Street fighting in Frankfurt, 1848The striking similarities between the different national revolutions in 1848 suggest that Europeans lived through common experiences that shaped a generation. The first such experience was raising the barricades, fighting in the streets, and overthrowing rulers or forcing major concessions. Army commanders found deadly ways to respond to urban uprisings. First, they used cannon and field artillery to bombard and destroy the fighters behind their makeshift fortifications. Only then did obedient infantrymen attack and take the barricades in hand-to-hand combat, as Prussian soldiers did in Frankfurt. (The Granger Collection, New York)