Revolutions of 1820

The Revolutions of 1820 were a revolutionary wave in Europe. It included revolutions in Spain, Portugal, Russia, and Italy for constitutional monarchies, and for independence from Ottoman rule in Greece. Unlike the revolutionary wave in the 1830s, these tended to take place in the peripheries of Europe.

The 1820 revolution began in Sicily and in Naples, against King Ferdinand I of the Two Sicilies, who was forced to make concessions and promise a constitutional monarchy. This success inspired Carbonari in the north of Italy to revolt too. In 1821, the Kingdom of Sardinia obtained a constitutional monarchy as a result of Carbonari actions, as well as other reforms of liberalism.

The Holy Alliance would not tolerate this state of affairs and decided to intervene in October 1820 and in February, 1821, sent an army to crush the revolution in Naples. The King of Sardinia also called for Austrian intervention. Faced with an enemy overwhelmingly superior in number, the Carbonari revolts collapsed and their leaders fled into exile.

Colonel Rafael del Riego leads a large part of the Spanish army in a mutiny, demanding a liberal constitution. King Ferdinand VII agrees, but secretly asks for aid from the Congress system which, in the Congress of Verona of 1822, agreed to have France send 100,000, which promptly defeat Riego's forces and reinstall an absolute monarchy.

Beginning with a military insurrection in the city of Porto, in northern Portugal, in 1820 that quickly and peacefully spread to the rest of the country, the Revolution resulted in the return in 1821 of the Portuguese Court to Portugal from Brazil, where it had fled during the Peninsular War, and initiated a constitutional period in which the 1822 Constitution was ratified and implemented.

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