Barricade from 1848 French Revolution
Episode 48 Revolutionary Legacies
Living the French Revolution and Age of Napoleon
Dr Suzanne M Desan
Film Review
In this final lecture, Desan summarizes how the French revolution helped destablizie numerous authoritarian governments around the world. For example, Napoleon’s occupation of Spain ultimately led to multiple rebellion in South America between 1810 and 1820. By 1825 all Spanish colonies on the mainland had broken with Spain.
Latin America
As early as 1793, Colombian activist Antonio Nariño printed out and distributed 100 illegal copies of the Declaration of the Right of man. Dozens of Latin American provinces had a republican constitution by 1820. The short lived Republic of New Grenada (consisting of modern day Colombia and Panama) used France’s 17995 constitution as its founding document. The 1814 Mexican constitution borrowed from all France’s revolutionary constitutions.
Francisco de Miranda, a Venezuela revolutionary who fought in the French revolution, brought the red liberty cap to South America. It used in flag of the free and independent state of Cundindamarca.*
Europe
In Europe the Congress of Vienna kept the peace for ten years by creating a series of buffer states (eg the 39 independent German-speaking states and Italy’s independent kingdoms) in lieu of large empires.
A severe economic downturn in 1848 would trigger a cascade of revolutions beginning in Palermo and eventually spreading to Vienna, Paris, Berlin, Milan, Krakow, Naples, Venice, Budapest, and Prague. In addition to demanding democratic constitutions, revolutionary leaders also fought to unify Germany, Italy and Hungary.
As the people of Paris threw up barricades and declared a republic, the king fled, and republicans and liberals surged into the street in city after city demanding equality, trial by jury, representative parliaments and freedom of speech, religion and the press.
The 1848 French Revolution
The French revolution of 1848 saw new demands (similar to the Jacobin’s demands for poor relief and taxes on the wealthy) for economic equality, inspired by a growing international socialist movement. In 1848, the main demand was for the right to work. By May 1848, Parisian revolutionaries had set up public workshops employing 150,000 workers.
By late May the French government, fearing of the rabble in the street, shuttered the workshops. In the final battles of the 1848 revolution, the army and national guard fought 50,000 Parisians in the streets. Ultimately 1500 workers and 900 guardsmen were killed and 500 revolutionaries arrested.
The Rise of Conservatism
The 19th century also saw a surge in conservative clubs around the world as conservatives learned to use broad based politics to achieve their goals.
To rein in French radicalism, the assembly adopted a new constitution with a strong executive (modeled on the American system) and elected Napoleon’s nephew as president. After restoring order and democracy, he abolished the republic and created a new empire.
Other European countries crushed their revolutions by 1849. The most decisive outcome was the abolition of serfdom in eastern and central Europe.
The Communist Manifesto and the 1871 French Revolution
Marx and Engels largely based their 1858 Communist Manifesto, which called for an end to private property and sharing goods in common, on their belief that the Jacobins didn’t go far enough.
In the 1871** French revolution, a coalition of republican and socialists built a new Paris Commune, which France’s third republic would crush in their new constitution.
Hitler’s invasion of France in 1940, the occupation Vichy government would end the third republic. The fourth republic lasted from 1945 until Charles De Gaulle ushered in the 5th republic with a stronger executive.
With the UN’s founding in 1945, it incorporated the Declaration of the Rights of Man into the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
*The Free and Independent State of Cundinamarca was a rebel state in colonial Colombia and included parts of New Grenada.
**Napoleon’s nephew had just been ousted as emperor and France had just been invaded by Austria.
Film can be viewed free with a library card on Kanopy.
https://www.kanopy.com/en/pukeariki/watch/video/149323/149419
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