From 1815 to 1848 those who believed in keeping things as they were at any cost were able, under the leadership of Metternich, to oppose pretty successfully those who from time to time attempted to secure for the people a greater control of the government and to satisfy the craving for national life. This did not mean, of course, that no progress was made during this long period in realizing the ideals of the liberal party in the various European states, or that one man can block the advance of nations for a generation. The very fact that Austria had, after the Congress of Vienna, assumed the leading rôle in Europe that France had played during the period following the Revolution of 1789, is a sufficient indication that Metternich's aversion to change corresponded to a general conviction that it was best, for the time being, to let well enough alone.
Creation of the kingdom of Greece, 1829.
Two events, at least, during the period of Metternich's influence served to encourage the liberals of Europe. In 1821 the inhabitants of Greece had revolted against the oppressive government of the Turks. The Turkish government set to work to suppress the revolt by atrocious massacres. It is said that twenty thousand of the inhabitants of the island of Chios were slaughtered. The Greeks, however, succeeded in arousing the sympathy of western Europe, and they held out until England, Russia, and France intervened and forced the Sultan to recognize the independence of Greece in 1829.[445]
Belgium becomes an independent kingdom in 1831.
Another little kingdom was added to the European states by the revolt of the former Austrian Netherlands from the king of Holland, to whom they had been assigned by the Congress of Vienna. The southern Netherlands were still as different from the northern as they had been in the time of William the Silent.[446] Holland was Protestant and German, while the southern provinces, to whom the union had always been distasteful, were Catholic and akin to the French in their sympathies. Encouraged by the revolution at Paris in 1830, the people of Brussels rose in revolt against their Dutch king, and forced his troops to leave the city. Through the influence of England and France the European powers agreed to recognize the independence of the Belgians, who established a kingdom and introduced an excellent constitution providing for a limited monarchy modeled upon that of England.
CHAPTER XL
THE UNIFICATION OF ITALY AND GERMANY
The general revolutionary movement in western Europe in 1848.