Reevaluating the Wave of Revolutions

The Revolutions of 1830 and 1848 are known to be failures by many historians. In class we questioned if this was really true. We split into groups and each focused on one of the revolutions which were the Decembrist Revolt, France in 1830, France in 1848, Frankfurt Assembly in 1848, and Hungary 1848. There were multiple sources for each revolution telling you all about it. From this information, we created surveys on a website called Survey Monkey containing questions on the most important information to test our classmates after they read through the sources. They had to include the country, date, goals, opponent, outcome, and the reasons for success or failure of the revolution. This would help them remember key information about our revolution and see how well our classmates knew the information.
My group had the French Revolution of 1830. These are the                                                                   sources we used: http://www.edline.net/files/_5YGkl_/a6add73ad2a2c48f3745a4901

3852ec4/France_1830.pdf 

One of the questions from my group's
survey about the July Ordinances

One of the questions about how much of a success
or failure our group's revolution was?

The main goal of the rebels was to basically bring things back to the way they were in 1790. This included more affordable bread, better wages, and extended voting rights. The revolution began because Charles X took the throne after the death of Louis XVIII. Charles believed strongly in absolutism and limited the right to vote and restricted the press. In the July Ordinances, a group of decrees set forward by Charles X, he enforced his power by restricting the people's rights and voice. The poor people of France protested with violence and barricades and eventually took control of Paris which eventually caused Charles X to abdicate the throne and flee to England. After this, Louis Philippe began his rule over France. He was a much better leader and in his proclamation on August 1. 1830 he said that he would bring back the charter that Charles X got rid of in order to enforce the rights of the people. However, he did favor the higher classes of people so the revolution wasn't completely a success. They did not achieve all they wanted from a ruler but they certainly did improve the quality of their country. Here is a link to our survey monkeys (we had to make two to fit all the questions): 1- https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/MX7JGS7   2-https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/TNG2B8W

The rule of Louis Philippe later sparked another revolution in 1848. They still wanted extended suffrage for the lower class people and they believed the government to be corrupt. It ended up being about in the middle of a success and a failure. Also in 1848, Hungary had an unexpected revolt. The rebels wanted to end serfdom and create a constitution to protect their rights. The Austrian government agreed to these changes but for a short amount of time until they fought back. This revolution was somewhat a failure. It achieved very little. Another revolution that had a different outcome was the Decembrist Revolt in Russia, 1825. This was the least successful of all the revolutions. It started because Nicholas I took over as Tsar but the people wanted Constantine. Nicholas I allowed little rights to the people of Russia and they didn't have a constitution. In the end, the revolt achieved nothing and people were still left without rights and freedom. Overall, none of the revolutions were complete successes and some definitely achieved more than others, but they weren't all complete failures and shouldn't all be talked about as a collective failure.