The Year Without a Summer (1816 to 1824)

It was

1816

and after almost 25

year

s of relentless war, Europe had been at peace for a

year

. The pardon had been a blessing. In England you could see a familiar spectacle. The wind was still bitterly cold and the sky was still gray, but the snow was finally beginning to retreat from the hills and the trees were just beginning to bloom. Farmers walked through their fields, worried that they had planted too soon. They took inventory of their winter provisions and wondered if they would go hungry before the first harvest arrived. This was all normal in early spring, but this year something had gone terribly wrong.

This was all happening in June. They called

1816

"The Year Without a Summer." It happened for complicated reasons, but basically it was an unfortunate combination of volcanic eruptions that altered global weather patterns for 2 or 3 years. In some parts of the world the changes were relatively minor and went unnoticed, but in others they were catastrophic. In Europe they turned out to be catastrophic. That July turned out to be the coldest July on record. That

summer

turned out to be the coldest on record. That decade of 1810 would be the coldest in 500 years, dating back to the 13th century. You might be thinking "okay, so it was unusually cold," but the problem wasn't that it was cold.

The problem was that nothing grew. Most plants do not really grow unless the temperature is above 10°C. In London, England, the temperature is below 10° for about 66 days in an average year. In 1816, it was below 10° for 146 days, which meant there were significant periods of no growth spread throughout the spring and even

summer

. That fact alone would have been bad enough, but there was another issue. Changes in climate caused most of Europe to be unusually cloudy and rainy. French farmers typically had to deal with 8 days of rain a month in summer. In 1816, it rained 20 days a month. In England, crops had barely begun to sprout when 8 straight weeks of rain fell.

The rain caused flooding, and wherever there was flooding, crops were lost. Northern France and the Netherlands basically became a giant swamp. On average, low temperatures and rain delayed the harvest a month longer than it should have been. In France, it was more like 2 months. Farmers depended on early harvests to replenish their reserves and get through the summer, but this year, with the harvest delayed a month or more, widespread famine occurred in early summer. It became common to see people scavenging in abandoned fields that had been lost to floods, eating green or rotting plants freshly dug out of the mud.

Thus began the century of peace in Europe. After 25 years of war, after sending an entire generation of young people to the meat grinder, people were forced to search for rotten food in the fields. What was it all for? The environmental catastrophe was no one's fault, but people were furious at their own governments for allowing this to happen. And nowhere were they more furious than in France. France was bankrupt, people were starving, and the country was in the midst of an environmental catastrophe. The restored King Louis XVIII had come to power promising to eliminate a series of unpopular taxes on the poor, but he was immediately forced to break that promise.

The complaints started immediately. Conditions in France had never been so bad under Napoleon. As part of the compromise that returned the king to power, France operated under a new liberal constitution. But the constitution was weak. France now held regular elections, but the king had the power to annul the results whenever he wanted. His ministers did not respond to the public, they responded to him. In reality, this made the new system weak and brittle. Say what you will about the British system, but at least the British Prime Minister took most of the pressure. If things were really bad, replacing the Prime Minister was a simple but significant act.

Now the French also had a Prime Minister, but their Prime Minister was just an extension of the King's will. If things were really bad, replacing the Prime Minister would not be enough. Maybe they need to replace the King. The restored King Louis XVIII wisely selected a centrist liberal named Richelieu as his first prime minister. Centrists in France at the time were extremely supportive of the new French Constitution, comfortable with many of the reforms of the French Revolution, and also favored the restoration of the monarchy. They were trying to split the difference between the ultra-conservatives, who favored increasing the power of the king and the aristocracy, and the republicans, who wanted to spread more power among the people and continue the work of the French Revolution.

The King favored the ultra-conservatives, but correctly assessed that there would be a popular uprising if he walked out the doors pushing his agenda. Centrists would have to make do for now. The selection of Richelieu was perhaps the wisest decision the king ever made. Richelieu had a firm hand and inspired confidence abroad. In 1818, he successfully negotiated with the Great Powers for the elimination of the armies occupying France and the end of reparation payments from France. In just three years, Richelieu had returned France to its rightful place as an equal great power, and everything had been done diplomatically.

France did not even have to fight a war to reestablish itself on the international stage. A small miracle. But Richelieu was not rewarded for his hard work. For three consecutive years, the French Republican Left made substantial gains in its annual elections. The king was forced to dismiss Richelieu in favor of a prime minister who could gain the support of the republicans. Obviously this went against everything the King stood for, and without the King's support this new Prime Minister could not achieve anything significant. Let's pause here for now. France had successfully reintegrated into the international system by forging a moderate path led by centrist liberals like Richelieu.

French politics had been settled around a great compromise between ultra-conservative realists, liberal centrists and radical republicans. France would have a monarchy and a liberal Constitution and would maintain the reforms of the French Revolution. France would have an aristocracy, but it would also have elections. It wasn't quite a democracy yet, but it was on that path. Keep all this in your head because it will be important in a future video. While liberalism was taking hold in France, that was not necessarily true in the rest of continental Europe. In the newly formed German Confederation, German nationalism was on the rise and the other great powers were getting nervous.

The two great German powers had different reactions to nationalist movements within their borders. In the multi-ethnic Austrian Empire, the instinct was to crush it. In Prussia, mostly German-speaking, they decided to rely on it. The Prussian king sent Hardenberg, his prime minister and foreign minister, to meet with Metternich, Austria's chancellor and foreign minister. The Prussians wanted to reform the German Confederation, of which both Prussia and Austria were members. Riding the wave of German nationalism, the Prussians wanted to revive talks of a united German Empire, uniting the German-speaking peoples of central Europe under a single state. This new State would instantly become a new great power, strong enough to rival France.

Hardenberg proposed that Prussia and Austria incorporate their territory into this new Empire, but if that proved impossible, he alternatively proposed that they could create a smaller German Empire from the various small German states. In this scenario, Prussia and Austria could remain independent and control this new, smaller German Empire as allies from the outside. Metternich was horrified by this idea. After such careful and difficult negotiation at the Congress of Vienna to create the German Confederation, Prussia wanted to blow it all up after only 3 years? Because? What was wrong with the functioning of the Confederacy? The German states had agreed to unite for military defense and resist external meddling.

It was working. Central Europe was at peace. Prussia and Austria had the strength and influence to force their small German allies to do whatever they wanted. Wasn't that enough? Why would Prussia want to start negotiations again? Metternich's analytical mind went to work. Both Prussia and Austria controlled important Polish-speaking provinces in the east. If your new German Empire were home to a large Polish population, it's obvious what would happen next, isn't it? Poland would ask to join the German Empire. Don't you think the Tsar of Russia would have something to say about that? The Tsar of Russia was the king of Poland and had threatened war to bring Poland into Russia's sphere of influence only three years earlier.

The new German Empire would instantly be on the brink of war. For what purpose? Because a group of young Germans in Berlin got carried away by the nationalist atmosphere of the moment and thought that a German Empire sounded good? What a mess. To appease Hardenberg and the German nationalists in Prussia, Metternich proposed some minor reforms to the existing German Confederation to make it look a little more like a unified Empire. The Confederacy would operate a federal secret police to monitor any revolutionary activity. To the same end, press freedom would be standardized across the different German states and strongly restricted.

Similarly, student associations at universities, traditionally a friendly home for revolutionary thought, would be banned throughout the Confederacy. To enable all of this, the Confederacy as a whole could now force individual states to modify their internal laws in the name of preserving order. Of course, in practice these modifications would not come from the small German states. The modifications would come from Prussia or Austria. All these reforms have a certain flavor, don't they? Metternich was the conservative architect of the post-war order and it is clear what his priorities were. His main objective was to prevent a French-style revolution from breaking out in Germany.

An understandable fear after having lived through 25 years of war, but I would say it was worry that distracted him. We have the advantage of knowing what would happen in the future and we know that the debate over a potential German Empire would be one of the key issues of the 19th century. Metternich had no way of knowing, but 3 wars would be fought over this issue, not to mention what happened in the 20th century, my goodness. I have no idea if Metternich's intervention at this time could have prevented any of those wars, but I do know that Metternich was much smarter than me, and when this problem was presented to him, he completely ignored it.

He was so distracted thinking about 18th century France that he wasn't actually thinking about 19th century Germany. As part of the postwar agreement of 1815, Austria gained control of northern Italy. The arrival of the Austrians in northern Italy fundamentally altered its national priorities. Before the war, Austria had been a rather conservative and inward-looking power. Northern Italy turned Austria into an occupier and colonizer. A role that Austria was not prepared to face. Historian Paul W. Schroeder argued that Austria's expansion into northern Italy “forced Austria to lead and organize Italy, but did not actually give it the power to do so.” Austria had to pump taxes into Italy just to offset the enormous costs of occupying it in the first place.

It was like a snake eating its own tail. The more difficult the occupation became, the more taxes they collected. The more they taxed, the more difficult the occupation became. Metternich was the mastermind of the occupation of Italy and, as the occupation began to deteriorate, he began to micromanage Italy's internal policies. Another distraction. He brought a wave of Germans from Austria to help administer the Italian occupation, which only further alienated the Italians and caused the situation to deteriorate further. On the one hand, he told the German administrators to defer to the Italians whenever possible, while, on the other hand, he had the Austrian bureaucracy micromanage everything from Vienna.

Colonization turns us all into hypocrites. Dissent was on the rise and soon Austria found itself at the crest of a genuine nationalist movement calling for Italian unification. This was much more than the Austrians had anticipated. Metternich created a strong spy network targeting Italian nationalists, but this did not make the Austrians more popular. Even the most moderate Italians who were willing to tolerate the Austrian occupation began to call for a liberal Italian Constitution. This was not something conservative icon Metternich could contemplate. Even geopolitically, theoccupation of Italy was a disaster for Austria. The Italian Kingdom of Piedmont had been created as a sort of neutral buffer state so that Austria and France wouldn't have to share a border, but Austrian paranoia over Italian nationalism and its foolish spy network had soured relations with its Italian neighbor.

For her own protection, Piedmont sought to establish deeper relations with France. This sent the Austrians into a paranoid tailspin. The French were establishing a beachhead in Italy, in Austria's backyard. Were the French behind the rising tide of Italian nationalism? The occupation of Italy had made Austria totally neurotic. This was a lesson that every great power would have to learn in the 19th century. Austrian expansion into Italy may have looked good on a map, but the occupation generated no revenue, did not increase Austrian military prowess, and did not benefit Austria geopolitically. In the end, it was a complete distraction from the important issues in Europe that threatened the fragile peace.

With Metternich up to his eyes with problems of his own creation, it would be up to others to prevent the next Great Power Conflict. The postwar international order faced its first major test in the early 1820s. The king of Spain, restored to power after Napoleon's defeat, turned out to be an absolutist ruler in the style of the old 18th century. This turned out to be a problem. 18th century Spain was dead and gone. When Napoleon was in power, he imposed a liberal constitution on Spain that granted real political rights to its citizens. Virtually all adult men gained the right to vote, and with this change, political life within Spain flourished for the first time.

Elections, newspapers, political debate, all these things emerged in a few years and people loved it. So when the absolutist Spanish king was restored to the throne, his first move was to tear up the Spanish Constitution and return things to the way they were in the 18th century. The Spanish Legislature, which was full of proud Spanish liberals who loved their new Constitution, was very vocal in its opposition. Radical republicans and revolutionaries quickly joined forces with more moderate liberals, creating a genuine political movement. Very soon, even the generals of the Royal Army came out in support of the liberal Legislature and the Constitution.

The King was losing control of the country. Practically overnight, Spain was on the brink of civil war. At the urging of his advisors, the king reluctantly (very reluctantly) retired from office. He would sign the liberal Constitution. The King of Spain would become significantly less powerful and most of the country's affairs would pass through the Spanish Legislature, which would be freely elected by the people. Spain would become one of the most liberal countries in Europe, with political institutions stronger than even Great Britain. The King said all that, but he lied. Instead, he began to exercise his power by vetoing everything that came out of the Spanish liberal legislature.

He fired all of his elected Liberal ministers and replaced them with unelected men who were loyal only to him. He then appealed to the five great powers and asked for an international coalition to march on Spain and return its full powers. A civil war now seemed inevitable and, by issuing an international appeal, the Spanish king was taking a terrible risk. Once the great powers became involved, Spain could become the scene of the next great power conflict. The country could be destroyed. Inspired by the courage and success of the Spanish liberals, there were uprisings in Naples and Piedmont demanding their own liberal constitutions.

This movement had crossed international borders, which scared the great powers. They were his worst fears come true. It reminded them of the French Revolution. Everyone had to be careful here. Metternich was particularly frightened by the uprisings, not only because of his conservative ideology, but also because the countries in rebellion were Austria's neighbors. In correspondence with the other great powers, he expressed his fear that this could provoke a wave of revolution throughout Europe. As Italy was in Austria's sphere of influence, the other great powers agreed to give Austria a free hand to deal with the uprisings as they pleased.

In 1821, Austria invaded the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies to the south and the Kingdom of Piedmont-Sardinia to the west. In both cases they came to the rescue of the existing conservative regimes. Before long, they put down uprisings calling for new Spanish-style liberal constitutions. The copycat uprisings were resolved, but Spain's central problem persisted. Of all the great powers, Britain greeted calls for Spanish intervention with the greatest skepticism. The Liberals in the British Parliament staunchly supported the Spanish Liberals, but even the British Conservatives were sympathetic to their cause. They had gone through their own crisis with the monarchy in the 17th century, and even the staunchest conservatives believed Britain was better off for it.

They considered what was happening in Spain as part of a natural political evolution that every country must go through at some point. The Conservatives were in government in Britain, and the Conservative Foreign Secretary, Castlereagh, was dead against any Spanish intervention. He publicly stated that he had never intended the Quadruple Alliance, by which he meant the four great powers that had overthrown Napoleonic France, to be a “union for the government of the world or for the superintendence of the internal affairs of other states.” "He maintained that the Spanish situation was not a threat to peace in Europe.

Prime Minister Liverpool agreed. The Emperor of Russia, Tsar Alexander, was at the opposite end of the spectrum. He believed that the uprising in Spain was the result of a coordinated international conspiracy and that this conspiracy was an active threat to European stability. He was fully prepared to mobilize the Russian army and march it throughout Europe in support of the Spanish king. This scared everyone even more than the uprisings in Italy. No one - and I mean no one - wanted this. Metternich was particularly disturbed. He wanted to give the Spanish king back all his powers, but not if it meant that the Russian army would get its boots dirty all over Europe.

For a while, no one was quite sure. of what to do with Spain. All the great powers were afraid to do anything and hoped that perhaps Spain would reach an agreement on its own. During this pause, something unexpected happened. British Foreign Secretary Castlereagh unexpectedly took his own life. He was replaced by a politician called George Canning. Internationally, the news came like thunder. Castlereagh and Metternich had a special relationship, and the two were a kind of co-authors of the post-war international system. Now Metternich was alone. He had no idea how this new fellow Canning might approach the postwar settlement.

This news was equally worrying for the British political class. The current government was a moderate Conservative government, and Castlereagh was thought to be a pragmatic Conservative who had good relations with the British Liberals. Canning had a different reputation. He was known as a conservative-conservative, a kind of attack dog, rabidly ideological and not very well disposed towards the moderates who currently run the government. Castlereagh and Canning never saw eye to eye. In fact, Castlereagh... um, how do you say this, shot him. Things got so heated at one point during the war that the two exchanged pistol shots.

Lost canning. So you can understand everyone's surprise when Canning replaced his old enemy as Foreign Secretary. Many legitimately wondered whether Canning would break all the Castlereagh peace agreements and throw British foreign policy into chaos. But everyone was wrong about Canning. All. In the immortal words of Robert Caro, power does not corrupt, he reveals. What did Canning's new power reveal about him? Well, before Castlereagh's death, Castlereagh had been consumed by the project of disentangling Britain from the affairs of continental Europe. Castlereagh did not want to send the British army all over Europe to put down minor uprisings by people who were only asking for fairly sensible reforms.

To the surprise of all his contemporaries, the supposed ideological attack dog Canning shared that vision. There are no armies in Europe. In fact, Canning went even further. He shared Castlereagh's belief that British prosperity depended on its performance in the colonies, but unlike Castlereagh, he thought that trade, rather than colonialism, was really what set Britain apart. Colonies were only useful to the extent that they facilitated trade, they were not an end in themselves. To that end, British interests lay in the pursuit of peace. Peace facilitated trade, and trade made Britain prosperous. Unlike his predecessor, Canning was agnostic when it came to the colonies and openly non-interventionist when it came to war.

This makes Canning quite unique in an era dominated by colonial obsession. Colonialism can make a country prosperous, but it can also be a trap. Canning was one of the few people who could see this clearly. There is another thing that sets Canning apart. He was a deeply committed slavery abolitionist. This did not make his life any easier, he was a controversial stance for a British Conservative and in fact most abolitionists lived in the Liberal Whig party. Canning just felt it deep in his bones, which makes him cool, or at least as cool as a 19th century British politician can be.

British politicians of that era liked to talk a lot when it came to political rights, but unlike many of his contemporaries, including his predecessor Castlereagh, Canning was no bloody hypocrite. Canning had just become foreign secretary when the Spanish crisis finally broke out. In 1823, the Spanish Legislature, backed by the military, removed the King from power. The victorious Spanish republicans became very enthusiastic about this measure and began to call for a Revolutionary Spanish Republic. This was bad. A Spanish Revolution so soon after the French Revolution threatened to plunge all of Europe back into war. The great powers would have preferred to sit and wait for Spain to resolve its own crisis, but they could not ignore this event.

France acted first. After briefly consulting with the other great powers, the conservative king of France sent the French army to Spain. All the other great powers approved this intervention. All except Great Britain. Metternich approved of the intervention, but was not happy with it. The international system was on the brink of collapse. One wrong move now and all of Europe would be at war. France restored the Spanish king to the throne and then urged him to reach a compromise with the Spanish liberals. This was her big plan to resolve the crisis. Give the King everything he wanted and then say, "Please, could you do what you have refused to do all this time?" Why would I do that?

It was an incoherent plan and turned out to be a catastrophic failure. Having received from the French everything he wanted, the Spanish king refused even to meet with his political opponents. Not only that, but now Spanish liberals, republicans and revolutionaries knew that there could be no political solution to this crisis. Any negotiated settlement would simply be rejected by the Spanish king and the French army. Now the only way to advance was through force of arms. It really was a reckless move on the part of the French. They had hoped to force a compromise, but instead, they had chosen sides in a civil war and were now stuck occupying parts of Spain.

This was the first big test for the new British Foreign Secretary, Canning. In a speech to Parliament, he reaffirmed British neutrality on this matter, but noted at the end of his speech that he sincerely hoped that the Spanish liberals would emerge victorious in their fight against the tyrannical Spanish king and the French army. This was a shocking statement to the other great powers. Everyone had assumed they were on the same page, but apparently not! Apparently the Conservative government of Great Britain sympathized with the Spanish liberals, republicans and revolutionaries! It was a smart move by Canning. He sent a strong signal to the other powers that they could not necessarily count on British support if they wanted to march across Europe putting down liberal uprisings.

If they were to pull off a maneuver like this again, they might find Britain on the other side of the fight. British Liberals, who had until now regarded Canning with trepidation, praised the Conservative Foreign Secretary forguide Britain as a defender of liberal movements throughout Europe. The British Liberals now hoped to have one of their own in the Foreign Office. On the streets, people rushed to support Canning's statement. Just eight years after the end of the Napoleonic Wars, the question on everyone's mind was: would France's recklessness lead to another great power conflict? The consensus on the streets was that, facing France and those other European tyrants who were eager to invade their neighbors over petty political disputes, Canning was the only person working to prevent another war.

This made him unexpectedly popular with the British people. Before the speech, there was a rumor campaign to remove Canning from power. After the speech, he remained untouchable. In the midst of all the chaos, something special was happening in the Spanish colonies. In quick succession, the following Spanish colonies declared their independence. Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras, Nicaragua, Costa Rica and Peru. Ecuador, Bolivia and Uruguay would declare their independence a little later, as would the Portuguese colony of Brazil. You could say that South America was going through a moment. While all this was going on, the Spanish king, backed by France, as expected, refused to negotiate with any of the South American revolutionaries.

He refused to make even symbolic concessions that could have kept them under the Spanish Crown. Canning saw an opportunity. He wanted Britain to be the first to recognize these new independent states. He believed that having some friends in South America could prove a useful counterweight against any other power trying to enter the region. And there was another thing. Canning distrusted the French. As far as Spain was concerned, his true intentions were still unclear. Why would they recklessly enter Spain like that? It did not make sense. Canning feared that they would attempt to restart the lost French Empire by seizing all of Spain's colonies in the name of stability.

If Canning saw to it that these new independent states were recognized by the British government and supported by the British fleet, perhaps France would think twice before doing something foolish like that. Canning began the process of recognizing the new South American states and sent a message to France saying that any French adventurism in South America would be interpreted by Britain as an act of war. The French went out of their way to assure Canning that this was never his intention. Regardless of whether that was true or not, they heard the message loud and clear. Canning's diplomatic maneuver was remarkably successful.

At a later international conference he raised the question of reconquering Spain's lost colonies. When France informed the other great powers of the British threat, the matter was immediately dropped. Canning's threat worked. Peace in South America was maintained at no cost to Britain. The other great powers were also warned. If they wanted to travel the world opportunistically grabbing colonies, they would first have to go through Great Britain. Pax Britannica at its finest. At this time I would like to ask all Americans to leave the room. Shortly after the wave of revolutions in South America, Canning began collaborating with the American Secretary of State John Quincy Adams.

What emerged from this collaboration was the Monroe Doctrine in 1823. The Monroe Doctrine, actually developed by Secretary of State Adams, said that “the American continents should not henceforth be considered as future subjects of colonization by any European power.” The curious thing about this statement was that at the time it was completely inapplicable. Or, rather, it was completely unenforceable by the Americans. But do you know who could impose it? The British. The Monroe Doctrine did not declare any new colonization of North or South America. No new colonization meant that current colonization was assured. Who did that help? Britain at the time was by far the number one European power in North America, and with these new revolutions in the Spanish colonies, it was quickly becoming the number one European power in South America.

If Spain, France, or any other power attempted to return to South America, the Monroe Doctrine stated that the United States would resist, which actually meant that it would defend British interests. Pushing the Americans in this direction was a masterstroke by Canning. They didn't really understand at the time that this declaration committed the American Navy to defend the British sugar plantations in Jamaica, but it did. And in exchange for this, the British gave nothing to the Americans. Canning said of the Monroe Doctrine when it was first announced: "The effect of the ultra-liberalism of our Yankee cooperators on the ultra-despotism of our allies gives me just the balance I wanted." By this he meant that yes, the British and French were playing well at the time, but if that ever changed, the Americans would serve as a useful counterweight against French expansion abroad.

Canning felt free to speak more clearly a year later, after all the dust had settled. He described the Monroe Doctrine as “an act which will bring about a change in the face of the world almost as great as the discovery of the now liberated continent. The Yankees will shout with triumph, but they are the ones who lose the most because of our decision.” It must be said that Canning did not get everything he wanted. The Monroe Doctrine contained a huge loophole that allowed for American colonialism, which made Canning nervous, especially when he analyzed American ambitions toward the Caribbean and newly independent Mexico.

But, as a general principle, Canning had secured American support against any European power moving into North or South America. It was a diplomatic coup for the British. Well, the Americans can return to the room now. The great powers never went to war over Spain, but they came very close to doing so. France would end its misguided occupation of it after five years and political instability within Spain would persist for the next 40 years. Or 80 years. Or 120 years. Or... let's just say that political instability in Spain would persist. However, the Spanish crisis showed that the postwar peace was more fragile than anyone thought.

The great powers left having learned several lessons. Firstly, Metternich was beginning to lose his grip on Europe. He had been the Big Man during the postwar settlement, but after eight years, he was increasingly distracted by the Austrian occupation of Italy and by the festering problems within the German Confederation. The international system he had helped design was still intact, but with the reckless French invasion of Spain it had entered a new phase, in which he was no longer the main character. Secondly, Britain, under Canning's leadership, had fully become the greatest of the great powers. The Spanish crisis taught everyone that when Britain stood firm, all the other great powers hesitated.

It was a new world. And lastly there was France. What to say about France? They got off to a great start by successfully reintegrating into the international system under Richelieu, but after that, it looks like they got hit over the head with an idiotic stick. Well, in a way they were. I have talked about this point so far, but just at the moment when France recklessly invaded Spain, the government of France underwent an abrupt ideological shift. They abandoned the great compromise that had returned the monarchy to power and decided to take a rather sudden lurch in a conservative and autocratic direction.

This decision unleashed a chain of events in France that would have profound consequences for the rest of the 19th century. And we'll discuss all of that in the next video.