Politics and Diplomacy, 1850 to 1900

This is Unit Eleven of Western Civilization Two, part one of two: politics and diplomacy from eighteen fifty to nineteen hundred, the exam's eighth band. Unit ten ended with three ideologies against one, and the one absorbing two. This unit is what that absorption built, and its governing idea, which part two pays off, is the anchor's paradox: nationalism, the creed of eighteen forty-eight's defeated revolutionaries, was carried to victory by conservative ministers who did not believe in it. Cavour wanted Piedmont's power and got Italy. Bismarck wanted Prussia's and got Germany. Each needed a great-power war to free his hands, and the Crimean War supplied it. Part one follows the two architects, then Austria's bargain, Russia's reform and reaction, and France after Sedan. Part two takes the socialist parties, Bismarck's two systems, and the balance of power he broke. By the end you will be able to explain the paradox and describe Italy in eighteen fifty. To describe Italy's making. To describe Germany's. To describe Austria's bargain. To describe Russia to nineteen-oh-five. And to describe France after Sedan.

Three entries on the paradox and the peninsula: conservatives taking up nationalism, Italy's three pieces in eighteen fifty, and the state and the minister that did the unifying.

The kings learned nationalism was strong.

WC2 1001 After 1848: Conservatives Take Up Nationalism

The revolutions of eighteen forty-eight failed, but the kings learned that nationalism was strong. After it, conservatives took up liberal and nationalist causes. Italy and Germany were unified by conservative ministers, not romantic revolutionaries; socialism, left alone, turned militant. The long peace broke from eighteen fifty-three into shorter wars. The anchor's framing: pragmatic steps, not a master plan.

A geographical expression.

WC2 1002 Italy in 1850: Austria, the Two Sicilies, the Papal States, and Three Percent

Italy had not been one state since Rome. Austria held the north, a Bourbon branch ruled the Two Sicilies in the south, and the pope ruled the Papal States between; Napoleon the Third's French had dismantled Rome's republic of eighteen forty-eight. Under three percent could read Tuscan Italian, the anchor says. The witness calls Italy in eighteen fifteen a geographical expression.

An architect without sentiment.

WC2 1003 Piedmont-Sardinia, Vittorio Emanuele II, and Cavour the Architect

Piedmont-Sardinia, an island and a wedge between France and Austrian Lombardy, had a Savoy king, Vittorio Emanuele the Second, and a constitution. Its prime minister Cavour, whom the anchor calls the true architect, felt no sentiment for Italy; Piedmont's power was his aim. The anchor's Piedmont borders Spain, which it does not. Cavour died in eighteen sixty-one, months after his work was done.

Seven entries on Italy made: the Crimean War that wrecked Vienna's alliances, the war of fifty-nine, Garibaldi's Thousand, Cavour heading him off, Venetia and Rome, the south as loser, and the new state's numbers.

The Congress System gone.

WC2 1004 The Crimean War Breaks the Vienna System, 1854 to 1856

Russia pressed a declining Ottoman Empire toward the Black Sea; Britain and France went to war to stop it. Austria stayed neutral, breaking the alliance that had saved it in Hungary. Russia lost. The Congress System was gone and great powers competed openly. Six hundred thousand dead, mostly of disease, the anchor says. The witness dates the war eighteen fifty-three to fifty-six.

Lombardy won, Nice and Savoy paid.

WC2 1005 Cavour's Bargain With Napoleon III and the War of 1859

With the Vienna alliances wrecked, Cavour could play the powers against each other. He bargained with Napoleon the Third for French help, and in eighteen fifty-nine a French and Piedmontese army pushed Austria out of Lombardy. The price was Nice and Savoy, ceded to France. Venetia stayed Austrian. The anchor names no battle; Magenta and Solferino are disclosed, not taught.

A thousand red shirts on two leaky steamers.

WC2 1006 Garibaldi and the Thousand, 1860

Garibaldi, a romantic nationalist and former mercenary in South America, sailed in May eighteen sixty with a thousand red-shirted volunteers on two leaky steamers to Sicily. He took Palermo, won peasants by suspending taxes and promising land, and crossed to the mainland in August. Northern townsmen, professionals and students dodging exams, the anchor says. Naples fell without the Piedmontese army.

A minister's calculation, not a people's rising.

WC2 1007 Cavour Heads Garibaldi Off: Italy in Six Months

Cavour feared Garibaldi would attack the Papal States and bring the French down on Italy. He assured Napoleon the Third the pope was safe, then marched the Piedmontese army through papal territory, annexing most of it and blocking Garibaldi. Garibaldi handed his conquests to the king. Italy united in about six months: a minister's calculation, not a people's rising.

Two pieces from Prussia's wars.

WC2 1008 Venetia 1866, Rome 1870

The kingdom of eighteen sixty-one lacked Venetia, still Austrian, and Rome, still papal under French guard. Venetia came in eighteen sixty-six, when Italy sided with Prussia against Austria. Rome came in eighteen seventy, when France withdrew its garrison to fight Prussia. The witness: unification completed when Rome was annexed. Witness-built; the anchor ends Italy's story in sixty-one.

Almost like a colony.

WC2 1009 The South as Loser: Tariffs, Brigands, and the Bandit Wars

The south paid for the war of eighteen fifty-nine and a bigger army. Piedmont's low tariffs killed southern industries, and no money went to relief or roads. Brigands fought a three-year war that the anchor says cost more lives than unification. The south was treated almost like a colony, in the anchor's characterization, which is attributed.

One voter in forty-four.

WC2 1010 Italy in 1861: Twenty-Two Million People, Half a Million Voters

The Kingdom of Italy at Cavour's death held twenty-two million people and an electorate of half a million property owners: one voter in forty-four, on the anchor's figures. It was a constitutional monarchy with a strong king and patronage politics. To many southerners, the anchor says, unification looked like northern occupation. The figures are the anchor's.

Five entries on Germany made: Bismarck and iron and blood, Austria beaten and spared, the dispatch that trapped France, Sedan and Versailles, and an empire's constitution with a demand for revenge.

Iron and blood, not speeches.

WC2 1011 Bismarck: Realpolitik, Iron and Blood

Otto von Bismarck, a Prussian Junker, served his king without sentiment and used nationalism he distrusted. Made chancellor by Wilhelm the First, he told the budget commission in eighteen sixty-two that the great questions would be decided by iron and blood, not speeches and majority resolutions. The anchor calls him the inventor of Realpolitik. The Confederation was a league; the Zollverein the trade zone. Part two reads the speech.

Austria out of Germany, not conquered.

WC2 1012 Prussia Against Austria, 1866: Why Bismarck Did Not March on Vienna

Bismarck goaded Austria into war over Schleswig-Holstein, taken from Denmark in eighteen sixty-four. Prussia's modernized army beat Austria in about seven weeks. Then Bismarck stopped his king from marching on Vienna. The aim was Austria out of Germany, not Austria conquered: a perfect example of Realpolitik, the anchor says. The battle, Königgrätz, is unnamed by the anchor and disclosed.

An edited account, and a humiliated emperor.

WC2 1013 The Spanish Throne, the Leaked Memo, and War With France, 1870

Napoleon the Third wanted territory for staying out of eighteen sixty-six; Bismarck ignored him. A Hohenzollern candidate for the vacant Spanish throne alarmed France. Bismarck released an edited account of the king's talk with the French ambassador, the Ems Dispatch. Napoleon the Third, humiliated, declared war. The witness names the dispatch and Ambassador Benedetti; the anchor calls it a leaked memo.

Captured at Sedan, proclaimed at Versailles.

WC2 1014 Sedan, Versailles, and the German Empire, 1871

Napoleon the Third led in person, sick, and was captured at Sedan on the first of September eighteen seventy. With Paris under siege, Wilhelm the First was proclaimed German Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles in January eighteen seventy-one. The smaller kingdoms joined. The myth of French military supremacy was destroyed. Sedan is named on the witness, not the anchor.

Hardly the liberal vision.

WC2 1015 The Empire's Constitution, Alsace-Lorraine, and Revanche

All men over twenty-five elected the Reichstag, but an unelected federal council and the Kaiser held more power, and the chancellor answered to the Kaiser. France lost Alsace and much of Lorraine and paid a considerable indemnity. Revanche, the demand for revenge, entered French politics. Hardly the liberal vision, the anchor says. The witness gives the sum; the anchor says considerable.

Two entries on Austria's bargain: one emperor and two states from eighteen sixty-seven, and the nationalities the bargain satisfied and the ones it left waiting.

One emperor, two states.

WC2 1016 Austria-Hungary: The Compromise of 1867

Ousted from Germany in eighteen sixty-six, Austria needed allies and struck a bargain with Hungary the next year. The result was a dual monarchy: one emperor, two states, each with its own government and parliament, Austria-Hungary from eighteen sixty-seven. The witness calls it an unwieldy alliance. Witness-built; the anchor never names the Compromise.

Germans and Magyars satisfied, no one else.

WC2 1017 Nationalities Under the Dual Monarchy

The Compromise satisfied Germans and Magyars and no one else. Czechs, Poles, Croats, Serbs, Romanians and others lived under one or the other half, with separate goals. Nationalism, a builder of states elsewhere, was a danger inside an empire of many nations, the witness's phrase. Witness-built; the Balkan consequences belong to unit fourteen.

Seven entries on Russia: the formula of autocracy, orthodoxy, nationality; novelists under a secret police; emancipation with a catch; a tsar assassinated; reaction; nineteen-oh-five; and where Lenin came from.

No revolution, for opposite reasons.

WC2 1018 Alexander I and Nicholas I: Autocracy, Orthodoxy, Nationality

Russia, like Britain, had no revolution, but for opposite reasons: agricultural and autocratic. Alexander the First saw the Revolution as an abomination and the Holy Alliance as a mission. Nicholas the First built the Third Section police and, in eighteen thirty-two, the formula autocracy, orthodoxy, nationality. Siberia for a remark or a book, the anchor says. Russia crushed Hungary for Austria in forty-eight.

Thinkers treated as criminals.

WC2 1019 The Intelligentsia: Novelists Under a Secret Police

Russia's intelligentsia, nearly all nobles, produced modern Russian literature: Turgenev, Dostoevsky, Chekhov. Under Nicholas the First's police an intellectual was close to a criminal, and Dostoevsky himself went into exile. The anchor's point: treating thinkers as criminals made criminals of thinkers. The Russian soul became a literary theme. Anchor-only; the witnesses do not treat the intelligentsia.

Freed into debt.

WC2 1020 Alexander II Emancipates the Serfs, 1861, With a Catch

Alexander the Second, tsar from eighteen fifty-five, blamed backwardness for the Crimean defeat and freed the serfs in eighteen sixty-one. The catch: the serfs owed the state redemption payments for land the nobles were paid for, tying them to the soil for generations. Two years before Lincoln's Proclamation; household serfs got no land. Alexander the Liberator, the witness says, with little immediate effect.

The peasants turned them in.

WC2 1021 Narodniks and the People's Will: A Tsar Assassinated, 1881

In spring eighteen seventy-four young radicals went to the people to rouse the peasants; the peasants turned them in. Disappointed Narodniks formed the People's Will, hoping a killing would spark a rising. In March eighteen eighty-one they killed Alexander the Second. No rising came: the only tsar assassinated by radicals. Names are anchor-only; the witness records Lenin's brother's later plot.

Revolution or nothing.

WC2 1022 Alexander III, Reaction, and the Impasse Before 1905

Alexander the Third hunted the terrorists and ruled as a reactionary. By the eighteen eighties every intellectual, the anchor says, believed in radical restructuring: revolution or nothing. Russia changed least of the powers, autocratic and agricultural, industrializing only around western cities at the century's end. The impasse ended by revolution, in nineteen-oh-five and seventeen. The generalization is attributed.

Beaten by Japan, a Duma conceded.

WC2 1023 The Russo-Japanese War and the Revolution of 1905

Japan attacked Port Arthur in nineteen-oh-four and beat Russia; the Treaty of Portsmouth gave Japan Korea and southern Manchuria. In Russia troops fired on petitioners on Bloody Sunday, about a thousand killed, the witness says, and Nicholas the Second conceded a Duma, which met in nineteen-oh-six with a tsar-appointed upper house. Witness-named; the anchor gives the war and date only.

Marx plus a police state.

WC2 1024 Lenin's Context: Marx Plus Russian Terrorism

By the eighteen eighties terrorist groups existed and radical intellectuals expected revolution. Lenin's Bolsheviks joined Marx's doctrine to that Russian tradition of conspiracy and violence, and realized it in nineteen seventeen. The anchor's point: Russian Marxism grew from a police state, not a factory floor. Marx synthesized with Russian terrorism; nineteen seventeen belongs to unit fifteen.

Three entries on France after Sedan: a republic proclaimed and a commune stormed, a general who fled instead of a coup, and the affair that asked whether a Jew could be French.

A commune stormed.

WC2 1025 The Third Republic and the Paris Commune, 1871

With Napoleon the Third captured, a republic was proclaimed on September fourth and fought on. Paris fell in January. From March to late May the city ran itself as a socialist commune, and the French army stormed it. The anchor counts about twenty thousand communards executed; the witness says bloodily suppressed. The Third Republic dates from eighteen seventy.

A republic held by default.

WC2 1026 Boulanger, and a Republic That Survived Its Enemies

The Republic began as a stopgap most deputies expected a monarchy to replace. It survived monarchists, then a general whom crowds urged toward a coup in the eighteen eighties; he fled instead. A republic held by default outlasted rivals who could not agree on a king, and lasted until nineteen forty. Boulanger is named in no source the course holds, and is disclosed.

Can a Jew be French?

WC2 1027 The Dreyfus Affair

In the eighteen nineties Dreyfus, a Jewish officer, was framed for espionage. Dreyfusards and anti-Dreyfusards fought over whether a Jew could be French. Dreyfus was exonerated. Anti-Semitism became, the anchor says, a defining trait of France's authoritarian right, and Herzl's Zionism answered. Herzl is on the witness; the affair itself is anchor-only.

Look at what you can now do. You can explain the paradox of conservatives taking up nationalism, and describe Italy's three pieces, Piedmont and Cavour. You can describe the Crimean War wrecking Vienna's alliances, the war of fifty-nine, the Thousand, Cavour's march, Venetia and Rome, the south as loser, and one voter in forty-four. You can describe Bismarck's iron and blood, Austria beaten and spared, the Ems Dispatch, Sedan and Versailles, and an empire hardly the liberal vision. You can describe the dual monarchy and the nations it left waiting. You can describe Russia from autocracy, orthodoxy, nationality through emancipation into debt, a tsar's murder, reaction, nineteen-oh-five, and Lenin's context. And you can describe the Third Republic, the Commune, Boulanger disclosed, and Dreyfus. Part two takes the socialist parties, Bismarck's culture war, welfare state and alliances, five procedures, and the balance of power he broke.