Europe in an Age of Nationalism, 1848–70 483does not. The member states of the Zollverein experi-
enced a mild depression in textiles, but a collapse in
business and banking. Between August 1847 and Janu-
ary 1848, 245 firms and 12 banks failed in Prussia
alone. France experienced a fearful collapse of the tex-
tile industry; consumption of cotton fell by 30 percent,
reducing output to the lowest level in the industrial era.
The human meaning of such numbers was reduced in-
comes or unemployment while the price of food was
skyrocketing. In Silesia, one of the hardest hit regions
in Prussia, an estimated 75 percent of the population
sought poor relief. In Paris, unemployment exceeded
40 percent in most trades and ranged between 50 per-
cent and 75 percent in the worst cases. An angry
Parisian radical summarized the situation: “While half
of the population of Paris dies of starvation, the other
half eats for two.”
The revolutions of 1848 began in the homeland of
revolution—France. The constitutional monarchy of
Louis-Philippe had evolved into an alliance of moderate
conservatives and moderate liberals that the premier,
François Guizot, considered “the golden mean.”
Guizot’s perfect balance allowed 0.7 percent of the
population to vote in 1845 while preserving the status
quo for the propertied classes of landlords and capital-
ists. During the winter of 1847–48, his opponents tried
a truly French form of protest: the banquet. Respectable
middle-class critics of the regime organized large din-
ners and added inflammatory political oration to the
menu. The campaign culminated in a great banquet
scheduled for Paris in late February 1848, but the
Guizot government prohibited that assembly. Critics of
the regime met nonetheless, to march to their locked
banquet hall. Workers and students swelled the parade,
and by nightfall barricades were again appearing on the
streets of Paris (see illustration 25.2). Louis-Philippe
dismissed Guizot, and when that did not placate the
demonstrators, he fled the country. Republicans, led by
a radical deputy named Alexandre Ledru-Rollin, seized
the Hôtel de Ville (the town hall), proclaimed the Sec-
ond Republic, and named a provisional government.
The French revolution of 1848 did not immediately
fall into the hands of moderates as had the revolution
of 1830. Republicans kept control but were soon di-
vided between those who favored Ledru-Rollin’s
democratic program (universal manhood suffrage, par-
liamentary government, a cabinet responsible to a ma-
jority) and social radicals who demanded help for
workers and the poor. Ledru-Rollin had more support,
so the provisional government concentrated on politi-
cal change: It abolished “all forms of monarchy,” all ti-
tles of nobility, and laws restricting political activity. In
contrast, it attempted only one idea for what radicals
called “the social republic,” Louis Blanc’s National
Workshops. The workshops were a relief plan for the
unemployed. (The government’s first assignment for re-
lief workers was to remove the barricades.) Democratic
elections in April 1848 gave moderate republicans a
large majority; shortly thereafter, it curtailed support
for workers.
The immediate consequence was an insurrection in
June 1848. Workers, fearful that the counterrevolutionIllustration 25.1
The Depression of the 1840s.Eu-
rope suffered one of the worst depres-
sions of the industrial age during the
mid- and late 1840s. Unemployment
reached frightening levels in many oc-
cupations, and crops failed in several re-
gions. This combination produced some
of the last widespread food riots in Euro-
pean history. This German illustration
depicts bread riots in Berlin in the spring
of 1847; families sack a local bakery.
Note the prominent role of women.