Tuesday, December 08, 2009

WH II Honors: 9 December 2009

Prayer (alphabetical):

Current Events:

Ch. 12 Section 2 material posted:

Shanawiki for Chapter 12 Section 2 Reaction and Revolution.

After Waterloo, diplomats and heads of state again sat down at the Congress of Vienna. They faced the monumental task of restoring stability and order in Europe after years of war. The Congress met for 10 months, from September 1814 to June 1815. It was a brilliant gathering of European leaders. Diplomats and royalty dined and danced, attended concerts and ballets, and enjoyed parties arranged by their host, Emperor Francis I of Austria. The work fell to Prince Clemens von Metternich of Austria, Tsar Alexander I of Russia, and Lord Robert Castlereagh of Britain. Defeated France was represented by Prince Charles Maurice de Talleyrand.

Congress Strives For Peace

The chief goal of the Vienna decision makers was to create a lasting peace by establishing a balance of power and protecting the system of monarchy. Each of the leaders also pursued his own goals. Metternich, the dominant figure at the Congress, wanted to restore things the way they were in 1792. Alexander I urged a “holy alliance” of Christian monarchs to suppress future revolutions. Lord Castlereagh was determined to prevent a revival of French military power. The aged diplomat Talleyrand shrewdly played the other leaders against one another so France would be accepted as an equal partner.

The peacemakers also redrew the map of Europe. To contain French ambitions, they ringed France with strong countries. In the north, they added Belgium and Luxembourg to Holland to create the kingdom of the Netherlands. To prevent French expansion eastward, they gave Prussia lands along the Rhine River. They also allowed Austria to reassert control over northern Italy.

To turn back the clock to 1792, the architects of the peace promoted the principle of legitimacy, restoring hereditary monarchies that the French Revolution or Napoleon had unseated. Even before the Congress began, they had put Louis XVIII on the French throne. Later, they restored “legitimate” monarchs in Portugal, Spain, and the Italian states.

Congress Fails to See Traps Ahead

To protect the new order, Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Great Britain extended their wartime alliance into the postwar era. In the Quadruple Alliance, the four nations pledged to act together to maintain the balance of power and to suppress revolutionary uprisings, especially in France. Another result of the Congress was a system known as the Concert of Europe, in which the powers met periodically to discuss any problems affecting the peace of Europe.

The Vienna statesmen achieved their immediate goals in creating a lasting peace. Their decisions influenced European politics for the next 100 years. Europe would not see war on a Napoleonic scale until 1914. They failed, however, to foresee how powerful new forces such as nationalism would shake the foundations of Europe and Latin America in the next decades.

Reading Check

Explaining

What was the "principle of legitimacy?"

The Conservative Order

Reading Check

Summarizing

What were the views of the conservative movement?

Forces of Change

Liberalism

Nationalism
Balkan Nationalism

Audio

“How is it that they [European powers] cannot understand that less and less is it possible . . . to direct the destinies of the Balkans from the outside? We are growing up, gaining confidence, and becoming independent . . .”

—Bulgarian statesman on the first Balkan War and the European powers

Learn

Focus Question

How did the desire for national independence among ethnic groups weaken and ultimately destroy the Austrian and Ottoman empires?

Audio

Napoleon had dissolved the Holy Roman Empire, which the Hapsburgs had led for nearly 400 years. Austria’s center of power had shifted to Central Europe. Additional wars resulted in continued loss of territory to Germany and Italy. Why did nationalism bring new strength to some countries and weaken others?

In Eastern and Central Europe, the Austrian Hapsburgs and the Ottoman Turks ruled lands that included diverse ethnic groups. Nationalist feelings among these subject peoples contributed to tensions building across Europe.


Revolutionary Outbursts

Greek soldiers



Reading Check

Evaluating

How did liberalism and nationalism begin to break through the conservative domination of Europe?

The Revolutions of 1848
Revolutionary France: Les Miserables (6:41)

Summary

The backdrop for Victor Hugo's novel Les Miserables is revolutionary France in the 1800s. Les Miserables expresses Hugo's passionate belief in the spiritual possibilities of society, despite the presence of evil. Les Miserables also expresses Hugo's fight for justice, democratic ideals, and basic rights for all people.

What was the main theme of Hugo's novel Les Miserables?

What were Hugo's political beliefs?

Writing Practice

How do the choices made by Jean Valjean reflect his sense of justice and compassion for others?

Another French Revolution

Trouble in the German States

Germany


Note Taking

Recognize Sequence: keep track of the sequence of events that led to German unification by completing a chart like the one below. Add more boxes as needed.




Taking Initial Steps Toward Unity

Audio for this section

In the early 1800s, German-speaking people lived in a number of small and medium-sized states as well as in Prussia and the Austrian Hapsburg empire. Napoleon’s invasions unleashed new forces in these territories.
Napoleon Raids German Lands

Between 1806 and 1812, Napoleon made important territorial changes in German-speaking lands. He annexed lands along the Rhine River for France. He dissolved the Holy Roman Empire by forcing the emperor of Austria to agree to the lesser title of king. He also organized a number of German states into the Rhine Confederation.

At first, some Germans welcomed the French emperor as a hero with enlightened, modern policies. He encouraged freeing the serfs, made trade easier, and abolished laws against Jews. However, not all Germans appreciated Napoleon and his changes. As people fought to free their lands from French rule, they began to demand a unified German state.

Napoleon’s defeat did not resolve the issue. At the Congress of Vienna, Metternich pointed out that a united Germany would require dismantling the government of each German state. Instead, the peacemakers created the German Confederation, a weak alliance headed by Austria.
Economic Changes Promote Unity

In the 1830s, Prussia created an economic union called the Zollverein (tsawl fur yn). It dismantled tariff barriers between many German states. Still, Germany remained politically fragmented.

In 1848, liberals meeting in the Frankfurt Assembly again demanded German political unity. They offered the throne of a united German state to Frederick William IV of Prussia. The Prussian ruler, however, rejected the notion of a throne offered by “the people.”

Checkpoint

What was the German Confederation?

Revolutions in Central Europe
The Hungarian Parliament Passes Legislation Funding an Army Against the Hapsburg Empire, 1848


The mixed symbols on the flag of the Austro-Hungarian Empire

A Multinational Empire

Equally disturbing to the old order were the urgent demands of nationalists. The Hapsburgs presided over a multinational empire. Of its 50 million people at mid-century, fewer than a quarter were German-speaking Austrians. Almost half belonged to different Slavic groups, including Czechs, Slovaks, Poles, Ukrainians, Serbs, Croats, and Slovenes. Often, rival groups shared the same region. The empire also included large numbers of Hungarians and Italians. The Hapsburgs ignored nationalist demands as long as they could. When nationalist revolts broke out in 1848, the government crushed them.


Revolts in the Italian States
Italy Before 1861



Note Taking

Reading Skill: Recognize Sequence

As you read and hear a lecture on the Italian revolt, create a time line showing the sequence of events from 1831 to 1871 that led to Italian unification (the time line continues in the next section of the Chapter).





After a failed revolution against Austrian rule in northern Italy, many rebels, fearing retribution, begged for funds to pay for safe passage to Spain. Giuseppe Mazzini (mat see nee), still a boy, described his reaction to the situation:

“He (a rebel) held out a white handkerchief, merely saying, ‘For the refugees of Italy.’ My mother . . . dropped some money into the handkerchief. . . . That day was the first in which a confused idea presented itself to my mind . . . an idea that we Italians could and therefore ought to struggle for the liberty of our country. . . .”

—Giuseppe Mazzini, Life and Writings

Learn

Focus Question

How did influential leaders help to create a unified Italy?
Garibaldi



Reading Check

Identifying

What countries experienced revolutions in 1848?

Eyewitness to History

Revolutionary Excitement

Analyzing Primary Sources, p. 377

And, to anticipate further revolutionary developments, we will consider Karl Marx.

Resources

Books

The Age of Revolution: 1789-1848 by Eric Hobsbawm

The Church in an Age of Revolution by Alec R. Vidler

Congress of Vienna lecture



The Congress of Vienna, between Sept. 1814 - 9 June 1815, after that France had surrender in May 1814 (Napoleon was finally defeated at Waterloo 18 June 1815).

It was a conference with ambassadors from many European states, chaired by the Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich. It was the five "great" nations - UK, Prussia, Austria, France and Russia that decide almost everything. Norway was transferred from Denmark to Sweden and swedish Pomerania was ceded to Prussia.

The first pictures are the Duke of Wellington who is the man who rarely lost a battle. At Waterloo he and combined British/German forces - with help of Blüchers Prussians - defeated Napoleon for the last time. Later he became Prime Minister of Great Britain and in his youth he led battles in India. Then came a pic on Metternich, and then on Talleyrand. After him come a pic on Tsar Alexander I - the most powerful man in Europe at that time. The two last pics are on Austrian castles...first "Schönbrunn" and then "Belvedere".

Congress of Vienna 1815

Ambassadors:

UK = Duke of Wellington

Prussia = Prince Karl von Hardenberg

Austria = Prince Klemmens von Metternich

Russia = Tsar Alexander I

France = Charles de Talleyrand

Sweden = Count Carl Löwenhielm

Music: Russian folk-song.

Ulf Sawert

Queen Hortense de Beauharnais - Album Artistique de la Reine Hortense (Koninklijk Huisarchief Den Haag)
Les jeunes rêves d'amour
Paula Bär-Giese soprano & pianist
La Reine Hortense project (La Reine d'Hollande 1806-1810)
Recording: Kunstzaal Palace 't Loo, Apeldoorn - The Netherlands

Hortense Eugénie Cécile de Beauharnais, Queen of Holland, Grand Duchess of Berg and Cleves, Countess of Saint-Leu (April 10, 1783 - October 5, 1837), was the wife of Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland and the mother of Napoleon III, Emperor of the French.
Hortense was born in Paris, France, the daughter of Alexandre, Vicomte de Beauharnais and of his wife Josephine Tascher de la Pagerie. In 1794 her father was executed during the Reign of Terror. Two years later her mother married Napoleon Bonaparte.
In 1802 at Napoleon's request, Hortense married his brother Louis Bonaparte. The couple had three sons:
• Napoléon Louis Charles (October 10, 1802 - May 5, 1807)
• Napoléon Louis (October 11, 1804 - March 17, 1831)
• Charles Louis Napoléon, later Napoleon III, Emperor of the French (20 April 1808- 9 January 1873)
In 1806 Napoleon appointed his brother Louis, King of Holland. Hortense accompanied her husband to The Hague, in spite of the fact that their marriage was an unhappy one (the paternity of at least one of Hortense's sons has been questioned). In 1810 Louis abdicated as King of Holland and settled in Germany; Hortense, on the other hand, returned with her sons to France.
In 1811 Hortense gave birth to a son by her lover, Charles Joseph, comte de Flahaut:
• Charles Auguste Louis Joseph (October 21, 1811 - March 10, 1865), later made duc de Morny by his half-brother, Napoleon III.



One video features just the Congress of Vienna music with period pictures supplementing the sound.



The Fezzibomb occurred on Friday November 20, 2009. A bunch of Fezziwiggers (dancers from Fezziwig's Tea Emporium at the Dickens Christmas Fair) met in Embarcadero Bart in San Francisco to dance to music provided by Bangers and Mash.

The Congress of Vienna is a choreographed waltz.



Congress of Vienna dance at Gaskell's held in Oakland October 2005

Ye Gaskell Occasional Dance Society sponsors Victorian ballroom dances several times a year. There are afternoon dance lessons and refresher lessons before the dance. Formal dress.
http://www.gaskellball.com

Brassworks is a live brass band led by Frank Beau Davis. They sound much better in person than in this clip.
http://www.brassworksband.com

Scottish Rite Center in Oakland has a beautiful ballroom for this event.
http://www.scottish-rite.org



Creative sock puppet show as a dramatization of the Congress of Vienna of 1815.



THE AMAZING LEGO REANIMATION OF THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA



Twilight of the Hapsburgs: The collapse of the Austro-Hungarian Empire by Z. A. B. Zeman.

New holiday feature: keep Christ in Christmas


Email HW to: gmsmith@shanahan.org

1. p. 376, #4-#5.