In the era of the Great Migration of Nations, the migrating German tribes from the north of Europe dispersed throughout the continent, creating barbarian states spanning from the Northern Black Sea coast all the way to the kingdom of vandals in North Africa. In new conquered areas, alien tribes mingled with local, more numerous and often more civilized people, as a result of which they lost their national identity. Part of the territories that were left by the Germans in the first centuries of our era, were settled by western Slavs. By the 9th century, the Germanic people, close in language, occupied territory from the Rhine to the Elbe, from the Baltic to Italy.
Austria and Prussia
In Austria, Romanized Celts lived in late antiquity. In the era of the migration of peoples, the German tribes of the Rugis, the Lombards, the Bavarians and later the Slavs migrated there. The German lands were transformed by the emperor of the Holy Empire by Friedrich Barbarossa in 1156 into the Austrian Duchy. In the seventies of the thirteenth century, Austria became the hereditary possession of the Habsburg house, which from 1438 became the ruling dynasty of the Holy Roman Empire . Unlike other principalities of the empire, the Austrian duchy expanded due to non-Germanic peoples, mainly Slavs, Italians and Hungarians. The expansion of Austria in the southern and eastern directions distracted attention and the forces of the Habsburgs from the all-German affairs, where from the middle of the 18th century the military-feudal Prussia moved to the first roles.
The discovery of the Duchy of Prussia outside the Holy Empire allowed in 1701 to transform Brandenburg-Prussia into the kingdom of Prussia. In the wars of the XVIII century Prussia greatly expanded as a result of the conquest of Silesia by the Habsburgs, the seizure of the Baltic coast by the Swedes, and several sections of Poland. By the time of the Napoleonic wars, Prussia had become one of the great European powers, territorially united and rivaling Austria for influencing German affairs.
Napoleon
The Great French Revolution brought to power Napoleon , who is credited with changing the political geography of Europe. In the war of 1799-1801. Austria was defeated and had to admit France’s annexation of German lands on the left bank of the Rhine. In order to compensate for the losses of the German princes, it was decided to radically change the structure of the Holy Roman Empire: extensive church possessions, free cities and small state entities became part of the larger secular states, the number of which was reduced to 130. The Holy Roman Empire finally turned into a conglomerate of virtually independent states.
Formally, the Holy Roman Empire ceased to exist after the defeat of Austria in the 1805 war. August 6, 1806 Emperor Franz II resigned from the title of Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire, remaining Emperor of Austria. A month before that, German principalities had united in the Rhine Union, where Napoleon became the absolute ruler. The number of German states as a result of the absorption of small holdings was reduced to 40.
After the defeat of Napoleon in 1814, the Rhine Union was dissolved, and instead a confederation was formed of the German Union of 38 German states, including Prussia and the German part of Austria. The territory of Prussia almost doubled due to the enclave on the Rhine, the northern part of the Kingdom of Saxony and the Polish lands that rounded its borders.
The multinational Austrian empire with 27 million subjects prevailed in the alliance, but Prussia’s advantage was that its 11 million consisted mainly of Germans, and the newly annexed lands on the Rhine had a developed industrial potential. Thus, the core of the integration processes in Germany inevitably became Prussian.
Realization
After the fall of Napoleon in Europe, the principle of legitimacy prevailed, that is, the inviolability of borders under the rule of traditionally ruling dynasties was recognized. However, the rapid development of capitalist production, parliamentarism and social thought led to an understanding of the priority of the interests of the nation over monarchist dynastic orders. The bourgeoisie needed unified sales markets, but the feudal borders and the class structure of society prevented it. By the middle of the nineteenth century, a strong desire for the creation of national states arose in the European people, which was actively resisted by the already established empires.
In the 1830s industrialization began in Germany, which gave rise to rapid economic growth and aggravated the conflict of interests of the bourgeoisie with the feudal system of society. In 1834, the German Customs Union was formed, which included 12 German states and by 1860 added another 5. The Union economically united virtually all major German states with the exception of Austria, eliminating customs barriers between members of the union and imposing an increased uniform tariff on goods from other countries.
In March 1848, Germany, was swept by a wave of speeches, including street battles in Berlin, demanding political freedoms and united Germany. May 18, 1848 in Frankfurt by the initiative of the liberal intelligentsia a National German Assembly was gathered, which went down in history as the Frankfurt Parliament. On March 28, 1849, the Frankfurt Parliament adopted an imperial constitution, according to which Prussian King Friedrich Wilhelm IV was to become the constitutional monarch of the German Empire. The Constitution was recognized by 29 German states, but not the largest members of the German Union.
Friedrich Wilhelm IV refused to accept the imperial crown from the hands of the revolutionary Frankfurt parliament, Austria and Prussia withdrew delegates from there. Having lost political support of the leaders against the backdrop of the extinction of the revolution, the parliament collapsed. Part of the delegates voluntarily left it, another extreme left was dispersed by the Württemberg troops in Stuttgart in June 1849. The unrest that broke out in some states was suppressed by the Prussian troops.
None of the great powers was strategically interested in the emergence of a powerful new state in the center of Europe, although no one then foresaw the full threat of German militarism. At the same time, by the middle of the 1860s, thanks to the consistent diplomacy of Bismarck and the political disunity of the great powers, a favorable situation was presented for the unification of Germany around Prussia.
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The process of German unification