Near Aabenraa, Schleswig, King of Prussia.
August 23rd 1839
The water crashed on the rocky outcrop below the jagged cliff-face. Atop the headland looking out towards the sea was the Prussian General Joachim von Raunch stroking his greying beard and looking up into the summer skies above. Most of the funeral attendees had already left to begin the long the journey home. Behind him lay the tombstone of the man named Friedrich Reinhardt. Joachim felt more or less responsible for Friedrich’s death in the combat at Esbjerg. A grand Prussian General with nearly 35 years of service in his highness’s army did not need to be on the battlefield, Joachim thought to himself. Joachim knew that once the 50,000 Prussian soldiers under his command went on non-combat duty that he would finally put his career behind him and head into retirement or maybe dabble in politics with the Liberaldem. Suddenly footsteps begun to creep up behind him, “General Joachim von Raunch?” said a voice well known to Joachim.
“Albrecht von Oldenburg, what is it you inquire?” said Joachim as he turned around to greet his balding fellow General in the recent Schleswig-Holstein War.
“I come baring a message a message from Herr von Boehm” stated von Oldenburg.
With that he pulled his officer’s sword from its case and plunged it deep into Joachim’s stomach.
Joachim looked up in agony as von Oldenburg twisted and pulled the blade from his bleeding stomach. Joachim began to tremble backwards towards the cliff-face and lost his footing plummeting to the rocky outcrop at the base of the cliff.
Reactionary Power
With the alleged suicide of influential Liberal General, Joachim von Raunch the Liberal Faction in Prussia fell into disarray and a leadership struggle began within the Liberaldem. This was enough to allow the leader of the Prussian Reactionaries of the Legislative Assembly, Karl von Boehm, to assert power and convince the aging King of Prussia to give power to the reactionaries in parliament. The new leader of the legislative assembly took no time to spare and began enforcing his Faction’s policy upon the Kingdom of Prussia. On September 1st Karl von Boehm announced a massive set off plans for the Kingdom promoting Reactionary idealism. First he began by beginning to open new factories for the growing unemployed population of Prussia to work in, particularly in the Rheinland then be began the rebuilding of the outdated Prussian navy with a host of new ships and transport craft for overseas ventures in the future.
The Death of Friedrich Wilhelm III
On February 21st 1840 the Friedrich Wilhelm III, King of Prussia died at the age of sixty nine surrounded by family and parliamentary friends in his family’s palace in Berlin. His eldest son, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm was called to Berlin where he ascended to the throne of Prussia as King Friedrich Wilhelm IV under the guidance and of Karl von Boehm before the Legislative Assembly as absolute ruler of the Prussian Kingdom.
Friedrich Wilhelm IV was a staunch Romanticist, and his devotion to this movement, which in the German States featured a nostalgia for the Middle Ages and old Holy Roman Empire, was largely responsible for him developing into a conservative at an early age.
He fought as a regular in the Wars of Liberation against Napoleon and in 1815, when he was only 20, the crown prince exerted his influence to structure the proposed constitution of 1815, which was never actually enacted, in such a way that the landed aristocracy would hold the majority of the power. He was firmly against both liberalisation and unification of Germany much to the liking of Karl von Boehm and the reactionaries in power.
Upon his accession, he toned down the reactionary policies enacted by his father and Karl von Boehm, easing press censorship and promising to enact a constitution at some point, but he refused to enact a people’s assembly, preferring to work with the aristocracy through "united committees" of the provincial estates and the aristocratic legislative assembly.
The National Railway
Through the use of their State Capitalism policy the Reactionary government began the massive construction of the Prussian National Railway. The massive railway set for completion in 1842 was set to connect all major cities of the Kingdom of Prussia by one massive interconnected rail system. During the Schleswig-Holstein War, Austria had made headway in race for German Dominance and had industrialized much of their nation in the progress. Although Friedrich Wilhelm and his reactionary advisors were highly conservative he did allow the regulation of child labour to a certain amount every year, following Britain in October 1840. However following the reform the Pro-Austrian Sphere of the German Confederation countered this by expelling all Prussian military advisors from Catholic Bavaria.
The Liberal Student’s Association
The Schleisen University was a hotbed controversy during the beginning of the cold winter months of late 1840. A new Liberal Movement was founded by radical youth and scholars of the University promoting voting rights, and what has been named ‘the traditional liberties of the Prussian realm’. Founded through traditional romanticist ideals and ‘the hope that through traditional freedom that Prussia shall become the second ancient Greece’ the Liberal Student Manifesto was published by the group and became a massive deal on campus and the surrounding area. Liberalism was now growing in Europe it would only be a matter of time before the new movement of freedom took hold in the strongest of nations.
Schleisen University, the building often credited with sparking later Liberal ideals in Germany