Home
Architecture
Art
Beauty/Health
Beer
Business/Economy
Cars
Celebrities
Christmas
Dictionaries
Education
Fashion/Clothes
Food
Galleries
Gays/Lesbians
Genealogy
German Names
Germans Abroad
History
Holidays
Homework Help
Learn German
Law
Literature
Loveparade
Movies
Music
Nazi
News
Oktoberfest
Philosophy
Today in History
Traditions
Travel to Germany
Wines
More topics...
Facts About Germany
Armed Forces
Education
Economy
History
Geography
Mass Media
Politics
Society
German History
Early History
Medieval History
Thirty Years' War
Weimar Republic
Third Reich
Postwar
Honecker Era
Berlin Wall
Bismarck
German Recipes
Salads
Main Dishes
Desserts
Baking
German Chocolate Cake
Easter Dishes
Halloween Dishes
Christmas Dishes
How To in Germany
Articles
Quizzes
|
The Restoration of Germany
Friedrich Wilhelm IV
Within just a few months, liberal hopes for a reformed Germany were disappointed.
Conservative forces saw that the liberal movement was divided into a number
of camps having sharply different aims. Furthermore, the liberals had
little support left among the lower classes, who had supported them in
the first weeks of the revolution by constructing barricades and massing
before their rulers' palaces. Few liberals desired popular democracy or
were willing to enact radical economic reforms that would help farmers
and artisans. As a result of this timidity, the masses deserted the liberals.
Thus, conservatives were able to win sizable elements of these groups
to their side by promising to address their concerns. Factory workers
had largely withheld support from the liberal cause because they earned
relatively good wages compared with farmers and artisans.
Once the conservatives regrouped and launched their successful counterattack
across Germany, many of the reforms promised in March 1848 were forgotten.
The National Assembly published the constitution it had drafted during
months of hard debate. It proposed the unification of Germany as a federation
with a hereditary emperor and a parliament with delegates elected directly.
The constitution resolved the dispute between supporters of "Little Germany,"
that is, a united Germany that would exclude Austria and the Habsburg
Empire, and those supporting "Large Germany," which would include both.
The constitution advocated the latter.
The Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV (r. 1840-58), was elected united
Germany's first emperor. He refused the crown, stating that he could be
elected only by other kings. At that point, the assembly disbanded. A
few subsequent rebellions by democratic liberals drew some popular support
in 1849, but they were easily crushed and their leaders executed or imprisoned.
Some of these ardent democrats fled to the United States. Among them was
Carl Schurz, who later fought at the Battle of Gettysburg as a Union officer,
served one term as a United States senator from Missouri, and was appointed
secretary of the interior by United States president Rutherford B. Hayes.
Map of The German Confederation, 1815-1866
The German Confederation was reestablished, and conservatives held the
reins of power even more tightly than before. The failure of the 1848
revolutions also meant that Germany was not united as many had hoped.
However, some of the liberals' more practical proposals came to fruition
later in the 1850s and 1860s when it was realized that they were essential
to economic efficiency. Many commercial restrictions were abolished. The
guilds, with their desire to turn back the clock and restore preindustrial
conditions, were defeated, and impediments to the free use of capital
were reduced. The "hungry forties" gave way to the prosperity of the 1850s
as the German economy modernized and laid the foundations for spectacular
growth later in the century.
- German Confederation,
1815-1866
- Economic and Political
Trends Toward Unification
- The Revolutions of
1848
- The Restoration
|
|