Interlude: Vormärz

Abstract

The 1820s’ depression exacerbated the diminishing hold on the means of production that some peasantry had managed to retain with agrarian reforms (Berdahl 1988: 265). In Eastern Prussia, the hunger march became a regular occurrence, and the whole of Germany was captivated by the desperate plight of the Silesian weavers (Gailus 1994: 173; Beck 1995: 169). This condition of dearth was perceived by contemporaries to be fundamentally unprecedented: it seemed permanent and systemic, and could not be attributed merely to a natural famine or to an idle peasantry (Marquardt 1969: 82). Moreover, with resurgent republicanism across the Rhine emanating from the July Revolution, the fear of the Pöbel haunted the land as much as hunger (see for example, McClelland 1971: 63; Berdahl 1988: 309). Anti-Manchesterism was progressively blended ever more finely with anti -Jacobinism: Stein and Hardenberg’s previous concerns over mass peasant migration to industrializing towns remained center stage in political debates (Gagliardo 1969: 218). Frederick himself even issued a decree condemning the flight of capital from agriculture to stock exchange speculation (Brose 1993: 237).