In terms of causation, there were a number of factors which contributed to an overall feeling of anger and dissatisfaction within France which ultimately would culminate in the political upheaval of the 1848 revolution. The most significant of these factors was class tension, dissatisfaction with the monarchy and particularly Louis Phillipe, lack of political power (suffrage) and most importantly, economic factors. While the socio-political aspect is important, these were not new issues and therefore there must’ve been a factor which aggravated French citizens to a revolutionary point. Widespread unemployment, food shortages and economic depression are the key aspects of the economic aggravation. In 1845, poor grain harvests and potentially the appearance of blight paired with depressed economic conditions led to a spike in the price of food which had the knock on effect of increasing unemployment. Increasing prices of food and fuel caused an increase in hunger-related diseases such as Typhus fever and disrupted trade. Overall, this resulted in a loss of confidence in the authorities and a widespread resentment for groups of society who were not affected or even profited from these poor conditions. Louis Phillipe was the epitome of a wealthy, out of touch elite and change was not in the hands of the French people who did not have the vote. The middle class began calling for reform, demanding fair wage and work practices, as well as the end to inflationary pricing. In order to ‘control’ the situation and suppress rebellion, French aristocracy attempted to further limit the rights of the disenfranchised, banning the practice of ‘banquets’, political venues where policy and revolution were often discussed. Overall, a number of social, economic and political factors arguably combined and converged, with economic factors and political repression being the aggravators which led French people to the street. Therefore, within the causation of the French Revolution of 1848, violence is arguably not important.
Yet there are some historians such as Furet who argue that violence exists in the beginnings of every Revolution and suggests that the violence seen in the 1848 Revolution was foreshadowed but that it took other socio-economic and political factors to play into those tensions and escalate the existing violence into something that could be termed a ‘revolution’. A number of instances at the brink of Revolution in the opening phases, such as small uprisings amongst urban populations such as shopkeepers, which indicated the element of violence that would be present within this revolutionary movement. Sylvia Neely explains the ambiance of the time “the government feared this urban population could easily turn to violence” Sperber makes the point that violence was prevalent throughout the entirety of the French revolution, neither confined to the so-called revolutionary phases nor to the beginning phases and indicates the lack of ambiguity of the nature of this, and arguably all Revolutions: “bloodshed was called for by the people, and later called for by those in power.”
In terms of the revolution itself however, violence arguably had a bigger role to play and violence in the French revolution was arguably one of the largest driving factors. As Lynn Hunt has highlighted, popular violence defined the image of the French Revolution. The key way in which violence was effective was that it instilled fear in the ruling elites which forced them to compromise. Although a change in circumstances altered the degree of violence, that violence existed for the entirety of the French Revolution but while the prevalence of violence is clear, the effectiveness of this violence in terms of achieving the goals of revolution are questionable.
On 22nd of February 1848, after the cancellation of a ‘banquet’ which was essentially a venue for political debate and discussion of reform in which the government was challenged, a group of extremists took to the streets of Paris and attacked a group of soldiers. The crowds directed their anger against the Citizen King Louis Philippe and his chief minister for foreign and domestic policy, François Pierre Guillaume Guizot. Fighting broke out between the citizens and the Parisian municipal guards causing the fatal injury of 52 protesting citizens. Faced with such unrest Louis Phillipe dismissed Guizot, his unpopular Prime Minister, on the 23rd and himself abdicated on the 24th. In the wake of these dramatic developments there was an establishment of a Provisional Government of a French Republic. On the 25th February a group of socialists, armed and carrying red flags, gathered in front of the Hotel de Ville (or City Hall) in Paris where their insistence secured a decree which proclaimed that the newly formed provisional government would undertake to provide work and would also recognise workers’ rights to combine. Furthermore, in September of 1848, for fear of another violent uprising, the National Constituent Assembly vowed not to dissolve itself until they had written a new constitution and enacted all the laws necessary to implement that new constitution. From these examples, it is clear that violence created a threat which could not be ignored and for fear of the alternative, the revolutionaries got what they had set out to achieve, in this case universal suffrage and the ‘right to work’. By May 1848 the National Workshops were employing 100,000 workers and paying out daily wages of 70,000 livres. In this way, violence is important in the course of a revolution by creating fear which causes abrupt action.
But the success of violence in achieving goals is not always assured. The June Days Uprising demonstrates this. Cavaignac and an army of an estimated 120,000 men suppressed an uprising of revolutionary Parisians, targeting blockaded areas of the city. Approximately 1,500 were killed at the barricades. Twelve thousand were arrested, and the streets were cleared once again and another revolution had ended. The difference between this uprising and the February uprising was the unity of the revolutionaries. In February, the workers and bourgeoisie were a united force but by June the working classes had been abandoned by the bourgeois politicians who founded the provisional government and now the revolutionaries were split along class lines. Therefore, while violence can be a useful tool in accelerating social change, it is not a method which guarantees change or success, especially when there are existing tensions and differences in goals between groups of revolutionaries as with the June Days Uprising
Furthermore, as described by Neely, while violence might’ve “pushed the Revolution forward, it also threatened to dissolve it in an acid wash of blood, vengeance, and anarchic disorder.” According to George Rude, the violence of these uprisings often discredited their message and their demands, despite the legitimacy of those joining the Revolution who were artisans, shopkeepers, tradesmen and other law-abiding people. Even if at the time it did not necessarily discredit their actions, it made easier to suppress the movements by labelling them as ‘angry mobs’. In addition, while violent actions are often emphasized in an analysis of the French Revolution, non-violent tactics were also employed. Alpaugh demonstrates the prevalence of non-violent tactics to show that much of the popular action taken in revolutionary Paris was not in fact violent. According to Alpaugh, Parisian protesters typically tried to avoid violence, conducting campaigns predominantly through peaceful marches, petitions, banquets and mass-meetings, which only rarely escalated to physical force in their stand-offs with authorities. Out of over 750 events, no more than twelve percent appear to have resulted in physical violence at any stage. Furthermore, political clubs which stressed the need for education played important roles in the 1848 revolution. The Société Républicaine Centrale, which grew in membership to some five thousand persons and was one of the largest political club of these times, twice petitioned for postponement of the election of a constituent assembly as well as highlighting the importance of education. Moreover, while violence may incite or accelerate social, political or economic change, often the changes implemented are superficial and only on a surface level. By the time of the December 2, 1851 coup, Louis Napoleon had dissolved the National Assembly without having the constitutional right to do so, and became the sole ruler of France and attempted to return France to the old order.
The causes of revolution in Germany were similar to that of France and the revolutions of 1848-9, sometimes referred to as the Völkerfrühling or Springtime of the People can be seen as an active challenge to the political power and authority exercised by monarchs and the dynastic government. This attack on the political power of the upper classes and the frustration at the lack of political power held by the masses is a common thread through the 1848 revolutions that took place throughout Europe. As in France, there was also an economic aspect to the dissatisfaction and German intellectuals as well as those who led the revolution began an attack on capitalism, complaining that machines should be freeing men from animal servitude rather than fashioning workers "to a terrible bondage." They advocated government enforced reductions in work hours, the banning of child labor, subsidizing decent housing for workers, sickness and disability programs and public education. Other demands were made for freedom of press, constitutional governance and a reformed parliament which were publicized in the “March Demands”. However, it could be argued that violence did play a role in the German 1848 revolution in that they were inspired by the events that took place in France to create their own revolution. As highlighted by Sperber, a revolt in Paris between the 22nd and 24th of February 1848 not only led to the overturn of King Louis Phillip and his regime but soon turned out to be the final trigger leading the situation in Germany to explode. Only a few days later the first uprising began as a spontaneously organized peasant revolts in the South-West (Baden) of Germany and in Bavaria and like dominos, the revolution spread over the metropolitan areas in the Rhine-land to the political and military head of Prussia in Berlin. Therefore, violence arguably played an important role in terms of causation in the 1848 revolution, though without the economic and political factors which created a general mood of dissatisfaction, the reaction would not have taken place in the same way.
The events of the actual revolution also demonstrate the influence of violence. In Baden and Wurttemberg there was an uprising against serfdom where tensions between serfs and seigniors was high. The Grand Duke of Baden fled, and in Baden a revolutionary government was founded. In the eastern part of Prussia's Westphalia, violence erupted among free peasants and the landless. The violence spread to Saxony and to neighbouring Thuringia and Silesia to the west and east, where more castle burnings took place. In Bavaria, King Ludwig decreed freedom of the press. Tens days later, to appease his subjects, who were angry over his affair with Lola Montez, Ludwig abdicated. In Berlin, after a clash between soldiers and demonstrators, the emperor Willian IV withdrew his soldiers and paid respect to the demonstrators killed in the clash. Mounting pressure from revolutionaries in Berlin also resulted in the release of all political prisoners in Berlin. Surprised and overthrown by the strength of the movement many monarchs declared their willingness to install most of the basic democratic principles demanded. On March 5th, soon after these first uprisings, the liberal leaders and intellectual fathers of the revolution met in Heidelberg to discuss further steps to institutionalize the revolutionary changes obtained so far. It was decided upon that a provisional government should meet in Frankfurt to prepare a general election and to begin the work on a new, liberal constitution. This provisional government had its constituting session on March 31st and was eventually replaced by an elected legislative body on May 18th. Therefore, violence was arguably essential in the push for social, economic and political change and was an effective means of achieving the goals laid out at the beginning of the revolution.