Liberty in the Nineteenth Century

by Frederic May Holland

Belgium, for instance, was forced into a union with Holland, which led to civil war; and the Norwegians were put under subjection to the Swedes, against whom they had just been fighting. Ten millions more of Poles were made subjects of the Czar; and his original wish to rule mildly was frustrated by their rebellion. The Italians had been brought by Napoleon into such unity and sense of nationality as they had not felt for many centuries. Offers of greater liberty made Lombardy and Venice take sides against him; they were rewarded by being put under the most hated of rulers, the Austrians; and the latter were made virtually masters of all Italy. When all the plunder had been divided, the royal robbers united in a declaration, acknowledging Jesus as the only sovereign and recommending the daily and universal practice of religion.

The only sovereign who kept his promise, that he would give his subjects a new constitution if they would help him conquer Napoleon, was Goethe's patron at Weimar. He presided over the University of Jena, which Schiller, Fichte, and other professors had made the centre of democratic influence in Germany. A secret political society was formed by students who had fought at Waterloo; and all the universities were invited to help celebrate, on October 18, 1817, the anniversary, not only of the victory at Leipsic, but of the opening of the Protestant Reformation. Five hundred students from various parts of Germany met in the Wartburg, the castle where Luther found refuge after bidding defiance at Worms to both Pope and Emperor. It was agreed that the new society should extend through all the universities, and should have banners of black, red, and yellow. These henceforth were the colours of liberty in Germany.

Napoleon had reduced Prussia's army to a minimum; among the preparations for breaking his yoke had been the practice of such gymnastics as are still kept up by the Turners; and a public exhibition was given that evening near the castle, before an immense bonfire. Reference was made there to kings who broke their word; and as the audience broke up, some of the students fed the blaze with various emblems of despotism, such as the canes with which soldiers were flogged by corporals. Then they burned a number of blank books, with titles copied from those of pamphlets recently published in opposition to progress.

The King of Prussia had taken some steps towards constitutional liberty, but these boyish freaks brought him completely under the influence of Prince Metternich. This crafty but kind-hearted Austrian worked steadily, from 1814 to 1848, at much sacrifice of ease and pleasure, in hope of preserving civilisation and religion from being destroyed by any new revolution. He was now the real Emperor of Germany; the British Ministry was in sympathy; and the Czar, who had at first been an admirer of parliamentary government, was converted by an outrage in the name of liberty on the right of free speech. One of the literary champions of Russian autocracy, Kotzebue, was assassinated, early in 1819, by a divinity student who had been at the Wartburg. That same year the representatives of the leading German states met at Carlsbad, and agreed, with the Czar's approval, that all German journals and universities should be under strict supervision, that political offenders should be tried by a special central tribunal, and that the new colours should be prohibited.

VI. Louis XVIII. cared as little as Charles II. of England about promises, but was quite as unwilling to have to travel abroad. He dissolved a legislature which was too reactionary; subsequent elections returned liberal candidates, though only one man in a hundred could vote; the National Guard was revived; and progressive ideas were expressed freely. France was moving forwards until February 13, 1820, when a Bonapartist murdered the King's nephew, in hope of cutting off the succession. The legislature was obliged, two days later, to let the press be muzzled; sanctions of individual liberty were thrown aside; and a law was passed to give rich men two votes apiece. The Liberal Ministry was dismissed; and its successor put all education under control of the priests, forbade Cousin and Guizot to lecture, and sent Béranger to prison for publishing incendiary songs. Louis XVIII., like Charles II., left the crown to a bigoted brother, who had been taught by the Jesuits to care much more for religion than human rights, or the duty of chastity; and Charles X. did his utmost to make himself an absolute monarch. Still worse results of assassination in the name of liberty had already been suffered in Spain and Italy.

No people had really lost much by the overthrow of Napoleon except the Italians. They were learning how to love each other as fellow-citizens of one common country, and how to care more for the welfare of the people than for that of the priests. The Congress of Vienna restored the supremacy of the clergy, and cut up Italy once more into little principalities, whose stupid and cruel despots were guided by Metternich. The people were already conscious of the tie of nationality, desirous to be governed with some regard to their own welfare, and destitute of faith in the divine right of kings. Few of them have been so plainly not "ordained of God" as Ferdinand of Naples and Sicily. He had run away basely from the invaders, and been brought back to promise amnesty, and to massacre men, women, and children by thousands. No criminals but patriots were watched closely; and brigands defied the government. There was no pretence of liberty, even on the stage; and the Jesuits kept literature and education down to merely nominal existence. The only refuge of freedom was among the Carbonari, or members of a secret society, half a million strong. Their flags of black, red, and blue were hoisted in many towns and villages on July 2, 1820, when the army led the revolt. The King swore on the Bible, and after hearing mass, that he would establish a constitution like the French one of 1791, and then asked help from Metternich. The latter brought the Austrian, Russian, and Prussian monarchs together at Troppau, Silesia, where they agreed, on December 8, 1820, to put down all rebels, especially in Italy. An Austrian army won a decisive victory next March over the Neapolitans, whose best troops were fighting against an attempt at secession in Sicily.

Austria took part, a month later, in suppressing a revolt which had just broken out against the petty despot nicknamed "King of Sardines." His first step on his restoration, in 1814, had been to reappoint every man who had been in office in 1798; and Napoleon's code gave way to ancient statutes which, for instance, forbade the Piedmontese to send wheat they could not use themselves to the Savoyards, who were starving. He was forced to abdicate by a revolt of citizens who wanted a constitution and of soldiers who wished to free Lombardy from Austria. Her help enabled his successor to keep the monarchy absolute; and her influence became paramount in Sardinia, as elsewhere in Italy.

VII. The month of April, 1821, brought an end of rebellion in Italy, and the outbreak of a ferocious revolution in Greece. The Turkish rule was intolerant, and intentionally oppressive. Exportation of food and clothing, for instance, was forbidden in hope of keeping down prices; and the result was to check production. The country was full of brigands; and the worst of wrongs were inflicted on unbelievers by the officials. Priests and rulers in other lands refused to help their fellow-Christians against Moslem tyrants; and the famous victory won by Bozzaris was over Roman Catholics. The new republic had only nominal authority. Independent bands of patriots fought desperately; and the Crescent soon gave place to the Cross in the Archipelago as well as in the Morea, once famous as the Peloponnesus; but the cause was continually disgraced by pillage, perfidy, massacre, and civil war. Several millions of contributions, mainly English, were squandered by the captains. Byron sacrificed his life in a vain attempt to create military discipline; and lack of any permitted the Morea to be conquered in 1825 by the regular army sent over by the Pasha of Egypt.

All resistance, north of the Isthmus of Corinth, was soon suppressed by the co-operation of Egyptians and Turks; and the islanders could do nothing better than ask help from foreigners. The only government which had thus far aided Greece was the American; and Congress had done much less than the people to relieve distress. An alliance between Great Britain, France, and Russia, for preventing extermination of the Greeks, was brought about by Canning. The sovereigns of Turkey and Egypt were so obstinate that their ships were destroyed by the allied fleet at Navarino, Messenia, on October 20, 1827. The Egyptians were driven out of the Morea by French soldiers; and Northern Greece rose against the Turks with a success which secured the present boundary. The Greeks were not permitted to establish a republic; but the monarchy finally became constitutional under the pressure of insurrection.

VIII. No nation had been less capable than the Spanish of appreciating the advantage, either of a vigorous government, or of toleration, freedom of the press, political equality, and personal liberty.