Victorian Britain and European Empires: Power and Change

Victorian England

Economy and Territory

The reign of Victoria I started in 1837 and continued until 1901 (the Victorian era). Britain reached its maximum territorial expansion. Economic development was affected by a crisis affecting agriculture; cultivated land was reduced, and farmers abandoned the countryside and moved to the cities or emigrated to America. Despite this, Britain continued to be the main financial center thanks to a strong currency. Issues related to imperialist economic expansion were closely tied to trade, finance, and control of shipping routes.

Politics and Reform

It began with the extension of suffrage, and political life revolved around two parties: the Tories and Whigs. Disraeli carried out electoral reform, considered the first democratic in character. Both parties supported the electoral reform because they defended the fundamentals of the political system: monarchy and parliamentary government. The Gladstone Liberal triumph made it possible to implement democratic reforms and established the political model of Victorian England. During his government, reforms included religious changes, leading to new schools with religious freedom. Other reforms included new labor laws, reform of justice and administration, and a further extension of suffrage. In 1893, the Labour Party was founded.

The Irish Question

Ireland was under English domination but remained independent until an Act of Union united Ireland and Great Britain in the United Kingdom. Ireland remained a challenge against its incorporation. Tensions increased due to the economic crisis and the expulsion of Irish people from land owned by English landlords, which radicalized the nationalist movement.

Pluralistic Empires

The Austro-Hungarian Empire

It had two centers: Austria and Hungary. The empire was governed by Franz Joseph I, who initially tried to apply a policy of Germanic centralism and absolutism but agreed to a compromise that divided the empire into two kingdoms. In Austria, the German population dominated, but there were non-German peoples within, whom the government attempted to Germanize. Hungary was under Hungarian sovereignty. The Magyar population was dominant, followed by Romanians and Slovaks. The Hungarian state imposed Magyarisation through education and public events. The Dual Monarchy shared the emperor and the ministers of war, foreign affairs, and finance. The signing of this Hungarian compromise did not solve the problems; issues were constant and contributed to the instability of the area and the origin of the Eastern Question.

Imperial Russia

Imperial Russia was an absolute monarchy. Its territorial expansion had increased after the Congress of Vienna, reaching the Far East (towards Japan), southward from the northern Caspian Sea, and westward into parts of Poland and Finland. The empire had a centrifugal tendency where peoples tried to separate, and a centripetal trend attempting to assimilate Slavic and other minorities to Russian culture. Hence, the policy of Russification was practiced by all tsars from Alexander II to Nicholas II.

Domestic politics aimed to maintain the autocratic regime, but small reforms did not prevent growing opposition to absolutism.

Alexander II

The first reform was the abolition of serfdom. The peasants remained attached to the Mir (village commune) and continued to rely on the Tsar. They had to pay a redemption fee to the former masters in exchange for their freedom. Industrialization had a timid start, affecting mining and beginning the construction of the railway network. The government intensified its repression of opposition movements against Tsarism.

Alexander III

The two levers were tax reform and attracting European capital. However, this development was accompanied by control of education and culture and the persecution of all opposition.

Nicholas II

The Tsar supported imperial expansion into the east, which led to war with Japan, where Russia was defeated. This defeat and social unrest led to the Revolution of 1905.