Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 8.djvu/752

Rh 716 EUROPE Poland, in spite of the partition of 1772, by which it lost 6600 square miles, still possessed a territory of upwards of 223,000 square miles, and a population of about 14,000,000. Russia held 1,593,300 square miles, and Turkey about 215,000; and their respective populations amounted to 25,000,000 and 15,000,000.! In 1789 the great French Revolution had fairly com menced, and for the next quarter of a century the history of Europe is little more than a history of France and her friends, and France and her foes. Never since the invasions of the Germanic nations had there been such a complete overturning of all existing political arrangements as was effected by the daring despotism of Napoleon. In 1812 the French empire included, not only France, Belgium, Holland, and Luxembourg, but also the whole country to the left of the Rhine, the mainland of Sardinia, part of Modena, Tuscany, and Rome, Geneva, Neufchatel, and Valais a total area of no less than 339,000 square miles, with an aggregate population of 42,366,000. The 35 states of the confederation of the Rhine, including the kingdoms of Westphalia, Saxony, Bavaria, Wurtemberg, the grand duchies of Frankfort, Berg, Baden, Hesse, and Wurzburg. were under the protection of Napoleon ; a similar position was held by the kingdoms of Italy and Naples, by Illyria and the grand duchy of Warsaw; and French influence was paramount in Switzerland, Prussia, Austria, and Denmark. England and Russia were the only truly independent states of real political importance; Spain and Portugal were fight ing for their existence; and Sweden on the one hand, and Turkey on the other, were practically outside of Europe. At the great monarchical congress of Vienna, an attempt was made to restore nearly everything that the Revolution had undone. Austria recovered East Galicia from Russia, and Tyrol and Salzburg from Bavaria : and in compen sation for Belgium, &c., she obtained the Lombardo- Venetian kingdom of Italy, as well as Dalmatia and Parma. A kingdom of the Netherlands was constructed out of Belgium, Holland, and the German duchy of Luxembourg. The kingdom of Sardinia was restored to Victor Emmanuel and strengthened by the addition of Genoa ; and Modena and Tuscany were assigned the one to Duke Francis IV. and the other to Ferdinand the brother of the Austrian emperor. Naples and Sicily, as the kingdom of the Two Sicilies, were given back to the former king Ferdinand; Spain and Portugal to Ferdinand VII. and the house of Braganza respectively. Russia incorporated Finland, Bessarabia, part of Moldavia, &c. ; the kingdom of Poland was governed under Russian suzerainty by a vice-king, with a free constitution; Cracow was declared a free state under the protection of Austria, Russia, and Prussia. Switzerland was allowed to retain its federa tive system, and its neutrality was guaranteed. Prussia not only got what she had lost by the peace of Tilsit, but re ceived a part of Poland, including Dantzic and Posen, the half of the kingdom of Saxony, and a flourishing territory on the middle and lower Rhine ; Bavaria obtained the Palatinate of the Rhine; and Hanover, augmented by East Frisia, was made a kingdom. The restoration of a German empire being rendered impracticable by the particularist tendencies of several of the larger states, a German con federation, or Deutsches Bund, was substituted, under the presidency of Francis of Austria and his successors. The diet of this confederation had its seat at Fraukfort-on-the- Mame, and consisted of the representatives of no fewer than 38 sovereign states, which, besides the German dominion of Austria, included the five kingdoms of Prussia, Bavaria, Hanover, Saxony, and Wurtemberg, the electoral principality iesse-Cassel, seven grand-duchies, nine duchies, ten prin- 1 See Kolb, llandbuch tier Statlstik. cipalities, the landgravate of Hesse-Homburg, and the four free cities, Fraukt ort, Hamburg, Bremen, and Liibeck. England obtained possession of Malta in the Mediterranean and of Heligoland off the Danish coast ; and the Ionian islands were placed under an English protectorate. And now a new glacial period of absolutism threatened to invade Europe. Alexander of Russia, Frederick William of Prussia, and Francis of Austria united in a Holy Alliance, which, based, perhaps honestly enough, on the noblest humanitarian professions, proved practically an association for the strict preservation of the royal prero gative against the encroachments of the people. The pro mise of constitutional government made by many of the sovereigns to their subjects was forgotten or ignored, and even when a constitution was granted it was not unfie- quently another form of despotic machinery. The Bour bons bourbouized in France and Spain, and the policy of Metternich was dominant in Austria and Italy. The pope did his best to restore the supremacy of the clergy by con cordats with the several states of Catholic Europe; the Jesuits were re-established, and soon recovered a large part of their influence ; and even the Knights of St Johu were called back to a futile existence. But the principles of the Revolution were not dead ; they only slumbered, and before long they gave signs of awaking. Neither the political distribution of the European territory established by the Congress of Vienna, nor the political doctrines which mainly conditioned the distribution, were destined to endure. The July revolution in France (1830), which drove out Charles X. and introduced the constitutional government of Louis Philippe, was a signal of change. In the same year the independence of Greece was permanently secured, after the treaty of Adrianople had closed the Russo- Turkish war ; and the separation of Belgium from Holland was recognized by the five great powers in the London con ference. A great struggle for national existence burst out in Poland only, however, to end in its complete incorpora tion with Russia. By 1848 constitutionalism had made no small progress; Russia, Austria, and Prussia were, indeed, as absolutist aa ever, but, besides England, France, and Switzerland, Spain and Portugal, Holland and Belgium, Norway and Sweden, Denmark, Greece, and the greater number of the minor German states had all attained a cer tain amount of political freedom. In Germany, Duke Charles Augustus of Saxe-Weimar had given his subjects a constitution as early as 1816 ; Nassau, Bavaria, and Baden followed the example in 1818 ; and after violent dis turbances the people of Wurtemberg secured the same privi leges. If the July revolution of 1 830 had been potent, much more potent was the more radical revolution of February 1848. The storm swept over the Continent, and when it had ceased the political aspect of Europe had changed. By the dreadful &quot; Days of March,&quot; the king of Prussia, Frederick William IV., was forced to become a &quot; constitutional king,&quot; and a national assembly was soon after instituted. In Austria, Metternich had to flee for his life, and Ferdinand was constrained to submit to the demands of the Liberals. In Italy, Rome expelled the pope and declared itself a re public ; Sicily expelled the Bourbons and chose the duke of Genoa as their king; and the northern states rose against Austrian domination. A reaction, however, soon again set in. France passed from a republican to a strongly monarchical government ; the Prussian king cancelled his constitution and issued another in its stead ; Austria was successful in putting down the Hungarian and Bohemian patriots and inflicting a terrible revenge ; and Italy saw the defeat of the army of Charles Albert, and had to submit again to Austrian despotism in Lombardy, papal despotism in Rome, and Bourbon despotism in Sicily and Naples. The hope of a real German unity based on constitutional