The German revolutions of 1848–1849, the opening phase of which was also called the March Revolution, were initially part of the Revolutions of 1848 that broke out in many European countries. They were a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions in the states of the German Confederation, including the Austrian Empire. The revolutions, which stressed pan-Germanism, liberalism and parliamentarianism, demonstrated popular discontent with the traditional, largely autocratic political structure of the thirty-nine independent states of the Confederation that inherited the German territory of the former Holy Roman Empire after its dismantlement as a result of the Napoleonic Wars. This process began in the mid-1840s.
Lützow Free Corps was a volunteer force of the Prussian army during the Napoleonic Wars. It was named after its commander, Ludwig Adolf Wilhelm von Lützow. The Corpsmen were also widely known as the “Lützower Jäger“ or “Schwarze Jäger“, sometimes also "Lützower Reiter".
August Willich, born Johann August Ernst von Willich, was a military officer in the Prussian Army, later enlisting and receiving a commission in the United States Army. Born into Prussian nobility, he formally discarded his title in 1847 and actively participated in the Revolutions of 1848. Willich's militant attitudes towards revolution made him a leading early proponent of communism. Although these revolutions were unsuccessful, he remained an ardent communist. Disagreements with Karl Marx, as Willich saw Marx as unacceptably conservative, swayed his decision to emigrate to the United States alongside many German radicals. His political beliefs greatly influenced his decision to serve in the Union Army during the American Civil War. Willich saw combat in several high-profile battles including the Battle of Shiloh and Chickamauga. After the war's conclusion and Lincoln's assassination, Willich left the Union Army and offered his expertise to the Prussian military during the Franco-Prussian War but was refused on account of his political beliefs. Willich returned to the United States and lived the remainder of his life quietly in Ohio until his death in 1878. Following his death he was eulogized by his rival Marx and the First International.
Alexander Schimmelfennig was a Prussian soldier and political revolutionary. After the German revolutions of 1848–1849, he immigrated to the United States, where he served as a Union Army general in the American Civil War.
The Battle of Kaiserslautern saw a Coalition army under Charles William Ferdinand, Duke of Brunswick-Wolfenbüttel oppose a Republican French army led by Lazare Hoche. Three days of conflict resulted in a victory by the Prussians and their Electoral Saxon allies as they turned back repeated French attacks. The War of the First Coalition combat was fought near the city of Kaiserslautern in the modern-day state of Rhineland-Palatinate, Germany, which is located about 60 kilometres (37 mi) west of Mannheim.
Carl Röchling was a German painter and illustrator known for his representation of historical military themes.
The Battle of Schweinschädel took place during the Austro-Prussian War between Prussia and Austria on 29 June 1866. The IV Army Corps of the Austrian Army under Tassilo Festetics tried to stop the advance of the Prussian 2nd Army under Crown Prince Friedrich, but was defeated by the V Army Corps under General von Steinmetz and had to withdraw.
The Battle of Clausen was fought on 20 October 1735 near the town of Klausen, which was then in the Electorate of Trier and part of the Holy Roman Empire, and is now in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate. French forces under the command of Marshal François de Franquetot de Coigny were defeated in an attempt to dislodge imperial troops under the command of Friedrich Heinrich von Seckendorff. The battle was one of the last significant engagements between the combatants in the War of the Polish Succession.
The Baden Revolution of 1848/1849 was a regional uprising in the Grand Duchy of Baden which was part of the revolutionary unrest that gripped almost all of Central Europe at that time.
The Wasgau is a Franco-German hill range in the German state of Rhineland-Palatinate and the French departments of Bas-Rhin and Moselle. It is formed from the southern part of the Palatine Forest and the northern part of the Vosges mountains, and extends from the River Queich in the north over the French border to the Col de Saverne in the south.
The Palatine uprising was a rebellion that took place in May and June 1849 in the Rhenish Palatinate, which was then an exclave territory of the Kingdom of Bavaria. Related to uprisings across the Rhine in Baden, it was part of the widespread Imperial Constitution Campaign (Reichsverfassungskampagne). Revolutionaries worked to defend the constitution and to secede from the Kingdom of Bavaria.
The Communist League was an international political party established on 1 June 1847 in London, England. The organisation was formed through the merger of the League of the Just, headed by Karl Schapper, and the Communist Correspondence Committee of Brussels, Belgium, in which Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels were the dominant personalities. The Communist League is regarded as the first Marxist political party and it was on behalf of this group that Marx and Engels wrote the Communist Manifesto late in 1847. The Communist League was formally disbanded in November 1852, following the Cologne Communist Trial.
The Battle of Kirchheimbolanden was the first battle in the Palatine Uprising of 1849. It took place on 14 June near Kirchheimbolanden and ended in the defeat of the volunteers (Freischaren) by the Prussian Army.
The Battle of Ludwigshafen and the subsequent bombardment of Ludwigshafen lasted from 15 to 18 June 1849 and was part of the Palatine Uprising and Baden Revolution. The young settlement of Ludwigshafen was badly damaged by the shells of the Baden artillery and the resulting fires.
Free infantry units were autonomous military units established in the second half of the 18th century, which operated as light troops independently of armies using rigid linear tactics. They are not to be confused with the Freikorps. Depending on their size they could be free battalions (Freibataillone) or free companies (Freikompanien).
Alfred Emil Ludwig Philipp Freiherr von Degenfeld (1816-1888) was a Badensian-Prussian general and a member of the Reichstag.
The Baden Army was the military organisation of the German state of Baden until 1871. The origins of the army were a combination of units that the Badenese margraviates of Baden-Durlach and Baden-Baden had set up in the Baroque era, and the standing army of the Swabian Circle, to which both territories had to contribute troops. The reunification of the two small states to form the Margraviate of Baden in 1771 and its subsequent enlargement and elevation by Napoleon to become the Grand Duchy of Baden in 1806 created both the opportunity and obligation to maintain a larger army, which Napoleon used in his campaigns against Austria, Prussia and Spain and, above all, Russia. After the end of Napoleon's rule, the Grand Duchy of Baden contributed a division to the German Federal Army. In 1848, Badenese troops helped to suppress the Hecker uprising, but a year later a large number sided with the Baden revolutionaries. After the violent suppression of the revolution by Prussian and Württemberg troops, the army was re-established and fought in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 on the side of Austria and the southern German states, as well as in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870 on the side of the Germans. When Baden joined the German Empire in 1870/71, the Grand Duchy gave up its military sovereignty and the Badenese troops became part of the XIV Army Corps of the Imperial German Army.
The German Democratic Legion was a volunteer unit formed by exiled German craftsmen and other emigrants in Paris under the leadership of the socialist poet Georg Herwegh, which set out for the Grand Duchy of Baden at the beginning of the German Revolution of 1848 to support the radical democratic Hecker uprising against the Baden government. A week after the military defeat of the uprising, the German Democratic Legion was also defeated and wiped out by Württemberg troops on April 27, 1848 in the battle of Dossenbach.
The 'Battle of Hagelberg took place on 27 August 1813, following the Battle of Grossbeeren and in the run-up to the Battle of Leipzig during the War of the Sixth Coalition. A Prussian force of mostly Landwehr militia, together with Russian Cossacks, destroyed a French, Saxon and Westphalian force of 8,900 men.
The Eiserne Division was the name of an anti-communist military formation made up of German volunteers that took part in the Latvian War of Independence in the Baltic States in 1919. It was the best-known Freikorps formation in the Baltic States. The unit was deployed against Soviet Russia-backed Soviet Latvia, and later fought against the army of the Republic of Latvia after a defection to Russian monarchist command. The division, which at times numbered up to 16,000 men, was disbanded at the beginning of 1920 due to mutiny.
Palatine rebel army
Vanguard of the 2nd Division of the 1st Army Corps