Liberal and National Revolutions: 1820, 1830, and 1848

The Liberal and National Revolutions

The strength of liberalism and nationalism was demonstrated in three great revolutionary waves after 1820, which crumbled the Restoration system configured in the Congress of Vienna.

The Revolutions of 1820

By 1820, a series of uprisings led by liberal activists, especially the military, tried in several countries to eliminate absolutism and seize power through insurrections against the armies of the Holy Alliance.

Only in Greece, where liberal interests joined with a strong patriotic movement, did an insurrection against the Turkish Empire win. In 1822, the Greeks declared their independence, which became effective in 1829 after a cruel war.

Movements were also victorious in the Spanish colonies of continental America. Between 1808 and 1825, faced with a metropolis, they declared independence and imposed liberal regimes in the new republics.

The Revolutions of 1830

The second revolutionary wave occurred in Western and Central Europe between 1829 and 1835, and its extent and impact were much greater.

On this occasion, the insurrections, which had important popular support, meant the replacement of absolutism by constitutional political systems in which the bourgeoisie held power. This was a conservative liberalism, in which the vote was based on a census and civil liberties were limited.

The movement started in France, where in July 1830, the absolute monarch Charles X of Bourbon was overthrown, and a liberal monarchy was proclaimed in the person of Louis Philippe. The revolution also won in Belgium; a liberal system was established, and it became independent of the Netherlands, to which it had been united in 1815.

In 1831, a revolt broke out in Poland, which was harshly repressed by the Czar of Russia. In 1832, Britain largely achieved an extension of political rights. Finally, in Spain, between 1833 and 1839, there was a move to a liberal political system.

The People's Spring (1848)

In Western Europe, the revolution of 1848 meant the emergence of democratic ideals: universal suffrage, popular sovereignty, social equity, and also the emergence of labor as a political force.

As before, the revolution began in France. In February, a popular uprising ended the monarchy of Louis Philippe of Orleans, and the Second Republic was proclaimed, with social rights and universal suffrage.

In Central Europe, it was essentially a struggle against the absolutist regimes and Austrian imperial domination. Thus, the revolt had a liberal character in Vienna, where the revolution forced Chancellor Metternich to resign, and a nationalist character in numerous villages. In Hungary, Bohemia, Northern Italy, and the Germanic Confederation, people rose against empires.

Although most of these revolutions were eventually quelled, liberal reforms and many national independence processes were consolidated in the second half of the 19th century.