Getting What You Want

A question from our survey that asked "Rate the Frankfurt Assembly."
Most people said that it was a partial failure, which is correct. 

This week (and a half) our class has been learning about the revolutions of 1830 and 1848. In order to learn about the revolutions of 1830 and 1848, our class began by looking at a statement from Alexis de Tocqueville. He basically stated the rights of the people in Europe had been suppressed because of the changes that the Congress of Vienna made, such as instating the holy alliance, the balance of power, the principle of legitimacy and the principle of intervention. He then continues on to say that people will hear of new ideas that allow people to have more rights and these ideas will spread throughout Europe. After this, we created a Success-Failure timeline. We decided what general things would constitute a revolution to be a success, a failure, a partial success or failure, or neutral. Then, we looked at a quote from Klemens von Metternich. He said, “When France sneezes, Europe catches a cold.” Based on this statement, our group predicted that the eruption, the revolution, will begin in France. We said this because we knew that the French had a history of revolting to get what they wanted. We were right. This was the basis for our essential question: Were the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 really failures as many historians have concluded?

Our question: "Why was Frederick William IV considered the enemy of
the Frankfurt Assembly?"
The answer: He refused to accept the German crown and constitution.

After the background information, our class broke up into groups. In these groups, we were assigned a particular revolution to study. My group was assigned to study the Frankfurt Assembly. After analyzing it, we had to create a survey for our classmates to take based on the Frankfurt Assembly. We used a tool called SurveyMonkey to do this. You can view our survey here. We looked at many primary sources in order to analyze it. The Frankfurt Assembly took place in present day Germany during 1848. During this time, the German states were trying to create a constitution for themselves. They were trying to create something fair, that gave the people more rights.  The question was, should they become a part of Austria, Prussia, or become their own country? In Johann Gustav Droysen’s speech to the Frankfurt Assembly, he said   "Prussia desired German unity in order to supply the deficiencies of her own power. Already Prussia is Germany in embryo. She will "merge" with Germany. . ." He is explaining that Prussia wants to control the German states. The people then created a constitution and proposed it to the King of Prussia, Frederick William IV. He rejected the constitution because the people who wrote it were “from the gutter”, in other words, the constitution came from the common people, not from nobility. It is stated by B.S. Berendsohn that, "Frederick William IV tries to shut the door on the representatives’ demands for a democratic constitution." It is clear that Frederick William IV is against the people’s demands and by rejecting this offer, Frederick William IV becomes the enemy of the revolution. Frederick William IV sends troops into the Frankfurt assembly to break it up. This is where the constitution presented to the king came from. The troops win against the people because the assembly didn’t have an army to defend themselves, most people end up dead, in prison or have fled to the U.S. because of its more democratic government. As a result of all this, William IV created his own constitution which gave him more power.

From our Survey, our question said, "What happened to the
Frankfurt Assembly?
Most people were correct in answering that William IV sent in
troops and disbanded the assembly. 

Only some of the revolutions of 1830 and 1848 really were failures such as historians have concluded. The Decembrist Revolt was a miserable failure. By the end of the revolt, Tsar Nicholas was forced to shoot down his own people to put down the rebellion in Russia. He said, “I saw that I must either take it upon myself to spill the blood of a few and almost surely save everything, or spare myself at the cost of definitely sacrificing the state…. At that point, seeing no other alternative, I ordered “Fire!””He shot down his own people instead of sacrificing himself for his country. The people lost and were shot down. This revolt was a miserable failure. Although the Decembrist revolt was a failure, the French Revolution of 1830 wasn’t a complete failure. The Declaration of the Chamber of Deputies in 1830 said, “the preamble of the Constitutional Charter is suppressed, as wounding the national dignity, in appearing to grant to Frenchmen the rights which essentially belong to them.” This is stating that the French people gained some rights due to their efforts, the revolution. The French Revolution of 1830 wasn’t a failure such as historians concluded, and neither was the Hungarian Revolution. During the Hungarian revolution in 1848, Koussouth stated, “The future of Hungary can never be secured while Austria maintains a system of government in direct antagonism to every constitutional principle.” Hungary was trying to gain independence from Austria, but this revolution was a partial failure because Hungary was given more rights, but these rights were short lived and Austria, with Russia’s help, soon took over Hungary again. After analyzing all of these sources, not all of the revolutions between 1830 and 1848 were such failures as historians believe.