German Revolution

1. German Revolution Kaitlyn Cromeens

2. Why the Revolutions Began • The revolution was triggered by events in France at the end of February, that soon spread to Germany. In France, it was known there as the March Revolution. In the south and in the west of Germany, large popular assemblies and mass demonstrations began to take place. They primarily demanded freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, and arming of the people and a national German parliament. Events across Europe in 1848 also had an impact also on the Germans. In February 1848, King Louis-Phillipe of France abdicated the throne. This triggered revolutions across the entire European continent, especially in the German provinces.

3. Revolutions Break Out • 1846-1849: Economic depression was spread throughout Europe. It was marked by rising food prices after a poor harvest • March 3, 1848: Revolution broke out in the Rhineland. • March 12, 1848: Revolution broke out in Vienna. • March 15, 1848: Revolution broke out in Berlin. • March 18, 1848: Revolution broke out in Milan. • March, 1848: 600 delegates meet in Frankfurt for a preplanning of parliament assembly and called for a universal manhood suffrage and to form a national assembly to govern Germany. • May, 1848: 830 delegates met in Frankfurt, mostly from the small states in the liberal West. They began to form a democratic constitution that gave the assembly an executive control over Germany. • June, 1848: The pan-Slav congress met in Prague after the Czechs refused to send representatives to the Frankfurt Assembly felling that Slavs should not be subject to the will of Germans

4. September, 1848: Riots erupt in Frankfurt. The Assembly is forced to call for Prussian and Austrian aid to restore peace. • March, 1849: The Frankfurt Assembly finally completes the German constitution and elects Frederick William IV of Prussia as German emperor. When he refuses to rule the revolutionary state, the Assembly dissolves. New revolutions arise in the Rhineland, Saxony, and Bavaria

5. Why did the German Revolution Fail? • Failure of the Frankfurt Parliament • Poor leadership: (Heinrich von Gagern was considered too weak to lead the group). • Many of the leaders, as liberals, did not want to use force. They preferred to have an intellectual debate instead of violence, and this led to accusations that the Frankfurt Parliament was a 'talking shop with no teeth'. • They also did not have any military backing. They did have backing from the Prussian army under Von Peucker, who they had appointed as minister of war. • There was not a bureaucracy, and the lack of funds meant that the parliament did not have any way of raising an army or enforcing any laws that were passed. Without a bureaucracy they could not raise any money, and without any money they could not raise a bureaucracy. • Major divides between the Grossdeutschland/Kleindeutschland, Catholic/Protestant or Austria/Prussia supporters, made it worse because of the lack of political parties in the groups. • Lack of support from the princes of each respective state also caused it to fail. They were unwilling to give up any power.

6. Key Figure • Carl Schurz fought in the 1848/49 revolution as a young man. He was a skilled orator. He immigrated to America and fought in the American Civil War. He fought at Chancellorsville as a division commander in May 1863; in July of 1863, he earned the command of the 11th Corps in Gettysburg. After the war, Schurz became a prominent political figure. He was sent by President Andrew Johnson on a tour of the defeated South. Serving a term in the United States Senate, he advocated a conciliatory policy toward the South. He served as a cabinet minister in the administration of Rutherford B. Hays and late in life took up political journalism.

7. Germany in 1848