Revolutions of 1848 in Britain and Russia / Concluding Remarks (Revolutions of 1848: Part 5)

In the final segment of my lecture series on the Revolutions of 1848, I discuss why there was no violent revolutionary activity in Britain or Russia and also discuss the legacies of the Revolutions of 1848. In the mid-19th century, the British Parliament showed a modest openness to reform that was un-matched by the governments on the continent. Although the Chartist movement peaked in the 1840s, it never reached the point of threatening the viability of the government. Russia was another story. While the British held off revolution by passing modest reform legislation, Nicholas I of Russia so violently repressed the Decembrist Revolt in 1825 that the climate was not ripe for revolution even twenty years later. Russia would have its revolution in due time.

While the Revolutions of 1848 were short-term failures, they heavily influenced the unifications of Germany and Italy. Pragmatists took over these efforts and the so-called "Age of Metternich" yielded to the Age of Bismarck. Realpolitik - not consensus - would be the order of the day for European foreign policy in the late 19th century.

[terryharrison]

He makes these great videos, cares about his audience, knows all this great stuff about history...
Where does Matt Damon get the time?

[tony_actor]

Tom, You are one of the few "taking head" history presenters who is able to retain the attention and interest of his audience. I skipped quite a few "boring" ones before I got to yours. Very well packaged with the use of maps, graphics and paintings to substitute film recordings, which were not available in the subject period.

(A 50 something Dad supporting his children studies)

[adirectioner]

Amazing series! I'm in university and the readings I had just weren't sticking, they were just a wall of words jumping around everywhere. These videos have definitely helped me connect the dots and makes sense of the period. You present difficult concepts in a very easy to follow and entertaining way!

[madisonabbassi]

0:51
"for girls or wHaTEvEr"

[mg]

Thank you so much! You saved me so much from my confusing professor. Will be watching more of you~

[vikkiangelic]

Hi, just wanted to say that i really enjoy your videos, and they are so helpful. Im a mature (30 something!) Degree student in England and your videos cover a lot of historical subjects that my Degree course in History requires! You also inspired me to research Elizabeth Fry with you video about the five pound note-and she was an amazing woman, instrumental in reforming prison conditions for women and children, introducing the idea of teaching skills to prisoners for use on release and even gave some inspiration to Florence Nightengale. Thank you for your videos and your website, your passion and dedication to sharing your knowledge of history is much appreciated!
Vikki

[joshygoldiem_j]

Although we didn't have a revolution or even an attempted one in 1848, the British people shared many of the same grievances as those across Europe. The revolutions mostly sought to improve living conditions, settle nationalist questions and fix government deficiencies. So while we were seeing progress prior hand, the electorate was contained, the rise of industrialism led to dangerous working conditions, and there was resentment in the Celtic nations over the way Westminster was running things; in fact, Ireland did join in in 1848 with the young Ireland movement. But a few years earlier, an Irishman and leader of the Chartist movement Feargus O'Connor was elected to Commons and promptly began demanding change. Nothing came about of this, though, and after catching wind of what had happened in France, the Chartists saw their chance. O'Connor arranged for a huge march to carry a petition to Parliament. Organisers claimed to have garnered 5 million signatures, which for a country with 26 million people was quite a lot. The government knew that the moment this petition was presented was when the danger of revolution would be at its greatest, and they brought in the army and hired special constables to patrol the planned route. But the march never happened. You'll never guess why. It wasn't muskets or truncheons that stopped them, it was the rain. You see, rights and reforms were important, but no one wanted to fight for them whilst wet. And with the coming of the rain, the revolutionaries just simply went home. The petition was delivered to Parliament by a couple of Chartists and was promptly ignored. Turns out, most of the signatures had been forgeries and the Chartist movement was so thoroughly embarrassed that it was never able to recover. The chance for revolution was gone, but in the end, most of the Chartist demands would be implemented eventually.

[yiweihu]

excellent overview of the 1848 revolutions - this makes the other material i've heard and read much less confusing and way more contextualized. would recommend you start here!

[moriancreed]

Thank you very much Tom!
I was stuck on this chapter for the last four days and I was unable to solve the mystery of diplomatic relationship among states during revolution and with this series of videos I am almost done. :-)
I appreciate your work.

[Alex-snwx]

This may be a bit late but thank you for these videos.

[mtlicq]

One thing missing from this lecture series: Why did ALL those revolutions happen at the same year? Was there a collapse of Metternich's negotiations that sparked all those revolutions?

[khushboopidiyar]

Thank you so much . Your videos are really helpful for getting a perspective on history. God Bless you Sir.

[Novakfsm]

Thanks so much for your fun and informative videos! You are the only reason I am getting through my online Western Civilization course (college level btw). Our professors assign huge chunks of text filled with nothing but names, dates and places. No video lectures...ever. You make sense of the mega data!
PS Wish I still lived in SC so my soon to be high school boys could be in your class!

[hallgeirhgasen]

great job of explaining, but i miss the revolt of prauge. I says that the czech had I long democratic tradition, that seems to be from this revolution, but its hard to find any concrete evedence. anyways that would explain some of why czechoslovakia stayed democratic during the interwar period.

If someone knows any good scources for that please reply

[ZiggyGreen]

I'm finished with AP Euro but I will keep watching these videos. Knowing history makes you a well rounded person and fun to have conversations with. I think the major problem in AP Euro classes is that students are urged to memorize as many specific details as they can. This way, they don't learn critical relationships and concepts throughout history. Instead of learning how to discuss a certain matter (such as the French Revolution) most students can only tell you when it started and who was involved in it (Jacobins, Girondists, Robespierre, Napoleon, etc..). I also think the AP exam is unfair. 55 minutes for 80 VERY specific questions is not enough. And the essays are very specific too, this is simply too much for a student to actually learn something, not just for an exam. Anyway, great vids I'm glad I subscribed.

[cthaThird]

I'm here looking up as much information as possible-trying to finish my history project, and I get this discount Matt Damon with a southern accent.

[ervinsims]

One classic cause of the Revolutions of 1848 that I have heard is that of "rising expectations".  The improved economies produced by the early part of the second industrial revolution and the example of the United States, British reforms and the Latin American liberation movement inspired the revolutionist.  What do you think.  Of course your explanations are more than adequate.

[matthewlampe]

Tom Richey, I'd like for you to know you are pretty my my teacher in AP EURO. My teacher literally bases a solid 1/3 of his assignments on purely notes on your videos. In fact, this video series in one of them. Thank you for being my teacher for an approximate semester and can't wait to watch moe of your videos in class! Ps. My history teacher's name is Mr.Fairbanks if you want to shout him out in your next video, maybe about nationalism in the late 1800's?

[patrickfarrell]

Coincidentally the British were in the process of starving out the Irish people during the famine of 1848.
1 million died of hunger, although it was caused by a potato blight the food was being shipped out of Belfast to feed the British Military.
The population was halved from 8 to 4 million which was the beginning of the Irish diaspora.
I thought this would be worth mentioning here.

[Bedonnio]

Tom, as a first year history student at the university of Louvain, thank you for this upload. The classes of the professors are complete shite and this was a hard part to learn. Thanks man!