Conservatism in Europe

1815-1848

• The Congress of Vienna met to settle questions over properties left in the wake of Napoleon
• Representatives
• France- Talleyrand 
• England- Castlereagh 
• Austria- Metternich 
• Russia- Czar Alexander
• All of those men discuss what is going to happen after Napoleon left
• Russia refused to discuss the situation in Turkey and the Balkan states
• England refused to talk about their international sea trade and the colonies
• Geopolitical implications followed
• A system of strong states around France was discussed
• Austria Netherlands were transferred to the Dutch 
• The Dutch Republic changed its name
• It became, along with other places, the Kingdom of the Netherlands
• It is ruled by the House of Orange 
• There was no attempt to restore the Holy Roman Empire
• No one bothered to pay attention to the needs of the German Nationalists
• Another new Kingdom was created
• The Kingdom of Poland known as Congress Poland 
• Louis XVIII returns as a constitutional monarch
• Napoleon was banned from having any rule in France 
•  Czar Alexander insisted on a document known as the Holy Alliance 
• It said that the rule over Eastern Europe was divinely granted
• Alexander and Prussia signed on
• England refused to accept the document 
• Castlereagh called the document "sublime mysticism and nonsense
• The powers agreed that they would continue to meet to discuss concerns
• France, Britain, Austria, Russia- Concert of Europe 
• Aix-lachapelle 

• Britain became less concerned with the happenings of continental Europe 
• 1819- The French and the Russians met again in Galatia. Alexander and Metternich composed a new alliance called the Protocol of Troppau  
• 1821- Greece had been occupied by the Ottoman Turks had swept in through the Aegean Sea and overcame Greece. There was war between the Greeks and the Turks 
• With the Greeks revolting, the situation created a dilemma for the major powers of Europe 

Conservatism in Russia

• Alexander died in 1825
• He had connections between the Russian orthodox and the Greek Orthodox Church. 
• Secret police forces were on the rise in Russia and Austria 
• The reasons that freedoms were not made in Russia was because Constantine favored his brother, Nicholas, as czar.
• After Nicholas becomes czar, there is a short-lived revolutionary movement 
• Nicholas became more conservative and authoritarian than Alexander had ever been
• Russia becomes more closed off from the rest of Europe

France

• When Napoleon abdicated the throne, Talleyrand opted for another constitutional monarch
• Louis XVIII, as constitutional monarch, is a calm voice in French politics. But he is very old
• He signed The Charter which promised a new form of legislature that would be more democratic. 
• The problem was that the  vote hindered upon the fact that the citizen was a landowner 
• Major parts of the Napoleonic code, and Catholicism being the state religion were still intact
• The White Terror- Emigres returned to France under Napoleon. In 1815 they exacted their revenge on former revolutionaries.   
• Louis XVIII died in 1824 and his successor is Charles X. 
• A change took place in conservatism in France
• Charles tried to reform the measures by which the middle class would be compensated 
• He disenfranchised the middle class
• There is opposition to Charles X

Germany

• Germany was not asked what they thought of all of the political changes
• They get a sense of nationalism 
• This nationalism came out in the middle class, the universities, and the businesses. It is a sense that they have been wronged. 
• Decisions were made that affected former alliances of the Holy Roman Empire and Germany was not even included in the decision making
•  The secret police that was popular in Russia was established in Germany

England

• England has to deal with its growing empire
• It has holdings in many places. "The sun never sets on the British Empire" 
• Corn and grain were subjects of controversy
• Tariffs were redefined in the Corn Laws
• There were no labor laws 
• In Manchester, people had enough of their terrible lives
• Over 80,000 people took to the streets
• The crowd was made up of peaceful protesters
• They were protesting the rights of all men to vote
• The local forces fired on the crowd. 
• 11 are kill, 400 are injured
• The British government thanked the soldiers for doing a good job
• This was known as the Peterloo Massacre 
• Parliament was a farce
• It had nothing to do with the representation of the English community
• It became a tool of the rich and the powerful, and of the industrialists
• Reform laws are broken and shut down 

Austria 

• Continues to influence Germany
• Metternich ruled out of Vienna, influence a lot of non-Austrians, and completely ignored the locals in thirty years.