Summer Revolts of 1849

In the Summer of 1849, almost every country across Uropa experienced a mass outbreak of civil unrest at nearly the same time. Citizen riots barricaded sections of many large cities and demanded additional rights from their governments.

Pangs of Hunger
In the years leading up to 1849 a number of terrible crop failures caused by mysterious new strains of plant diseases caused food prices to soar beyond the ability of many people to purchase necessary food staples. In many nations food riots turned into anger at the governments which were perceived as not doing enough to mitigate the problem. Putting an end to food riots only instilled more outrage at the governments and these flames were fanned by political radicals with revolutionary agendas.

The Portent of Bayernia
All over Uropa, major cities began to experience unrest throughout 1849. One of the first outbreaks of actual conflict was in the Grienzen state of Bayernia, wherein King Karl I of Bayernia had taken on a mistress outside of wedlock the week before. This spurred denouncement from all sides and this grew to a head in February of 1849 when students staged widespread demonstrations in Marzahn, the capital of Bayernia. They demanded moral oversight within the government to keep this sort of sexual deviancy at bay, citing the traditional Bayernian religion of Synenolicism as their moral pillar.

King Karl I first attempted to make a token offer to appease the rioters, by promising to create a Virtue Oversight Committee to ensure that a proper investigation of immorality among government officials could take place. His offer was roundly rejected due to the powerless nature of this council, and with condemnation from other sources within the Synenolic Church began to pour in, the King abdicated in favor of his son.

This was the extent of the revolt in Bayernia, but the success of it was taken as a sign for many malcontents eager to instigate the outrage at food shortages across the continent.

A Spark in Gallia
The shaky reign of Queen Marie I of Gallia that had started in the previous round of revolutions in 1830 came to a sudden end in early 1848 after the resignation of King Karl I in Bayernia. Several days of political demonstrations turned into looting of stores, especially gun stores, and the Paree Defenders met heavy resistance when trying to bring about order. Ambush tactics, use of boiling water and firebombs tossed from upper story windows within the city inflicted heavy losses on the Paree Defenders. This spurred on indiscriminate gunfire and even cannon barrages, which only rallied more mutinous citizens to the fight.

Within three days, Queen Marie I fled the capital to take up exile within Grand Breteyne. Both of her sons had maintained high-ranking positions within the military, and they departed to accompany their mother, instructing the military not to quash whatever government the revolutionaries created to replace the limited monarchy. Across the next several months, a new government took shape out of the masses and the Gallian Republic was born anew.

Ascendancy of Man
A vast majority of the revolutionaries belonged to the Yhassuatic religion and used their ethnoreligious networks to connect and plan uprisings. Many Cassumite professors and students at universities lead the younger generations into open conflict with the police while presenting demands for greater rights and equalities under the law. These demands were in line with the policies of the Ascendancy of Man that had begun in the Gallian Republic, and now were being spread all across Uropa, often by the light of firebombs and at the tip of knives.

While it might seem odd for

Perfidy in Preusvia
Early on, the King of Preusvia, William Augustus III sought to head off the issue by instituting a sweeping set of programs to ensure that the populace still had work and would be provided with the necessary amounts of food to keep them from starving. To do this, he had to call together the Preusvian Representative Council to have them approve of the increased government spending for this new program. To King Augustus' surprise, refused to approve this spending unless he ratified a new state constitution that had been prepared by the Amschels, the Cassumite international banking family. This new constitution would have left Preusvia entirely exposed to foreign interests through relaxed financial restrictions, and King Augustus rejected it entirely upon this realization.

This left Preusvia in a hard position

The culmination of the Summer Revolts in Grienzland was the concession to create a centralized Grienzen state with a powerful constitution that limited greatly the powers of any monarch put at its head. Nevertheless, the collection of Grienzen states that had acquiesced to the revolutionaries all went to the Preusvian King William Augustus III and begged him to be the leader of this new Constitutional Monarchy. At which point King William of Preusvia spat upon the missive and sent the messenger back empty-handed, with the response "I will not place my neck in the stockade to appease brigands, even if it were painted gold."

The appeasement effort fell apart shortly after, and the state governments had to employ their police forces to dismantle the stockades built by criminal activists that had occupied public spaces and wreaked much destruction in the process. The general public welcomed the end of the uncertainty and chaos, even coming out in support of the harsh methods of quelling the revolts.