# data[].attributes.body
romanticism

# data[].attributes.body
Karl Liebknecht demanded an end to the monarchy and the setting up of Soviets in Germany. Admiral Franz von Hipper and Admiral Reinhard Scheer hoped to achieve a better bargaining position for Germany regardless of the cost to the navy.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
The naval order of 24th October 1918, and the preparations to sail triggered a mutiny among the affected sailors. By the evening of 4th November, Kiel was firmly in the hands of about 40,000 rebellious sailors, soldiers and workers. "News of the events in Keil soon travelled to other nearby ports. In the next 48 hours there were demonstrations and general strikes in Cuxhaven and Wilhelmshaven. Workers' and sailors' councils were elected and held effective power." (3)
November Uprising in Bavaria
By the 8th November, workers councils took power in virtually every major town and city in Germany. This included Bremen, Cologne, Munich, Rostock, Leipzig, Dresden, Frankfurt, Stuttgart and Nuremberg. Theodor Wolff, writing in the Berliner Tageblatt: "News is coming in from all over the country of the progress of the revolution. All the people who made such a show of their loyalty to the Kaiser are lying low. Not one is moving a finger in defence of the monarchy. Everywhere soldiers are quitting the barracks." (4)
Armed workers and soldiers in Kiel (November, 1918)

On 7th November, 1918, Kurt Eisner, a member of the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) established a Socialist Republic in Bavaria. Several leading socialists arrived in the city to support the new regime. This included Erich Mühsam, Ernst Toller, Otto Neurath, Silvio Gesell and Ret Marut. Eisner also wrote to Gustav Landauer inviting him to Munich: "What I want from you is to advance the transformation of souls as a speaker." Landauer became a member of several councils established to both implement and protect the revolution. (5)

Konrad Heiden wrote: "On November 6, 1918, he (Kurt Eisner) was virtually unknown, with no more than a few hundred supporters, more a literary than a political figure. He was a small man with a wild grey beard, a pince-nez, and an immense black hat. On November 7 he marched through the city of Munich with his few hundred men, occupied parliament and proclaimed the republic. As though by enchantment, the King, the princes, the generals, and Ministers scattered to all the winds." (6)

Eisner made a speech pointing out the connections between art and revolution: "A politician who is not an artist is also no politician. It is a delusion of our unpolitical German people to believe you can achieve something in the world without such poetic power. The poet is no unpractical dreamer: he is the prophet of the future... Art should no longer be a refuge for those who despair of life, for life itself should be a work of art, and the state the greatest work of art." (6a)

The Spartacus League
Karl Liebknecht climbed to a balcony in the Imperial Palace and made a speech: "The day of Liberty has dawned. I proclaim the free socialist republic of all Germans. We extend our hand to them and ask them to complete the world revolution. Those of you who want the world revolution, raise your hands." It is claimed that thousands of hands rose up in support of Liebknecht. (8)

The Social Democratic Party press, fearing the opposition of the left-wing Spartacus League, proudly trumpeted their achievements: "The revolution has been brilliantly carried through... the solidarity of proletarian action has smashed all opposition. Total victory all along the line. A victory made possible because of the unity and determination of all who wear the workers' shirt." (9)

Heinrich Ströbel, a journalist based in Berlin believed that some leaders of the Spartacus League overestimated their support: "The Spartakist movement, which also influenced a section of the Independents, succeeded in attracting a fraction of the workers and soldiers and keeping them in a state of constant excitement, but it remained without a hold on the great mass of the German proletariat. The daily meetings, processions, and demonstrations which Berlin witnessed... deceived the public and the Spartakist leaders into believing in a following for this revolutionary section which did not exist." (11)

Council of the People's Deputies
Friedrich Ebert established the Council of the People's Deputies, a provisional government consisting of three delegates from the Social Democratic Party (SPD) and three from the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD). Liebknecht was offered a place in the government but he refused, claiming that he would be a prisoner of the non-revolutionary majority. A few days later Ebert announced elections for a Constituent Assembly to take place on 19th January, 1918. Under the new constitution all men and women over the age of 20 had the vote. (12)
Spartacus League poster (1919)

As a believer in democracy, Rosa Luxemburg assumed that her party, the Spartacus League, would contest these universal, democratic elections. However, other members were being influenced by the fact that Lenin had dispersed by force of arms a democratically elected Constituent Assembly in Russia. Luxemburg rejected this approach and wrote in the party newspaper: "The Spartacus League will never take over governmental power in any other way than through the clear, unambiguous will of the great majority of the proletarian masses in all Germany, never except by virtue of their conscious assent to the views, aims, and fighting methods of the Spartacus League." (13)

Luxemburg was aware that the Spartacus League only had 3,000 members and not in a position to start a successful revolution. The Spartacus League consisted chiefly of innumerable small and autonomous groups scattered all over the country. John Peter Nettl has argued that "organisationally Spartakus was slow to develop... In the most important cities it evolved an organised centre only in the course of December... and attempts to arrange caucus meetings of Spartakist sympathisers within the Berlin Workers' and Soldiers' Council did not produce satisfactory results." (14)

Pierre Broué suggests that the large meetings helped to convince Karl Liebknecht that a successful revolution was possible. "Liebknecht, an untiring agitator, spoke everywhere where revolutionary ideas could find an echo... These demonstrations, which the Spartakists had neither the force nor the desire to control, were often the occasion for violent, useless or even harmful incidents caused by the doubtful elements who became involved in them... Liebknecht could have the impression that he was master of the streets because of the crowds which acclaimed him, while without an authenic organisation he was not even the master of his own troops." (15)

German Revolution in Berlin
On 4th January, 1919, Friedrich Ebert, ordered the removal of Emil Eichhorn, as head of the Police Department. Chris Harman, the author of The Lost Revolution (1982), has argued: "The Berlin workers greeted the news that Eichhorn had been dismissed with a huge wave of anger. They felt he was being dismissed for siding with them against the attacks of right wing officers and employers. Eichhorn responded by refusing to vacate police headquarters. He insisted that he had been appointed by the Berlin working class and could only be removed by them. He would accept a decision of the Berlin Executive of the Workers' and Soldiers' Councils, but no other." (19)
Anti-Spartacus League poster (1919)

The Spartacus League published a leaflet that claimed: "The Ebert-Scheidemann government intends, not only to get rid of the last representative of the revolutionary Berlin workers, but to establish a regime of coercion against the revolutionary workers." It is estimated that over 100,000 workers demonstrated against the sacking of Eichhorn the following Sunday in "order to show that the spirit of November is not yet beaten." (20)

Paul Levi later reported that even with this provacation, the Spartacus League leadership still believed they should resist an open rebellion: "The members of the leadership were unanimous; a government of the proletariat would not last more than a fortnight... It was necessary to avoid all slogans that might lead to the overthrow of the government at this point. Our slogan had to be precise in the following sense: lifting of the dismissal of Eichhorn, disarming of the counter-revolutionary troops, arming of the proletariat." (21)

Karl Liebknecht and Wilhelm Pieck published a leaflet calling for a revolution. "The Ebert-Scheidemann government has become intolerable. The undersigned revolutionary committee, representing the revolutionary workers and soldiers, proclaims its removal. The undersigned revolutionary committee assumes provisionally the functions of government." Karl Radek, had been sent by Lenin, to encourage a revolution, later commented that Rosa Luxemburg was furious with Liebknecht and Pieck for getting carried away with the idea of establishing a revolutionary government." (22)
Rosa Luxemburg

Although massive demonstrations took place, no attempt was made to capture important buildings. On 7th January, Luxemburg wrote in the Die Rote Fahne: "Anyone who witnessed yesterday's mass demonstration in the Siegesalle, who felt the magnificent mood, the energy that the masses exude, must conclude that politically the proletariat has grown enormously through the experiences of recent weeks.... However, are their leaders, the executive organs of their will, well informed? Has their capacity for action kept pace with the growing energy of the masses?" (23)

General Kurt von Schleicher, was on the staff of Paul von Hindenburg. In December 1919 he helped organize the Freikorps, in an attempt to prevent a German Revolution. The group was composed of "former officers, demobilized soldiers, military adventurers, fanatical nationalists and unemployed youths". Holding extreme right-wing views, von Schleicher blamed left-wing political groups and Jews for Germany's problems and called for the elimination of "traitors to the Fatherland". (24)
Freikorps soldiers in Berlin

The Freikorps appealed to thousands of officers who identified with the upper class and had nothing to gain from the revolution. There were also a number of privileged and highly trained troops, known as stormtroopers, who had not suffered from the same rigours of discipline, hardship and bad food as the mass of the army: "They were bound together by an array of privileges on the one hand, and a fighting camaraderie on the other. They stood to lose all this if demobilised - and leapt at the chance to gain a living by fighting the reds." (25)

On the 5th January, Ebert called in the German Army and the Freikorps to bring an end to the rebellion. Groener later testified that his aim in reaching accommodation with Ebert was to "win a share of power in the new state for the army and the officer corps... to preserve the best and strongest elements of old Prussia". Ebert was motivated by his fear of the Spartacus League and was willing to use "the armed power of the far-right to impose the government's will upon recalcitrant workers, irrespective of the long-term effects of such a policy on the stability of parliamentary democracy". (27)
Spartacus League members defending their positions using
rolls of newsprint as barricades (January, 1919)

The soldiers who entered Berlin were armed with machine-guns and armoured cars and demonstrators were killed in their hundreds. Artillery was used to blow the front off the police headquarters before Eichhorn's men abandoned resistance. "Little quarter was given to its defenders, who were shot down where they were found. Only a few managed to escape across the roofs." (28)

By 13th January, 1919 the rebellion had been crushed and most of its leaders were arrested. This included Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, who refused to flee the city, and were captured on 16th January and taken to the Freikorps headquarters. "After questioning, Liebknecht was taken from the building, knocked half conscious with a rifle butt and then driven to the Tiergarten where he was killed. Rosa was taken out shortly afterwards, her skull smashed in and then she too was driven off, shot through the head and thrown into the canal." (29) , the newspaper owned by the German Social Democrat Party reported the following day: Vorwärts has the honour of announcing in advance of all other papers that Karl Liebknecht had been "shot while trying to escape" and Rosa Luxemburg was "killed by the people". (30)

Paul Frölich blamed the Berlin newspapers for building up a hatred of the Socialist League: "The armed mercenaries of the counter-revolution were savagely slaughtering their prisoners and the press sang hymns in praise of the deliverers. It described with gusto the blood and brain splattered walls against which batches of workers were being mown down. The unscrupulous campaign of the press turned the middle and lower middle class into a bloodthirsty mob eager to drive men and women before the rifles of the execution squads on the slightest suspicion." (31)

On the morning of the funeral Kollwitz visited the Liebknecht home to offer sympathy to the family. At their request, she made drawings of him in his coffin. She noted that there were red flowers around his forehead, where he had been shot. She wrote in her journal: "I am trying the Liebknecht drawing as a lithograph... Lithography now seems to be the only technique I can still manage. It's hardly a technique at all, its so simple. In it only the essentials count." However, she changed her mind and it became a woodcut. (31a)
Käthe Kollwitz, Memorial for Karl Liebknecht (1919)

The Karl Liebknecht woodcut was attacked by the German Communist Party (KPD) because it had not been produced by a member of the party. Kollwitz wrote in her journal: "As an artist who moreover is a woman cannot be expected to unravel these crazily complicated relationships. As an artist I have the right to extract the emotional content out of everything, to let things work upon me and then give them outward form. And so I also have the right to portray the working class's farewell to Liebknecht, and even dedicate it to the workers, without following Liebknecht politically." (31b)

The elections for the National Assembly took place on 19th January 1919. The turnout rate was 83%. Over 90% of the women eligible voted. The result was as follows: German Social Democrat Party (38.72%), Independent Social Democratic Party (5.23%), German Democratic Party (21.62%), German National People's Party (17.81%) and German People's Party (4.51).

Bavarian Soviet Republic
In Bavaia, Kurt Eisner formed a coalition with the German Social Democrat Party (SDP) in the National Assembly. The Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) only receied 2.5% of the total vote and he decided to resign to allow the SDP to form a stable government. He was on his way to present his resignation to the Bavarian parliament on 21st February, 1919, when he was assassinated in Munich by Anton Graf von Arco auf Valley. (32)

It is claimed that before he killed the leader of the ISP he said: "Eisner is a Bolshevist, a Jew; he isn't German, he doesn't feel German, he subverts all patriotic thoughts and feelings. He is a traitor to this land." Johannes Hoffmann, of the SDP, replaced Eisner as President of Bavaria. One armed worker walked into the assembled parliament and shot dead one of the leaders of the Social Democratic Party. Many of the deputies fled in terror from the city. (33)

On 7th April, 1919, Levien declared the establishment of the Bavarian Soviet Republic. A fellow revolutionary, Paul Frölich later commented: "The Soviet Republic did not arise from the immediate needs of the working class... The establishment of a Soviet Republic was to the Independents and anarchists a reshuffling of political offices... For this handful of people the Soviet Republic was established when their bargaining at the green table had been closed... The masses outside were to them little more than believers about to receive the gift of salvation from the hands of these little gods. The thought that the Soviet Republic could only arise out of the mass movement was far removed from them. While they achieved the Soviet Republic they lacked the most important component, the councils." (35)

Chris Harman, the author of The Lost Revolution (1982) has pointed out: "Meanwhile, conditions for the mass of the population were getting worse daily. There were now some 40,000 unemployed in the city. A bitterly cold March had depleted coal stocks and caused a cancellation of all fuel rations. The city municipality was bankrupt, with its own employees refusing to accept its paper currency." (37)

Toller was elected as the Commander of the first Red Army to be formed on German soil. Richard Dove has pointed out: "The paradox of a pacifist poet as military commander is one which has continued to fascinate the imagination up to the present day... In fact, all his actions as military commander reveal the inherent ambivalence of his position, torn between the principle of non-violence and the imperative of revolutionary solidarity. He had joined the spontaneous defence of Munich without hesitation but not without misgiving. He saw the prospect of armed conflict as 'a tragic necessity', a phrase which runs through all his subsequent accounts. He felt 'obliged' to join the workers; the same sense of moral obligation made him accept command of the Red Army". (37a)

Eugen Levine, a member of the German Communist Party (KPD), arrived in Munich from Berlin. The leadership of the KPD was determined to avoid any repetition of the events in Berlin in January, when its leaders, Karl Liebknecht, Rosa Luxemburg and Leo Jogiches, were murdered by the authorities. Levine was instructed that "any occasion for military action by government troops must be strictly avoided". Levine immediately set about reorganising the party to separate it off clearly from the anarcho-communists led by Erich Mühsam and Gustav Landauer. He reported back to Berlin that he had about 3,000 members of the KPD under his control. In a letter to his wife he commented that "in a few days the adventure will be liquidated". (38)
Freikorps in Munich

Levine pointed out that despite the Max Levien declaration, little had changed in the city: "The third day of the Soviet Republic... In the factories the workers toil and drudge as ever before for the capitalists. In the offices sit the same royal functionaries. In the streets the old armed guardians of the capitalist world keep order. The scissors of the war profiteers and the dividend hunters still snip away. The rotary presses of the capitalist press still rattle on, spewing out poison and gall, lies and calumnies to the people craving for revolutionary enlightenment... Not a single bourgeois has been disarmed, not a single worker has been armed." Levine now gave orders for over 10,000 rifles to be distributed. (39)

Levine also argued that: "We must speed up the building of revolutionary workers' organisations... We must create workers' councils out of the factory committees and the vast army of the unemployed." However, he urged caution: "We know from our experience in northern Germany that the Social Democrats often attempted to provoke premature actions which are the easiest to crush. A soviet republic cannot be proclaimed at a conference table. It is founded after a struggle by a victorious proletariat. The proletariat of Munich has not yet entered the struggle for power. After the first intoxication the Social Democrats will seize upon the first pretext to withdraw and thus deliberately betray the workers. The Independents will collaborate, then falter, then begin to waver, to negotiate with the enemy and turn unwittingly into traitors. And we as Communists will have to pay for your undertaking with blood?" (41)

Sebastian Haffner wrote in his book, Failure of a Revolution: Germany, 1918-19 (1973), that Eugen Levine was the communists best hope for leading a successful revolution as he had the same qualities as Leon Trotsky: "Eugen Levine, a young man of impulsive and wild energy who, unlike Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, probably possessed the qualities of a German Lenin or Trotsky." (42)

Johannes Hoffmann and other leaders of the Social Democratic Party in Munich fled to the town of Bamberg. Hoffman blocked food supplies to the city and began looking for troops to attack the Bavarian Soviet Republic. By the end of the week he had gathered 8,000 armed men. On 20th April, Hoffmann's forces clashed with troops led by Ernst Toller at Dachau in Upper Bavaria. After a brief battle, Hoffmann's army was forced to retreat. (43)

Paul Frölich pointed out: "From 14 to 22 April there was a general strike, with the workers in the factories ready for any alarm. The Communists sent their feeble forces to the most important points... The administration of the city was carried on by the factory councils. The banks were blocked, each withdrawal being carefully controlled. Socialisation was not only decreed, but carried through from below in the enterprises." (45)

Hoffmann's spies were providing him with worrying reports about what was taking place in Bavaria: "Time and again one could hear in the discussions in the streets that Bavaria was called upon to promote the world revolution... These speakers were often quite reasonable people... It would be a fateful error if it were assumed that in Munich the same clear division between Spartakists and other socialists exists as for example in Berlin. For the present policy of the Communists aims constantly at uniting the whole working class against capitalism and in favour of world revolution." (46)

Johannes Hoffmann reacted by arranging for posters to appear all over Munich that proclaimed: "The Russian terror rages in Munich unleashed by alien elements. This shame must not endure for another day, another hour... Men of the Bavarian mountains, plateaux and woods, rise like one man... Head for the recruiting depots. Signed Hoffmann, Schneppenhorst." (47)

Eugen Levine pointed out that Colonel Franz Epp posed a serious threat to the revolution: "Colonel Epp is already recruiting volunteers. Students and other bourgeois youths are flocking to him from all sides. Nuremberg declared war on Munich. The gentlemen in Weimar recognise only Hoffmann's government. Noske is already whetting his butcher's knife, eager to rescue his threatened party friends and the threatened capitalists." (48)

Some of the revolutionaries realised that it was not possible to create a successful Bavarian Soviet Republic. Paul Frölich argued: "Bavaria is not economically self-sufficient. Its industries are extremely backward and the predominant agrarian population, while a factor in favour of the counter-revolution, cannot at all be viewed as pro-revolutionary. A Soviet Republic without areas of large scale industry and coalfields is impossible in Germany. Moreover the Bavarian proletariat is only in a few giant industrial plants genuinely disposed towards revolution and unhampered by petty bourgeois traditions, illusions and weaknesses." (49)

Rosa Levine-Meyer argued: "The streets were filled with workers, armed and unarmed, who marched by in detachments or stood reading the proclamations. Lorries loaded with armed workers raced through the town, often greeted with jubilant cheers. The bourgeoisie had disappeared completely; the trams were not running. All cars had been confiscated and were being used exclusively for official purposes. Thus every car that whirled past became a symbol, reminding people of the great changes. Aeroplanes appeared over the town and thousands of leaflets fluttered through the air in which the Hoffmann government pictured the horrors of Bolshevik rule and praised the democratic government who would bring peace, order and bread." (50)

Munich suffered terrible food shortages. The Red Guards sent out food patrols and did manage to steal a certain amount from the rich, but it was not enough to feed the soldiers, let alone the mass of workers. "Efforts to get more food for the poorest could lead only to clashes with the lower middle classes, which the counter-revolution was only too happy to exploit. By the end of the second week resentment began to build up even among the most radical sections of workers." (51)

Friedrich Ebert, the president of Germany, arranged for 30,000 Freikorps, under the command of General Burghard von Oven, to take Munich. At Starnberg, some 30 km south-west of the city, they murdered 20 unarmed medical orderlies. The Red Army knew that the choice was armed resistance or being executed. The Bavarian Soviet Republic issued the following statement: "The White Guards have not yet conquered and are already heaping atrocity upon atrocity. They torture and execute prisoners. They kill the wounded. Don't make the hangmen's task easy. Sell your lives dearly." (55)
Red Army gun emplacement in Lohberg (April, 1919)

Allan Mitchell, the author of Revolution in Bavaria (1965), pointed out: "Resistance was quickly and ruthlessly broken. Men found carrying guns were shot without trial and often without question. The irresponsible brutality of the Freikorps continued sporadically over the next few days as political prisoners were taken, beaten and sometimes executed." An estimated 700 men and women were captured and executed. (57)
Red Army medical auxiliary and nurses (April, 1919)

Ernst Toller was arrested and charged with high treason. Toller, who served as President of the Bavarian Soviet Republic between 6th and 12th April and was expected to be found guilty and sentenced to death but his friends began an international campaign to save his life. Max Weber, Thomas Mann and Max Halbe, gave evidence on his behalf in court. Wolfgang Heine, a leading figure in the Social Democratic Party and the Prussian Minister of the Interior, wrote to the court that he could "say nothing but good about Toller's character", calling him "an incorrigible optimist... who rejects all violence" and concluding that "his execution could have only the most unfortunate consequences". (57a)

At his trial Toller argued: "We revolutionaries acknowledge the right to revolution when we see that the situation is no longer tolerable, that it has become a frozen. Then we have the right to overthrow it. The working class will not halt until socialism has been realized. The revolution is like a vessel filled with the pulsating heartbeat of millions of working people. And the spirit of revolution will not die while the hearts of these workers continue to beat. Gentlemen! I am convinced that, by your own lights, you will pronounce judgement to the best of your knowledge and belief. But knowing my views you must also accept that I shall regard your verdict as the expression, not of justice, but of power." (58)

Eugen Levine, was arrested by the authorities on 12th May, 1919. Levine's cell was left open in the hope that he would be beaten to death. According to his wife: "Soldiers were constantly patrolling the corridors, entering his cell and keeping him in a state of great suspense." A warder told his wife that "we were told that your husband ordered the execution of 10,000 prison warders and policeman." According to his wife "he was heavily chained and the door of his cell stood wide open, positively inviting an assault." (59)

In court Levine defended his actions: "The Proletarian Revolution has no need of terror for its aims; it detests and abhors murder. It has no need of these means of struggle, for it fights not individuals but institutions. How then does the struggle arise? Why, having gained power, do we build a Red Army? Because history teaches us that every privileged class has hitherto defended itself by force when its privileges have been endangered. And because we know this; because we do not live in cloud-cuckoo-land; because we cannot believe that conditions in Bavaria are different - that the Bavarian bourgeoisie and the capitalists would allow themselves to be expropriated without a struggle - we were compelled to arm the workers to defend ourselves against the onslaught of the dispossessed capitalists."

Eugen Levine accepted that the court would order his execution: "We Communists are all dead men on leave. Of this I am fully aware. I do not know if you will extend my leave or whether I shall have to join Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg. In any case I await your verdict with composure and inner serenity. For I know that, whatever your verdict, events cannot be stopped... Pronounce your verdict if you deem it proper. I have only striven to foil your attempt to stain my political activity, the name of the Soviet Republic with which I feel myself so closely bound up, and the good name of the workers of Munich. They - and I together with them - we have all of us tried to the best of our knowledge and conscience to do our duty towards the International, the Communist World Revolution." (60)

The Münchener Post reported: "Levine faced the Court on the second day of the trial with an indifference to the fate hanging over him which alone could shatter the indictment of cowardice by the Public Prosecutor. The unstudied posture of the defendant undoubtedly impressed many of those who had not experienced the Levine of the second Soviet Republic. Levine relieved his Counsel of the task of defending him. In his final speech, which put into the shade all the rhetoric of his professional advocates, he resolutely swept aside all the little tricks which his Counsel brought forward in his favour. Lucid, calm and to the point the speech was more effective than all that had been said in his defence during the long preceding hours. Once again it became evident that he possessed courage wrongfully denied to him, that he skilfully remained master of the situation, that he succeeded with a superiority of his own, in crystallising all those points which ensured him his influence on the masses." (61)

In court Levine was defended by Count Alberto Pestalozza, a member of the Catholic Centre Party. He argued: "Don't send this man to his death, for should you do so, he would not die, he would start to live again. The life of this man would lie on the conscience of the entire community and his ideas would generate the seed of terrible revenge." However, Levine was sentenced to death on 3rd June, 1919.

The Frankfurter Zeitung wrote that it was the duty of the Social Democrat Party government to prevent the execution "by every means, even at the risk of evoking a cabinet crisis." The Berliner Neue Zeitung, which denounced Levine as "the seducer of the Munich proletariat" called for him to be reprieved: "Wide circles, from the government down to the non-socialist community, left no doubt that under the prevailing political conditions, which were the background of Levine's crimes, the application of mercy and political wisdom would be more more appropriate than punishment. Both socialist parties, usually at loggerheads, agreed that this was a case which simply cried out for a reprieve." (62)

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
An account of the German Revolution that includes images, quotations and the main facts of the event. GCSE British History. A-level. Last updated: 4th November, 2021

# data[].attributes.body
To prevent a socialism takeover, the leaders of Germany planned a revolution. Though, the revolution was unsuccessful.

# data[].attributes.body
For many years Italy was politically fragmented. In 1792, war broke out between Austria and the Revolutionary French Government which led to the demise of the fledgling republics.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
Summary

For many centuries, the Italian peninsula was a politically fragmented conglomeration of states. This was the case when the United States announced its independence from Great Britain in 1776. When war broke out between Austria and the Revolutionary French Government in 1792, the French invaded the Italian peninsula, consolidated many of the Italian states, and established them as republics. In 1799 the Austrian and Russian armies pushed the French out of the Italian peninsula, which led to the demise of the fledgling republics.

After Napoleon's rise to power, the Italian peninsula was once again conquered by the French. Under Napoleon, the peninsula was divided into three entities: the northern parts which were annexed to the French Empire (Piedmont, Liguria, Parma, Piacenza, Tuscany, and Rome), the newly created Kingdom of Italy (Lombardy, Venice, Reggio, Modena, Romagna, and the Marshes) ruled by Napoleon himself, and the Kingdom of Naples, which was first ruled by Napoleon's brother Joseph Bonaparte, but then passed to Napoleon's brother-in-law Joachim Murat.

The period of French invasion and occupation was important in many ways. It introduced revolutionary ideas about government and society, resulting in an overthrow of the old established ruling orders and the destruction of the last vestiges of feudalism. The ideals of freedom and equality were very influential. Also of consequence, the concept of nationalism was introduced, thus sowing the seeds of Italian nationalism throughout most parts of the northern and central Italian peninsula.

With the downfall of Napoleon in 1814 and the redistribution of territory by the Congress of Vienna (1814-15), most of the Italian states were reconstituted: the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (often referred to as Sardinia), the Grand Duchy of Tuscany, the Duchy of Parma, the Papal States, and the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies (fused together from the old Kingdom of Naples and Kingdom of Sicily). These were largely conservative regimes, presided over by the old social orders.

Although the Italian peninsula remained fragmented through the mid-1800s, the concept of a united Italy began to take root. Secret societies formed to oppose the conservative regimes. Several of these societies also promoted Italian nationalism and the idea of a unified Italian political state. One such society was the group Young Italy, founded in 1831 by Guiseppe Mazzini. Mazzini was an ardent advocate of the necessity for Italian unification through the desires and actions of the Italian people. Thus, the movement of Italian unification, a process referred to as the Risorgimento (resurgence) proliferated by mid-century.

The revolutions of 1848 ignited nationalist sentiment throughout the Italian peninsula. There were widespread uprisings in several Italian cities that year, mostly by the professional classes (such as doctors, lawyers, shopkeepers) as well as students. Lombardy-Venetia and Milan tried to rise up against Austrian rule. Although the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia sent troops to aid the revolt, it was crushed by the Austrians at Custoza in July 1848. The Italian uprisings were unsuccessful and by 1849 the old regimes were once again in place.

Yet, the idea of the Risorgimento continued to gain adherents after 1848. The final push for Italian unification came in 1859, led by the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia (then the wealthiest and most liberal of the Italian states), and orchestrated by Piedmont-Sardinia's Prime Minister, Count Camillo di Cavour. A skilled diplomat, Cavour secured an alliance with France. The Franco-Austrian War of 1859 was the agent that began the physical process of Italian unification. The Austrians were defeated by the French and Piedmontese at Magenta and Solferino, and thus relinquished Lombardy. By the end of the year Lombardy was added to the holdings of Piedmont-Sardinia.

The northern Italian states held elections in 1859 and 1860 and voted to join the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia, a major step towards unification, while Piedmont-Sardinia ceded Savoy and Nice to France. Giuseppi Garibaldi, a native of Piedmont-Sardinia, was instrumental in bringing the southern Italian states into the unification process. In 1860, Garibaldi cobbled together an army (referred to as the "Thousand") to march into the southern part of the peninsula. Landing first in Sicily and then moving onwards into Naples, Garibaldi and his men overthrew the Bourbon monarchy and turned over the southern territories to Victor Emmanuel II, King of Piedmont-Sardinia. In early 1861 a national parliament convened and proclaimed the Kingdom of Italy, with Victor Emmanuel II as its king. At this point, there were only two major territories outside of the parameters of the new Kingdom of Italy: Rome and Venetia.

In 1866 Italy joined Prussia in a campaign against Austria (the 1866 Austro-Prussian War) and thus won Venetia. In 1870, taking advantage of the fact that France (the country responsible at the time for guarding the Papal States) was distracted by involvement in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71), the Italian army entered Rome. That year, Rome and the Papal States were incorporated into Italy and the Risorgimento completed. During the summer of 1871, the Italian capital moved to Rome from Florence (it was moved from Turin to Florence in 1865).

Major Events

Overall Impact upon U.S. Foreign Policy

The history of recognitions (and the establishment of relations, where applicable) between the United States and the Italian states impacted several different areas of U.S. policy, including:

Trade and Commerce. The industrialization process that swept through the northern United States in the early nineteenth century spread through the northern and central Italian states in the mid-nineteenth century. As a result, the Italian states (and after 1861, the Kingdom of Italy) and the United States both sought to cultivate trade and commercial ties for mutual benefit.

Immigration and Citizenship. By the 1870s Italian immigration to the New World (both to the United States as well as to Argentina, amongst other South American countries) began to increase. Indeed, some of the "fathers" of modern Italy spent time in the United States. Garibaldi spent enough time in the U.S. to gain a U.S. passport, and was offered a commission in the U.S. Army during the Civil War.

U.S. Civil War. The unification of the Italian states impacted the foreign policy of the United States in numerous ways. Perhaps the issue that had the most immediate impact upon U.S. foreign policy in the early 1860s was over the question of recognition of the U.S. Confederacy. The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed just as the U.S. Civil War began. U.S. President Abraham Lincoln wanted to ensure that the new Italian state did not recognize the U.S. Confederacy. Washington also worried that, with Italy's long coastline, Confederate ships might seek shelter in Italian waters. With this in mind, the Italian government gave "strong assurances that no Confederate ship would be admitted to Italian ports unless it was a question of adverse weather conditions or other vis major."

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Unification of Italian States - Countries - Office of the Historian

# data[].attributes.body
romanticism

# data[].attributes.body
This video covers the many revolutions that occurred in the 19th century across Italy. It all lead to the proclamation of the kingdom of Italy and almost to what Italy is these days.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Ten Minute History - The Unification of Italy (Short Documentary)

# data[].attributes.body
Venezuela suffered more than any other Latin American national group because of the intensity of the battles on their own soil and their troops carrying the struggles of other regions too. Bolívar was leading the final campaigns, but his prestige was not enough to hold the country together.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.readable_text
A group of Venezuelan Creoles boldly proclaimed their country an independent republic in 1797. Although their effort failed, it forewarned of the revolutionary movements that were soon to inflame Latin America.

In 1806 Francisco de Miranda-who had earlier fought under George Washington against the British, served as a general in the French Revolution, and fought with the French against Prussia and Russia-tried unsuccessfully to land on the Venezuelan coast with a group of mercenaries whom he had recruited in New York City. Revolutionary leaders recalled him to Gran Colombia four years later to take charge of a ruling junta, which drafted a constitution and established an independent nation. In the ensuing war with royalist forces, however, Miranda signed an armistice with Spain. Other revolutionary leaders viewed this action with contempt, and Miranda was subsequently turned over to the Spaniards, who sent him first to Puerto Rico and later to Spain, where he died in prison in 1816.

Early in 1813 the revolutionary junta appointed Simón Bolívar commander of the Venezuelan forces. Bolívar, a wealthy Creole landowner born in Caracas in 1783, had many reverses in his war against the Spanish. His forces were opposed by large royalist armies including a cavalry unit of llaneros ( cowboys of the Llanos frontier), who were under the command of José Tomás Boves. In 1815 the Spanish general Pablo Morillo landed with an expeditionary force that spearheaded the reconquest of much of New Granada. Morillo administered the region in a heavy-handed fashion, however, and many of the Creole elites who had initially supported him soon conspired for his defeat. Llaneros and blacks also deserted the royalist cause and joined Bolívar, whose army was further augmented by a legion of British and Irish mercenaries; the new republican government of Haiti also sent aid. The Republic of Gran Colombia, with its capital at Bogotá, was proclaimed on December 17, 1819, with Bolívar as president. On June 24, 1821, Bolívar's troops, reinforced by llanero cavalry under General José Antonio Páez, defeated the main royalist army at the Battle of Carabobo. The last of the royalist forces surrendered at Puerto Cabello on October 9, 1823. The following year Bolívar's army marched south to liberate Peru, and in 1825 it freed Upper Peru ( Bolivia) from Spanish rule. Venezuelans suffered greater casualties and endured more privations during the wars than did any other Latin American national group, because of the ferocity of battles on their own soil and the large number of Venezuelan troops who carried the struggle to other regions.

Regional rivalries broke out in Gran Colombia while Bolívar was off leading the final campaigns, and his prestige was not enough to hold the country together after his return. Venezuela broke away in 1829, and Ecuador soon after. Bolívar died in Santa Marta, Colombia, in 1830, penniless and disillusioned.

After the destruction of the colonial system, Venezuela passed through an era of government-by-force that lasted more than a century, until the death of Juan Vicente Gómez in 1935. Backed by their personal armies, a series of warlordlike caudillos (leaders) assumed power, which they exercised for their personal benefit rather than for that of the nation.

Páez and the Conservatives

The first of the military dictators was General José Antonio Páez, who gave the country better government than it would see again for nearly a century. Bolívar had left Páez in charge of the armed forces of Venezuela, and he soon took full control of the country. He led the separation movement from Gran Colombia in 1829 and in 1830 convoked a constitutional convention for Venezuela. Páez dominated Venezuelan politics until 1848, both as president (1831-35 and 1839-43) and as a major political player. He subdued ambitious provincial caudillos and ruled in cooperation with the large landholders and leading merchants of the Conservative Party. The constitution that they enacted in 1830 reflected their social and political philosophy-a centralist state, property qualifications for voting, the death penalty for political crimes, guarantees for the freedom of trade and commerce, and the continuation of slavery. The church lost its tax immunity and its educational monopoly, and the army was shorn of its autonomy; thus, state supremacy was achieved. The government then began to reconstruct the war-torn economy by putting finances in order, establishing firm lines of foreign credit, and amortizing the national debt. It also constructed new roads to promote domestic commerce and facilitate coffee and cacao exports.

In contrast to the troubled times that preceded and followed it, the 1830-48 period of Conservative Party domination was an era of political stability, economic progress, and responsible administration. An opposition movement began to develop in 1840, however, when Antonio Leocadio Guzmán, the leading spokesman for dissident merchants and professional men, founded the Liberal Party. Guzmán's new liberal newspaper, El Venezolano, demanded abolition of slavery, extension of voting rights, and protection for the debtor classes. During the 1840s the demand for Venezuela's agricultural commodities declined on the world market; this produced economic difficulties, which in turn contributed to the increasing opposition to the Conservative oligarchy.

The Monagas and the civil wars

The growing political crisis was brought to a head in 1848 by General José Tadeo Monagas. Although elected president as a Conservative in 1846, he soon gravitated toward the Liberals. He intimidated the Conservative congress and appointed Liberal Party ministers. When Páez rebelled in 1848, Monagas defeated him and forced him into exile.

The decade 1848-58 was one of dictatorial rule by José Tadeo Monagas and his brother, General José Gregorio Monagas, who alternated as president during the period. The Liberal Party passed laws that abolished slavery, extended suffrage, outlawed capital punishment, and limited interest rates, but the laws were not implemented. Integrity in government waned, heavy deficit financing ruined the nation's credit, and the economy began to stagnate and decay. In 1857 the Monagas brothers attempted to impose a new constitution extending the presidential term from four to six years and removing all restrictions on reelection. The Liberal leaders thereupon joined the Conservative opposition, and in March 1858 they brought the Monagas dynasty to an end. This first successful rebellion in Venezuela's national history set off five years of revolutionary turmoil between the Liberals and Conservatives. The issues in these so-called Federalist Wars were, on the Liberal side, federalism, democracy, and social reform and, on the Conservative side, centralism and preservation of the political and social status quo. The conflicts were extremely bloody, and control of the central government changed hands several times. General Páez returned in 1861 to restore Conservative hegemony for two years, but in 1863 final victory went to the Liberals, led by the generals Juan Falcón and Antonio Guzmán Blanco.

A new constitution was enacted in 1864 to incorporate the federalist principles of the victors. Local freedoms quickly disappeared, however, at the hands of provincial caudillos. As president in 1864-68, Falcón appeared content to allow subordinates, many of them irresponsible, to rule at both the state and national levels. Liberal mismanagement and increasing political chaos provided an opportunity for the Conservatives, now led by José Tadeo Monagas, to return to power in 1868. But civil war followed. General Guzmán Blanco rallied the Liberals to his cause, overthrew the Conservatives, and assumed power in 1870.

Guzmán Blanco's triumphal entry into Caracas in April 1870 halted the political chaos and economic stagnation that had plagued the nation since 1858. The new president took to the field himself and subjugated the country in less than two years; he thereupon launched a broad program of reform and development. A new constitution in 1872 proclaimed representative government, suffrage for all males, and direct election of the president. Economic reforms, such as restoration of the nation's credit by means of new bond issues and generous concessions to foreign investors, gave further evidence of Guzmán Blanco's apparent devotion to Liberal Party principles. He established a nationwide system of public primary education and promoted state support for secondary and higher education. In addition, he abolished ecclesiastical privileges, cut off state subsidies to the Roman Catholic church, proclaimed religious liberty, legalized civil marriage, and also confiscated church properties, exiled the archbishop, and closed the convents.

Guzmán Blanco was the popular choice for president in the 1873 election. He departed for Europe in 1877, leaving a puppet successor in charge, but when the opposition rebelled, he returned to crush it and resumed the presidency in 1878. The following year he returned to Europe, leaving General Joaquín Crespo in charge. Guzmán Blanco came back again in 1886 to serve a final two years in the face of growing popular opposition to his policies.

Guzmán Blanco's regime had both positive and negative results for the nation. His admirers point to his political and military genius and to his administrative, economic, educational, and religious reforms. His detractors emphasize his tyrannical ruling methods, financial chicanery, monumental vanity, superficial educational reforms, and unwarranted attacks on the church. For four years after the end of his regime, Venezuela floundered in new political chaos as various civilian political groups tried unsuccessfully to establish responsible representative government. In October 1892 Crespo seized power. His six-year rule was troubled by continued political turmoil, growing economic difficulties, and the nation's first serious diplomatic problem-a dispute with Great Britain over the boundary between eastern Venezuela and western British Guiana. This virtually uninhabited wilderness territory, in which gold was discovered in 1877, had been the object of alternating claims and counterclaims between Venezuela and Great Britain for more than half a century. Great Britain repeatedly refused Venezuela's requests to refer the matter to arbitration, and in 1887 Venezuela suspended diplomatic relations. President Crespo appealed to the United States, and in 1895 U.S. president Grover Cleveland pressured Britain to arbitrate. An international tribunal handed down a decision in 1899 that failed to satisfy Venezuela's demands.

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.title
Venezuela - Independence, Revolution, Bolívar

# data[].attributes.attachment_link.description
Venezuela - Independence, Revolution, Bolívar: A group of Venezuelan Creoles boldly proclaimed their country an independent republic in 1797. Although their effort failed, it forewarned of the revolutionary movements that were soon to inflame Latin America.

# data[].attributes.body
Impressionism

# data[].attributes.body
In summary, the Venezuelan revolution cannot be called a revolution. It lacked the change necessary to be called so.