Age of Realpolitik Notes

• Crimean War
• Major cause: dispute between two groups of Christians over privileges in the Holy Land (Palestine)
• 1852, Turks (who controlled Palestine) agreed to Napoleon III's demands to provide enclaves in the Holy Land for the protection of Roman Catholic religious orders.
• Florence Nightingale
• British nurse who became a pioneer in modern nursing
• During the Crimean War more men died of disease rather than by combat wounds.
• Nightingale's "Light Brigade" superbly tended to wounded men during the war, although fatalities due to disease remained high.
• Second French Republic
• Constitution: unicameral legislature (National Assembly); strong executive power; popularly elected president of the republic
• Universal male suffrage
• President Louis Napoleon: seen by voters as a symbol of stability and greatness
• Dedicated to law and order, opposed to socialism and radicalism, and favored the conservative classes--the Church, army, property-owners, and business.
• Second French Empire
• Emperor Napoleon III: took control of gov't in coup d'etat (December 1851) and became emperor the following year
• Emperor Napoleon III
• Baron Georges von Haussmann
• Infrastructure: railroads, canals, roads
• Credit Mobilier
• Banking: funded industrial and infrastructure growth
• Syllabus of Errors
• Pope Pius IX issued Syllabus of Errors (1864), condemning liberalism.
• Italian Unification
• After collapse of revolutions of 1848-49, unification movement in Italy shifted to Sardinia-Piedmont under King Victor Emmanuel, Count Cavour and Garibaldi
• King Victor Emmanuel
• Falloux Law
• Louis Napoleon returned control of education to the Church (in return for its support)
• Minimized influence of the Legislative Assembly
• Supported policies favorable to the army
• Disenfranchised many poor people from voting
• Destroyed the democratic-socialist movement by jailing or exiling its leaders and closing down labor unions.
• "Liberal Empire"
• By initiating a series of reforms.
• Napoleon III's rule provided a model for other political leaders in Europe.
• Demonstrated how gov't could reconcile popular and conservative forces through authoritarian nationalism.
• Count Cavour
• Served as King Victor Emmanuel's prime minister between 1852 and 1861
• Essentially a moderate nationalist and aristocratic liberal
• Replaced the earlier failed unification revolutionaries such as Mazzini and the Young Italy Movement.
• The Law on Convents and Siccardi Law
• Sought to reduce the influence of the Catholic Church
• "Il Risorgimento"
• A newspaper arguing Sardinia should be the foundation of a new unified Italy.
• Plombieres, 1859
• Giuseppe Garibaldi, Red Shirts
• Liberated southern Italy and Sicily.
• Garibaldi exemplified the romantic nationalism of Mazzini and earlier Young Italy revolutionaries.
• "Humiliation of Olmutz"
• 1849, Austria had blocked the attempt of Frederick William IV of Prussia to unify Germany "from above"
• Zollverein
• Zollverein (German customs union), 1734: biggest source of tension between Prussia and Austria.
• Kleindeutsch Plan
• Otto von Bismarck
• Led the drive for a Prussian-based Hohenzollern Germany
• Junker background; obsessed with power
• "Gap Theory"
• gained Bismarck's favor with the king
• "Blood and Iron"
• Prussian-Danish War, 1863
• Germany and Austria defeated Denmark and took control of the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein
• Austro-Prussian War, 1866
• Bismarck sought a localized war
• Made diplomatic preparations for war with Austria by negotiating with France, Italy, and Russia for noninterference
• Reichstag
• The parliament (Reichstag) consisted of two houses that shared power equally.
• Bundestag
• The lower house (bundestag) had representatives elected by universal male suffrage
• Franco-Prussian War
• Austro-Hungarian Empire
• After the Austro-Prussian War the Austrian gov't had to address national aspirations of its ethnic groups:
• Ausgleich

Real Politik: the political manifestation of what was considered Realism

• The Crimean War
• 1853-1856
• the first war covered by the media
• the first war to involve female nurses
• 1853: Nicholas I of Russia moves troops into what is today Romania
• Romania was split in two provinces
• pretends he is going to be defending the Christians in the Holy Land
• Western Europe does not want Russian influence coming this far into trade routes with the East
• the French convince the Turks to resist the Russian encroachment
• The Turks go to war with the Russians
• The Russians force the battle onto the Crimean Peninsula
• Britain blocked off the Black Sea from the rest of the Mediterranean
• not allowing the Russians to maneuver into Turkey
• the czar of Russia died and his son took his place, Alexander
• Alexander creates a treaty
• Russia is not allowed to leave its established borders even under the pretense of security for Christians in South Eastern Europe
• the two provinces in Romania are made independent states
• they combine and unify as Romania
• Alexander was not allowed to put ships on the Black Sea