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  • Events of February 1848 in France had brought about the abdication of the monarch and a republic based on universal male suffrage had been proclaimed.
  • People took advantage of the growing popular unrest to push their demands for the creation of a nation-state on parliamentary principles – a constitution, freedom of the press and freedom of association.
  • The Revolution of 1848 was a socialist revolution led by the labor class. These events led Germans to demand their own constitution leading to the Heidelberg Convention of German nationalists and liberals.
  • It became the background of the Second Frankfurt Parliament or German revolutionary parliament in 1848 which made two important proposals – formulation of union of German states under leadership of Prussia and formation of a constitution of German union.
  • A large number of political associations came together in the city of Frankfurt and decided to vote for an all-German National Assembly.
  • On 18 May 1848, 831 elected representatives marched in a festive procession to take their places in the Frankfurt parliament convened in the Church of St Paul.
  • They drafted a constitution for a German nation to be headed by a monarchy subject to a parliament.
  • While the opposition of the aristocracy and military became stronger, the social basis of parliament eroded.
  • The parliament was dominated by the middle classes who resisted the demands of workers and artisans and consequently lost their support.
  • In the end troops were called in and the assembly was forced to disband.
  • Repression soon followed and even the rights that people had won in the initial stages of the Revolution were taken away.
  • Thousands of German Revolutionaries had to flee the country and live in exile. The failed Revolution was the drawback national cause.
  • But the demand for unification revived in the late 1850s as a consequence of industrial and economic development.
  • Monarchs were beginning to realize that the cycles of revolution and repression could only be ended by granting concessions to the liberal-nationalist revolutionaries.
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