German Rev Textbook
Chapter 3: Liberalism and Nationalism in Germany, 1815–71
3.1 Causes of the Revolutions in 1848–49
Germany in 1815 was not a unified country; it consisted of various states within the German Confederation.
The chapter explains the unification process of these states in the mid-19th century.
Impact of Metternich’s System
Before the Napoleonic Wars, the area known as Germany was part of the Holy Roman Empire, a collection of semi-independent states under the Austrian emperor.
The Holy Roman Empire collapsed in 1806 due to Napoleon's invasion.
Napoleon reorganized the west German states into the Confederation of the Rhine.
French armies introduced 18th-century Enlightenment ideas, emphasizing reason and aiming to dismantle outdated political and social structures.
They replaced diverse German laws with their legal system.
German thinkers began emphasizing the distinctiveness of their culture in reaction to the French.
Romantic writers valued emotion and imagination over French rationalism, promoting interest in German history.
J.G. Herder popularized Volksgeist (‘spirit of the people’), the idea that each nation has a unique identity based on shared heritage and language.
These were the first stirrings of a sense of German nationhood.
Germans started recognizing the importance of uniting against the French occupation.
Prussia reorganized its government and army to expel French forces after its defeat by Napoleon.
The Battle of Leipzig (1813), a major defeat for Napoleon, fostered national pride and was later commemorated with a monument.
German-speaking troops fought on both sides.
Post-War Settlement (Congress of Vienna, 1814)
European nations met in Vienna to address issues caused by the wars and establish new boundaries.
Key states present included Austria, Prussia, Britain, and Russia.
France attended but lacked decision-making powers.
The decisions made reshaped Europe.
European leaders were concerned about liberalism and nationalism from the French Revolution.
These leaders were conservatives who wanted to restore stability and the rule of old royal families.
Prince Klemens von Metternich, the Austrian foreign minister, was a significant figure.
The Austrian Empire had a population of 25 million and comprised present-day Austria, Hungary, and other territories.
It included diverse ethnic groups such as Austrians, Hungarians, Czechs, Slovaks, Croats, and Poles.
Most of the empire's subjects were Roman Catholics.
The ‘Metternich System’ aimed to maintain absolute monarchy in Austria and similar political systems in other European states.
Metternich was deeply against ‘liberty’ and ‘equality’, viewing them as misleading to the masses.
He recognized the fragility of the empire and the threat of nationalism to the Habsburgs' rule.
He feared that independence for Germans or other nationalities could lead to the empire's collapse.
Troops were not stationed in their home regions to prevent organized nationalist opposition.
The policy relied on repressive methods like press censorship.
A network of secret agents spied on political radicals and intercepted correspondence.
The Metternich System maintained peace in Europe but fueled resentment.
The German Confederation
The Metternich System reorganized Germany into a confederation (Bund) of 39 states under Austrian control.
These states varied in size, including kingdoms and self-governing city-states.
The intention was to avoid a united Germany.
The Confederation was based on the old Holy Roman Empire's boundaries.
It included non-Germans like Czechs and French speakers but excluded some German-speaking areas.
The Diet, a conference of ambassadors from member states, met in Frankfurt.
The Diet controlled foreign policies, but individual rulers managed internal affairs, and the Confederation lacked a strong identity.
It had no civil service or economic integration attempts.
An attempt to create a federal defense force failed in 1821 due to conflicts over command and funding.
The structure aimed to maintain Austria’s power over the German states.
The Austrian representative chaired the Diet and had veto power.
Austria had support from Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt due to their Catholic populations and cultural sympathy.
Southern states granted constitutions but retained real power.
Most German princes governed in an authoritarian manner, following Metternich’s lead.
Prussia, the largest German state, was mainly rural, with Berlin as its capital.
It was ruled by an authoritarian monarch, King Friedrich Wilhelm III, supported by the conservative landowning class, the Junkers.
The Junkers also formed the core of the Prussian army’s officer class.
Prussia gained territory in the 1815 peace settlement, including the industrialized Rhineland.
This doubled Prussia's population to over 10 million.
At this stage, Prussia did not challenge Austria’s dominance.
Both Prussia and Austria aimed to prevent political change in Germany.
Liberal Ideas and the Middle Class
Liberalism, suppressed by the Metternich System, was mainly an ideology of the educated middle class.
This class included business people and professionals (lawyers, officials, doctors, university teachers).
The growing business class was concentrated in the Rhineland cities and ports like Hamburg.
Most were merchants controlling small workshops or employing domestic workers.
In Prussia, the removal of traditional guild privileges allowed anyone to become an employer.
Successful merchants often had a civic responsibility and became community leaders.
Many middle-class men had a university education and entered the professions.
Germany’s university population doubled between 1817 and 1831.
The rise of the middle class spurred the growth of newspapers and cultural societies.
The middle classes felt excluded from the upper social order, dominated by the aristocracy.
In Prussia, the Junker class controlled high positions in the army and civil service.
Middle-class desire for public service careers made liberal ideas appealing.
Liberals sought some popular say in government but not full democracy.
They wanted representative assemblies elected by property-owning people, with constitutional monarchy as their preferred system.
This was a middle ground between authoritarian monarchy and democracy.
Memories of the violent French Revolution were still fresh.
Many political liberals believed in laissez-faire economics, opposing government interference in trade.
They wanted to remove tariffs to promote competition, reduce prices, and improve goods.
Underlying these ideas was optimism about human self-improvement.
Liberals thought freedom would drive people to improve their circumstances, benefiting society.
The extent of liberal ideas' influence among the wider population is difficult to gauge.
Intellectual activity was significant, but it likely reached only a limited circle of educated people.
Some liberals reached out to working-class areas, but workers often favored radical democratic republics.
Many expected popular uprisings, not rational debate, to achieve this.
Growth of Nationalist Ideas
In the early 19th century, liberalism was often associated with nationalism.
Nationalists believed people of shared race, language, culture, or history should unite in an independent nation.
They should govern themselves without external interference.
Support for German national unity was limited to literate, professional individuals and student associations (Burschenschaften).
Most people were peasants with little interest in abstract nationalism.
Ordinary Germans primarily felt loyalty to their region rather than a national identity.
Communications were poor, and most people lived and died in their birth region.
Each region had its own traditions and customs.
There was little desire for a strong central government that might impose taxes, interfere with civil liberties, or draft people into the armed forces.
Germany shared a language and culture but lacked religious unity.
Southern states were mainly Catholic, as were the Rhineland and Westphalia in the west, and West Prussia and Posen in the east.
Prussia and most of northern Germany were largely Protestant.
The industrialized Rhineland differed economically from the agricultural south and east.
Germans had high literacy rates, but newspapers focused on local issues.
German cultural nationalism emerged in reaction to French invasions in the late 18th and early 19th centuries.
Between 1815 and 1848, these ideas reached the educated middle classes. In cities, some workers were influenced by radical democratic ideas, but they remained a minority.
Conservative Reaction to Nationalism
Metternich contained liberal and nationalist movements after the Congress of Vienna.
After a liberal student murdered a conservative writer and Russian spy, August von Kotzebue, Metternich secured the Carlsbad Decrees in 1819.
Universities were supervised by ‘extraordinary commissioners’; liberal professors were removed, and unauthorized student organizations were dissolved.
The press was censored.
A central investigating commission was set up in Mainz to eliminate liberal and nationalist organizations.
Liberalism grew stronger, especially in the south, partly in response to the 1830 revolution in Paris.
Charles X of France was replaced by King Louis Philippe, who established a parliamentary monarchy.
In four small German states (Saxony, Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Brunswick), rulers granted constitutions.
Increased press freedom led to more criticism of governments.
In May 1832, the Hambach Festival in Bavaria openly discussed liberal and nationalist ideas.
Young Germany called for a united Germany based on liberal principles.
Metternich harshly reacted, imprisoning organizers of the Hambach Festival.
The Six Articles of June 1832 limited the rights of elected assemblies and declared federal law supreme.
The Ten Articles banned political meetings and festivals.
Wearing student association colors was made illegal.
There was no real threat of revolution in Germany.
Liberals and nationalists were few, and Austria controlled the Confederation with Prussia’s support.
In 1837, the new king of Hanover, Ernest Augustus, abolished the constitution.
Seven professors who objected, including the ‘Göttingen Seven’ (Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm), lost their posts.
Political change demands failed, and princes retained power.
They used means to limit elected assemblies, such as restricting the vote to wealthy property owners, using indirect voting or having different classes vote in separate estates.
In Prussia, King Friedrich Wilhelm IV succeeded to the throne in 1840.
He relaxed censorship and gave provincial assemblies greater powers, but he rejected a single parliament for all Prussian territories.
Impact of the Zollverein: German Economic Growth
German had a geographical advantage because it was located in the heart of Europe, which meant Germany could trade easily with both east and west.
Industrialization was limited; about 70% of the population worked in agriculture.
Manufacturing was mainly in the Rhineland and Saxony.
Growth areas were consumer goods like textiles.
Heavy manufacturing grew from the 1840s with railway development, especially in Prussia.
Railway building attracted capital and stimulated coal and iron industries.
This led to larger firms and new urban centers.
Customs barriers hindered economic growth after the Napoleonic Wars.
Taxes were imposed each time a product crossed a border.
Larger states had internal boundaries and tolls on goods.
This entailed paperwork delays and increased transport costs.
German industries faced competition from foreign products without duties at the Confederation's borders.
Prussia led change by abolishing its 67 internal customs barriers in 1818 to boost trade and encourage other German states to do the same.
It protected its industries with tariffs on imports.
Tariffs were initially low to discourage smuggling and retaliation.
Prussia worked to remove trade barriers within the Confederation to create a larger market and reduce prices.
New roads, railways, and steamboat services on the Rhine and Elbe rivers aided the Prussian economy.
The Zollverein and the Rise of Prussia
By 1834, Prussia formed the Zollverein, a customs union of 18 German states.
This became the largest free-trade area in Europe, with 25 states and 26 million people.
Income from tariffs was divided among member states based on population size.
The members were soon linked by a rail network centered on Berlin and adopted a common currency and system of weights and measures.
The Zollverein promoted economic expansion for all its members.
Austria did not join, preferring to protect its domestic producers and maintain high import duties within its empire.
In the long run, this contributed to Austria losing control of Germany to Prussia.
Prussia prevented Austria from joining the Zollverein to maintain its advantageous position.
German economic growth was centered on North Sea ports instead of the Danube valley.
The Zollverein helped Prussia gain economic prominence but did not guarantee political leadership.
Member states insisted on unanimous decisions in the Zollverein Congress to retain their independence.
Nationalists hoping for political union were disappointed.
Nationalists could not agree on German state borders.
Some favored a ‘large Germany’ (Grossdeutschland) with German-speaking regions of Austria, dominated by Austria.
Others preferred a ‘small Germany’ (Kleindeutschland) without those regions, dominated by Prussia.
These preferences reflected cultural differences between Protestant northern Germany and the Catholic southern states.
The industrialized Rhineland was more economically developed than the agricultural east.
Social and Economic Problems in the 1840s
The year 1848 is known as the ‘year of revolutions’, when a number of European countries were affected by popular uprisings.
The disturbances began in February with the toppling of the monarchy of King Louis Philippe in France.
In March, Metternich was forced into exile by disturbances in Vienna.
It seemed that the power of the Austrian Empire, and of traditional authorities throughout Europe, was crumbling.
Revolutionary hopes proved short-lived, however, and authoritarian regimes soon re-established control.
The revolutions were not just caused by liberalism and nationalism. The events of 1848–49 had a variety of causes – economic, social and political.
Social and Economic Causes of Revolution
Poor living standards for rural peasants worsened due to high rents and bad harvests in 1846 and 1847.
Increasing population size exacerbated the situation.
Population growth (in millions) in Prussia and Germany:
Prussia:
1820:
1840:
1870:
Germany:
1820:
1840:
1870:
Rising food prices worsened the position of urban workers, especially during a textile industry recession in 1847.
The economic downturn led employers to cut wages.
This occurred against a background of poor working conditions in factories, typified by long hours in an unhealthy environment.
The poorest workers’ protests in early 1848 were mainly about their daily lives and were not explicitly political in character.
Skilled workers went beyond these basic demands to call for trade union rights and free education.
Outbreak of Revolution in Germany
Educated middle-class people wanted to improve their own position and were influenced by ideas of liberalism and nationalism.
They resented the power of the privileged nobility, who dominated the army and civil service, regardless of their qualifications.
Middle-class liberals did not want to overthrow monarchical regimes but sought political reforms.
They first expressed themselves in Baden, where Grand Duke Leopold granted a free press, trial by jury, and other reforms.
In October 1847, liberal politicians demanded further political changes, including summoning a German national parliament to replace the German Confederation with a united Germany.
News of the revolution in France further stimulated liberal demands for change.
The uprisings in the German states were uncoordinated but shared characteristics.
In Württemberg, the ruler, Wilhelm I, appointed liberal ministers and granted a new constitution.
King Friedrich Augustus II of Saxony agreed to similar demands.
Demands for a bill of rights were accepted by the princes of Hesse-Darmstadt, Nassau, and other states.
Ludwig I of Bavaria was the only German ruler who gave up his throne. Here, disturbances were caused by conservative opposition to the king’s mistress, Lola Montez.
Liberal students demanded constitutional reforms.
Ludwig made some concessions but eventually abdicated in March 1848 in favor of his son, Maximilian.
A meeting at Heidelberg in March 1848, attended by representatives from six states (Prussia, Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Nassau, Frankfurt), led to the summoning of a Vorparlament or ‘pre-parliament’ in Frankfurt.
It resolved to create a national constituent assembly or parliament to draw up a constitution for a united Germany.
Each state in the German Confederation would be asked to hold elections to this parliament, using its own voting system.
Revolution in Prussia
Economic distress and desire for political change were evident in Prussia.
The Prussian government planned to build a railway linking eastern agricultural lands to farther markets but needed funding.
The people who stood to gain most from this were the Junkers.
King Friedrich Wilhelm IV called the United Diet in April 1847 to win support for the project.
The Diet assembled against a background of crop failure and rising food prices.
There was unrest among skilled workers, who faced competition from factory production.
When the Diet met, its members demanded a constitution before supporting the railway funding.
Friedrich Wilhelm refused, claiming he would never allow ‘that a written paper should intrude … between our Lord God in Heaven and this country, to govern us through its paragraphs’ and dissolved the Diet.
This failed to quieten demands for political change.
Disturbances broke out in Berlin in March 1848, encouraged by news of Metternich's fall in Vienna.
Craftsmen and workers protested about their pay and conditions, followed by middle-class demands for the protection of their rights.
After street fighting, the army lost control, and the king attempted to calm the demonstrators.
This marked the start of the revolution in Prussia.
Most German revolutions were not violent, and the fighting in Prussia was not typical.
These events culminated a decade of popular discontent, known as ‘the hungry forties’.
Economic depression and food shortages affected working-class people across northern Europe.
In the months after March 1848, liberals’ political demands came to the fore.
The lack of common ground between working-class and middle-class revolutionaries was a fundamental weakness of the movement.
The rulers later exploited differences as they sought to recover their power.
The period 1815–48 also saw the emergence of Prussia as a major state within the German Confederation.
Its role in the Zollverein was a source of future development and might enable it to compete with its rival, Austria.
It was not clear in 1848, however, that a united Germany would definitely come about.
Prussia’s king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, was ambivalent about the new forces of liberalism and nationalism.
Austria still remained the senior partner within the Confederation in terms of its political and diplomatic standing.
3.2 Consequences of the 1848–49 Revolutions
Initial Responses of the German States
Princely rulers, alarmed by popular feeling in spring 1848, made short-term concessions.
They feared being swept away if they opposed the revolutionary mood, so most granted constitutions.
They carefully retained control of their armed forces and waited for the right moment to reassert their authority.
Baden was briefly controlled by revolutionaries and mutinous troops but, in June 1849, the Grand Duke asked Prussia to restore order.
Prussia offered military assistance to end revolts in other states, including Saxony and Württemberg.
Weaknesses of the Revolutions
Royal power was restored due to divisions within revolutionary movements.
Liberals wanted moderate constitutional reform, differing from radicals who sought more far-reaching changes.
Working-class revolutionaries wanted improved living and working conditions and had little in common with middle-class liberals.
In the Rhineland, better-off activists abandoned the movement when armed working-class crowds took to the streets, fearing threats to their property rights.
Liberals were unwilling to support protests that might develop into a radical social revolution.
Another important reason for the ultimate failure of the revolutions was the recovery of the Austrian monarchy.
Although initially caught off guard in March 1848, it soon recovered and, with the support of Prussia, set about restoring monarchical power in the German lands.
Friedrich Wilhelm IV and Prussia
Friedrich Wilhelm behaved inconsistently during the revolutionary year.
After the rioting in Berlin in March 1848, he appeared in public covered in the German colours adopted by the nationalist movement, and declared that ‘henceforward Prussia will be merged in Germany’.
There has been debate about his motives for this gesture. It is possible that he was carried away by the emotion of the moment and genuinely, if briefly, imagined himself at the head of a popular movement.
Alternatively, he might have been trying to save his own position by taking charge of the revolution rather than submitting to it.
In the aftermath, Friedrich Wilhelm allowed the election of an assembly to draw up a constitution for Prussia but later dissolved the assembly.
In December 1848, he announced his own restrictive political settlement.
The new constitution, effective in February 1850, established a two-chamber parliament while retaining the king's essential powers.
In an emergency, he could collect taxes without parliamentary approval which meant ministers would be responsible to him, not to parliament, and he reserved the right to change the constitution.
The voting system for the Prussian lower house of parliament, the Landtag, favored conservative interests.
Elections used a complex ‘three-tier suffrage’ based on taxes paid by different classes.
The wealthy had an advantage with roughly one third of the voters choosing 85% of the members of the Landtag.
The upper house, Herrenhaus, was appointed by the king, guaranteeing continued political dominance of the Junkers.
The Frankfurt Parliament
The most dramatic consequence of the revolutions was the election of a national parliament, which met in Frankfurt from May 1848 to June 1849.
Each state chose its own voting system to select representatives.
The exclusion of the poor meant the parliament was not truly representative, though similar to other European national assemblies.
It was all-male and mostly consisted of well-off professionals. It was often mockingly described as ‘the professors’ parliament’.
Jacob Grimm and three others of the ‘Göttingen Seven’ were among those elected.
Occupations of members of the Frankfurt Parliament:
Lawyers: 200
Nobles: 90
University professors: 49
Principals and teachers: 40
Writers and journalists: 35
Merchants and industrialists: 30
Clergy: 26
Doctors: 12
Handicraft workers: 4
Peasants: 1
Most members were liberal, although there were also some radicals who wanted a republic.
The parliament wanted a strong central government with more authority over the German states than the Diet of the old Confederation.
In June 1848, the parliament set up a ‘Provisional Central Power’ under a liberal Austrian prince, the Archduke Johann, which was to govern until a permanent constitution had been agreed.
In December, the parliament approved 50 fundamental citizens’ rights, including equality before the law, freedom of the press and freedom from arrest without a warrant.
It had still not agreed on a constitution to replace the interim government headed by the archduke.
Collapse of the Frankfurt Parliament
The Frankfurt Parliament had several key weaknesses.
Its members could not agree on the territorial extent of a new Germany.
The old German Confederation included some non-Germans and excluded some German-speaking areas, including parts of Prussia and Austria.
There was debate about conflicting proposals for a Kleindeutschland, dominated by Prussia, and a Grossdeutschland, which would mean Austria would have continued leadership.
The parliament agreed on a German constitution in March 1849, with an emperor governing with the support of two houses of parliament, one elected and the other consisting of the princes of the Confederation.
The crown was offered to Friedrich Wilhelm IV, who was believed to be prepared to lead a German national revolution.
Prussia was also the only state with the military strength to resist Austria, if it opposed their plans.
But Friedrich Wilhelm would not accept a gift from the Frankfurt Parliament, whose legal authority he refused to recognize.
He rejected the offer in April, declining to ‘pick up a crown of mud and wood from the gutter’ and would only accept an imperial throne offered by his fellow princes.
Reasons for the Frankfurt Parliament's Failure
The parliament's members lacked political experience.
They struggled to resolve differences between moderate liberals, radicals, and conservatives.
The parliament lacked the means of enforcing any decisions it made, including its own army.
A Prussian general, Eduard von Peucker, acted as war minister, but the Prussian army remained under the authority of the king.
The weakness of the army was illustrated by a crisis over Schleswig-Holstein.
In March 1848, the German-speaking population rebelled against an attempt to integrate them fully into Denmark, demanding admission to the German Confederation as a single state.
The Frankfurt Parliament authorized the Prussian army to fight Denmark over the issue.
The Prussian army advanced, but soon halted and signed a truce at Malmo in August 1848, in response to international pressure.
Prussia had withdrawn its forces without consulting parliament.
This demonstrated the dependence of the parliament on the cooperation of the traditional rulers.
It possessed moral authority but no independent power to impose its will.
The German princes did not initially oppose the parliament because their own authority had been weakened by the revolutionary events of spring 1848.
By the autumn, however, they were recovering their confidence.
The delay in working out a constitution was fatal to the parliament’s chances of success.
By the time it was ready to present its proposals, its opponents had regained their strength.
The princes mostly withdrew their constitutions after Friedrich Wilhelm’s refusal of the crown.
Most of the members of the parliament went home.
Those who remained moved to Stuttgart, capital of Württemberg, only to be dispersed by troops in June 1849.
This marked the failure of middle-class liberalism to establish a united Germany.
Reassertion of Austrian Power
The Prussian monarchy survived the crisis of 1848–49 intact.
Friedrich Wilhelm IV had briefly appeared as a potential leader of liberal nationalism but this had proved a short-lived phase.
Friedrich Wilhelm might have rejected the Frankfurt Parliament’s offer of a German crown, but he was interested in promoting unity in northern and central Germany under Prussian control.
In 1849–50, he put forward a plan for a union of German states based on a strong central government, an assembly elected on a limited franchise, and Prussian control of the army.
Austria was to be excluded but would be in a special relationship with this new Reich.
Saxony and Hanover agreed to support the plan, concluding the Three Kings’ Alliance with Prussia.
Some smaller states agreed to join when the scheme was launched at Erfurt in Saxony in March 1850.
Most of the German princes, however, suspected that this ‘Erfurt Union’ was a vehicle for Prussian domination.
Now that Austria was once again able to assert itself, they also feared the consequences of its disapproval.
The Revolution of 1848–49 had been only a temporary interruption to Austria’s status at the head of the Confederation.
Collapse of the Erfurt Union
As Austria recovered from the revolution in Vienna, it reacted to the Prussian-led Erfurt Union project by reviving the Diet of the Confederation.
By now, Austria had a new and able chief minister, Prince Felix Schwarzenberg, who was determined to uphold the authority of the Habsburg monarchy.
He put forward a rival scheme to the Erfurt Union, a Grossdeutschland solution in which Austria, Prussia and the larger states would govern together.
In response to this proposal, Hanover, Baden and Saxony abandoned the Erfurt Union, leaving Prussia isolated.
The conflict came to a head when Elector Friedrich of Hesse-Cassel asked for help in a dispute with his parliament.
The Elector appealed to Austria and his parliament asked for Prussian support.
Schwarzenberg insisted that only the Confederation could respond to this appeal.
Prussia was simply not strong enough to resist when Austrian troops entered Hesse to restore the ruler’s authority. Its army was still weak.
In addition, Austria acted with the support of Europe’s other leading conservative power, Russia.
It was not in Friedrich Wilhelm’s nature to try to lead a nationalist movement of German states against Austria.
In the so-called ‘humiliation of Olmütz’ in November 1850, Prussia agreed to abandon the Erfurt Union.
At this meeting, held in present-day Czech Republic, it effectively gave up its claim to the leadership of the German states.
It seemed that Austria had triumphed and that the old, unequal partnership with a ‘humiliated’ Prussia had been restored.
On the other hand, the smaller states rejected the Schwarzenberg plan, as it favored their larger neighbors.
The result, in May 1851, was an agreement to return to the old framework of the German Confederation.
Overall, the experience of 1848–49 had demonstrated the weakness of liberal nationalism.
The reassertion of princely power showed the resilience of long-established institutions, which had been caught off guard initially, but had proved determined in recovering their status.
The revolutions had been unplanned and their leaders lacked the necessary organisation and resources to achieve their goals.
Moreover, the division over aims and methods between liberals and radicals was fatal to their chances of success.
The working classes, by and large, were not enthused by the political visions of the middle-class revolutionaries.
Those who had such high hopes in the spring of 1848 were left overwhelmingly disappointed.
Prussia’s Prospects
Although Austria formally appeared the victor in the dispute over the Erfurt Union, it had some important disadvantages.
Prussia’s position in north-central Germany gave it an opportunity to dominate its neighbors, whereas Austria, despite its status as a great power, had a sprawling southern European empire to govern.
Much of its army was tied down by the need to control nationalist movements in Hungary and northern Italy.
Events in Germany were indirectly affected by the outbreak of the Crimean War of 1854–56.
Britain and France went to war with Russia, fearing that it was planning to extend its influence in south-east Europe at the expense of the Ottoman (Turkish) Empire.
The main area of fighting was on the Crimean peninsula bordering the Black Sea, to which Britain and France sent troops.
Austria made a major diplomatic mistake by not backing Russia, the other leading power with an interest in maintaining the 1815 European settlement.
Russia had supported Austria over the Erfurt Union and was angered by its apparent ingratitude.
This had the effect of weakening the alliance between Europe’s two most conservative states.
If further change occurred in Germany, it was now much less likely that Russia would intervene on Austria’s side.
On the other hand, the war had no real effect on Prussia, whose interests were not directly involved.
It was wise not to play any part in the conflict, managing instead to remain on good terms with both sides.
Economic Developments after 1849
Prussia was the most economically advanced of the German states, with its growth outpacing that of its rival, Austria.
Between 1850 and 1860, Prussia’s rail network increased by 46%.
This stimulated other sectors of the economy, such as iron and steel.
The output of coal, a vital resource in the age of steam power, grew from 1 961 000 tonnes in 1850 to 8 526 000 tonnes by 1865.
Railway expansion was achieved through a partnership between the state and the private sector.
In return for supplying some of the funding for railway building, the government was able to collect interest payments.
Combined with import and export dues from the Zollverein, the sale of timber from the Crown lands and royalties from mining rights, this boosted the government’s income and made it less necessary to raise taxes.
Prussia was in a strong position to lead German unification by the end of the 1850s.
The rapid growth of its population, coupled with its successful banking system and coinage, meant that it was well placed economically to dominate its neighbors.
Its iron and steel industries provided the materials for its weapons and its expanding rail network could be used to mobilize its troops.
In 1862, a Franco-Prussian trade treaty helped Prussia’s development by further integrating it into the economy of Western Europe.
Economic growth boosted the material prosperity and self-confidence of the middle classes.
Growing numbers of them began to look to the Prussian state to guarantee continued future growth and as a possible agent of unification.
They had learned an important lesson from the experience of 1848–49: that idealism without the backing of a powerful state structure was doomed to failure.
In 1859, many business and professional people came together to found the National Society, or Nationalverein, an organisation which placed its hopes in Prussia.
The society’s founding document called for nationwide elections and the creation of a strong national authority, replacing the Confederation.
It was prepared to support the transfer of the Confederation’s powers to the Prussian government.
However, the society was never likely to become the center of a mass movement. It had only 25 000 members, mostly from the middle classes, so its actual influence was relatively limited.
Prussia’s economic lead over Austria made it a plausible focus for such aspirations.
Austria was hit hard by the onset of an economic downturn in the late 1850s, and the costs of maintaining military garrisons throughout its empire added to its problems.
It lacked direct access to the most rapidly growing trade routes in Germany, the ones that led northwards to the Baltic and the North Sea.
Austria relied for its domination of Germany on its prestige and its ability to use diplomatic means to control the other states.
Increasingly, it lacked the economic and military might to compel other states to