Title: Revolutions of 1848 | Causes, Summary, & Significance | Britannica
Headings: Revolutions of 1848
Revolutions of 1848
European history
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Content: Revolutions of 1848 | Causes, Summary, & Significance | Britannica
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Revolutions of 1848
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Revolutions of 1848, series of republican revolts against European monarchies, beginning in Sicily and spreading to France, Germany, Italy, and the Austrian Empire. They all ended in failure and repression and were followed by widespread disillusionment among liberals. Read More on This Topic
history of Europe: The Revolutions of 1848
After adopting reforms in the 1830s and the early 1840s, Louis-Philippe of France rejected further change and thereby spurred new liberal...
The revolutionary movement began in Italy with a local revolution in Sicily in January 1848, and, after the revolution of February 24 in France, the movement extended throughout the whole of Europe, with the exception of Russia, Spain, and the Scandinavian countries. In the United Kingdom it amounted to little more than a Chartist demonstration and a republican agitation in Ireland. In Belgium, the Netherlands, and Denmark it manifested itself in peaceful reforms of existing institutions, but democratic insurrections broke out in the capitals of the three great monarchies, Paris, Vienna, and Berlin, where the governments, rendered powerless by their fear of “the revolution,” did little to defend themselves. The revolution was successful in France alone; the Second Republic and universal manhood suffrage were established, but the quarrel between the supporters of the république démocratique and the partisans of république démocratique et sociale culminated in a workers’ insurrection in June 1848. In Austria, where the new ministers promised to grant constitutions, the monarchy withstood the storm, and in Prussia King Frederick William IV, who led the movement for the unification of Germany, hoisted the black, red, and gold flag that had become the symbol of German unity. The German governments agreed to the convocation of three constituent assemblies at Berlin, Vienna, and Frankfurt by which democratic constitutions were to be drafted for Prussia, Austria, and Germany.