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77-704: It was founded on 27 June 1884 by the Frankfurt bank of Erlanger & Söhne and Gebrüder Sulzbach with the aim of building and operating railways of secondary importance in the Duchy of Brunswick and the adjoining territories. The Brunswick State Railway Company is not the same as the Duchy of Brunswick State Railway or the Brunswick Railway Company which did not exist when the BLE was founded. In its first two decades it built

154-529: A barrier to contain the emergence of Italian and German nation-states as well, in addition to containing France. But this reactionary balance of power, aimed at blocking German and Italian nationalism on the continent, was precarious. After Napoleon's final defeat in 1815, the surviving member states of the defunct Holy Roman Empire joined to form the German Confederation ( Deutscher Bund ) – a rather loose organization, especially because

231-603: A fast-growing industrialized urban economic system. In previous centuries, the shortage of land meant that not everyone could marry, and marriages took place after age 25. The high birthrate was offset by a very high rate of infant mortality , plus periodic epidemics and harvest failures. After 1815, increased agricultural productivity meant a larger food supply, and a decline in famines, epidemics, and malnutrition. This allowed couples to marry earlier, and have more children. Arranged marriages became uncommon as young people were now allowed to choose their own marriage partners, subject to

308-614: A nation-state. However, the Confederation was not a 'loose' tie between the German states, as it was impossible to leave the Confederation, and as Confederation law stood above the law of the aligned states. The constitutional weakness of the Confederation lay in the principle of unanimity in the Diet and the limits of the Confederation's scope: it was essentially a military alliance to defend Germany against external attacks and internal riots. Ironically,

385-529: A political dimension to the army. In addition, the Diet oversaw the construction and maintenance of several German Federal Fortresses and collected funds annually from the member states for this purpose. Projections of army strength were published in 1835, but the work of forming the Army Corps did not commence until 1840 as a consequence of the Rhine Crisis . Money for the fortresses were determined by an act of

462-552: A private railway concern, the Brunswick Railway Company. Amsberg did not survive to see the Prussian state buy up the shares in this company between 1879 and 1882, operate it under the Prussian state railways and subordinate it in 1886 to the royal railway division ( Eisenbahndirektion ) of Magdeburg. German Confederation The German Confederation ( German : Deutscher Bund [ˌdɔʏtʃɐ ˈbʊnt] )

539-577: A second treaty, the Final Act of the Ministerial Conference to Complete and Consolidate the Organization of the German Confederation . This treaty was not concluded and signed by the parties until 15 May 1820. States joined the German Confederation by becoming parties to the second treaty. The states designated for inclusion in the Confederation were: In 1839, as compensation for the loss of part of

616-462: A total of 108 kilometres of standard gauge railways. They provided rail access for about 50 commercial firms and around one hundred warehouses in the city of Brunswick using a ring railway. The BLE lines also opened up the largely agricultural areas around this Residenz city as far as the foothills of the Harz . In this area the transportation of potash , which was mined there, played an important role for

693-612: A true state. Its territory comprised the parts of the German Confederation north of the river Main , plus Prussia's eastern territories and the Duchy of Schleswig , but excluded Austria and the other southern German states. Prussia's influence was widened by the Franco-Prussian War resulting in the proclamation of the German Empire at Versailles on 18 January 1871, which united the North German Federation with

770-406: A veto by the parents. The upper and middle classes began to practice birth control , and a little later so too did the peasants. The population in 1800 was heavily rural, with only 8% of the people living in communities of 5,000 to 100,000 and another 2% living in cities of more than 100,000. In a heavily agrarian society, land ownership played a central role. Germany's nobles, especially those in

847-501: A village court which handled minor offenses. Inside the family, the patriarch made all the decisions and tried to arrange advantageous marriages for his children. Much of the villages' communal life centered around church services and holy days. In Prussia, the peasants drew lots to choose conscripts required by the army. The noblemen handled external relationships and politics for the villages under their control, and were not typically involved in daily activities or decisions. After 1815,

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924-632: Is still in use. The ascent from here to the rim of the Harz range was initially worked by horses, but by 1843 steam haulage had been introduced on this section too, using three locomotives built in England . These engines were the first six-coupled locomotives in Germany. In 1850, Philipp-August von Amsberg became head of the Duchy's Railway and Postal Division in Brunswick. After the 1866 annexation of Hanover by Prussia,

1001-506: The Zollverein . In 1834, the Prussian regime sought to stimulate wider trade advantages and industrialism by decree – a logical continuation of the program of Stein and Hardenberg less than two decades earlier. Historians have seen three Prussian goals: as a political tool to eliminate Austrian influence in Germany; as a way to improve the economies; and to strengthen Germany against potential French aggression while reducing

1078-671: The Austrian Empire in 1866. The dispute over which had the inherent right to rule German lands ended in favour of Prussia, leading to the creation of the North German Confederation under Prussian leadership in 1867, to which the eastern portions of the Kingdom of Prussia were added. A number of South German states remained independent until they joined the North German Confederation, which was renamed and proclaimed as

1155-702: The Confederation of the Rhine in July 1806, joining sixteen of France's allies among the German states (including Bavaria and Württemberg ). After the Battle of Jena–Auerstedt of October 1806 in the War of the Fourth Coalition , various other German states, including Saxony and Westphalia, also joined the Confederation. Only Austria, Prussia, Danish Holstein , Swedish Pomerania , and

1232-529: The Confederation of the Rhine , but this collapsed after his defeats in 1812 to 1815. The German Confederation had roughly the same boundaries as the Empire at the time of the French Revolution (less what is now Belgium ). It also kept intact most of Confederation's reconstituted member states and their boundaries. The member states , drastically reduced to 39 from more than 300 (see Kleinstaaterei ) under

1309-532: The Federal Convention were binding for the member states). Additionally, the Confederation had been established for eternity and was impossible to dissolve (legally), with no member states being able to leave it and no new member being able to join without universal consent in the Federal Convention. On the other hand, the Confederation was weakened by its very structure and member states, partly because

1386-429: The French Revolution , where freedom of the individual and nation was asserted against privilege and custom. Representing a great variety of types and theories, they were largely a response to the disintegration of previous cultural patterns, coupled with new patterns of production, specifically the rise of industrial capitalism. However, the defeat of Napoleon enabled conservative and reactionary regimes such as those of

1463-561: The Habsburg monarchy in Austria, and the conservative notables of the small princely states and city-states in Germany. Meanwhile, demands for change from below had been fomenting due to the influence of the French Revolution. Throughout the German Confederation, Austrian influence was paramount, drawing the ire of the nationalist movements. Metternich considered nationalism, especially

1540-641: The Hildesheim–Goslar railway via Lichtenberg and Osterlinde in what later became the Salzgitter industrial estate. In the years that followed the Derneburg–Seesen railway from Derneburg – which again ran southwards – reached Bockenem in the Nette valley on 27 May 1887, Groß Rhüden on 1 October 1887 and finally the railway hub of Seesen on 1 May 1889. Apart from the construction of the northern section there

1617-546: The Holy Roman Empire , were recognized as fully sovereign. The members pledged themselves to mutual defense, and joint maintenance of the fortresses at Mainz , the city of Luxembourg , Rastatt , Ulm , and Landau . The only organ of the Confederation was the Federal Assembly (officially Bundesversammlung , often called Bundestag ), which consisted of the delegates of the states' governments. There

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1694-619: The King of the United Kingdom (until 1837) as King of Hanover were members of the German Confederation. Each of them had a vote in the Federal Assembly. At its foundation in 1815, four member states were ruled by foreign monarchs, as the King of Denmark was Duke of both Holstein and Saxe-Lauenburg. The four free cities of Bremen , Frankfurt , Hamburg , and Lübeck shared one vote in

1771-475: The Kingdom of Prussia were the largest and by far the most powerful members of the Confederation. Large parts of both countries were not included in the Confederation, because they had not been part of the former Holy Roman Empire, nor were the greater parts of their armed forces incorporated in the federal army. Austria and Prussia each had one vote in the Federal Assembly. Six other major states had one vote each in

1848-459: The Kingdom of Prussia , the Austrian Empire , and Tsarist Russia to survive, laying the groundwork for the Congress of Vienna and the alliance that strove to oppose radical demands for change ushered in by the French Revolution . With Austria 's position on the continent now intact and ostensibly secure under its reactionary premier Klemens von Metternich , the Habsburg empire would serve as

1925-523: The University of Berlin , founded in 1810, became the world's leading university. Von Ranke , for example, professionalized history and set the world standard for historiography. By the 1830s, mathematics, physics, chemistry, and biology had emerged with world class science, led by Alexander von Humboldt (1769–1859) in natural science and Carl Friedrich Gauss (1777–1855) in mathematics. Young intellectuals often turned to politics, but their support for

2002-454: The province of Luxemburg to Belgium, the Duchy of Limburg was created and became a member of the German Confederation (held by the Netherlands jointly with Luxembourg) until the dissolution of 1866. In 1867 the duchy was declared to be an "integral part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands". The cities of Maastricht and Venlo were not included in the Confederation. The Austrian Empire and

2079-558: The " German Empire " in 1871, as the unified Germany (aside from Austria) with the Prussian king as emperor (Kaiser) after the victory over French Emperor Napoleon III in the Franco-Prussian War of 1870. Most historians have judged the Confederation to have been weak and ineffective, as well as an obstacle to the creation of a German nation-state. This weakness was part of its design, as the European Great Powers , including Prussia and especially Austria, did not want it to become

2156-744: The Assembly, but rarely deployed ambassadors itself. During the revolution of 1848/49 the Federal Assembly was inactive. It transferred its powers to the Provisorische Zentralgewalt , the revolutionary German Central Government of the Frankfurt National Assembly . After crushing the revolution and illegally disbanding the National Assembly, the Prussian King failed to create a German nation state by himself. The Federal Assembly

2233-483: The BLE. This terminal, like two sections of the line at Derneburg and Bockenem was not in Brunswick territory, but in Prussia. In fact a total of 36 km of line was on Prussian territory – one third of the total track length. The importance of the railway can be seen from the number of steam locomotives that was constant at around 25, whilst there was only one Benzol railbus. On 1 December 1927 two bus lines supplemented

2310-583: The Brunswick lines were entirely surrounded by the Prussian state railways . In 1869 Amsberg entered into the sale of the Brunswick State Railway to Prussia with a heavy heart. The Duchy of Brunswick had amassed heavy debts at that time, that had arisen mainly due to the expansion of the railway. In March 1870, with effect from 1 January 1869, the Brunswick State Railways were transferred to

2387-612: The Confederate Diet in that year. By 1846, Luxemburg still had not formed its own contingent, and Prussia was rebuffed for offering to supply 1,450 men to garrison the Luxemburg fortress that should have been supplied by Waldeck and the two Lippes. In that same year, it was decided that a common symbol for the Federal Army should be the old Imperial two-headed eagle, but without crown, scepter, or sword, as any of those devices encroached on

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2464-585: The Confederation into a unified German federal state with a liberal constitution (usually called the Frankfurt Constitution in English). The Federal Convention was dissolved on 12 July 1848, but was re-established in 1850 after the revolution was crushed by Austria, Prussia, and other states. The Confederation was finally dissolved after the victory of the Kingdom of Prussia in the Seven Weeks' War over

2541-644: The East called Junkers , dominated not only the localities, but also the Prussian court , and especially the Prussian army . Increasingly after 1815, a centralized Prussian government based in Berlin took over the powers of the nobles, which in terms of control over the peasantry had been almost absolute. They retained control of the judicial system on their estates until 1848, as well as control of hunting and game laws. They paid no land tax until 1861 and kept their police authority until 1872, and controlled church affairs into

2618-603: The Federal Assembly. The 23 remaining states (at its formation in 1815) shared five votes in the Federal Assembly: There were therefore 17 votes in the Federal Assembly. The rules of the Confederation provided for three different types of military interventions: Other military conflicts were foreign to the confederation ( bundesfremd ). An example is Austria's oppression of the uprising in Northern Italy in 1848 and 1849, as these Austrian territories lay outside of

2695-575: The Federal Assembly: the Kingdom of Bavaria , the Kingdom of Saxony , the Kingdom of Württemberg , the Electorate of Hesse , the Grand Duchy of Baden , and the Grand Duchy of Hesse . Three foreign monarchs ruled member states: the King of Denmark as Duke of Holstein and Duke of Saxe-Lauenburg ; the King of the Netherlands as Grand Duke of Luxembourg and (from 1839) Duke of Limburg ; and

2772-600: The French-occupied Principality of Erfurt stayed outside the Confederation of the Rhine. The War of the Sixth Coalition from 1812 to winter 1814 saw the defeat of Napoleon and the liberation of Germany. In June 1814, the famous German patriot Heinrich vom Stein created the Central Managing Authority for Germany ( Zentralverwaltungsbehörde ) in Frankfurt to replace the defunct Confederation of

2849-558: The Rhine. However, plenipotentiaries gathered at the Congress of Vienna were determined to create a weaker union of German states than that envisaged by Stein. The German Confederation was created by the 9th Act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 after being alluded to in Article 6 of the 1814 Treaty of Paris , ending the War of the Sixth Coalition. The Confederation was formally created by

2926-612: The Second Schleswig War (or Deutsch-Dänischer Krieg in German). As Schleswig and Denmark were not member states, this war was foreign to the Confederation. The Confederation took no part in this war. A federal intervention confronted for example the raid of the revolutionaries in Baden in April 1848. In June 1866, the Federal Convention decided to takes measures against Prussia. This decision

3003-648: The War of 1866 proved its ineffectiveness, as it was unable to combine the federal troops in order to fight the Prussian secession. The War of the Third Coalition lasted from about 1803 to 1806. Following defeat at the Battle of Austerlitz by the French under Napoleon in December 1805, Holy Roman Emperor Francis II abdicated, and the Empire was dissolved on 6 August 1806. The resulting Treaty of Pressburg established

3080-485: The armed forces of a state. For example, Prussia's army consisted of nine Army Corps but contributed only three to the German Federal Army. The strength of the mobilized German Federal Army was projected to total 303,484 men in 1835 and 391,634 men in 1860, with the individual states providing the following figures: Between 1806 and 1815, Napoleon organized the German states, aside from Prussia and Austria, into

3157-596: The confederation's borders. During the existence of the Confederation, there was only one federal war: the war against Denmark beginning with the Schleswig-Holstein uprising in 1848 (the First Schleswig War ). The conflict became a federal war when the Bundestag demanded from Denmark to withdraw its troops from Schleswig (April 12) and recognized the revolutionary of Schleswig-Holstein (April 22). The confederation

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3234-591: The decision to build a railway line from Brunswick southwards to Wolfenbüttel and the exclave of Bad Harzburg (until 1892: Neustadt ) – the Brunswick–Bad Harzburg railway – and thereby pre-empt the intent of the Hanoverian government to build an eastern railway via Halberstadt to Magdeburg, which would bypass Brunswick to the south. On 1 August 1837 construction began on the first section from Brunswick in southern direction and on 30 November 1838

3311-510: The early 20th century. To help the nobility avoid indebtedness, Berlin set up a credit institution to provide capital loans in 1809, and extended the loan network to peasants in 1849. When the German Empire was established in 1871, the nobility controlled the army and the Navy, the bureaucracy, and the royal court; they generally set governmental policies. Peasants continued to center their lives in

3388-425: The failed Revolution of 1848 forced many into exile. The population of the German Confederation (excluding Austria) grew 60% from 1815 to 1865, from 21,000,000 to 34,000,000. The era saw the demographic transition take place in Germany. It was a transition from high birth rates and high death rates to low birth and death rates as the country developed from a pre-industrial to a modernized agriculture and supported

3465-450: The forces of the old order against those inspired by the French Revolution and the Rights of Man. The breakdown of the competition was, roughly, the emerging capitalist bourgeoisie and petit-bourgeoisie (engaged mostly in commerce, trade, and industry), and the growing (and increasingly radicalized) industrial working class ; and the other side associated with landowning aristocracy or military aristocracy (the Junker s ) in Prussia,

3542-403: The forces unleashed by the French Revolution were seemingly under control after the Vienna Congress, the conflict between conservative forces and liberal nationalists was only deferred at best. The era until the failed 1848 revolution, in which these tensions built up, is commonly referred to as Vormärz ("pre-March"), in reference to the outbreak of riots in March 1848. This conflict pitted

3619-440: The form of the nationalistic and liberal democratic college fraternities known as the Burschenschaften . The Wartburg Festival in 1817 celebrated Martin Luther as a proto-German nationalist, linking Lutheranism to German nationalism, and helping arouse religious sentiments for the cause of German nationhood. The festival culminated in the burning of several books and other items that symbolized reactionary attitudes. One item

3696-423: The foundation for Prussia's future military might by professionalizing the military and decreeing universal military conscription . In order to industrialize Prussia, working within the framework provided by the old aristocratic institutions, land reforms were enacted to break the monopoly of the Junker s on land ownership, thereby also abolishing, among other things, the feudal practice of serfdom . Although

3773-422: The individual sovereignty of the states. King Frederick William IV of Prussia was among those who derided the "disarmed imperial eagle" as a national symbol. The German Federal Army was divided into ten Army Corps (later expanded to include a Reserve Corps). However, the Army Corps were not exclusive to the German Confederation but composed from the national armies of the member states, and did not include all of

3850-609: The liberal press, and seriously restricted academic freedom . German artists and intellectuals, heavily influenced by the French Revolution, turned to Romanticism . At the universities, high-powered professors developed international reputations, especially in the humanities led by history and philology, which brought a new historical perspective to the study of political history, theology, philosophy, language, and literature. With Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel (1770–1831) in philosophy, Friedrich Schleiermacher (1768–1834) in theology and Leopold von Ranke (1795–1886) in history,

3927-420: The line was mainly the work of the entrepreneur Philipp August von Amsberg, privy councillor to Duke William of Brunswick . Amsberg investigated the transportation links from the land-locked Duchy of Brunswick to the Hanse cities of Hamburg , Bremen and Lübeck and recognised that the transportation of wood and mining products from the duchy's estates in the Harz mountain range to the maritime harbours

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4004-474: The most important decisions in the Federal Convention required unanimity and the purpose of the Confederation was limited to only security matters. On top of that, the functioning of the Confederation depended on the cooperation of the two most populous member states, Austria and Prussia which in reality were often in opposition . The German revolutions of 1848–1849 , motivated by liberal, democratic, socialist, and nationalist sentiments, attempted to transform

4081-421: The nationalist youth movement, the most pressing danger: German nationalism might not only repudiate Austrian dominance of the Confederation, but also stimulate nationalist sentiment within the Austrian Empire itself. In a multi-national polyglot state in which Slavs and Magyars outnumbered the Germans, the prospects of Czech, Slovak, Hungarian, Polish, Serb, or Croatian sentiment along with middle class liberalism

4158-473: The need for administrative, economic, and social reforms to improve the efficiency of the bureaucracy and encourage practical merit-based education. Inspired by the Napoleonic organization of German and Italian principalities, the Prussian Reform Movement led by Karl August von Hardenberg and Count Stein was conservative, enacted to preserve aristocratic privilege while modernizing institutions. Outside Prussia, industrialization progressed slowly, and

4235-407: The passenger services. About 10 years later the independent railway company was taken over. The creation of a large industrial complex in the area of Salzgitter required a fundamental change and expansion of the railway network there. The Reich government wanted to give this task to the state railway. So the BLE was merged into the Deutsche Reichsbahn on 1 January 1938, who rebuilt or closed some of

4312-440: The plan to build an eastern railway from Brunswick via Helmstedt to Magdeburg. This plan was given up in favour of a later route via Oschersleben in order to form a junction there to the Prussian Magdeburg–Halberstadt line . In the same year, the first steam-hauled railway line in Germany, the Bavarian Ludwig Railway , opened between Nuremberg and Fürth . At the instigation of Amsberg, the Brunswick state ministry finally made

4389-476: The railways and continued to do so until the 1920s. The departure point for the Brunswick–Derneburg railway , the first BLE line, built on 18 July 1886, was Braunschweig Nord railway station , where the management and centre of operations was based. From here it ran to Braunschweig West (Wilhelmithor) and southwards to Hoheweg, where on 17 October 1886 a 4 km long branch to Wolfenbüttel turned off. The main line swung westwards and reached Derneburg station on

4466-426: The representatives of the member states. The most important issues had to be decided on unanimously. The Convention was presided over by the representative of Austria. This was a formality, however, as the Confederation did not have a head of state, since it was not a state. The Confederation, on the one hand, was a strong alliance between its member states because federal law was superior to state law (the decisions of

4543-446: The route of the newly built Braunschweig-Schöningen Railway (BSE) began, initially opened for goods traffic but from 15 February 1902 for passenger services as well. At first the BSE's trains started and terminated at the BLE's Nordbahnhof as well. In Gliesmarode Schuntertalbahn branched off, forming a link to the Lehrter Bahn . It was opened on 31 August 1902 as far as Brunsrode-Flechtorf and on 1 November 1904 to Fallersleben by

4620-441: The route was inaugurated by Duke William riding on a train to Wolfenbüttel hauled by a Blenkinsop locomotive. Opened to traffic the next day, it was the first German state railway and the fourth railway line to be built in the German Confederation . On 31 October 1841 the line to Bad Harzburg via Vienenburg was completed. The Vienenburg station opened in 1840 on Hanover territory is today the oldest railway station in Germany which

4697-452: The routes. In 1936 the BLE had 26 steam locomotives, 2 railcars, 49 passenger coaches, 12 post vans and 725 goods wagons. Duchy of Brunswick State Railway The Duchy of Brunswick State Railway ( Herzoglich Braunschweigische Staatseisenbahn ) was the first state railway in Germany . The first section of its Brunswick–Bad Harzburg railway line between Brunswick and Wolfenbüttel opened on 1 December 1838. The construction of

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4774-475: The southern German states. All the constituent states of the former German Confederation became part of the Kaiserreich in 1871, except Austria, Luxembourg , the Duchy of Limburg , and Liechtenstein . The late 18th century was a period of political, economic, intellectual, and cultural reforms, the Enlightenment (represented by figures such as Locke , Rousseau , Voltaire , and Adam Smith ), but also involving early Romanticism , and climaxing with

4851-477: The two great rivals, the Austrian Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia , each feared domination by the other. In Prussia the Hohenzollern rulers forged a centralized state. By the time of the Napoleonic Wars, Prussia, grounded in the virtues of its established military aristocracy (the Junkers ) and stratified by rigid hierarchical lines, had been surpassed militarily and economically by France. After 1807, Prussia's defeats by Napoleonic France highlighted

4928-413: The urban population grew rapidly, due primarily to the influx of young people from the rural areas. Berlin grew from 172,000 people in 1800 to 826,000 in 1870; Hamburg grew from 130,000 to 290,000; Munich from 40,000 to 269,000; Breslau (now Wrocław ) from 60,000 to 208,000; Dresden from 60,000 to 177,000; Königsberg (now Kaliningrad ) from 55,000 to 112,000. Offsetting this growth, there

5005-463: The village, where they were members of a corporate body and helped manage community resources and monitor community life. In the East, they were serfs who were bound prominently to parcels of land. In most of Germany, farming was handled by tenant farmers who paid rents and obligatory services to the landlord, who was typically a nobleman. Peasant leaders supervised the fields and ditches and grazing rights, maintained public order and morals, and supported

5082-416: Was a book by August von Kotzebue . In 1819, Kotzebue was accused of spying for Russia, and then murdered by a theological student, Karl Ludwig Sand , who was executed for the crime. Sand belonged to a militant nationalist faction of the Burschenschaften . Metternich used the murder as a pretext to issue the Carlsbad Decrees of 1819, which dissolved the Burschenschaften , cracked down on

5159-431: Was an association of 39 predominantly German-speaking sovereign states in Central Europe . It was created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 as a replacement of the former Holy Roman Empire , which had been dissolved in 1806 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars . The Confederation had only one organ, the Bundesversammlung , or Federal Convention (also Federal Assembly or Confederate Diet). The Convention consisted of

5236-416: Was certainly horrifying to the monarchist landed aristocracy. Figures like August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben , Ludwig Uhland , Georg Herwegh , Heinrich Heine , Georg Büchner , Ludwig Börne , and Bettina von Arnim rose in the Vormärz era. Father Friedrich Jahn 's gymnastic associations exposed middle class German youth to nationalist and democratic ideas, which took

5313-416: Was extensive emigration, especially to the United States. Emigration totaled 480,000 in the 1840s, 1,200,000 in the 1850s, and 780,000 in the 1860s. Despite its name and intention, the German Confederation was not entirely populated by Germans; many people of other ethnic groups lived within its borders: Further efforts to improve the confederation began in 1834 with the establishment of a customs union ,

5390-526: Was held back because of political disunity, conflicts of interest between the nobility and merchants, and the continued existence of the guild system, which discouraged competition and innovation. While this kept the middle class at bay, affording the old order a measure of stability not seen in France, Prussia's vulnerability to Napoleon's military proved to many among the old order that a fragile, divided, and traditionalist Germany would be easy prey for its cohesive and industrializing neighbor. The reforms laid

5467-416: Was no head of state, but the Austrian delegate presided over the Assembly (according to the Bundesakte). Austria did not have extra powers, but consequently the Austrian delegate was called Präsidialgesandther and Austria the Präsidialmacht (presiding power). The Assembly met in Frankfurt. The Confederation was enabled to accept and deploy ambassadors. It allowed ambassadors of the European powers to

5544-574: Was not competitive. Conversely products from the seaboard harbours tended to be transported on the Elbe river to Magdeburg in the Prussian Province of Saxony but not to Brunswick. In 1824 he proposed, in a memorandum, a plan to build railway links from Brunswick through the Kingdom of Hanover to the cities of Hamburg and Bremen. These ideas were publicised in 1832 but foundered on German sectionalism ( Kleinstaaterei ). In 1835 Amsberg again looked into

5621-500: Was now a pause of about a decade. During this time the network was expanded with short link lines – some only for goods traffic – on 1 September 1886 from Braunschweig West station to the Hauptbahnhof and by turning the BLE stations into state railway stations on 1 January 1890 at Seesen and on 20 September 1890 at Wolfenbüttel. On 11 November 1901 the line was opened from Braunschweig Nord via Gliesmarode (West) to Gliesmarode Ost, where

5698-603: Was revived in 1850 on Austrian initiative, but only fully reinstalled in the Summer of 1851. Rivalry between Prussia and Austria grew more and more, especially after 1859. The Confederation was dissolved in 1866 after the Austro-Prussian War , and was succeeded in 1866 by the Prussian-dominated North German Confederation . Unlike the German Confederation, the North German Confederation was in fact

5775-438: Was supposed to collectively defend the German Confederation from external enemies, primarily France. Successive laws passed by the Confederate Diet set the form and function of the army, as well as contribution limits of the member states. The Diet had the power to declare war and was responsible for appointing a supreme commander of the army and commanders of the individual army corps. This made mobilization extremely slow and added

5852-404: Was technically not a federal execution for a lack of time to observe the actual procedure. Prussia had violated, according to the majority of the convention, federal law by sending its troops to Holstein. The decision led to the war in summer 1866 that ended with the dissolution of the confederation ( known as Seven Weeks War or by other names ). The German Federal Army ( Deutsches Bundesheer )

5929-495: Was transformed into the German Empire of 1848 . Prussia was de facto the most important member state conducting the war for Germany. There are several examples for federal executions and especially federal interventions. In 1863, the Confederation ordered a federal execution against the duke of Holstein (the Danish king). Federal troops occupied Holstein which was a member state. After this, Austria and Prussia declared war on Denmark,

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