GERMANY TERM 1REVIEW

- Germany 1815-48 - Germany in Revolution 1848-49

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?

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).

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.

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.

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 increasingly unpopular.

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.

Germany 1840 - 48Growth 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 south/Protestant north + industrialised, more liberal west v. agrarian, autocratic east.

Germany in Revolution 1848-49

In 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.

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

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.

Frankfurt ParliamentFilled 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

The Revolution in PrussiaRiots 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).