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CHAPTER 3  NINETEENTHCENTURY INTELLIGENCE

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REACTION,

REFORM,

REVOLUTION

The great upheavals caused by the French

Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars

permanently changed European society.

However, in the early years of the nineteenth

century the crowned heads of Europe were

determined to set the clock back to the

pre-revolutionary world of 1789.

After Napoleon’s defeat and abdication in 1814, a

conference was organized in Vienna to decide the future

of Europe. The major nations at the Congress of Vienna

were Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia—along with

the defeated France. They were joined by diplomatic

missions from across Europe.

MONARCHIES RETRENCH

The conservative monarchies had been shaken by the

French Revolution, and at the Congress they made it

clear they would stamp out radical change in the future.

Below: Delegates from across Europe gathered for the Congress of Vienna,

which was coordinated by Prince Metternich, pictured standing in front of

his chair, sixth from the left.

Consequently, the half-century

after Napoleon’s abdication would

see a battle between the forces of

reaction and those of progress,

the latter demanding fundamental

reform or even revolution.

The monarchies had a

tendency to believe they were

facing a mass, Europe-wide

revolutionary conspiracy. Prince

Klemens von Metternich, the

influential foreign minister and later

Chancellor of Austria, was particularly

affronted by the rise of radical and

nationalist German student societies in southern and western

Germany (areas then under partial Austrian control). In concert

with Prussia, Metternich suppressed political activity in

Germany’s universities and sent in police spies to report on

any possible sedition.

In Russia, in December 1825, a group of reformist army

officers and their soldiers rose up in protest against the

reactionary Tsar Nicholas I. Lacking popular support, the

Decemberist revolt was soon crushed, and autocratic rule

continued in Russia throughout the century. The failure of

reform in Russia pushed progressive elements underground

into a covert and increasingly intense revolutionary struggle

against the regime and its secret police.

Above: Prince Klemens

von Metternich