he Czechs, Hungarians, Germans and other groups under the control of the Austrian empire led to rioting. The news from Paris inspired popular demonstrations that drove the conservative minister Klemens von Metternich from office. A sequence of German liberal reform ministries followed, but the other nationalities within the Austrian Empire wished to control their own affairs. On March 5, Hungary, which was under Austrian rule, the patriot Lajos Kossuth assumed control of a breakaway government and declared independence for all Hungarian lands. Kossuth's extreme Hungarian nationalism alienated many of Hungary's minority groups. As a result, the Serbs, Croats, and Transylvanians, with the help of Austrian and Russian troops, defeated the Hungarian bid for independence in 1849.In Germany, too, the Paris revolution inspired unrest. A bloody confrontation in Berlin (March 15-21) forced the Prussian king Frederick William IV to summon a constitutional assembly, an example followed in other German states. Above all, however, the liberals hoped to create a unified German empire, and to this end the Frankfurt Parliament was elected and convened (May18). It adopted a bill of rights and a moderately democratic form of government. When Schwarzenberg made clear his determination to centralize Austria, however, the Frankfurt Parliament decided to exclude the German-speaking provinces of Austria from the German empire and in March 1849 offered the crown of a constitutional Germany to the king of Prussia. He declined, and without Prussia, the work of the parliament came to nothing. Meanwhile, in Prussia itself the king dissolved the constituent assembly and imposed his own constitution, which favored the wealthy classes but gave Prussia, a measure of parliamentary government. Despite a few lasting gains, the Revolutions of 1848 resulted in severe defeats for liberal nationalists seeking democratic reform.In the first place, then, the Revoluti...
