2. Was ‘Germany’ a
meaningful concept by
1815?
No single state.
Hotpotch of German states – 115,533 square miles
of the Habsburg monarchy/ 33 square miles of he
Schwartzburg-Sonderhausen.
Lacked clear natural frontiers – especially east/south.
Napoleon’s destroyed Holy Roman Empire (1806) –
transforms German political landscape – reogranises
states (Confederation of the Rhine) + French ideas of
liberty & equality + Prussia reforms key institutions.
War of Liberation (1813-14) – June 1813 Battle of
Leipzig. First collective action of the German nation?
3. How did the Vienna Peace
Settlement (1814-15) affect
Germany?
Prussian territorial gains (Rhineland) – population doubled.
Prince Metternich – aim was the maintenance of Austria’s
traditional authority over the German states – not concerned
with German political unity.
German Confederation (1815), 39 states, ‘maintaining the
external and internal security and the independence and
integrity of the individual states’, maintenance of the status quo
(none of the states wished to see their independence limited).
Dominated by Austria.
Weak – Diet meet at Frankfurt unanimous agreement needed =
achieved little (disappointed nationalists – did provide a
framework within which German states co-existed).
4. How democratic were
German states in 1815-40?
Absolute monarchical rule - Constitutions & elected
assemblies in some states – Prussia: Frederick William
III (1797-1840) little interested in liberal reform/provincial
estates after 1823/no constitution.
Improved bureaucracies.
5. To what extent did nationalist &
liberal ideas develop between
1815-40?Student movements – romantic sense of national identity.
Carlsbad Decrees (1819) – Metternich, strongly reactionary.
Liberal ideas that Metternich so distrusted were concerned
with constitutional reform & the replacing of absolute
government by a parliamentary system.
Middle-class liberals were not interested in radical changes to
society + hoped to achieve their aims through intellectual
argument/peaceful persuasion.
Nationalists - Goethe v Hegel.
How strong? Difficult to know – how far liberal/nationalist
ideas filtered down from the educated minority to the rest of
the population?
Small-scale, urban-working class (democratic/violent change)
movement developing Radicals.
6. How successful were
Metternich’s repressive
policies?Metternich believed that the maintenance of international peace
was directly linked with the prevention of revolution in individual
states.
Forces of destruction – liberalism/nationalism – he set his face
against any constitutional change.
The Congress of Troppau (1820) – Austria, Prussia & Russia
announced that they ‘would never recognise the rights of a people
to restrict the powers of their King.’
‘Metternich System’?
Weapons of diplomacy, force, police state, censorship
Successful in the 1820s – 1830s picture changes with July
Revolution in Pairs = harsher measures (Six Articles) – Diet
7. To what extend did economic
developments encourage
German unity?
Problems of tariffs.
Prussian Customs Union 1818 (develops links/strong
geographical position).
Zollverein 1834 – economic success + growing
economic unity.
Prussia despite her reactionary political sympathies,
came to be regarded by many northern states as the
natural leader of a united Germany.
Zollverein encouraged the liberals & nationalists.
Austria isolated – by 1848 while it retained political
control of the Confederation, Prussia had the economic
leadership.
8. Germany 1840 - 48
Growth of nationalism (1840 crisis ‘the old enemy +
Schleswig-Holstein crisis I) – railways – newspapers –
growth of liberalism.
Developments in Prussia – Death of Frederick William III
1840 Frederick William IV became king (reactionary or
constitutional monarch? ).
Wrong to over-estimate the degree of political
consciousness attained by Germans on the eve of the
1848 revolutions – minority even amongst the middle
class.
Nationalists/Liberals/Radicals had not achieved much by
1848 – Metternich System too strong – nationalism
fluctuated to perceived threats – major divisions (Catholic
9. Germany in Revolution
1848-49In 1848 France, the German Confederation, Habsburg lands &
Italy experienced revolution year of dramatic, violent events,
of hope & failure.
Striking features of the 1848 revolutions was the rapidity of
success they enjoyed & how equally rapidly they failed.
Revolutions are complex affairs – some historians claim that
general – European-wide – factors explain the cause, course &
failure of the revolutions – others that even within particular
countries there was often little cohesion among the
revolutionaries.
Why did so many revolutions break out in the same year?
Historians use to think that the French troubles (Paris, Feb
1848) triggered off copycat revolutions in other countries
now accepted view is that it was due to conditions across
Europe being very similar.
10. What were the main economic, social
& political causes of the revolutions in
Germany?
Poor living & working conditions – rural & urban.
1846-7 – economic crisis (poor harvests) – rapid rise in
food prices & unemployment.
= rising unrest - class consciousness?
Political problems – unpopularity of monarchs/ministers
(caliber not high) – middle-class especially increasingly
critical of systems.
Surge in nationalism – middle-class claimed it would
ensure national prosperity
11. Course of the Revolutions
• 24 February 1848 King Louis Philippe was overthrown & a republic
established in France.
• News of events sparks revolution in Austria – Metternich fled.
• Widespread chaos across the German states.
• Most German rulers lost their nerve, giving in easily (if temporarily) to
demands for more representative governments.
• Almost everywhere, elections were held, liberal ministers appointed,
constitutional changes set in train & the remnants of the old feudal
order abolished.
• Little serious confrontation – except in Prussia & Austria.
• Declaration of Heidelberg (March 1848) the Vorparlament = the
Frankfurt Parliament (May 1848) – moderate/liberal – intended to
establish a united Germany under a constitutional monarch who would
rule through an elected Parliament.
12. Frankfurt Parliament
Filled a power vacuum.
‘Talking shop’ – Basic rights & Demands (= The Fifty Articles) +
national constitution.
Divisions between radicals & liberals – Grossdeutschland
(Greater Germany) & Kleindeutschland (Little Germany).
Lack of popular support + any ‘real muscle’.
Produced a Constitution for a German Empire in March 1849 –
Frederick William rejected the offer of the German crown in
April.
Frank Parliament dispersed: June 1849.
Why? ‘an assembly of old women’?; idealists; Prussia did
not grasp its opportunity; re-establishment of princely regimes
13. The Revolution in Prussia
Riots in Berlin – mid-March 1848.
Did FW submit to the revolution from necessity, join it out of
conviction, or, by putting himself at its head, try to take it over?
Frederick William made concessions to liberals – late March
1848.
Escapes to Postdam – apparent liberalism did not lost long.
Liberal ministry + new Prussian Parliament elected on the basis
of manhood suffrage.
Counter-revolution FW surrounded in Postdam by
conservative/reactionaries – November 1848 martial law
declared in Berlin + Parliament/ lib ministry dissolved.
FW proclaims a constitution of his own (strange mixture of
absolutism & liberalism – confirmed the King’s divine right to rule
whilst limiting his freedom to act – a genuine parliament, albeit
subservient to the crown, had been created (from above).
