European Conservatism

AP European HistoryUnit 3/Ch. 21

The Dual Revolution • FR = Politics, IR =

Economics/Social• Growth of industrial

middle class • Revitalized

conservatism• Ideologies of change

liberalism, socialism, nationalism

The Peace Settlement: Congress of Vienna

• Quadruple Alliance: BR, PR, AUS, RS

• Congress of Vienna, 1814 w/ Prince Klemens von Metternich

• Bourbon monarchy restored principle of legitimacy

Balance of Power • International

equilibrium of political & military forces

• Defensive buffers around France

• New league of German states German Confederation

• Concert of Europe – regular meetings of QA

Ideology of Conservatism • Originated by Edmund

Burke, championed by Metternich

• Obedience to political authority

• Organized religion crucial to social order

• Community needs > individual rights

• Tradition best guide for order

• Supported by: monarchs, gov’t bureaucracies, nobility, churches

Principle of Intervention • Right to intervene in

states threatened by revolution & to restore legit monarchs

• Holy Alliance AUS, PR, RUS

• Crushed attempted revolutions in Spain & Italy (1820)

• Revolutions in Latin America (1818-1838)

• Greek Revolt (1821)

Great Britain• 1815 - Nobility

dominated parliament• Whigs & Tories• Corn Laws of 1815

economic strife, political discontent

• Peterloo Massacre, 1819

Restoration in France• Louis XVIII (r. 1814-

1824) restored to throne in 1814/1815

• Opposed by liberals & ultraroyalists

• Charles X (r. 1824-1830) more conservative

• Eventually accepted ministerial responsibility

Intervention in the Italian States & Spain

• Congress of Vienna established 9 states in Italy

• Carbonari• Ferdinand VIII

restored as king of Spain in 1814

• Broken promises, persecuted parliament revolt!

Repression in Central Europe • Metternich “chief

Minister of Police in Europe”

• Burschenschaften• Karlsbad Decrees

(1819)• Austria empire w/

11 ethnicities

Russia: Autocracy of the Tsars

• Rural population, autocratic ruler: Alexander I

• Reactionary after 1815

• Northern Union secret society

• Decembrist Revolt 1825

• Revolt transformed Nicolaus I (r. 1825-1855) into a reactionary