Unification of Germany AS Edexcel Essay plans for ALL Past Paper questions

Why did the 1848 revolutions fail ?

• Frankfurt Parliament

• Divisions : Liberals want to safeguard the rights of local government and individual

• Radicals wanted to get rid of German Princes and form a German Republic

• Examples : Radicals stormed the Pauluskirche with eighty people being killed (most of these being radicals killed by government troops

• Effects : Liberals side with conservatives as they believed that law and order was more important than freedom and equality

• MP : This exemplifies the inability of the frankfurt to move forward decisively and with such the bitter divisions escalating to violence perhaps the parliament was destined to fail

• Lacked an army : The Frankfurt Parliament had legal authority granted to them by the Confederation of German states however they lacked the physical force to assert their authority

• Examples : Prussian Army declared armistice with Danes the Frankfurt Parliament was then unable to continue the war as it lack its own army

• Effects : Lack of power brings doubt into minds of revolutionaries and to other Germans as the parliament can't enforce its authority

• Focused on wrong people : Frankfurt parliament composed almost entirely of m/c liberals and constantly feared w/c uprisings

• Example: FP lost mass support through crushing Baden revolutionaries, actions may be viewed as hypocritical because the Baden revolutionaries were fighting for freedom as the FP liberals had previously

• Effects : The German people lose faith in FP

• Being unfocused allows the Princes to plan their attack on FP

• Unable to agree Greater or Lesser Germany

• Effects : Inability to fill power vacuum whilst Austria and Prussia were preoccupied with internal revolutions

• Causes religious tension as Lesser Germany would be ruled by Protestant Prussia

• Greater Germany ruled by Catholic Austria

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• Liberal Ministry's lack of Rural support

• Effects : Aristocrats were able to form their junker parliament in countryside, if peasants couldn't have squashed any chance of them forming an uprising

• Example : 1848 Harvest had been especially good and feudal laws had mostly been abolished so peasants were content

• Or perhaps the peasants felt their needs had been ignored by FP therefore they would have felt more aligned with the princes

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• Divisions between Social classes : the w/c were underrepresented in LM as they lacked a leader/ m/c liberals may not have listened

• Example : FP rejected the proposed Industrial code by w/c, losing further support for FP and isolating the m/c that were not a large class in Germany

Conclusion : FP failed to decisively remove old princes from power, liberals too preoccupied with fear of w/c uprisings and radicals

How far does the failure of the 1848 Revolutions explain Austria's ability to maintain its dominant position in Germany in the years to 1862 ? (Key word is extent of below factors)

• Frankfurt Parliament

• Divisions : Liberals want to safeguard the rights of local government and individual

• Radicals wanted to get rid of German Princes and form a German Republic

• Examples : Radicals stormed the Pauluskirche…