UNIFICATION OF GERMANY

Unit 6 Day 3 and 4

Central Europe before1848

Europe after the Congress of Vienna (1815)

Three Attempts at Unification Attempt 1 – Bottom Up: The Frankfurt Assembly

March 1848 – Prussian Revolutionaries rise up in Berlin and demand a liberal constitution

King Frederick William IV capitulates – agrees to establish Prussian Constituent Assembly and participate in efforts to unify Prussia with other German states

May 1848 - Frankfurt Assembly meets to discuss federal constitution Efforts at writing constitution side-tracked by

annexation of provinces of Holstein and Schleswig by Denmark

March 1849 – Federal Constitution rejected by Frederick IV who now refuses to accept crown “from the gutter”

Nationalism and German Unification

Question: How did Nationalism intersect with Liberalism in the Revolutions of 1848?

Germania, Philipp Veit (1848)

Frankfurt Assembly -1848/9

Three Attempts at Unification Attempt 2 – Top Down: Frederick William’s Plan

1849 – Frederick William IV of Prussia sponsors efforts at unification directed at princes of German states

Attempts to convince princes to elect him as Emperor of unified Germany

Efforts blocked by Austria with the support of Russia

Three Attempts at Unification Attempt Three - Top Down take 2: Bismarck’s Plan

1862 – rejection of Prussian military reform budget by parliament causes King William I to appoint Otto von Bismarck chief minister in order to collect taxes without parliamentary approval

1866 Austro-Prussian War forces dissolution of German Confederation Bismarck organizes North German Confederation

against Austria Victory enables Prussia to force Austria out of German

affairs 1870 – Nationalistic Franco-Prussian War allows Bismarck

to bring southern states into new German Empire German victory results in William’s coronation at

Versailles Earlier revolutionary ideals replaced by nationalistic

fervor

Coronation of Kaiser William

Versailles Proclamation, 1870