The Revolution of 1848 in Luxembourg was part of the revolutionary wave which occurred across Europe in 1848. The Grand-Duchy of Luxembourg at that time was in personal union with the Kingdom of the Netherlands.
Dissatisfaction with inequality, the authoritarian government, the lack of civil liberties and a political system that excluded most people from government, caused widespread upheaval. This in turn forced the government to concede various reforms, particularly granting a new constitution, which introduced new civil liberties, parliamentary government, wider participation in the political system, and the separation of powers.
Background After being annexed by the French in the Napoleonic Wars, Luxembourg was elevated to a Grand Duchy and awarded to the Dutch King by the Congress of Vienna in 1815. While it was supposed to be ruled by him in personal union, separate from his kingdom, the King-Grand Duke William I treated it as a mere province of the Netherlands. (At the time, modern Belgium was part of the Netherlands, and Luxembourg was not geographically separate from Dutch territory.) The Grand Duchy also became part of the German Confederation (the successor to the Holy Roman Empire), and its fortress was garrisoned by Confederation troops.
Luxembourg was profoundly affected by the Belgian Revolution of 1830. (See also: Luxembourg and the Belgian Revolution) Many Luxembourg residents supported the Belgian secessionists, resulting in most of the country being de facto annexed by the new Belgian state. Only the capital, Luxembourg City, remained loyal to the Dutch King, as it was garrisoned by Prussian troops. The situation was only resolved in 1839 through the Treaty of London, when the Dutch King consented to the partition of Luxembourg. The French-speaking parts of Luxembourg were carved off to form part of Belgium, while the remaining German-speaking part made up the rump Grand-Duchy, and would continue to be ruled by the Dutch King-Grand Duke, even though it was now territorially separated from the Netherlands. It would also remain in the German Confederation.
In 1841, William II authorised the first constitution of Luxembourg, a document which left all meaningful power in the hands of the sovereign. The legislature provided by the Constitution, the Assembly of Estates, was little more than a shadow parliament. It was elected indirectly, the ballots were not secret, and the vast majority of the population were excluded from political life by a system of census suffrage, requiring the payment of 10 florins per year in tax. At the elections of 1845, in the canton of Luxembourg, only 956 out of 28,477 inhabitants were eligible to vote. The Assembly's sessions were held in private, and its assent was required only for penal and fiscal laws, the civil list, and the extraordinary budget. In 1841, this constitution was generally welcomed, but over the years, voices started to be raised in the Assembly of Estates, demanding a return to the civil liberties which had applied under the Belgian annexation of 1830-1839. Various other issues were a cause for discontent, such as the muzzling of the press, the ban on associations, the exorbitant expenses of the civil list, and lack of judicial and educational reforms.
The 1840s saw several famines, which affected the poor the worst. The authorities did little to deal with the consequences of these crises, at least in the eyes of the people. Furthermore, unpopular taxes caused widespread discontent. Complaints were also raised about the annual payment of 150,000 guilders to the sovereign, which weighed heavily on the state's budget. In the 1840s the government additionally restricted traditional rights of pasture and gathering firewood; the rural poor saw this as an unfair attack on their ancient rights. The 1845 law forbidding straw roofs in houses, introduced after several destructive fires, likewise burdened the poor, who could scarcely afford the required renovations.
On top of all this, unemployment and price increases turned the economic problems into a social crisis. More and more frequently, vagabonds and beggars appeared in whole groups, demanding charity from property owners.
Events Dissatisfaction had built up over several years, and was only waiting for a trigger. The February revolution of 1848 in Paris set off a revolutionary wave across the continent, which threatened the established monarchic and absolutist order.
A significant aspect of the protest manifested through the submission of petitions to the authorities. Petitions, far from being a recent invention, were an old right. What was unusual was their extent, as 70 petitions were sent to the government around March, which had been more or less spontaneously drafted and signed in over 60 localities.
At the same time, a broad protest movement started. The centre of the uprising was Ettelbruck, in the north of the country. On 11 March, several discontented people declared a republic and sang the Marseillaise. The gathered people blocked the way of the gendarmes who appeared on the scene, and tried to provoke them into using their guns. Fearing an extension of the uprising, the government sent further gendarmes to Ettelbruck, as a market was to take place there on 14 March.
On that day, the police tried to arrest several of the ringleaders, which threatened to escalate the situation. An angry crowd gathered outside the gendarmerie station, hurling stones and breaking windows. A gallows was erected outside the house of the local head of the gendarmerie. The people's anger was also felt by other representatives of the authorities: a crowd attacked the house of the local tax collector. In other localities, similar popular disdain for the government was expressed, and its representatives had to deal with various humiliations and insults.
In the capital, a crowd gathered on 16 March. Workers from the suburbs assembled in front of the house of the mayor, Fernand Pescatore, who was suspected of wheat speculation: again, it took the gendarmerie and the Prussian military to prevent any violence.
The unrest spread from Ettelbruck to neighbouring villages, and the government feared it might spread even further. "Revolutionary" flags such as the French, Belgian, black-red-gold (German) and red flags were carried during processions or put up in visible places. These flags were not so much a sign of separatism, as a symbol of solidarity with the revolutionary movements in these other countries.Schoentgen, Marc. "Die März-Revolution von 1848 in Luxemburg". In: forum, No. 185 (July 1998), p. 21-24
The Revolution ended about as quickly as it had begun, but lasted the longest in Ettelbruck, where anarchy reigned for about a week. Unrest still flared up in various areas for several weeks, but the government acted decisively to restore order. Gendarmes, forestry and customs officers, and federal German troops, were deployed to the affected areas on 23 March to take down the revolutionary flags and restore order. This unusually large presence of armed forces served as a clear signal to the insurgents, but also to those who were uninvolved. Similarly, on 19 March, a pastoral letter from the Apostolic Vicar of Luxembourg, Jean-Théodore Laurent, was read out in all churches, appealing for calm and reminded the Catholic population of their loyalty to the throne.
On 20 March, the government issued a proclamation announcing changes to the constitution and the abolition of censorship. Acting on government advice, William II had had to agree to reforms. These promises led most citizens and supporters of "law and order" to finally side with the government and distance themselves from any further revolutionary acts. The government also agreed to employ part of the discontented poor on state construction sites, in order to take them off the streets. New constitution The King-Grand Duke established a commission to come up with revisions to the constitution. However, as it was composed by a large number of government officials, the commission provoked widespread hostility and had to be abandoned. William II then called a new Assembly of Estates, with twice the normal number of delegates, with the mission to draft a new constitution.Ravarani, Georges. "La Constitution de 1848" . In: forum, No. 185 (July 1998), p. 30-34 This Constituent Assembly first gathered in Ettelbruck on 25 April 1848. The reason behind meeting in Ettelbruck rather than Luxembourg City may have been the presence of the Prussian garrison in the capital, which was seen as hostile. The Assembly finished its work in record time, proceeding to the final vote confirming the new Constitution on 23 June. The Grand Duke swore an oath on the new Constitution on 10 July, and it came into force on 1 August.Thewes, Guy. Les gouvernements du Grand-Duché de Luxembourg depuis 1848 . Service Information et Presse, 2011.
Within a few months, the Constituent Assembly had drafted a relatively liberal constitution, turning Luxembourg into a constitutional monarchy. Heavily influenced by the Belgian constitution of 1830, with several articles copied verbatim, it bore the imprint of the Belgian revolutionary period of 1830-1839. It incorporated key principles of a state governed by the rule of law, such as separation of powers, limiting the sovereign's powers to the executive sphere, the parliament's legislative sovereignty, an annual vote on the ordinary budget, and judicial independence.
Despite its striking resemblance to the Belgian constitution, there were notable differences. Unlike Belgium, Luxembourg's constitution provided for only one chamber of parliament, this being mainly due to the small size of the country and a lack of enough qualified people to sit in two chambers, rather than any ideological reasons. Compared with the 40 francs of annual taxation required to vote in Belgium, Luxembourg required only 10 francs (which still, however, excluded most of the population).
Legacy
Change The political shifts triggered by the events of 1848 appear evident: the country's first modern constitution, the introduction of parliamentary government and civil liberties, and the creation of several new government institutions. The monarch's authority was severely curtailed.Thewes, Guy. "La révolution de 1848: la deuxième" . In: forum, No. 193 (July 1999), p. 80-82 However, whether the Revolution brought about social change and to what extent remains a subject of debate. Political life in the early 19th century had been dominated by a bourgeoisie composed of high-ranking civil servants who valued order and authority. In 1848, they had to make way for a bourgeoisie composed of businessmen, more liberally inclined, who retained control until the introduction of mass politics in 1919. The Revolution therefore saw power pass from one clique of conservative Orangist officials to another, only slightly larger, clique of liberal businessmen enriched by early industrialisation. It is doubtful, then, whether 1848 was a revolution in the social sense.
1848 did, however, see the working classes take to the streets in anger for the first time. The socialist lawyer, Charles Théodore André, published an appeal to the workers of Luxembourg during the Revolution.
Continuity