Beginning in Paris in February 1848 and spreading within weeks to the German states, the Habsburg Empire, and the Italian lands, the Springtime of Peoples forced rulers to flee, convened parliaments, and lifted censorship across much of Europe. By 1849 it had been crushed almost everywhere. Yet serfdom was abolished in the Habsburg lands and never restored, and the demands of 1848 — constitutions, national self-determination, workers' rights — shaped European politics for generations. A famous verdict calls it the turning point at which history failed to turn.
In the spring of 1848, it seemed for a few weeks as if every throne in Europe might fall. Revolution broke out in Paris in February and toppled the French king within days. Then it leapt the borders. Crowds raised barricades in Berlin, Vienna, Milan, Budapest, and a dozen lesser capitals. Frightened monarchs fled or signed away their old powers. Censorship was lifted, parliaments were called, and a gathering at Frankfurt set out to unite Germany into a single free nation. Contemporaries called it the Springtime of Peoples. Then the spring ended. Within a year, almost every one of these revolutions had been crushed. The revolutionaries quarrelled among themselves, the frightened middle classes made peace with the old order, and the monarchies recovered their nerve and their armies. The old rulers returned, and most of the new constitutions were revoked or gutted. It was, by almost any short-run measure, a near-total failure. And yet the demands it raised did not die with it. Serfdom was abolished in the Habsburg lands and never restored. The dream of nations governing themselves, the call for constitutions and votes, and the new 'social question' of the rights of workers all outlived the defeat and shaped the century that followed.