What Are The Revolutions Of 1848

Inspired by the class revolt in France, central Europe, including the nations of Germany and Austria, erupted in heated revolutions seeking equality/reform from their respective governments in February 1848. By March 1848, the German Confederation saw an uprising in the Urban and Rural Popular classes as a result of the “political powder keg” of Neo-Feudal regimes, the new political force of nationalism, and the alliance of middle class bourgeoisie and working class against the local Princes/landed aristocracies. Nevertheless, the aristocracies quelled the revolutions generating changes that would affect Germany and Austria for decades to come, leaving the revolutions of 1848 as a watershed in the history of central Europe. As
Metternich, a foreign minister for Austria, had a policy against nationalism and liberalism because he felt that it would cause people of different ethnicities to rebel against German domination and Habsburg rule (Perry, 325). In 1848, revolutions spread throughout the Austrian Empire, starting in Vienna. Encouraged by the events occurring in the other German states, Viennese liberals denounced Habsburg absolutism and serfdom. Intimidated by the revolutionaries, the government allowed freedom of the press, accepted Metternich’s resignation, and promised a constitution. Moreover, the Constitutional Assembly convened and in August 1848 voted the abolition of serfdom (Perry, 325). Simultaneously to the Viennese insurgents reforming their government, The monarchy was distressed with revolts that had broken out in places like Bohemia. Consisting primarily of Czechs and Slovaks, Bohemians felt that they needed to have their own freedom, and not be considered as just another portion of a unified
Thus began the restoration of their kingdoms to their former glory. The first state to fall was Bohemia; divisions between the Moderates (liberal reform and ethnic equality) and Radicals (separation and socialism) during the Pan-Slavic Congress in Prague caused the Czechs to fail to recognize the recovery of the Hapsburg government (Stearns, 150). By June 1848 the Austrian army dissolved the Slave Congress and arrested any Radicals. As a result of the skirmishes between the “Committee of Citizens” (COC), an organization that demanded national workshops for the unemployed and populist equality, and the National Assembly which cut the workshops by fifty percent, the state of Austria fell back under Franz Joseph’s rule by December 1848 (Stearns 140). The defeat of the German Confederation came as a result of liberal naiveté. The Frankfurt Parliament believed that their rule would go unquestioned by the Princes. Moreover, the Frankfurt Parliament was marred by several obstacles such as “Junker Parliament,” Artisan uprising in Frankfurt, and the abolition of seigniorial obligations which in turn, placed the Parliament at the mercy of the Princes. In March 1849 the “Grossdeutschland” finished their constitution and offered the crown to Franz Joseph, who refused it; therefore, the