist ideas of Schoelcher in Paris...

... Emancipation and voting rights contributed to cultural and political consciousness among the former slaves, as well as to the emergence of a political elite of métis in the plantation colonies. The Békés nevertheless retained much economic power, and full-blooded blacks had less chance of social mobility than métis. Elsewhere in the empire, the indigenous populations benefited from the abolition of slavery but gained little else from the revolution of 1848.

The revolutionaries were not anti-colonialists, despite their anti-slavery decrees. The policy of assimilation, which dominated French colonial administration in the 1800s, maintained French commercial monopolies and centralized political control of the overseas possessions. But colonial suffrage and access to education and political institutions for black Frenchmen owed much to the ideas of 1848. Reaction to the revolution also affected the colonies, although slavery was never reestablished. Representation to the national assembly disappeared during the Second Empire. In 1851, the prince-president began using Guyane as a penal colony, and two years later Napoleon III took over New Caledonia partly to establish a new penitentiary in the Pacific...

Vandervort, Bruce. "Senegal in 1848." Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. 2005 Ed.

... The 1848 revolution marked a turning of the page the West African region of Senegal, site of France's only substantial foothold on the African continent at that point. Two events were of particular importance in this regard. The first was the decree of April 27, 1848 whereby the provisional government abolished slavery in France's colonies, including Senegal. The newly-freed slaves in Senegal automatically became French citizens. The second crucial event was the decree of March 2, 1848 instituting universal manhood suffrage, which gave the male population of French Senegal, including the newly-freed slaves , the right to vote in French national elections. The almost entirely African and mulatto electorate (whites accounted for only about one percent of the colony's population) took part in the national elections of November 1848 and chose the first man of color ever to sit in the French parliament...



(1) Derived from the Latin and Greek words socrius (companion) and kraterin (to govern), sociocratie was coined in 1851 by Auguste Comte, a French positivist philosopher who would also develop the term 'sociology.' According to Comte's philosophy society was divided into the proletariat, who worked in the industry, and the patriciate, who directed the industry, with the highest strata in the industry as the bankers. Furthermore according to Comte, all of the proletariat would eventually merge into the patriciate. Broadly ITTL, sociocracy means rule by the "socio," people who have a social relationship with each other, as opposed to democracy, rule by the "demos," the general mass of people.

(2) See Chapter #3 for details.

(3) Proudhon was the first person to identify himself as an 'anarchist,' though from an OTL perspective his political and philosophical stance appeared to be closer to that of a socialist; after the events of 1848 Proudhon began to refer to himself as a 'federalist.' IOTL after the 1848 period published his perspective on the Social Question with his 1849 Solution du problème social ('Solution of the Social Problem'), the main argument of which was the establishment of banks to provide credit at a very low rate of interest, while issuing exchange notes that would circulate instead of being based upon a metal standard. This, Proudhon believed, would transfer economic control of the country to the workers.

(4) Hugo was a strong supporter of the liberal opposition during the July Monarchy, however after the 1848 Revolutions he adopted a more republican stance. Openly declaring Louis-Napoléon Bonaparte a traitor after the 1851 coup, Hugo emigrated (was exiled) to the United States, where he became famous for his great work Les Misérables.

(5) An OTL article. Links to full size images here and here.

(6) ITTL 'radical' remains the some-what derisive term for a left-wing supporter of any degree. Compare to IOTL 'socialist' or 'communist,' or 'liberal' within the United States.

(7) The Executive Commission operated some-what like the OTL modern Swiss Federal Council. The Commission was a joint body where all members were equal and served together as co-heads of state. However the Commission was without any real power, due to its lack of support in the National Assembly, which after the April and by-elections of 1848 had a solid conservative majority as opposed to the Commission liberal orientation.

(8) One of, if not the most, dedicated French republican revolutionaries, Blanqui joined the French section of the Carbonari movement at an early age, taking part in the July Monarch of 1830. He was condemned to repeated terms of imprisonment for his staunch republicanism during the reign of Louis-Philippe; along with Armand Barbès, he had been sentenced to death after the abortive uprising in 1839. This was commuted to life imprisonment after a public outcry, in which Lamartine and Victor Hugo had taken the lead. Blanqui (who at his death in 1881 had spent a grand total of thirty-three years in captivity, earning the nickname 'l'Enfermé,' or 'the Incarcerated'). Blanqui is perhaps most well-known, especially among alternate history writers, for the ideology he created and inspired named after him, which while described as socialist was contrary to the other socialist ideologies of the 1848 period, including the fledgling Communist-Marxist movement for its disregard of the widely-held belief of the preponderant role of the working class. Blanqui instead belief that the revolution should be carried out by small group, who would establish a temporary dictatorship that would implement the new societal order before handing the reigns of power to the people. If this sounds familiar to you, it's because Lenin's conception of the revolution was essentially Blanquist in character.

(9) See citation #2.

(10) While the Chartist 1842 General Strike would have been a recent reminder of the power of striking workers, AFAIK, general strikes were fairly ineffective until the dawn of the 20th century.

(11) IOTL the numbers were only 800, however after the popularization and departure of Ochsenbein and his Swiss Legion to Germany and the Polish Democratic Society to Posen and Krakow the Parisian working class ITTL was further radicalized. The numbers in this update will reflect this.

(12) Photography being invented in the 1820s and becoming well-established by the mid-to-late 1840s IOTL.

(13) Morse telegraphy having been invented in the late 1830s, building on the success of earlier electrical and 'electrochemical' telegraphs sine the 1790s. IOTL France had an extensive telegraph system by 1848, as King Louis-Philippe was very interested in the technology.

(14) See citation #2.

(15) One of the most celebrated abolitionist both IOTL and ITTL, Scheolcher devoted himself almost exclusively to the advocacy of the absolution of slavery throughout the world, contributing a part of his large family fortune to establish and promote societies for the benefits of blacks.

(16) IOTL the number was only 13,000. Butterflies throughout Europe though led to a harsher crackdown on the June revolutionaries.

 

[SavoyTruffle]

Looks like France is undergoing bloodier growing pains TTL.

 

[wolf_brother]

Az Piros Nyári

We're getting into the thick of it now. Once again, comments and criticisms would be much appreciated
=====

"We are lost, sunk back into barbarism. We are being ruined not by Kossuth and his associates, but by a greater power, by Nemesis."
- Istvan Széchenyi, on Hungarian independence
18 July 1848​

Dissolution of the Hapsburg Empire

Imperial Absence

... Four days after the imperial family's flight from Vienna (1), a proclamation was issued from Innsbruck in Ferdinand's name, complaining of the behavior of the Academic Legion and the National Guard, and further promising to listen to the 'just complaints of my people' provided they were 'genuine popular desires,' by which it was meant legally expressed in the coming parliament. The Viennese populace by and large was fiercely loyal to the Hapsburg monarchy, and even the radicals at this point did not wish for a republic. Thus by employing this soft-handed approach the conservative loyalty of man imperial subjects was rekindled. The Central Committee disbanded itself within the day, while the National Guard submitted to the command of Count Auersperg, the military commander in Vienna. Into this void the Viennese Citizen's Committee, a moderate alternative to the Central Committee created in late April, filled the power vacuum, establishing a Security (sub-)Committee to provide law and order in the capitol. Five days later the imperial family issued a second decree, demanding the disbandment of the Academic Legion, and the closure of the Vienna University. This proclamation was not as well received, and student-led protests broke out across the city, joined by the bourgeoisie middle class. By the next day the city's workers had joined the protests, armed with machine tools from the factories they worked in they erected over 160 barricades throughout the city within two hours. These barricades, much larger than the make-shift ones constructed during the earlier March Viennese upheaval, rose 'as high, in many places, as the second stories of the houses. Over them waved either the red or black flag, those certain emblems of blood and death.' (2) By 27 May the imperial government yielded once again to the protesting Viennese, and promised to entrust the security of the city to the Academic Legion and the National Guard, under the command of the newly created Security Committee. This was to have repercussions throughout the empire later when...

... On 22 July the Austrian Parliament opened for the first time. Dominated by the 'Law and Order' party, a group of centrist moderate liberals, the parliament was overseen by a new imperial cabinet under Baron Johann Philipp von Wessenberg, a former imperial servant of the old regime. However the radicals made their move just two days later when Hans Kudlich, a young Silesian deputy and son of a peasant, introduced a bill calling for the abolishment of 'all servile relationships together with rights and obligations coming therefrom.' While the abolishment of serfdom at the imperial level was a long-foregone conclusion considering it had already been done away with in the Czech lands, Hungary, and Croatia, the radicals in the imperial Reichstag opposed compensating the landlords for their 'loss'. Kudlich complained loudly before the parliament that peasants had to doff their hats within three hundred yards of a noble's home and that landlords refused to receive peasants at their homes because of their perceived 'dirtiness.' "For such treatment,' he roared, 'we should now give compensation!?"

Smith, Leonard V. "Austrian Reichstag." Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. 2005 Ed.

The Vienna Reichstag was born of two factors: urban idealism, expressed by what proved a transitory alliance among students, bourgeois liberals, and working people; and the power vacuum at the Habsburg court, when the fall of Prince Klemens von Metternich in March left responsibility in the hands of the well-intentioned but epileptic and enfeebled Emperor Ferdinand. The Vienna Reichstag drew its energy from the belief so prevalent throughout Europe at the time that anything was possible - in this case that constitutionalism and nationalism would prove easily reconcilable to reasonable men working in concert. Its own internal contradictions undermined its influence. By the time the Reichstag opened on July 22, its turbulent prehistory hinted at many of its later difficulties...

... The 383 deputies who met on July 22 represented all of the Habsburg domains except Italy (in open rebellion) and Hungary (which had its own Diet). An estimated 60 percent of the deputies were classified as "bourgeois" and 25 percent "peasants," though many of these were reasonably well off. About half of the deputies (190 of 383) were Slavs of one variety or another. Despite the important role of the Viennese crowd in events leading up to the election of the Reichstag, Viennese radicals were conspicuously absent. The student-dominated Academic Legion nominated only five deputies, not all of whom proved demonstrably left wing.

In his opening speech on behalf of Emperor Ferdinand on July 22, Archduke John generously referred to the Vienna Reichstag as a constituent assembly. However, the sovereignty of the body was never agreed upon by all its members (to say nothing of the court), and its exact writ proved a subject of great controversy, particularly among national groups. Before long, distinctions between "left" and "right" soon proved secondary to national ones. Not surprisingly, all but the Germans sat according to nationality in the Reichstag...

Imperial Return

... Things finally came to a head when on 11 August the small investors, mostly artisans, shopkeepers, students and master-craftsmen, of a people 'people's bank' established by noted clockmaker August Swoboda discovered the entire venture was a scam. The investors gathered to protest and convince the Minister of the Interior, Baron Anton Doblhoff-Dier, and the Vienna city council, that the state should bail them out. Within half an hour the crowd had swollen in size as students, workers and bourgeoisie citizens not involved in the bank scandal joined the protest. As the authorities refused to underwrite the failed enterprise, the protest spread out across the city, and steadily changed in character to one for more general reforms. Notably the students used the demonstration to further demand the re-establishment of the Security Committee, and the arrest of certain, conservative, government ministers. The next day Emperor Ferdinand finally returned to Vienna from Innsbruck after being persuaded of his safety by a deputation from the parliament. He was greeted by a joyous crowd, with flowers thrown to the imperial family as they stepped off the Danube steamer. However, elsewhere in the capitol over ten thousand members of the democratic clubs met at the Odeon Hall, where they declared their adherence to Frankfurt...

... Emperor Ferdinand's first act upon returning to the imperial palace was to declare a reduction in worker pay throughout the empire. In retaliation Dohlhoff-Dier's offices were raided by a protesting mob, though the minister was able to escape the crowds were able to force their way into the building, smashing up doors, windows and furniture as they do before they ransacked the building, destroying much of the imperial records in Vienna. The next day the government called out the entire National Guard, as well as all of the army garrisons in the surrounding countryside. However, many of the suburban units of the militia joined the Academic Legion in supporting the demonstrators as soon as they entered the old city. Hoping to prevent another insurrection the imperial parliament voted within hours in favor of the people's bank investors. The sum of two million guldens was made available to help small Viennese businesses, which suffered worst from the scandal, in the form of interest-free loans, and underwrite 20% of the shareholder's loses. The parliament also ordered the complete withdraw of the army units from the city. It was an amazing undertaking, and one that successful saved Vienna from a second uprising, for the time being. By the day's end the protests were largely over throughout the city.

However by 21 August demonstrations sprung up again throughout Vienna, mostly led by women from the poorer suburbs, against the imperial proclamation of pay reductions. The next day the protesters built an effigy of the public works minister and held a mock trial to discover his 'murderer,' stating that he had chocked to death on the money he had extracted from the unemployed. By morning of 23 August National Guard units attempted to break up the protests, with limited results. The Academic Legion stood fast in refusing to join the protests, but also in refusing to put them down. The National Guards tried again that afternoon, with more success; the protesters were scattered, however only after 18 workers were killed. Two days later the National Guard was placed under the direct command of the Interior Minister, while the Security Committee voted in favor of its own dissolution. The government also suspended the public works programs, replacing them with a 'Committee for the Assistance of Destitute Tradesmen' which largely fulfilled the same task by cooperating with the guilds instead of using direct state intervention. However as the imperial court gave on the one hand they took away with the other, and so by October...

Bohemia and Pan-Slavism

... By 26 May (3) the National Committee drafted an electoral law for Bohemia, declaring full equality under the law for all Bohemians. Four days later the Moravian Assembly convened for the first time in the provincial capitol of Brno (German: Brünn). Of the 247 deputies, 87 were peasants, earning the body the derisive epithet of the 'Peasant Diet.' Though the events of the Assembly were largely overshadowed by that of the Prague Slavic Congress, on 1 July the Assembly successful abolished the robot, unpaid labor required of the peasantry for the nobles. Further, unlike so many other proclamations abolishing the last visages of feudalism in Europe during the 1848 period, the Moravian's Assembly's abolishment did not compensate the landlords...

... On 31 May the famed Slovak L’udovít Štúr arrived in Prague from northern Hungary, just hours ahead of arrest...

... Though originally scheduled to coincide with the opening of the German parliament in Frankfurt as a form of protest, by 2 June the Slav Congress finally convened in Prague at the Czech National Museum. Made of 385 delegates mostly from across the Czech lands, the event was presided Palacký, though it also drew other notable pan-Slavic worthies, including Štúr, who led the Slovakian delegates, several representatives from the Polish National Committee in Posen, and a seven-member Russian delegate led by anarchist Mikhail Bakunin (4). However, the exact goal of the Congress was unclear, even from the beginning. In addition, the conference planners and delegates quarreled over the format and the agenda of the gathering. Thus the Congress eventually met in three sections; the Poles & Ruthenians, the South Slavs, and the Czecho-Slovaks, the largest, with 237 delegates. The three sections elected their own officers, and further designated sixteen representatives to chair a plenary committee. To settle the debates about the 'true' Slavic language German was used as an international language spoken by all of the attendants.

During the Congress, the primary debate was the role of Austria to the Slavs. Led by Palacký, an Austroslavic faction formed, which argued that the Congress' primary goal should be the preservation of Austria as a means of furthering Slavic unity, which earned the support of the majority of the Southern Slavs. However, many delegates, especially the Poles and Magyars, rejected this position. In general the Czechs feared German domination, while the Slovaks fretted over the same from the Magyars; the Poles sympathized with the anti-Hapsburgs Magyars and so tried to mediate between the southern groups, while also attempting to use the Congress as an approval of the right of the Poles to a sovereign nation. On the other hand, the Ruthenian delegates viewed the Congress as an opportunity to state their grievances against the Poles and presented a plan to divide Galicia into eastern (Ruthenian) and western (Polish) parts; a position the Poles rejected. Finally, thanks chiefly to the efforts of Leon Sapieha (5), who led the Rus'kyy Sobor, a small faction of the Ruthenian delegation compromising Poles of Ruthenian origin, a compromise was signed on 7 June in which Galicia was to remain undivided, with both ethnicities enjoying equal rights (primarily in language matters); in regional offices and schools and the majority language of the region was to be used. In addition the Unitate clergy were given equal rights with the Roman Catholic rites. However this plan was approved neither by the Rutheian Supreme Council in Lwów, nor by the Polish National Committee in Posen, and with the latter's destruction…

...Meanwhile the Russian delegates criticized the entire Congress for focusing exclusively on the Austrian Slavs and ignoring those under the Russian and Ottoman empires...

... During the plenary committee meeting of 5 June, Karol Libelt (6) offered a proposal to adopt a new agenda that would focus on three objectives; to issue a manifesto to the European nations stating the political orientation of the Congress, to send a petition to Emperor Ferdinand with the demands of the Slavs, and to develop plans to promote cooperation and unity among the Slavic people. Five days later the Manifesto to the European Peoples was proclaimed; though heavily watered down by Czech moderates, the Manifesto emphasized the superiority of national rights over international treaties, while calling on the peoples of Europe to gather for a general congress to 'regulate their international relationships on a one-to-one basis.' The Manifesto also appealed to Emperor Ferdinand to transform the Hapsburg monarchy into a federation of equal nations. However the Congress was cut short when...

... Tensions continued to flare throughout Bohemia, especially along class lines. On 3 June textile workers in Prague marched, demanding better working conditions. They were easily dispatched by the army, while the Viennese Citizen's Committee chastised the protesters for their 'blind stubbornness.' Dissimilarly though on 10 June a Slavonic-themed ballet was held in Prague, in which Czech patriotic liberals, the governor of Bohemia Leo Thun, and Field Marshal Alfred Windischgrätz (7), the imperial commander in Bohemia, were all invited. Though tense, relations between the liberals and conservatives were cordial, leading most to believe that a peaceful reconciliation was near...

... on 12 June after receiving Mass under the state of Saint Wenceslas, a crowd of students, National Guards, Czech Legionaries, and some 3,500 unemployed workers (8) marched in protest against Windischgrätz. However, as they left the square they immediately and accidentally blundered into a delegation from the German Association, whom was returning from meeting with Windischgrätz, where they had promised him their support. As news of the violent clash spread running battles erupted throughout the city between the German and Czech militias. Imperial troops stormed the Czech National Museum to arrest the members of the Slav Congress, however all they found was the museum's librarian. The Congressional delegates themselves had largely fled the city at the onset of the ethnic skirmishes, with the rest hiding within the Austrian-controlled portions of the city...

Dawles, Richard. Trans. William McKnight. The Victorian Era. Brussels: Writer's Guild, 2007.

... There was no better choice for the command of the imperial forces in Bohemia than Windischgrätz. The fiery marshal had been bitterly opposed to the concessions made in March, and made no distinction between moderates and radicals; they were all rebel scum to him. Windischgrätz had crushed the Prague worker's insurrection of 1844, and as such people in the city immediately noticed a harsher military presence as the size of Prague's garrison was increased and artillery was placed on the heights of Vyšehrad and Petřin overlooking the city. As violence rippled across the city on 12 June, Windischgrätz had at his disposal close to ten thousand professional troops, while the insurgents could command at most 3,000 rifles. As well he could rely on the National Guards from more conservative and German-speaking districts to turn on the liberals and radicals. When barricades were erected throughout Prague any hopes of a peaceful settlement ended when Governor Thun was taken hostage, and Windischgrätz's wife was tragically killed by a stray bullet. Six long days of violence followed...

... While over five hundred barricades were erected throughout the old city, Windischgrätz only needed to control 15 to keep communications open between the new and old cities. By the afternoon of 13 June Prague's main arteries were in imperial hands. At this critical juncture the insurgents, now led by Karel Havlíček Borovský, a Czech nationalist and Russophile who owned the first newspaper printing revolutionary tracts in Bohemia, the Národní Noviny (National News), issued their demands; the dismissal of Windischgrätz, the withdraw of imperial troops from the city and the establishment of a new provisional government. If the nationalists had approached Thun with their demands before the insurrection, or if the insurgency had been more successful, they very well might have gotten their way. However by presenting their petition while in the inferior military position, and only a day after Windischgrätz's wife's death...

... During a lull in combat during the early morning hours of 15 June Windischgrätz pulled his troops back from the barricade, and by the noon hour he began to pummel Prague with his artillery. Within the first hour alone 40 Praguians died in the bombardment. Two days later Windischgrätz was fully in control of the city, and declared martial law throughout all the Czech lands. He also established a commission of inquiry, led by imperial officers and conservative German-speaking Bohemians, nominally tasked to find those responsible for the insurrection. However the commission was told by Windischgrätz to 'discover' that the insurrection had been the work of a vast Slavic conspiracy to undermine the Hapsburg Empire, and by that evening the commissioned had already declared the Slav Congress to have fomented the revolt and planned to create a 'Committee of Public Safety'...

1848 Prague Uprising​

Hungarian-Illyrian Conflict

... On 30 May the Transylvanian Diet at Kluj, which was dominated by Magyar and German (Saxon) elites, voted for union with Hungary. The Diet was supported in this move by the governor of the region, József Teleki, a staunch Hungarian nationalist. By 10 June Emperor Ferdinand, under Hungarian pressure, ratified the Diet's act. However, Batthyány insisted that the National Petition be presented to the Hungarian parliament, not the Emperor, where it was thoroughly rejected; Transylvania would be united with Hungary, but on Hungarian terms...

... In Croatia the Sabor opened in Zagreb on 5 June. Encouraged by Jelačić and in deference to the Illyrian ideal, the gathering voted to invite a delegation from the Serb Voivodina; Jelačić hoped that such a move would provoke the Hungarians. Notably at the opening of the parliament Jelačić himself took his oath from the Metropolitan Rajačić; as a Croat he then took Catholic Mass, but also held a service of thanksgiving in Zagreb's Orthodox Church. Jelačić hoped to underline his support for the idea that the Serbs and Croats were a 'single-blooded nation of two faiths.' However five days later an imperial decreed, issued under mounting Hungarian pressure, deposed Jelačić, confirmed Hrabovszky's powers, and gave Latour a slap on the wrist, reminding the Austrian War Minister that control of the Military Frontier now fell to Budapest, not Vienna. Latour however continued to send money, arms and supplies, quite openly, to the Military Frontier, while the Sabor closed ranks in support of their Ban; the imperial decree was thus thoroughly rejected in Croatia. Baron Franz Kulmer, the Sabor's representative in the imperial court, wrote to Jelačić as early as 24 June, declaring simply that 'everyone here is in your favor. The 10 June decree is null and void'...

... On 7 June in the Voivodina the Serbs fought off a small attack by Hungarian forces at the provisional capitol of Sremski Karlovci, while in the Banat Serbian and Romanian agitators came to blows over the Voivodina raising Rajačić as their metropolitan, while the Romanian majority struggled for recognition of their own separate Orthodox Church. By the end of the month a Romanian Orthodox Congress was held in Lugoj, after Banat Romanians, led by Eftimie Murgu, sent a petition to Budapest expressing their loyalty to the Hungarian government and asking permission for their own separate congress. 10,000 delegates attended the Congress, declaring that the Banat was not a Serbian province but an integral part of Hungary. However, the Congress also declared Romanian to the official language and Romanian Orthodoxy the church within the Banat...

... Batthyány reacted to the Serbian insurrection by forming regular ('mobile') National Guard units, recruited from volunteers to serve for three-year terms. Most importantly though, the new units did not have property requirements allowing for a much larger and wider pool of selectees, and, unlike all other Hungarian military units at the time, the new guards were unambiguously under the Hungarian national government's control, with an oath to 'defend the homeland and the constitution,' (9) leading to the units becoming informally known as the honvéd; defenders of the homeland...

... In the midst of this, on 21 June peasant riots broke out surrounding Budapest, as the rural populace demanded more reforms. Bertalan Szemere, the Minister of the Interior, quickly declared the kingdom under a state of siege and ordered the army and National Guard into the countryside to arrest peasant leaders. By the end of the day the riots were largely put down, though ten people were executed. By 15 June the election period for the new Hungarian parliament had ended, with most enfranchised Hungarians voting for familiar political elites, causing nearly three-quarters of the new parliament to be traditional landed elites. Of the 414 members of the lower house, only 50 were adherents of the Twelve Points. With such a loss at the polls, many republicans and radicals instead turned to extra-parliamentary, and perhaps extra-legal, actions. Modeling themselves on the French Jacobin clubs of the 1790s, the republicans created the 'Society for Equality,' with the national newspaper the Radical Democrat. The republican rallying point was that of control of the military; the radicals demanded that Hungarians control their own army, including the withdrawal of Hungarian troops from Italy and Czechia, and the imperial government's turning over of arms and depots within the kingdom to the Hungarian National Guard. By picking such a popular and widely accepted argument the republicans were able to quickly gather support throughout the Hungarian nation and...

... On 9 July Jelačić prorogued the Sabor in the name of 'imperial security.' The next day the imperial government requested additional Hungarian troops to bolster Radetzky's Italian forces; Batthyány suggested to his fellow ministers that they offer up only 20,000 of the 200,000 troops proposed for the new national Hungarian army. Batthyány believed that such a move would grant the Magyars further political leverage in Vienna by being able to dictate the amount of troops sent towards the imperial cause, perhaps even threatening to let Italy go if the imperial court did not bend to Budapest's demands. He also believed that only sending a sliver of Hungary's theoretical manpower away from the homeland would compel Jelačić to thread carefully and back-down from his aggressive tactics on the southern boarder. However the radicals and some moderates, including Kossuth, disagreed. Count László Teleki went as far as to argue before the ministers that Batthyány's plan was putting its faith in the imperial court, which would never force the Croatian Ban to back down. After four days of furious debate the parliament finally approved Batthyány's plan... (10)

... In a last, desperate attempt to prevent a civil war, Archduke John, the Frankfurt-appointed Regent of Germany, summoned both Batthyány and Jelačić to the imperial capitol for mediation. Nothing advancing Hungarian-Croatian relations came of a result of the meeting; Batthyány offered to land reform in return for trade the contested border lands to Hungary, to which Jelačić pointedly rejected before sending word back to Serbia initiating the proposed land reforms unilaterally, including the right to dissolve the zadruga, the rural collectives farms, and parcel out the land privately. As the meeting continued to sour Jelačić emphatically told Batthyány that; "You want Hungary to be a free and independent Hungary, and I pledged myself to support the political unity of the Austrian empire. If you do not agree with that, only the sword can decide between us." Throughout the meeting while Batthyány continued to use his influence over Emperor Ferdinand to garner more political reforms in order to keep Hungary within the Hapsburg Empire, Jelačić quietly used his time in the capitol to make firmer arrangement with the imperial army command, notably with Latour...



(1) See Chapter #4 for details.

(2) Recall, as I stated in Chapter #3, that the red flag at this point is not associated with socialism, but still evoked images of a defiant resistance. Correspondingly, the black flag would not receive its anarchist correspondence until the early 1880s, as the anarchist movement attempted to differentiate itself from the red-flag waving communists. Historically the black flag (along with the red) was adopted by the Jacobin Club during The Terror. Later the flag was displayed as an emblem of protest during the first Canut Revolt, a proto-workers uprising of silk workers in Lyon.

(3) Two days earlier than IOTL, due to the earlier flight of the imperial family, news of which quickly percolated throughout the empire. As well this is roughly the opposite of OTL, in which the electoral law explicitly denied the vote to workers. The change is due to the larger Czech Legion in Bohemia, which historically was linked to the Prague worker's movement.

(4) A Russian noble eventually stripped of his titles by Tsar Nicholas, Mikhail Bakunin is now remembered as a (in)famous Russian revolutionary and theorist of collectivist anarchism. However, he was a strong supporter of the early socialist movement, calling himself a socialist throughout the 1848 period, though he was also a highly critical opponent of Marx, specifically Marx's theories of the dictatorship of the proletariat. In the 1830s and 40s Bakunin traveled across Europe expanding on his theories of a materialist socialist pan-European federation, and took a minor role in several events during the 1848 Revolutions.

(5) A Polish noble who had studied Law in Paris and Economics in Edinburgh, Saphieha participated in the 1830 November Uprising, after which he was forced to Austrian Galicia and exiled from Congressional Poland by the Russian authorities. IOTL he was central to the development of railways in Galicia, as he believed strongly in the power of rail to improve the lives of the Poles, and would lead to a reunification of Poland.

(6) Libelt had taken part in both the 1830 November Uprising and the 1846 Greater Poland Uprising, the later of which had earned him a life sentence in prison before being released in Berlin as part of King Frederick William's liberalization program; see Chapter #6 for details. Notably, Libelt was also an elected member of the Frankfurt Parliament representing Posen. More on this in future chapters.

(7) Who was last seen in Chapter #4, installed with full civil land military powers in Vienna during the March uprising.

(8) Roughly a thousand times more than IOTL, due to the National Committee's inclusion of the workers; this causes a stronger political current within Prague's workers ITTL.

(9) IOTL the oath was to 'the homeland, the royal throne, and the constitution'. As the imperial government is both openly against the Hungarians earlier, and obviously weaker, the ties to the Hapsburg monarchy are weakened ITTL.

(10) IOTL the amount of troops offered to send was double this, 40,000, and the parliament agreed to Batthyány's proposal immediately. The reduction in the number of soldiers offered to send, and the much longer period of debate, occurs because ITTL the radicals both in Vienna and Budapest are in a stronger position than OTL.

 

[Scipio Africanus]

This is really interesting. I am very curious about the future of Germany in this timeline. Will it be greater or lesser germany? I look forward to the next installments.
Scipio

 

[wolf_brother]

Timely Concessions

A small Easter update before a larger one tomorrow.
=====

"I changed from conservative to liberal in one night."
- King William II of the Netherlands
date unknown​

Dawles, Richard. Trans. William McKnight. The Victorian Era. Brussels: Writer's Guild, 2007.

... in the Netherlands, King William II ruled his country under one of the few constitutional, parliamentary monarchies to come out of the Napoleonic era. William had declared prior to the 1848 revolutions that he was willing to allow the Estates-General to debate proposals for mild constitutional reforms. However by the time of the 9 March debates revolutionary explosions were rocking across the continent. Ignoring the advice of his cabinet, William set his face firmly against any reform beyond the original bill. So widespread was the disappointment throughout the Dutch that the liberal leader, Johna Thorbecke was quoted in newspapers throughout the Netherlands when he derisively called the bill 'a small, poor, spoonful out of our kettle.' Thorbecke was well positioned to critique the government, as the liberal opposition's leader he had previously issued his widely-read pamphlet, the humbly titled "Aanteekening op de grondwet" ('A Note on the Constitution') detailing his criticism of the 1815 constitutional text, which had been thoroughly rejected in the nominally conservative Dutch House of Representatives. Into this environment a mere four days later rumors began circulating throughout Amsterdam that the Dutch people were becoming restless; King William, without consulting his cabinet, yielded immediately to the liberal demands, summoning Thorbecke to discuss a more radical program. A widely held belief of the era was that Thorbecke himself has circulated the rumors, though this is unconfirmed...

... William's conservative minister resigned en mass, prompting popular celebrations throughout Amsterdam and The Hague on 14 - 16 March, which developed int peaceful demonstrations in favor of Thorbecke's proposal of an independent (read: liberal) commission to decide upon the scope of the constitutional reforms. Unfortunately for William, but perhaps fortunately for the reform movement, the King's will was shaken when his favored son, Prince Alexander, died in late February after contracting tuberculosis the previous November. Perhaps more importantly though was the invasion, on 20 March, of Belgium by a Belgian Legion of French radical volunteers and unemployed Belgian emigrates in Paris. (1) Though easily defeated on the field, William was astute enough to realize both that the Legion could have wrecked havoc on the small county if it had not been forewarned by the French Foreign Minister Lamartine, and that the restiveness which had inspired the Parisian Belgians could easily and quickly spread through the Dutch. Therefore after only a few days William agreed, appointing the commission, which in turn appointed a new cabinet and drafted far-reaching reforms, including freedom of the press, assembly, association and religion. This last point was essentially for the larger Catholic minority that were stronger supports of the liberal movements, Catholics in the Netherlands having been previously treated like second-class citizens. As well under the new constitution ministers were responsible to the parliament, which would be elected by direct elections at legally defined and regular intervals, though only on a limited suffrage...

... The changes, which were virtually all created by Thorbecke, were grudgingly approved by the parliament. When they were first presented to the Estates-General on 19 June, the conservative majority soundly rejected many of them. The Dutch were therefore in the rather odd position, for 1848, of having a liberal government that was trying to implement political reforms being blocked by an elected assembly. A compromise was not resolved until November, and only after fresh elections to a new, reformed parliament in September. This meant that when the reaction took hold elsewhere in Europe, mostly in the great powers of Britain, France and Russia, that...

... According to the American ambassador, Auguste Davezac, this gave 'a consoling spectacle to the friends of freedom throughout Europe.' Surrounded by larger, stronger, states that would, for the most part, undergo continued unrest between liberals and conservatives for the next few decades, the belief soon spread among the Dutch intelligentsia that the Netherlands could afford to give greater liberties to its subjects because it was a small, weaker European state (though still a colonial power). In this sense, 1848 enable the Dutch to comfort themselves over the obvious decline of the Netherlands as a world power by suggesting that this in fact made further Dutch liberties possible...

Constituent Assembly of Luxembourg

... the Grand Duchy had been administratively and physically separate from the Netherlands since the Belgian Revolution of 1830, but still remained in personal union with the Dutch nation through the House of Orange-Nassau. With the outbreak of the 1848 Revolutions the Grand Duchy was allowed to write and pass a new national constitution to replace the 1815 charter. On 24 March a Grand Decal decree called for the establishment of a fifteen-man commission to investigate how to preserve the government. Within the week the body had unanimously agreed to call for a further assembly to totally rewrite the constitution, which the King-Grand Duke accepted on 1 April...

... met for the first time in Ettelbruck, the temporary seat of government on 25 April, was Luxembourg City was deemed too dangerous in the present revolutionary environment; though four days later the assembly moved there, using the newly constructed Luxembourg City Hall. After three months of debate the assembly adopted a final constitutional text on 23 June, which was 'given consent' by William on 10 July. Unlike the Dutch constitution which was descriptive of the liberal revolutionary period of 1848, the Luxembourg constitution was highly similar to the 1830 constitution of Belgian, with the only substantive difference being the non-inclusion of a senate, which the King-Grand Duke had urged to check the power of the new Chamber of Deputies... (2)

Rapport, Mike. 1848: Year of Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 2008.

..In neighbouring Belgium there was no revolution partly because the constitution was of recent vintage (1831), arising as it did from the struggle for independence from the Netherlands: prior to 1848 it was widely admired as a model for liberals in other countries. Armed with a parliamentary order that would have satisfied the opposition elsewhere in Europe, the Belgian constitutional monarchy was therefore barely shaken by the republican movement that flashed briefly in the pan in February and March. There was widespread distress in this most industrialised of European countries, and there was certainly socialist agitation and a rash of riots in March, but the government, under the astute liberal Charles Rogier, had already acted promptly, on the 2nd of that month, by broadening the suffrage, which placated the potential middle-class leadership of the opposition. The economic suffering was then addressed by investment in public works, by giving poor relief to the indigent and by reforming the system of workhouses and municipal pawnshops. These timely measures helped to soothe popular distress and took the sting out of the radical opposition. By the time the government faced a small invasion by expatriate republicans sallying across the frontier from France at the end of March, the threat could be met and repressed easily. The government felt strong enough not to carry out the seventeen death sentences that were passed on the insurgents, and it triumphed in the elections of June...

Gooch, Brison D., and John W. Rooney, Jr.. "Belgium in 1848." Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. 2005 Ed.

For a country in political and economic transition that was faced with massive unemployment and widespread threat of starvation, padoxically, during the turbulent revolutionary year of 1848, Belgium was remarkably stable. The forces of social, political and economic upheaval which emanated from France had a minimal effect on the small constitutional monarchy. Much of the reason for this may be found in the country's history during 1847. Belgium industry had been overdeveloped for its population during the French and Dutch regimes. Once its overseas markets were gone and protectionists barriers erected by others it was bound to face a serious crisis. In 1847, Belgian metallurgical production was valued at fifty million francs. In 1849, its value was lass than thirty-one million and the crisis continued until 1854. Contemporaneous with the economic crisis, a political crisis of major proportions took place. Since the Belgian Revolution of 1830 the country had been ruled by coalitions, the most important being those of the Catholic (conservative) and Liberal parties. The system of government by neutral Unionist (moderate) ministries which had always found favor with King Leopold I, who had taken advantage of the ambiguous power situation and, in foreign affairs especially, asserted his authority well beyond his designated functions according to the constitution. This coalition government ended with a general congress of the Liberal Party meeting in Brussels on June 14, 1846. The meeting drew up an Act of Federation and a platform of reforms with which to appeal to the electorate. The strategy was successful, for in June 1847, a large Liberal majority was returned to the chambers. Both the clergy and the crown had supported the Catholics in the election and when the Liberals won, a residue of ill-will remained. In the midst of growing unrest, in 1847, a number of pacifists, humanitarians, socialist, and Christian democrats had founded the Association Démocratique and sought the solution to the country's problems in the democratization of society and the fraternalization of all people. To Brussels, its new residents, Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, attracted numbers of German communists, the Deutscher Arbeiterverein. All of this activity is best understood against the background of the pathetic plight of...

... The new ministry energetically set about attacking the poverty in Flanders with a number of programs to stimulate the economy, especially stepping up rail and canal construction. Also plans to expand the franchise were formulated and efforts made to provide more widespread employment. By February of 1848 the new government had introduced major elements of its reform program and there was a sense that the country was set on a new course. The political impact of the revolution in France was immediate, in Belgium as elsewhere. On February 26, 1848, Leopold emotionally offered his abdication to the cabinet. Despite earlier friction the Liberal ministers refused to contemplate his leaving. The decision of the crown and the cabinet was to stand together and...

... At word of revolution in Paris, radical groups in Belgium proliferated and a host of radical newspapers suddenly appeared. Most called for a revolution following the French example, with the ousting of Leopold and foundation of a republic. In general these appeals proved ineffective but they were causes of concern for the government. The minister of war, General Chazal, gave assurances that the frontiers were secure and troops were moved from one domestic site to another, depending on local unrest. The greatest danger, as it turned out, was the consequence of a curtailment of credit and ready funds. Work stoppages became widespread and bands of unemployed workers, in France as well as Belgium, posed an immediate threat. The government responded by accelerating work projects and also keeping close surveillance on bands of the unemployed. While such measures proved adequate within Belgium, in France a different menace developed. Over the years Paris had attracted large numbers of foreign workers. When the revolution occurred, these were among the first dismissed from employment. Many were Belgians and the Provisional Government advised them to go home...

... The most serious episode involving returning workers occurred late in March. A band, rumored at over ten thousand, calling itself the Belgian Legion, was armed and had a military organization. (3) Two Belgian companies of four hundren men repulsed the invaders who fled in scattered groups. Thus the invasion by the Belgian Legion was frustrated, and, while more bands came across the border, none were as large or posed such a potential threat. Of course, the next few months were rife with rumors of new legions being formed and sporadic incidents still occurred. As it turned out, the high water mark in terms of real danger had passed. With every passing week Leopold's confidence was enhanced and he spoke of himself as the one essentially responsible for Belgium's stability amongst the sea of European upheavals...

... For Belgium the June Days in Paris and General Cavaignac's coming to power was seen as a stroke of good fortune. Cavaignac had been a refugee in Belgium and was educated there. His father, like Chazal's, had been a tradionalist. Domestically, elections on June 13 strengthened the Liberals, and Catholic representation was reduced to a group of that party's most distinguished spokesmen, which now frankly admitted that the election of Liberals to power the previous year had saved Belgium...

... The crises had undoubtedly eased when the Rogier ministry set to work to redeem its pledges by carrying out a scheme of electoral and parliamentary reform. The qualification for the franchise was reduced to the minimum of twenty florins in direct taxes made applicable to parliamentary, provincial and communal elections. The chambers also voted money for relief and the government undertook a series of massive public works projects in canal, road, and railroad construction. A good harvest further calmed spirits in Flanders. Leopold was proud of his country, and much of Europe agreed that the experiment of 1830 had proven correct...

Left, King William II of the Netherlands. Right, King Leopold II of Belgium.​

(1) See Chapter #3 for details.

(2) IOTL a senate was added in the form of the Council of State which was created in 1856 after William handed down a new, conservative, constitution against the wishes of the Chamber. However ITTL this won't happen, for reasons yet to be seen, and as such the unicameral legislature will continue in Luxembourg, which will have minimal affects until the end of the century.

(3) See citation #1.

 

[Geekhis Khan]

Awesome!

Quick request: could we get a quick summary post of all that's happened in what contries? I'm losing track of all the butterfleis in all the info overload.

 

[wolf_brother]

Awesome!

Quick request: could we get a quick summary post of all that's happened in what contries? I'm losing track of all the butterfleis in all the info overload.

I saw your post and immediately started working on such a summary before realizing that doing so would be somewhat immature at this point. I already plan to do a review post or two at the end of 1848 before moving into the events of 1849. If you have any specific questions or comments I'd love to answer them.

Also, thanks!

 

[wolf_brother]

Das Rot Sommer

[Spacing]

"The workers will be justified in fighting for a place in society and for the enjoyment of life, if we do not find peaceful means to do enough for them."
- Fanny Lewald, German nationalist feminist writer, of the German worker's movement
4 June 1848

"Therefore I say that it is a narrow policy to suppose that this country or that is to be marked out as the eternal ally or the perpetual enemy of England."
- Henry John Temple, 3rd Viscount Palmerston, regarding the 1848 Revolutions
1 March 1848​

Unification of Germany

Prussia & the conservative reaction

... On 22 May the Prussian National Assembly (Preußische Nationalversammlun) meet for the first time, apart of the liberal concessions wrung out of King Frederick William during the Battle for Berlin. (1) As such the body reflected the mood of the Berliners, who made up the largest contingent of the Prussian electorate. Taken place on the basis of indirect, but universal, male suffrage earlier in the month, the election returned a mixture of peasants, nobles, artisans, shopkeepers, and several civil servants, but surprisingly few lawyers and no workers. Compared to the concurrent meeting in Frankfurt, the assembly in Berlin was decidedly much more from the lower middle class, the so-called petite bourgeois. Still, it was a surprising return for contemporary commentators, especially in the Prussian government. Of the 395 delegates, 120 were democrats, including many who might be properly be classified as out-and-out republicans, while a further 140 were liberals of one degree or another, and small but strident faction of businessmen rallied around Friedrich Harkort which were willing, and somewhat eager, to negotiate with workers over the Social Question made up a further 30 deputies, leaving the conservatives with only 105 delegates to form an opposition party...

... The first debate took place even before the assembly had official opened, regarding whom the assembly was fundamentally responsibly to, and therefore as to whether or not the body should meet near the royal palace or elsewhere. While liberals and the few conservatives in the assembly saw themselves as ultimately beholden to the King, the democratic and republican majority saw their responsibility to the people. One anonymous deputy would declare in a pamphlet widely circulated in Berlin and throughout Prussian Germany that the deputies were 'representatives of the Prussian people, and not as an elected servant of the monarchy. It is everywhere the right of the people and therefore parliamentary tradition. The Prince [should meet] the representatives of the people on their local conditions, not vice-versa when they come to court him.' Ultimately the Left majority in the Assembly decided in favor of the anonymous leaflet, and the parliament met in the Berlin Singakademie (Choir Academy)...

... When Frederick William handed down a draft constitution after opening parliament, it was rejected out of hand, and the parliament immediately established a commission to produce its own version. Moderate Rhenish liberal Gottfried Ludolf Camphausen, Prime Minister of the new body, was unable to form a bloc of right liberals and conservatives to counter the radical majority, let alone control the parliament's activities. This was widely appreciated when on 8 June the republican left put forward a motion which would, in effect, legitimize the revolution against royal power. The Assembly was to declare those that fought in the March Revolution, both in Prussia and throughout Germany, 'had rendered outstanding services to the Fatherland.' After days of agonizing debate that nearly split the Assembly the proposal passed (2), though Camphausen warned the body that 'he [Frederick William] wants conciliatory transitions,' the Assembly once again simply ignored the feeble Prime Minister. After Frederick William, predictably, vetoed the bill protests broke out across Berlin once again. The bill would remain effectively tabled in the Assembly its passing under the new regime of...

The opening of the Prussian National Assembly​

... Less than two weeks later the defeat of the legitimization motion provoked a second insurrection aimed at arming the people, led by Friedrich Held. (3) The call for arming the people had already been partially fulfilled with the creation of the militia, but this consisted mostly of prosperous burghers. Workers and poor craftsman, joined as well by students and the so-called petite bourgeois, who were excluded from the militia, demanded vigorously that they should be armed so that they could defend the achievements of the March Revolution. Crowds of people that had originally gathered near the Berlin assembly to hear the legitimization debates were quickly dispersed by the middle-class militia. However on 14 June, inspired by Held and his writings, workers and students assembled in the square in front of the royal armory, demanding arms. As the crowds pressed forward the guards fired into the crowd, killing two before they were overwhelmed by the mob. The armory was completely plundered within the hour, while throughout Berlin barricades once again were built, or in many cases some simply refortified, throughout the streets. However, the storming of the armory was a spontaneous act; and without leaders with clear objectives the workers and craftsmen gave up their resistance when the armory was re-conquered by the military and the militia the same night. In response the government reinforced the military presence in the city and established a special garrison for protection, the Konstablerkorps. By 20 June Camphausen had resigned his post, as he was unwilling to call in the troops - the instrument of the old absolute monarch - to put down the protests that would continue throughout Berlin for weeks...

... However, conservative forces were active in extra-parliamentary ways. As early as 2 March the Piusverein (Pius Association) was established in Mainz by ultramontanists (4) Adam Franz Lennig. The organization sought to defend the Catholic Church against 'liberal' secularism.' Within days the Piesverein had spread throughout Hesse and the surrounding states, and by May had a strong position within Prussia...

... On 2 June Leopold von Gerlach's brother, Ernst, created the Association for King and Fatherland in Berlin, which gathered in conservative worthies with the aim of rolling back the revolutionary gains, including dissolving the National Assembly and restoring royal power, with the only representative institution as the provisional estates, which of course were at the time dominated by the landed nobility. Notably, 'Fatherland' in this instance meant Prussia, not Germany, as Prussian conservatives of the 'new conservatism' sought to create a distinct Prussian identity and patriotism to rally the masses around. On 6 August during a parade honoring the imperial regent Archduke John some thousand peasants, backed by their conservative landlords in Ernst Gerlach's Association, appeared at the parade pointedly waving the Prussian black-and-white banner instead of the German black-red-gold. The Association now had some one hundred organizations across all of Prussia, with some 60,000 members, mostly rural peasants following the lead of their local worthies. However it appeared the conservatives had overplayed their hand too early, as the parade nearly turned into a brawl when pan-German supporters clashed with the Association's marchers, tearing down the Prussian flags. (5) Archduke John, who was present during the parade, quickly intervened and was able to establish peace between the two groups, however the damage was done, and over the next two weeks alone the Association's membership dropped to less than 25,000, mostly in the oldest royal provinces...

... On 26 July the draft constitution written up by the National Assembly's constitutional committee was put forward to the full body by the committee's chair, Benedikt Waldeck, an elderly judge from Westphalia. The 'Charte Waldeck' as it became known assigned parliamentary control of a people's militia and gave the parliament broad powers of executive oversight, including the right to approve diplomatic treaties. As well the King was assigned only a suspensive rather than an absolute veto. The Charte also abolished aristocratic titles and the remnants of seigneurial privilege. The few conservatives in the assembly rejected the charter as a block, stridently denouncing as 'republican,' however the democratic and liberal majority approved of the constitution, and...

... Five days later demonstrators protesting in favor of the Charte Waldeck's citizen's militias in the small Silesian town of Schweidnitz were fired upon by the Prussian garrison as they attempted to break up the rally. In what became known as the Schweidnitz Slaughter fourteen people were killed and the event became a rallying-cry for radicals and liberals throughout Prussia...

... By 9 August the Prussian Assembly issued a decree that demanded all soldiers swear an oath of loyalty to the constitution and 'distance themselves from all reactionary efforts.' It also instructed the Prussian army to cooperate 'respectfully and devotedly in the achievement of a constitutional legal situation'...

... Things drastically changed however, on 16 August when Otto von Bismarck, a young nobleman from the Prussian Province of Saxony who had rallied to King Fredrick William's side during the March Revolution, formed the Association for the Protection of the Interests of Landed Property, a 'new conservative' counter to the older nobility's Association for King and Fatherland under Ernst Gerlach. Bismarck’s new Association was notably different in that it attempted to unite the Prussian landed nobility (the so-called Junkers), while rallying the peasantry behind them. Two days later Bismarck’s Association held a general assembly which was attended by some five hundred people. During the colloquially named 'Junker Parliament,' Bismarck argued that liberalism was an ideology solely of the propertied, urban middle class - a very narrow social group. Thus anyone else who supported liberals - peasants, workers, petite bourgeois and 'delusional' Prussian nobles - were betraying their own social and economic interests. This was a pointed jab at the ruling democratic and liberal coalition in Prussia and throughout Germany. Bismarck’s brand of 'new conservatism' therefore, he argued, offered the best of the traditional past and of the progressive future by offering to abolish 'feudal' restraints on the peasantry while maintaining the elite status of the nobility. In order to court the lower middle class, mostly small business owners, Bismarck would also offer on 20 August certain tariffs while improving 'property rights' in the face of the worker's movement...

... By 8 September the liberal minister under Rodolf von Auerswalk, who had replaced Camphausen, resigned rather than force the military to adopt the parliament's oath. Frederick William quickly appointed Ernst von Pfeul as a stop-gap minister...

Hohenzollern Principalities

... On 6 August Prince Charles of Sigmaringen invaded his cousin's principality in order to crush the constitutional liberal movement there. However the Hecingen urban populace and the peasantry in the surrounding countryside rose up against him, and by 17 August Charles was forced to retreat, accompanied by only 2,000 remaining Prussian troops, the majority of which had returned to Berlin during that state's war mobilization. Thus by 25 August, unwilling to rule as a constitutional monarch, Charles abdicated in favor of his son Charles Anthony. Charles Anthony immediately asked for Prussian assistance; however, while he was told by Berlin that forces were on their way, they never arrived, and soon... (6)

Worker's Movement

... On 1 June the radical (7) writers Karl Marx and Frederick Engels moved to Cologne, and, along with their fellow revolutionary theorist Joseph Weyderneyer, opening the Neue Rheinische Zeitung (New Rhenish Newspaper). Marx and Engels, who had previously moved to Brussels from London, where they published their "Communist Manifesto" on 21 February in Brussels, and as they had done in Belgium, the duo immediately began agitating German workers to rise up and...

... Other German radicals, such as Stephan Born, took a different approach. On 4 June a massive demonstration of Berlin's democratic and worker's clubs, organized by Born's Berlin Central Committee, marched down the Unter den Linten. The march was separated into two waves; in the first, established artisans and civic guards waved the red-black-gold of German unity and the banners of the old guilds. The second wave, however, consisted of the unemployed, impoverished crafts workers and journeyman who marched behind the flag of the German Journeyman Worker's Congress...

The flag of the German Journeyman Worker's Congress
The banner's text translates to 'The Workers without Bread!'​

... However in Frankfurt the worker's movement was only slowly recognized. On 14 June during a congress of democratic organizations, representing eighty-nine associations from sixty-six cities across Germany, the socialist Andreas Gottschal, leader of the Cologne Worker's Association, inadvertently drove delegates away by expounding baldly on Marxist-socialism, a position even many of the most radical delegates did not agree with...

...One month later though, by 15 July, artisans from across Germany sent delegates to the Congress of Craftsmen and Tradesmen, led by moderate radical Karl Georg Winkelblech, known more popularly by his moniker of 'Marlo.' (8) The Congress created a list of demands which included the restoration of the guilds, which the separate German states had progressively abolished since 1815. The Congress also demanded a state-sponsored 'organization of work,' by which the imperial German government, cooperating with the guilds, would control production. However the master artisans refused to give seats or votes to their journeymen in the congress, leading to them breaking away to form their own German General Worker Congress, or to join Stephen Born's Berlin Central Committee, which had rapidly expanded to include branched associations throughout all of the German states...

... Winkelblech was there again though at the German General Worker's Congress, and it was there that his views on a federal system for guilds, and corporate institution, were first endorsed by the worker's movement. Winkelblech argued that there were common interests between masters and journeyman, while the moneyed powers were their 'class enemies'. He also demanded the creation of compulsory guilds for certain industries, and the creation of a social ministry for the governmental organization of labor. Finally, he proposed a comprehensive reform scheme for compulsory social insurance against old age, sickness, and financial misfortune, paid by individual contributors...

... On 23 August Born organized the General German Worker's Brotherhood in Berlin which represented thirty-one associations across twenty-five cities. For the next two weeks the Brotherhood hashed out a list of resolutions and demand, which included a ten-hour work day, the abolition of taxes on consumption, free public education, the reduction of the voting age and the division of the landed estates. As well the Frankfurt parliament was sent a delegation which asked to establish a 'social chamber,' which was generally meant to form as a German version of the French Luxembourg Commission, which would draft legislation on social and economic matters for parliamentary debate...

Hachtmann, Rüdiger. Trans. James Chastain "Journeymen's Congresses (Germany)." Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. 2005 Ed.

... The 1848 revolution to a great degree exposed the social and political division of artisan masters and journeyman. The inter-regional congresses were the most obvious expression of this cleft. First in importance was the "First Representative Assembly of the North German Artisans and Trades" which met in Hamburg June 2-6, 1848. Originating in the rather liberal "association to improve the business class" and including delegates from the Hanseatic cities and some small north German towns, the congress quickly fell under the influence of Hamburg's guild masters. The delegates unanimously condemned freedom of trade, without entirely wishing to return to former guild regulation. A petition of journeymen to be allowed voting delegates occasioned some commotion in the congress which refused its endorsement. From the Hamburg assembly came the call for the first German artisan and trade congress, which met with around one hundred twenty voting delegates from July 15 to August 18, 1848 in Frankfurt am Main and which exposed the social cleavage between a majority of masters and most journeymen. The congress split on July 20, when the masters, who were a majority of the delegates, rejected a motion to allow journeymen at the meeting the same voting rights as a masters and proposed instead that they choose a master to speak for them. On July 22 the journeymen left the meeting and constituted their own congress which met until July 29 and--after more journeymen-delegates arrived--continued their business on September 4 as a "workers' congress." The congress proved that the conflict between masters and the journeymen who gathered there could have been bridged: They were united in rejecting absolute trade freedom of trade and strongly opposing capitalist middle men. The journeymen's critique was primarily directed towards the masters' refusal to allow them to participate in question of professional regulation of conditions of work (the worker books, certificates of good character, the requirement of travel (Wanderpflicht), freedom of movement, etc.) and not prepared to grant fundamental social political concessions (relief and health insurance). The journeymen's congress ended in the confusion of the Frankfurt insurrection of September...

... The founding to the first organization in Germany resembling a trade union, the workers' fraternization (Arbeiterverbrüderung) came not primarily from the Frankfurt journeymen's congress, rather from the Berlin "Central Committee of Workers", which in the beginning of April (in Stefan Born's phrase) constituted a sort of "workers' parliament" in the Prussian capital and represented a majority of the resident journeymen and workers. Although the previous congresses of artisans and journeymen primarily addressed their resolutions to the Frankfurt national assembly and awaited from them the recognition of their wishes, the delegates in the Berlin worker congress essentially relied on self-help. Thus they planed to found their own production associations, consumer cooperatives, and societies to care for health; in a short time, in particular in Berlin and Leipzig, these were introduced. The Berlin worker congress attained decisive importance because it founded the worker fraternization, whose central committee took up residence in Leipzig under Born's guidance. Primarily dominated by journeymen who put their mark on its politics, the worker fraternization allowed them to feel united as industrial workers rather than masters and to understand themselves as essentially part of a "working class."

... For a time two organs coexisted and competed: the central committee of the worker fraternization and a journeymen's committee that was founded at the Frankfurter congress; both claimed to speak for the interests of journeymen and workers at the national level. Relatively quickly the more agile Leipzig central committee of the worker fraternization won out over the Frankfurt committee who could not conceal strong roots in artisanal-guild thinking...

German Parliament

... On 1 July during a sub-committee meeting pertaining to Bohemia's place within the new Germany it was agreed that the recent Prague Uprising was part of a grand design to create a Slavic Empire bordering the German nation. This was a well-established fear among the contemporary German politicians, clearly shown by an even earlier meeting of the Committee of Fifty on 3 May in which deputy Arnold Schilling had declared that 'since Bohemia cannot be held in Germany be conviction, she must be bound by to Germany by the sword's edge.' The sub-committee agreed to a proposal to send pan-German forces to Bohemia to support Windischgrätz. (9)

... On 28 July the German Parliament debated offering the Poles the entirety of the Duchy of Posen. In a speech before the Assembly, the somewhat dubiously liberal Prussian writer Wilhelm Jordan asked whether 'half a million Germans' were to live under the rule of 'a nation of lesser culture content than themselves,' adding 'the preponderance of the German race over most Slav races is a fact.' However before Jordan could finish his speech he was interrupted by Silesian Pole Jan Janiszewski, a delegate representing Krakow, whom loudly retorted that a 'culture which withholds freedom is more hateful and despicable than barbarism.' Janiszewski, though he had spoken out of order in the highly structured parliament, was loudly praised for this comment, while Jordan was eventually obligated to return to his seat with his speech only half-delivered. Within the hour the parliament voted in favor of the proposal, granting the Poles an autonomous Grand Duchy within the new German empire... (10)

Lee, Loyd E.. "Military Reform." Encyclopedia of 1848 Revolutions. 2005 Ed.

... Military reform was central to German political debate before 1848. Princely standing armies were criticized as instruments of monarchical authority, used for arbitrary repression and isolated from society. While some liberals would replace them with popular militias, all agreed to reduce their costs, require officers to take constitutional oaths and open their ranks to all men of ability, and subject armies to parliamentary control. Reformers also wanted to guarantee the civil rights of soldiers, decrease the length of military service, reform military judicial systems and create a more effective national military organization.

In the March days several states instituted many of the desired liberal reforms; only the creation of a national army was beyond their reach. Many recognized the right of soldiers to participate in public assemblies, to join clubs freely and to exercise free speech. They abolished corporal punishment. Württemberg ordered that all soldiers be addressed as equals by officers. New liberal ministries required officers to swear constitutional oaths and gave parliaments a greater say in military affairs.

Württemberg began plans to end substitution, a practice whereby men of wealth could escape military service by hiring a replacement. Saxony abolished exemptions from service and substitutions, following a similar move by Electoral Hesse. Baden introduced the same changes and also doubled the size of its army in the autumn of 1848, in accordance with a national assembly law. Württemberg raised its draft quota as well.

When the national assembly opened in May 1848 the left spoke for a military system similar to that of Switzerland or the United States, but the majority rejected a complete revamping along the lines of popular militias. Instead it formed a military reform committee, which was increasingly dominated by right liberals and conservatives. In June the assembly granted the provisional government direction over all German armed forces, though key monarchies refused to recognize its authority at first...

Schleswig-Holstein Question

... The Schleswig-Holstein Question (German: Schleswig-Holsteinische Frage; Danish: Spørgsmålet om Sønderjylland og Holsten) refers to the diplomatic and nationalist issues arising in the 19th century from the relations of two duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, to the Danish crown and Germany. The underlying issues were complex: the kingdom of Denmark and the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein were component parts of the Danish monarchy and were united in the person of the King-Duke. Schleswig was a Danish fief, while Holstein a member of the German Confederation. A 1665 law introduced succession through the female line in Denmark, with the survival of Salic law in the duchies held in abeyance. Schleswig had a strong Danish element in the north, Holstein was German...

Rapport, Mike. 1848: Year of Revolution. New York: Basic Books, 2008.

... The King of Denmark, Frederick VII, implemented the constitutional reforms of his father Christian VIII, who had yielded to liberal pressure at the very end of his life, creating the Joint Estates of the Realm, which held legislative and fiscal powers. When the new king signed the edict abolishing royal absolutism, there was a 'silence so profound that the stroke of the pen could be plainly heard.' It was 29 January 1848. The timing could not have been more fortuitous...

... While the liberal monarchists and republicans locked horns, the problem of the non-German nationalities also exploded on the political landscape. Trouble arose with the Danes over the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Lord Palmerston once remarked with characteristic gruffness that he knew only three men who had ever understood the issue: one was dead, another had been driven insane by it and Palmerston himself, the third, had forgotten what it was all about. In 1460 the King of Denmark had taken over the duchies on condition that they would be forever inseparable. In fact, Holstein (which had a German majority) joined the Holy Roman Empire and then, from 1815, was part of the German Confederation. The Danish sovereign remained its duke, but even the most exuberant Danish patriots agreed with the German nationalists on one thing: that Holstein would always remain part of Germany. The true controversy was over Schleswig, which had a Danish majority. The 'Eider Dane' nationalists argued that Denmark extended to the River Eider, the southern boundary of Schleswig. The thorny issue was therefore whether Schleswig could be separated from Holstein and fully absorbed into Denmark. The nationalists’ German opponents, by contrast, declared that Schleswig should be detached from Denmark and, along with Holstein, join Germany. For both sides, this was an emotive issue. Danish feeling had been excited by the news of the February revolution in France. Liberals wanted to press for a 'modern' parliamentary system, in which, by contrast to the Joint Estates promised by King Frederick VII, Schleswig would have no special status, but be incorporated into Denmark as a single province, like any other, with representation proportionate to its population, while Holstein would join the new Germany. Danish nationalism and Danish liberalism were inextricable. Yet the former seemed to have more emotive impact: in March a crowd of fired-up Danish nationalists marching through Copenhagen chanted 'Denmark to the Eider!' The situation was particularly tense in the duchies, because Frederick VII had no heirs, so the succession was open to debate. For German nationalists, the obvious choice was the Duke of Augustenburg, a German of the cadet branch of the ruling Danish Oldenburg dynasty, who would bring both duchies into the German Confederation...

The Schleswig-Holstein War

The Schleswig-Holstein War (German: Schleswig-Holsteinischer Krieg), also known as the Two Years War (Danish: Toårskrigen) was a military conflict in southern Denmark and northern German rooted in the Schleswig-Holstein Question...

State of the War

... On 18 March, a meeting of German nationalists in Rendsburg reiterated the German demands for both duchies. Three days later in the Danish capitol of Copenhagen a massive popular demonstration forced King Frederick VII to dismiss his conservative government and appoint a more liberal ministry, with Orla Lehmann as Prime Minister. This new government quickly declared the 'reunion' of Schleswig with Denmark under a common, liberal constitution, which was given royal assent by 5 June. In the meantime however, German nobles, government officials and local worthies in Kiel, from where the German nationalist party operated, who did not fully know what was going on in Copenhagen as news of the protests spread, proclaimed a provisional German government on 24 March. To understand this decision one must understand the environment Denmark was in during the time. The nobles in Kiel believed that the King had fallen under the control of the revolutionaries, who were using him as a puppet, and wanted to separate Schleswig from Holstein. The 1848 Revolutions had changed...

... The German Confederate Diet and the German Parliament, both based in Frankfurt, received word of Kiel just days later in a proclamation in which provisional government declared that 'We will not tolerate the sacrifice of German territory as prey to the Danes!' The issue set German nationalism aflame; the Committee of Fifty declared Schleswig part of Germany, even as Danish troops, which considered the declaration an act of rebellion, conquered several 'German' cities in Schleswig...

Course of the War

... Hoping to defeat Denmark before the arrival German support troops, 7,000 Schleswig-Holsteinian soldiers occupied Flensborg on 31 March. However, an identical number of Danish troops landed east of the city, and as the Germans retreated fearing being surrounded the Danish were able to ambush them. The subsequent Battle of Bov on 9 April was a total Danish victory, as Prince Frederick of Noër (11), the Schleswig-Holsteinian commander, was unable to arrive on the scene until two hours after the battle started. In the end while there were less than a hundred deaths on both sides, the Danes succeeded in capturing 923 prisoners...

The Battle of Bov​

... On 4 April the Diet of the German Confederation, exercising its lost real act of power in Germany, asked Prussia to intervene against Denmark on behalf of the Kiel provisional government, and to direct contingents from other German states. By 14 April the Prussian army had been fully mobilized, and crossed the Eider River, in addition to freischärlers from across Germany. On 3 May the Prussian-led German forces entered Denmark itself, sparking a diplomatic crisis. The Danish navy blockaded north German ports, while British, Russia and Sweden all intervened on the side of Denmark...

... The Germans had not reckoned on the inclusion of the other European powers in the war, which were united in opposition to any dismemberment of Denmark. Swedish troops landed to assist the Danes, while Great Britain sent her fleet to assist in preserving the status quo, though conversely the RMS Britannia was sold by the Cubard Steamship Company to Germany and renamed the SMS Barbarossa, which then became the flagship of the fledgling Reichsflotte...

... On 12 June the German Diet effectively handed the reins of power to the German Parliament, when the Diet turned over its military budget to the Parliament. Only two days later, the Assembly decided to spend 6 million Reichsthaler for a navy under Prince Adalbert of Prussia. When he had to resign due to an order by his cousin the King of Prussia, Konteradmiral Karl Rudolf Brommy took over...

... The Germans, under threat of war by the great powers of Russia and Britain, as well as effectively blocked out of the North Sea by the Danish and Swedish navies, were forced to withdraw from the war. By 26 August Prussia was the first when she signed the Armistice at Malmö, by which the Prussian-led German and Danish troops alike were withdrawn, and the German provisional government in Kiel disbanded and replaced by a joint Danish-Prussian administration. The popular Reichsverweser (regent) appointed by the German parliament in Frankfurt, Archduke John of Austria, was powerless to stop Prussia from signing the peace treaty. News of the peace raced across the German states within hours via telegraph, steamer, rail and word-of-mouth. By the end of the day protests, some violent, had broken out across Germany. In Frankfurt the moderate liberal historian Friedrich Dahlmann prophetically declared the purpose of the armistice was 'to nip the new Germany in the bud.' By bowing to international pressure he warned, "Then, gentlemen, you will never again be able to hold up your proud heads. Consider these my words: never!" The Frankfurt delegates voted to reject the armistice, in effect voting to continue the war against Denmark. In response Archduke John's liberal ministers resigned in protest later that night, while across Germany the next day...

Reza, Ahmad. Reform: A History. Istanbul: Central Press, 1999.

... While concessions and conflicts were made in elsewhere the situation in Sweden was very different. In Sweden a banquet was held in Stockholm on 18 March at which attendees demanded reform and a republic. The authorities were sufficiently anxious to call out the army, and over fifty people were killed, leaving the capital restless for several days. King Oscar I, who had enjoyed a liberal reputation before 1848 for his prison reforms and establishment of freedom of the press, now set himself against political reform and there would be no extension of the franchise in Sweden for more than a decade. In Norway, which had been in a political union with Sweden since 1815, an assembly of delegates representing local branches of a Chartist-style movement (12) led by the socialist Marcus Thrane met in Christiania demanding universal male suffrage and social reform. It was broken up and 117 people were imprisoned, including Thrane, though he was later released to go on to...

... later, during the Schleswig-Holstein War, Thrane was forced to flee to Germany by way of Russia after being imprisoned yet again for publishing anti-war pamphlets, to which he had been ordered to be executed just days before his escape from jail... (13)



(1) See Chapter #5 for details.

(2) IOTL Camphausen rallied supporters against the proposal, just barely mustering enough votes to prevent the bill from passing. ITTL a stronger liberal and democratic return in the election means the votes simply aren’t there for Camphausen to rally.

(3) A former lieutenant in the Prussian Army and editor of the railway worker's newspaper Die Lokomotive, Held had previously been one of the demagogues that had galvanized the crowds in the Zeltens during the March Revolution. Held was neither an orthodox socialist nor a democrat, his power came from a strong core of support among the Prussian railway workers. Held had a unique ideology of an authoritarian and populist mix with socialism, militarism and royal power. If it sounds familiar, some IOTL historians consider Held to be a proto-fascist.

(4) A political attitude among German-speaking Catholics in the mid-19th century which placed loyalty to the Pope (but not necessarily the Catholic church) above all secular ties. The word comes from the Latin ultra montes, "beyond the mountains," meaning the Alps.

(5) IOTL the parade was entirely peaceful. ITTL support for the new liberal regime is much more entrenched among the general populace, which ardently would take to defending in the streets.

(6) IOTL both the principalities constitutional movements were crushed by repeated invasions by the Prussian army. However ITTL with a stronger radical resistance in the surrounding regions of Baden, Bavaria and the Rhineland, as well as Prussia's overall weakness both in Berlin and Frankfurt, the Prussia military assistance never materializes, and the Hohenzollern principalities are left to fend for themselves. Which was an issued after Prince Charles' lording over both of the territories with his Prussian corps delivered as a result of the Swiss Civil War; see Chapter #1 for details.

(7) 'Socialist' being somewhat anachronistic ITTL.

(8) A Hessen teacher of chemistry, 'Marlo' became a socialist by his own thoughts and observations, which he spent twenty-three years writing down into one comprehensive book from 1843 until his death in 1865, completely isolated from contemporary radical thinkers. Published in four volumes, 'System of World Economy' lays out Winkelblech's belief that a process of 'proletarianization' was rapidly crushing smaller entrepreneurs by the larger capitalists, and that under the developing industrial system wages were artificially held down to subsistence level while workers were subjected to increasing risks of recurrent unemployment by these same large capitalist businesses. In general he believed in a system which he described as panpolism (the opposite of monopolism) in which the means of production would be common property, managed and organized by the state, while the product of the labor of the individual worker would remain private property. In essence OTL's contemporary European 'Third Way' social democratic model.

(9) IOTL the proposal was put forward to the sub-committee, but was never passed. ITTL it'll be moved up to debate in the full parliament and though the issue won't be resolved in Frankfurt until long after Windischgrätz has Prague under control, it shows the increased role and power of the Frankfurt assembly ITTL.

(10) IOTL the parliament only offered the 'Duchy of Gnesen,' a mere third of the original grand duchy of Posen, with only a quarter of the population. As the Poles have had a stronger showing both in the parliament and in the streets (and battlefields) ITTL, the Frankfurt parliament instead offered them the entire Grand Duchy as an autonomous, Polish, province within the German empire in order to maintain the territorial integrity of Prussia (and to keep the Russians from invading).

(11) Prince Frederick Emil August of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Augustenburg, who was then the next in line to the Danish throne after the childless King Frederick VII as the brother-in-law of the previous Danish King Christian VIII. However Frederick August's Germanophila made him unacceptable to the Danish nobility and people, and ultimately IOTL he was passed up in favor of Prince Christian of Glücksburg in 1852 as the heir-presumptive following the conclusion of the war.

(12) Which shows that not all revolutionary movements in 1848 were inspired by the February Revolution. Chartism began with the People's Charter (of Britain) in 1838.

(13) Which, of course, did not happen IOTL, but as the revolutions on the continent have been much more successful so far ITTL the Swedes are less likely to continue to allow Thrane to continue his activities indefinitely. Germany, with its strong worker's movement ITTL, is the obvious destination for a socialist such as Thrane.

 

[Scipio Africanus]

Awesome! But, I do have a question: what is the mood in the Austrian Empire? Does it look like they will join the new German state or stay out of it?
Thanks,
Scipio

 

[wolf_brother]

Awesome! But, I do have a question: what is the mood in the Austrian Empire? Does it look like they will join the new German state or stay out of it?
Thanks,
Scipio

The mood in the Austrian Empire will depend on where in the empire you are, and who you're asking. In general the Germans throughout the empire are in favor of joining the new German state, especially in Prague and Vienna. However, if you move out of the urban areas into the rural estates where the conservative nobility are still firmly in charge you'll find a very different opinion. IOTL as the reaction took hold an Austrian alternative to either Kleindeutschland or Großdeutschland was offered in which the German states would join the greater Austrian empire. That same sentiment still exists ITTL, its simply suppressed/overwhelmed by the radical-liberal fervor, especially in the imperial capitol.

The Slavs for the most part of course know they won't be welcome in the new Germany, and so either wish for their own states, or for the continuation of the Hapsburg empire (Palacký's 'austroslavism'). However, notably the Poles are, again in general, choosing to work within the new German framework. Of course a liberal Germany is a much better alternative to Tsarist Russia so its not that surprising. The Magyars and the Italians, as well, are looking to bail out of the entire enterprise while they still can.

 

[Scipio Africanus]

Ah, good to know, thank you for answering my question. I was really just curious as to the German sentiment since I pretty much assumer the Slavs, Magyars and Italians want out of the empire. However, the strong nationalist sentiments seem to be more extreme ITTL, which might cause more revolt and an earlier breakup of the empire.
Scipio

 

[wolf_brother]

Ah, good to know, thank you for answering my question. I was really just curious as to the German sentiment since I pretty much assumer the Slavs, Magyars and Italians want out of the empire. However, the strong nationalist sentiments seem to be more extreme ITTL, which might cause more revolt and an earlier breakup of the empire.
Scipio

Well, that should be a given, considering several posts so far have already featured articles title 'Dissolution of the Hapsburg Empire'

Unless of course you meant a breakup of the new German state, which remains to be seen how well off it will be

 

[Van555]

Masterful

This certainly blew my plans to raise my timeline out of the water.

Just as well though!

 

[wolf_brother]

il Risorgimento, Act III

[Spacing]

"He did not know how to use the immense forces under his command; he was indeed the principal cause of their destruction."
- Giuseppe Garbaldi, professional revolutionary and Italian patriot, of Sardinian King Charles Albert
23 June 1848​

Italian Crusade

... On 15 June Pepe received word in Bologna of the counter-revolution of Neapolitan 15 May by way of orders from Naples to return, delivered by his superior General Statella. Statella, a conservative reactionary himself, was 'smug' during his audience, according to Pepe's journals, and 'seemed almost gleeful to be presenting the orders withdrawing Naples from the Italian struggle.' Pepe however, instead of returning, resigned in rage, and planned to march onto the war-front alone if he must. Luckily for him the patriots of Bologna, in addition to the Bologna National Guard Unit, upon hearing word rallied around the general as the Neapolitan forces prepared to withdraw from the city. Putting their hands on their swords hilts the crowd cried out as one; "This sword is for you, Italian General!" Moved to tears Pepe grasped his own sword, reportedly humbling returning simply; "This one will be for Italy as long as I live." Pepe immediately resumed his command, while it was Statella's turn to resign now. (1) Unfortunately though as Statella attempted to return to Naples his couch was burned to ash by an angry crowd with its helpless passenger trapped inside. Although only some 2,000 of his original force were willing to disobey the King's orders, Pepe led these men across the Po River on a double-march to relieve Venice. Two days later Pepe's forces reached the lagoon via steamer from Chioagga with the remnants of the Neapolitan regiments. Immediately the Constituent Assembly gave command of all the Venetian forces, by then 22,000-strong, to Pepe. Only 10,000 of the defenders within Venice by this time were Venetian natives; the rest were all Italian patriotic volunteers...

... on 21 June, Radetzky, well-defended within the fortress of Verona as part of the Quadrilateral, wrote to Austrian Minister of War Latour; "I only wish that the Minister [of Foreign Affairs, Baron Franz Pillersdorf] could have as much success in battle against the intelligentsia of our time as I am now having, despite being in the minority, in battles and skirmishes with the King of Sardinia." Indeed, despite a string of earlier victories, the Piedmontese war effort had largely stalled as the Austrians withdrew into their formidable fortresses that dotted the North Italian plain. Within the week Latour had written back to Radetzky, authorizing him to gamble Austrian power in Italy on one decisive battle. At the time Radetzky commanded some 72,000 troops, while Charles Albert had split his forces; 28,000 besieging Verona and 42,000 doing the same to Mantua. Three days later Latour wrote again to Radetzky, ordering him to move quickly, expel Charles Albert's troops from Lombardy, and force the rebellious northern Italians to submit...

... on 23 June Giuseppe Garibaldi (2), along with his 63 volunteers, including his Uruguayan wife, Anita, a professional revolutionary in her own right, arrived in Nice. (3) Making their way to Genoa, Garibaldi planned to offer his services to Charles Albert, the very man who had condemned him to death in 1834. However, writing later Garibaldi stated that; "I made my way to Roverbella, which was then his headquarters, to offer him my services and those of my comrades. I met him and saw the distrust with which he received me; the hesitancy and indecision of the man to whom Italy's destiny had been entrusted made me grieve. I would have obeyed the King's orders as readily as I would have done in a republic... however Charles Albert's position as King, the circumstances of our time, and the wish of the majority of Italians - all called on hi to lead the war of redemption, a role for which he was found wanting."

... One last attempt at a peaceful settlement occlude on 1 July when newly elected French Foreign Minister Jules Bastide sent a wire to the foreign ministries of Europe, specifically Piedmont, Austria and Britain, proposing a Franco-British mediation on the basis of Piedmont annexing Lombardy, while Venetia would stay under Austrian rule, albeit with some autonomy. The next day though the imperial government in Vienna rejected Bastide's proposal, which caused a crisis in Paris...

... As the war continued and the Austrians forces continued to enclose their stranglehold on the Venetian countryside, the Constituent Assembly voted in favor of 'fusion' with Piedmont on 4 July. Nominally all of Northern Italy was now a united kingdom. The next day a monarchist provisional government was appointed by Charles Albert; however the new regime lacked legitimacy among the Venetian people as it was without any of the leaders of the Venetian Revolution. Manin in particular rejected the provisional government, and defiantly joined the city's civic guard. Outside of the city Austrian Marshal Franz von Welden had by this point successfully isolated the lagoon from the terra firma by cordoning his nine thousand troops around the city. However with his forces spread so thin von Welden could not possible hope to take the city, and so instead planned to starve Venetia into submission. However his forces were also crippled by malaria, further...

... During an Austrian counter-attack in north Italy Hapsburg forces spilled over the Papal border, briefly occupying Ferrara to regroup. When word reached Rome late in the afternoon of 14 July the radicals mobilized protests via the clubs ('circoli'), and following Canino's lead demanded that Pius IX declare both a state of emergency and war against the Austrian empire...

... On 22 July as part of his great gamble Radetzky launched his forces against the Italians, in order to lift the Piedmontese siege of Verona. By the next morning the Austrians smashed through the center of the Piedmontese line, which defended a series of hilltop villages north of Cuztozza, an important strategic point for both sides. By 24 July Charles Albert's army crossed the Mincio and took Custoza, however Radetzky counter-attacked against the city before the Piedmontese could fortify their position. In a crushing victory Radetzky's troops routed the Piedmontese-led Italians, pushing Charles Albert out of the city after a furious two-day, hand-to-hand battle for the city through the streets. By the evening of the 25th both sides had lost at least half of their forces; however Radetzky's larger numbers meant he could afford such loses, and while Charles Albert retreated to Milan the Austrian host fortified its position over-looking the Mincio River. Importantly for developments elsewhere in the Hapsburg Empire, as the Piedmontese withdrew from the city Radetzky allowed his remaining Serbian units to serve with Jelačić...

The Battle of Custoza​

Aftermath of Custoza

... Charles Albert assured the Milanese populace that he intended to fight and defend the city; however he was secretly already negotiating terms with Radetzky regarding the Piedmontese withdrawal from the war. (4) It was agreed that Charles Albert's forces would leave Milan on 6 August, and have until the 8th to withdraw from Lombardy completely, taking with them all of those who had 'compromised' themselves in the revolution. However, word of the treaty was leaked, and the Piedmontese were forced to flee Milan as the city's populace rose up against them. Charles Albert himself barely escaped the Greppi Palace under heavy protection of his troops, who had already begun the extradition process. Radetzky's forces entered the city on 7 August, writing simply to Latour thus; "Milan is ours."

... by 9 August the Piedmontese General Salasco signed an armistice with Radetzky officially ending the war between the Austrian Empire and the Sardinian Kingdom...

... After being snubbed by the Piedmontese Garibaldi's volunteers (the Redshirts (5)) placed themselves in Lombard service. Joined by Mazzini, the Redshirts double-marched back to Milan to defend the city after the disaster of Custoza. While en-route the two revolutionary leaders learned of the armistice, Mazzini wrote later that; "Armistice, surrender, flight - the news stuck us down like successive bolts of lightning, spreading, in its wake, fear and demoralization among the people and the troops." As Radetzky captured the city, Garibaldi's forces split; the majority follow Garibaldi himself north to Como to wage a guerrilla war against the Austrians. The rest either desert or, the majority of the second faction, joined Mazzini under the banner 'For God and the People' they entered Switzerland to direct the resistance and gather more volunteers. Entering the canton of Ticino on the morning of August 8, by the end of the week Mazzini's faction had swollen with until it matched Garibaldi's. Mazzini's new banner brought in streams of Swiss-Italians, some of whom truly believed in Italian unification, with a minority following their local worthies, such as Giacomo Luvini-Perseghini, who joined Mazzini a few days later. However the vast majority of these Swiss-Italians flocked to Mazzini to escape the conservative rule of the Sonderbund within their own canton, and hoped that a successfully unified liberal Italy might again one day return to Ticino... (6)

... Protests continued throughout Rome following Pius' rejection of Italian unification and the League of Italian States (7), further enraged following the Austrian's brief capture of Ferrara, the radical crowds invaded the lower house of the Papal parliament on 3 August, where they demanded arms to 'defend the city' from the rumored to-be approaching Austrian horde. Mamiani swiftly resigned as Prime Minister following this, and though Pius Xi wished to appoint his personal friend the moderate Pellegrino Rossi in his stead the parliament opposed, leading to a six-week period of caretaker government in the Papal States. A little less than a week later Austrian troops attempted to occupy Bologna to punish the city for joining Pepe's forces now in Venetia; however the populace put up a stiff resistance. Insurgents, mostly consisting of the urban poor, artisans, and the petite bourgeoisie, managed to cut off the one company that penetrated the town's defenses, all while under bombardment from Austrian field guns. Within three hours the Hapsburg forces withdrew from the city altogether...

... Though fleeing Milan to Paris, Cattaneo declared on 8 August of the Piedmontese withdraw: 'Now we are our own masters.' Arriving eight days later, he immediately began writing his masterpiece "L’Insurrection de Milan en 1848," a political pamphlet which blamed the monarchist for the fall of Milan, and more importantly chronicled the events in Milan from the first of the year. It quickly became a smash-hit with Parisians and all political stripes. Back in Turin riots broke out across the royal capitol over the armistice in advance of the retreating Piedmontese army. Immediately Charles Albert’s liberal government, which had been selected from across his newly conquered territories of North Italy, resigned in masse led by the former mayor of Milan, Casati. Overall some 25,000 Milanese refuges entered the city along with Charles Albert's forces...

... In Venice on 3 August some two hundred people gathered in the Casino di Cento and established the Italian Club as an alternative, republican, center of power. Four days later Charles Albert's commissioners, sent to Venice to assume authority in the King's name, arrived in the city ignorant of the events in Lombardy; they were greeted by crowds which threw stones at them, nearly forcing them out of the city altogether. By the 11th leading republicans, including Manin and Tommaseo, signed a letter of protest against the Piedmontese commissioners and demanded a meeting of the Venetian Assembly. The commissions, to their folly, attempted to silence its critics in the press and the Italian club by citing the old Austrian censorship laws. The next day they were forced to resign under increasing pressure after agreeing to the creation of a committee of defense to be elected by the Venetian Assembly. As the commissioners tried to leave the lagoon they were hounded onto Saint Mark's Square by a violent crowd, with some in the mob carrying ropes for hanging. Manin was located just in time to prevent the slaughter, browsing in a local bookshop. Alerted to the situation he rushed to the square, where his appearance on the balcony above the Pizza stilled the crowd below. In a moment of political brilliance and a strong dose of self-promotion, Manin promised that the Venetian Assembly would reconvene on 13 August, and that in the meantime he was assuming powers as Dictator of Venice. The crowd's mood swiftly changed from murderous to celebratory, and to chants of 'Viva Manin!' they marched to man the city's defensive forts...

The Venetian Flag​

... At the proclaimed Assembly meeting days later it was agreed that Manin would share power in a triumvirate with Colonel Giovanni Cavedalis, representing the army, and Admiral Leon Graziani for the navy. Pepe however, remained supreme Commander-in-Chief of the city's military forces. The Assembly also declared that Venice was not a republic, but instead operating under a provisional government, 'in every meaning of the word.' Manin quickly sent his faithful companion Tommaseo to Paris to beg for French intervention; addressing a letter to French Foreign Minister Bastide Manin declared that 'the life of a people who have contributed not a little to European civilization now depends on the immediate assistance of the heroic French nation.' However by the time Tommaseo arrived in the French capitol events had outpaced him, both in Italy and France...

Southern Italy

... Neapolitan King Ferdinand's promised elections took place by 15 June, though on a much narrower franchise than originally envisioned by the Naples insurrectionaries, it still returned a parliament with a strong liberal showing. However the conflict in the kingdom between progressive and reactionary forces continued. By the end of that same month 8,000 royalist troops put down a major peasant insurrection in Calabria. The peasantry of the southern province had been agitating for increased government aid in the face of the continued poor harvest and famine throughout Italy and indeed Europe during the period. Notably, Ferdinand's troops encountered an expeditionary force of a thousand Sicilians sent to support the Calarbrians... (8)

... As a result of the Sicilian Revolution and the subsequent parliamentary proclamation declaring the Bourbon dynasty overthrown on the island, the parliament began a search looking for a suitable candidate to replace Ferdinand as a liberal, constitutional monarch. The British, making one of the first moves into the affairs of the European states during the 1848 revolution, informed both the Sicilians and Piedmontese that Sardinian King Charles Albert's younger son, Prince Ferdinand, the Duke of Genoa, would be a suitable replacement, and more importantly that they would recognize him as King and offer him the protection of the British navy as soon as he took possession of the throne. Though there was some commotion regarding the royal name and following Ferdinand, a tyrant, with another Ferdinand, on 11 July the Sicilian parliament unanimously voted to offer him the throne. Later in the month the Prince successful made it the island (9), escorted by steam frigates of the Piedmontese navy, which remained in Palermo throughout the end of the year on loan from one Savoyard monarch to another. Of course, after his father's withdraw from the war effort young Ferdinand struggled over the decision over whether to follow the Piedmontese in withdrawing from Italian affairs or not...

King Ferdinand I, first Savoyard king of Sicily​

... By 5 September, seeking to free his hands politically, Ferdinand of Naples prorogued the Neapolitan parliament, and set the lazzaroni on radical artisans who attempted to defend the legislature. The National Guard was severely reduced and liberal officials and judges were dismissed throughout the day. Ferdinand also...

Dawles, Richard. Trans. William McKnight. The Victorian Era. Brussels: Writer's Guild, 2007.

... In all the chaos the Sicilian government could do little to raise an army strong enough to defend Sicily against any Neapolitan counterattack. By September, the island could depend upon perhaps six thousand troops, with the rest made up of poorly trained National Guards, in addition to the hardened street-brawlers of the great cities and the unpredictable but undoubtedly violent squadre. They were no match for the Neapolitan regular army. In August Ferdinand mustered a 10,000-strong expeditionary force on the Calabrian coast, across the Straits of Messina. The expeditionary force came to the rescue of the royal garrison in Messina’s citadel, the one bridgehead that the Neapolitans had clung on to since the start of the revolution. After a relentless bombardment from the guns of the fortress between 1 and 6 September, the troops advanced, confronted only with the city’s rough-and-ready civic guards and the urban crowd. The royal forces grimly set about retaking Messina street by burning street. When the fighting was over, some two-thirds of the city lay in smouldering ruins. Ferdinand was henceforth known to Sicilians by a new epithet: Bomba. A six-month armistice brokered by the appalled British and French on 11 September...

Central Italy

... On 23 August Father Gavazzi was arrested after entering Tuscany at the port of Livorno against a government ban and exile. Within hours after his arrest the dock and rail-workers of Livorno rose up n protest; the docks-men occupied the arsenal, while the rail-men tore up lines into the city. The Duke's new liberal Prime Minister, Gino Capponi, send the popular radical Franseco Guerrazzi to the city to negotiate. Guerrazzi had previously been in favor of proclamation a republic, but now feared social upheaval, and was able to convince the workers to come to the negotiating table...



(1) Under no duress by the Italian patriots surrounding him, of course..

(2) Dubbed the 'Hero of Two Worlds' for his efforts fighting revolutionary, republican, wars in both Europe and South America, Garibaldi had originally been a merchant marine captain. In 1833 he met Giovanni Battista Cuneo, a member of the secret Italian patriotic movement La Giovine Italia ('Young Italy'), who introduced Garibaldi to the ideals of Italian unification and liberal republicanism. Caribaldi joined in a failed insurrection in Piedmont the next year, and after being sentenced to death he fled to Brazil, eventually joining several (mostly failed) revolutionary attempts throughout the continent. As well he met his wife, Ana Riberio da Silva, a staunch revolutionary in her own right. IOTL Garibaldi is something of a folk hero for the Italian people, due to his participation in all three OTL Italian Wars of Unification. While Mazzini was the 'soul' of Italian unification, Garibaldi was the 'sword.'

(3) Historically apart of Piedmont since 1718, Nice was captured by the French revolutionary forces in 1792, only to be returned to Piedmont in 1814 as part of the Congress of Vienna.

(4) An action that did not endear the King to the Italian people, and OTL forced him from the thrown in 1849. ITTL differences in the series of events will prevent his abdication, but as a result he will still have to deal with the patriotic Italian animosity.

(5) Camici rosse, also known as Red Coats (Giubbe Rosse), were Garibaldi's volunteers that adapted his trademarked red shirts, complete uniform beyond the finances of the mostly poor Italian patriots. Garibaldi had adopted the red clothing during his exile in Uruguay, a cultural transmission from the gaucho traditions of which his wife was apart of.

(6) IOTL of course while the newly liberalized Swiss state offered a haven to the Italians under Mazzini for the most part the Swiss themselves largely ignored the group.

(7) See Chapter #8 for details.

(8) IOTL the force was less than 600; the discrepancy is due to the increased sense of an 'Italian' struggle for independence ITTL.

(9) IOTL Prince Ferdinand was commanding a division in the army when the Sicilian deputation arrived to offer him the throne, and after the Piedmontese withdraw from the war effort he felt compelled to decline the opportunity. ITTL random chance due to a different chronology in the war effort has him at the royal headquarters when the deputies arrive, and he quickly accepted their offer.