Messing Up France

Judging Scale

This week, our class learned about the revolutions of the 1830's and the 1840's. As our class learned, many historians classified these revolutions as failures. Like most revolutions, the ideas behind the revolutions came from France, and spread throughout Europe. The essential question given for this topic was, Were the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 really failures as many historians have concluded? Firstly before any discussion about the revolution, we were split into groups to judge what was a failed rebellion, and what was a success full revolution. After that we were assigned a revolution to cover. My group and I were assigned to French Revolution of 1848. Once we had looked over the information provided, we were create a surveymonkey.

For our Revolution, we did the French Revolution of 1848. Late into the 1840's, civil unrested was spreading throughout France. Three large groups, the liberal middle class, the socialists, and the working class, were unsatisfied with the constitutional monarchy put in place by the 1830 revolution. The middle class wanted economic reforms unrestricting trade with other countries. The socialist wanted social reforms that would provide plenty of food for the poor. All the working class wanted, was more jobs. The opponent they all fought against was the monarchy and the upper class, who have been benefiting thought the reforms made by King Louis Philippe.

Angry People protesting in front of Parisian Town Hall 

The French Revolution was separated into two parts, the February days, and the June days. The February days was the initial revolt against King Louis Philippe's government. The outcome through this revolution was the abdication of Louis Philippe and the creation of the second French Empire. The June days was the second  phase of the revolution. The recently elected president, Napoleon the Third, staged a coup d'etat abolishing the Second French Republic. He created, and crowned himself emperor of the Second French Empire. Eventually, the Second French Empire collapsed in 1871 due to a decay of foreign relations, landing the French citizens back to square one.

Results from the SurveyMonkey

The French Revolution of 1848, had a neutral outcome. There was no "real" bloodshed throughout this revolution, and no rights were permanently gained. The whole thing was pointless, nothing was really gained, but for a short few years, the people did enjoy so of the liberties of voting, before Napoleon the Third took over. Overall, the French Revolution of 1848 was a neutral outcome, and it didn't help Europe in any way.