The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany: With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three YearsMaurice, C. Edmund (Charles Edmund)
History
The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany: With Some Examination of the Previous Thirty-three Years
Maurice, C. Edmund (Charles Edmund)
Europe -- History -- 1848-1849; Revolutions -- Europe
But, while Hungary supplied the model of Constitutional Government,
the hope for a wider national life connected itself more and more with
the idea of a united Germany. Two days after the delivery of Kossuth's
speech an impulse had been given to this latter feeling by the meeting
at Heidelberg of the leading supporters of German unity; and they had
elected a committee of seven to prepare the way for a Constituent
Assembly at Frankfort. Of these seven, two came from Baden, one from
Würtemberg, one from Hesse Darmstadt, one from Prussia, one from
Bavaria, and one from Frankfort. Thus it will be seen that South
Germany still kept the lead in the movement for German unity; and the
President of the Committee was that Izstein, of Baden, who had been
chiefly known to Germany by his ill-timed expulsion from Berlin. But,
though this distribution of power augured ill for the relations
between the leaders of the German movement and the King of Prussia,
yet the meeting at Heidelberg was not prepared to adopt the complete
programme of the Baden leaders, nor to commit itself definitely to
that Republican movement which would probably have repelled the North
German Liberals.
The chief leader of the more moderate party in the meeting was
Heinrich von Gagern, the representative of Hesse Darmstadt. Gagern was
the son of a former Minister of the Grand Duke of Nassau, who had left
that State to take service in Austria, and who had acted with the
Archduke John in planning a popular rising in the Tyrol in 1813.
Heinrich had been trained at a military school in Munich. He had
steadily opposed the policy of Metternich, had done his best to
induce the Universities to co-operate in a common German movement,
and had tried to secure internal liberties for Hesse Darmstadt,
while he had urged his countrymen to look for the model of a free
Constitution rather to England and Hungary than to France. During the
Constitutional movement of 1848 he had become Prime Minister of Hesse
Darmstadt; and he seems to have had considerable power of winning
popular confidence. Although he was not able to commit the meeting to
a definitely monarchical policy, he had influence enough to counteract
the attempts of Struve and Hecker to carry a proposal for the
proclamation of a Republic; and his influence steadily increased
during the later phases of the movement.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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