German Unification Chapter 1

Question 1

What did the treaty of Paris concern?

Answer 1

May 1814

This is to do with the defeat of Napoleon to Austria and Prussia

France losses small areas of territory along its Eastern Frontier

France committed itself to accept broader European Settlement from Vienna

Very Generous - No Colonies Lost

No Indemnity Imposed

The desire of other powers for a strong France

Question 2

What were Austrias desire?

Answer 2

Led by Klemens von Metternich

Feared Revolution, wanted to constrain revolutionary forces

Did not want Russia to become the dominant force in Europe

Hates Liberalism as it led to the death of Nobles

Hates Nationalism as it led to War

Question 3

What were Russias desire?

Answer 3

Led by Tsar Alexander 1

Unpredictable and possibly slightly insane

Wanted Poland to be a satellite state

Powerful army with 800 k

Backed the Prussians

Question 4

What were Prussias desires?

Answer 4

Keen to acquire territory

Far weaker than their rivals

Question 5

What was the Situation in Germany by 1815?

Answer 5

No real frontiers

Multi-Ethnic

Run by the Holy Roman Empire who were also the Emperors of Austria

314 states

23 million Deutschers

Question 6

Napoleon’s impact on Germany?

Answer 6

France annexed the territory on the left bank of the Rhine

Reduced to 39 States

Brang with them liberal ideas and an increasing middle class hence the Germans becoming more educated

Many Germans were released from feudal systems

Question 7

How did the Prussians change according to Napoleonic Power?

Answer 7

Army was reorganized

The new efficient system of Government was introduced as well as the new educational system

Question 8

How did Prussia come back against Napoleon?

Answer 8

FW III

Teamed up with Russia

Russian and Prussian forces drove back Napoleon’s forces back towards France.

Austria teamed up with them in June and Napoleon was defeated in the Battle of Leipzig

Question 9

What did this mean in terms of Nationalism?

Answer 9

It caused the “otherism”

They hated the French so to mock the French they would describe how German they were

It never became a mass national uprising

However, it was only because they hated France and not because they loved Germany

N Germans looked up to Prussia
S Germans looked up to Austria

Question 10

What was the Diet?

Answer 10

Confederation had one executive body

They met in Frankfurt

Governments sent representatives

Little was ever achieved –> Too involved in self interests

Question 11

Weaknesses of the German Confederation?

Answer 11

Each State had their own Ruler

Had little influence apart from being able to prevent them from making foreign alliances which might threaten the security of the confederation

There was no unification in the military and economically although the Federal Act told the Diet to organise a federal army.

These were due to local jealousies –> Therefore the defence of the confederation depended upon Austria and Prussia

Known as Holy Roman Empire Mark II

Question 12

How were the States ruled by 1815?

Answer 12

Absolute Rule was restored in all but 4 dynasties

However, the Federal Act told the leaders of each state to make a ‘Constitution of Regional Estates’

Question 13

How did the Leaders of their states react to The ‘Constitution of Regional Estates’?

Answer 13

• Some ignored
• Most N.German states allowed ‘estates’ to meet. However, these were not always elected and were usually composed largely of nobles.
• S Germany States such as Bavaria, Baden, Wurttemburg and Hesse-Darmstadt introduced constitutions that created elected assemblies

These assemblies could create laws and control taxation but Monarchs elected ministers and had their own power

Question 14

What was the Political Situation like in Austria?

Answer 14

Little Democratic Reform

Francis I and Ferdinand I (his successor) wanted absolute power

Old Provincial Diets were eventually revived, but only as a means of preserving the existing social order. They were dominated by the local aristocracy

Question 15

What was the Political Situation like in Prussia?

Answer 15

Had been a patchwork of disparate territories with a lot of cultural divides and especially religion.

Each Province enjoyed a high degree of independence and each maintained its own distinct identity.

Prussia remained without a constitution until 1848

Question 16

How did the other states (excluding Prussia and Austria) develop politically, economically?

Answer 16

The majority of German rulers held on to their absolute power.

However, some states emerged as the French with better systems and education.

This ensured the educational provision in Germany was the best in Europe

Question 17

How did the Students think of German Unification?

Answer 17

They started to care and became more liberal.

The defeat of Napoleon was a great encouragement to German nationalism.

In 1817, Martin Luther’s stand against the pope turned into a Leipzig demonstration against the princes.

Only 500 students attended the Festival so it was a flop

Question 18

Who was Metternich?

Answer 18

Prince Klemens von Metternich (1773-1859), Austrian politician and diplomat, suppressed nationalistic and democratic trends in Central Europe

Question 19

How did Metternich deal with the Leipzig Students?

Answer 19

Over exaggerated the basis on which the parade occurred

1819- a member of an extreme society murdered Kotzebue, a secret agent of the Russian Tsar

They created the Carlsbad degrees

Question 20

What are the Carlsbad degrees?

Answer 20

Provided inspectors fro universities

Ensured that student societies were disbanded

Introduced Press Censorship

Set up a commission to investigate ‘Revolutionary’ Movements

Some professors were dismissed and imprisoned

Question 21

What did the Liberals want?

Answer 21

Freedom of Speech

Freedom of the Press

Freedom of Worship

Freedom to form Political associations and hold political meetings

Question 22

What did Johann Herder say about German Nationalism?

Answer 22

He believed that all people or cultures had their own special unique spirit, which made them different from neighbouring peoples.

Thes should be cherished and from the basis for a national identity

Question 23

What did Johann Goethe say about German Nationalism?

Answer 23

He believed that there was no need for a formation of a nation-state. Instead, Germany should essentially be a cultural community, based on the models of ancient Greece.

Question 24

What did George Hegel say about German Unification?

Answer 24

A man without his nation is nothing but if he was part of a national community he was everything

Question 25

What were most German nationalists feeling by the early 19th century?

Answer 25

Most German nationalists wanted an independent German state with fixed geographical boundaries and its own government.

One problem was there were no clearly defined frontiers nor was there religious unity

However, there was a common language and a shared cultural tradition based on a literary and artistic heritage

In addition there was felt to be an ethnic bond uniting all true Germans

Question 26

How strong were German nationalism and liberalism?

Answer 26

For many ordinary Germans, nationalism arose simply as a resentment from French rule

Once French occupation ended, nationalist sentiment declined

Question 27

What were Metternich’s views on German Unification?

Answer 27

Metternich believed that the maintenance of international peace was linked with the prevention of revolution in individual states

the SOCIAL ORDER HAD TO BE DEFENDED AGAINST THE FORCES OF Destruction.

For Metternich, these forces were liberalism and nationalism

Therefore, Metternich set his face against any constitutional change, however modest

Question 28

What happened at the Congress of Troppau?

Answer 28

Discussion centred on revolutions that had broken out in Spain, Portugal, Piedmont, and Naples

Tsar Alexander I of Russia, in sympathy with Metternich’s reactionary beliefs, put forward a proposal that Russia, Austria and Prussia should act jointly, using force, if necessary, to restore any government which had been overthrown by force

The proposal was accepted

Austria and Prussia announced that they ‘would never recognise the rights of a people to restrict the powers of their King’

Question 29

How did Metternich repress German Nationalism in the 1820s?

Answer 29

As well as the weapons of diplomacy and threats of force, Metternich used those of the police state to maintain the status quo

A special office was set up in Vienna to open, copy and then reseal foreign correspondence passing through Austria

This gave him an enormous amount of secret information and it was backed up by the work of his secret police

Question 30

How successful were Metternich’s secret police?

Answer 30

Repression and press censorship varied in severity from state to state

People could still think about what they wanted

Question 31

What liberal reforms were there in the 1830s?

Answer 31

July Revolution in Paris of 1830

They used demonstrations and riots in several S German states

The demands were for a constitution as laid down in the Federal Act of 1815; or, if a constitution already existed, for its liberalisation

In Brunswick, the Duke was driven out and his successor was forced to grant a more liberal constitution

In Saxony and Hesse-Cassel more liberal constitutions were obtained

In Hanover, the King granted a constitution in 1832

Question 32

What events happened in the early 1830s in terms of German Nationalism?

Answer 32

A few republican groups were busy with plans for the unification of Germany

1832 - 25,000 nationalists met at the Hambach Festival in Baria to drink, talk, and plan revolution

The Tricolour flag, symbol of revolution, was hoisted and toasts drunk to the notion that power should lay with the people

Question 33

How did Metternich react to the Hambach Festival?

Answer 33

He panicked and persuaded the Diet to pass the Six articles

These increased the Diet’s control over the internal affairs of individual states, and its control of the universities and the press

Question 34

What was the Prussians Customs Union?

Answer 34

Zollverein, (German: “Customs Union”) German customs union was established in 1834 under Prussian leadership. It created a free-trade area throughout much of Germany and is often seen as an important step in German reunification.

The law did away with the web of internal customs duties and replaced them with a tariff to be charged at the Prussian frontier

Question 35

Problems with the Prussian Customs Union?

Answer 35

It wasn’t what the Rhineland industrialists sought:

They had hoped for a high protective tariff, particularly against British goods

Instead, the tariff was low: nothing at all on raw materials, an average of only 10 per cent on manufactured goods and 20 per cent on luxury goods such as sugar or tea

Moreover, they would have led to a tariff war:
other countries would have responded by putting high duties on Prussian exports

Question 36

What was the main custom union that opposed Prussia?

Answer 36

,-Middle German Commercial Union

Hannover, Brunswick, Saxony and other small states

Prussia was geographically well placed to control north-south routes through north Germany and to generate a large income out of duties charged on foreign goods carried along these routes

The Middle Union worked to protect and keep open the existing roads from the North Sea ports to the central German cities of Frankfurt and Leipzig and to build a series of new roads that would go round the states of the PCU

Question 37

What was the Zollverein and what did it do?

Answer 37

Zollverein was customs Union.
It was formed in 1834 at the initiative of Prussia

Most of the German States join this union.

This Trade union aimed at abolishing tariff barriers and reducing the number of currencies from 30 to 2.

Question 38

How was the Zollverein run?

Answer 38

The organisation and supervision of the Zollverein was carried out by a specially appointed body, the Zollverein Congress

All Zollverein member states had a common system of tariffs and abolished all internal customs barriers

Question 39

Implications of the Zollverein?

Answer 39

• The Zollverein administration did not always work smoothly

- As any member state could veto a proposal at the Zollverein Congress, decisions were often held up or not made at all

Question 40

Why did Austria not join the Zollverein and what did this mean for Austria and Prussia?

Answer 40

She disagreed with the policy of free trade

Protectionist policy

Already had large markets within the empire for home-produced goods, and therefore wanted high import duties to protect its industries and markets from cheap imports

Austria gave Prussia a fantastic opportunity when it refused to join

Prussia took this opportunity, established a position of leadership, and made sure that Austria would stay outside

By 1848 while Austria still retained political control of the Confederation, Prussia had the economic leadership

Question 41

What was the 1840 Crisis?

Answer 41

France seemed likely to invade the German states along the Rhine in an attempt to force the other major powers to bow to its wishes over a crisis in the Near East

The German press threw its weight behind the nationalist upsurge and there was a flurry of songs and poems such as Deutschland uber Alles

France backed down but nor before much nationalistic feeling had been generated throughout Germany in the face of a threat from the ‘old enemy’

Question 42

How did Schleswig Holstein contribute to German Unification?

Answer 42

Immediately to the south of Denmark proper lay the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein

The King of Denmark ruled them

Schleswig, half German and half Danish speaking, was not a member of the German Confederation

Holstein, by contrast, had an overwhelmingly German-speaking population and was one of the member states of the Confederation

When the King of Denmark was about to incorporate the duchies into his kingdom. the outcry throughout Germany was enormous

What seemed merely legal technicality was viewed by Germans as violation of the Fatherland

Question 43

How did Railway developments in the 1840s contribute to German Unification?

Answer 43

One German economist described the growing railway network as

‘the firm girdle around the loins of Germany binding her limbs together into a forceful and powerful body’

Railways made Germans more mobile and contributed to the breakdown of local and regional barriers

Question 44

How did Liberalism grow in the 1840s?

Answer 44

In 1846 the liberals in Baden managed to obtain a relaxation of press censorship, and reforms of the police and of the judicial system

In Hesse-Darmstadt there were strong liberal parliamentary campaigns for changes in electoral rules and for a free press.

In Bavaria the liberals were helped by an unexpected change of policy on the part of the half-mad King, Ludwig I

His passion for a dancer led him to propose that she should be given a title and land and be introduced to court

When his advisers criticised him, he replaced his reactionary ministers with liberal ones

Question 45

How did Frederick William the III of Prussia help bolster Unification in the 1840s?

Answer 45

He released many political prisoners

He abolished censorship

In 1842 he arranged for the Prussian provincial Diets to elect representatives to meet as an advisory body on a temporary basis in Berlin

He extended the powers of the provincial Diets and allowed them to publish reports of their debates

Question 46

How did German Newspapers in the 1840s bolster German Unification?

Answer 46

In the 1840s the pace of political debate picked up and public opinion grew bolder

More books were published

Newspapers and political journals flourished

The fact that Germans were the most literate people in Europe helped

Popular journals played a crucial role in arousing interest in issues such as Schleswig Holstein in 1846

In 1847 liberal and nationalist sentiments found expression in the foundation at Heidelberg of a newspaper with the prophetic title of Die Deutsche Zeitung

Question 47

How did the Heppenheim meeting bolster German Nationalism?

Answer 47

In 1847, liberal representatives of the south-western states met at Hippenhelm

They demanded an elected national Diet and detailed their complaints which were published in DIE DEUTSCHE ZEITUNG

The Heppenheim delegates proposed Constiutional change and

• The liberation of the press
• Open judicial proceedings with juries
• The end of feudal restrictions
• Reduction of the cost of the standing army and the creation of a national guard
• Reformation of the system of taxation

Question 48

Summary of Pg 22

Answer 48

Noted

Question 49

Reid Essay

Answer 49

Noted