1848

[Franconicus]

I don't think you can blame it on Napoleon Bonaparte

I was not too serious about that, but in fact the armies of Napoleon spread the ideas of NATION and FREEDOM all over Europe.

About Germany. I recall the discussion at that time and I have huge doubts about the future of this movement - the concept of Greater Germany was born after all and despite declared cooperation, support and united front against monarchs in places such as Greater Poland ( at that time in Prussia as semi-autonomous Duchy of Poznan) we see new nationalistic conflicts starting.

Sad, but true. Most of the German Liberals (not all though), which demanded right of selfdetermination and national unity for Germany did not care about the rights of other people if it comes to the discussion of annex countries. I think the mixture of liberalism and nationalism was bad, absurd and dangerous.

The german movements were similar to Weimar liberal governments - non militarisitc, but very nationalistic and not willing to give up an inch of territory Prussia had before the revolutions.

I think there would have been some differences. The militarism then was quite week and only limited to Prussia. With the foundation of Germany by the people there would hardly have been something like that. And even in Weimar there was a strong military. In the end the Republic was lead by a bunch of generals.
I think Germany would have been less nationalistsic if the foundation of the state would have been by the people, not by the noblemen and military.
Plus, Germany would have had a kind of democratic tradition.

[King Kurt]

From the dim misty past of my O level history - wasn't there something similar in 1830? Not on the same scale as 1848 but similar - i.e. liberalism/ nationalism. Also the great reform act in Britian came just after - 1832.
Finaly wasn't the communist manifesto written by Marx in 1848? - quite a year!!

[KARTLOS]

havent you heard? it was the jews!

did you know that they also use the blood of christian babies in secret rituals....

[nokhor]

Finaly wasn't the communist manifesto written by Marx in 1848? - quite a year!!

if marx did write it during or after the revolutions, i can see how he might have thought such occurences were going to be more and more common until the communist revolution would sweep all away. he took a singular event and interpreted it to mean that there were going to be others like it in the future.

[Furious Mental]

His problem wasn't that he extrapolated the events of one year but that he didn't count on other socialists and reformist liberals making capitalist society tolerable to western workers. I wouldn't attribute that much importance to 1848 because he was already a radical by then and remained one long afterwards.