The Long 19th Century: French Revolution

• The "Long 19th Century" is a historical overview, spanning from 1789 to 1918.

French Revolution and Napoleonic Era (1789-1815)

• This period marked the end of absolutist rule in France.
• The Revolution was based on Enlightenment ideals (liberty, equality, individual development).
• 1792: France became a Republic, leading to the Reign of Terror under Robespierre until 1795.
• 1795-99: A period of relaxation under the Directory, followed by Napoleon's coup in 1799, making him First Consul.
• 1804: Napoleon became Emperor.
• His domestic achievements included the Code Civil (civil law).
• His foreign policy involved wars against major European powers such as England, Prussia, Austria, and Russia.
• 1813: Wars of Liberation by the European coalition against France.
• Consequences of Napoleonic rule in Germany included the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806.
• Peasant liberation was a key Prussian reform, alongside educational, urban, Jewish emancipation, and military reforms.
• Mediatisation occurred via the dissolution of smaller secular territories and integration into larger ones.
• Secularisation happened as religious territories were dissolved and integrated into secular entities.

Era of Reaction (1815-1848/49)

• The text shows key events from this time in a diagrammatic form:
• 1815: Congress of Vienna and the establishment of the German Confederation.
• 1817: Wartburg Festival.
• 1819: Carlsbad Decrees.
• 1830: First constitutions in smaller central German states.
• 1832: Hambach Festival.
• 1834: Vienna Ministerial Decrees.
• 1848/49: Revolution and the Frankfurt Parliament.
• The German Confederation was formed with three main principles: restoration, legitimacy, solidarity.
• Educated middle classes demanded unity and freedom within Germany.
• Carlsbad Decrees involved banning fraternities, dismissing professors, press censorship, and monitoring demagogues to do so.
• A parallel development to the political events was the start of the first phase of the Industrial Revolution and the emergence of the social question.
• Literature of the time includes Biedermeier (withdrawal from public life) and Vormärz (political literature).
• The failure of liberal ideas led to emigration to the USA, peaking in 1850-54.
• After 1849, there were strong restrictions on freedom of assembly, press, and association.
• Rationalism was ascendant, with "The Useful shapes the time".
• Literature saw the gradual start of Realism.
• Prussia developed into an economic power, with the middle class wielding economic influence.
• Krupp steel became a symbol of German industry (also A. Borsig in Berlin: railway construction).

Rise of the Workers' Movement and Unification (1860-1871)

• Development involved seeking solutions to the social question and pushing forward a process of unification.
• The ADAV (General German Workers' Association, founded by F. Lassalle) sought an alliance with the state, founded in 1863.
• The SDAP (Social Democratic Workers' Party, founded by A. Bebel, W. Liebknecht) was founded in 1869 and was Marxist-leftist.
• 1875 Gotha saw the merger of the two (SAPD), later becoming the SPD in Erfurt in 1891.
• More parties based on social groups arose: Liberals, Centre Party (Catholicism) etc.
• The first social women's movement started (Clara Zetkin).
• Solutions to the social question: patriarchal company policies, church involvement, and state social legislation under Bismarck in the 1880s.
• Unification process with the Unification Wars 1864-1871 ("blood and iron policy").
• 1860: Prussian King sought army reform; Parliament rejected it, leading to a constitutional crisis.
• 1862: Bismarck was appointed Prussian Prime Minister to push through army reform without parliamentary approval.
• 1864: Prussian-Danish War: Bismarck aligned liberals through shared interests to approve the army reforms retroactively.
• 1866: Austro-Prussian War (Brother War): Prussian victory led to the founding of the North German Confederation (kleindeutsche Lösung).
• 1870/71: Franco-German War.
• The "Emser Depesche" (Bismarck intensified the tone of the temporary renunciation of Prussia to the claim to the Spanish throne so France declared war.
• Bismarck brought the missing German states over to his side.
• 18th January 1871 saw the founding of the German Empire (Wilhelm I.) in Versailles.

The German Empire (1871-1918)

• A Prussian-Protestant authoritarian state.
• French reparations and capital investment led to the Gründerjahre boom; from 1873 there was a recession ("Great Depression").
• Bismarck's domestic policies balanced repression and mild social reform: laws against socialists, and the Kulturkampf against the Catholic Church (including pulpit law and civil marriage).
• Foreign policy: Bismarck's complex alliance system (including reinsurance treaty with Russia) secured European peace for decades.
• 1888 was the Year of Three Emperors (Wilhelm I and his son Friedrich III died); Wilhelm II came to the throne.
• 1890: Bismarck resigned.
• Imperialism expanded.
• This involved increased militarisation, especially in the naval arms race with England, and the second phase of industrialisation.
• There arose Reichsnationalismus (struggle against enemies of the Reich: France, Judaism, Catholicism, Social Democracy): exclusion instead of inclusion.
• There was increasing female emancipation and cultural critique of bourgeois morality.
• Around 1900 the rise of modernity continued.
• Bureaucracy and technological advances increased the state and society's capacity for action.
• A (social) bourgeois society formed around work ethic, individualism, efficiency, freedom of speech and with a secular, individualistic and mobile lifestyle.
• The beginnings of a consumer culture formed within the bourgeois leading culture.
• 1914-18: First World War (the "seminal catastrophe of the 20th century"): imperialistic causes, with the trigger being the "Balkan powder keg".
• The Central Powers (Germany, Austria) were defeated the Triple Entente (England, France, Russia).
• The 9th of November saw the end of the Empire and the declaration of the Republic.

Early Nationalism in Germany

• The text briefly introduces the beginnings of nationalism in Germany, including the influence of the Napoleonic era and the political and legal situations around 1800.

Overview: German Nationalism in the 19th Century

• The notes refer to a table outlining German nationalism (omitted here because tables are not allowed).

The Revolution of 1848/49

• This began with the February Revolution in France, which led to another republic.
• It triggered a spread of revolution across Europe.
• Origins included:
• The reaction preventing the spread of bourgeois and liberal ideas of unity and freedom.
• Poverty before and at the start of industrialisation (= Pauperism).
• Progression:
• March unrest in Vienna and Berlin spurred reform readiness by monarchies.
• May 1848 saw the creation of the Frankfurt Parliament ("German National Assembly"), which was dominated by the educated middle class.
• Tasks and decisions for the Parliament:
• form of state (constitutional monarchy).
• size of the national state (smaller German solution).
• constitution with basic civil rights and freedoms.
• Friedrich Wilhelm IV rejected the offer, which lead to a collapse of parliament.
• The text states there were localised southern German social uprisings, suppressed by the monarchies' use of force.
• Shortcomings and insights of the Revolution:
• division of political demands, but the development of democratic and party-based organisation among the revolutionaries.
• executive and state bureaucracy always under the control of the monarchies.
• complexity of the requirements (unity, liberty, a constitution) became too much to meet.
• The idea of parliamentarianism.
• A developed national consciousness with liberal ideas.

Additional Points about the Text

Overview of National Culture

Kaiserreich as a Modern Breakthrough

• There was fundamental politicisation, seen as high electoral turnout, and large parties, but elites acted against it.
• Bureaucratisation expanded but limited self-reliance.
• The Social state provided direction amid the market economy.
• Social fragmentation occurred and Catholicism and socialism became subcultures.
• Nationalism had both internal (minorities) and external enemies (France), with antisemitic currents.

The Development of the USA towards an extra-European Nation Industrially

• The study notes indicate there is a chart with USA developing but a chart is not viable in this case.

Overview: Russland/SU 1905-1953

• The study notes indicate there is details on Verlaufgeschichte but a chart is not viable in this case.

Overview: Europe between wars

• The study notes indicate there is details on Europa between wars but a chart is not viable in this case.

Overview: Nationalsozialismus

• The study notes indicate there is details on Nationalsozialismus but a chart is not viable in this case.