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Established conservative power force, the Concert of Europe, among the Great Britain, Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Rehabilitated France after defeating Napoleon. -
Germany: censored free speech in Germany and put “supervisors” in universities. / England: suppressed calls for suffrage and liberalism. -
Liberal revolt in Spain; nationalist revolts in Italy and Greece. -
Austria, Russia, Prussia, Britain, and France establishes that Concert countries can intervene in foreign revolutions. -
Failed liberal rev. Nicholas won the throne and refused to abolish serfdom and institute a constitutional gov’t. -
France’s July Revolution against Charles X (though not overthrown until 1848) inspired a successful Dutch nationalist revolt and unsuccessful Italian and German ones. Reform in Britain. -
Expands suffrage to the middle class.
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Wave of failed republican revolutions in France, Germany, Italy, and Austria. -
Marx and Engels argue that a violent upheaval will come to end capitalism and usher the way to communism, where workers own the means of production. -
France, Britain, Ottomans vs Russia for access to Mediterranean. Britain and France won, and Russia implemented reforms to modernize. Weakness of Ottoman Empire led to breakdown of Concert of Europe and thus, Italian and German unification.
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Russian tsar Alexander II abolished serfdom as part of modernization program after the Crimea humiliation. Lack of reform to help freed peasants leads to social and economic discomfort.
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Bismarck (Prussia) defeated Austria, advancing German unification and weakening the Austrian empire.
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Gains French recognition of Germany as a country and heightened rivalry (France got reparations and Alsace-Lorraine back after WWI).
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Italian unification under Cavour. German unification under Bismarck.
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Amid the Scramble for Africa and imperialism, Italy lost its invasion of Ethiopia. The national shame helped Mussolini gain power in the 1930s. -
Austria-Hungary annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, damaging relations with Russia and other Balkan countries. Laid groundwork for WWI. -
Sparked by Austrian heir’s assassination by Serbian nationalist, pit the Triple Entente (Britain, France, Russia) against Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria, Italy). 1917 Rev in Russia. Total war casualties lead to disillusionment. Big map changes: independent Austria, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia; independent Poland and Baltics; independent Turkey; Germany lost territory.
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Treaty of Versailles put guilt clause and reparations on Germany. Fueled anger for WWII. -
Stalin’s first Five Year Plan, meant to increase industrialization by collectivizing agriculture, led to famines. -
Stock market crash in US triggers the Great Depression. European countries, many depending on the US’s credit for war debt, suffer. In Germany and Italy, fascists gain support. -
Hitler comes to power in Germany. Persecution of Jews ratchets up gradually, with Nuremberg Laws (1935) prohibiting Jew-Gentile marriage and citizenship and Kristallnacht business vandalism (1938). -
Hitler reoccupies the Rhineland and makes Axis alliances (Rome-Berlin and Anti-Communist). Appeasement policy begins. Treaty of Versailles effectively scrapped. -
Axis against Allies. Nazis lead the Holocaust of Jews and social undesirables. Total war and destructive technology, including firebombs and the atomic bomb, shatter any regained European optimism. With US help, the Allies end fascism in Germany, Italy, and Japan.
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Amid the heightening Cold War, the US and Western European countries form North Atlantic Treaty Organization to deter the USSR. Stalin blockades Berlin. -
USSR formed the Warsaw Pact military alliance in response to NATO. -
Revolt in Poland resolved by accession of prime minister initially too liberal for the USSR’s liking. Inspired Hungary anti-communist party, which was crushed. -
Cuban Missile Crisis standoff. Khrushchev ultimately agreed to rescind missiles, leading to doubts about his leadership. -
Peaceful Prague Spring crushed by USSR. Showed the USSR was intolerant of liberalism. Not until Gorbachev in 1985, with glasnost and perestroika and commitment to non-military intervention, did satellites have hope of independence. -
Fall of the Berlin Wall reunited Germany. Czechoslovakia overthrows communism. Represented the downfall of the USSR, which officially disbanded in 1991. -
Putin comes to power in Russia after Yeltsin disbanded communism. He seeks to restore the "glory days" of the USSR and regain lost territory--Crimea and Ukraine, for example.
