Were the revolutions of 1848 important?

In 1848 revolutions broke out across Europe — in France, the Italian states, the German states and the Austrian Empire. Two ideas drove them:

• Liberalism — demands for constitutions, parliaments, free speech and an end to absolute monarchy.
• Nationalism — the belief that people sharing a language and culture should govern themselves in one state.

In February 1848 the French monarchy of Louis Philippe fell and a Second Republic was declared. In March, riots in Vienna forced the Austrian chancellor Metternich to flee. The Frankfurt Parliament met to write a constitution for a united Germany.

Why they failed: the revolutionaries were divided (liberals versus radicals; middle class versus workers), they had no armies, and the old rulers kept the loyalty of their professional troops. By 1849 Austria and Prussia had crushed the risings. But the ideas did not die — they returned to unify Italy and Germany within 25 years.

What did 1848 stand for?

How was Italy unified?

Before unification Italy was, in effect, a patchwork of states with Austrian influence over the north. Mazzini and his Young Italy movement inspired nationalism, but it was the practical work of two very different men that delivered a kingdom.

• Cavour, Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia, used diplomacy. At Plombières (1858) he secured French help from Napoleon III; war with Austria in 1859 (Magenta and Solferino) won Lombardy for Piedmont.
• Garibaldi used force. In 1860 he landed in Sicily with his volunteer 'Thousand', took the island and then crossed to Naples, toppling the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies — and handed his conquests to Victor Emmanuel II.

Not finished in 1861: the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in 1861 with Victor Emmanuel II as king, but Venetia was only gained in 1866 and Rome in 1870, after French troops withdrew during the Franco-Prussian War.

Cavour or Garibaldi?

How was Germany unified?

The Zollverein (a Prussian-led customs union) had already tied the German states together economically. After the Frankfurt Parliament failed and Austrian influence was restored by 1850, unification came instead from Prussian power.

Bismarck, Prussian Minister-President from 1862, used three wars:

• 1864 — Denmark: Prussia and Austria seized Schleswig-Holstein, then quarrelled over how to run it.
• 1866 — Austria: the Austro-Prussian War. Prussia's victory excluded Austria from German affairs and created the North German Confederation (1867).
• 1870–71 — France: the Franco-Prussian War, provoked by the Spanish succession crisis and Bismarck's editing of the Ems telegram. France was defeated at Sedan.

The key date: the German Empire was proclaimed in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles on 18 January 1871, with Wilhelm I as Kaiser. Doing it on French soil humiliated France — and helped poison Franco-German relations for decades.

Italy or Germany — whose unification?

Tap a person, place or event, then tap where it belongs.

Why was there a civil war in the United States?

The North was industrial, urban and increasingly hostile to slavery; the South was agricultural, dependent on cotton and on enslaved labour. The bitter argument was whether slavery could spread into the new western territories — free states or slave states?

• 1860: Abraham Lincoln, a Republican opposed to the extension of slavery, won the presidency without carrying a single Southern state.
• Secession: Southern states left the Union and formed the Confederacy. War ran from 1861 to 1865.
• Why the North won: far more people, factories, railways and money; a naval blockade; and Lincoln's determination to keep the Union together.

Did the war change anything? The Emancipation Proclamation (1863) and the Thirteenth Amendment (1865) ended slavery. But Reconstruction ended in 1877, and segregation and the denial of black voting rights followed — a key point when you judge "results".

When did the German Empire come into being?

Why did nations expand their empires?

Cambridge asks for motives and effects. Motives were economic (raw materials, markets), military/strategic (bases, coaling stations), geopolitical (prestige, rivalry) and religious/cultural (missionaries; a self-serving "civilising mission").

• France — direct rule and assimilation: Faidherbe in Senegal.
• Britain — indirect rule: Lugard in Nigeria, governing through existing rulers.
• Belgium — private imperialism: Leopold II ran the Congo as personal property; forced labour for rubber caused brutal exploitation and mass death.
• India: the rising of 1857 ended East India Company rule — India came under direct Crown rule.
• The USA: the Spanish-American War of 1898 and the Treaty of Paris gave the USA the Philippines; Filipino resistance was crushed, and Cuba fell under American control.

Indirect rule

What caused the First World War?

Four long-term pressures built up between 1890 and 1914:

• The alliance system: the Triple Alliance (Germany, Austria-Hungary, Italy) faced the Franco-Russian alliance and Britain's ententes with France (1904) and Russia (1907). Britain also signed the Anglo-Japanese Alliance in 1902.
• The arms race: especially the naval race between Britain and Germany after the Dreadnought.
• Colonial rivalries: the Moroccan crises of 1905 and 1911 set Germany against France and Britain.
• The Balkans: Austria-Hungary's annexation of Bosnia (1908) and the Balkan Wars of 1912–13 left Serbia ambitious and Austria fearful.

The spark: Archduke Franz Ferdinand was assassinated in Sarajevo on 28 June 1914. Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia; Russia mobilised to protect Serbia; Germany declared war on Russia and France and invaded Belgium; Britain, bound by treaty to Belgium, declared war on 4 August 1914.

Match the crisis to its significance

Tap an event on the left, then the reason it mattered on the right.

Answering "how far" questions

Paper 1 asks questions like "How far was Bismarck responsible for the unification of Germany?" Examiners reward a judgement, not a list.

• Explain both sides. Bismarck's diplomacy and wars — but also Prussia's economic strength (the Zollverein), its army reforms and the mistakes of others.
• Weigh them. Which factor was necessary? Which was decisive?
• Reach a conclusion and support it with precise evidence (dates, treaties, names).

Trigger or long-term cause?

The thread that links Option A

Notice how the same forces run through all six key questions:

• Nationalism — defeated in 1848, victorious in Italy (1861–70) and Germany (1871), and explosive in the Balkans by 1914.
• Power politics — Cavour and Bismarck both used war and diplomacy coldly; so did the Great Powers in Africa and Asia.
• Consequences — a united Germany upset the European balance of power; imperial rivalry sharpened it; the Balkans provided the spark.

When did the First World War begin?

Why did 1848 fail?

Judging the effects of imperialism

Cambridge's key question asks about effects, so you must be able to argue both the exploitation and the varied experiences of colonised peoples:

• For colonisers: raw materials, markets, strategic bases, prestige — and new rivalries that fed the road to 1914.
• For Africans and Asians: loss of political control, forced labour and violence (starkly so in Leopold's Congo), disruption of economies and societies — but also, in places, new railways, schools and mission education, and new elites who would later lead independence movements.
• For Filipinos and Cubans: Spanish rule was replaced by American control, not independence — provoking bitter resistance in the Philippines.

The 1902 alliance

The big ideas to know

That is the whole of Core content Option A. Press Finish to see your score.