Administrative changes and the “Revolution in Government” in the 1850s

1. Revolutions and State Formation
in Europe, 1789-1871
Dr Christos Aliprantis
American College of Thessaloniki – Anatolia College

2. Administrative changes and the “Revolution
in Government” in the 1850s: Introduction
 The 1850s was commonly seen as a “decade
of reaction” between 1848 and the national
unifications of the 1860s
 Time of post-revolutionary, “ideologically
flexible” politics; intense state formation
 Economic boost and the beginnings of the
second industrial revolution (“Age of Capital”)
 Great Power rivalry and military conflicts
(Crimean War, 1853-56; Italian war of 1859)

3. 1. Political change in Europe after 1848: France
 Turn to authoritarian, centralist rule after the 1848
revolutions; resurgence of conservative (even reactionary)
elements, which in many cases held a modernizing agenda
 In France, the short-lived Second Republic was replaced by the
Bonapartist Second Empire (1852-70) ruled by Napoleon III
 The 2 December 1851 coup d'état in Paris dissolved the
National Assembly and rendered president Louis Napoleon
ruler of France, also based on a later manufactured referendum
 The Second Empire was formally promulgated in 1852
 Foreign policy adventures: Crimean war; Italian war of 1859

4. 2. Military conflicts: the Crimean War (1853-56)
 The Second Empire attempted to follow the original
Napoleonic foreign policy in many fields:
 It attempted to restore France’s grandeur abroad by engaging
in a series of military operations, esp. the Crimean War
 Crimean war: first major inter-Great Power conflict since
1815: the war originated from Russia’s wish to expand at the
expense of the Ottoman Empire (a century-old goal of the
Russian foreign policy: “Eastern Question”)
 The western Powers (G. Britain, France, Sardinia) were
opposite to this status quo change and backed the Ottoman
Empire against Russia by waging a war in Crimea

5. .
 Despite being one of the most significant conflicts of the
nineteenth century, the Crimean war did not destabilize the
Concert of Europe and the status quo in the long run
 In fall 1854 allied (Franco-British troops) landed in Crimea,
where they fought harshly against the Russian army until 1856
 Front conditions were poor with more than 250,000 soldiers
dying not only in the battlefield but also due to diseases
 Nurses like Mary Seacole and Florence Nightingale were
motivated to actively improve health conditions at the front and
develop the treatment of wounded soldiers
 The war ended with Russian defeat revealing Russia’s back-
wardness and paved the way for Russian reforms in the 1860s
 The 1856 peace treaty in Paris guaranteed the integrity of the
Ottoman Empire as well as the free navigation of the Danube

6. 3. Prussia, Germany and the “Sonderweg”
interpretation
 The post-1848 period is crucial in German history in the context of
the so called “Sonderweg” (=special path) debate
 Sonderweg: Germany followed a “special way” to modernization
and national unification after 1848 because that was a result of an
alliance between the reactionary aristocracy and the bourgeois class.
 The German middle class had supposedly failed to fulfill its
emancipatory role in 1848 leading to a peculiarly conservative way
to modernization, which eventually led to the rise of Nazi Germany
 Although obsolete nowadays, the Sonderweg debate has exercised a
paramount influence in modern German historiography

7. .
 In past decades historians have done a lot to demolish the
Sonderweg thesis also regarding mid-19th c. history
 They have argued that there was nothing special in the
German way to modernization, have noted the progressive
elements of Wilhelmine Germany, and have criticized the
Sonderweg thesis as being particularly inflexible and as
having introduced a certain teleology in German history
 After the turmoil of 1848, the German Confederation was
reestablished and Austro-Prussian dualism in Germany
lasted until 1866
 In the 1850s, besides domestic reforms, Prussia went
through a counter-revolutionary rapprochement with
Austria
 The minor German states tried to retain as much autonomy
as possible while pushing agendas of domestic reform too

8. 4. The Habsburg Empire, Neoabsolutism
and the nationalities question
 After 1848 the return of absolutism in Austria and counter-
revolution were particularly severe
 Hopes for an imperial constitution were dashed after
absolutism was reintroduced in late 1851 (Silvesterpatent)
 This system of Neoabsolutism was epitomized in the young
emperor Franz Joseph and his centralizing cabinet (many of
his ministers were former revolutionaries themselves, e.g.
Alexander von Bach, the Krauss brothers)
 This new Austrian government pushed for administrative
centralization directed by a (largely) German bureaucracy

9.  The paramount topic in Habsburg historiography has long been
the nationalities question, i.e. how to accommodate the various
nationalities within the Habsburg state and whether the empire
declined due to internal tensions among the nationalities
 During Neoabsolutism (1849-59) state authorities tried to
cultivate a supranational faith among the nationalities for the
imperial regime
 The policy of strict centralization affected all nationalities
equally: it was deemed especially severe in Hungary, which
was thus punished for its secessionist attitude in 1848-49
 During this period, Austria kept being a prominent German and
Italian power, and invested heavily to retain its Great Power
status. Neoabsolutism was a very expensive regime with a very
complex foreign policy and thus it did not last after the 1860s

10. 5. Piedmont, the Italian states and the
Italian question
 After the Austro-Piedmontese war of 1848, the Italian question
remained unresolved with Italy being politically fragmented and to a
large extend under Austrian control
 The Papal States were essentially under French military occupation
in 1849-70, which caused diplomatic frictions but also signalized a
modernizing agenda (“Roman Question”)
 The Kingdom of Two Sicilies declined: it remained under British
and Austrian influence, and could not solve the brigandage problem
 Piedmont led a policy of domestic and military reforms as well as
active foreign policy (French alliance) so as to challenge Austria

11. 6. A “Revolution in Government” across
Europe?: Constitutions
 Constitutional government did not work in Austria, while in France
it barely provided a pretext for the authoritarian government
 In two countries there was real administrative change due to
constitutions: in Prussia and in Piedmont
 Despite being a gift of the King, the Prussian constitution of 1850
was widely popular among moderate conservatives and liberals
 A bi-cameral legislative body was created. The lower house was
elected by a Prussian three-class suffrage system, which gave
disproportional power to the landowners, while the Crown retained
much of its powers (through an absolute veto to legislation)

12. .
 The constitution supplied Prussia with political stability in the 1850s
 The moderate conservative minister president of Prussia Otto von
Manteuffel led a series of domestic reforms that replaced
patrimonial government with a array of central state institutions
 In Piedmont, the new constitution (Statuto Albertino) created a
flexible and resilient political reality
 The new parliamentary government entailed a governing alliance
(“connubio”) between the eccentrically conservative Camillo di
Cavour and the bourgeois political leader Urbano Rattazzi
 Cavour thus secured parliamentary support for wide modernizing
reforms as well as for this project of Italian unification
 In general, the democratic left and the old right were marginalized
after 1848 in much of Europe, incl. France, Prussia, and even Austria

13. 7. “Regeneration” and the emphasis on
economic progress
 The post-1848 style in government differed from previous practices
also because it left aside the pre-1848 ad hoc policies and focused
more on long turn, systematic policies
 It also included a greater degree of technical expertise originally of
non-state origin such as trade and finance ministers coming from the
commercial sector (Heydt in Prussia, or Bruck in Austria)
 A common 1850s catchphrase was “regeneration”
 Most new regimes emphasized economic growth: Austria, France,
Prussia and Piedmont increased vastly public spending mainly for
domestic infrastructural projects (e.g. railways, telegraphs, ports)

14. .
 Second Empire: “the first regime in France to have given
such distinct priority to economic objectives” (Alain Plessis)
 Creation of new banks and joint stock companies in order to
fund large scale infrastructural projects (e.g. Credit mobilier)
 The state participated actively in such initiatives since
ambitious public work agendas provided the means to
legitimize political authority after 1848 (e.g. railways also
supported administrative integration => increasingly in the
1850s the building of railways was perceived at the
“national” scale instead of the local one
 Another domain, where civil society experts offered their
expertise to the state was national statistics that enabled the
authorities to “see” deeper into society, and quantify the
results of their material agendas

15. 8. The Politics of Urban Planning after 1848
 Urban planning became a significant priority for the post-
revolutionary governments: the creation of large boulevards
like those of Paris designed by Georges-Eugène Haussmann
(1853-1870), or the new Ringstraße in Vienna (1857ff), aimed
in obstructing the building of barricades and facilitating the
swift movement of troops, where upheavals took place
 The police and the military often played a crucial role in such
plans of urban reconstruction
 Prussian police president Carl Ludwig von Hinckeldey initiated
a public benefit program (fire brigades, sewers, etc.) in order to
‘win back’ from revolution the people of Berlin

16. 9. Press and publicity: towards a new
censorship regime after 1848
 The press held a leading role in the 19th c. civil society in Europe
 A norm in pre-revolutionary regimes, censorship had been
briefly abolished in 1848, only to be reimposed shortly thereafter
 Yet, the preventive, pre-publication censorship of the pre-1848
period was replaced by a repressive, post-publication censorship
alongside with police surveillance of political groups
 These new measures gave press and publicity a more flexible
role, while anti-government publishers and authors often
managed to escape arrest and persecution

17. .
 The censorship regime in France was proven to be especially severe,
esp. after the 1851 coup d’etat: a number of left-wing journalists
were arrested, while the provincial press was diminished with only
eleven newspapers left in Paris
 The severity of the regime should be exaggerated though: after the
regime felt secure, censorship measures got relaxed
 The situation in Prussia was more flexible: a state “central agency
for press affairs” was established (1850), which was responsible for
subsidizing the press, overseeing the subsidized press, and
cultivating relations with domestic and foreign papers
 In Austria the censorship regime was harsh esp. in the early post-
1848 years but there the government too cultivated relations with
publishers and newspapers so as to achieve a positive portrayal of
state policies besides merely suppressing criticism

18. 10. Political policing after 1848
 When it comes to policing, new forms of inter-state collaboration
were developed: Police Union of German States initiated by Karl
Ludwig von Hinckeldey (1851-1866, Prussia, Austria, Bavaria,
Saxony, Hanover, Württemberg, Baden): information exchange
on potentially subversive individuals and activities
 Political associations and groupings were under police
surveillance at home; labor unions were hardly tolerated
 After 1849/51 the Second Empire turned against political exiles
and left-wing activists (as well as legitimists): the prefect of Paris
police Pierre Carlier exchanged regularly information mainly with
Austria and Prussia; French secret agents were sent in London to
surveil the French émigrés there

19. Conclusion
 The 1850s were a period of relative calmness in international affairs
(save the Crimean war): the European status quo remained largely
intact (until 1859)
 Authoritarian regimes were (re)established after 1848, which
nevertheless adopted energetic agendas of state expansion and
economic development
 Large scale infrastructural projects were built and even entire cities
(Paris, Vienna) were reshaped
 Despite granting certain liberties through constitutions, more radical
elements and members of the opposition were under police
surveillance or persecuted (also censorship included)