For this lesson, the class was split into groups, and each group was given a revolution that for the most part occurred in 1830 or 1848. After doing the proper research for their revolution, each group made a survey monkey, a list of about 10 questions about their revolution for the others in the class to take so that they could learn about it. The essential question for this lesson was "Were the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 really failures as many historians have concluded?" To help us answer this, we all made scale to measure how much of a failure/success a revolution was. With this, it was easier for us to see where each revolution fell on the scale. From the scale, we only concluded that one of the revolutions was a complete revolution. All other revolutions were either a partial failure or even more of a success.
My groups revolution was the Deccemberist revolution of 1825. This revolution took place in 1825, and it was against the new Tsar, Tsar Nicholas. After the Tsar Alexanders death, most people assumed that Constantine, the older brother of Alexander I, would take the throne. Constantine did not have any interest in taking the crown, to the peoples dismay. Before Alexander died, the people planned to assassinated him, already unhappy with the government. When he died the hoped that Constantine would take the throne, because his ideals were the same as the people, an he would have run a government that the people would have wanted. Instead, Tsar Nicholas took the throne, someone who felt very strongly about the military, and did not want a democracy or to the people in lower social classes to have any say in the government, creating another horrible government situation for the people. The people wanted to overthrow Tsar Nicholas, put Constantine in the thrown, receive a constitution and stop the serfdom and poverty that was widely occurring in the nation. The revolt happened when the people revolting crowded around guards, and when told to halt by Nicholas they said that they were for Constantine. Hesitantly, Nicholas saw no other choice but to fire on his own people to stop the revolt from continuing. This was the end of the revolution, and since the people received nothing they wanted and were fired on by their leader, this would be considered a complete failure.
The next revolution that happened was the French revolution of 1830. After Louis XVIII died, his brother, Charles X took over the throne. He believed and absolutism, the thing that Louis XVIII was trying so hard to avoid. When he took the throne in 1824, he took away a lot of the peoples rights like limiting the right to vote and restricting the press. The liberals and radicals were not pleased by this, and used violence to get their message across, resulting in Charles X fleeing to England. After this, Louis Philippe became the citizen king, extending suffrage, which is something the french wanted, but only to the upper class, and because of this the bourgeoisie prospered, but the other people of France did not. This revolution would be, in my opinion, considered in the middle of the spectrum because the people did get some of the things the wanted, but other things, like suffrage, were only given to the upper class. France had another revolution again in 1848, just 18 years after the previous. In this revolution the people were upset that Louis Phillipe did not give them enough rights, so they took to the streets in protest. The government set up national workshops so the people of France had more opportunities for jobs, but in June these workshops were shut down being viewed as a waste of money. After the workshop closed a new constitution was created. The constitution gave voting right to all adult man, and created a one house legislature and a president. Louis Napoleon won this election, but soon he took over the title of emperor ending the republic, but still had a lot of support from the people. In my opinion, I view this revolution more as a success than as a failure because the people got things that they wanted, like being able to vote, and having a better economy, even if it was not all that they wanted. Another revolution was the Revolution of Hungarian Independence 1848. In this revolution, the Austrian empire was ruled by Metternich when a revolt broke out, and when the people supported it Metternich fled. Other places in the empire began wanting freedom as well, and wanted an end to serfdom and a constitution. The government ended up agreeing with these reforms, but unfortunately Austrian troops regained control of Vienna and Prague, and rebels were put in prison executed or exiled. This revolution is closer to a failure than a success, but the people did receive what they were fighting for, if only for a short amount of time. I believe that the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 were altogether more of a success than a failure. Even though none of the revolutions ended up getting everything they were fighting for, in most cases they received some things, and their countries in the future would possibly learn from what the people wanted in the past, so even if not at that time, someday the people fighting for revolutions may eventually receive it.
No comments:
Post a Comment