99-616: Präsidium des Bundes or Bundespräsidium ( German: [ˈbʊndəs.pʁɛˌziːdi̯ʊm] , roughly chairmanship of the federation ) was a title under the German Confederation (1815–1848, 1851–1866) whereby the Austrian delegate held the chair of the Federal Assembly . Austria was thus called the presiding power ( German : Präsidialmacht ). This did not give Austria extra competencies: its delegate simply led
198-667: A Nikolsburg preliminary (26 July) and a final peace treaty of Prague (23 August). Austria accepted the Prussian demand for the German Confederation to be dissolved. Prussia was allowed to create instead a "closer federation" ( ein engerer Bund ) in Germany north of the river Main. Bismarck had already agreed on this limitation with the French emperor Napoleon III prior to the peace talks. On 18 August 1866, Prussia and
297-466: 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 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
396-793: A constitutional monarchy with the Prussian king holding as the head of state the Bundespräsidium was adopted on 1 July 1867. Laws could only be enabled with the consent of the Reichstag (a parliament based on universal male suffrage) and the Federal Council ( Bundesrat , a representation of the states). During the initial three and a half years of the Confederation, a conservative-liberal cooperation undertook important steps to unify (Northern) Germany with regard to law and infrastructure. The designed political system and
495-603: A fast-growing industrialized urban economic system. In previous centuries, the shortage of land meant that not everyone could marry, and marriages took place after age 25. The high birthrate was offset by a very high rate of infant mortality , plus periodic epidemics and harvest failures. After 1815, increased agricultural productivity meant a larger food supply, and a decline in famines, epidemics, and malnutrition. This allowed couples to marry earlier, and have more children. Arranged marriages became uncommon as young people were now allowed to choose their own marriage partners, subject to
594-517: A larger number of North and Central German states signed the North German Confederation Treaty establishing a Bündnis (alliance). The treaty created a military alliance for one year. It also affirmed that the states wanted to form a federal state based on the Prussian proposals of June 1866. They agreed to have a parliament elected to discuss a draft constitution. At the same time, the original East Prussian cradle of
693-795: A new "German Confederation", but it lasted only four months. Following the victory in the war with France, the German princes and senior military commanders proclaimed Wilhelm "German Emperor" in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Transition from the Confederation to the Empire was completed when the Constitution of the German Empire which prevailed until the demise of the monarchy entered into force on 4 May 1871, while France recognised
792-592: A political dimension to the army. In addition, the Diet oversaw the construction and maintenance of several German Federal Fortresses and collected funds annually from the member states for this purpose. Projections of army strength were published in 1835, but the work of forming the Army Corps did not commence until 1840 as a consequence of the Rhine Crisis . Money for the fortresses were determined by an act of
891-598: A second treaty, the Final Act of the Ministerial Conference to Complete and Consolidate the Organization of the German Confederation . This treaty was not concluded and signed by the parties until 15 May 1820. States joined the German Confederation by becoming parties to the second treaty. The states designated for inclusion in the Confederation were: In 1839, as compensation for the loss of part of
990-690: 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 other southern German states. Prussia's influence was widened by the Franco-Prussian War resulting in the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles on 18 January 1871, which united the North German Federation with
1089-481: A united Germany and use it as a pretext to launch a violent repression against Catholicism throughout Germany. Thus, it was Bismarck's intention to make the new federal state look like a confederation in the tradition of the German Confederation and explains the name of the country and several provisions in the draft constitution — Bismarck needed to make the federal state more attractive (or at least less repulsive) to southern German states which might later join. During
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#17327651936481188-406: A veto by the parents. The upper and middle classes began to practice birth control , and a little later so too did the peasants. The population in 1800 was heavily rural, with only 8% of the people living in communities of 5,000 to 100,000 and another 2% living in cities of more than 100,000. In a heavily agrarian society, land ownership played a central role. Germany's nobles, especially those in
1287-501: A village court which handled minor offenses. Inside the family, the patriarch made all the decisions and tried to arrange advantageous marriages for his children. Much of the villages' communal life centered around church services and holy days. In Prussia, the peasants drew lots to choose conscripts required by the army. The noblemen handled external relationships and politics for the villages under their control, and were not typically involved in daily activities or decisions. After 1815,
1386-512: The Zollverein . In 1834, the Prussian regime sought to stimulate wider trade advantages and industrialism by decree – a logical continuation of the program of Stein and Hardenberg less than two decades earlier. Historians have seen three Prussian goals: as a political tool to eliminate Austrian influence in Germany; as a way to improve the economies; and to strengthen Germany against potential French aggression while reducing
1485-524: The German Empire ; the title and function of Bundespräsidium remained, but was combined with the additional title Deutscher Kaiser (German Emperor). German Confederation The German Confederation ( German : Deutscher Bund [ˌdɔʏtʃɐ ˈbʊnt] ) was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe . It was created by
1584-732: The Confederation of the Rhine in July 1806, joining sixteen of France's allies among the German states (including Bavaria and Württemberg ). After the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt of October 1806 in the War of the Fourth Coalition , various other German states, including Saxony and Westphalia, also joined the Confederation. Only Austria, Prussia, Danish Holstein , Swedish Pomerania , and
1683-488: 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 ). It also kept intact most of Confederation's reconstituted member states and their boundaries. The member states , drastically reduced to 39 from more than 300 (see Kleinstaaterei ) under
1782-619: The Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire , which had been dissolved in 1806 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars . The Confederation had only one organ, the Bundesversammlung , or Federal Convention (also Federal Assembly or Confederate Diet). The Convention consisted of the representatives of the member states. The most important issues had to be decided on unanimously. The Convention
1881-520: The Erfurt Union of 1849–1850. When the union parliament met in early 1850 to discuss the constitution, the participating states were mainly only those in Northern and Central Germany. Austria and the southern German states Württemberg and Bavaria forced Prussia to give up its union plans in late 1850. In April and June 1866, Prussia proposed a Lesser Germany again. A corner stone of the proposal
1980-761: The Frankfurt Constitution in English). The Federal Convention was dissolved on 12 July 1848, but was re-established in 1850 after the revolution was crushed by Austria, Prussia, and other states. The Confederation was finally dissolved after the victory of the Kingdom of Prussia in the Seven Weeks' War over the Austrian Empire in 1866. The dispute over which had the inherent right to rule German lands ended in favour of Prussia, leading to
2079-429: 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
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#17327651936482178-692: The German Unification , it was the earliest continual legal predecessor of the modern German nation-state known today as the Federal Republic of Germany . The Confederation came into existence following the Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 over the lordship of two small Danish duchies ( Schleswig-Holstein ) resulting in the Peace of Prague , where Prussia pressured Austria and its allies into accepting
2277-579: The Habsburg monarchy in Austria, and the conservative notables of the small princely states and city-states in Germany. Meanwhile, demands for change from below had been fomenting due to the influence of the French Revolution. Throughout the German Confederation, Austrian influence was paramount, drawing the ire of the nationalist movements. Metternich considered nationalism, especially
2376-496: The Holy Roman Empire , were recognized as fully sovereign. The members pledged themselves to mutual defense, and joint maintenance of the fortresses at Mainz , the city of Luxembourg , Rastatt , Ulm , and Landau . The only organ of the Confederation was the Federal Assembly (officially Bundesversammlung , often called Bundestag ), which consisted of the delegates of the states' governments. There
2475-642: The King of the United Kingdom (until 1837) as King of Hanover were members of the German Confederation. Each of them had a vote in the Federal Assembly. At its foundation in 1815, four member states were ruled by foreign monarchs, as the King of Denmark was Duke of both Holstein and Saxe-Lauenburg. The four free cities of Bremen , Frankfurt , Hamburg , and Lübeck shared one vote in
2574-426: The Kingdom of Prussia were the largest and by far the most powerful members of the Confederation. Large parts of both countries were not included in the Confederation, because they had not been part of the former Holy Roman Empire, nor were the greater parts of their armed forces incorporated in the federal army. Austria and Prussia each had one vote in the Federal Assembly. Six other major states had one vote each in
2673-409: 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 . 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
2772-529: The University of Berlin , founded in 1810, became the world's leading university. Von Ranke , for example, professionalized history and set the world standard for historiography. By the 1830s, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology had emerged with world class science, led by Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) in natural science and Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) in mathematics. Young intellectuals often turned to politics, but their support for
2871-566: The province of Luxemburg to Belgium, the Duchy of Limburg was created and became a member of the German Confederation (held by the Netherlands jointly with Luxembourg) until the dissolution of 1866. In 1867 the duchy was declared to be an "integral part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands". The cities of Maastricht and Venlo were not included in the Confederation. The Austrian Empire and
2970-786: The Assembly, but rarely deployed ambassadors itself. During the revolution of 1848/49 the Federal Assembly was inactive. It transferred its powers to the Provisorische Zentralgewalt , the revolutionary German Central Government of the Frankfurt National Assembly . After crushing the revolution and illegally disbanding the National Assembly, the Prussian King failed to create a German nation state by himself. The Federal Assembly
3069-631: The Confederate Diet in that year. By 1846, Luxemburg still had not formed its own contingent, and Prussia was rebuffed for offering to supply 1,450 men to garrison the Luxemburg fortress that should have been supplied by Waldeck and the two Lippes. In that same year, it was decided that a common symbol for the Federal Army should be the old Imperial two-headed eagle, but without crown, scepter, or sword, as any of those devices encroached on
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3168-588: The Customs Parliament ( Zollparlament ). On 1 January 1868, the new institutions came into force. Bismarck hoped that the Zollverein might become the vehicle of German unification. But in the 1868 Zollparlament election the South Germans voted mainly for anti-Prussian parties. On the other hand, the two Mecklenburg duchies and three Hanseatic cities were initially not members of
3267-559: The Customs Union. The Mecklenburgs and Lübeck joined soon after the North German Confederation was formed. Eventually, after heavy Prussian pressure, Hamburg acceded to the Customs Union in 1888. Bremen joined at the same time. Despite this, all these states fully participated in the federal institutions, even while outside the Customs Union and not directly affected by their decisions in that regard. One of
3366-707: The East called Junkers , dominated not only the localities, but also the Prussian court , and especially the Prussian army . Increasingly after 1815, a centralized Prussian government based in Berlin took over the powers of the nobles, which in terms of control over the peasantry had been almost absolute. They retained control of the judicial system on their estates until 1848, as well as control of hunting and game laws. They paid no land tax until 1861 and kept their police authority until 1872, and controlled church affairs into
3465-620: The Federal Assembly. The 23 remaining states (at its formation in 1815) shared five votes in the Federal Assembly: There were therefore 17 votes in the Federal Assembly. The rules of the Confederation provided for three different types of military interventions: Other military conflicts were foreign to the confederation ( bundesfremd ). An example is Austria's oppression of the uprising in Northern Italy in 1848 and 1849, as these Austrian territories lay outside of
3564-595: The Federal Assembly: the Kingdom of Bavaria , the Kingdom of Saxony , the Kingdom of Württemberg , the Electorate of Hesse , the Grand Duchy of Baden , and the Grand Duchy of Hesse . Three foreign monarchs ruled member states: the King of Denmark as Duke of Holstein and Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg ; the King of the Netherlands as Grand Duke of Luxembourg and (from 1839) Duke of Limburg ; and
3663-687: The French-occupied Principality of Erfurt stayed outside the Confederation of the Rhine. The War of the Sixth Coalition from 1812 to winter 1814 saw the defeat of Napoleon and the liberation of Germany. In June 1814, the famous German patriot Heinrich vom Stein created the Central Managing Authority for Germany ( Zentralverwaltungsbehörde ) in Frankfurt to replace the defunct Confederation of
3762-435: The Prussian king (art. 11). The holder was de facto the head of state of the North German Confederation. (Bismarck wanted to avoid the title Präsident with its republican air.) For all intents and purposes, the Confederation was dominated by Prussia. It had four-fifths of the confederation's territory and population – more than the other 21 members combined. The Prussian king was a kind of head of state. Chancellor Bismarck
3861-500: The Prussian statehood as well as the Prussian-held Polish- or Kashubian-speaking territories of Province of Posen and West Prussia were formally ′annexed into Germany. Saxony and Hesse-Darmstadt, former enemies in the war of 1866, had to agree their accession to the new federation in their respective peace treaties (Hesse-Darmstadt only joined with its northern province, Upper Hesse). Later in 1866, other states joined
3960-571: The Rhine. However, plenipotentiaries gathered at the Congress of Vienna were determined to create a weaker union of German states than that envisaged by Stein. The German Confederation was created by the 9th Act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 after being alluded to in Article 6 of the 1814 Treaty of Paris , ending the War of the Sixth Coalition. The Confederation was formally created by
4059-702: The Second Schleswig War (or Deutsch-Dänischer Krieg in German). As Schleswig and Denmark were not member states, this war was foreign to the Confederation. The Confederation took no part in this war. A federal intervention confronted for example the raid of the revolutionaries in Baden in April 1848. In June 1866, the Federal Convention decided to takes measures against Prussia. This decision
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4158-615: The War of 1866 proved its ineffectiveness, as it was unable to combine the federal troops in order to fight the Prussian secession. The War of the Third Coalition lasted from about 1803 to 1806. Following defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz by the French under Napoleon in December 1805, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II abdicated, and the Empire was dissolved on 6 August 1806. The resulting Treaty of Pressburg established
4257-410: The age of 25), the Reichstag . Another important organ was the Bundesrat , the 'federal council' of the representatives of the state governments. To adopt a law, a majority in the Reichstag and in the Bundesrat was necessary. This gave the allied governments, meaning the states (and, depending on the state, their princes), an important veto. Executive power was vested in a chancellor , being
4356-423: The armed forces of a state. For example, Prussia's army consisted of nine Army Corps but contributed only three to the German Federal Army. The strength of the mobilized German Federal Army was projected to total 303,484 men in 1835 and 391,634 men in 1860, with the individual states providing the following figures: Between 1806 and 1815, Napoleon organized the German states, aside from Prussia and Austria, into
4455-422: The confederation's borders. During the existence of the Confederation, there was only one federal war: the war against Denmark beginning with the Schleswig-Holstein uprising in 1848 (the First Schleswig War ). The conflict became a federal war when the Bundestag demanded from Denmark to withdraw its troops from Schleswig (April 12) and recognized the revolutionary of Schleswig-Holstein (April 22). The confederation
4554-419: The constitution was enabled. In August, the first Reichstag of the new federal state was elected. A major factor in determining the form the new federal government would take was the aftermath of the recently concluded American Civil War , which had seen the southern states forcibly re-incorporated into the United States of America and slavery abolished. While few Germans were particularly sympathetic toward
4653-452: The country adopted a new constitution, and the name of the federal state was changed to Deutsches Reich (German Empire). According to a minority among German experts, the North German Confederation and the southern states created a new federal state (the German Empire). Indeed, Bismarck allowed the south German states to save face and therefore used terminology suggesting a new creation. But Kotulla emphasizes that legally only accession of
4752-414: The creation of the North German Confederation under Prussian leadership in 1867, to which the eastern portions of the Kingdom of Prussia were added. A number of South German states remained independent until they joined the North German Confederation, which was renamed and proclaimed as the " German Empire " in 1871, as the unified Germany (aside from Austria) with the Prussian king as emperor (Kaiser) after
4851-419: The customs union. Although it was formally inaugurated on 1 January 1834, its origins may be traced to a variety of custom unions among the German states, formed beginning from 1818. The Zollverein was not subordinate to the Austrian-led German Confederation (1815–1866) and Austria itself was excluded because of its highly protectionist trade policy, the unwillingness to split its customs territory into
4950-467: The dissolution of the existing German Confederation (an association of German states under the leadership of the Austrian Empire ), thus paving the way for the Lesser German version of German unification in the form of a federal state in Northern Germany. The construction of such a state became a reality in August 1866, following the North German Confederation Treaty , initially as a military alliance only, while its first federal constitution establishing
5049-407: The early 20th century. To help the nobility avoid indebtedness, Berlin set up a credit institution to provide capital loans in 1809, and extended the loan network to peasants in 1849. When the German Empire was established in 1871, the nobility controlled the army and the Navy, the bureaucracy, and the royal court; they generally set governmental policies. Peasants continued to center their lives in
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#17327651936485148-444: The economic independence of smaller states. North German Confederation The North German Confederation ( German : Norddeutscher Bund ) was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia , which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated state (a de facto federal state ) that existed from July 1867 to December 1870. A milestone of
5247-410: The empire on 10 May 1871 in the Treaty of Frankfurt . For most of 1815–1833, Austria and Prussia worked together and used the German Confederation as a tool to suppress liberal and national ambitions in the German population. The first major step towards a Lesser German solution was the Zollverein , a customs union formed by the treaties of 1833, with Prussia being the primary driver behind
5346-405: The empire on 10 May 1871 in the Treaty of Frankfurt . The three constitutions (1867, January 1871, and April 1871) were nearly identical. It took roughly a decade to develop the country into a fully grown federal state, with several governmental departments (a kind of ministries), responsible state secretaries (a kind of ministers, 1878), and an imperial court ( Reichsgericht , 1879). All of
5445-425: The failed Revolution of 1848 forced many into exile. The population of the German Confederation (excluding Austria) grew 60% from 1815 to 1865, from 21,000,000 to 34,000,000. The era saw the demographic transition take place in Germany. It was a transition from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth and death rates as the country developed from a pre-industrial to a modernized agriculture and supported
5544-404: The following month. Henceforth, the governing bodies of the Customs Union were the Bundesrat and Reichstag of the North German Confederation, augmented by representatives of the south German governments in the former and members from these states elected in the same way as the others in the latter. When augmented thus for customs matters, the institutions were known as the Federal Customs Council and
5643-450: The forces of the old order against those inspired by the French Revolution and the Rights of Man. The breakdown of the competition was, roughly, the emerging capitalist bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie (engaged mostly in commerce, trade, and industry), and the growing (and increasingly radicalized) industrial working class ; and the other side associated with landowning aristocracy or military aristocracy (the Junker s ) in Prussia,
5742-403: The forces unleashed by the French Revolution were seemingly under control after the Vienna Congress, the conflict between conservative forces and liberal nationalists was only deferred at best. The era until the failed 1848 revolution, in which these tensions built up, is commonly referred to as Vormärz ("pre-March"), in reference to the outbreak of riots in March 1848. This conflict pitted
5841-440: The form of the nationalistic and liberal democratic college fraternities known as the Burschenschaften . The Wartburg Festival in 1817 celebrated Martin Luther as a proto-German nationalist, linking Lutheranism to German nationalism, and helping arouse religious sentiments for the cause of German nationhood. The festival culminated in the burning of several books and other items that symbolized reactionary attitudes. One item
5940-423: The foundation for Prussia's future military might by professionalizing the military and decreeing universal military conscription . In order to industrialize Prussia, working within the framework provided by the old aristocratic institutions, land reforms were enacted to break the monopoly of the Junker s on land ownership, thereby also abolishing, among other things, the feudal practice of serfdom . Although
6039-408: The functioning of the Confederation depended on the cooperation of the two most populous member states, Austria and Prussia which in reality were often in opposition . The German revolutions of 1848–1849 , motivated by liberal, democratic, socialist, and nationalist sentiments, attempted to transform the Confederation into a unified German federal state with a liberal constitution (usually called
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#17327651936486138-433: The functions of the confederation was to handle mail and issue postage stamps. In mid-1870, a diplomatic crisis concerning the Spanish throne led eventually to the Franco-Prussian War . During the war, in November 1870, the south German states of Bavaria , Württemberg , and Baden (together with the parts of Hesse-Darmstadt that were left out of the Confederation) joined the North German Confederation. On this occasion,
6237-422: The individual sovereignty of the states. King Frederick William IV of Prussia was among those who derided the "disarmed imperial eagle" as a national symbol. The German Federal Army was divided into ten Army Corps (later expanded to include a Reserve Corps). However, the Army Corps were not exclusive to the German Confederation but composed from the national armies of the member states, and did not include all of
6336-609: The liberal press, and seriously restricted academic freedom . German artists and intellectuals, heavily influenced by the French Revolution, turned to Romanticism . At the universities, high-powered professors developed international reputations, especially in the humanities led by history and philology, which brought a new historical perspective to the study of political history, theology, philosophy, language, and literature. With Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) in philosophy, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) in theology and Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) in history,
6435-423: The member states had already belonged to the German Confederation of 1815–66. Austria and the south German states Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and the Grand Duchy of Hesse (Hesse-Darmstadt) remained outside of the North German Confederation. Though, the northern province Oberhessen of the Grand Duchy of Hesse did join. In northern, central and eastern Germany, Prussia: Lauenburg is sometimes mentioned as one of
6534-421: The nationalist youth movement, the most pressing danger: German nationalism might not only repudiate Austrian dominance of the Confederation, but also stimulate nationalist sentiment within the Austrian Empire itself. In a multi-national polyglot state in which Slavs and Magyars outnumbered the Germans, the prospects of Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish, Serb, or Croatian sentiment along with middle class liberalism
6633-473: The need for administrative, economic, and social reforms to improve the efficiency of the bureaucracy and encourage practical merit-based education. Inspired by the Napoleonic organization of German and Italian principalities, the Prussian Reform Movement led by Karl August von Hardenberg and Count Stein was conservative, enacted to preserve aristocratic privilege while modernizing institutions. Outside Prussia, industrialization progressed slowly, and
6732-406: The only responsible federal minister of the country. There was no formal cabinet, and in the time of the North German Confederation there were only two government departments anyway: the Bundeskanzleramt as the general office of the chancellor, and, since early 1870, the foreign office. The chancellor was installed and dismissed by the Bundespräsidium . This office belonged automatically to
6831-473: The political parties remained essentially the same also after 1870. Shortly after its inception, tensions emerged between the North German Confederation and the Second French Empire , which was ruled by the French Emperor Napoleon III . In Summer 1870, a dispute over a new king for Spain escalated into the Franco-Prussian War . At the time, the original Confederation had nearly 30 million inhabitants of whom 80% lived in Prussia , thus making up roughly 75% of
6930-404: The population of the future German Empire. Under these circumstances, the South German states of Baden , Hesse-Darmstadt , Württemberg and Bavaria previously opposed to the Confederation ultimately decided to join it. A new short-lived constitution subsequently entered into force on 1 January 1871 proclaiming in its preamble and article 11 the " German Empire " despite being titled as one of
7029-414: The precise institution (i.e., slavery) which had precipitated civil war in America, the prevailing viewpoint outside the U.S. at this time was that the slaves had only been emancipated as a reprisal for Southern secession from the American Union. With this in mind, many Catholics especially in Southern Germany feared that Prussia might one day might attempt to engineer a similar sort of secession crisis within
7128-493: The proceedings of the Federal Assembly. Later, during the North German Confederation (1867–1871), the same title was used for an office functioning as head of state . According to the constitution, the holder of this office was always the king of Prussia . The king was also Bundesfeldherr , federal commander-in-chief . The constitutional changes of 1870–1871 renamed the North German Confederation to
7227-424: The roughly three and a half years of the North German Confederation its major action existed in legislation unifying Northern Germany. The Reichstag decided on laws concerning, for example: The North German Confederation also became a member of the Zollverein , the German customs union of 1834. The North German Constitution of 16 April 1867 created a national parliament with universal suffrage (for men above
7326-526: The separate Austrian, Hungarian and Galician-Lodomerian ones, as well as due to opposition of Prince von Metternich to the idea. Nevertheless, the Zollverein managed to include by 1866 the majority of the German states. In 1849, the National Assembly in Frankfurt elected the Prussian king as the Emperor of a Lesser Germany (a Germany without Austria). The king refused and tried to unite Germany with
7425-595: The southern German states. All the constituent states of the former German Confederation became part of the Kaiserreich in 1871, except Austria, Luxembourg , the Duchy of Limburg , 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 with
7524-629: The southern states to the North German Confederation was possible; the legal basis for such an accession was art. 79 of the North German federal constitution. On 10 December 1870 the Reichstag of the North German Confederation had adopted a new constitution , still titled as one of the Deutscher Bund (German Confederation) in spite of establishing for the state a new name Deutsches Reich (German Realm or German Empire) and granting
7623-405: The symbolic day of 'foundation of the German Empire' ( Deutsche Reichsgründung ), although it had no constitutional meaning. After a new Reichstag was elected on 3 March 1871, the transition from the Confederation to the Empire was completed when the permanent Constitution of the German Empire prevailing until the demise of the monarchy entered into force on 4 May 1871, while France recognised
7722-484: The title of German Emperor to the King of Prussia holding the Bundespräsidium of the Confederation; it entered into force on 1 January 1871, but lasted only four months. Following the victory in the war with France, the German princes and senior military commanders proclaimed Wilhelm "German Emperor" in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. This latter date was later customarily celebrated as
7821-569: The treaty. The liberals in the Prussian parliament favored a wholesale annexation of all North German territories by Prussia. In a similar way, Sardinia–Piedmont had created the Kingdom of Italy . But Bismarck chose a different approach. Prussia incorporated (in October 1866) only the former military opponents Hannover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, the free city of Frankfurt, and the Hesse-Homburg area of Hesse Darmstadt. These areas were combined into
7920-651: The two great rivals, the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia , each feared domination by the other. In Prussia the Hohenzollern rulers forged a centralized state. By the time of the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia, grounded in the virtues of its established military aristocracy (the Junkers ) and stratified by rigid hierarchical lines, had been surpassed militarily and economically by France. After 1807, Prussia's defeats by Napoleonic France highlighted
8019-410: The two new Prussian provinces of Hannover and Hesse-Nassau. Schleswig and Holstein also became a Prussian province. Bismarck sought advice from conservative and democratic politicians and finally presented a draft constitution to the other state governments. At the same time, in late 1866, Prussia and the other states prepared the election of a North German parliament. This konstituierender Reichstag
8118-413: The urban population grew rapidly, due primarily to the influx of young people from the rural areas. Berlin grew from 172,000 people in 1800 to 826,000 in 1870; Hamburg grew from 130,000 to 290,000; Munich from 40,000 to 269,000; Breslau (now Wrocław ) from 60,000 to 208,000; Dresden from 60,000 to 177,000; Königsberg (now Kaliningrad ) from 55,000 to 112,000. Offsetting this growth, there
8217-486: The victory over French Emperor Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Most historians have judged the Confederation to have been weak and ineffective, as well as an obstacle to the creation of a German nation-state. This weakness was part of its design, as the European Great Powers , including Prussia and especially Austria, did not want it to become a nation-state. However, the Confederation
8316-463: The village, where they were members of a corporate body and helped manage community resources and monitor community life. In the East, they were serfs who were bound prominently to parcels of land. In most of Germany, farming was handled by tenant farmers who paid rents and obligatory services to the landlord, who was typically a nobleman. Peasant leaders supervised the fields and ditches and grazing rights, maintained public order and morals, and supported
8415-546: Was a book by August von Kotzebue . In 1819, Kotzebue was accused of spying for Russia, and then murdered by a theological student, Karl Ludwig Sand , who was executed for the crime. Sand belonged to a militant nationalist faction of the Burschenschaften . Metternich used the murder as a pretext to issue the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819, which dissolved the Burschenschaften , cracked down on
8514-563: Was also prime minister and foreign minister of Prussia. In that role he instructed the Prussian votes in the Bundesrat. Prussia had 17 of 43 votes in the Bundesrat despite being by far the largest state but could easily get a majority by making alliances with the smaller states. In June 1867 a conference took place between Prussia and the south German states, who were not members of the North German Confederation. After pressure from Prussia, new Customs Union ( Zollverein ) treaties were signed
8613-468: Was certainly horrifying to the monarchist landed aristocracy. Figures like August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben , Ludwig Uhland , Georg Herwegh , Heinrich Heine , Georg Büchner , Ludwig Börne , and Bettina von Arnim rose in the Vormärz era. Father Friedrich Jahn 's gymnastic associations exposed middle class German youth to nationalist and democratic ideas, which took
8712-463: Was elected in February 1867 based on state laws. The konstituierender Reichstag gathered from February to April. In close talks with Bismarck, it altered the draft constitution in some significant points. The konstituierender Reichstag was not a parliament but only an organ to discuss and accept the draft constitution. After that, the state parliaments (June 1867) ratified it so that on 1 July
8811-479: Was extensive emigration, especially to the United States. Emigration totaled 480,000 in the 1840s, 1,200,000 in the 1850s, and 780,000 in the 1860s. Despite its name and intention, the German Confederation was not entirely populated by Germans; many people of other ethnic groups lived within its borders: Further efforts to improve the confederation began in 1834 with the establishment of a customs union ,
8910-579: Was held back because of political disunity, conflicts of interest between the nobility and merchants, and the continued existence of the guild system, which discouraged competition and innovation. While this kept the middle class at bay, affording the old order a measure of stability not seen in France, Prussia's vulnerability to Napoleon's military proved to many among the old order that a fragile, divided, and traditionalist Germany would be easy prey for its cohesive and industrializing neighbor. The reforms laid
9009-444: Was impossible to dissolve (legally), with no member states being able to leave it and no new member being able to join without universal consent in the Federal Convention. On the other hand, the Confederation was weakened by its very structure and member states, partly because the most important decisions in the Federal Convention required unanimity and the purpose of the Confederation was limited to only security matters. On top of that,
9108-648: Was no head of state, but the Austrian delegate presided over the Assembly (according to the Bundesakte). Austria did not have extra powers, but consequently the Austrian delegate was called Präsidialgesandther and Austria the Präsidialmacht (presiding power). The Assembly met in Frankfurt. The Confederation was enabled to accept and deploy ambassadors. It allowed ambassadors of the European powers to
9207-419: Was not a 'loose' tie between the German states, as it was impossible to leave the Confederation, and as Confederation law stood above the law of the aligned states. The constitutional weakness of the Confederation lay in the principle of unanimity in the Diet and the limits of the Confederation's scope: it was essentially a military alliance to defend Germany against external attacks and internal riots. Ironically,
9306-510: Was presided over by the representative of Austria. This was a formality, however, as the Confederation did not have a head of state, since it was not a state. The Confederation, on the one hand, was a strong alliance between its member states because federal law was superior to state law (the decisions of the Federal Convention were binding for the member states). Additionally, the Confederation had been established for eternity and
9405-563: Was revived in 1850 on Austrian initiative, but only fully reinstalled in the Summer of 1851. Rivalry between Prussia and Austria grew more and more, especially after 1859. The Confederation was dissolved in 1866 after the Austro-Prussian War , and was succeeded in 1866 by the Prussian-dominated North German Confederation . Unlike the German Confederation, the North German Confederation was in fact
9504-438: Was supposed to collectively defend the German Confederation from external enemies, primarily France. Successive laws passed by the Confederate Diet set the form and function of the army, as well as contribution limits of the member states. The Diet had the power to declare war and was responsible for appointing a supreme commander of the army and commanders of the individual army corps. This made mobilization extremely slow and added
9603-404: Was technically not a federal execution for a lack of time to observe the actual procedure. Prussia had violated, according to the majority of the convention, federal law by sending its troops to Holstein. The decision led to the war in summer 1866 that ended with the dissolution of the confederation ( known as Seven Weeks War or by other names ). The German Federal Army ( Deutsches Bundesheer )
9702-453: Was the election of a German parliament based on universal male suffrage. The proposal explicitly mentioned the Frankfurt election law of 1849. Otto von Bismarck , the minister-president of Prussia, wanted to gain sympathy within the national and liberal movement of the time. Austria and its allies refused the proposal. In summer 1866 Austria and Prussia fought with their respective allies in the Austro-Prussian War . Prussia and Austria signed
9801-499: Was transformed into the German Empire of 1848 . Prussia was de facto the most important member state conducting the war for Germany. There are several examples for federal executions and especially federal interventions. In 1863, the Confederation ordered a federal execution against the duke of Holstein (the Danish king). Federal troops occupied Holstein which was a member state. After this, Austria and Prussia declared war on Denmark,
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