Background:
1.  Economic weakness: chronic difficulty of adjustment to coming industrial change, coinciding with short-term economic hardship (poor crops, high food prices) in most cities and towns.  Declining importance of guilds and old-fashioned trades.
2.  Forces of nationalism, liberalism, leading to growing cultural awareness within middle classes/professionals.
3.  Weak, unimaginative or incompetent rulers in most German states. (Aust: Ferdinand I; Pruss: Fred-Will IV).
4.  German unrest part of Europe-wide series of revolutions in 1848 (almost everywhere EXCEPT Russia and England).

THE REVOLUTIONARY UPSURGE (MARCH-MAY 1848)

March
3-24: News of Paris revolution reaches Vienna; extra-legal pressure by demonstrators outside Austrian Diet meeting; in Budapest, Hungarian patriot Louis Kossuth demands responsible gov't for Hungarian crown lands.  Unrest also in Prague (demands for a constituent assembly for Bohemia); Lombardy (Anti-Austrian rebels seize the streets, forcing troop withdrawals).  Metternich flees, Emperor promises constitution.  King Charles Albert of Sardinia-Piedmont declares war on Austria, threatens to liberate Lombardy-Venetia.  Disorders in Prussia's Rhineland province.
15-24: Barricades go up in Berlin; soldiers kill two demonstrators, then are withdrawn by King to avoid further bloodshed.  King ends censorship, summons United Landtag (constituent assembly), appoints a moderately liberal ministry (Camphausen), promises constitution, withdraws garrison from city.  Prussia "merges into Germany," says king.  Even his Polish subjects in East Prussia are promised autonomy.
23: Croatians under Gen. Jellachich rise against Hungarians, demand autonomy.
24: Rising in Schleswig-Holstein against Danish king Frederick VII's effort to impose unified constitution; leads to a provisional government in Kiel, call by rebels to Frankfurt Diet to support duchies against Denmark, Prussian military intervention.  Elsewhere, violent unrest forces changes of ministers and/or liberal reforms on rulers (Baden, Hesse, Wuerttemberg, etc.).
31: Frankfurt pre-Parliament meets at behest of various liberals, orders elections across Germany on basis of UMS to write a German constitution.

April-May
Austrian Emperor issues constitution not satisfactory to liberals, radicals, student groups, workers in Vienna; royal family flees to Innsbruck, radicals take over city (a committee of public safety).
Polish radicals, dissatisfied with promises from Prussia, demand independence; clashes follow with Prussian troops, while international support for Polish cause begins to wane.
May 18: Frankfurt Assembly (FA) convenes in St. Paul's Church, elects Heinrich von Gagern of Hesse as president, takes on task of writing constitution for Germany.  Old Federal Diet, uncertain of its role, at first welcomes FA, but will soon be "suspended."
May 22: Prussian constituent assembly meets in Berlin, debates constitution for Prussia for many months.

DECLINE OF THE REVOLUTIONS (JUNE-DECEMBER 1848)

June 12-17: Austrian Gen. Windischgrätz, after his wife is accidentally killed during a demonstration, bombards Prague, forcing end of Pan-Slav (mostly Czech) Congress there. FIRST SUCCESS OF THE MILITARY REACTION; FA applauds this "victory for German arms."
June 18: appointment by FA of Habsburg Archduke John as imperial regent.  Its debates drag on for almost a year (constitution not finished until March 27, 1849).
Prusso-Danish war sputters out, other European powers do not wish Prussian aggrandizement, King does not wish to hand a triumph to the FA, now that Diet is suspended.
July 24: Austrian Gen. Radetzky begins reconquest of Lombardy (battle of Custozza), forces S-P to accept armistice; other sites of Italian revolution become more radicalized.
August 28:  Armistice at Malmo: Danes and Prussians to evacuate S-H Duchies, joint civil commission to administer.  FA is outraged at first by this "pro-Danish" settlement about which it was not consulted, but ultimately accepts (September 16), leading to radical riots; FA is forced to call on Austrian & Prussian troops to protect itself.
September 7:  Austrian Reichstag, at work on a constitution, passes a law abolishing peasant feudal dues (including the robot:) one of the few lasting achievements of the Revolution.
September-October:  Gen Jellachich is reinstated in Austrian military service, begins campaign against Hungarians, leading to radical uprising in Vienna in support of Hungarian revolution.
October 31:  Windischgraetz, supported by Jellachich, bombards Vienna into submission.  Several radicals, including Viennese leader of FA delegation, severely prosecuted or executed.  Austrian constituent assembly adjourns to Kremsier, finishes its job.
November 9:  Prussian king, encouraged by news of Austrian events, exiles the constituent assembly to town of Brandenburg after it votes to strike "by the grace of God" from his royal title.
December 2:  Emperor Ferdinand abdicates in favor of his 18-year old nephew Francis Joseph I (rules until 1916); his chancellor, Prince Felix zu Schwarzenberg (d. 1852), takes firmer line against all rebels and changes.
December 5:  F-W dissolves Prussian constituent assembly and issues his own constitution.

THE TRIUMPH OF REACTION (JANUARY 1849 - DECEMBER 1850)

January-March: After issuing a liberal Bill of Rights for all Germans, FA debates Greater (Grossdeutsch) vs. smaller (Kleindeutsch) German question:

GREATER-GERMAN VIEW: A unitary constitution to apply to all territories identifiably German, including Bohemia but not Hungary: "Germany" basically to be the territory of the old German Confederation (with decisions to come "later" about S-H and Posen).  Where German and non-German territories have the same ruler, dynastic ties could remain, but constitutional arrangements would have to be different.  THE MAJORITY VIEW AT THE BEGINNING: supported by various radicals, Catholics suspicious of Protestant Prussia, some state-righters; "das ganze Deutschland soll es sein."
SMALLER-GERMAN VIEW: Center constitution on Prussia, leave Austrian territory out altogether (or else associate Austria only in a very loose way).  Von Gagern comes to favor this; Prussian government is cautiously supportive after January.  No connection to any state with territory outside the confederation (but Prussia's Polish territories are thought of as inherently German).  THE MAJORITY POSITION ONLY AFTER EARLY MARCH 1849: supported all along by some North and Central German states.

January 5: Windischgrätz bombards and occupies Budapest, but Schwarzenberg must accept Tsar's offer of 100,000 Russian troops to help put down Hungarian rebels in the countryside (June-August); Kossuth flees to Turkey.
March 1-4:  The stillborn Kremsier Constitution issued, provides for a decentralized, federal government for all Habsburg possessions; but F-J refuses it, promulgates his own highly-centralized constitution, to include Hungary.
March 9:  Schwarzenberg talks of an "Empire of 70 Millions," a centralized state which would include all of Germany and all Austrian lands under a common Austrian-Prussian dominated constitution (was he serious?!).  Concept is firmly rejected by FA.
March 27:  FRANKFURT CONSTITUTION:
--Provides for a federal state, under a hereditary Emperor with suspensive veto power only
--Two-house parliament, upper chamber (Staatshaus) chosen by states, lower (Volkshaus) elected by UMS; direct, secret ballot
--Ministers responsible to parliament
--Federal government to control army, foreign policy, economic matters (has indirect tax powers)
March 28:  Prussian king F-W elected Emperor; he first says he will consider taking it if the princes and cities accept the constitution and ask him.
April 21: F-W rejects crown (fear of Austria, Russia, and distaste for revolutionary origins of this "honor"), even after most of the small states had accepted the constitution.
June 18:  A "rump Parliament," all that remains after most delegates leave, adjourns to Stuttgart, where it is dispersed later by Wuerttemberg and Prussian troops.  Sporadic, isolated risings (e.g., Baden) are put down by force, late summer 1849.

THE AFTERMATH OF 1848, to 1850

Constitutional Settlements:
Prussia, Constitution of 1850: issued by King 1849, modified the next year; REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1918 in Prussia.
--Three class voting system: UMS (open ballot) of males over age 24; elections are indirect: electorate divided on taxpaying basis: 17% of voters (upper two classes) elect 66 2/3% of delegates
--Two-house legislature or Landtag: Abgeordnetenhaus (lower house) and Herrenhaus (upper house: hereditary or life-appointed notables)
--Landtag has power to approve the budget but King proposes and can veto all legislation, and has power to proclaim law when Landtag is not in session.
--Ministers (9) are appointed by King, not answerable to Landtag
--A mostly ornamental Council of State (Staatsrat) advises King
--King is "Supreme War Lord" of Prussian Army (also head of Navy); no civilian control of military.  King has Military Cabinet of generals to assist him.

Austria, 1851-1860:
Constitution of 1849 is repealed; Prince Alexander von Bach, Schwarzenberg's successor, is leading figure in government (Minister of Interior); establishes a strong, centralized regime:
--Bureaucrats, almost all (of necessity) German-speaking, are in charge in Vienna
--Subject peoples, esp. the conquered Hungarians, are suppressed
--/Army, clergy, and nobility are back in the saddle
--No representative bodies allowed on ANY level
--Concordat with Papacy, 1855, provides wide powers of Church over education and state tax support for Church affairs; Jesuits return (1851)

End of FA, June 1849, re-opens question: what about "Germany?"  CONSERVATIVES TAKE A TRY AT UNION PLANS
Radowitz Plan (May 1849):
--originates with F-W's advisor, Joseph Maria von Radowitz
--Austria, left intact and separately administered, to be associated loosely with the "inner" or "Prussian" union only for economic and diplomatic matters.  MANY SMALL STATES ESP. IN NORTH JOINED; elections in summer 1849 led to...
Erfurt Union (October 1849-April 1850):
--With Saxon and Hanoverian support, and some conservative delegates left over from the FA, Prussia developed the Union proposal:
--Two house legislature (Reichstag) with limited powers, elected with property qualifications
--Exec: College of Princes with veto power; Prussia to direct
SOUTH GERMAN STATES AND AUSTRIA DID NOT SUPPORT, leading to Saxon-Hanoverian withdrawal of backing; Prussia does NOT immediately abandon the plan, however....

REVIVAL OF THE GERMAN CONFEDERATION, 1849-51

September 1849:  "Interim Agreement" proposed by Radowitz and signed by Schwarzenberg:  A and P will jointly administer affairs of Germany, taking over responsibilities of deposed Archduke John, until May 1850
May 16, 1850:  Schwarzenberg, now fully in control since repression of Hungarian Revolution, announces recall of old German Confederation Diet, in Frankfurt; 10, esp. S German states sent representatives, NOT P; SHOWDOWN LOOMS, A vs. P.
July 1850: P makes peace with Denmark over Schleswig-Holstein, under heavy Russian pressure: very favorable for Denmark.
August-November: crisis in Hesse-Cassel forces the larger German settlement:
--Elector (sovereign ruler) of Hesse, in dispute with his own parliament, appeals to the Federal Diet to use force on his behalf ("Federal Execution")
--Schwarzenberg engineered a pro-vote; Austr-Bavarian army marched northwards
--direct challenge to Prussia: its troops guarded military roads across Hesse
--small skirmish occurs, leading P to back down, agree to federal troops occupying Hesse-Cassel
November 29: at Olmütz (Moravia), Manteuffel (new P for. min.) and Schwarzenberg sign an agreement ("Punctation"):
--P abandons Erfurt Union
--Confederation will be restored
--Both countries will demobilize (P first!)
--"Open conferences" will discuss future of German union
--LATER PRUSSIAN HISTORIANS REFER TO THE "HUMILIATION" OF OLMÜTZ

Dresden Conference, December 1850-March 1851
--Basically without result; discussed Schwarzenberg's earlier scheme for a middle European union, other revisions to the Vienna Final Act.  OUTCOME:  Old Confederation was restored intact.
--other European powers are pleased; they distrust any grand central European scheme.
May 1851: A and P sign a three-year military defensive alliance:  P will provide aid if A faces rebellions in its Italian provinces; no reciprocal guarantee by A to P's Polish provinces.  HIGH POINT OF AUSTRIA'S SUCCESS IN AUSTRO-PRUSSIAN RIVALRY UP TO 1859.