The German Confederation was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe. It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire, which had been dissolved in 1806 in reaction to the Napoleonic Wars.
Frederick William IV, the eldest son and successor of Frederick William III of Prussia, was king of Prussia from 7 June 1840 until his death on 2 January 1861. Also referred to as the "romanticist on the throne", he was deeply religious and believed that he ruled by divine right. He feared revolutions, and his ideal state was one governed by the Christian estates of the realm rather than a constitutional monarchy.
The Kingdom of Prussia constituted the German state of Prussia between 1701 and 1918. It was the driving force behind the unification of Germany in 1866 and was the leading state of the German Empire until its dissolution in 1918. Although it took its name from the region called Prussia, it was based in the Margraviate of Brandenburg. Its capital was Berlin.
The North German Confederation was initially a German military alliance established in August 1866 under the leadership of the Kingdom of Prussia, which was transformed in the subsequent year into a confederated state that existed from July 1867 to December 1870. A milestone of the German Unification, it was the earliest continual legal predecessor of the modern German nation-state known today as the Federal Republic of Germany.
Maximilian II reigned as King of Bavaria between 1848 and 1864.
The states of the German Confederation were member states of the German Confederation, from 20 June 1815 until 24 August 1866.
The Frankfurt Parliament was the first freely elected parliament for all German states, including the German-populated areas of the Austrian Empire, elected on 1 May 1848.
The First Schleswig War, also known as the Schleswig-Holstein Uprising and the Three Years' War, was a military conflict in southern Denmark and northern Germany rooted in the Schleswig-Holstein Question: who should control the Duchies of Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg, which at the time were ruled by the king of Denmark in a personal union. Ultimately, the Danish side proved victorious with the diplomatic support of the great powers, especially Britain and Russia, since the duchies were close to an important Baltic seaway connecting both powers.
The unification of Germany was a process of building the first nation-state for Germans with federal features based on the concept of Lesser Germany. It commenced on 18 August 1866 with adoption of the North German Confederation Treaty establishing the North German Confederation, initially a military alliance de facto dominated by Prussia which was subsequently deepened through adoption of the North German Constitution.
Joseph Maria Ernst Christian Wilhelm von Radowitz was a conservative Prussian statesman and general famous for his proposal to unify Germany under Prussian leadership by means of a negotiated agreement among the reigning German princes.
The Punctation of Olmütz, also called the Agreement of Olmütz, was a treaty between Prussia and Austria, dated 29 November 1850, by which Prussia abandoned the Erfurt Union and accepted the revival of the German Confederation under Austrian leadership. The treaty concluded the Autumn Crisis of 1850 in Germany.
Gerson von Bleichröder was a Jewish German banker. He was also a close confidant of Otto von Bismarck, serving as his financial agent. He became the first non-converted Jew in Prussia to be granted a hereditary title of nobility.
The term "Lesser Germany" or "Lesser German solution" denoted essentially exclusion of the multinational Austria of the Habsburgs from the planned German unification as an option for solving the German question, in opposition to the one of 'Greater Germany'.
Ludwig Karl Heinrich Freiherr von der Pfordten was a Bavarian attorney and politician.
The Provisorische Zentralgewalt was the provisional government of the Frankfurt Parliament (1848–49). Since this all-German national assembly had not been initiated by the German Confederation, it was lacking not only major constitutional bodies, such as a head of state and a government, but also legal legitimation. A modification of the Bundesakte, the constitution of the German Confederation, could have brought about such legitimation, but as it would have required the unanimous support of all 38 signatory states this was practically impossible. Partially for this reason, influential European powers such as France and Russia declined to recognize the Parliament. The delegates on the left wanted to solve this situation by creating a revolutionary parliamentary government, but, on 24 June 1848, the majority voted for a compromise, the so-called Provisional Central Power.
The Warsaw Conference of 1850 was a conference attended by representatives of the Kingdom of Prussia, the Austrian Empire and the Russian Empire on 28 October 1850, in Warsaw, Congress Poland. The aims of the conference were to re-establish order in the German states following the revolutions of 1848, and also to prevent war between Austria and Prussia over the so-called Hessian Question. The conference resulted in Russian support for Austria as well as the restoration of the German Confederation.
The Electorate of Hesse, also known as Hesse-Kassel or Kurhessen, was a state whose prince was given the right to elect the Emperor by the Imperial diet in 1803. When the Holy Roman Empire was abolished in 1806, its prince, William I, chose to retain the title of Elector, even though there was no longer an Emperor to elect. In 1807, with the Treaties of Tilsit, the area was annexed to the Kingdom of Westphalia, but in 1814, the Congress of Vienna restored the electorate.
The North German Confederation Treaty was the treaty between the Kingdom of Prussia and other northern and central German states that initially created the North German Confederation, which was the forerunner to the German Empire. This treaty, and others that followed in September and October, are often described as the August treaties, although not all of them were concluded in August 1866.
Autumn Crisis or November Crisis is the name given to a political-military conflict in Germany in 1850. In this conflict, the ultra-conservative Austrian Empire led those German states that wanted to restore the German Confederation after the revolution of 1848-1849, while Prussia wanted to create a new federal-state. This almost led to war in Germany, which was finally avoided by Prussia's backing down.
Between 1849 and 1851, Austria repeatedly proposed that all Habsburg-ruled territories should join a German confederation. Large areas of the Habsburg lands in east-central Europe were not part of the previous German state union, the German Confederation. The corresponding plans were given names such as Greater Austria, the Seventy Million Empire or, according to the proposers, the Schwarzenberg Plan or the Schwarzenberg-Bruck Plan.
