The European Revolution of 1848

The European Revolution of 1848 represents a widespead emergence of situations where

populist aspirations, or human aspirations as less limited by traditions of respect for
monarchical or religious authority, variously sought constitutional, liberal, nationalist or
socialistic changes in society.

The structure of the states of Europe within and between which the dramatic events of 1848-
1849 were played out was very different from that of today. European political life was then
based upon a number of dynastic states that had been established over many centuries albeit
with some significant modifications as a result of the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic
Wars of 1789-1815. At the close of these wars dynastic rulers had been restored to most of the
historic thrones of Europe and dynastic rulers once again sought to exercise sovereign power
whilst (in theory at least) offering justice and protection to their subjects.

In 1848 the Italian peninsula was politically organised into a number of sovereign dynastic
and ecclesiastical states. This decentralisation had come about largely due to Papal diplomacy
preferring that no large states should exist in the peninsula as a potential rival to Papal
diplomatic power and influence. This policy had facilitated the formation of a number of city
states north of Rome and south of the Alps that had played a very notable role in European
commerce during the Middle Ages. These same wealthy city states had later become centres
of the European Renaissance.

Similarly in 1848 it was more appropriate to refer to what we now know as Germany as
"The Germanies" or as the "German Confederation". There were a large number of politically
sovereign dynastic and ecclesiastical states. This decentralisation had come about largely due
to the policies of several Holy Roman Emperors who, either to ensure support during their
disputes with the Papacy, or to secure their position in relation to lands over which they were
themselves more immediately sovereign, or to secure the acceptance of their heirs to the
Imperial succession, tended to concede full sovereignty to greater and lesser German princes,
to greater and lesser churchmen, to so-called Free Imperial Cities and even, in cases, to so-
called Free Imperial Knights.

There was a significant "Thirty Years War" between 1617-1648 largely contested in "The
Germanies". The French kingdom became involved in order to frustrate the political and
diplomatic power of the Habsburgs of Austria and Spain. The French input into the
settlements to this war was in large part directed towards the firm establishment of a
continued decentralisation of political power in The Germanies.

The Habsburgs of Austria were sovereign over immense territories in central and eastern
Europe and had for several centuries, until the abeyance of that title in 1806 due to the
activities of Napoleon Bonaparte, been Holy Roman Emperors. The immense territories ruled
by the Habsburgs had been gathered together largely as a result of dynastic marriages.

One such marriage being that with a princess of the Jagellon dynasty which brought the
kingdom of Hungary into close association with the Habsburg dynasty when her brother
perished in battle in 1526. This merging of dynasties had cultural and linguistic as well as
political implications as the Habsburg administration tended to be supportive of germanic
cultural forms. Bohemia and Hungary had already experienced a longstanding tradition of
germanic linguistic and cultural exposure as the patterns of trade (and culture) then existing in

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central and eastern europe had been established over several centuries largely under the
influence of the predominantly germanic trading networks of western Europe. Another of the
many outcomes of the "Thirty Years War" was the displacement, by the victorious Habsburg
dynasty, of the indigenous Czech aristocracy in Bohemia by other nobles after the Battle of
the White Mountain of 1620.

It seems also that both ethnic Germans and Slavs had a long history of being present as
ebbing and flowing communities in Bohemia.

Another notable difference between the European state structure in 1848 and that of today is
the position of Poland. In 1848 Poland did not exist. In earlier times it had developed
traditions of elective kingship and of allowing representatives to the Polish Assembly to have
powers of veto over political decisions. These traditions did much to leave Poland as a less
effective participant in the rough and tumble of European diplomacy.

There were actual partitions of Poland in the later eighteenth century where the Russian
Empire, the Austrian Empire, and the Kingdom of Prussia all conspired to help themselves to
large chunks of the Polish kingdom to the extent that Poland had disappeared from the
political map of Europe!!!

It may also be difficult for our own age to appreciate the degree to which dynastic rulers in
earlier times acted in accordance with the belief that their sovereign authority, which might
well be exercised without much in the way of modification through processes of popular
representation, was actually divinely ordained and hence of unquestionable legitimacy.

Dynastic rulers were usually supported by church authorities in this belief. The churches
expected kings to exercise sovereign power as "God's annointed rulers" upholding laws and
offering justice and protection to their subjects.

It should be borne in mind, however, that in many states of Europe at that time traditions of
respect for the powers of dynastic rulers and churches were not as powerful as they had been.
European society was changing, populist ideas about such things as 'the sovereignty of the
people', 'constitutional governance' and a 'romanticisation of cultural nationhood' had gained
currency and tended to undermine acceptance of the traditions of dynastic authority and
governance

Whilst dynastic rulers had been accepted as being sovereign over their dynastic lands
gathered together as they may had been through inheritance, dynastic marriages and wars of
succession ideas about popular sovereignty and nationhood inevitably raised questions about
the territory where would-be nations could expect to exercise sovereignty particularly where
more than one "emergent nation" sought to establish itself politically on territories formerly
subject to the rule of one dynastic house.

The following series of five pages which considers the beginnings of the Revolution,
developments in France, German developments, Italian developments, and then the recovery
of political power by the traditional "throne and altar" governments may then do something
towards demonstrating the workings of human nature related aspirations as contributing
notably to the "Unfolding of History".

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 The Springtime of the Peoples
The revolution of 1848-1849, sometimes referred to as the Springtime of the Peoples, can
perhaps be seen as a particularly active phase in the challenge populist claims to political
power had intermittently been making against the power of the traditional dynastic
governments of Europe.

The French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Era (1789-1815) had been brought to a close by
an anti-Napoleonic coalition of Dynastic states who subsequently authorised the restoration of
"legitimate" rulers who had been displaced from their thrones and also authorised a supression
of liberalism, constitutionalism, and nationalism in order to ensure the continued political
authority of dynastic government.

As with several instances of revolution in Europe previously that of 1848 was to have its
major point of origin in France. There were however a number of other episodes elsewhere in
Europe which indicated the readiness of several states for involvement in revolution in the
years just prior to 1848 itself.

Poor grain harvests, the appearance of a serious disease in potato crops, and generally
depressed economic conditions across much of Europe in 1845-6 led to rising food prices,
unemployment, and a radicalisation of political attitudes. Such radicalism was somewhat
encouraged by the election to the Papacy, as Pope Pius IX in June 1846, of an incumbent who
soon thereafter followed policies perceived as being "Liberal" and by the fact of a "federal"
Swiss interest, that was perceived by liberals as being progressive, prevailing in November
1847, over several Cantons leagued in a "Separate Union" or Sonderbund that had been
supported in attempted secession by such reactionary powers as Metternich's Austria.

During these times France was yet a monarchy under Louis Phillipe but with his "Liberal"
monarchy having few real supporters. Elections were held on the basis of quite limited
suffrage, many felt excluded from any possibility of gaining wealth, and others felt that the
bourgeois "Liberal" monarchy compared unfavourably with earlier eras of French Monarchy
or Empire.

On 14th January 1848 the authorities banned a "banquet", one of a series being held in
protest against such things as limitations on the right of assembly and the narrow scope of the
political franchise, with the result that the it was postponed by its organisers. Although the
banquet, now set for the 22nd February, was cancelled at the last minute there was some
disturbance in the Paris streets. Faced with such unrest Louis Phillipe dismissed Guizot, his
unpopular Prime Minister, on the 23rd and himself abdicated on the 24th. In the wake of these
dramatic developments there was an establishment of a Provisional Government of a French
Republic. On the 25th February socialists in Paris secured a decree which proclaimed that the
newly formed provisional government would undertake to provide work and would also
recognise workers rights to "combine in order to enjoy the legitimate benefits of their labour."

The Kingdom of Hungary had come into the Habsburg orbit in 1526 as a result of its then
king perishing in wars against a then expansionary Ottoman Empire and with that king's sister
being married to the Habsburg ruler Ferdinand of Austria who later succeeded his brother

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(Charles V) as Holy Roman Emperor. After the critical Battle of Mohacs much of Hungary
was subject to Ottoman control up until 1699 when Ottoman sway over Hungary was
substantially undone by a resurgence of Austrian power. Although successors to the joint
Habsburg-Jagellon dynastic line were crowned as Kings of Hungary amongst their other titles
there had been several instances of Hungarian restiveness over political and confessional
issues. In 1848 such restiveness tended to be towards the establishment of a greater degree of
distinct existence for the Kingdom of Hungary under an Habsburg ruler as a constitutional
King of Hungary.

The rising tide of cultural and linguistic nationalism which Europe had experienced since
the later eighteenth century was marked, in relation to the position of the Kingdom of
Hungary within the Austrian empire, by demands being made for greater use of the Magyar
tongue. The nationalistic leader Kossuth was prominent at Diets of Pressburg (Bratislava) of
1840 and 1844 in securing the position of the Magyar tongue as the official language, and as
the language of public education. After 1847 the proceedings of the Pressburg Diet were
conducted through Magyar instead of Latin.

The Magyar kingdom had been established after the Magyars, as a powerful and somewhat
martial people, had migrated into the Carpathian basin where they established their sway over
some of the neighbouring Slavic peoples with the result that the kingdom in 1848 was
dominated by the Magyars but was also peopled by various Slav minorities. By this time the
former losses to the Ottoman empire had been recovered and certain territories such as
Transylvania and areas of the Balkans, that had also been won from Ottoman control, were
also seen as being associated with the Kingdom of Hungary. The Latin tongue had been
somewhat accessible to the other ethnicities represented at Pressburg as it was often
represented in classical traditions of education besides being a prominent language of religion
and scholarship. The Magyar tongue was more exclusive to the Magyars and has a reputation
for being difficult to learn.

The Magyars, in fact, only comprised perhaps only four in ten of the population of the
Hungarian Kingdom which was also peopled by Croats, Serbs, Rumanians and others. The
several ethnic groups domiciled under the auspices of the Hungarian Diet were also variously
influenced by romanticisations of their own local traditions of nationality, the Croats, in
particular, had experienced a pronounced development of a romanticised national
conciousness, and were much inclined to resist potential Magyarisation focussing their
aspiration on the recovery of an "Illyrian" language.

Early in 1848, after hearing of the developments in France Kossuth made a speech in support
of a constitutionally defined governmental system for Hungary at a session of the Diet on 4th
March.

"...from the charnel-house of the Viennese system a poison-laden atmosphere steals over us,
which paralyses our nerves and bows us when we would soar. ... the antagonism which has
existed for three centuries between the absolutist government of Vienna, and the constitution
tendency of the Hungarian nation, has not up to this day been reconciled. ..."

There was also unrest in Vienna on 13th March that led to Prince Metternich, the Austrian
statesmen who had done so much since the humbling of Napoleon to organise the Princes of
Europe in opposition to the spirit of Revolution that had been stirring since 1789, losing the
confidence of the Imperial Family and deciding to go into exile.

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 Some days later after an incident precipitated street fighting in Berlin, the capital of the
Prussian Kingdom, King Friedrich Wilhelm withdrew his soldiers rather than see even more
fatalities amongst his "beloved Berliners" and was subsequently, on the 19th March, called
upon by the populace to stand, bareheaded, whilst the earthly remains of those Berliners killed
in the street fighting were paraded with their wounds exposed.

The following day a political amnesty brought about the release of the Polish revolutionist
Mieroslawski and his forty followers from their two years of imprisonment at Moabit jail. A
triumphant procession took them from the prison to the palace, in carriages pulled by
enthusiastic Berliners. Mieroslawski waved a black-red-gold banner, proclaiming that Poles
and Germans were brothers. Some Berliners, meanwhile, carried red and white "Polish" flags.

These black, red, and gold, colours were at one and the same time "revolutionary" and
"conservative". They were open to being associated with contemporary German Liberalism
and Nationalism having been adopted by "patriotic" Germany in the days of the Wars of
Liberation against Napoleon but were also open to being thought of as being associated with
the earlier "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation."

That same day Friedrich Wilhelm rode in a stately progress through the streets of Berlin,
wearing a black-red-gold brassard, accompanied by his generals who also wore black-red-
gold emblems, along with his similarly-decorated ministers. The king presented himself as
behaving as German leaders had in earlier times when they had " grasped the banner in
situations of disorder and placed themselves at the head of the whole people. "

On the 22nd March the 190 Berliners who had fallen in the street fighting were given a state
funeral with their funeral observances being attended by representatives of all branches of the
government, wearing their golden chains of office.

In early April the Austrian Emperor promised in a Charter of Bohemia that there should be
a responsible government for Bohemia and substantial concessions to the Czech language.
Czech aspiration further sought that Bohemia and Moravia with Silesia should be regarded as
a single administrative unit - "the Lands of the Crown of St. Wenceslaus" - but this was not
conceded.

As March continued, and into April, there was a rush of laws passed by the Hungarian
Diet in support of the administration there being free of Austrian control. Hungary,
Transylvania, and Croatia, styled as "the Lands of the Crown of St. Stephen" were deemed a
single state. The Austrian Emperor formally accepted these changes on 11th April. There was,
however, an overt Hungarian Declaration of Independence passed by the Hungarian Diet on
the 14th April.

Agitations centred upon Vienna itself led to Lower Austria, the non-Hungarian realms of
the empire, being awarded a somewhat conservative constitution that authorised a bi-cameral
legislature inherently retaining much influence to the dynasty, and required steep property
requirements as a qualification for voting rights to the lower parliamentary chamber. After
continued demostrations the Imperial family departed from "the violence and anarchy of
Vienna" in mid-May and journeyed to provincial Innsbruck leaving behind authorisation for a
unicameral legislature with greatly less restrictive qualifications in relation to voting rights.

From Innsbruck the emperor did not seek to immediately withdraw from his forced
concessions in relation to the projected Assembly but some revulsion of feeling in

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conservative circles in Vienna allowed his ministers to move to dissolve perhaps the main
wellspring of Viennese radicalism - the hitherto highly vocal and politically influential
Students Legion. It also happened that the University was due to close down for the long
summer vacation.

Czech, Polish and other Slav elements within the lands of the Habsburgs reacted to the
events of 1848 and to the nationalistic and constitutional developments in the Germanic lands
by arranging for a pan-Slav Congress to convene at Prague in early June.

The French revolution of 1848

At the close of the French revolutionary and Napoleonic wars (1789-1815) the Bourbon
dynasty was restored in France in the person of a brother of the King who had been sent to the
guillotine during the revolution. This restoration King, Louis XVIII, alienated opinion due to
his absolutist tendencies and his 'legitimate' monarchy was usurped in 1830 with a junior,
Orleanist, branch of the dynasty being recognised as Kings of the French rather than as Kings
of France. The King installed in 1830, Louis Phillipe, was himself a son of a Bourbon prince
who had offered some support to the revolution of 1879 and who had become known as Philip
Egalité.

Generally depressed economic conditions across much of Europe in 1845-6 led to rising
food prices, unemployment, and a radicalisation of political attitudes.

During these times France was yet a monarchy under Louis Phillipe but with his "Liberal"
monarchy having few real supporters. Elections were held on the basis of quite limited
suffrage, many felt excluded from any possibility of gaining wealth, and others felt that the
bourgeois "Liberal" monarchy compared unfavourably with earlier eras of French Monarchy
or Empire.

On 14th January 1848 the authorities banned a "banquet", one of a series that had
intermittently been held by 'liberal' interests after July 1847 in Paris, and subsequently widely
across France, in protest at such things as limitations on the right of assembly and the narrow
scope of the political franchise, with the result that the it was postponed by its organisers.
Although the banquet, now set for the 22nd February, was cancelled at the last minute there
were some serious disturbances on the Paris streets on the 22nd and on 23rd February where a
number of fatalaties and serious injuries ensued. Faced with such unrest Louis Phillipe
dismissed Guizot, his unpopular Prime Minister, on the 23rd and himself abdicated on the
24th.

In the wake of these dramatic developments what had effectively become a French
revolution of 1848 continued with the establishment of a Provisional Government of a French
Republic.

This government was formed in a climate where power needed to be exercised by a central
authority but where there was also a divergence of opinion as to the desireable political and
social outlook of that government. Important figures in the Provisional Government
administration included established moderate, liberal, middle-class, "reformers - now become
republicans", such as Lamartaine and Ledru-Rollin. A campaign sponsored by a newspaper

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named Réforme culminated in some more radical persons being accepted into the new
government. These included the prominent French socialist Louis Blanc.

On the 25th February socialists in Paris secured a decree which proclaimed that the newly
formed Provisional Government would undertake to provide opportunities for paid work and
would also recognise workers rights to "combine in order to enjoy the legitimate benefits of
their labour." On the 28th a system on "National Workshops" was instituted in relation to this
guarantee of "labour to every citizen".

These revolutionary developments were perhaps more Parisian than French, they were
orchestrated by a radical section of the population of Paris but they did not generally receive
the support of the French provinces. Elections were put in train, on the basis of an Universal
Suffrage which recognised some nine million persons as being competent electors (compared
to the 250,000 previously recognised voters under the previously more restrictive suffrage),
towards the forming of a National Assembly which was to deal with important constitutional
issues.

The National Workshops system set out to offer constant work at a fair wage such that it
soon attracted the services of all the casual labour of Paris and also began to draw in a large
influx of other casual labour from the provinces. Within two or three months there were some
66,000 persons on the payroll - as there proved to be insufficient work for all the facility was
rationed in that those involved reported to the workplace on two days of the week but were
recognised as being entitled to a 'salary of inactivity' payment of one franc per day for other
days. The main initial task tackled by this work scheme being a public works scheme
levelling a small hill - a scenario that did not involve the receipt of revenues to offset the
expense to the public purse. The authorities did not want to sponsor economic activities that
might seem to be in competition with the interests of existing capitalist enterprise. Some
additional taxes were raised, that mainly impacted upon the rural peasantry, in efforts to help
to meet the expense of the National Workshops.

The National or Constituent Assembly resulting from the processes of election convened on
May 4th 1848. Some 900 deputies had been returned to serve in the National Assembly. About
half were returned as supportive of (Orleanist or Legitimist) monarchy rather than
republicanism, about 350 were returned on a clericalist 'freedom of education' ticket, there
were only a handful of committed republicans or socialists. Despite the breadth of the
franchise, that had recognised some nine million persons as being voters, the mainly voting
bloc - the peasantry - proved to be content with the legacy of the 1789-1815 era that had left
them as owners of their farms with the result that they voted for conservative candidates that
would not threaten the rights of property.

It proved to be the case that the political representatives of France as a whole were not
prepared to endorse many of the policies that were preferred by Parisian radicals. The
administration recognised by the assembly did not include an important role for Louis Blanc.
The Assembly declined to send assistance to the Polish reformers who, in their struggles
against Russian Tsarist authority, enjoyed the sympathies of the French radicals. On May 15th
the National or Constituent Assembly was invaded by persons seeking its overthrow and
replacement by an administration headed up by Louis Blanc.

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 In the event the National Guard acted to prevent the overthrow of the Assembly. The stage
was however set for a continuance of a serious confrontation between French conservatism
and Parisian radicalism.

The german revolution 1848

Early in 1848 several outbreaks of revolution had caused the French King Louis Phillippe to
abdicate (25th February) and Metternich, the chief minister of the Habsburg Monarchy and
architect of a system of restored monarchical government in Europe since before the fall of
Napoleon (1815), had been driven into exile.

In these times in the diverse states of Germany several rulers were faced with respectful, yet
determined, demands for change and, starting with Baden in early March, moved to award
Constitutions or to allow liberalisation of existing Constitutions. Prussia was then ruled by
King Frederick William IV who was anti-liberal and had famously said at the opening of an
'United Diet' of his territories in 1847, the first advisory assembly that any Prussian monarch
had been prepared to recognise, that:-

"Never will I permit a written sheet of paper to come between our God in heaven and this
land ... to rule us with its paragraphs and supplant the old, sacred loyalty."

After an incident precipitated street fighting the King withdrew his soldiers rather than see
even more fatalities amongst his "beloved Berliners" and was subsequently called upon by the
populace on the 19th to stand bareheaded whilst the earthly remains of those Berliners killed
in the street fighting were paraded with their wounds exposed. The King formalised a change
in political direction through the appointment of a new ministry and proclamation issued on
the morning of the 20th announced that the King had placed himself at the head of the German
nation and would appear that day in his capital wearing "old German" colours.

These black, red, and gold, colours were at one and the same time "revolutionary" in being
associated with contemporary German Liberalism and Nationalism having been adopted by
"patriotic" Germany in the days of the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon but were also
thought of as being associated with the earlier "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation,"
(which had been discontinued as a result of a dramatic reorganisation of the Germanies that
had been sponsored by Napoleon at thre height of his power).

During his progess through the streets of Berlin the King was occasionally hailed as
Emperor but he felt moved to assert that he intended to rob no German prince of his
sovereignty.

A manifesto was issued towards evening which sought to sum up up the position being
adopted:-

"Germany is in ferment within, and exposed from without to danger from more than one side.
Deliverance from this danger can come only from the most intimate union of the German
princes and people under a single leadership. I have taken this leadership upon me for the

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hour of peril. I have today assumed the old German colours, and placed myself under the
venerable banner of the German Empire. Prussia henceforth is merged in Germany."

In the unsettled and challenging times invitations sent out by a self-appointed group of
liberals based in Heidelberg led to the convening, in Frankfurt on the 30th March, of a
preparatory parliament ( Vorparlament ). At the time of this meeting, although aspirations for
various forms of political change were being widely voiced, all the traditional states of the
German Confederation were still actually in being!!! At the close of five days in session, the
Vorparlament recognised a fifty member committee as being responsible for the organisation
of processes of election to a German National Assembly which was projected to convene in
Frankfurt in May.

It had also pronounced on Polish affairs thus :- "The German Union proclaims the partition
of Poland to be a shameful injustice, and considers it the sacred duty of the German peoples to
do their utmost to achieve her reconstitution".

During these times the Federal Diet of the German Confederation was debating processes of
election towards reaching decisions about the future of the Germanies but, in the event, it
decided that it was not to be the authority behind such decisions and effectively endorsed the
elective programme of the Vorparlament on the 7th April thus consigning itself to a position
of political obscurity.

The Vorparlament presumed that representatives should be sought from across the Germanic
Confederation and also from non-Confederal territories dear to German sentiment such as
East and West Prussia, Bohemia, and Schleiswig. Whilst some presumptions relating to
territorial representation were inevitable they could not but involve complications - the
Austrian Empire was the most powerful of the states historically involved in the Germanic
Confederation but also exercised sovereignty over immense territories that were outside the
Confederation - the Danish king was the sovereign duke of Schleiswig and of Holstein.
Ancient treaties deemed Holstein ( a confederal territory ) to be inseperable from Schleiswig.
The Grand Duchy of Luxemburg was a longstanding member of the Confederation - it was
also non-German speaking and its Grand Duke was simultaneously King of the Netherlands.
The Czechs preferred that their homelands of Bohemia and Moravia should continue as
provinces within the Austrian Empire rather than be brought in a close association with a
German state.

In a letter of 11th April in response to an invitation by the Vorparlament to involve himself

in proceedings as the representative for Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia, the eminent historian
Palacký, who was a nationalistic Czech, declared:

" The letter of 6th April in which you, greatly esteemed gentlemen, did me the honour of
inviting me to Frankfurt in order to take part in the business concerned 'mainly with the
speediest summoning of a German Parliament' has just been duly delivered to me by the post.

With joyful surprise I read in it the most valued testimony of the confidence which Germany's
most distinguished men have not ceased to place in my views: for by summoning me to the
assembly of 'friends of the German Fatherland', you yourselves acquit me of the charge which
is as unjust as it has often been repeated, of ever having shown hostility towards the German
people. With true gratitude I recognise in this the high humanity and love of justice of this

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excellent assembly, and I thus find myself all the more obliged to reply to it with open
confidence, freely and without reservation.

Gentlemen, I cannot accede to your call, either myself or by despatching another 'reliable
patriot'. Allow me to expound the reasons for this to you as briefly as possible.

The explicit purpose of your assembly is to put a German people's association [Volksbund] in
the place of the existing federation of princes, to bring the German nation to real unity, to
strengthen German national feeling, and thus to raise Germany's power both internal and
external. However much I respect this endeavour and the feeling on which it is based, and
particularly because I respect it, I cannot participate in it. I am not a German – at any rate I
do not consider myself as such – and surely you have not wished to invite me as a mere yes-
man without opinion or will...."

Palacky's letter was written against a social background where there had been a Czech
cultural revival over several decades previously where persons who could think of themselves
as being Czech were encouraged to take an interest in, and to feel pride about, Czech history
and literature. This revival had, in fact, been encouraged by Habsburg imperial administrators.

Arrangements were made for the convening in Prague in June of a Congress of the Slavs
living within the lands of the Habsburgs . Palacky emerged as a leading influence in this
Slavic Congress and effectively championed an Austroslavism where the preservation of the
Austrian Empire as a buffer against both German and Russian expansionism was seen as
being essential to the best interests of the Slavs. Slavic national development within a
federalized, and protective, Austrian empire being hoped for.

In the event whilst elections to the Frankfurt Assembly went ahead in those parts of Bohemia
mainly peopled by Germans participation was not forthcoming in predominantly Czech areas.

Some time after May 18th when the German National Assembly held its first meetings in the
Paulskirche (St. Paul's Church) in Frankfurt-am-Main the Confederal Diet formally dissolved
itself. Although the traditional states of the German Confederation continued to exist - with
their own local forms of princely or ecclesiatical state government as perhaps recently
modified by the recent upsurge in political and constitutional aspiration - at the end of May
the Frankfurt Parliament declared that the Constitution it was in the process of framing would
be sovereign over all the governments of the former German Confederation. The Frankfurt
Parliament further maintained that any legislation passed by princely or ecclesiatical state
governments would only be valid if consistent with the new constitution which would be
based 'on the will and election of the German people, to found the unity and political liberty
of Germany'.

Like the French in 1789, and indeed the Americans and British in earlier times of crisis and
change, the Frankfurt Parliament now also gave a very great deal of its attention to questions
of basic law in relation to citizenship endeavouring to frame a "Declaration of the
Fundamental Rights of the German People."

Liberals in Western Europe had long deplored the condition of Poland being maintained
principally under the repressive sovereignty of the Tsar but also, in the case of the Grand
Duchy of Posen, under the rather more liberal sovereignty of the Prussian King.

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 Those assembled at Frankfurt had, in the heady days of early April, declared support for the
restitution of a Polish state as being "an Holy Duty of the German Nation." A political
amnesty of March 20 following on from Frederick William's capitulation to populist feeling
in Berlin included provisions which brought about the release of Polish revolutionists from
imprisonment at Moabit. A triumphant procession composed of carriages pulled by
enthusiastic Berliners conveyed the Polish revolutionist Mieroslawski and his followers from
the prison to the palace. During the journey Mieroslawski proclaimed that Poles and Germans
were brothers and waved a black, red, and gold banner in support of the changed situation in
Prussia. .

In April there some unrest in which the Poles of Posen, in favour of concessions favourable
to a restored Polish nationality, were in opposition to Germans domiciled there. The Tsar of
Russia was known to be completely opposed to any reorganisation of his Kingdom of Poland.
By July the German minority in Posen were seeking its incorporation into the German
confederation. In the Frankfurt Parliament Wilhelm Jordan, a left-wing delegate from Prussia,
told the assembly that:-

"It is high time that we awaken from the romantic self-renunciation which makes us admire
all sorts of other nationalities whilst we ourselves languished in shameful bondage, trampled
on by all the world; it is high time that we awaken to a healthy national egoism which, to put
it frankly, places the welfare and honour of the fatherland above everything else..."

In these times the Frankfurt Parliament voted by 342 votes to 31 ( with 75 abstentions ) to
support a partition of the Grand Duchy of Posen. The motion voted on countenanced the full
participation of those areas of Posen peopled by Germans in the workings of the Frankfurt
Assembly. This inclusion of representatives was supported despite Posen being outside the
historic frontiers of the Germanic Confederation. Representatives were also recognised from
Schleiswig, another non-Confederal territory.

The Frankfurt Parliament also resolved that those who had been returned from (mainly
Germanic parts of) Bohemia should be regarded as fully representing Bohemia. Some
European Powers began to be increasingly alarmed by such potential inclusions of widespread
areas peopled by Germans in a future Germanic polity.

Italy revolution 1848

In the Italian peninsula there were far-reaching developments based to some extent on
aspirations which had been definitely stirring since shortly after the time of the election in
June 1846, as Pope Pius IX, of a Cardinal who followed policies which led to his being
perceived as holding liberal views. Prior to his demise in 1846 the previous Pope, Gregory
XVI, backed by a sure reliance on Prince Metternich's Austria for support, had been
responsible for establishing a pervasively repressive administration where spies and informers
could ensure that liberals, nationalists, and intellectuals, were often harassed and routinely
subjected to punishments that were not actually within the laws. The more radical amongst the
population of the States of the Church, and indeed the Italian Peninsula in general, for their
part tending to be involved in secret political or revolutionary societies such as the Carbonari.

11
 By the authority of the incoming Pope there was a declaration, on July 17th 1846, of an
amnesty. Amnesties, as such, were usually declared after Papal elections, (and indeed were
traditional in association with changes of sovereign in several European states), but this
amnesty was unusual in being extended to many sentenced for political crimes. As a result
some two thousand persons convicted of offences deemed political were, after promising
good behaviour, released from imprisonment or allowed to return from foreign exile. The
Papal States, recently remarkable for political repression, now saw a degree of political
freedom and a relaxation of previously strict censorship.

Opinion amongst the informed public in the Italian peninsula had been stirred by several
aspirational publications and notably so by one written by Vincenzo Gioberti entitled "On the
Civil and Moral Primacy of the Italians". This work considered the past greatness of Italia and
her present virtues, deemed that Italians were capable of resuming leadership of the civilised
world, and looked to Sardinia-Piedmont and its army to stand up to the Austrian Empire. Pope
Pius IX was familiar with the content of this publication that looked to the formation of a
league of Italian rulers under the Papacy.

The incoming Pope had in fact brought copies of several such works to the Conclave of
Cardinals at which he himself was somewhat unexpectedly elected Pope with the view of
keenly recommending them to whosoever was returned to the Papal dignity.

During his first few months in office Pope Pius followed progressive policies such as the
promotion of railways, of gas-lighting, of an Agricultural Institute, and of some form of lay
consultation in the administration of the States of the Church, all of which lent credibility, in
many people's eyes, to such a role for his papacy.

Other rulers in the Italian peninsula were affected by the changed times - in the city of Turin
in Piedmont, from where Charles Albert King of Sardinia, ruled in Piedmont, Genoa, Sardinia,
Nice and Savoy, there was an extension of press freedoms. Amongst the persons who
involved themselves in press activity was a Count Camillo di Cavour, who had ownership
links with a liberal leaning newspaper called Il Risorgimento (Resurrection) which demanded
a Constitution, supported industrial development, and encouraged the speaking of "Tuscan"
Italian rather than French or any of the many regional dialects then in everyday use in the
Italian peninsula.

On July 17th 1847, (the first anniversary of the papal amnesty), Field Marshal Radetzky, the
Austrian commander in Lombardy, decided to very publicly reinforce the Austrian garrison in
Ferrara, a town within the territories of the church. Although an Austrian garrison was present
in the Citadel of Ferrara in line with the provisions of the treaties framed at the close of the
Napoleonic Wars the public nature and the timing of this process of reinforcement was seen
as provocative by Italian opinion. After the Austrians moved to secure several strategic points
outside the Citadel "to protect their men from insult" Pope Pius personally protested to the
European powers.

This protest was welcomed and supported by many in the Italian Peninsula.

In January 1848 there were 61 fatalities during so-called "tobacco riots" in Milan as people
demonstrated against taxes imposed by Lombardy's Austrian Authorities.

12
 On 12th January there was a rising in Palermo on the island of Sicily, then a notably
populous city, and a principal seaport, against the absolutist King Ferdinand, with outcomes
including a Sicilian declaration of independence and the awardance, by King Ferdinand, of a
Constitution to his realms on the 29th of January. This was rejected by Sicily, as there was a
powerful local movement supportive of an actual independence, but came into force in Naples.

On the 17th of February Grand Duke Leopold II awarded a Constitution to Tuscany. On

March 4th Charles Albert of Sardinia-Piedmont issued a conservative constitutional document
known as the Statuto which envisaged one of the two proposed legislative chambers being
elected by persons who had an adequate level of literacy and also paid a certain amount in
taxes.

Whilst Pope Pius himself seemed to hope to somehow reconcile the Church and Liberalism
without diminishing the Church's authority, the people increasing sought to gain the Church's
support for democratic reforms and for Italian nationalism. On 14th March the States of the
Church centred on Rome were awarded a Constitution, known as the Fundamental Statute,
which had been drawn up by a commission of Cardinals. This constitution allowed for some
participation of elected deputies in legislation. There were to be restrictions on voting rights.
The Ministry of the States of the Church, previously exclusively clerical, now featured many
lay persons.

After mid-March there was unrest over five days in Milan that led to the Austrian forces in
Lombardy being withdrawn from that city towards the Alps to base themselves upon a
formidable group of fortresses known as the Quadrilateral. In these times unrest in Parma and
Modena caused their princely rulers to depart whilst a Venetian Republic was reborn under
the leadership of a lawyer named Daniel Manin.

On 23rd March Charles Albert, significantly motivated by the hope of acquisitions of

territory to extend his realms, but also to some considerable extent fearing domestic unrest
centred upon the traditionally radical seaport of Genoa that might have entailed a challenge to
his continued rule if he did not join in with the challenge to Austrian influence, authorised the
movement of his forces into Lombardy. Other armed contingents which it seemed might be
used against the Austrian interest marched north from Naples, from Tuscany, and from Rome.

On 29th April, however, Pope Pius in an Allocution addressed to the College of Cardinals
expressed a policy that inherently compromised the role in which he had been cast by many as
the potential figurehead of Italian nationalism.

" ...Seeing that some at present desire that We too, along with the other princes of Italy and
their subjects, should engage in war against the Austrians, We have thought it convenient to
proclaim clearly and openly, in this our solemn Assembly, that such a measure is altogether
alien from our counsels ...."

Many persons who had welcomed the Papacy's apparent support for Italian national
aspirations were disappointed by this speech of Pope Pius. But, from a broader perspective, by
adopting a non-partisan position Pope Pius avoided - (as Benedetto Croce has pointed out) -
being "marked with the stamp of nationality and thus being deprived of a universal character
as head of the Catholic Church above all national states."

13
 It happened that the forces of King Ferdinand of Naples, on 25th May, accomplished a
counter revolution which returned Naples to his absolutist rule. This decisive move was
precipitated by an attempted forceful overthrow of royal power in Naples. The Constitution
awarded some weeks earlier was withdrawn and the local assembly suspended.
The Neapolitan forces that had been sent north against Austria, during the more radical phase
of recent developments, were now recalled.

The Dynasties recover power

The projected Pan-Slav Congress convened, as arranged, in Prague in early June. The
proceedings of this Congress were sub-divided into a section involving Poles and Ruthenes,
one involving Czechs and Slovaks, and one involving Croats, Serbs and Slovenes. This Pan
Slav Congress functioned as a more or less conscious counter-blast to the German National
Assembly stressing support for the equality of nations and the continuation of several Slav
peoples existence within the Austrian Empire - its outlook was in favour of Slavic Revival
and of resistance to Germanization.

On 12th June there was some rioting in Prague that was followed by the active deployment
of the forces under the command of the local Austrian commander, General Windischgrätz,
whose wife had been fatally wounded in the disturbances, and a revival of Austrian
administrative control after five days of conflict. In many cases moderate persons, seeing the
behaviour of those involved in rioting in Prague as being excessive or alarmingly socialistic,
tended away from support for unpredictable change and toward support for traditional
authority.

Reaction was furthered by other, inherently tragic, developments that took place in France
in late June. The French National Assembly elections of April 23rd had been based on
universal suffrage and had produced a conservative outcome where the small number of
deputies in favour of Republicanism and Socialism were heavily outnumbered. Those
promises made in February that the government would arrange work schemes had resulted in
the organisation of "National Workshops" which proved to be very expensive at a time when
the new administration found it difficult to raise loans and considered it most imprudent to
raise taxes sufficiently to actually fund the considerable expense in continuing the project. In
many cases those in employment in Paris felt able to agitate for higher wages from their
existing employers in the belief that they could fall back upon the public purse. Persons from
outside Paris migrated to take advantage of the new provisions. In late May the authorities,
with perhaps one hundred and twenty thousand persons enrolled in the work schemes, began
to place restrictions on them. On 22nd June the assembly moved to close down the work
schemes. People were in cases offered such deeply unattractive alternatives as joining the
French army, participating in the draining of provincial swamplands, or emigration to colonial
north Africa. On 23rd June barricades were set up in Paris and the authorities ordered the
army to intervene.

Thousands of fatalities occurred during subsequent street fighting, with thousands more
being sent into exile or being given terms of imprisonment. After these "June Days" Socialism
was subjected to repression and press freedoms were curtailed.

The Minister of War, General Cavignac, had played a prominent role in the "June Days"
where socialism was suppressed and was invited by the assembly to continue with the
exercise of sweeping powers until a new constitution was in place. Over the ensuing months

14
however General Cavignac showed limited capacity for government and for the winning of
political support. In the event people increasingly began to be attracted by the personality and
policies of one Louis Napoleon, a nephew of the former Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, who
had long lived in exile but had been given approval to return to France in June 1848 and who
had actually been elected to the Assembly. French public opinion, long supportive of
extensions of French political, cultural, and military, influence had recently been moved by
the works of Thiers and others about the Napoleonic era.

Louis Napoleon stood for election as President of the Republic - an office which, under the
constitution of the republic, was to continue over a four year term. In this campaign Louis
Napoleon espoused policies that offered strong support for order, for the rights of private
property, and for the maintenance of the republic. His close family association with Napoleon
Bonaparte also seemed to offer the promise of a more dynamic policy at home and abroad. At
the election in September 1848 Louis Napoleon was returned with some five-and-a-half
million votes out of the seven-and-a-half million cast. The now somewhat discredited General
Cavignac being the closest runner up in the presidential campaign.

Although the assemblies of Lombardy, and of Venetia, had voted for annexation to the
Kingdom of Sardinia-Piedmont this was not put into effect as the Austrian commander
Radetzky exceeded his official orders by leading his now reinforced armies based in the
Quadrilateral against the Sardinian-Piedmontese led interest and won a decisive victory at
Custozza on July 23rd.

In April 1848 Prussia, Brunswick, and Hanover, had sent forces into Holstein after being
asked to intervene by those assembled at Frankfurt at a time of a succession crisis, following
on from the repudiation of the incoming Danish Kings personal Sovereignty as Duke, by the
Estates of Holstein and Schleswig. In early May Prussian forces penetrated into the Danish
province of Jutland. The Tsar of all the Russia's had let it be known that he disapproved of
these actions by Prussia, meanwhile, the British were pressing for the agreement of a peace.
As a result of these international complications, and also of the seriously adverse effects of a
Danish blockade on Prussian commerce, the Prussian Kingdom entered on 28th August into a
so-called Malmo Armistice with Denmark without prior consultation with the German
National Assembly. The Assembly initially condemned this armistice but, on the 16th
September, narrowly endorsed it after a three-day debate. Austrian, Prussian, and Hessian,
forces were called upon to defend the Assembly's proceedings against those protesting this
acceptance of an armistice so deeply unwelcome to German national sentiment.

The Magyars tended to see themselves as the natural "people of state" and the Magyar
tongue as the natural "language of state" in their hoped for restored and constitutional
kingdom of Hungary. Although Kossuth, in sponsoring Hungarian constitutional autonomy in
March 1848, had pronounced that "Our task is to found a happier future on the brotherhood
of all the Austrian races" it happened that the Magyar dominated Hungarian Diet sought to
effectively impose the Magyar tongue, as the language of state, on the several Slav
nationalities that had been living under the political control of the Hungarian Diet.

15
 The Magyars were not the first people to endeavour to create a 'progressive' state for
themselves.

Turbulent times can often give scope for the adoption of sweeping policiies. If we look at
revolutionary France in the years after 1789 we see that policies were adopted by the French
Revolutionaries which featured such things as the abandonment of the long established
"feudal" territories of France, (e. g. Maine, Anjou, Gascony), with their being replaced, after
December 1789, by eighty-three new administrative Departements whose names were derived
from geographical features.

The "Christian" calendar was repudiated with a new one being adopted based on the current
reality of the, "French Revolutionary New Dawn," giving humanity its new base year,
(September 22, 1792 was redefined to be the first day of Year I of the Republic), along with
new months and new weekdays.

A rationalisation of weights and measures across France led to the adoption of a system
where, after August 1 1793, weights were measured in Kilograms, volumes were measured in
Litres, and distances were measured in Metres.

The France of 1789, with an overall population of some twenty-eight million persons, was
the most populous state in western Europe by a wide margin. Territorially France was a result
of a centuries long consolidation of provinces that had been brought under French royal
sovereignty through dynastic marriages, dynastic inheritances, dynastic wars and other
conflicts.

Such processes had resulted in a high degree of regional linguistic diversity. The
Revolutionary upheavals after 1789 occured in a French domestic situation where perhaps a
million persons spoke Breton in their everyday lives, another million spoke German, an
hundred thousand spoke Basque, there were another hundred thousand Catalan speakers,
whilst Provence, in the south east, was the home of many historic dialects. Flemish and Italian
were also spoken in certain border regions.

In fact, only a sixth of the newly relevant 'Departments', all of which were located around
Paris, were exclusively French speaking.

Ardent French Republicanism was largely an urban phenomenon. Its keenest supporters
called each other "Citizen", demanded that "Careers be open to Talent" in a state supportive of
"Liberty, Egality, and Fraternity."

The Kings of France had been prepared to exercise sovereignty over a feudally structured
and linguistically diverse realm. The would-be architects of the Republic 'One and
Indivisible" increasingly associated the concepts of "language" and "nation" and, as they
conceptually struggled with issues of "unity" and "nationhood," it become evident that the
forms of "unity" and "nationhood" they had in mind were difficult to promote against this
background of diversity and regionalism.

A Republican Decree under Robespierre, the Decree of Thermidor 2 (July 20, 1794),
provided that henceforth all contracts had to be written in French. By its terms any civil
servant or public officer, or any government official who, in the performance of their duties,
drew up, wrote or subscribed, official reports, judgements, contracts or other generally

16
unspecified documents in idioms or languages other than French could be condemned to six
months imprisonment.

One of the moving spirits behind its adoption, the Abbe Gregoire, had presented a report
entitled "Why and How the Patois Must be Destroyed and French Made Universal" to the
National Convention on 16 Prairal Year II (4 June 1794). This report suggested that standard
French was the mother tongue of only 15% of the population and maintained that ‘the patois
(Occitan, Provençal and all non-standard forms of French), together with Breton and Basque,
represent the barbarism of centuries past and need to be obliterated and replaced by standard
French’. Gregoires report called for the single and invariable use of "the language of freedom"
in a "Republic one and indivisible".

As early as 8 Pluviôse Year II (January 27, 1794). Bertrand Barère (a member of the
revolutionary Committee of Public Safety) had stated: ‘Federalism and superstition speak
Breton, emigration and hatred of the Republic speak German, counter- revolution speaks
Italian and fanaticism speaks Basque. Let us break these instruments of injury and error. The
language of a free people must be one and the same for all’.

Charles-Maurice de Talleyrand (1754-1838), one of the political great men of the time,
proposed that there should be a primary school in each municipality such that "The language
of the Constitution and the laws will be taught there to all; and this crowd of corrupted
dialects, the last remains of feudality, will be forced to disappear; the new order of things
demands it".

A lite version of Latin had traditionally been the political language of the Hungarian Kingdom
- this was broadly acceptable in cultural and historic terms to most of the ethnic groups
domiciled in that kingdom. Magyar, on the other hand, was regarded as an extremely difficult
language quite different to the Indo-European tongues of Europe.

Kossuth, and Magyar nationalism, also tended to see Transylvania and Croatia, southern and
eastern territories recently included in a declaration defining the "lands of the Crown of St.
Stephen" although they were not actually within the historic kingdom of Hungary, as being
self-evidently subject to the governmental power to be exercised by the Hungarian Diet.

The year was 1848 and perhaps Europe as a whole at that time had yet to experience
widespread instances of historic communities making pressing claims for linguistic and
cultural autonomy. One Croat representative to the Diet rose in protest and said that "You
Magyars are an island in an ocean of Slavism. Take heed that its waves do not rise and
overwhelm you."

This representative, Ljudevit Gaj, was perhaps the leading figure in the Illyrian movement.
Like many romantic nationalists in these times, and later, across Europe and Scandinavia he
was not native to the (in this case "Illyrian") nationality that was being championed. Gaj was
the son of a German father and a Slovak mother and was born just north of the ancient Croat
capital, Zagreb, in 1814 and developed an intense interest in Croatian history as he grew up.
The land Gaj sought to identify with, "Illyria" or "Croatia", had long been under the sway of
external powers and foreign cultural influences to the extent that little remained of what was

17
thought of as Croat identity. Gaj had gained a certain celebrity in those parts where people
could think of themselves as being "Croats" as a would-be champion of an awakening of a
cultural patriotism that hoped to see a recovery of the Croat "Illyrian" language, and a
renaissance of Croat culture.

In these "patriotic" times, under the tutelage of Gaj and others, the upper classes were
somewhat prepared to abandon their usage of Italian and the broader populations were also
prepared to adapt themselves towards the regional dialect that was spoken in the city of
Dubrovnik.

This preference for the dialect of Dubrovnik had locally well understood historical and
cultural significance in terms of the restitution of a Croat nationality due to Dubrovnik having
been something of a bastion against Turkish and Italian domination but it also made possible
some interaction, (intended to forstall Magyar cultural domination!), with the Serbs as their
own linguistic movement and associated romanticised recovery of Serb nationality, had
focussed on a related dialect although, in their respective linguistic and cultural revivals the
Orthodox Christian Serbs had adopted a Cyrillic alphabet whilst the Roman Catholic Croats
used a Latin alphabet.

Jellachic, formerly a colonel of a Croatian regiment in the Habsburg service and more
recently (March 1848) Governor or Ban of Croatia (and a close friend of Ljudevit Gaj!), soon
thereafter expelled Magyar officials from Croatia, in May forbade correspondence with the
Hungarian government, and in June moved to restore the Croatian Diet at Agram. Under
Hungarian diplomatic lobbying most of these measures by Jellachic were successively
officially condemned by the Emperor even to the point of suspending Jellachic from office.

After being summoned to an interview with the Emperor at Innsbruck Jellachic gave fulsome
assurances of loyalty to the Habsburg state system and published an address to the numerous
Croat soldiers based under Radetzky's overall command in Lombardy to continue in the
Habsburg service and "not to be diverted from their duty to the Emperor in the field by any
report of danger to their rights and to the nationality nearer home." This manifesto won him
the support of many important persons in the higher reaches of the Austrian military and court.

Radetzky's victory at Custozza contributed to a resurgence in the fortunes of the Habsburg

system. Given this resurgence the Emperor felt able to return to Vienna. In early September
Jellachic was restored to office by the Emperor as Ban of Croatia and soon thereafter led a
force against the Hungarian interest. The Hungarian Parliament was declared abolished by the
Emperor on the 3rd of October, on 6th arrangements for the sending of Austrian German
regiments to the aid of Jellachic were followed by a revolt in Vienna aimed at impeding this
deployment. Should Jellachic and the Austrian regiments suppress the Hungarian seperatism
this would tend to also diminish the possibility of securing the formation of an administration
that would be less under the sway of the dynasty and more responsive to the wishes for
constitutional freedom of the Empires's "Peoples of State" or "Master Nations." This Viennese
revolt was forcibly contained by soldiers under the command of General Windischgrätz.
Such nationalities as the Serbs, the Slovaks, and the Rumanians also tended to operate against
the establishment of a definite Hungarian political power - not so much to restore the
Habsburg system as to inhibit the unwelcome threat of Magyarisation. Such opposition
amongst the nationalities to the establishment of Hungarian power was itself to some limited
extent dependent on pre-existing patterns of confessional adherence. More important perhaps

18
were traditions of political / cultural alliance with, or political / cultural opposition to, the
Magyars.

In November King Freidrich Wilhelm ordered the dispersal of the Prussian Assembly.
Prussian forces intervened in other German states to restore princely rule.

On 27th November the Austrian minister Schwarzenberg insisted that the Austrian Empire
must be preserved intact. In early December Schwarzenberg arranged the abdication of the
incapable Emperor Ferdinand, who had been tarnished by his concessions, in favour of an
eighteen year old nephew the Archduke Francis. At the time of his accession Francis added
Joseph to his name as Emperor in the hope of associating his rule with that of an earlier
Emperor whose reforms were kindly remembered by many. The Hungarians were unwilling
to consent to Francis Joseph being invested with the Crown of St. Stephen. The struggle to
subdue Hungary proving difficult the Austrian authority sought the involvement of the Tsar
and invited active Russian assistance "in the holy struggle against anarchy."

The Tsar of all the Russias was in principle supportive of divine-right dynastic governance
and had also become somewhat concerned lest the Hungarian developments be copied in his
Polish Kingdom, he had already, and seriously, offered to assist in returning the Kingdom of
Hungary to its earlier political position within the 'lands of the Habsburgs' and now sent some
three hundred and sixty thousand of his soldiers to co-operate with Austrian forces in efforts
to subdue Hungary.

By late June, with Hungarian nationalism being hard pressed by Austrian, Russian, and local
nationality opposition Kossuth made some concessions to the nationalities within the
Hungarian kingdom allowing them to use their own languages in schools and law courts. This
attempt to win support from these nationalities proved to be, however, a case of too little and
too late.

On 4th March Francis Joseph had issued, by decree, a new centralising Imperial Constitution
devised by his own ministers and moved to dissolve the Austrian Constituent Assembly. On
9th March Schwarzenberg threw his support behind a possible resolution to the question of
the extent of the new German State by suggesting that the entire Austrian Empire should join
with the Germanic Confederation in "an Empire of Seventy Millions". Schwarzenberg further
suggested that the leadership of this Grossdeutschland (Greater Germany) with further, non-
germanic, Habsburg ruled, territorial additions would alternate between Austria and Prussia.

Those present as representatives in the Frankfurt Parliament had another option to consider in
the form of Kleindeutschland this Lesser Germany being formed without the adherence any of
the Hapsburg lands.

Austria was the traditionally the "leading power" in the German confederation, but of its
thirty-six million inhabitants less than six million were German. Prussia was traditionally the
"second power" in the German confederation, and of its sixteen million population some
fourteen million were German.

After further debate, however, the Frankfurt Assembly responded to the ongoing
constitutional stalemate by approving, on 28 March with some two-fifths of the
representatives abstaining, a more national-German Kleindeutsch outcome and offering the
throne as hereditary "Emperor of the Germans" to the King of Prussia.

19
 A thirty-two man delegation subsequently journeyed to Berlin to seek the consent of the
King of Prussia. In the event King Freidrich Wilhelm, in polite diplomatic, terms told the
delegation that he felt honored but could accept the crown only with the consent of his peers,
the other sovereign monarchs. He nevertheless gave some consideration to the offer, over
several weeks, before finally declining to become "Emperor of the Germans".

King Freidrich Wilhelm was less polite about these developments in a letter to a relative in
England in which he related that he felt deeply insulted by being offered "from the gutter" a
crown, "disgraced by the stink of revolution, baked of dirt and mud."

It appears that King Freidrich Wilhelm alongside his own romantic notions about kingship,
(he had described Constitutions as "pieces of paper that stand between God, who appoints
kings and rulers, and the people"), also thought of the House of Habsburg as being the
naturally leading dynasty in the Germanies and as such was unwilling to attempt to challenge
its leading role by accepting the Imperial title. In practical terms the Habsburg dynasty would
have found such an acceptance to be intolerable and would probably have sought to undo it
through diplomatic and possible also military endeavours.

In the wake of Friedrich Wilhelm's decision not to accept the proferred Imperial crown
Prussian delegates were ordered to withdraw from the German National Assembly, other
states also withdrew their representatives. In the circumstances what was left of the credibility
of the Assembly largely evaporated - the Frankfurt Assembly was discontinued in May with a
rump ineffectively reconvening at Stuttgart.

After the recovery of reaction in the Germanies the Constitutions of many German states
were rendered less liberal or suspended altogether.

On 15th November 1848 Rossi, the Prime Minister of the States of the Church who seemed
to be on the point of acting to repress reform, was attacked and fatally injured. Later that
month Pope Pius left a turbulent Rome and relocated at Gaeta in the Kingdom of Naples. The
formation of a Constituent Assembly to be elected by universal suffrage was set in train
shortly thereafter. On 5th February the Constituent Assembly held its first session and four
days later issued a Declaration which repudiated the Temporal Power of the Church and
proclaimed a Roman Republic:-

Article 1. The temporal government of the papacy is now at an end, in fact and in law.

Article 2. The Roman pontiff will have every guarantee needed for the independent exercise
of his spiritual power.

Article 3. The form of government at Rome shall be that of a pure democracy, and it will take
the glorious name of the Roman Republic

Article 4. The Roman Republic will enter into such relations with the rest of Italy as our
common nationality demands.

20
On February 18th Pope Pius, believing this Declaration of a Roman Republic to be an
intolerable revolutionary overthrow of what was not only an historically valid polity but
which was also, and more importantly, the divinely ordained seat of the Papacy, called upon
France, Austria, Naples and Spain to restore the States of the Church to Papal Sovereignty.

In March at Novara the Austrians won an important victory over the forces led by Sardinia-
Piedmont prompting King Charles Albert to abdicate. He was succeeded by a son, Victor
Emmanuel who, in a personal interview with the Austrian commander Radetzky won his
agreement to the continuance of the Sardinian Statuto constitutional arrangements as this
continuance would be likely to better reconcile potentially turbulent Piedmontese radicals to
the post-conflict situation.

Austrian intervention secured the restoration of the Grand Duke of Tuscany to his throne - it
now seemed that Rome would similarly be returned to Papal authority before many weeks had
passed.

The Sicilian Parliament had pronounced Ferdinand, the Boubon dysnast who ruled from
Naples, to be deposed and had offered the throne to a younger brother of Victor Emmanuel.
King Ferdinand responded by despatching a naval fleet which proceeded to bombard Messina
over five days. Negotiations were entered into but agreement proved elusive. In the event
Sicily was invested with King Ferdinand's soldiers such that the capital, Palermo, was
captured on May 15.

The government of Louis Napoleon in France preferred that Austrian arms should not
themselves achieve the restoration of the Papal power in Rome as this could lead to the re-
establishment of an Austrian hegemony in the peninsula that could well be harmful to the
perceived interests of France. Louis Napoleon also hoped to gain favour with powerful
Roman Catholic interests in France through a French intervention intended to win Rome back
to the sovereignty of the papacy

Some ten thousand soldiers were duly sent from the French Republic with the minority
republican element in the French assembly being assured of the good intentions of the
assembly towards the Roman population and of a desire to avert possible Austrian domination.

The large army sent by France landed on the coast near Rome on 25 April 1849 and was
directly responsible for the militarily contested overthrow of the Roman Republic in early
July 1849 despite a stout resistance led by several patriotric Italians including Mazzini and
Garibaldi. This French intervention, was styled for French domestic consumption as being a
necessary to overthrow unpopular "foreigners who had come from all parts of Italy."

On August 25 an Austrian army overthrew the independence of Venice where resistance had
been worn down by cholera and famine as well as by military siege and bombardment.

The Papal authority, as restored to Rome on July 14, soon showed itself, in defiance of the
wishes of France, as being interested in the re-imposition of a priestly absolutism. Pope Pius
IX did not personally return to Rome from Gaeta until the following year and when he did so
he returned with a head of hair that had become rapidly and prematurely grey due to the
stresses of the time. He thereafter followed notably conservative policies in theology and in
politics over the following two decades.

21
 The revolutions of 1848-9, this so-called "springtime of the peoples" which had once seemed
to sweep all before it, had revealed that there was a powerful groundswell of dissatisfaction
with traditional dynastic governance but where it was set aside this usually led to the
emergence of situations where deep rivalries centered on the forwarding of sectionally
"popular" socialistic and sectionally "popular" nationalist aspirations by some interested
groups that were deeply unwelcome to other interested groups. The resulting divisions and
turmoils alienated many people from the course of the revolutions and facilitated the return of
local dynastic authority as a broadly acceptable champion of order over chaos.
Just as in the 1789-1815 era Russia again eventually intervened in support of the tradition of
throne and altar governance.

Although the tide of revolution was turned back in 1849 the events of 1848-1849 left several
direct legacies. There was profound reform of the lot of the peasantry over much of central
Europe as approved by the Austrian Constituent Assembly on 7th September 1848 (and as
retained by the restored Austrian administration).

This involved an elimination of the "robot" feudal services which the peasantry had
previously to render to local magnates. This led to far-reaching transformations in society
where agriculture became more commercial and less feudal and where many poorer peasants
were unable to survive economically due to falling prices. A consequent increase in migration
of (usually) Slav peasants to (often previously) Germanised urban areas sometimes tended to
contribute further to the establishment of conditions for continued "local clashes of culture
and language" between German and Slav over large tracts of the Austrian Empire.

There was also an imparting of impetus to nationalism in the Italian Peninsula and in "the
Germanies." Enduring change towards more inclusive representation or constitutional
government occurred in Belgium, Holland, Denmark and Switzerland.

Many consequences were to follow from Louis Napoleon's elevation to the French Presidency.
On October 31 1849, when he had been in Presidential office for almost a year, he sent a
message to the Assembly which effectively undermined the constitution of the republic. This
message sought to offer some justification as to why the former Brissot ministry had been
dismissed.

"France, in the midst of confusion, seeks for the hand, the will of him whom it elected on the
10th of December. The victory won on that day was the victory of a system, for the name of
Napoleon is itself a programme. It signifies order, authority, religion, national prosperity
within; national dignity without. It is this policy, inaugurated by my election, that I desire to
carry to triumph with the support of the Assembly and of the people."

In late 1851 the Republican constitution was more completely overthrown:-

"The present situation cannot continue. Each day that passes increases the country's danger.
The Assembly, supposed to be the staunchest supporter of order, has become a hot-bed of
sedition. The patriotism of three hundred members was not enough to curb its fatal tendencies.
Instead of legislation for the public good, it is forging weapons for civil war. It is making a

22
bid for the power that I wield directly by virtue of the people's will. It fosters every wicked
passion. It is jeopardising the stability of France. I have dissoved the National Assembly and I
invite the whole people to adjudicate between me and it. "

Proclamation of Louis Napoleon of 2 December 1851

Under the previous constitutional arrangements Louis Napoleon would have had to leave
office in 1852 with there also being a law against the re-election of previous holders of the
presidential office. Louis Napoleon, who had run up very heavy personal debts, knew that his
political adversaries were waiting for an opportunity to move against him. The Proclamation
of 2 December was accompanied by the arrest of seventy-eight of such key political
opponents.

The French Republic was subsequently replaced by a form of Empire under Louis Napoleon
who was to hold power as Emperor Napoleon III. Napoleon I being Napoleon Bonaparte,
Napoleon II being a title imputed to the son of the politically arranged marriage between
Napoleon Bonaparte and an Austrian Archduchess. This son, who had died of tuberculosis at
the age of twenty-one, had been raised under Metternich's overall supervision as a Austrian
aristrocrat.

The implication of this title being that "Napoleon III" sought to identify his empire with that
of Napoleon Bonaparte and intended to pursue somewhat Bonapartist policies at home and
abroad. Where the truly dynastic rulers of Europe respected the principle of dynastic
sovereignty and were also usually supportive of church influence on society such was not the
"Bonapartist outlook." In particular Napoleon III was somewhat prepared to take upon
himself the promotion of states based on what was called the so-called "national principle."

His uncle, Napoleon Bonaparte after defeat and in exile, had claimed to have been a champion
of this "principle" but an examination of Bonaparte's policies suggests that such support as he
offered to it was perhaps guided by considerations related to his own imperial framework and
the winning of allies amongst peoples whilst avoiding the alienation of mighty adversaries
such as the Tsar of Russia.

Napoleon III saw the promotion of national statehood as being a necessary response to the
existence of popular and national aspirations that might tend to overspill into turbulent
challenges to the then existing system. He also hoped that France might gain diplomatically
by being the sponsor of such states and thus winning friends and allies. The situation where
Napoleon III, as the ruler of one of the most inherently powerful states of western Europe,
was prepared to undermine historic traditions of dynastic rule in order to facilitate the
emergence of states based moreso on ethnic nationhood was likely to bring with it a degree of
constitutional and political turmoil in Europe.

Napoleon III was also to some degree dismissive of the validity of the "Vienna Settlement"
of 1815, which had attempted to restore dynastic rule after the defeat of Napoleon Bonaparte.

(Something of the nature of the potential constitutional and political turmoil that might tend
to result from Napoleon III's adoption of such policies can be seen in a scenario, early in 1863,
where the Empress Eugenie the wife of Napoleon III, showed the Austrian ambassador a
projected "more rational" map of Europe. This proposed map envisioned dramatic and
unprecedented changes to the sovereignty of several states.

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 A Polish state was to be re-established - such re-establishment would be at the expense of
Prussia and Russia but Russia was to make compensatory gains in Asia Minor and Prussia in
North Germany. The emergent Italian kingdom [that had been formed in 1861] would gain
Venetia with the Austrian Empire being compensated with Silesia and some territories in the
Balkans. Greece would gain Constantinople [Istanbul] whilst the Ottoman Empire seemed to
disappear. France herself was to gain the left bank of the Rhine at the expense of German
princes who might hope for territorial compensation in South America.)

Given his political outlook it happened that Napoleon III decided to interact diplomatically,
and militarily, with dynastic ministers such as Cavour (prime minister to the House of Savoy)
and Bismarck (prime minister to the House of Hohenzollern), in ways which culminated in
the establishment of states - a Kingdom of Italy in 1861 (Cavour) and a second German
Empire in 1871 (Bismarck) - that were simultaneously both dynastic and moreso in
accordance with the "national principle". Powerful sections of the local populations in both
these situations tending to support the replacement of the former patchworks of traditional
dynastic states of the Italian peninsula and the German lands as a necessary route towards the
establishment of more powerful and more progressive states that were also associated with
shared feelings of nationality.

Interestingly, in both of these cases Napoleon III got more than he bargained for in that the
Italian Kingdom and the German Empire that eventually emerged were both more territorially
extensive and more independent of French influence than he had anticipated.

Similarly Cavour and Bismarck also got more than they bargained for in that the
establishment of the Italian Kingdom and the German Empire were in practice associated with
a lessening of the full acceptance of the personal sovereignty of dynastic rulers and a greater
acceptance of popular national sovereignty.

***

In 1879 Edward Augustus Freeman, Professor of Modern History at Oxford University,

wrote:- A hundred years ago man's political likes and dislikes seldom went beyond the range
suggested by the place of his birth or immediate descent, Such birth or descent made him a
member of this or that political community, a subject of this or that prince, a citizen - perhaps
a subject - of this or that commonwealth. The political community of which he was a member
had its traditional alliances and traditional enemies, and by those traditional alliances and
traditional enemies the likes and dislikes of the members of that community were guided. But
those traditional alliances and enemies were seldom by theories about language or race. The
people of this or that place might be discontented under a foreign government; but, as a rule,
they were discontented only if subjection to that foreign government brought with it personal
supression or at least political degradatiion. Regard or disregard of some purely local
priveledge or local feeling went for more than the fact of a government being native or
foreign. What we now call the sentiment of nationality did not go for much; what we call the
sentiment of race went for nothing at all. Only a few men here or there would have
understood the feelings which have led to the two great events of our time, the political
reunion of the German and Italian nations after their long political dissolution.

Between circa 1850 and 1870 several territorially ambitious Dynasties tried to exploit or "ride
the tiger" of populist nationalism. In the case of Count Camillo Cavour this facilitated a form

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of Italian unification. In the case of Count Otto von Bismarck this led to a form of German
unification.

***

F. Palacky - letter to Frankfurt Parliament Committee of Fifty April 1848

The letter of 6th April in which you, greatly esteemed gentlemen, did me the honour of
inviting me to Frankfurt in order to take part in the business concerned "mainly with the
speediest summoning of a German Parliament" has just been duly delivered to me by the post.

With joyful surprise I read in it the most valued testimony of the confidence which Germany's
most distinguished men have not ceased to place in my views: for by summoning me to the
assembly of "friends of the German Fatherland", you yourselves acquit me of the charge
which is as unjust as it has often been repeated, of ever having shown hostility towards the
German people. With true gratitude I recognise in this the high humanity and love of justice
of this excellent assembly, and I thus find myself all the more obliged to reply to it with open
confidence, freely and without reservation.

Gentlemen, I cannot accede to your call, either myself or by despatching another "reliable
patriot". Allow me to expound the reasons for this to you as briefly as possible.

The explicit purpose of your assembly is to put a German people's association [Volksbund] in
the place of the existing federation of princes, to bring the German nation to real unity, to
strengthen German national feeling, and thus to raise Germany's power both internal and
external. However much I respect this endeavour and the feeling on which it is based, and
particularly because I respect it, I cannot participate in it. I am not a German – at any rate I
do not consider myself as such – and surely you have not wished to invite me as a mere yes-
man without opinion or will. Consequently, I would have in Frankfurt either to deny my
feelings and to play the hypocrite or to contradict loudly at the first opportunity which offers
itself. For the former I am too frank and outspoken, for the latter not sufficiently bold and
ruthless; for I cannot find it in my heart by ugly sounds to disturb the harmony which I find
desirable and gratifying not only in my own house but also in my neighbour's.

I am a Bohemian of Slav descent [Stamm] and with the little which I possess and can do have
devoted myself totally and for ever to the service of my people. This people is, indeed, a small
one, but has always been a distinct one and one existing for itself.

Its rulers have for centuries participated in the German union of princes [Fürstenbund]; it
has never, however, counted itself as part of this people, and it has not been considered as
belonging to it by others, during the course of centuries. The whole association of Bohemia,
first of all with the Holy Roman Empire, then with the German Confederation, has always
been a pure matter of the royal prerogative [Regale], of which the Bohemian people, the
Bohemian estates, have never been accustomed to take any notice. This fact is known equally
well to all German historians as to me; and if it should be doubted by anybody, I am prepared
to secure the evidence in due course. Even granting the full assumption that the Bohemian
crown has ever been in a feudal relationship with Germany (which, incidentally, has always
been denied by Bohemian writers), nobody versed in history can possibly doubt the former
internal sovereignty and autonomy of Bohemia. The whole world knows that the German
emperors as such have never had anything to do with the Bohemian people; that they

25
possessed in and over Bohemia neither the legislative nor the judicial or executive power;
that they were never entitled to draw either troops or anything else based on their royal
prerogative [Regalien] out of the country, that Bohemia with its crown lands was not part of
any of the former German circles [Kreise], that the competence of the Supreme Imperial
Court [Reichskammergericht] never extended over it, etc.; that thus the whole connection of
Bohemia with Germany so far must be considered as a relationship not of people with people,
but of ruler with ruler. If it is now demanded that, going beyond the hitherto existing union of
princes, the people of Bohemia should join together with the German people, then this is a
new demand lacking any basis in historical right, to which I for my part do not regard myself
as justified in acceding, so long as I do not receive for it an explicit and complete mandate.

The second reason which prevents me from taking part in your deliberations is the
circumstance that, judging by everything that has so far been published about your purposes
and views, you will of necessity intend to weaken Austria as an independent empire, even to
make it impossible – a state whose maintenance, integrity and strengthening is and must be a
high and important affair not only of my people, but of the whole of Europe, nay, of humanity
and civilisation itself …

… You know which power possesses the whole great East of our continent; you know that this
power, which has already grown to a colossal size, strengthens itself inwardly in greater
measure with each decade than is or can be the case in Western countries; that – in its
interior almost unassailable and inaccessible – it has long adopted a threatening position
externally, and, though aggressive even in the North, driven by its natural instinct it seeks and
will seek preferably to expand towards the South; that every further step which it could take
along this way threatens with increased speed to produce and to lead to a new universal
monarchy that is an incalculable and unutterable evil, a calamity without measure and end,
which I, a Slav body and soul, would therefore in the interest of humanity mourn no less, even
though it would be primarily a Slav one. With the same injustice with which I am viewed as
an enemy of the Germans in Germany, I am designated by many in Russia as an enemy of the
Russians. No, I say it loud and openly, I am no enemy of the Russians. Quite the contrary, I
have always followed with attention and joyful participation each step which this great people
takes forward within its natural frontiers on the path of civilisation. As, however,
notwithstanding all fervent love for my people, I have always put the interests of humanity
and science above those of nationality: the mere possibility of a Russian universal monarchy
finds no more decided opponent and person fighting against it than me; not because it is
Russian, but because it would be a universal monarchy.

You know that the south-east of Europe along the frontiers of the Russian Empire is inhabited
by several peoples significantly different in origin, language, history and culture – Slavs,
Wallachians, Magyars, and Germans, not to mention the Greeks, Turks and Schkipetars – of
whom none is strong enough by itself to put up a successful resistance in the future against
the overpowering neighbour in the East; they can do that only when a single and firm bond
unites them all with one another. The true life blood of this necessary union of peoples is the
Danube: its central power, therefore, must not be too far distant from this stream if it wants to
be and to remain at all effective. Truly, if the Austrian Empire had not already existed for a
long time, then one would have to hurry in the interest of Europe and the interest of humanity
to create it.

But why did we see this state, which by nature and history is called to be Europe's shield and
refuge against Asiatic elements of all kinds – why did we see it in the critical moment

26
surrendered to every impetuous onslaught, unsteady and almost helpless? Because it has in
unhappy delusion for so long itself misjudged and denied the actual legal and moral basis of
its existence: the principle of the complete equality of rights and the equality in respect of all
nationalities and confessions united under its sceptre. The law of nations is a true natural law:
no nation on earth is entitled to demand for its benefit from its neighbour its self-sacrifice;
none is obliged to deny itself or to sacrifice itself for the good of its neighbour. Nature knows
no ruling, as well as no servile peoples; for the bond which unites several peoples to a
political whole to be firm and lasting, none must have a reason for fearing that it would lose
by unification any of its dearest blessings: quite the contrary, each must harbour the secure
hope that it will find from the central power protection against any encroachments of its
neighbours; then it will hasten, too, to endow this central authority with so much power that it
could give such protection effectively. I am convinced that it is not yet too late for Austria to
proclaim aloud and without reserve this principle of justice, the sacred anchor [sacra ancora]
when shipwreck threatens, and to give it practical emphasis everywhere: but the moments are
precious, not an hour is to be lost! Metternich did not fall only because he was the worst
enemy of freedom, but also because he has been the most irreconcilable enemy of all Slav
nationality in Austria.

When I cast my glance beyond the frontiers of Bohemia I am impelled by natural as well as
historical causes to direct them not towards Frankfurt but towards Vienna, and there to seek
the centre which is natural and is called to secure and to protect for my people peace,
freedom and justice. Your tendency, gentlemen, however, now seems openly designed to
weaken incurably this centre from whose strength I expect salvation not only for Bohemia,
and even to destroy it. Or do you believe that the Austrian monarchy will still continue if you
forbid it to possess in its hereditary lands its own army independent of the federal head
[Bundeshaupt] in Frankfurt? Do you believe that the Austrian Emperor will even then be able
to maintain himself as sovereign if you oblige him to accept all the more important laws of
your assembly, and thus to make illusory the institution of the Austrian Reich estates as well
as the provincial constitutions of the associated kingdoms, which are offered by nature itself?
And if then Hungary, for instance, following its urge, secedes from the monarchy, or, which is
almost the same, becomes its centre of gravity – will this Hungary, which does not want to
know anything of equal rights of nations within its own frontiers, in the long run remain free
and strong? Only the just is truly free and strong. But there can be no question of the Danube
Slavs and the Wallachians, nay the Poles, voluntarily joining the state which proclaims the
principle that one has first to be a Magyar and only then a human being; and even less can
there be any question of a compulsory union. For the salvation of Europe, Vienna must not
sink down to the level of a provincial city! But if there are even in Vienna people who desire
your Frankfurt as the capital, they must be told, Lord forgive them, that they do not know
what they want!

Finally I must hesitate for a third reason to collaborate in your deliberations: for I believe
that all the existing plans for the reorganisation of Germany on the basis of the will of the
people cannot be carried out and are in the long run untenable, unless you decide on a true
Caesarean operation [Kaiserschnitt] – I mean the proclamation of a German republic, if only
as a transitional form. All attempts to draft rules for a division of power between sovereign
princes and the sovereign people remind me of the theories of phalanstery which equally
make the assumption that all those participating will behave like figures in an arithmetical
problem and will claim no other rights than those which theory designates for them. Possibly
my view is unfounded, I may be wrong in my conviction – sincerely I desire myself that such
may be the case – but the conviction is there, and I may not abandon its compass for a single

27
moment, unless I want to get lost in the tempests of the day. So far as the introduction of a
republic in Germany is concerned – this question lies completely outside the sphere of my
competence, so that I do not want even to express an opinion on it.

I must, however, reject expressly and emphatically in advance the idea of a republic within
the frontiers of the Austrian Empire. Think of an Austria divided into a lot of republics and
small republics [Republikchen] – what a welcome basis for the Russian universal
monarchy …

The demand that Austria (and with her Bohemia) should nationally unite with Germany, that
is merge in Germany, is to expect it to commit suicide, and therefore lacks all moral and
political sense; conversely the demand that Germany should join Austria, that is to say enter
the Austrian monarchy under the conditions sketched above, makes much more sense. But if
this expectation is inadmissible to the German national sentiment, then there only remains for
the two powers – Germany and Austria – to constitute themselves next to each other on the
basis of equality of rights, to convert their existing federation into an eternal defensive and
offensive alliance [Schutz and Trutzbündnis] and in case of need, if it suits their mutual
material interests, to conclude a customs union between them.

I shall always be glad to co-operate in all measures which do not endanger Austria's
independence, integrity and the development of her power, particularly towards the East ... .

F. Palacky to the Frankfurt Parliament's 'Committee of Fifty,' 11th April 1848, (translated
from F. Palacky (ed.), Gedenkblatter, Prague, 1874, pp. 149 ff.)

It may be that we can consider Palcky's sentiments to be tellingly expressed but Friedrich
Engels felt able to to write of him:- The chief champion of the Tschechian nationality,
Professor Palacky, is but a learned German run mad, who cannot even now speak the
Tschechian language correctly and without foreign accent.

That being said the Bohemian / Czech capital city, Prague, had long been a place where
Germanic influences had been predominant in administration, trade and education. It was
therefore quite possible for educated persons who could think of themselves as being Czech to
appear to be substantially Germanised in culture.

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