Europe 1815-1900 Quiz | European

Quiz Answer Key and Fun Facts

1. The settlement agreed at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 favored dynasties at the expense of nationalities.

Answer: True

The Congress of Vienna made almost no few concessions to the nationalist spirit of the age.

2. Which of these countries was NOT a member of the Holy Alliance?

Answer: Britain

Though the official pronouncements of the Holy Alliance amounted to little more than a reaffirmation of monarchic legitimacy it was deeply reactionary. It sought to mystify the role of monarchy and promoted notions of the divine right of kings. Britain was also ill at ease with the military counterpart of the Holy Alliance, the Quadruple Alliance established in 1815 to resist any renewed French expansion in Europe, and ceased to co-operate with this latter alliance in the early 1820s.

3. In 1815 industrialization was already well under way in Britain. Which region was the next to industrialize on a large scale?

Answer: N. France-S.Belgium

Northern France and Southern Belgium started to industrialize around 1820; Saxony, Northern Bohemia, the Northern Rhineland and the Ruhr followed soon afterwards (about 1825 onwards). Ukraine didn't follow until much later in the century.

4. Which was last European country to abolish serfdom?

Answer: Russia

Serfdom was abolished in Russia in 1861. Key elements of serfdom, ominously described as 'robot service', survived in parts of the Austrian Empire till 1848.

5. Which set of beliefs, ideology or '-ism' proved most disruptive to the settlement of 1815?

Answer: Nationalism

The settlement of 1815 made practically no concessions to national or liberal aspirations in Germany, Italy, Spain, Poland or the Balkans. When these emerged in 1819 the initial response of all the governments was to repress.

6. Until the late 1850s which European power sought to be predominant in both Germany and Italy?

Answer: Austrian Empire

In 1822 Austria restored the reactionary, deposed King of Naples to his throne and continued to intervene in Italian affairs outside its own empire until 1858. In 1859, in a war with France, it lost Lombardy and in 1866 also the province of Venezia (Venice).

7. Which country, having lost most of its once vast overseas empire by 1825, failed to re-establish itself as a major imperial power?

Answer: Spain

By 1826 all that remained of the once vast Spanish American Empire was Cuba, Puerto Rico, the Philippines and various 'bits and pieces'. Repossession of the Spanish Empire was opposed by the USA (Monroe Doctrine, 1823) and Britain. Moreover, internal disorder in Spain for a long period from 1820 onwards made reconquest unrealistic.

The Spanish government didn't even have the money to pay its soldiers waiting in Cadiz to be sent to reconquer the Spanish colonies in the Americas, and in 1820 they mutinued and many marched of them on Madrid instead. There was widespread unrest and civil disorder.

8. Which European country, having lost (and sold) most of its empire outside Europe by about 1805, succeeded in establishing a new and substantial overseas empire from 1830 onwards?

Answer: France

In 1830 France began to colonize Algiers, and in the course of the next 30-80 years built up a substantial empire in Africa, supplemented by the conquest of Indo-China (Vietnam, Laos, Cambodia) and various islands in the Pacific.

9. As is well known, there were major revolutions in many European countries in 1848. There were also revolutions in 1830 and 1831 (France and Belgium, and uprisings in Poland, some of the Italian states and Hesse-Cassel), and Britain was in a state of ferment. In what years were the first post-1815 uprisings in southern Europe, including the Balkans?

Answer: 1820-21

In Southern Europe a whole series of rebellions started in 1820 and 1821: Spain and Naples, 1820; Piedmont, Wallachia, Moldavia, Serbia and Greece - 1821. The Greek War of Independence lasted until 1829.

10. Until about 1880 which decaying empire was artificially sustained by Britain and, to a somewhat lesser extent, also by France?

Answer: Ottoman Empire

Britain (and France) sustained the Ottoman Empire for much of this period in order to thwart Russian expansion in the Balkans and especially Russian control of the straits separating the Black Sea from the Aegean. In 1854-56 Britain and France fought alongside the Ottoman Empire against Russia in the Crimean War, and after the defeat of the the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-78 the British government was particularly keen to revise the peace treaty in favor of Turkey (Congress of Berlin, 1878). Britain withdrew support for Turkey after the massacres of Armenians in 1896.

11. In the 1880s and 1890s intense overseas rivalries developed in particular between Britain, France and Germany in the 'Scramble for ______'?

Answer: Africa

There was also intense rivalry between France and Italy in North Africa.

12. Industrialization led to the rise of labor unions and later also of socialist parties. Which was the first country to have a significant number of socialist representatives in the national legislature?

Answer: Germany

The presence of Social Democrats in Reichstag was viewed with horror by Bismarck, and the party was banned from 1878-1890.

13. In the second half of the 19th century two thinkers had a particularly revolutionary impact that continued well into the next century. One was Charles Darwin and the other was a political thinker and philosopher of history. What was his name?

Answer: Karl Marx

Between them, Karl Marx and Darwin had an enormous influence that, in various forms, has persisted into the 21st century.

14. In which of these countries was *politically organized* antisemitism weakest at the end of the century?

Answer: Britain

In Russia antisemitism was sponsored by the government itself, and from the 1880s onwards it was common for the authorities to encourage pogroms in order to distract attention from popular grievances. In Austria-Hungary, Vienna had a rabidly antisemitic mayor from 1897-1910 who segregated the school system into Jewish and Gentile schools.

In France, the Dreyfus Affair revealed an alliance of anti-democratic forces on the extreme Right, involving monarchists, the army and elements of the Roman Catholic Church.

In 1898 there were anti-Jewish riots in several French towns.

15. By 1875 (at the latest) which country had emerged unambiguously as the leading military and economic power in Continental Europe?

Answer: Germany

By 1875 Germany was the 'top dog' in Continental Europe. However, despite acquiring a small overseas empire, its power outside Europe was relatively limited, and - like its predecessor, Prussia, and like Austria-Hungary - it was essentially a regional, European power rather than a 'world power'.

Many German nationalists found this an intolerable state of affairs, and from the mid-1890s set about trying to change the situation ...

Source: Author bloomsby

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Europe 1815-1900 Trivia Quiz

This quiz is primarily concerned with broad historical trends in this period and ought not to be particularly hard. Have fun!

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