In February 1848 the head of revolutionary steam was much stronger than in 1830, and the rash of explosions spread to all the major states except for Britain and Russia. In this case trouble was already afoot in Switzerland from 1845, in the Republic of Cracow from 1846, and in Sicily from 1847. The overthrow of Louis-Philippe sent the signal which set almost all the major cities of Germany, Italy, Austria, and Hungary ablaze. The events of 1848–9 have been termed ‘the Revolution of the Intellectuals’, mainly on the strength of the weighty debates in the Vorparlament in Frankfurt and in the Slav Congress in Prague, and of the epoch-making publication of the
Communist Manifesto
(see below). In reality, it was a time when bloody actions spoke much louder than mere words. It was not only intellectuals who manned the barricades, even though poets such as Lamartine, Mickiewicz, or Sándor Petôfi plunged into the fray. Lamartine served as foreign minister in France’s initial revolutionary government. Mickiewicz
raised a legion of Polish exiles to fight for the Roman Republic. Petőfi died in a battle against the Austrians. In Paris, over 10,000 people died during the ‘June days’ when General Cavaignac’s troops crushed the resistance of the workers, whose short-lived national workshops had been abolished. In Berlin and elsewhere, the monarchs tended to fire first and to discuss constitutions afterwards. In Italy, Sardinia launched a ‘Guerra Santa’ against Austrian rule in Lombardy. In Hungary, where the Habsburgs were dethroned and Kossuth proclaimed regent and dictator, two Russian armies and a year-long campaign were required to effect the restoration. In Italy, French, Austrian, and Neapolitan troops had to be called in to destroy the self-proclaimed Republics in Rome and Venice.
In the immediate reckoning, therefore, 1848 provoked a series of liberal disasters. Only one monarchy was toppled, and that in France, where President Louis-Napoleon moved swiftly to undermine the republican institutions that had brought him to power. Within three years the French, who had thrown out their King, were saddled once more with an authoritarian Emperor. Not one of Europe’s new republics survived. Metternich, the symbol of the previous era, returned to Vienna from exile in London. New repressions, under new leaders, returned with him.
Yet before long 1848 came to be seen as a watershed in Europe’s affairs. The reactionary régimes had triumphed, but only at such heavy cost that they could not bear a repeat performance. Constitutions that had been granted, imposed, and in some cases withdrawn were gradually reintroduced or widened. If the violent methods of the revolutionaries were rejected, the political and social reforms which they demanded were now given serious consideration. With some delay, monarchs realized that wise concessions to popular demands were preferable to endless repression. The basic liberal principle of government by consent steadily gained widespread acceptance. One by one over the next two decades, the victors of 1848 abandoned their frozen postures. National and constitutional aspirations came again to the fore. Even the autocratic empires of the East began to bend. In 1855, with the accession of Alexander II (r. 1855–81), the Romanovs set in motion a season of liberalization
à la russe
. In 1867, through the
Ausgleich
or ‘Equalization Agreement’, the Habsburgs finally addressed the long-standing desires of the Hungarians, setting up the dual Austro-Hungarian monarchy,
Kaiserliche und Königliche
, with which they had to live for the rest of their reigning days.
Economic liberalism, of course, was not necessarily tied to its political counterpart. The German
Zollverein
or Customs Union, for example, was initiated by Frederick-William III of Prussia in 1818, at a time when political liberalism was in sharp retreat. Originally intended for Prussian territories alone, it was steadily extended to all the states of the German confederation except Austria. By banning all internal tariffs, it created a growing zone of free trade within which Germany’s infant industries could flourish. In 1828 two rival Customs Unions came into being, one based on Bavaria and Wurttemberg, the other on Saxony; but within four years these were absorbed. In 1852 Austria tried to break out of its isolation by proposing a customs union for the whole of Central Europe and northern Italy. But the Prussians resisted. The accession of Hanover in 1854 made the Prussian victory complete, except for the recalcitrant cities of Bremen and Hamburg. The foundations of a united German economy, excluding Austria, had been laid at a juncture when prospects for political unification still seemed remote.
PRADO
S
PAIN’S
Royal Art Museum was opened to the public on Prado Avenue in Madrid on 19 November 1819. It owed its existence to the enthusiasm of King Ferdinand VII, recently restored to his throne, and to his second queen, Isabella de Braganza. It was managed by its first director, the Prince of Anglona, under the Council of Grandees. It was housed behind the Corinthian facades of a new building designed thirty years earlier by the architect Don Juan Villanueva as a museum of natural history. The initial exhibition displayed 311 paintings. It did not include the large number of masterpieces which had been captured by the Duke of Wellington six years earlier in the baggage of Joseph Bonaparte, but not returned.
The Museum’s first catalogue was published in 1823 in French, since the Duke of Angoulême, and the latest French army of occupation, ‘the sons of St Louis’, had recently entered Spain to rescue the King from his subjects. It was renamed the National Museum in 1838, after merger with the Trinidad Collection taken from suppressed monasteries. It assumed the name Prado Museum in 1873, following the liberal revolt. It was closed during the Spanish Civil War of 1936–9, when many of its treasures were removed and exhibited in Geneva.
Spain’s royal art collection goes back to John II of Castile (d. 1445), who is known to have bought pictures by Roger Van der Weyden. Its greatest benefactors were Charles V and Philip II, the patrons of Titian: Philip IV, who employed Velazquez: and Charles III, who in 1774 sequestered the entire property of the Jesuits. Despite severe losses through fire and the French, it grew into one of the world’s prime collections, preserved in exceptional condition by the dry air of the Castilian plateau.
The glories of the Prado range over all the great names of the Italian, Flemish, German, Dutch, and French schools. Above all, it is the home base of the Spanish School—hence of El Greco (1541–1614), the Cretan who settled in Toledo; of the Sevillians, Diego de Velazquez (1599–1660) and Bartolomé Murillo (1618–82); of the Valencian, José de Ribera (1591–1652): and of the incomparable Francisco de Goya (1746–1828), who was Spain’s most celebrated contemporary painter when the Prado was opened.
‘Art galleries preserve the essence of man’s creative genius.’
1
They provide perhaps the most accessible route into Europe’s past, assailing the senses and arousing the imagination as no history book can do. The Prado stands at the top of a premier league of national galleries which includes the Louvre in Paris, the Rijksmuseum in Amsterdam, the Kunsthistorisches Museum in Vienna, the National Gallery in London, the Hermitage in St Petersburg, the Uffizi in Florence, and the Vaticano. They are supported by a second league of ‘provincial’ galleries and museums, Munich, in Cracow or in Oxford, often of surprising magnificence; by gal in Minsk, Manchester, or Munich, in Cracow or in Oxford, often of surprising magnificence; by galleries dedicated to modern art; and by a supporting cast of obscure and devoted institutions from Cholet to JÇdrzejów or Dulwich.
In 1784, when Ferdinand VII was born and the Prado building started, another European monarch was planning another public gallery. King Stanislaw-August of Poland had commissioned a dealer in London to assemble a selection of old masters to supplement his private collection in Warsaw. Then the Russo-Polish war and the partitions of Poland intervened. The King was deported to Russia, together with 2,900 of his pictures, which were destined to adorn Russian instead of Polish galleries. He never saw the paintings in London, which could not be paid for. They remained to form the core collection of the Dulwich Picture Gallery, which is one of those many minor treasure-houses that deserve to be better known.
2
Judged by Continental standards of liberalism, Great Britain was both more and less advanced than its main rivals. On the one hand, Britain could fairly claim to be the home of ‘the Mother of Parliaments’, of the rule of law, of the Bill of Rights, and of free trade. British society was for long the most modernized and industrialized in Europe, and supposedly the most open to liberal ideas. On the other hand, British institutions were exceptional in never having experienced the shock of revolution or occupation. Prevailing political attitudes remained intensely pragmatic. The monarchy continued to reign according to rules and customs agreed in the late seventeenth century, as if the French Revolution had never happened. In Queen Victoria (r. 1837–1901) and her extensive family it found the ideal foil for parliamentary government, a force for stability, and a channel for discreet influence abroad. There were republican sympathies in Britain, but no serious move to abolish the monarchy or to introduce a constitution,
[GOTHA]
Britain’s ancient institutions were slow to reform. Radical reformers had to beat their heads on the gates, often for decades. The unreformed parliament, which survived till 1832, was a scandalous anachronism, like its French counterpart under the July Monarchy. The Corn Laws held out against Free Trade until 1846. Civil marriage and divorce only became possible in 1836 and 1857 respectively. The demands for universal suffrage first voiced by the Chartists in 1838–48 were never fully conceded. The Church of England was never disestablished, except in Ireland (1869) and in Wales (1914). The feudal privileges of the House of Lords were not even trimmed until 1911. Religious toleration was never quite complete. The two-party system, which saw the ancient teams of Whigs and Tories reclothed as Liberals and Conservatives, delayed the advent of a strong socialist movement and of much social legislation. Under W. E. Gladstone (1809–98) and Benjamin Disraeli (1804–81), who dominated the scene in the third quarter of the century, and who both had liberal proclivities, domestic reforms were often overshadowed by the concerns of Empire. Wales remained an administrative part of England. Scotland received its own Secretary of State, a second-rank minister, in 1885. Ireland never achieved Home Rule (see below). Though liberal policies were followed with respect to the English-speaking dominions, there was little wish to extend them to the colonies at large. The British loved to pride themselves on their tolerance and liberalism; but much of their pride became outdated. In later decades they lagged well behind France in domestic democracy, behind Germany in social legislation, behind Austria-Hungary in nationality policy,
[RELAXATIO]
GOTHA
T
HE
Thuringian Duchy of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was established in 1826, when the Duke of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld was obliged by divorce to exchange Saalfeld for Gotha. Together with Saxe-Altenburg, Saxe-Meiningen, and Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach, its eight tiny enclaves were ultimately destined to join the German Empire.
The Duke had two sons—Ernest (1818–93) and Albert (1819–61). His brother Leopold (1790–1865) had once been married to the heiress of the House of Hanover, Charlotte Augusta. His sister Louise, also married to a Hanoverian, was the mother of Princess Victoria (1819–1901), conceived at Amorbach in Franconia. The family’s prospects greatly improved in 1830 when, like her deceased aunt before her, Victoria unexpectedly emerged as heir presumptive to the Hanoverian succession, and Leopold as King-elect of Belgium.
‘Uncle Leopold’ was the royal match-maker par excellence. Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha was his nephew, and Victoria of Hanover his niece. In May 1836, he brought them together. They were both seventeen. They were to be ‘the Father and Mother of Europe’.
1
(See Appendix III, pp. 1300–1.)
The House of Hanover, which in earlier times had used the titles of ‘Luneburg-Celle’ and ‘Braunschweig-Lüneburg’, reigned simultaneously from 1714 as Electors (then Kings) of Hanover and Kings of the United Kingdom. Though resident in Britain, they had always taken German brides, whilst a
staathalter
or deputy ran their ancestral lands. Since the law of Hanover did not admit female monarchs, when Victoria ascended the British throne in 1837, Hanover passed to her father’s brother and after that to Prussia. Albert and Victoria were married on 10 February 1840. They were blessed with nine children. As from 1858, the three eldest were married respectively to Frederick William of Hohenzollern, the future German Emperor; to Princess Alexandra of Denmark; and to the future Grand-Duke Louis of Hesse-Darmstadt.
2
The Grand Duchy of Hesse-Darmstadt had enjoyed only middling rank until the Grand Duke’s daughter Marie married Alexander II Romanov, the future Tsar of Russia, in 1841. Two of Marie’s sons took wives from the family of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gluecksburg. Her daughter, also Marie, married Prince Alfred (1844–1900), Duke of Edinburgh, Admiral RN and the future Duke of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha. The Darmstadt-St Petersburg alliance was reinforced first by the marriage of Elizabeth of Hesse to a Russian Grand Duke and then by the marriage of Elizabeth’s younger sister Alix to Nicholas II, the last Tsar.
The German family of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gluecksburg acquired the Danish throne in 1853. But they soon advanced further. Christian IX’s eldest son, Frederick (1843–1912), was the progenitor of both the Danish and the Norwegian monarchies. His second son, William (1845–1913), was to marry a Russian Grand Duchess and, as George I, to found the Greek royal line.
3
His daughter Alexandra (1844–1925), wife of Edward, Prince of Wales, became British Queen. His second daughter, Marie (1847–1928), wife of Alexander III Romanov, became Tsarina.
Into this dense nexus of Germanic cousinage there stepped the supreme
arrivistes
—the Battenbergs.
4
The Hessian Counts of Battenberg had died out in the fourteenth century. But their title was revived in 1858 for the benefit of a morganatic union. Prince Alexander of Hesse (1823–88) had accompanied his sister Marie to Russia, and had served in the Tsarist cavalry. But eloping with an imperial maid of honour, Julia Hauke (1825–95), daughter of a murdered Polish general, he fled Russia and took a commission in Vienna. His morganatic bride, renamed Julia, Countess von Battenberg, gave her progeny their good looks and their surname. Her sister wrote children’s stories. Her brother served in 1848 as commander of the Polish Legion in Tuscany.
5
Alexander and Julia had four sons. No. 2 married a princess of Montenegro. No. 3 was enthroned, and dethroned, in Bulgaria. No. 4, Count Henry, married Albert and Victoria’s youngest child, Beatrice. But it was the eldest son who scooped the kinship jackpot. Married to Queen Victoria’s favourite granddaughter, Victoria of Hesse, Count Louis Battenberg (1854–1921) was a cousin on the paternal side both to Alfred, Duke of Edinburgh and to Tsar Alexander III, and brother-in-law to Empress Alix. Having joined the Royal Navy as a cadet, he worked his way up to be Admiral, Director of Naval Intelligence, and, at the outbreak of war in 1914, Britain’s First Sea Lord. Unfortunately as a German, he was immediately forced to retire. By then, his elder daughter had become Queen of Sweden and his younger daughter, Alice, a Princess of Greece. His niece was Queen of Spain. His younger son, Louis (1900–79), known as ‘Dickie’, later Earl of Burma, was to follow him into the British Admiralty. In July 1917 the family name was changed once again, this time from Battenberg to Mountbatten. Their Romanov relatives were under arrest, and their relatives in the House of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha-Hanover-Teck were hurriedly renaming themselves ‘Windsor’.
In time, Admiral Louis Mountbatten revealed the same match-making talents as Queen Victoria’s Uncle Leo. His favourite nephew was a young exiled prince from Greece called Philip.
6
Amongst the Windsors, the young Princess Elizabeth had unexpectedly emerged in 1937 as Britain’s heir presumptive. ‘Uncle Dickie’ brought them together. Prince Philip of Schleswig-Holstein-Sonderburg-Gluecksburg (b. 1921), and Princess Elizabeth of Windsor (b. 1926) were married in 1947. Both were descended in the same degree from the lines of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha, Hanover, Hesse, and Denmark. Except for some relations of Elizabeth’s Scottish mother, neither had any modern English forebears. Both changed their names twice. Philip had taken his uncle’s adopted name of Mountbatten. After his wife’s Coronation as Elizabeth II in 1953, he and his family reverted by an Order in Council to the Queen’s maiden name of Windsor. Skilful genealogists showed them to be descendants of Plantagenets, Tudors, and Stuarts, even of Charlemagne, Egbert, and King Alfred.
When the House of Windsor was created by deed poll in 1917, the republican H. G. Wells had called them ‘alien and uninspiring’. But their cousin, the German Kaiser, was less critical. In a rare flash of wit, he said that he was off to the theatre to see a performance of
The Merry Wives of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha.
1