Central March Revolution Alliance, founded on November 23, 1848,
in Frankfurt am Main by left-wing deputies of
the St. Paul's
Church Assembly under the impact of the successful offensive of
counter-revolutionary forces in Austria and Prussia, tried to
rescue the revolution in a non-violent manner, to defend the
achievements of the March, and to bring about the unification of
Germany as a liberal,democratic, federal, nation state. All
deputies of the Donnersberg faction and
Deutscher Hof joined the Alliance together with the
left wing of the Westendhall faction. This
Alliance
was chaired by the lawyer Wilhelm Adolf von Trüzschler from
Dresden, the Cologne merchant Franz Raveaux, and the surgeon and
publisher Gottfried Eisenmann from Würzberg. In an attempt
to influence the liberal-center and to provide the widest
possible framework for a coalition of all progressive forces, the
program left open the question of whether or not national unity
should be established as a republic or monarchy. The Central
March Alliance sought to give new organizational a
nd agitational
impetus to the popular movement to mobilize left-oriented forces
in the German National Assembly.
While the Alliance and a negligible impact on liberals' media and
the grass-roots organizations, it met with a considerable
response among the democratic public. Especially in areas with a
less social differentiation, such as in southern and central
Germany, where moderate forces dominated the democratic camp, the
Alliance quickly gained sway. Thus the people's associations in
Baden, Wutemberg and Schleswig-Holstein subordinated themselves
entirely to its leadership. The fatherland associations in
Saxony associated only for a short period. In Bavaria and
Thuringia many new associations were founded on the pattern of
the Central March Revolution Alliance. The extra-parliamentary
radical left and part of the organized labor movement criticized
the Central March Revolution Alliance for parliamentary illusions
and orientation towards a "legal path" of revolution. The
The organ of the Central March Revolution Alliance was the
Parlamentskorrespondenz distributed to the editorial offices of
about a hundred newspapers. The Alliance act
ively advocated
German governments adopt the basic rights passed in the Frankfurt
St. Paul's Church and sought to influence the final formulation
of a Reich constitution by waging an petition campaign. When the
Prussian king rejected the imperial crown and thus refused his
assent to the Reich constitution, the Alliance faced a crisis.
The alliance between the left and the extreme left in the
Frankfurt Parliament broke up. On April 11, 1849, twenty-four
deputies of the
In southern Germany the adherents to the Alliance were
little affected by the differences among the leaders. In
Wurtemberg the popular movement, under the impact of the Central
March Alliance, succeeded in forcing the king to adopt the Reich
constitution. The general assembly convened by the Central March
Alliance on May 6, 1849 in Frankfurt, of about 2,000 delegates
from affiliated associations, called upon the people to prepare
for the struggle to force through the Reich constitution and
passed appeals to the people and the soldiers of the German
armies. The activities of the Central March Revolution Alliance
ended on June 18, 1849, with the dissolution of the Stuttgart
rump parliament.
Rolf Weber "Centralmärzverein (CMV) 1848-1849," in Lexicon
Parteiengeschichte, Diet
er Fricke et al. (eds)., Leipzig 1983,.I.
Günther Hildebrandt Parlamentsopposition auf Linkskurs: Die
kleinbürgerlich-demokratische Fraktion Donnersberg in der Frankfurter
Nationalversammlung 1848/49 Berlin 1975.
Günther Hildebrandt Opposition in der Paulskirche: Reden, Briefe und Berichte
kleinbürgerlich-demokratischer Parlamentarier 1848/49 Berlin 1981.
JGC revised this file
(http://www.ohiou.edu/~chastain/ac/cenmar.htm) on
October 14, 2004.
Please E-mail comments or suggestions to chastain@www.ohiou.edu
© 1998, 2004 James Chastain.
Rolf Weber
Bibliography