|
|
The German Confederation The German Confederation (German: Deutscher Bund) was the association of Central European states created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to serve as the successor to the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation, which had been abolished in 1806. In 1848, revolutions by liberals and nationalists occurred in an attempt to establish a unified German state. Talks between the German states failed in 1848, and the confederation briefly dissolved but was re-established in 1850. Rivalry between the two dominant states, Austria and Prussia, over which state had the inherent right to rule German lands led to the Austro-Prussian War in 1866 and the collapse of the confederation. This resulted in the creation of the North German Confederation and a number of south German states, from 1866 to 1871, having no higher legal authority or political body above them for the first time since the creation of the Holy Roman Empire, though these states aligned with Austria until its defeat in 1867 and then followed Prussia.Between 1806 and 1815, Napoleon organized the German states into the Confederation of the Rhine, but this collapsed after his defeats in 1812 to 1815. The German Confederation had roughly the same boundaries as the Empire at the time of the French Revolution (less what is now Belgium). The member states, drastically reduced to 39 from more than 300 (see Kleinstaaterei) under the Holy Roman Empire, were recognized as fully sovereign. The members pledged themselves to mutual defence, and jointly maintained the fortresses at Mainz, the city of Luxembourg, Rastatt, Ulm, and Landau.A Federal Assembly under Austrian presidency met in Frankfurt (the Habsburg Emperor and the King of the United Kingdom and Hanover were represented by 'envoy'). During the revolution of 1848/49 the German Confederation was inactive. It was revived in 1850 under Austrian presidency, but rivalry between Prussia and Austria grew more and more. The Confederation was dissolved in 1866 after the Austro-Prussian War, and was 'succeeded' in 1866 by the Prussian-dominated North German Federation. Unlike the German Confederation, the North German Federation was in fact a true state. Its territory comprised the parts of the German Confederation north of the river Main, plus Prussia's eastern territories and the Duchy of Schleswig, but excluded Austria and the southern German states. Prussia's influence was widened by the Franco-Prussian War resulting in the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles on January 18, 1871, which united the North German Federation with the southern German states. All the constituent states of the former German Confederation became part of the Kaiserreich in 1871, except Austria, Luxembourg, and Liechtenstein.
The late 18th century was a period of political, economic, intellectual, and cultural reforms, the Enlightenment (represented by figures such as Locke, Rousseau, Voltaire, and Adam Smith), but also involving early Romanticism, and climaxing in the French Revolution, where freedom of the individual and nation was asserted against privilege and custom. Representing a great variety of types and theories, they were largely a response to the disintegration of previous cultural patterns, coupled with new patterns of production, specifically the rise of industrial capitalism. However, the defeat of Napoleon enabled conservative and reactionary regimes such as those of the Kingdom of Prussia, the Austrian Empire and Tsarist Russia to survive, laying the groundwork for the Congress of Vienna and the alliance that strove to oppose radical demands for change ushered in by the French Revolution. The Great Powers at the Congress of Vienna in 1815 aimed to restore Europe (as far as possible) to its pre-war conditions by combating both liberalism and nationalism and by creating barriers around France. With Austria's position on the continent now intact and ostensibly secure under its reactionary premier Klemens von Metternich, the Habsburg empire would serve as a barrier to contain the emergence of Italian and German nation-states as well, in addition to containing France. But this reactionary balance of power, aimed at blocking German and Italian nationalism on the continent, was precarious. After Napoleon's final defeat at Waterloo in 1815, the surviving member states of the defunct Holy Roman Empire joined to form the German Confederation (Deutscher Bund) — a rather loose organization, especially because the two great rivals, the Austrian Empire and the Prussian kingdom, each feared domination by the other. In Prussia the Hohenzollern rulers forged a centralized state. By the time of the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia was a socially and ins |
|