The National Independence Movements in Italy and Eastern Europe

An important component of the 1848 Revolutions in Europe. The national independence movements of the people of Italy and Eastern Europe, including Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Poland and Romania, who were under Russian, Prussian and Austrian rule, took place one after another.

On January 12, 1848, the workers, craftsmen and the middle and petty bourgeoisie of Palermo, the capital of Sicily in Italy, broke out in an armed uprising and liberated the whole island of Sicily, thus opening the prelude to the Revolutions of 1848 in the whole European continent. On March 18, the people of Milan, Venice and other places rose up and drove out the Austrian rulers and established a Provisional Government led by the bourgeoisie. Then the Kingdom of Sardinia and other states declared war on Austria. In the fall of the same year, an uprising broke out in Rome against the Austrian Empire. In February 1849, the Republic of Rome was founded. The Venetian and Tuscan Republics were also founded successively. In August 1849, under the joint attack of Germany, Austria, Spain and Naples, the Italian revolution for national independence was finally defeated.

In March 1848, an armed uprising broke out in Hungary which was then under the rule of the Austrian Empire. In April 1849, Hungary declared independence. In May of the same year, Tsarist Russia sent troops to intervene. In August, under the suppression of the Russian and Austrian allied forces, the Hungarian Revolution was defeated.

In March 1848, the Czech people, who had long been under Austrian yoke, also started a massive revolutionary movement, but due to the betrayal and sabotage of the liberal bourgeoisie, the uprising was eventually defeated.

In addition, Poland, which was carved up by Russia, Prussia and Austria, also broke out in a revolutionary struggle for national independence, and Romania also broke out in a bourgeois national democratic revolution against Tsarist rule, for national independence and against the feudal absolutism, but they were all suppressed one after another.

The European national independence movement of 1848, though defeated, demonstrated the great revolutionary strength of the oppressed nations and dealt a heavy blow to the colonial rule of Russia, Prussia and Austria.