1848: Year of Revolution

In Our Time

BBC

History

4.6 • 9.2K Ratings

🗓️ 19 January 2012

⏱️ 42 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Melvyn Bragg and his guests discuss 1848, the year that saw Europe engulfed in revolution. Across the continent, from Paris to Palermo, liberals rose against conservative governments. The first stirrings of rebellion came in January, in Sicily; in February the French monarchy fell; and within a few months Germany, Austria, Hungary and Italy had all been overtaken by revolutionary fervour. Only a few countries, notably Britain and Russia, were spared.The rebels were fighting for nationalism, social justice and civil rights, and were prepared to fight in the streets down to the last man. Tens of thousands of people lost their lives; but little of lasting value was achieved, and by the end of the year the liberal revolutions had been soundly beaten.With: Tim BlanningEmeritus Professor of History at the University of CambridgeLucy RiallProfessor of History at Birkbeck, University of LondonMike RapportSenior Lecturer in History at the University of Stirling.Producer: Thomas Morris.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Thanks for downloading the in-artime podcast. For more details about in-artime and for our terms of use
0:05.4	Please go to bbc.co.uk forward slash radio for. I hope you enjoy the program
0:11.8	Hello on February the 26th
0:14.3	1848 page five of the times contained dramatic news from the consonant the newspapers editorial staff informed its readers of a bulletin received by
0:22.7	Electric telegraph from Folkston quote there's been a complete revolution in France
0:28.2	Which is terminated in the abdication of the king of the French the Palais Royale was attacked at 12 o'clock by the people and
0:35.2	Taken by them at half past one after a sanguinary contest and
0:40.3	The French opposition declared a republic and it wasn't long before this revolution
0:44.3	Rezeals spread within weeks uprisings had begun in Germany and soon a wave of revolutions swept across Europe Italy hungry
0:51.4	Denmark and Ireland were all affected
0:53.4	But almost all of these rebellions failed leaving many countries with regimes even more oppressive than those they'd
1:00.0	Briefly shaken off with me to discuss the revolutions of 1848 are Tim Blanning emeritus professor of history at the University of Cambridge
1:09.3	Lucie Ryle professor of history at Birkbeck University of London and
1:13.2	Microport senior lecturer in history at the University of Sterling Tim Blanning
1:18.1	Let's start by going back a few decades to when the map of Europe was substantially redrawn in 1815 after the Napoleonic War
1:28.0	What the peacemakers tried to do at Vienna in 1814 15 there at it for more than a year was to
1:34.6	Create a new order for Europe after virtually quarter of a century of incessant fighting
1:40.2	It's a very very complex settlement that they imposed on Europe and imposed as the word incidentally
1:46.1	But I think we can pull out maybe four things four big things one was to turn France into a stable
1:53.7	monarchy but a weak monarchy and in that they more or less succeeded
1:57.7	It wasn't very stable because there's a change of dynasty in 1830
2:01.0	But France didn't go to war again until 1854 which was amazing given the record of French aggression over the previous two centuries
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.