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

?
  • Created by: diggy
  • Created on: 01-09-13 23:35

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

  •  
  • 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

  •  
  • 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

Comments

No comments have yet been made