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German National Assembly, Germany, german revolution 1848
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Early in 1848 several outbreaks of revolution had caused the French King Louis Phillippe
to abdicate (24th February) and Metternich, the chief minister of the Habsburg Monarchy
and architect of a system of restored monarchical government in Europe since before the fall of
Napoleon (1815), lost the confidence of the Habsburg ruling family and was driven into exile. In these times in the diverse states of Germany several rulers were faced with respectful, yet determined, demands for change and, starting with Baden in early March, moved to award Constitutions or to allow liberalisation of existing Constitutions. The powerful north german Kingdom of Prussia was then ruled by King Frederick William IV who was determindly anti-liberal in outlook. During the inaugurating ceremonies to an 'United Diet' of his territories that had been called in the spring of 1847 in order to gain formal consent for the raising of new taxes and the raising of a state loan in relation to unprecedented spending on railway construction, (and was the first such assembly of representatives from all the provinces of Prussia that any Prussian monarch had been prepared to recognise), King Frederick William IV had said that:- "There is no power on earth that can succeed in making me transform the natural relationship between prince and people ... into a constitutional relationship, and I never will permit a written sheet of paper to come between our God in heaven and this land ... to rule us with its paragraphs and supplant the old, sacred loyalty." In the closing sections of this inaugural address Frederick William that the United Diet would only be reconvened if it showed itself to be "good and useful, and if this Diet offers me proof that I can do so without injuring the rights of the crown." The turbulences of 1848, however, spread to Berlin and after an incident precipitated street fighting the King withdrew his soldiers rather than see even more fatalities amongst his "beloved Berliners" and was subsequently called upon by the populace on the 19th to stand bareheaded whilst the earthly remains of those Berliners killed in the street fighting were paraded with their wounds exposed. The King formalised a change in political direction through the appointment of a new ministry and proclamation issued on the morning of the 21st offered official recognition to the emergence of a single German nation. announced that the King had placed himself at the head of the movement for the redemption of Germany and would appear on horseback that day in his capital wearing the "venerable colours of the German Nation". These black, red, and gold, colours were at one and the same time "revolutionary" in being associated with contemporary German Liberalism and Nationalism having been adopted by "patriotic" students in 1817 who were opposed to the official German Confederal repression of liberalism and "German-patriotism" in these early years following the overthrow of Napoleon but were also thought of as being associated with the earlier "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation," (which had been discontinued as a result of a dramatic reorganisation of the Germanies that had been sponsored by Napoleon at thre height of his power). The students of 1817 may themselves have been influenced in their choice of emblem by the example of the Lützow Freikorps - a semi regular force that featured many students and intellectuals in its ranks - that had played a celebrated role in the then recent "Wars of Liberation" against Napoleon. During his progess through the streets of Berlin the King was occasionally hailed as Emperor but he felt moved to assert that he intended to rob no German prince of his sovereignty. A Declaration entitled "To My People and to the German Nation" was issued towards evening which sought to sum up up the position being adopted:- "Germany is in ferment within, and exposed from without to danger from more than one side. Deliverance from this danger can come only from the most intimate union of the German princes and people under a single leadership... I have taken this leadership upon me for the hour of peril... I have today assumed the old German colours, and placed myself under the venerable banner of the German Empire. Prussia henceforth is merged in Germany." The Federal Diet of the German Confederation declared on 8 March that a revision of the Constitution of the German Confederation was necessary. It adopted, and unfurled over its palace in the longstanding confederal capital, Frankfurt, a black-red-gold standard and invited German States to send delegates to discuss Constitutional reform. In the unsettled and challenging times invitations had already been sent out several days earlier by a self-appointed group of liberals based in Heidelberg that led to the convening, in Frankfurt on the 31st March, of a preparatory parliament ( Vorparlament ). At the close of five days in session, the Vorparlament recognised a fifty member committee as being responsible for the organisation of processes of election to a German National Assembly which was projected to convene in Frankfurt in May. It had also pronounced on Polish affairs thus :- "The German Union proclaims the partition of Poland to be a shameful injustice, and considers it the sacred duty of the German peoples to do their utmost to achieve her reconstitution". At the time of this meeting of the Vorparlement, although aspirations for various forms of political change were being widely voiced, all the traditional states of the German Confederation were still actually in being!!! During these times the Federal Diet of the German Confederation was debating processes of election towards reaching decisions about the future of the Germanies but, in the event, it decided that it was not to be the authority behind such decisions and actually endorsed the elective programme of the Vorparlament thus consigning itself to a position of relative political obscurity. It was agreed by the German governments that extensive diplomatic, military and commercial powers were to be entrusted to an Executive Body that was to concern itself with the welfare of the Confederation without direct involvement in the framing of the Constitution. This Executive Body of responsible ministers was to be headed up by a titular Regent of the Empire. This title was awarded to Archduke John of Austria - a proposal that it should go to the King of Prussia having failed to find support. The Confederal Diet did however insist that it should continue to quietly exist pending the establishment of a new Constitution for Germany. In the meanwhile its functions were to be vested in the Regent of the Empire. The Vorparlament presumed that representatives should be sought from across the Germanic Confederation and also from non-Confederal territories dear to German sentiment such as East and West Prussia, Bohemia, and Schleiswig. Whilst some presumptions relating to territorial representation were inevitable they could not but involve complications - the Austrian Empire was the most powerful of the states historically involved in the Germanic Confederation but also exercised sovereignty over immense territories that were outside the Confederation - the Danish king was the sovereign duke of Schleiswig and of Holstein. Ancient treaties deemed Holstein ( a confederal territory ) to be inseperable from Schleiswig. The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg was a longstanding member of the Confederation - it was also non-German speaking and its Grand Duke was simultaneously King of the Netherlands. The Czechs preferred that their homelands of Bohemia and Moravia should continue as provinces within the Austrian Empire rather than be brought in a close association with a German state. In a letter of 11th April in response to an invitation by the Vorparlament to involve himself in proceedings as the representative for Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, the eminent historian Palacký, now showed himself to be something of a nationalistic Czech, declaring - " The letter of 6th April in which you, greatly esteemed gentlemen, did me the honour of inviting me to Frankfurt in order to take part in the business concerned 'mainly with the speediest summoning of a German Parliament' has just been duly delivered to me by the post. With joyful surprise I read in it the most valued testimony of the confidence which Germany's most distinguished men have not ceased to place in my views: for by summoning me to the assembly of 'friends of the German Fatherland', you yourselves acquit me of the charge which is as unjust as it has often been repeated, of ever having shown hostility towards the German people. With true gratitude I recognise in this the high humanity and love of justice of this excellent assembly, and I thus find myself all the more obliged to reply to it with open confidence, freely and without reservation. Gentlemen, I cannot accede to your call, either myself or by despatching another 'reliable patriot'. Allow me to expound the reasons for this to you as briefly as possible. The explicit purpose of your assembly is to put a German people's association [Volksbund] in the place of the existing federation of princes, to bring the German nation to real unity, to strengthen German national feeling, and thus to raise Germany's power both internal and external. However much I respect this endeavour and the feeling on which it is based, and particularly because I respect it, I cannot participate in it. I am not a German – at any rate I do not consider myself as such – and surely you have not wished to invite me as a mere yes-man without opinion or will...."
Palacky's letter was written against a social background where persons who could think of themselves as being Czech were encouraged by their peers to take an interest in, and to feel pride about, Czech history and literature. Such romanticisation of the Czech heritage was often expressed through German as Czech had yet to be firmly established as a literary language whilst most educated "Czechs" knew German. This revival had, in fact, been encouraged by Habsburg imperial administrators who hoped that such cultural enthusiams, as sponsored by the Habsburg system, would be potentially likely to win adherence to that system and also help to divert energies away from 'unsettling' political activities. Arrangements were made for the convening in Prague in June of a Congress of the Slavs living within the lands of the Habsburgs. Palacky emerged as a leading influence in this Slavic Congress and effectively championed an Austroslavism where the preservation of the Austrian Empire as a buffer against both German and Russian expansionism was seen as being essential to the best interests of the Slavs. Slavic national development within a federalized, and protective, Austrian empire being hoped for. In the event whilst elections to the Frankfurt Assembly went ahead in those parts of Bohemia mainly peopled by Germans participation was not forthcoming in predominantly Czech areas. The German National Assembly was attended by some six hundred delegates and held its first meetings in the Paulskirche (St. Paul's Church) in Frankfurt-am-Main on May 18th. These social backgrounds of these delegates was overwhelmingly that of middle or upper class university educated professors, teachers, magistrates, lawyers, mayors, civil servants or businessmen, writers and noblemen. There was only one delegate, a pole, of peasant origin and only fifteen could be regarded as lower middle-class (e.g. postmasters or customs officers). For this occasion the elegant elliptical interior of the Paulskirche was draped in German-national colours with an imposing large-scale painting representing "Germania" being prominently displayed. 
This work, by
the artist Paul Veit, depicted Germania as a female figure standing against a background where beams of sunlight
shone through the tricolour fabric of the national flag. Germania was wearing a crown of oak leaves and had a pair
of shackles lying close to her feet that had evidently been recently discarded.In this political and cultural atmosphere Heinrich von Gagern was elected as President, (or Speaker), of the National Assembly and in his opening speech suggested that :- "We wish to create a constitution for Germany, for the whole empire. The call and the authority for this creation lie in the sovereignty of the nation...Germany will be one...Unity she wishes, unity she will have."
The thirty-nine traditional states of the German Confederation continued to exist - with their own local forms of princely or ecclesiatical state government as perhaps recently modified by the recent upsurge in political and constitutional aspiration. At the end of May the Frankfurt Parliament declared that the Constitution it was in the process of framing would be sovereign over all the governments of the former German Confederation. The Frankfurt Parliament further maintained that any legislation passed by princely or ecclesiatical state governments would only be valid if consistent with the new constitution which would be based 'on the will and election of the German people, to found the unity and political liberty of Germany'. Like the French in 1789, and indeed the Americans and British in earlier times of crisis and change, the Frankfurt Parliament now also gave a very great deal of its attention to questions of basic constitutional law in relation to citizenship endeavouring to frame a Grundrecht or "Declaration of the Fundamental Rights of the German People." As the would-be German Authority the German National Assembly inherited a longstanding dispute with the Danish crown concerning sovereignty over the Duchies of Schleiswig and Holstein. Kings of Denmark had for some time been simultaneously sovereign Dukes of Schleiswig and of Holstein alongside their Danish sovereignty. Holstein was traditionally a member of the German Confederation, ancient treaties held Holstein to be inseparable from Schleswig in controlling sovereignty. Holstein was peopled mainly by ethnic Germans, as was southern Schleiswig. These ethnic Germans were excited by and attracted to the developments in Frankfurt. The Danish authorities meanwhile wished to incorporate the Duchies, and Schleswig in particular, under a common constitution with Denmark. Ethnic Germans in Holstein and Schleswig set up a provisional government in open defiance of the Danish authorities and in favour of adherence to the emergent German state. Prussian German forces intervened in what was now an active dispute. Prussian forces entered Holstein and Schleswig and many casualties ensued. Prussian armies continued their advance into the Danish province of Jutland. Many patriotic Germans volunteered for service against the Danish interest. The German National Assembly voted for the availability of substantial naval funding. Liberals in Western Europe had long deplored the condition of Poland being maintained principally under the repressive sovereignty of the Tsar but also, in the case of the Grand Duchy of Posen, under the rather more liberal sovereignty of the Prussian King. Those assembled at Frankfurt had, in the heady days of early April, declared support for the restitution of a Polish state as being "an Holy Duty of the German Nation." A political amnesty of March 20 following on from Frederick William's capitulation to populist feeling in Berlin included provisions which brought about the release of Polish revolutionists from imprisonment at Moabit. A triumphant procession composed of carriages pulled by enthusiastic Berliners conveyed the Polish revolutionist Mieroslawski and his followers from the prison to the palace. During the journey Mieroslawski proclaimed that Poles and Germans were brothers and waved a black, red, and gold banner in support of the changed situation in Prussia. . In April there some unrest in which the Poles of Posen, who tended to be supportive of concessions favourable to the restoration of Polish nationality, were in opposition to Germans domiciled there. The Tsar of Russia was known to be completely opposed to any reorganisation of "his" Kingdom of Poland. By July the German minority in Posen were seeking its incorporation into the German confederation. In the Frankfurt Parliament Wilhelm Jordan, (a Prussian delegate who had an established reputation as a liberal!), went so far as to tell the assembly that:- "It is high time that we awaken from the romantic self-renunciation which makes us admire all sorts of other nationalities whilst we ourselves languished in shameful bondage, trampled on by all the world; it is high time that we awaken to a healthy national egoism which, to put it frankly, places the welfare and honour of the fatherland above everything else..." In these times the Frankfurt Parliament voted by 342 votes to 31 ( with 75 abstentions ) to support a partition of the Grand Duchy of Posen. The motion voted on countenanced the full participation of those areas of Posen peopled by Germans in the workings of the Frankfurt Assembly. This inclusion of representatives was supported despite Posen being outside the historic frontiers of the Germanic Confederation. Representatives were also recognised from Schleiswig, another non-Confederal territory. The Frankfurt Parliament also resolved that those who had been returned from (mainly Germanic parts of) Bohemia should be regarded as fully representing Bohemia. Some European Powers began to be increasingly alarmed by such potential inclusions of widespread areas peopled by Germans in a future Germanic polity. The dispute with Denmark was brought to a close, partly due to the influence of international protest and mediation, in a Malmo Armistice of July 9 where Prussian and Danish soldiers were to be withdrawn and where Holstein and Schleswig were to be autonomous under the Danish Crown. This Armistice was agreed to by Prussia, under Russian and British persuasion and with Prussian commerce being seriously disrupted by Danish naval activity. Prussia did not enter into consultation with the German National Assembly. The provisions of the Malmo Armistice were unwelcome to German National sentiment and although the German National Assembly narrowly endorsed the Malmo Armistice after turbulent and agonised debate it had to call on Austrian, Prussian and other forces to defend it against the street fighting of those of outraged national sentiment.
Other Popular European History pages
The preparation of these pages was influenced to some degree by a particular "Philosophy
of History" as suggested by this quote from the famous Essay "History" by Ralph Waldo Emerson:-
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The german revolution 1848
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