What was germany like in the 1800s

This brief war fought over the course of mere weeks pitted Prussia and her allies against Austria and other German states. Prussia won and directly annexed some of the German states that had sided with Austria such as Hanover and Nassau. In an act of leniency, Prussia allowed some of the larger Austrian allies to maintain their independence, such as Baden and Bavaria.

In Bismarck created the North German Confederation, a union of the northern German states under the hegemony of Prussia. Several other German states joined, and the North German Confederation served as a model for the future German Empire. The third and final act of German unification was the Franco-Prussian War of , orchestrated by Bismarck to draw the western German states into alliance with the North German Confederation.

From this point forward, foreign policy of the German Empire was made in Berlin, with the German Kaiser who was also the King of Prussia accrediting ambassadors of foreign nations. Relations were severed when the U. Middleto n informed U. Minister to Prussia Andrew J. Minister to the German Federal Parliament at Frankfurt, and presented his credentials on September 13, However, the failure of this first experiment of German unification led to the U.

Donelson resumed his previous appointment as U. Minister to Prussia. Seward that he had attended the opening of the North German Parliament. He requested, however, that the Secretary formally notify him of the intentions of the U. Government concerning the question of the recognition of the North German Confederation. This exchange between Seward and Bancroft implicitly signified a formal recognition of the North German Confederation by the United States.

The end result, in , was World War I. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed. Germany in the s — Bismarck.

Otto von Bismarck. Kaiser Wilhelm. Cite this page: Carr, K. November 2, About the Author: Karen Carr. Related Posts. European philosophy. October 22nd, 0 Comments. Impeachment and the Epic of Gilgamesh. September 26th, 0 Comments. Neptune discovered — on this day. September 22nd, 0 Comments. These were the sons and daughters of farmers who were not entitled to inherit the farm. The number of people in such predicament grew steadily after the Thirty Years War They had to work as day laborers or seasonal workers and had to be very creative to make ends meet.

Many bought looms and made money by weaving. Whether your ancestor was lucky to run a farm or was a day laborer, he left behind records of his business or labor. Such records can be found today in state or private archives.

FamilySearch Blog. About FamilySearch. Prussia's kings and its conservative elite sometimes objected to Austria's primacy in the confederation, but they had little desire for German unification, which they regarded as a potential threat to Prussia's existence. Germany's lower classes--farmers, artisans, and factory workers--were not included in the discussions about political and economic reform. Germany's farmers had been freed to some degree from many obligations and dues owed to the landowning aristocracy, but they were often desperately poor, earning barely enough to survive.

Farmers west of the Elbe River usually had properties too small to yield any kind of prosperity. Farmers east of the Elbe often were landless laborers hired to work on large estates. Artisans, that is, skilled workers in handicrafts and trades belonging to the traditional guilds, saw their economic position worsen as a result of the industrialization that had begun to appear in Germany after The guilds attempted to stop factory construction and unrestricted commerce, but strong economic trends ran counter to their wishes.

Factory workers, in contrast, were doing well compared with these other groups and were generally content with their lot when the economy as a whole prospered. Europe endured hard times during much of the s. A series of bad harvests culminating in the potato blight of brought widespread misery and some starvation. An economic depression added to the hardship, spreading discontent among the poor and the middle class alike. A popular uprising in Paris in February turned into a revolution, forcing the French king Louis Philippe to flee to Britain.

The success of the revolution sparked revolts elsewhere in Europe. Numerous German cities were shaken by uprisings in which crowds consisting mainly of the urban poor, but also of students and members of the liberal middle class, stormed their rulers' palaces and demanded fundamental reform. Berlin and Vienna were especially hard hit by what came to be called the revolutions of The rulers of both cities, like rulers elsewhere, quickly acceded to the demands of their rebellious subjects and promised constitutions and representative government.

Conservative governments fell, and Metternich fled to Britain. Liberals called for a national convention to draft a constitution for all of Germany. The National Assembly, consisting of about delegates from throughout Germany, met in a church in Frankfurt, the Paulskirche, from May to March for this purpose. Within just a few months, liberal hopes for a reformed Germany were disappointed.