The Prussian Revolution
1849
March
On waking to an oddly sunny city of Berlin, many could have assumed the day would bring its fair share of oddities. This mindset would have been further justified by the string of revolutions that have shaken the Old World and its ancient feudal structures down to their very core, along with the voices of many calling out for similar change within the city itself. It almost seemed like odd thought to some that these ideas could amount to anything originally. These fears were nearly instantly displaced within the minds of many after the liberalization of the ministers in Austria and the voting system instituted in Baden last year. It seemed as if the world itself was screaming out for the people of Prussia to be the next ones to take a step forward and attempt to change the realm they lived inside. This would be the next step to a united German state to many. This hope was one of the few that were displaced.
The protests and chants moved down the streets of Berlin like a tidal wave. The booming sound of their collective voices was one that could topple Yggdrasil itself. The initial response of Frederick William IV of Prussia was one of utter confusion. The people were asking for a liberal government, a written constitution, and a move to Pan-Germanism. These were all things that were nearly universal throughout the German speaking world at this point and thus the people of Prussia felt as if they were entitled to the rights of their fellow Germans and vice versa.
Surely the people expected the king to give into the demands they had made. They hoped he would crumple down from the most basic instinct known to man. This was not the case. The crowd stood there as William promised that he would do all in his absolute power to move to a more democratic government. He promised that he would commit utterly to the cause of the people. He stood there and lied to his subjects.
This Romantic king had his own views of how to unify the German nation and the views of the people directly conflicted with each and every one of his hopes. A democratic and liberal government is simply not compatible with his dream of a resurrected, feudal, Roman claimant of an empire. He thought that the Frenchman Napoleon had demolished what had made Germany grand with the dissolution of The Holy Roman Empire of The German Nation. He saw no other way that the Germanic peoples could be unified besides under the banner of the old Hapsburg dominated feudal federation. This was a far cry indeed from what the people of Germany wished. Having such a traditionalist leader in charge of the most powerful, or arguably most powerful, state inside of the German Confederation became a flashpoint for the entire Prussian Revolution. It is argued by many scholars today that William was the sole cause of the uprising, and should he have arranged his policies and reactions in a different manner none of these events would have transpired.
One of the first issues with how Wiliam handled the revolution came with his control of his military. A prime example of this is the Tiergarten Incident. This was a minor conflict between a group of democratic protesters and the Prussian military. The protesters had just arrived from a meeting at the Tiergarten. The meeting was mainly filled with discussion of the eventual reforms of the kingdom and what each of them hope for it, William dispatched a group of soldiers to keep these men in line. As he believed that they would go on a spree of looting and rioting after becoming enlivened with the liberal rhetoric he felt the meeting was utterly filled with. This proved to be a disproportionate reaction as the sight of the soldiers on the scene was the only element that pushed these democratic supporters to any form of violence or unethical behavior. The dissenters began to taunt the men of the Prussian military and some were even rumored to have begun to throw rocks, gathered from the road, at the soldiers. The taunting reached a point the soldiers could no longer bear before they charged the demonstrators and caused a skirmish that left six people dead and many more injured.
Conflicts such as this began to seem commonplace across the entirety of Prussia. One of the largest and most mentionable demonstrations such as this occurred on the eleventh of the month. Massive swaths of protesters gathered and began to erect barricades and arm themselves with whatever they could find. The revolutionary tricolor of black-red-gold was seen alongside the Prussian civil flag during this protest against the supposed unwillingness of the king to attempt any type of reform. The people of Prussia were growing tired of waiting for a response from their lord as they sat by and watched the other Germanic states waller about in a state of ecstasy due to their newly found freedoms.
It is hard to say what drove the king to send out nearly twenty thousand men to the site of the protest in response. Many simply claim that the king was in ignorant bliss and saw little to no issue with sending out armed men to deal with these demonstrators. However, many agree that he did not intend for this to turn into all-out bloodshed in response. The first shot is rumored to have come from a civilians rifle but it is nearly impossible to find a non-biased source on this claim. No matter where the round came from, it was the true start to the revolution. The two sides began to exchange shots, bayonets clashed, and the makeshift barricades were torn into by bullet after bullet. It seemed as if neither the revolutionaries nor the military had expected the fight to drag out for as long as it did. For nearly fifteen hours, bullets flew back and forth between both sides. When a man inside of the revolutionary defense would run out of ammo they would use whatever they could as a tool of war. This could range from using their rifles as clubs, throwing rocks into the enemy lines, or scampering about the floor to recollect the firearms of comrades that fell too soon, the weapon itself still loaded.
The force that was sent to deal with this protest had little to no goal besides to quell the issue. This was due to the fact that the resolve of the men they were fighting seemed to only grow stronger and stronger with every soul that they lost. No matter how many rounds the military forces fired they were always repaid. The soldiers’ morale began to falter near into the fourteenth hour as a very familiar cry began to come from the revolutionaries. Gott mit uns! Gott mit uns! Gott mit uns! Over and over this bassal call echoed out to the Prussian army. It shook them to their core as many of them began to question if this was the morally correct thing to do. This was shown in the journal of one Linus Lux:
“We fired into them without end. They simply seemed not to care. They were only set on the protest and the message it intended to send to all of Germany. I fear should my superiors ever hear of this, but I was unable to keep firing when the chant began. I couldn’t pull the trigger. Not with that damned phrase ringing in my ears. Forgive me.”
The revolutionary forces that survived this encounter, out of the thousand and twenty three who lost their lives, went on to form the “Prussian Democracy Alliance”. This quasi-party intended to be a large catch all group for any of the elements within the nation that disagreed with the king’s rulings. They gathered monthly, or sometimes several times in a single month, in one of three hidden locations to discuss future movements and exactly what direction they wished to take the movement to. Many of them still refused to call this an open revolution and only thought of it as a bump in the king’s eventual plan. Though the anti-monarchist sentiment that we associate with the revolution had yet to come into play, a key figure in establishing that belief rose to prominence in these meetings. Alfred Tausch became known for his fiery speeches against the king and the monarchical structure in general. He would take up long periods of the meetings with just that. Raving rants against the king and the monarchy. To some he sounded like a traitorous heathen, but to others he was more akin to the liberal political thinker they had been waiting for. He even ran his own column in the newspaper that was distributed by the PDA, or the Prussian Democracy Alliance. In this he called out for an end to the rule of kings and lords over Germans. His word was spread, albeit slowly for a time. Though with each of the moves by William people began to see Tausch’s speeches and rhetoric as a more realistic outlook of the situation.
Meanwhile in the Rhineland, the Prussian government was looking for a loyal section of the nation to withdraw civilians from. Prussia mistook the Rhineland for one of these sections. Despite the relative quiet of the Rhine compared to other regions of the nations, there was a deep sense of hate growing within the region. This grew with every bit of news that reached the Rhine and seemed to only push them further and further from the grasp and control of the Prussian government. March twenty-sixth and March twenty-seventh both proved to be days that strained the relationship even further. A draft was issued to all males in the reserve under the age of forty five and the dear Second Chamber of the United Diet was dissolved. This was the final push for this region to finally break into the same revolutionary zeal that the rest of the nation was seemingly engulfed in.
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