ON THIS DAY ·
March Revolution in Berlin
18 Mar 1848 — Troops fired on a crowd in Berlin, and some 300 people died at the barricades. The king of Prussia then rode through his capital wearing the revolutionary tricolor, though only for a while.
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The moment in context
By 1848, failed harvests and high food prices had joined a credit crisis and urban unemployment to put Europeans under severe strain. In February Parisians overthrew the July Monarchy, and the new republic established universal male suffrage. The news traveled quickly. Within weeks Vienna had risen and Metternich had fled; Budapest had won the April Laws; Berlin’s king had conceded after street fighting; and Milan had driven out its Austrian garrison. At Frankfurt, delegates began drafting a constitution for a united Germany that did not yet exist. Habsburg authorities abolished serfdom, relieving more than forty million people of feudal obligations.
From Revolutions of 1848, chapter 12 of The Age of Revolutions, 1775–1848 (MAR 1848).
The place: March Revolution in Berlin — map and full story →
Teach this in 5 minutes
- Why it happened — Hunger and unemployment. Potato blight and failed harvests in 1845–47 drove food prices sharply upward, in some places to around twice their earlier level. A credit crisis…
- The turn — Paris, 22–24 February 1848. The Paris authorities banned a reform banquet. Troops then fired on the Boulevard des Capucines, and protesters carried the dead through the streets…
- What it changed — Changes that endured. Restored rulers recovered authority without reversing everything that had happened. The abolition of serfdom affected more than forty million people…
Then ask the room: “1848: the turning point at which modern history failed to turn.” How far is that verdict justified? The argued answer is on the chapter page →
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