Spanish Succession War, Enlightenment, Napoleon, and Industrial Revolution

Posted on Feb 23, 2025 in History

Spanish War of Succession (1700-1714)

Causes:

  • Charles II died childless (1700). Philip V (Bourbon) crowned King of Spain.
  • War: Prince Charles of Austria also claimed the throne of Spain.
  • France did not want to be surrounded by Habsburgs.
  • England and Austria (Grand Alliance) fought against Philip V, joined by Portugal, The Netherlands, and the Kingdom of Savoy.
  • The Crown of Aragón, fearing French centralisation, supported the Habsburgs.

Consequences:

International

  • European powers signed the peace treaties of Utrecht (1713) and Rastatt (1714).
  • England gained Newfoundland, Hudson Bay, Gibraltar, and Menorca.
  • Basque fishermen of Bayonne could not fish cod in Newfoundland.
  • England obtained the right to trade with America.
  • Austria gained Milan, Naples, Sardinia, and the Spanish Netherlands.
  • France lost North American territories and Hudson Bay.

National

  • Philip V of Spain renounced the French throne.
  • Centralisation: Aragón lost its Fueros (replaced by those of Castile).
  • New Model Decrees: Unified political system.
  • Basque Fueros remained, but suffered some reductions.


New Ideas

Ideas of the Enlightenment:

Reason, nature, happiness, progress, and freedom.

Sieyes:

Delegate of the 3rd estate. – Pamflet/3 demands

  • 3rd estate should elect their own delegates.
  • These delegates should be equal in number to the privileged estates.
  • 1 person, 1 vote.

Rousseau:

The Social Contract

  • Against the Divine Right of Kings.
  • Sovereignty resides in the people.
  • “Man is born free, but is everywhere in chains.”

Montesquieu:

The Spirit of the Laws – Separation of powers

  • Legislative, Executive, and Judicial powers – this forms the Constitution.

American Revolution:

Republic – Profound effect on European observers

  • New government included a represented variety of social classes.
  • Choosing their own form of government.
  • Regulating their own taxation system.
  • Constitution
  • Ideas of liberty, equality, private property, representative government.

Crisis of the Ancien Régime:

(Absolutism + estate-based society)

  • Social organization – contradictions and tensions in the estate-based society.
  • Financial difficulties
    • Inefficient administration system.
    • 3rd estate unable to pay more.
    • Privileged estates didn’t want to pay.
  • Discontent of the 3rd estate

Financial Crisis of the French State

  • American War of Independence worsened the French economy.
  • They needed more taxes, so Louis XVI convoked the Estates General to make privileged estates pay taxes.

Food Crisis

  • Crop failures and severe winters in 1788 and 1789, so bread prices increased.
  • Not enough food.
  • Cost of living doubled.


Napoleon’s France (1799 – 1814)

  • Napoleon Bonaparte ruled France between 1799 and 1814.
  • Main ideas: unification of Europe, of laws, of centralisation…
  • It had two periods:
    • The Consulate (1799-1804): Napoleon gave himself more power and he applied many of the revolutionary ideas, supported by the high-bourgeoisie.
    • The Empire (1804-1814): He declared himself the Emperor of France. He wanted to create a European Empire. He spread revolutionary ideas almost all over Europe.
  • Napoleon was defeated in 1814 by a coalition of countries that fought against him.
  • After the Congress of Vienna, European other powers tried to set up again the absolutist system prior to the revolution.
  • Napoleon tried again to stop that, but he was defeated again in 1815.
  • The liberal ideas that Napoleon spread in Europe:
    • Government: He wanted national unification, controlled by a strong central government. He set up a constitutional monarchy and French chose the representatives by universal suffrage.
    • Religion: Napoleon guaranteed religious freedom, in which Protestants and Catholics were respected. The Church could no longer collect tithes.
    • Law: The country needed laws which guaranteed efficiency and national unity. The new laws incorporated: equality before the law and freedom of religion. Women didn’t obtain any rights and they were considered to be inferior.
    • Education: Napoleon favoured a state system of secular education. He centralised a national curriculum that continues in France nowadays.
    • Economics: The main aim was to stimulate the economy and at the same time serve the interests of the bourgeoisie. Napoleon built roads and canals. He also established the Bank of France.

The Congress of Vienna (1814)

  • The Congress of Vienna was summoned to reset the division of territories of Europe and to re-establish the Ancien Régime.
  • It was supported by the four major powers (Austria, Russia, Prussia, and Great Britain).
  • There were two opposing ideologies: absolutism and liberalism and nationalism.
    • Absolutism: driven by the absolutist monarchs who met in Vienna. Not to divide the power.
    • Liberalism and nationalism: emerged out of the ideas of the Enlightenment, the French and American revolutions and the parliamentary system of Great Britain, driven by the bourgeoisie.

Agricultural Revolution

  • Until 1700, agriculture was an inefficient system and only produced enough food to feed families (subsistence farming) on small strips of land usually in a big field that belonged to rich landowners.
  • There were no farm machines, people had to manage with a few simple tools.
  • In the 18th century the population increased and new ideas and machines were being tried out.
  • A new idea: the enclosure (large fields, fences and controlled by few private owners).
  • Before enclosure: open lands with no fences, field left fallow, wasted land between strips, common lands used by the villagers for wood and grazing animals.
  • After enclosure: inventions led to mechanised farming, seed drills for planting, fields enclosed with hedges and fences, open fields/common lands organised into enclosed fields to increase productions, need to prove ownership and have money to enclose fields, peasants became labourers on landlord’s lands, crop rotation to increase production.
  • Previous open fields/common lands organised into enclosed fields to increase production, specialised farms to increase production (cattle, pigs…).

Causes and Consequences of the Industrial Revolution

  • Transport:
    • Problem: High cost.
    • Factor: Building the canal.
    • Consequence: Reduce cost of transport.
    • Problem: Bad mean of transport.
    • Factor: Invention of the railway.
    • Consequence: Improve connection factories-mines.
  • Urbanism:
    • Problem: Demand of housing.
    • Factor: Tenements (etxeak) were built.
    • Consequence: Dozens of families lived together.
    • Problem: Worker basic needs.
    • Factor: Building new social support services.
    • Consequence: Social differences.
    • Problem: Middle-class growing.
    • Factor: Made available museums, theatres…
    • Consequence: Middle-class can afford arts/culture.
  • Agriculture:
    • Problem: Towns needed more food.
    • Factor: New mechanical inventions.
    • Consequence: Increase of farm production.
    • Problem: Lack of land for farming.
    • Factor: Enclosure Acts were passed by Parliament.
    • Consequence: Landowners can buy pieces of common land from the Government.
  • Demography:
    • Problem: Diseases and plagues.
    • Factor: Measures to reduce this.
    • Consequence: Hygiene and healthcare.
    • Problem: Workers are needed to work.
    • Factor: People move to village.
    • Consequence: Big profits from textile factory.
  • Technology:
    • Problem: Want to produce more and cheaper.
    • Factor: Invention of a new machine.
    • Consequence: Clothes made faster.
    • Problem: Energy generator machines weren’t effective.
    • Factor: Invention of the steam engine.
    • Consequence: Can build factories away from the river.
    • Problem: Iron industry isn’t efficient.
    • Factor: Invention of the puddling process.
    • Consequence: Iron use increased.
    • Problem: Want to manufacture more and cheaper.
    • Factor: Power-driven machinery became mechanized manufacture.
    • Consequence: Cheaper and more production.
  • Capital:
    • Problem: Entrepreneurs (empresarios) need capital to set up factories.
    • Factor: Establishment of a bank to lend money.
    • Consequence: Capitalists can make profits.
    • Problem: Capitalist wanted more money.
    • Factor: Capitalist hire (alquilar) women and children.
    • Consequence: Variety of diseases.