Introduction

Despite the success of their peacemaking, the statesmen who produced the Vienna settlement of 1815 have received a lot of criticism for allegedly being out of step with two rising forces-liberalism and nationalism. During the early 1820s, Austria and France suppressed revolutions in Italy and Spain respectively. Objecting to this action, Britain backed out of the Congress System, an ambitious experiment in collective security. Conservative leaders on the Continent subsequently yielded to some demands for change such as the Belgian aspirations for independence, but conservatism showed impressive persistence. Indeed, even after the massive revolutionary upheavals of 1848, conservative and autocratic regimes tended to prevail. For those who wanted liberal and democratic constitutions or who favored the development of social welfare legislation, the revolutions were seen as turning points that did not turn.

In other respects, however, the middle years of the century can be regarded as a watershed. Prince von Metternich, a symbol of conservatism after 1815, was forced out of office, and new leaders came to power who personified a desire to change the Vienna system. They included Louis Napoleon Bonaparte, Count Camillo di Cavour, and Otto von Bismarck. These men helped precipitate wars that substantially altered the map of Europe.

For contrasting reasons, Russia and Britain remained relatively unaffected by the revolutions of 1848. The most backward of the major European powers, Russia took effective steps to abolish serfdom only after the necessity of modernization had been dramatized by defeat in the Crimean War. Britain escaped a revolutionary upheaval probably because its political system was already relatively liberal by the standards of the day and its political elite displayed considerable flexibility in yielding to pressures for reform during the 1820s, '30s, and '40s.

Meanwhile the United States gained extensive territory, grew in population, and became relatively democratic. Taking advantage of its geographical separation, the burgeoning republic generally pursued a policy of noninvolvement in European affairs, while it sought to expand its involvement in Asia as a means of expanding trade. The policy of isolation from Europe did not, of course, insulate the United States from important European influences or prevent parallel developments. Consider the movements on both sides of the Atlantic to abolish slavery.

Mass political participation and the "positive state" emerged as major trends in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries in Europe and the Western Hemisphere. In particular, Germany, France and Britain and its dominions became distinctly more modern than other powers. Democracy and working-class organizations grew stronger in all of the former, although Germany's constitution retained strong autocratic elements-including a chancellor who was responsible to the kaiser rather than to the Reichstag. Progressive in surprising ways, Germany pioneered sickness, accident, and old-age insurance as early as the 1880s. Britain followed suit before the outbreak of World War I. (The United States did not enact comparable programs until the 1930s).

The Russian autocracy, meanwhile, struggled intermittently to modernize, but its tsarist government proved unable to transcend its autocratic nature. The lesser great powers, Italy and Austria-Hungary, also lagged behind Britain, France, and Germany in their development.

This chapter also surveys developments in the British Dominions and the United States. The British colonies gained rights of self-government without breaking all governmental links to the mother country. The United States survived a bloody civil war that settled two crucial questions: (1) whether a federal union with a strong central government would prevail over the claims of member states; (2) whether slavery would be abolished throughout the country. It did not, however, abolish the inhuman treatment of African Americans. Indeed, by the end of the nineteenth century, national reconciliation between northern and southern whites was promoted at the expense of justice for African Americans. Racism prevailed in the period covered by this chapter-even in the multifaceted Progressive reform movement, which extolled ideals of social and economic justice.

The international relations of the period encompass two phases. The first coincides with Otto von Bismarck's two decades as chancellor of a united Germany. After Germany's victory over France in 1870-71, he adopted a defensive strategy. Assuming that further German expansion would be unwise, he concentrated on building an alliance system that could preserve Germany's gains and prevent another war. The second phase began when a new kaiser, William II, dismissed Bismarck from office. The German government refused to renew the so-called Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. This opened the door for France to negotiate an alliance with Russia. That Franco-Russian alliance raised the specter of a two-front war for Germany and fostered some dangerous tendencies among German leaders. Lacking Bismarck's acumen and sense of limits, they failed to appreciate the importance of restraining Austria-Hungary as the latter pursued its rivalry with Russia for influence in the Balkans. Moreover, the Germans adopted a risky war plan for fighting a two-front war against Russia and France. That war plan allowed no time for negotiation if Russia ever started mobilizing its military forces during a diplomatic crisis. That crisis arrived, of course, in 1914 and resulted in the First World War. Chapter 26 covers the diplomatic realignment that led to that cataclysmic upheaval.