Title: Germany - The revolutions of 1848–49 | Britannica
Headings: 
The revolutions of 1848 –49
Content: Its convocation represented the realization of the hopes that nationalists had cherished for more than a generation. Within the space of a few weeks, those who had fought against the particularistic system of the restoration for so long suddenly found themselves empowered with a popular mandate to rebuild the foundations of political and social life in Germany. It was an intoxicating moment. Once the spring uprising was over, the parties and classes that had participated in it began to quarrel about the nature of the new order that was to take the place of the old. There were, first of all, sharp differences between the liberals and the democrats. While the former had comfortable majorities in most of the state legislatures as well as in the Frankfurt parliament, the latter continued to plead, agitate, and conspire for a more radical course of action. There were also bitter disputes over the form that national unification should assume. The Grossdeutsch (“great German”) movement maintained that Austria, the state whose rulers had worn the crown of the Holy Roman Empire for 400 years, should play a leading role in the united fatherland. The Kleindeutsch (“little German”) party, on the other hand, argued that the Habsburgs had too many Slavic, Magyar, and Italian interests to work single-mindedly for the greatness of Germany, that Austria should therefore be excluded from a unified Germany, and that the natural leader of the nation was Prussia, whose political vigour and geographic position would provide efficient government and military security for Germany. Finally, there was a basic conflict between poor and marginalized social groups, many of whom wanted protection against mechanized production and rural impoverishment, and the business interests who sought to use their new political influence to promote economic growth and freedom of enterprise.