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In the German states, popular demonstrations and uprisings (Feb.–Mar., 1848) led to the dismissal of unpopular ministers and the calling of a national parliament to draft a constitution for a united Germany. While the constitution was debated at length, rulers of the German states were able to recover their authority. By 1849, the Frankfurt Parliament and the provisional government it established had collapsed and the old order was restored. The revolution within the Austrian Empire was one of initial success and subsequent defeat. In contrast to the situation in Germany, however, revolutionists in the Hapsburg domains demanded less central authority and a more autonomous role for the national groups. Lack of cooperation among the revolutionary movements and the loyalty of the armies to old authorities permitted the suppression of the insurgents by armed might. In Italy, the demand for expulsion of the Austrians and for national unification found a champion in King Charles Albert of Sardinia, but again Austrian armies put down the revolutions. The revolutions of 1848 failed notably because three kinds of demands—social and economic, liberal, and national—were not easily reconciled. This is illustrated in France by the Socialists Blanc and Albert on the one side, and the Liberal Republicans Marie and Arago on the other. Middle-class moderates like Lamartine gained control of the revolutionary movements and resisted the more radical demands of the lower classes, thus losing much of the popular support that was essential to their success. The results of the uprisings were the spread of parliamentary governments, the extension of manhood suffrage in France (and briefly in Austria), the abolition of manorialism in Central Europe, the beginnings of the German and Italian unification movements, and the establishment of Hungary as an equal partner with Austria under Hapsburg rule. Revolutions of 1848 were a series of violent uprisings in European countries where attempts at economic and political change had proven unsuccessful. The revolutions were initiated by members of the middle class and nobility who began demanding constitutional and representative governments and by workers and peasants who revolted against developing capitalist practices that were resulting in greater poverty. Participating in the revolutions were Poles, Danes, Germans, Italians, Czechs, Slovaks, Hungarians, Croats and Romanians who demanded self-determination from the empires that dominated them. Although governmental changes achieved by the revolutions of 1848 were short-lived, the revolutions influenced the course of European government in the long term by undermining the concept of absolute monarchy and establishing an impetus for liberalism and socialism. Revolution first erupted on February 22, 1848 in France, where supporters of universal suffrage and the socialists, led by Louis Blanc, overthrew King Louis Philippe and established the Second Republic. However, differences within the new government over political and economic reforms led to bloody street battles in Paris. At the end of 1848 Louis Napoleon, was elected president. The February revolution in France sparked movements for unification in several German and Italian states. Liberals in the German states proposed the formation of an elected national parliament for a united Germany. But the provisional government could not decide on a form for the new Germany, and the old order was restored. Growing nationalism among the 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 Revolution of 1848 was the act of bourgeois liberals. All over the continent, from 1815 to 1848, they sought to defend the privileges they had acquired under the French Revolution and the Empire against a reactionary nobility bent on recovering its former position. These advantages did, of course, vary in importance from country to country. In France equality before the law was no longer an issue; the struggle now centered on property qualifications. Although large-scale industry did not yet exist, progress in production and exchange had been great enough to create a national market. Books and ideas traveled along with the merchandise and united the bourgeois and the artisans from one end of the country to the other. Bibliography: Word Count: 997
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