EUROPEAN HISTORY

MR. CAS 2ND BLOCK CLASS

Esther Lee
(Yes I did copy this top portion from an actual DBQ question so I could make it look legit..)
Directions: The following question is based on the accompanying Documents 1-12. The
documents have been edited for the purpose of this exercise. Write your answer on the lined
pages of the Section II free-response booklet.
This question is designed to test your ability to work with and understand historical documents.
Write an essay that:
Provides an appropriate, explicitly stated thesis that directly addresses all parts of the
question and does NOT simply restate the question.
Discusses a majority of the documents individually and specifically.
Demonstrates understanding of the basic meaning of a majority of the documents.
Supports the thesis with appropriate interpretations of a majority of the documents.
Analyzes point of view or bias in at least three documents.
Analyzes the documents by explicitly grouping them in at least three appropriate ways.
You may refer to relevant historical information not mentioned in the documents.

1.

Analyze the factors that contributed to the failure of the 1848 revolutions in Europe.

Historical Background: The Revolutions of 1848, also known as the Springtime of the Peoples,
were a series of political rebellions across Europe.
Document 1
Source: F. Palacky, Czech politician and influential person of the Czech National Revival,
letter to Frankfurt Parliament, Committee of Fifty, April 1848.
The letter of 6th April in which you, greatly esteemed gentlemen, did me the honour of inviting
me to Frankfurt in order to take part in the business concerned "mainly with the speediest
summoning of a German Parliament" has just been duly delivered to me by the post.
With joyful surprise I read in it the most valued testimony of the confidence which Germany's
most distinguished men have not ceased to place in my views: for by summoning me to the
assembly of "friends of the German Fatherland", you yourselves acquit me of the charge
which is as unjust as it has often been repeated, of ever having shown hostility towards the
German people. With true gratitude I recognise in this the high humanity and love of justice of
this excellent assembly, and I thus find myself all the more obliged to reply to it with open
confidence, freely and without reservation.

Gentlemen, I cannot accede to your call, either myself or by dispatching another "reliable
patriot". Allow me to expound the reasons for this to you as briefly as possible.
The explicit purpose of your assembly is to put a German people's association [Volksbund] in
the place of the existing federation of princes, to bring the German nation to real unity, to
strengthen German national feeling, and thus to raise Germany's power both internal and
external. However much I respect this endeavour and the feeling on which it is based, and
particularly because I respect it, I cannot participate in it. I am not a German at any rate I do
not consider myself as such and surely you have not wished to invite me as a mere yesman without opinion or will. Consequently, I would have in Frankfurt either to deny my feelings
and to play the hypocrite or to contradict loudly at the first opportunity which offers itself. For
the former I am too frank and outspoken, for the latter not sufficiently bold and ruthless; for I
cannot find it in my heart by ugly sounds to disturb the harmony which I find desirable and
gratifying not only in my own house but also in my neighbour's.
I am a Bohemian of Slav descent [Stamm] and with the little which I possess and can do have
devoted myself totally and forever to the service of my people. This people is, indeed, a small
one, but has always been a distinct one and one existing for itself.
Document 2
Source: Edward Augustus Freeman, Professor of Modern History at Oxford University, 1879
... A hundred years ago man's political likes and dislikes seldom went beyond the range
suggested by the place of his birth or immediate descent, Such birth or descent made him a
member of this or that political community, a subject of this or that prince, a citizen - perhaps a
subject - of this or that commonwealth. The political community of which he was a member
had its traditional alliances and traditional enemies, and by those traditional alliances and
traditional enemies the likes and dislikes of the members of that community were guided. But
those traditional alliances and enemies were seldom determined by theories about language
or race. The people of this or that place might be discontented under a foreign government;
but, as a rule, they were discontented only if subjection to that foreign government brought
with it personal suppression or at least political degradation. Regard or disregard of some
purely local privilege or local feeling went for more than the fact of a government being native
or foreign. What we now call the sentiment of nationality did not go for much; what we call the
sentiment of race went for nothing at all ...
Document 3
Source: Manifesto issued by the Pan-Slav Congress as the Congress was closing, 12 June
1848

In the belief that the powerful spiritual stream of today demands new political forms and that
the state must be re-established upon altered principles, if not within new boundaries, we
have suggested to the Austrian Emperor, under whose constitutional government we, the
majority, live, that he transform his imperial state into a union of equal nations, which would
accommodate these demands no less fully than would a unitary monarchy.
We see in such a union not only salvation for ourselves but also freedom, culture, and
humanity for all, and we are confident that the nations of Europe will assist in the realization of
this union. In any case, we resolve, by all available means, to win for our nationality the
complete recognition of the same political rights that the German and Hungarian peoples
already enjoy in Austria.
Document 4
Source: Constituent Assembly, a Declaration which repudiated the Temporal Power of the
Church and proclaimed a Roman Republic, January, 1849
Article 1. The temporal government of the papacy is now at an end, in fact and in law.
Article 2. The Roman pontiff will have every guarantee needed for the independent exercise of
his spiritual power.
Article 3. The form of government at Rome shall be that of a pure democracy, and it will take
the glorious name of the Roman Republic.
Article 4. The Roman Republic will enter into such relations with the rest of Italy as our
common nationality demands.
Document 5
Source: Daniel Manin, issuing a defiant manifesto, 12 August, 1849
Italian Soldiers!
The war of independence, to which you have consecrated your blood, has now entered a
phase which for us is disastrous.
Perhaps the only refuge of Italian liberty are these lagoons, and Venice must at any cost
guard the sacred fire.
Valorous ones! In the name of Italy, for which you have fought, and want to fight, I implore
you not to lessen your efforts in the defence of this sacred sanctuary of our nationality. The
moment is a solemn one: It concerns the political life of an entire people, whose destiny could
depend on this final bulwark.
As many as you may be, that from beyond the Po, beyond the Mincio, beyond the Ticino,
have come here for the final triumph of our common cause, just think that by saving Venice,
you will also save the most precious rights of our native land. Your families will bless the
sacrifices which you have chosen to undergo; an admiring Europe will reward your generous

perseverance; and the day that Italy will be able to proclaim itself redeemed, it will raise,
among the many monuments which are here, of the valour and glory of our fathers, another
monument, on which it will be written: The Italian soldiers defending Venice saved the
independence of Italy.
Document 6
Source: Louis Napoleon, Proclamation about an anniversary of a famous victory achieved at
Austerlitz, the Republican constitution was more completely overthrown, 2 December 1851
The present situation cannot continue. Each day that passes increases the country's danger.
The Assembly, supposed to be the staunchest supporter of order, has become a hot-bed of
sedition. The patriotism of three hundred members was not enough to curb its fatal
tendencies. Instead of legislation for the public good, it is forging weapons for civil war. It is
making a bid for the power that I wield directly by virtue of the people's will. It fosters every
wicked passion. It is jeopardising the stability of France. I have dissolved the National
Assembly and I invite the whole people to adjudicate between me and it.

Document 7
Source: Jonathan Sperber, The European Revolutions, 1848-1851
By late spring 1848, the Habsburg Empire looked like a hopeless case: the monarchys
northern Italian possessions in revolt, invaded by a Piedmontese army and largely cleared of
Austrian troops; three different national governments, in Vienna, Budapest, and Zagreb each
claiming sovereign authority; Polish, Romanian, Slovenian, Serb, Czech, and Slovak national
movements aspiring to a similar sovereign status; a mentally incompetent monarch and his
court in flight from the capital to the provinces; a state treasury completely bare.

Document 8
Source: Karl Marx, Revolution and Counter-Revolution Or, Germany, 1848.
The Proletarian, or really Revolutionary party, succeeded only very gradually in withdrawing
the mass of the working people from the influence of the Democrats, whose tail they formed in
the beginning of the Revolution. But in due time the indecision, weakness, and cowardice of
the Democratic leaders did the rest, and it may now be said to be one of the principal results
of the last years' convulsions, that wherever the working-class is concentrated in anything like
considerable masses, they are entirely freed from that Democratic influence which led them

into an endless series of blunders and misfortunes during 1848 and 1849. But we had better
not anticipate; the events of these two years will give us plenty of opportunities to show the
Democratic gentlemen at work.
The peasantry in Prussia, the same as in Austria, but with less energy, feudalism pressing,
upon the whole, not quite so hardly upon them here, had profited by the revolution to free
themselves at once from all feudal shackles. But here, from the reasons stated before, the
middle classes at once turned against them, their oldest, their most indispensable allies; the
democrats, equally frightened with the bourgeoisie, by what was called attacks upon private
property, failed equally to support them; and thus, after three months' emancipation, after
bloody struggles and military executions, particularly in Silesia, feudalism was restored by the
hands of the, until yesterday, anti-feudal bourgeoisie. There is not a more damning fact to be
brought against them than this. Similar treason against its best allies, against itself, never was
committed by any party in history, and whatever humiliation and chastisement may be in store
for this middle class party, it has deserved by this one act every morsel of it.
Document 9
Source: F. Palacky, Czech politician and influential person of the Czech National Revival,
letter to Frankfurt Parliament, Committee of Fifty, April 1848.
... You know that the south-east of Europe along the frontiers of the Russian Empire is
inhabited by several peoples significantly different in origin, language, history and culture
Slavs, Wallachians, Magyars, and Germans, not to mention the Greeks, Turks and
Schkipetars of whom none is strong enough by itself to put up a successful resistance in the
future against the overpowering neighbour in the East (i.e. The Russian Empire); they can do
that only when a single and firm bond unites them all with one another. The true life blood of
this necessary union of peoples is the Danube: its central power, therefore, must not be too
far distant from this stream if it wants to be and to remain at all effective. Truly, if the Austrian
Empire had not already existed for a long time, then one would have to hurry in the interest of
Europe and the interest of humanity to create it.
... When I cast my glance beyond the frontiers of Bohemia I am impelled by natural as well as
historical causes to direct them not towards Frankfurt but towards Vienna, and there to seek
the centre which is natural and is called to secure and to protect for my people peace,
freedom and justice.
... For the salvation of Europe, Vienna must not sink down to the level of a provincial city!
... I shall always be glad to co-operate in all measures which do not endanger Austria's
independence, integrity and the development of her power.
Document 10

Source: King Frederick William IV, King of Prussia from 1840 to 1861, in response to United
Diet desire to gain formal consent for raising new taxes, 1847
There is no power on earth that can succeed in making me transform the natural relationship
between prince and people ... into a constitutional relationship, and I never will permit a
written sheet of paper to come between our God in heaven and this land ... to rule us with its
paragraphs and supplant the old, sacred loyalty
[United Diet would only reconvene if it is] good and useful, and if this Diet offers me proof
that I can do so without injuring the rights of the crown.
Document 11
Source: Liberal, monarchist Constitutional, Tocqueville, Souvenirs, pp. 190-1
[Liberal, monarchist Constitutional told its readers that] rather than release their prisoners,
the [insurgents] cowardly murdered them by cutting off their heads hanged prisoners, cut off
the heads of four officers of the Mobile Guard on a block with a hacking-knife, sawed another
in half and wanted to burn alive several soldiers of that unit Corpses were desecrated. It is
true that they were not actually eaten; but, patience, that will come, if they continue to listen to
the socialists.
Document 12
Source: A. von Haxthausen, German writer, Quoted in Hobsbawm, Age of Revolution, pg 359,
1847
Pauperism and proletariat are the suppurating ulcers which have sprung from the organism of
the moderate state. Can they be healed? The communist doctors propose the complete
destruction and annihilation of the existing organisms One thing is certain, if these men gain
the power to act, there will be not a political but a social revolution, a war against all property,
a complete anarchy.

Document 13
Source: Peoples of the Habsburg / Austrian Empire, 1815-1840s