University Meets Assembly

The appeal produced its effect; and the crowd grew dense as the students marched into the narrow Herren Gasse.

Continuing 1848 German Revolutions,
our selection from The Revolutionary Movement of 1848-9 in Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Germany by C. Edmund Maurice published in 1887. The selection is presented in eight easy 5 minute installments. For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in 1848 German Revolutions.

Time: 1848
Place: Vienna

Thus, it will be seen that South Germany still kept the lead in the movement for German unity; and the president of the committee was that Izstein, of Baden, who had been known to Germany chiefly by his ill-timed expulsion from Berlin. But, though this distribution of power augured ill for the relations between the leaders of the German movement and the King of Prussia, the meeting at Heidelberg was not prepared to adopt the complete program of the Baden leaders, nor to commit itself to that Republican movement which would probably have repelled the North German Liberals.

The chief leader of the more moderate party in the meeting was Heinrich von Gagern, the representative of Hesse-Darmstadt.

Gagern was the son of a former minister of the Grand Duke of Nassau, who had left that State to take service in Austria, and who had acted with the Archduke John in planning a popular rising in the Tyrol in 1813. Heinrich had been trained at a military school in Munich. He had steadily opposed the policy of Metternich, had done his best to induce the universities to co-operate in a common German movement, and had tried to secure internal liberties for Hesse-Darmstadt, while he had urged his countrymen to look for the model of a free constitution rather to England and Hungary than to France. During the constitutional movement of 1848 he had become Prime Minister of Hesse-Darmstadt; and he seems to have had considerable power of winning popular confidence. Although he was not able to commit the meeting to a definitely monarchical policy, he had influence enough to counteract the attempts of Struve and Hecker to carry a proposal for the proclamation of a republic; and his influence increased during the later phases of the movement.

It was obvious that, in the state of Viennese feeling, a movement in favor of German unity, at once so determined and so moderate in its character, would give new impulse to the hopes for freedom already excited by Kossuth’s speech; and the action of the reformers now became more vigorous because the students rather than the professors were guiding the movement. Some of the latter, and particularly Professor Hye, were beginning to be alarmed, and were attempting to hold their pupils in check. This roused the distrust and suspicion of the students; and it was with great difficulty that Professors Hye and Endlicher could prevail on the younger leaders of the movement to abstain from action until the professors had laid before the Emperor the desire of the university for the removal of Metternich. This deputation waited on the Emperor on March 12th, but it proved of little avail; and when the professors returned with the answer that the Emperor would consider their wishes, the students received them with laughter and resolved to take the matter into their own hands. The next day was to be the opening of the Assembly of the Estates of Lower Austria; and the students of Vienna resolved to march from the University to the Landhaus.

In the great hall of the University, now hidden away in an obscure part of Vienna but still retaining traces of the paintings which then decorated it, the students gathered in large numbers on March 13th. Various rumors of a discouraging kind had been circulated; this and that leading citizen were mentioned as having been arrested; nay, it was even said that members of the Estates had themselves been seized, and that the sitting of the Assembly would not be allowed to take place. To these rumors were added the warnings of the professors.

Fuester, who had recently preached on the duty of devotion to the cause of the country, now endeavored, by praises of the Emperor, to check the desire of the students for immediate action; but he was shouted down.

Hye then appealed to them to wait a few days, in hopes of a further answer from the Emperor. They answered with a shout that they would not wait an hour; and then they raised the cry of “Landhaus!” Breaking loose from all further restraint they set out on their march, and as they went numbers gathered round them. The people of Vienna had already been appealed to, by a placard on St. Stephen’s Church, to free the good Emperor Ferdinand from his enemies; and the placard further declared that he who wished for the rise of Austria must wish for the fall of the present ministers of state.

The appeal produced its effect; and the crowd grew dense as the students marched into the narrow Herren Gasse. They passed under the archway which led into the courtyard of the Landhaus; there, in front of the very building where the Assembly was sitting, they came to a dead halt; and, with the strange hesitation which sometimes comes over crowds, no man seemed to know what was next to be done. Suddenly in the pause which followed, the words “Meine Herren” were heard from a corner of the crowd. It was evident that someone was trying to address them; and the students nearest to the speaker hoisted him upon their shoulders. Then the crowd saw a quiet-looking man, with a round, strong head, short-cropped hair, and a thick beard. Each man eagerly asked his neighbor who this could be; and, as the speech proceeded, the news went round that this was Doctor Fischhof, a man who had been very little known beyond medical circles and hitherto looked upon as quite outside political movements. Such was the speaker who now uttered what is still remembered as the “first free word” in Vienna.

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