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"We had hoped that we were at the end of our great work. We had hoped that we would succeed in concluding the revolution.
Now it seems that an even larger, more terrible and difficult revolution than that of 1848 is presenting itself to us."
- Karl Welcher, a liberal member of the Frankfurt parliament, on the May Revolutions
27 April 1849
The German Constitution
... The parliament in Frankfurt, under Hessian protection and guidance (
1), continued to work feverishly throughout the so-called 'Quiet Winter' in which the revolutionary wave in Germany entered a pronounced lull. Indeed, with the toppling of the Prussian and Austrian governments, previously the two most reactionary German states, and the de-facto ceasefire in republican-held Baden with the departure of Struve and his freischärlers, it appeared that the revolution was largely finished in Germany, with a strong victory for the moderately liberal cause. Throughout the later months of 1848 and into the early spring of 1849 a sense of normalcy apparently returned to the German states, and...
... After long, and controversial negotiations, on 27 March 1849 the German parliament ratified the Imperial Constitution (also known as
Paulskirchenverfassung; 'Constitution of St. Paul's Church), declaring the German Empire. The act was carried without the 'nones' by some 330 votes to seventy abstentions as the entire 'new' conservative
Café Milani and a majority of the center-right
Casino refused to endorse the charter. (
2) When the constitution was written, constitutional democracy was still in its infancy, and the drafter's of the text had little in the way of working examples. While they drew heavily on the US constitution for organization of the federal state as a whole, they also drew inspiration from French republicanism, of the First and Second Republic, and from the Consulate, as well as from the earlier Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and finally from the British Westminster system, and from the German liberal councils and radical guilds that were apart of the leading edge of the revolutionary movement. As such the constitution established a two-chamber Reichstag, whereby half of the 192-member upper house, the House of States (
Staatenhaus), was to be chosen by the parliaments of the separate German states, while the other half was appointed by the state governments; only those who were citizens of the state in question and at least thirty years of age could be appointed or elected to the State House, and would serve for up to two periods of three year terms, with half of the house up for election every three years. The constitutional text also specifically stated how many representatives each state was to send to the German parliament, though this had to be amended later as the makeup of the German states changed over the years. As well, while some member-states only were to send one deputy to the State House, in order to assure their representation the government of that state would suggest three candidates from which that state's parliament would elect with an absolute majority. In order to assure this constitutional balance the German states were all obliged to create a popular elected assembly of their own, with ministers responsible to it; though this to a large extent this decree had already taken place throughout several of the German states during the March Revolution, with more arising in...
... the Imperial Constitution's lower chamber, the House of the People (
Volkshaus) was to be elected by popular vote by 'every German [male] of good repute who had completed his twenty-fifth year' in a secret ballot 'by paper without signature.' Members of the People's House were elected to an unlimited amount of three year terms; however the first election for the house was constitutionally bound not to occur until three years after the document's enforcement as law; meaning the first Volkshaus did not sit until 1852. As well the Volkshaus' membership was limited so that one deputy was to be elected per every 50,000 inhabitants, a situation which clearly favored the larger states such as Prussia and Austria, as well as largely favoring 'new conservative' deputies who could appeal to the moderate urban bourgeois as well as to the reactionaries and the rural peasantry. Finally, the Emperor could dissolve the People's House, however the house was constitutionally bound to meet again with three months...
... Perhaps most surprisingly however was the parliament's negotiated decision regarding executive power. While, as had been expected by non-German commentators, a
Kaiser der Deutschen, the position was an elected monarch chosen by a three-fourths majority in the Staatenhaus. On first reading, such a solution had been dismissed. The eventuality of the (
Erwähltkaiser) position came about because all alternative suggestions, such as hereditary monarchy, or a Directory-style government under an alternating chair were even less practicable and unable to find broad support, as was the radical left's demands for a Presidential republic modeled upon that of the United States. The German constitution was heavily influenced by outside events during the revolutionary period, and many of the prominent 'founding fathers' were actually originally from outside of the Reich; Poles such as Janiszewski (
3), and Germans apart of the Swiss Diaspora like Ochsenbein, Stämpfli, Furrer, Munzinger, and Naeff... (
4)
... The emperor's power was further restricted by the creation of a seven-member imperial council, the
Reichsrat, chosen from among Staatenhaus deputies by that chamber. The council was originally envisioned to be merely advisers to the emperor, with each councilor heading a governmental department, much like the ministers in the governments of other countries. As such seven departments were created; Justice (the courts & imperial law enforcement), Finance (taxes and spending), Foreign Affairs (diplomacy and trade, as well as, secretly, spies), War (and the individual state's militias), Production (commerce, industry, agriculture), Home Affairs (religion, education, transportation, communications, etc), and Labor (worker-employer/state relations). Colloquially and by the press, especially that of non-German papers, the councilors were referred to as ministers, e.g. the head of the War Department referred to was the 'war minister,' though no such post officially existed. However the councilors were responsible not only for their own department but also for the business of their colleague's departments as well, and for the conduct of the government the federal administration as a whole. As the councilors were raised from the State House and were ultimately responsible to the Reichstag and not to the emperor, while nominally they merely advised the emperor in his actions in reality they swiftly became the actual government of the German Empire, acting as a collegial executive in corpore with one among them acting as an elected president, also known as the
Reichsverweser ('imperial regent). As such with the adoption of the Imperial Constitution a caretaker government was swiftly enacted, with Archduke John of Austria elected as the regent until... (
5)
... Both of the houses were to also elect its own President, Vice-President and a secretary, and the meeting of the houses were to be open to the public; however neither the bearer of petitions, nor any deputations were allowed to be resisted in the houses. As well each house had the right to punish its members for 'unworthy behavior,' set by their own rules of procedure.
... For a bill to become law it first had to be initiated by either house of the Reichstag, or by either the Kaiser or the Reichsrat, at which point it was constitutionally bound to be allowed to be debated by the relevant minister or ministers, after which it required passage of exactly equivalent texts by a majority in both houses of the legislature, however at least half of the statutory number of members needed to participate to reach a quorum. The imperial council or the emperor could use a delaying veto to prevent a bill from becoming law, however in both cases the veto could be overcame by another simple majority. As well if a bill had been introduced but had not passed in one session of the legislature could not be introduced again in the same session; however if after three regular sessions immediately following the same decision taken without change if the bill had not been adopted due to lack of consent of the imperial government it was to become law without imperial consent...
A schematic of the German Imperial government
Constitutionally, the parliament was required in the following cases;
- If the bill enacted, repealed, amended or interpreted the Reich's laws.
- If the Reich budget was to be contracted using loans; if the government was to spend on a non-budgeted expenditure; or if the government was to raise or lower taxes.
- If foreign maritime or river tariffs were to be raised or lowered.
- If a state's fort(s) were to be declared imperial property.
- If international treaties were to be concluded by the Reich government which involved trade.
- If a foreign state was to be excluded from the German customs zone, or to be excluded from tariffs to create a free trade zone.
- If a non-German territory was to be annexed by the Reich.
... The Imperial Constitution also created a Supreme Court, whose jurisdiction included;
- disputes between individual states and the imperial government for violating the constitution by issue of imperial laws and measures of the national government, or vice-versa
- disputes between the Staatenhaus and the Volkshaus, or between the Reichstag and the imperial government concerning interpretations of the constitutions
- political and private legal disputes of all kinds between the individual German states
- disputes over succession, the ability to govern, and the right to reign in the states
- disputes between the government of a single state and its parliament as to the validity or interpretation of the state constitution; however claims of violations of state constitutions only applied to the Supreme Court if means of redress with said state constitution could not be used
- disputes between individual German citizens and the state or imperial government regarding violations of a citizen's constitutionally guaranteed rights; however claims of violations only applied to the Supreme Court if means of redress of the state or imperial constitution could not be used
- criminal jurisdiction over charges against a Reichsrat councilor, or a minister of a German state, insofar as they relate to their ministerial responsibilities
- criminal jurisdiction over charges of treason against the Reich
- actions brought against the Imperial Treasury
- actions against individual states where the obligation to pay the claims sufficiently between several countries is doubtful or disputed, as if the shared commitment is made against a number of states in a lawsuit
... the constitution also eliminated many former, feudal, restrictions on the citizenry and between the German states and created a modern, streamlined, bureaucratic system. As such the various individual states, while remaining, were subsumed to the imperial government. The constitution also created a new customs and trade area, and eliminated all internal custom duties and tolls, and granted the exclusive purview of creating new customs, tariffs, tolls and taxes to the Reich government... (
6)
... Immediately the question, and dispute, arose over who was to be the first Kaiser. While the constitution declared the position to be an elected position, it was initially assumed by many both within and outside of Germany that, like the empire of old (
7), the emperor would quickly and quietly allow for hereditary succession and ruling Houses, though ultimately...
... Many at the assembly had previously supported Prussian King Frederick William IV, though it was well known that he had had strong prejudices against the work of the parliament; however with his abdication and sudden death late in the previous year Hohenzollern support largely dissipated throughout the winter months. While some rallied behind his son and heir King Frederick III, the republican left, led by Struve, countered this move by mockingly suggesting instead Frederick William's wife and young Frederick's mother Augusta as German Empress. A second, more reactionary, faction attempted to rally support for the Hapsburgs, putting forward newly-crowned Franz Karl of Austria, however Hapsburg succor within the parliament had also been weak, and in the aftermath of the Vienna Uprising and Magyar intervention, support for the Austrian position was at an all time. Perhaps most importantly though neither the Prussian nor Austrian governments actively worked to put forward a strong claim towards the German crown. The Prussians, under Augusta and Bismarck's 'new conservatives' were active in Berlin attempting to prevent a second Uprising and hold the fragile balance with the radicals, while simultaneously strengthening their position with the rural peasantry. Likewise even as late as the spring of 1849 the government in Austria was still working out the precious details of the Vienna Accord, even as the Hungarians and Croatians fought across southeastern Europe. Perhaps the greatest reason though for the lack of either of the major reactionary powers' activity in German politics at this period was that the governments of both states believed that any such pan-German union that lacked their particular involvement was bound to fail. Thus for the first time in recent history the course of the German nation was left to the smaller 'Third German' states...
... support quickly fell to the princes of the three next largest German states; Maximilian II of Bavaria, Ernest Augustus I of Hanover, and Frederick Augustus II of Saxony. Of the three, only Maximilian had actually personally attended the German parliament in Frankfurt, though Ernest Augustus had sent his own representatives in his stead. Further though, of the three only in Maximilian's Bavaria had liberal reformers succeeded; while Frederick Augustus had appointed a liberal ministry and other reforms, by late April of 1848 he had dissolved his new parliament, never to call it again. Thus liberal revolutionaries and moderate radicals, for the most part, supported Maximilian, while some moderate and right-wing liberal reformers and 'new conservatives' rallied to Ernest Augustus, leaving only the reactionaries to Frederick Augustus. The contest easily could have descended into a civil war as fault lines spread throughout the parliament, with the radical republican left waiting and plotting for an opportune moment to strike, and the three princely factions sharpening their bayonets, both rhetorically and literally as the armies of Bavaria and Hanover were already mobilized in light of the ongoing republican revolt in neighboring Baden. However the entire debate was mooted when both...
Republicanism & the May Revolutions
... on 15 April the liberal governments of the twenty-eight German states that had accepted the imperial constitution wrote a joint, public letter to the remaining eight states, urging their governments to follow their led; notably however the middle-states - Hanover, Bavaria, and Saxony - all refused to do so. Within a week however both chambers of the new, Bismarck-dominated, Prussian parliament accepted the imperial constitution, though Augusta refused to accept until well after the May Revolutions (
8). By 16 April mass, pro-constitutional, protests broke out across Württemberg, particularly in the capital of Stuttgart. By the end of the month the Landtag of Saxony tried to force Frederick Augustus to accept the imperial constitution; however he refused to do so, and prorogued the parliament, and quickly appointed a new, reactionary, government (
9). Immediately protests erupted throughout the capitol of Dresden and the surrounding countryside...
During the March Revolutions Saxony had not played a major role because of the weaknesses of its anti-governmental opposition. Public life in the capitol was not highly politicized until the appointment of the liberal march cabinet and its subsequent proroguing, and the preparations for elections to the Frankfurt parliament. Among the strongest local political organizations were the
Vaterlandsverein ('Patriotic Association'), founded in early April 1848, which had four thousand members by the end of that year, half of them journeymen and workers. The closely connected
Dresdner Zeitung became the leading publication for Saxon democrats, together with the
Volksblätter, published by August Röckel, a friend of Richard Wagner, a paper with a radical-democratic and utopian-socialist profile. In opposition to the Patriotic Association the moderately liberal
Deutsche Verein ('German Union') consisted mainly of established craftsmen, merchants, intellectuals, as well as civil servants and army officers. In January 1849 parliamentary controversies in the newly elected Landtag gave a strong impulse to political life in Dresden, with left-wing forces dominated both houses of the parliament. The twenty-one deputy club of the extreme left in particular exercised an especially prominent leverage, with its leader, the Bautzen lawyer Samuel Tzschirner, together with figures such as Röckel and Wittig formed the center of a conspiratorial junction which expected the outbreak of a second revolution and prepared for it be establishing manifold contracts. They worked closely with the Central Union of German Democrats via Karl D'Ester, and as a result by the spring of 1849 Dresden had become the center of a widespread cooperative between revolutionary activists...
... Despite its apparent progress, the assembly in Frankfurt depended upon the co-operation of the German princes; this became apparent when Frederick Augustus later disbanded his own state's parliament. At first the Saxon town councilors attempted to persuade the king to accept the imperial constitution in public speeches. The municipal guards who should have controlled them instead joined them, and made addresses of their own to Frederick Augustus. The king however was unyielding, and called the guards units to order, leading to further unrest. On 3 May the municipal guards of Dresden were told to go home; however the town council organized them into defensive units to stop the expected Prussian (or Austrian) intervention. As guards Dresdners built barricades throughout the city, Frederick Augustus, joined by the reactionary government, withdrew into the Zeughaus protected by royalist troops. At first the municipal guards were undecided whether or not to support the people, who threatened to use explosives to get the government out; however after the royalist Saxon troops fired upon the crowds the guards quickly joined the fray on the side of the insurgents. Within hours over one hundred barricades were erected throughout the city, as insurgents, joined by the guards, attacked the royalist troops who continually fell back. In the early morning hours of 4 May Frederick Augustus and his conservative government managed to escape the city to the fortress of Königstein. In their place a provisional government was quickly established, including radicals such as Stephan Born, the Russian anarchist Mikhail Bakunin, composer Richard Wagner (
10), as well as three former members of the liberal parliament; lawyers Samuel Tzschirner and Karl Gotthelf Todt, and the doctor Otto Heubner. Tzschirner in turn summoned another member into this ruling circle, Alexander Heinze, while Born brought into foreign-born Marcus Thrane, to organize fighting and to recruit more communal guards and volunteers from outside Dresden. So widespread was the discontent with King Frederick Augustus that many of the volunteers were from far outlying cities throughout Saxony such as Chemnitz, Swickau and Marienberg. However, a twenty-four hour armistice negotiated by the provisional government's security sub-committee with the military governor of Dresden allowed the army to bring in fresh troops from other parts of the country
In the afternoon of 5 May Saxon troops marched into Dresden; while the royalist had planned to encircle the rebels and corner them on the
Altmarkt (Old Market), they had seriously underestimated the extent of the revolt, and the number of barricades meant the royalist had to fight for every street, even in the houses. The city's opera house was set ablaze during the fighting, while Wagner himself climbed the church towers, ringing their bells to rally the revolutionaries and to reconnoiter the royalist troops. Elsewhere Born mobilized and organized the city's workers, ingeniously using internal walls of houses to allow messages to be hand-delivered between buildings, and in some cases allowing insurgents to pass through them. All-in-all some four thousand insurgents, many from outside of Dresden, took part in the revolt, against a nominally lesser number (2,500) of royalist soldiers. However as the revolution carried on many royalist troops defected to the insurgents, often later negotiating either a cease-fire between their former comrades and their new ones, or were able to talk the former into joining the revolution as well. By the fourth day many royalist troops simply threw down their arms and walked away to return to their homes in the rural countryside...
... Dresden was well-known as the cultural center of Germany (
11) for liberals and democrats, and as such Dresden artisans and worthies quickly joined the insurrection, including such later famous names as the editor of the
Dresdner Zeitung Ludwig Wittig, physicist Gustav Seuner who lead his students in making gunpowder and bombs for the insurgents, and opera singer/actress Wilhelmine Schröder-Devrient, who used her charisma and stage presence to rally the revolutionaries and personally lead several sorties. By 9 May the tide of the battle had obviously turned in the revolutionaries' favor, and the royalist were forced to withdraw from the city. In all some 250 insurgents were killed with another four hundred wounded; however the Saxon reactionaries lost over eight hundred killed or wounded in the campaign, many of whom were later captured and arrested by 'citizen's militias' as the royalist fled from Dresden (
12)...
The ruins of the old Dresden Opera House
... support for the revolutionary Dresdeners poured into Saxony from throughout Germany, as the revolutionaries used their extensive contacts to call for support and aid from the other German radicals. The Saxon revolution was the sparked that reignited the combat in Baden, as the republicans launched a lightning campaign across the duchy to capture the initiative. Notaly, Struve's Legion, which had marched the last autumn to aid the Berlin Uprising - though they had been unable to arrive in time - now quickly moved on towards Dresden. Arriving in Dresden on 11 May Struve declared before the provisional government that 'For Saxony I can see no salvation as long as the royal family rules over it. Only a republic would ensure freedom.' Indeed, as revolutionary supporters rallied to Dresden in the thousand, the royal Wettin family fretted in Königstein. While many reactionaries and conservatism wishes to attack crush the revolutionary movement, others were tempted by the example of Prussia and Austria in the previous year. King Frederick Augustus, who had hoped for support from either state in putting down the rebellion, send delegations to both Vienna and Berlin begging for martial aid. While Franz Karl did not reply, Augusta immediately sent word back to Königstein; her messenger arrived on 12 May carry one word written boldly upon a single folded sheet of paper - 'Abdicate.' As a revolutionary army 10,000 strong converged on the royal fortress Frederick Augustus did just that, renouncing his claims to the Saxon throne and fleeing the country, first to Austria and then out of Germany altogether, to Russia. In his absence the crown should have passed to his younger brother, Johann. However this was a position that the radicals would not tolerate, and within a day of his brother's flight Johann did the same, also renouncing not his claim, but that of his two sons as well, to the Saxon throne. While this move's legality was and has been questioned since, the issue was mooted the next day when outside of Königstein, hearing of the Wettin's mass-abdication, the provisional government announced the formation of the Saxon Republic, with elections to a fresh parliament within three months, and a collegial executive council modeled upon that of the ruling circle of the provisional government...
... Many revolutionaries in the new Saxon state expected a conservative reaction from either Austria or Prussia, but it was not to be. In fact the only military response to the Saxon Republic was the formation of a united militia 'for defense of the homeland' in the Thuringian states, with Hessian promises of aid in case of a potential republican invasion...
... As early as 3 May at a mass meeting of the
Landwehr (militas) in Elderfeld, in the Prussian Rhineland, proclaimed its support for the German constitution. Later in the same day in Bonn a day-long protest of the Landwehr quickly swelled in size as the Prussian government ordered more militiamen and troops to the city to put down the protest, where the soldiers promptly joined the protesters. The troops vowed to disobey the Prussian government if called to move against the pro-constitutional riots throughout the Rhineland. Three days latter five different provincial congresses were held throughout the Rhineland, two of them liberal, three of them democratic; all of them under the umbrella of the Central Union of German Democrats, whose membership had rapidly swollen in the past week to over a half-million strong. In response the Prussian government further called out even more of the Landwehr, though their loyalty was questionable, at best. Little under a week later delegates from over three hundred town and village councils met at one of the on-going liberal-worker's congresses in Cologne, where they demand that Augusta and the Prussian government in Berlin accept the imperial German constitution, rescind the call to arms, and dismiss the conservative Prussian ministry led by 'new conservatives' such as Bismarck. When asked by attending journalists whether they were 'German' or 'Prussian' the protesters began to chant; 'German! German! Succession from Prussia!' Within the day the revolution had spread, and the Landwehr of Elderfeld, Düsseldorf, and Solingen all mutinied, capturing their respective cities before sending Legions out marching to spread the revolution... (
13)
Bernard, Chung-Ho.
Foundations of the Modern World. Seoul: Imperial Directory, 1997.
... to understand why the Rhenish revolution was so successful one must understand the history of the region. The Rhineland shares a common history with the Rhenish Hesse, Luxembourg and the Palatinate, and in 1795 these areas all came under the control of Napoleonic France. Napoleon's armies smashed the forces of the Holy Roman Empire and the local German princes that weren't sent against him. Later the social, administrative and legislative measures taken by the French abolished much of the feudal rule in the area, a half century ahead of the rest of Germany. Importantly as well the Napoleonic Confederation of the Rhine was one of the first, if not the first, pan-Germanic polities to exist, bringing the idea of a modern 'German' nation to the populace. As well, the soil of the Rhineland is not the best for agriculture, and forestry had traditionally played an important role in Rhenish society. Thus the combination of the lack of strong agriculture or feudal restraint on the peasantry and the presence of a strong logging industry meant that manufacturing and all that it implies came early to the Rhineland. The close proximity of large deposits of coal and the use of the Rhine River for transportation to the North Sea and throughout the region meant that the Rhineland quickly became the premier industrial area in Germany, and arguably in all of Europe. The impact of industrialization was quck and quite thorough; at the beginning of the nineteenth century over 90% of the population was engaged in agricultural activities, while by the beginning of the 20th less than 20% of the population still lived in rural villages.
Accordingly in 1848-49 there was a large proletarian worker class in the Rhineland that was not only well education but also highly politically active. During the Vormärz Prussia controlled the Rhineland as part of "West Prussia." Following the defeat of Napoleon in 1814 and the reincorporation of the Rhineland into Prussian territory Berlin treated the Rheanish as subjugated and alien peoples, and reinstated many of the hated feudal structures once again. Accordingly much of the revolutionary impulse in the Rhineland was colored strongly by more anti-Pryssian sentiment than pan-German feelings. During the March Revolutions and the October Berlin Uprising the Rhineland had been unusually quite, something that the Prussian government mistook for loyalty to Berlin; however by the spring of 1849 the Prussians were forced to call upon a large portion of the army reserve and the Landwehr in Westphalia and the Rhineland. This caused a reaction in the region for several reasons; 1) it indicated Berlin was willing and moving to crush the pro-constitutional movement in the Rhineland, and 2) to order to call up the Landwehr and the army reserve was illegal in peacetime under the new Prussian constitution. As such in doing so the Prussian government had implicated that it was at war with another state - and as the Rhenish were to be treated, once again, as foreigners in their own land they quickly took to call for their own Rhenish state and succession from Prussia...
Republicanism & the May Revolutions
... by 10 May the uprising in Düsseldorf was suppressed by loyalist Prussian troops, however further east just outside Elderfeld an insurgent force of some 15,000 workers clashed with the Prussian troops that were sent to suppress the 'unrest' and collect the quota of Landwehr conscripts from the town. The Prussians were beaten back, and as they fled to Düsseldorf the 'Worker's Legion' rapidly gathered volunteers in its wake. By the next day as the revolution spread into the countryside several thousand armed peasants marched on the city, many of them joining the growing legion, and in a reversal of the earlier March Revolutions it was not the royalist Prussian troops who were besieged inside a barricaded city with radical republican forces on the offensive. The fighting was brutal but swift, as the Prussian line continually fell back. Unused to fighting in urban environments, ill-trained to handle such a situation, and unwilling to die for Berlin's unwillingness to accept the German constitution - a position of which many of the Prussian troops themselves disagreed with - by the morning of 14 May Düsseldorf was once again in the hands of the revolutionaries. Back in Elderfeld a Committee of Public Safety, including prominent revolutionaries such as the democrats Karl Nickolaus Riottee, Ernst Hermann Höchster and the liberals Alexis Heintzmann and Karl Hecker, brother of the revolutionary leader Friedrich Hecker of the previous year's infamous Badenese Uprising. However the Committee could not agree on a common plan of action, let alone control the various groups participating in the uprising, and the now awakened working classes largely organized themselves in one of the first German examples of a sociocratic state...
... Enter 16 May a group of workers and democrats from Trier and the neighboring townships stormed the arsenal at Prüm, capturing several thousand arms and ammunition for the revolutionaries. Later that same week another group of revolutionary workers from Solingen captured the arsenal at Gräfrath; notably the workers were lead by Frederick Engels, a socialist writer and theorist who had moved to join the revolution from his home in neighboring Belgium in early May...
... The sight of the working classes carrying of these, highly successful, military actions terrified the moderately liberal bourgeois, who fled the Committee of Public Safety in droves. Into this power-void of the fragmented Committee stepped in, once again, the Central Union of German Democrats, to which many of the leaders of the revolutionary were members or associations. On 20 May Bonn was captured by pro-democratic forces that rallied to the Rhenish cause, and by the end of the month the Prussians had totally been driven from both the Rhineland and Westphalia. In Bonn on 1 June the radical democrats proclaimed the Rhenish Republic (also known as the Republic of the Rhine); though strongly influenced by the Central Union, the Rhenish revolution was largely without intellectual leaders, and as such the organization of new Rhineland state took its inspiration from, and was modeled upon that of the
vorstands ('worker's council's) (
14) that had largely, though not wholly, lead the revolution. The radicals though were forced to give ground to the moderates who had joined the revolution, and who remained important players in the still extant Committee of Public Safety. Thus, drawing from its French heritage, the republic was established with a single-chamber legislative, made up of the worker's councils elected on universal male suffrage without property qualifications, while the executive was established as a three-man Directory-style institution of Engels, Hecker, and Heintzmann...
... The surrounding princely states were, with some merit, worried by these developments. However the Rhenish government, much like that of the French Second Republic in the past year, quickly moved to establish its peaceful intentions. Sending representatives to all of the surrounding states, including the non-Germans such as the Netherlands, Belgium, and France, the Rhenish also sent word to both Frankfurt and Berlin explaining why they had succeeded from Prussia, imploring the other German states to respect their 'right of accountable government,' and ending with a statement that the Rhineland Republic would 'join the new German Reich on equal terms with that of the princely states of the empire.' Of course not all German princes could quite believe this sentiment, however the Rhenish were good to their word; while the Hessians mobilized their small but professional army near Mainz to deflect any potential Rhensih assaults and the Prussians quickly gathered their army to make blunt any Rhenish offensives into Prussia proper, the Rhinelanders instead sent volunteer legions of radicals south along the Rhine to join the on-going revolution in Baden...
... When the revolutionary upsurge renewed itself in the spring of 1849 the uprisings soon spread once more to Baden and the Bavarian Palatine, when a riots broke out across the region, and in the Badensian capitol of Karlsruhe. Supports for either government few and mostly silent, and even among the military there was strong support for reform, constitutionalism, and even republicanism...
... With both Hecker and Struve out of the country radical democrat Lorenz Brentano quickly emerged as the leader republican left's, who used the conspiracy trials against Hecker and Struve, being held in absentia, into an indictment of the government. His colleague Amand Goegg brought together nearly five hundred local political clubs with their thirty thousands members in a state-wide network guided by a state committee of democratic clubs, an incipient modern party organization, that as early as January 1849 was widely acknowledged throughout Baden to wield more authority than the government. In the Badensian Diet the democrats demanded the chamber's dissolution and the election of a constituent assembly by universal male suffrage. The Diet's liberal majority voted down this proposal, knowing that such an election would return a republican majority. Although seven radical abandoned their mandates, the Diet managed to limp along, with Prime Minister Johann Bekk, a liberal civil servant, hoping for a favorable outcome in Frankfurt; as such he endorsed the national parliament's constitution and implement a newly passed imperial law to double the size of the army and abolish substitution, whereby men of sufficient income could hire others to serve their place in the military. Though widely supported, the reform crippled the princely state's armies, as officers had insufficient time to train the new, democratically-inspired recruits, and non-commissioned officers, the mainstay of substitutes, had their careers threatened. Further the bourgeois that had previously used substitution resented having to serve...
... on 12 May the army mutinied against the Badensian government, capturing the fortress of Rastatt. At this juncture the democrats called for a popular assembly in Offenburg; representing the petite bourgeoisie, they wanted to push beyond the liberal Frankfurt constitution, while moderates from the educated middle-classes want a revolution in support of the imperial constitution. The army revolt quickly spread, and two days later Grand Duke Leopold fled to France from his capitol in face of the approaching revolutionary army. Baden was declared a republic, with a provisional government made up of moderate democrats led Franz Raveuax, a former member of the German parliament who had who walked out during the Frankfurt Crisis. Raveaux immediately set to work coordinating the actions of the Badenish, Rhenish, and Palatine republican revolutionaries throughout the former-Grand Duchy. The rebels agreed on a joint attack along the Rhine towards Hessian Mainz to inspire a rebellion there, and to hopefully remove Hessian dominance from Frankfurt. Raveaux also hoped to hook up with the Rhenish revolutionaries further north, but did not believe the Prussians would let...
... A provisional government was also formed in the Palatine; however because support there was mostly driven by the military the insurgency quickly came to be lead by a Lieutenant Franz Siegal, who developed a plan by which using a corps of the Badensian army to advance on the Hohenzollern principalities and declare a republic there before turning to march on Stuttgart, in Württemberg, before moving to capture Nuermburg in Bavaria and establish a Franconian Republic, which would allow the southern republics to link with Saxony and unite for a common defense. However this plan was thoroughly rejected by the Badensian provisional government, revealing an unfortunate lack of communication and trust between the two republics...
... by 25 May the Badensian offensive was able to capture Worms, however four days later a Hessian army captured the city after bombarding it into submission, forcing the revolutionaries to withdraw. Brentano blamed his provisional war minister, Karl Eichfeld, for the set back and replaced him with Rudolph Mayerhofer. Though Brentano wielded absolute power in the provisional government, he was no fool, and now he turned to Siegal, under the advice of Mayerhofer, for direction in military affairs. However with the invasion of the Hessian troops into the Palatine on 29 May the nominally democrat rebellion swiftly became a national one, as some 20,000 Badensian peasants who had previously been largely indifferent to the revolution rose up against the invading army. The next day, despite the professionalism of the Hessians and the lack of military organization or discipline, this peasant militia defeated the Hessians at Waghäusel. Siegal now recommended a northern assault, joining up with the approaching Rhenish forces, and marching on the Hessian capitol of Darmstadt, a task which the exponentially growing revolutionaries took to with zeal. By 9 June the Rhinelanders, Palatinians, and Badensian revolutionaries were outside of Mainz with an army some 50,000 strong against a force of royalist less than half that size. However the Hessians were a professional military, armed with cannon, and locked inside the fortress of Mainz, then considered one of the largest and most difficult citadels to besiege. While the revolutionaries settled in for a long siege, events in the south rapidly outpaced them. Hohenzollern Prince Charles, a reactionary who had crushed the revolution movement in March of the previous year not only in his own country but also the neighboring principality of his cousin, had moved swiftly hearing of the revolutions occurring north along the Rhine. Gathering all of the available forces he could muster within both principalities, Prince Charles marched north, and, in a surprise night attack, captured the Badensian capitol of Karlsruhe on 14 June after an eleven hour bombardment by cannon before sweeping through the city street-by-street, shooting all 'insurgents' on sight. By the end of the assault most of Karlsruhe was in flames, and historians would later estimate that up to 80% of the city's civilian population had been slaughtered.
When word of the Hohenzollern assualt reached the revolutionary army outside of Mainz immediately splintered. The Badensian and most of the Palatinians, led by Siegal and Brentano, quickly decamped and marched south to defend their nascent republic from the reactionary count-attack, while the Rhenish opted to stay. Among the Rhinelander commanders still outside of Mainz was the Director Engels, who secretly sent word into Mainz offering a truce between the Hessians and Rhinelanders, who had previously not fought before the Rhenish siege of Mainz, on the conditions of Hessian neutrality in the 'southern conflict' between the revolutionaries and the Hohenzollerns. Louis III, Grand Duke of Hesse, quickly agreed, as he feared a second Frankfurt Crisis and a republican 'maw' closing around his Grand Duchy. On 16 June the Rhenish forces decamped from outside of Mainz, with half moving upstream to Koblenz to guard against Hessian betrayal while Engels led the rest of the Rhenish Legion south along the Rhine to support the revolutionaries...
... The Hohenzollern forces and the revolutionary legion of Baden and the Palatine met at the Palatine fortress of Landau on 15 June; though the reactionaries had managed to reach the fortress first, on the previous day, they had been unable to crack the even paltry garrison inside who had bravely fought on in face of the large Hohenzollern host before them. As the sun rose the Hohenzollern forces were caught flat-footed between the Landau fortress and the approaching revolutionaries, who, topping a hill and seeing the reactionaries spread out before them and the flag of the Palatine republic still flying above the citadel, swarmed over the field and smashed into the side of the Hohenzollern line before Prince Charles could turn his forces to face the new threat. In a pitched three-day battle that raged across the western side of the Rhine River from Landau back to the ruins of Karlsruhe Prince Charles' forces were eventually destroyed. Standing among the rubble of their capitol, the Badensians gave no quarter; the Hohenzollern corps was killed to the man, save for some initially taken for dead but only wounded, numbering less than one hundred, that were eventually taken for prisoners of war. Prince Charles himself was torn apart by the frenzied mob, his head removed by a sword, his eyes stuck out by bayonets, his hair burnt from the scalp, the head stuck from a pike in the town square. The body of the corpse, after being used for target practice hung from the tottering bell tower of one of Karlsruhe's cathedrals, was pressed into a coffin and set ablaze as it floated down the Rhine river...
... By the end of the year Prince Friderich Wilhelm of Hohenzollern-Hechingen 'sold' his country to his relative, newly raised Prussian King Frederick III, while Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen was 'incorporated' into the Badensian Republic...
... The creation of the first four of Germany's republican states in 1849 was a shock to the establishment, both in Germany and across Europe. The oft-quoted reason for these states early success, and their, otherwise unexplainable, ability to play off one princely state against another, was that the rest of the powers of Europe were too busy dealing with their own revolutions and liberal-radical movements. However, this view is only partially correct. While it is true that the Prussians, Austrians, French, Dutch, and Belgians were all pre-occupied with internal issues in the spring and early summer of 1849, other states were not so complacent. It is important to note that if things had gone differently the republican element in the German Reich would have held...
... At the end of May agitators supporting the Rhenish republic arrived in Hanover from Berlin and from Frankfurt. Within days demonstrations were organized outside of the royal palace, demanding that King Ernest Augustus accept the imperial constitution, and to rescind his call-to-arms in the face of the budding republicanism south of Hanover on the Rhine river. However, refused to yield, and declared that if the demonstrators made any 'inappropriate demands' on him he would 'pack up his things' and leave for Britain, taking with him the Crown Prince. Whatever Ernest Augustus believed that such a proclamation would bring, it certainly was not what happened. The reaction was swift - the protests turned into an insurgency, and within hours barricades were erected throughout the city, and the call had been sent out to the radicals in the Rhineland and to the Central Union calling for arms and volunteers. By 1 June Ernest Augustus was forced to flee the country, reportedly shouting decrying that the revolutionaries were 'a fine lot of republicans.' (
15) However, his promises to take the Crown Prince with him came to naught, as Prince George opted to stay in the country. Younger, more liberal, and more open to change than his father, George was swiftly crowned as King George V, and even more swiftly he gave into the demands of the crowds; Hanover accepted the imperial constitution, joining the German Reich, and George sent orders to the border garrisons order his troops to stand down and not to engage with the several roving bands of republican revolutionaries 'unless they fired first.' By the time the promised pan-German volunteers arrived in Hanover they found a staunchly liberal country that had already given into their demands, and had opted to re-open the debates for the only recently passed constitution in order to further sway the radicals from any violent clash...
King George V of Hanover and his family c. 1850
... On 2 May Bavarian King Maximilian II rejected the imperial constitution, citing that he could not accept constitutional requirements without a separate agreement between the German princes and the Free Cities. In response a massive, several thousand-strong meeting of liberal and radical clubs and organizations gathered at Kaiserslautern, where a ten-member 'provisional committee' was established to act as a government 'until the King came to his sense.' It should be noted that this 'provisional committee' did not seek to establish a provisional government, nor to overthrow the reign of Maximilian or the House of Wittelsbach...
... It should be noted that the situation was in Bavaria at the time was a precious one of very recently development. The former king, Ludwig, had been forced from the throne the previous year only after his support among conservatives had been weakened by his controversial relationship with his mistress and in the midst of the March Revolutions (
16). As such Maximilian's early reign in Bavaria was weak, at best. Bavaria's already liberal history was also important. Unlike many of the other German states Bavaria already operated under a liberal constitutional system, which had been implemented in 1818, and, with no changes in its make-up, began to debate the 'Maximilian reforms' after the new King's coronation in the summer of 1848. Over the next several months this parliament passed a wide-ranging series of laws providing for the abolition of most the older, feudal, restrictions on land-ownership and dues owed to noble landlords, reformed the court system, implemented freedom of the press, a new and liberal electoral law, and ministerial responsibility of the cabinet. Elections conducted under these news laws had taken place in November 1848 and resulted in an assembly dominated by moderate liberals...
... By the middle of the month all of Bavaria west of the Rhine was in revolutionary hands. The committee selected Carl Schurz, a student from Bonn, to mobilize the countryside in preparation of a royal counter-attack on 27 May. The events in Bavaria however were outpaced by those in Frankfurt and...
German Empire
... with the flight of both Frederick Augustus and Ernest Augustus their factions within the German parliament largely fell apart, although in the case of the Hanoverians some attempted to rally support for Ernest's son and successor George. However even this position was discredited when, as part of his liberal reforms, George sent word to Frankfurt declaring that he would not accept the crown of the German empire. With that the path was cleared for Maximilian, although not without controversy; however what many saw as his weaknesses were in actuality his strengths. As a Catholic and a southern German Maximilian was acceptable to the sentimentalities of his own Bavarians, but also to the other Catholic southern German states, including the all-important Austrians, whose deputies had previously been largely silent on the issue. However with Hapsburg support with the parliament clearly non-existent the Austrian deputation, after a private meeting with Archduke John in which he reportedly implored them to 'settle for second best,' the Austrians threw their very weighty full support behind Maximilian. Perhaps more importantly though was that, among all of the German princes, Maximilian had been the most committed to the liberal cause, and had been the only one to actually attend the Frankfurt assembly, though he had not spoken during the debates his presence had been noticed by all of the factions and clubs, and was thought to have privately meet with many of the members behind closed doors.
Thus the German parliament voted to elect Maximilian the first Kaiser, and sent a twenty-two-man
Kaiserdeputation led by Eduard Simson to meet with him. Arriving in Munich on 2 June, Maximilian accepted, promising the deputation that they could always rely on 'the Bavarian shield and sword' to defend German honor against foreign (and implicitly, domestic) enemies. Maximilian's first test was how to respond to the republican states, one of which - the Palatine - had broken away from his Kingdom only in the previous weeks, after encouragement and support from the Rhenish and Badensians. While many in Maximilian's Bavarian court - where he continued to reside until moving to the new German capitol of Frankfurt later in the year - urged the King-come-Emperor to declare war and crush the republics with the overwhelming forces. However, Maximilian hesitated. Perhaps he did not wish to turn the opening days of his reign into a German civil war. Perhaps Maximilian still felt his rule was without a strong foundation, and did not wish to threaten the established liberal-radical alliance. Perhaps he simply felt overwhelmed by his incredible good fortune in achieving the centuries-old Wittelsbach dream of regaining the throne of the German empire, which had been lost with the death of Charles VII in 1745. The reasons remain unknown to this day, as Maximilian kept his own counsel in the matter. What is known is that instead of going to war, Maximilian went to the negotiating table. Traveling to Frankfurt the newly-raised Emperor summoned not only the German princes, many of whom arrived believing that would take part in a grand campaign to reconquer the western republics, but secretly also the leaders of the republican governments. Although many in the latter's halls of power argued that such a move was obviously a trap, one-by-one all of the republican leadership agreed to meet in Frankfurt to convene with Maximilian. There, in what would later become known as the
Großenpakt ('Great Pact'), the republican radicals agreed to Maximilian's demands; the republican governments would swear fealty to him as Kaiser, abide by the laws and constitution of the German nation, pay reparations to the states that they had invaded or seceded from (including his own Bavaria), and most importantly they would cease to send volunteer legions into the other German states into order to either foment or support republican revolutions there. In return for this extensive list however, Maximilian extracted a promise from the other German princes not to interfere in the internal affairs of the other German states - including the newly founded republics, and that any disagreement between states would be settled not by forces of arms but by the to-be created
Reichsgericht (imperial supreme court), whose arbitration all sides would abide by or they would see 'punishment' by the remaining German states, led by imperial forces. Maximilian was also able to achieve his sought-after 'separate agreement' with the German princes, whereby the princely states further agreed not to mobilize their forces against each other, even if a neighboring state was in the midst of a liberal or even radical revolution. In this Maximilian was able to set the precedent that all internal matters of the German states were to remain internal affairs, and, while the pact was controversial, the radicals, liberals, and conservatives eventually agreed to it, settling the foundation for the German tradition of non-interference in the internal affairs of other states... (
17)
... By 28 June the parliament issued a declaration demanding that the remaining German states - Prussia and Austria - accept the imperial constitution and Kaiser Maximilian. With no recourse available to them, and under the threat of a Germanic civil war and invasion by both imperial troops and German radicals, Augusta and Franz Karl both agreed to the parliament's demands within the week...
His Imperial and Royal Majesty, Maximilian the First, by the Grace of God and the Will of the Nation, Emperor of the Germans, and King of Bavaria
(Seine Kaiserliche und Königliche Majestät, Maximilian I., von Gottes Gnaden und dem Willen der Nation, Kaiser der Deutschen und König von Bayern)
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1) Troops from Hesse-Darmstadt took command during the September Frankfurt Crisis; See
Chapter #16 for details.
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2) IOTL the motion just barely passed by four votes. The change reflects the stronger position of the liberal-radical alliance, and the weakened Prussian 'new conservatism' and the (general) lack of reactionary Austrian power.
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3) Last seen in
Chapter #12 arguing forcibly for the Poles to be offered the entire Duchy of Posen as opposed to the mere 'Duchy of Gnesen,' a mere third in size and only a quarter of the population.
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4) Who IOTL were all the German members of the committee that created the Swiss Federal Council. You see this reflected in the unique governmental structure of Germany ITTL.
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5) Though he had previously been appointed regent of the realm by then Hapsburg-emperor Ferdinand I; however John was a popular leader, who had earned the respect of his peers in the Frankfurt assembly and through the September Crisis and the Schleswig War.
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6) The entire OTL 1848-49 German Constitution can be found online
here, in German, which is largely followed ITTL except for the executive branch.
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7) A reference to the Holy Roman Empire (of the German Nation).
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8) IOTL Frederick William immediately dissolved both chambers.
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9) IOTL Frederick Augutus was assured of Prussian support, and after proroguing the parliament several thousand Prussian troops entered the country. ITTL that obviously won't happen, however Frederick Augustus was a staunch reactionary, so ITTL he still refuses even without outside aid.
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10) As happened IOTL. Wagner was heavily influenced and inspired by the 1848 Revolutions and the May Uprising in Dresden, and during this period he was highly involved in socialist activities throughout Saxony, and regularly received guests such as Bakunin and the radical Saxon editor August Röckel. Wagner was also an avid reader of the writers of the French socialist theorist Pierre-Joseph Proudhon. Indeed,
Der Ring des Nibelungen was heavily influenced by the events of Dresden; and thus will be different to a noticeable ITTL.
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11) A title lost only to Berlin after the 1848 period and the OTL formation of the Prussian-led empire.
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12) IOTL the revolution was crushed with Prussian aid, and Saxony in essence became a satellite of Prussia, a fact that was only confirmed in 1918 when King Frederick Augustus III followed Kaiser Wilhelm II into abdication and exile following WWI even though support for the November Revolution in Saxony was weak, at best.
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13) IOTL they barricaded themselves in. With Prussian power significantly weakened though, and the radical republican revolution already successful elsewhere, they instead expand ITTL.
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14)
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15) IOTL the Hanoverians settled down after Ernst Augustus' pronouncement, fearing that removing their King would invite the Prussians to invade. However ITTL the Prussians are in no position to invade anyone, and Ernst Augustus' demands are taken very differently.
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16) See
Chapter #5 for details.
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17) This point would be disputed by non-Germans ITTL.