Introduction · Part 2

under the leadership of Metternich had begun to function despotically through the Concert of Europe. There was repression of the liberation movements. Popular revolts in Naples ( ) and Spain ( ) were suppressed with the aid of foreign troops, Austrian in the case of former and French in the latter case. There was little liberty in any European country. In spite of this, the American and the French Revolutions had made the ideas of democracy and political liberty known and appreciated by liberal thinkers. Progressive thinkers and liberals believed in the virtues of democracy, and tried hard to achieve them. But democracy offered no solution to issues of poverty or class conflict. Europe in the nineteenth century was ‘a strange mixture of capitalism and imperialism and nationalism and internationalism and wealth and poverty’. The Industrial Revolution ended the domestic system of industry and necessitated the workmen to live near the factories. Long rows of tenement houses were built for their accommodation. Wages were abominably low. Hours of labour were as high as fifteen or even eighteen a day. Women and children were employed in large numbers. The factories were owned by a small class of capitalists, whose main object was unbridled profit. The working classes were initially unorganised and therefore wholly at the mercy of their employers. Many, however, Black Sea North Sea English Channel Baltic Sea Adriatic Sea M e d i t e r r a n e a n S e a A T L A N T I C O C E A N Not to Scale E W N S Prussia A = Parma FINLAND St. Petersburg London UNITED KINGDOM Paris Bay of Biscay Genoa C D AB E Vienna Berlin Amsterdam Rome Naples Constantinople Nice SavoyLombardy Bavaria Saxony Venetia DALMATIA Corsica Lisbon Sevilla Madrid Moscow Warsaw R U S S I A N E M P I R E AUSTRIAN EMPIRE GERMAN CONFEDERATION DENMARK SWEDEN AND NORWAY KINGDOM OF FRANCE SWITZ. PORTUGAL KINGDOM OF SPAIN PIEDMONT- SARDINIA KINGDOM OF THE TWO SICILIES PAPAL STATES KINGDOM OF POLAND B = Modena C = Lucca D =