The Frankfort Assembly - 1848
After the last fall of Napoleon the great powers of the continent constituted themselves the champions of the principle of absolute- monarchy. The maintenance of that principle ultimately became the chief object of the so-called Holy Alliance established in 1816 between Russia, Austria and Prussia, and was pursued with remarkable steadfastness by the Emperor Francis and his minister, Prince Metternich. Thenceforth it became the avowed policy of the chief sovereigns of Germany to maintain the rights of dynasties in an adverse sense to those of their subjects. The people, on the other hand, deeply resented the breach of those promises which had been so lavishly made to them on the general summons to the war of liberation. Disaffection took the place of that enthusiastic loyalty with which they had bled and suffered for their native princes; the secret societies, formed with the concurrence of their rulers, for the purpose of throwing off the yoke of the foreigner, became ready instruments of sedition.
The movement of 1848 for German national unity and for constitutional government was the work of enthusiasts, mainly of university professors and students, who never became practical enough for success, and whose enthusiasm came into conflict too early with those of other peoples. Its failure may be more specifically ascribed to its inability to overcome four incidents or obstacles which came in its way.
The Treaty of Chaumont, March, 1814, enacted that Germany was to be a confederation of independent sovereign princes, in which, by the First Treaty of Paris, 30 April, 1814, the Free Cities were included. This was worked out in detail at the Congress of Vienna, May-June, 1815. The Diet was to consist of two assemblies. In 1819-20 the Carlsbad Decrees and the Final Act of Vienna further interpreted the Constitution in a reactionary sense. In 1833, in consequence of the Conferences at Mflnchengratz and Vienna, the Diet made further reactionary rules. In 1848, a program of reform was proposed at Heidelberg; and Prussia took the lead in the "national" movement. The Diet consented to the meeting of a German Parliament, the program for which was planned by a Vor-Parlament or "Convention " in March-April 1848.
The story of the Parliament began early in March, 1848, when a meeting of several German nationalists took place at Heidelberg. They appointed a Committee of Seven who were to make preparation for a Parliament. This Committee was followed on 31 March by a Vor-Parlament, or Preparatory Parliament of representatives for all Germany. This Convention sat for five days and appointed a Committee of Fifty to arrange for the German National Parliament which, having been elected by universal suffrage on the basis of one deputy to each 50,000 inhabitants, met at Frankfort, 18 May. The new assembly met with no opposition from the now discredited German Diet, but a sign of future troubles was visible at the very outset. As a result of Czech-German conflicts in Bohemia, no representatives came from that country.
Their second difficulty came from the North. The King of Denmark was also Duke of Schleswig and of Holstein, and was desirous of incorporating the duchies into his kingdom, the more as his heir was childless and the dying out of male heirs might lead, inasmuch as the Salic Law prevailed in the duchies but not in the kingdom, to a total separation of the duchies from the kingdom. But the inhabitants of Schleswig-Holstein mostly spoke German, and therefore imagined themselves to be German in "race," and Holstein had been a member of the Holy Roman Empire. Enthusiasts for German nationalism, therefore, became excited over the Schleswig-Holstein question, which became critical when Christian VIII. of Denmark died early in 1848. The German Parliament ordered the King of Prussia (who, since the Berlin revolution of March, had been favourable to the national liberal cause) to occupy the Duchies in their name. The Northern Powers, however, Denmark, Sweden and Russia, were opposed to the separation of the Duchies from Denmark; after much hesitation the King of Prussia at last withdrew from the position into which his Germanism had led him; and the Danish Party prevailed. This incident occupied the whole of the summer and early autumn.
Meanwhile, the Parliament had been endlessly discussing the foundation of a constitution for Germany, with much academic skill but little practical result. In November they at last decided to include in the future Germany the German parts of Austria, leaving out Hungary, etc. But by this time the reaction had so far triumphed in Austria over its difficulties of the spring and summer that the Imperial Government had decreed a constitution for the "whole of "Austria," in which all its subject peoples and languages were to be included on equal terms; and accordingly, in opposition to the German national feeling, it now insisted that all Austria was to be included in the Germany that was to be. The question was never solved, and Germanism thus received a third defeat.
In the spring of 1849, they made a final effort to establish a national German government. They had already provided themselves with an executive and a Regent. Now they resolved to revive the mediaeval Empire and to offer the crown thereof to the Prussian King. But by this time, Frederick William IV had become disillusioned with "the glorious German Revolution," and in April 1849 he refused the offer. With his rejection of the Imperial crown the whole movement collapsed. The more moderate members of the Parliament left Frankfort, and its later doings are without interest. The possibility of effecting the political unification of Germany on a national basis disappeared for the present: Germany, like Italy, still remained "a geographical expression."
|
NEWSLETTER
|
| Join the GlobalSecurity.org mailing list |
|
|
|
