The German revolutions of 1848–1849 (German: Deutsche Revolution 1848/1849), the opening phase of which was also called the March Revolution (German: Märzrevolution), were initially part of the Revolutions of 1848 that broke out in many European countries. They were a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions in the states of the German Confederation, including the Austrian Empire. The revolutions, which stressed pan-Germanism, liberalism, and parliamentarianism, demonstrated popular discontent with the traditional, largely autocratic political structure of the 39 independent states of the Confederation that inherited the German territory of the former Holy Roman Empire after its dismantlement as a result of the Napoleonic Wars. This process began in the mid-1840s.
The middle-class elements were committed to liberal principles, while the working class sought radical improvements to their working and living conditions. As the middle- and working-class components of the Revolution split, the conservative aristocracy defeated it. Liberals were forced into exile to escape political persecution, where they became known as Forty-Eighters. Many emigrated to the United States, settling from Wisconsin to Texas.
Events leading up to the revolutions
The groundwork of the 1848 uprising was laid as early as the Hambacher Fest of 1832, when public unrest began to grow in the face of heavy taxation and political censorship. The Hambacher Fest is also noteworthy for the Republicans' adoption of the black-red-gold colours used on today's national flag of Germany as a symbol of the Republican movement and unity among German-speaking people. The song "Fürsten zum Land Hinaus!" originated from the festival, and quickly garnered popular support for the abolition of monarchy and establishment of a republic.
Activism for liberal reforms spread through many of the German states, each of which had a distinct revolution. It was also inspired by the street demonstrations led by workers and artisans in Paris, which took place through 22 to 24 February 1848 and resulted in the abdication of King Louis-Philippe of France and his exile to Britain. In France the revolution of 1848 became known as the February Revolution.
The revolutions spread from France across Europe; demonstrations against the government erupted soon thereafter in both Austria and Germany, beginning with large protests on 13 March 1848 in Vienna. This resulted in the resignation of Prince von Metternich as chief minister to Emperor Ferdinand I of Austria and his exile in Britain. Because of the date of the Vienna demonstrations, the protests throughout Germany are usually called the March Revolution (German: Märzrevolution).
Afraid of suffering the same fate as Louis-Philippe of France, some German monarchs acquiesced to the revolutionaries' demands, at least temporarily. In the south and west, large popular assemblies and mass demonstrations took place. They demanded freedom of the press, freedom of assembly, written constitutions, arming of the people, and a parliament.
Austria
In 1848, Austria was the predominant German state. After the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved by Napoleon in 1806, it was succeeded by a similarly loose coalition of states known as the German Confederation at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. Austria served as President ex officio of this confederation. The (German) Austrian chancellor Klemens von Metternich dominated Austrian politics from 1815 until 1848.
On 13 March 1848, university students mounted a large street demonstration in Vienna, and it was covered by the press across the German-speaking states. After the important but relatively minor demonstrations against Lola Montez in Bavaria on 9 February 1848, the first major revolt of 1848 in German lands occurred in Vienna on 13 March 1848. The demonstrating students in Vienna had been restive and were encouraged by a sermon of Anton Füster, a liberal priest, on 12 March 1848 in the university chapel. The student demonstrators demanded a constitution and a constituent assembly elected by universal male suffrage.
Emperor Ferdinand and his chief advisor Metternich directed troops to crush the demonstration. When demonstrators moved to the streets near the Hofburg, the troops fired on the demonstrating students, killing several of them. The new working class of Vienna joined the student demonstrations, developing an armed insurrection. The Diet of Lower Austria demanded Metternich's resignation. With no forces rallying to Metternich's defense, Ferdinand reluctantly complied and dismissed him. The former chancellor went into exile in London.
Ferdinand appointed new, nominally liberal, ministers. The Austrian government drafted a constitution in late April 1848. The people rejected it, as it denied the majority the right to vote. The citizens of Vienna returned to the streets on 26 and 27 May, erecting barricades to prepare for an army attack. Ferdinand and his family fled to Innsbruck, where they spent the next few months surrounded by the loyal peasantry of the Tyrol. Ferdinand issued manifestos on 16 May and 3 June that gave concessions to the people. He converted the Imperial Diet into a Constituent Assembly to be elected by the people. Other concessions were less substantial, and generally addressed Germany's reorganization and unification.
Ferdinand returned to Vienna from Innsbruck on 12 August. The working-class populace hit the streets again on 21 August to protest high unemployment and the government's decree to reduce wages. On 23 August, Austrian troops opened fire on unarmed demonstrators and shot several of them.
In late September, Ferdinand, who was also King Ferdinand V of Hungary, sent Austrian and Croatian troops to Hungary to crush a democratic rebellion there. On 29 September, the Austrian troops were defeated by the Hungarian revolutionary forces. On 6 and 7 October, the citizens of Vienna had demonstrated against Ferdinand's actions in Hungary, resulting in the Vienna Uprising. As a result, Ferdinand fled Vienna on 7 October and took up residence in the fortress town of Olomouc in Moravia. On 2 December, he abdicated in favour of his nephew Franz Joseph.
Baden
Baden had a liberal constitution from 1811 until reaction resulted in Grand Duke Louis I revoking the constitution in 1825. In 1830, Leopold became Grand Duke. His reign brought liberal reforms in constitutional, civil and criminal law, and in education. In 1832 Baden joined the Prussian Customs Union. After news broke of revolutionary victories in February 1848 in Paris, uprisings occurred throughout Europe, including Austria and the German states.
Baden was the first state in Germany to have popular unrest, despite Baden being one of the most liberal states in Germany. After the news of the February Days in Paris reached Baden, there were several unorganized instances of peasants burning the mansions of local aristocrats and threatening them.
On 27 February 1848, in Mannheim, an assembly of people from Baden adopted a resolution demanding a bill of rights. Similar resolutions were adopted in Württemberg, Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau, and other German states. The surprisingly strong popular support for these movements forced rulers to give in to many of the Märzforderungen (demands of March) almost without resistance.
The March Revolution in Vienna was a catalyst to revolution throughout the German states. Popular demands were made for an elected representative government and for the unification of Germany. Fear on the part of the princes and rulers of the various German states caused them to concede in the demand for reform. They approved a provisional parliament, which was convened from 31 March 1848, until 4 April 1848, in St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt am Main, charged with the task of drafting a new constitution, to be called the "Fundamental Rights and Demands of the German People." The majority of the delegates to the provisional parliament were constitutional monarchists.
Baden sent two democrats, Friedrich Hecker and Gustav von Struve, to the provisional parliament. In the minority and frustrated with the lack of progress, Hecker and Struve walked out in protest on 2 April 1848. The walkout and the continuing revolutionary upsurge in Germany spurred the provisional parliament to action; they passed a resolution calling for an All-German National Assembly to be formed.
On 8 April 1848, a law allowing universal suffrage and an indirect (two-stage) voting system was agreed to by the assembly. A new National Assembly was selected, and on 18 May 1848, 809 delegates (585 of whom were elected) were seated at St. Paul's Church in Frankfurt to convene the Frankfurt Parliament. Karl Mathy, a right-center journalist, was among those elected as deputy to the Frankfurt National Assembly.
Disorder fomented by republican agitators continued in Baden. Fearing greater riots, the Baden government began to increase the size of its army and to seek assistance from neighboring states. The Baden government sought to suppress the revolts by arresting Joseph Fickler, a journalist who was the leader of the Baden democrats. The arrests caused outrage and a rise in protests. A full-scale uprising broke out on 12 April 1848. The Bavarian government suppressed the revolutionary forces led by Hecker with the aid of Prussian troops at the Battle on the Scheideck on 20 April 1848, ending what became known as the Hecker uprising.
The Palatinate
When the revolutionary upsurge revived in the spring of 1849, the uprisings started in Elberfeld in the Rhineland on 6 May 1849. However, the uprisings soon spread to the Grand Duchy of Baden, when a riot broke out in Karlsruhe. The state of Baden and the Palatinate (then part of the Kingdom of Bavaria) were separated only by the Rhine. The uprising in Baden and the Palatinate took place largely in the Rhine Valley along their mutual border, and are considered aspects of the same movement. In May 1849, the Grand Duke was forced to leave Karlsruhe, Baden and seek help from Prussia. Provisional governments were declared in both the Palatinate and Baden. In Baden conditions for the provisional government were ideal: the public and army were both strongly in support of constitutional change and democratic reform in the government. The army strongly supported the demands for a constitution; the state had amply supplied arsenals, and a full exchequer. The Palatinate did not have the same conditions.
The Palatinate traditionally contained more upper-class citizens than other areas of Germany, and they resisted the revolutionary changes. In the Palatinate, the army did not support the revolution, and it was not well supplied. When the insurrectionary government took over in the Palatinate, they did not find a fully organized state or a full exchequer. Arms in the Palatinate were limited to privately held muskets, rifles and sporting guns. The provisional government of the Palatinate sent agents to France and Belgium to purchase arms but they were unsuccessful. France banned sales and export of arms to either Baden or the Palatinate.
The provisional government first appointed Joseph Martin Reichard, a lawyer, democrat and deputy in the Frankfurt Assembly, as the head of the military department in the Palatinate. The first Commander in Chief of the military forces of the Palatinate was Daniel Fenner von Fenneberg, a former Austrian officer who commanded the national guard in Vienna during the 1848 uprising. He was soon replaced by Felix Raquilliet, a former Polish staff general in the Polish insurgent army of 1830–1831. Finally Ludwik Mieroslawski was given supreme command of the armed forces in the Palatinate, and Franz Sznayde was given field command of the troops.
Other noteworthy military officers serving the provisional government in the city of Kaiserslautern, were Friedrich Strasser, Alexander Schimmelpfennig, Captain Rudolph von Manteuffel, Albert Clement, Herr Zychlinski, Friedrich von Beust, Eugen Oswald, Amand Goegg, Gustav Struve, Otto Julius Bernhard von Corvin-Wiersbitzki, Joseph Moll, Johann Gottfried Kinkel, Herr Mersy, Karl Emmermann, Franz Sigel, Major Nerlinger, Colonel Kurz, Friedrich Karl, Franz Hecker and Herman von Natzmer. Hermann von Natzmer was the former Prussian officer who had been in charge of the arsenal of Berlin. Refusing to shoot insurgent forces who stormed the arsenal on 14 June 1848, Natzmer became a hero to insurgents across Germany. He was sentenced to 15 years in prison for refusing orders to shoot, but in 1849, he escaped prison and fled to the Palatinate to join its insurgent forces. Gustav Adolph Techow, a former Prussian officer, also joined Palatinate forces. Organizing the artillery and providing services in the ordnance shops was Lieutenant Colonel Freidrich Anneke. He was a member of the Communist League and one of the founders of the Cologne Workers Association in 1848, editor of the Neue Kölnische Zeitung and a member of the Rhenish District Committee of Democrats.