Thread by @StilichoReads

Thread with excerpts from The Pursuit of Power: Europe 1815-1914 by Richard J. Evans:

The Napoleonic Wars were, proportionally to Europe's population, as lethal as WW1. The primitive logistics systems of the armies involved compounded this, as soldiers devasted wherever they were supposed to live off the land.

The Bourbon monarchy was restored after the defeat of Napoleon, but Louis XVIII knew he was unable to fully roll back the revolution. He maintained the Napoleonic Code, meritocratic offices, and an elected legislature.

Conservative governments in Europe were deeply paranoid about liberal conspiracies of young army officers, intellectuals, and freemasons. Although these conspiracies were weak and quickly repressed, their ideas continued.

One such group managed to seize power in Poland and declare independence from the Russian Empire, but they were not radical enough to win the support of the peasantry. Emperor Alexander I crushed them and did his utmost to wipe out any Polish national identity.

In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, the combination of crop failure from the Tambora eruption, unemployment from the demobilization of armies, and outbreaks of typhus and plague set off a wave of unrest and sent European mortality rates up by 9-10%.

Wars and Revolutions in Europe, 1815-1839

Serfdom remained in a few countries up to the 20th century, but was abolished in most of Europe by the 1860s. This was done to secure the loyalty of peasant soldiers, implement more efficient farming techniques, and use free peasants as support for conservative governments.

What the abolition of serfdom meant in practice varied from country to country, and former serfs were often burdened with heavy compensation to their lords. The most extensive land reform was done in Poland, owing to the Russian government's hatred of the Polish aristocracy.

In Spain, a mix of peasant resistance to liberal agrarian reforms, conservative anger at the removal of the Salic Law, and anarchist beliefs amongst landless laborers fueled three civil wars as well as waves of lower level unrest throughout the 19th century.

Europe's population remained overwhelmingly rural throughout the 19th century, but this was the period when the demographic transition began, as death rates declined but birth rates stayed high, sending population skyrocketing.

Agricultural production, however, was able to keep pace with this, driven not only by improved farming techniques but also by a massive increase in the amount of land under cultivation.

The Potato blight of the mid-1840s is associated with Ireland, but led to famine across Europe. Efforts to mitigate this by local governments and philanthropists had varying success.

Ireland, of course, had it the worst, exasperated by British tariffs on imported grain. The famine killed around 1/5 of the Irish population and caused many more to emigrate.

The industrial revolution is famous for the construction of railways, but the improvement of roads was also widespread and important, often motivated by strategic concerns.

England fueled the industrialization of the continent, despite its best efforts. Foreign businesses used spies to copy English blueprints and European railroads were often built by English work crews.

Nationalism today is often associated with the right, but in the early 19th century it went hand in hand with liberalism. A network of liberal nationalist groups - "Young Italy", "Young Poland", etc - were opposed above all by the reactionary Hapsburg and Russian empires.

The revolutions of 1848 were fueled by the potato blight, elite overproduction, nationalism, and industrialization. Unlike the French Revolution, they broke out across Europe simultaneously. They were far more successful than often given credit for.

Ultimately, however, most foundered on a combination of bourgeois fear of domestic chaos and the rival nationalisms of imperial subjects.

The rise of Louis-Napoleon Bonaparte, who was viewed as a fringe figure in French politics but managed, by a combination of reform and repression, to reestablish the French empire.

"Napoleon III has some claim to be the first modern dictator." Like many modern authoritarian leaders, he relied on rigged plebiscites, economic development a vastly expanded police apparatus, and nationalist propoganda to maintain power.

The rise and early life of the legendary Prussian statesman Otto von Bismarck:

In their wars with Austria and France, Prussian troops were expected to loose by most observers, but won through effective generalship and and initiative by low level officers.

European aristocrats, unable to support themselves through landowning, shifted into investing in industry. Most businesses liked having a nobleman on the board; it added a "touch of class".

The middle class, on the other hand, took up aristocratic dueling -- the percentage of aristocrats among Prussian duellists fell from 44% to 19%. Lawyers, doctors, and elected officials all fought duels related to their work.

The industrial revolution forced ordinary people to be able to tell time precisely, and railway timetables required time to be standardized. The establishment of global time zones calculated from England was so offensive to the French that a Frenchman set off a bomb in Greenwich.

The rapid decline in the use of capital punishment and the growth of prisons and professional police:

Cholera was new to 19th century Europe, and since it came out of India was often regarded as Asia's revenge upon the West. It was spread repeatedly by armies crossing borders to invade or suppress liberal revolts.

The Catholic Church feuded with the state across Europe, but religion was threatened more by a decline in church attendance among ordinary people than any law. Still, it remained an overwhelmingly Christian continent until the end of the century.

Early 19th century Europe was far more linguistically diverse than it is today. Nationalists often had to just settle on a regional dialect and declare it the "national language."

Alcohol consumption rose with industrialization, but declined towards the century due to pressure form temperance groups.

I believe that in the business they call this "dramatic irony."

Britain was relatively uninterested in formal empire during the early 19th century, preferring to rely on its economic power and control of sea trade routes. Often, territorial control was pushed from bottom up by local settlers and merchants.

The Balkan Wars presaged the great wars of the twentieth century, with massive military mobilization, trench warfare, and nationalistic ethnic cleansing.

The author argues that one reason for the devastation of WWI was a generation of statesmen who had learned their trade in building colonial empires, not negotiations in Europe between great powers.

Finally finished this. Overall, it's quite good, although it can be rambling at times; it's organized thematically, so it bounces around the timeline a lot. Still, it's a solid history of 19th century Europe.