Rebels marching into Hanover in April of 1845
XV. The End of the Revolution
Following his defeat of the revolutionaries in Darmstadt, Grand Duke Karl I turned the army north to combat the rebellion that was spreading in Hanover. While Karl and his men had been fighting to retake the capital two separate uprisings had occurred in the conquered territories to the north. The first had broken out in Lüneburg and rebels there had, after taking the city, managed to inflict a serious defeat on a Prussian force sent against them. This stunning victory had sparked a second rising to the west in Lingen. Both rebel factions established communication with one another immediately and they had decided on a joint march on Hanover. With Karl's army off the south, the city of Hanover was only lightly defended and the the rebels had no difficulty in retaking it in early May, 1845.
To this point the uprising had been a smashing success. The federal tri-color was now waving above three of Hanover's largest cities and the rebels could even claim a smashing victory against Prussian troops. The fall of Hanover would, however, mark the high point of the rebellion. Even as the rebels celebrated their conquest of the old capital Prussian and Hessian forces were closing in from the east and south respectively. As May drew to a close Prussian forces had reached the outskirts of rebel-held Lüneburg and Grand Duke Karl and his army were nearing Osnabrück.
Threatened from two sides, the rebels in Hanover had a decision to make: should they divide their forces to combat each threat separately or should they remain where they were and prepare to defend Hanover from both enemy forces? The general consensus was that they could not allow the Prussians and Hessians to join forces and the decision was made to split the army in two. One force some 7,000 strong marched west to confront the Hessians at Osnabrück while the other rebel force of 8,000 moved north toward Lüneburg and the Prussians.
By the time that the rebels began moving out of Hanover Prussian forces had already succeeded in re-taking Lüneburg and were in fact already marching south toward the rebels. Unbeknown to the rebels, a cavalry division had joined the march just after the capture of the city and the Prussian force had grown to 18,000. Near the town of Celle an advance force of Prussian cavalry encountered the rebels on June 3, 1845. The cavalry force withdrew quickly and both sides began to prepare for battle. As a result of their earlier defeat of Prussian troops, morale was high among the rebel force as it prepared to meet the Prussians who, for their part, were eager to erase the stain of that embarrassing rout by the rebels.
Despite the confident mood of the rebels the battle was a complete disaster for them. In their first encounter with the Prussians they had managed to surprise them and put the Prussians to flight before they could organize themselves. In a more conventional battle such as this one, the rebels stood no chance against professional Prussian soldiers. The rebel line began crumbling almost immediately and it took only a single charge by Prussian infantry to put the rebels into retreat. As the rebels fled they were set upon by cavalry and the rebel force simply disintegrated. With nothing to stop them the Prussians continued south toward Hanover. On June 14, the Prussians arrived to find Hanover defended only by a few rebels who had thrown up barricades in several parts of the city. These small rebel groups were crushed easily and the city fell the same day.
Prussian troops enter Hanover
While the Prussians were about the business of securing Hanover, Grand Duke Karl I and his Hessians were marching toward Osnabrück. Karl's original plan was to rest his men in the city before determining the best course for continuing the campaign against the rebels. However, when he reached the outskirts of the city on June 5, he found rebel forces waiting for him there. Karl carefully examined the rebel defenses and found them similar to those he had recently faced in Darmstadt. Unwilling to engage his men in another grueling battle in the streets of a city, Karl waited outside of the city for several days and made repeated attempts to entice the rebels out of the city to meet him in open combat. These attempts failed, however, and Karl was forced to send his men against the rebel defenses.
Karl attacked the city from three points on June 8. The going was slow for the Hessians who had to storm one barricade after another. Each time the Hessians were about to finally overrun one of these defensive positions the rebels would simply fall back to another they had prepared and stubbornly continue the fight. The deeper into the city that the Hessians advanced the more chaotic things seemed to become. On numerous occasions groups of Hessian soldiers moving through supposedly secured parts of the city were suddenly ambushed from behind by rebels who had been hiding in and beneath buildings. These attacks severely hampered the Hessian advance as they were forced to check each city block before moving on. In some cases, however, frustrated and angry Hessian troops simply took to burning the buildings they came across rather than venture inside where rebels might be waiting.
Defiant rebels at one of the barricades in Osnabrück
Finally, after two days of this slow and bloody fighting, the last of the rebels in Osnabrück were defeated and the city was in Hessian hands once again. Karl was allowing his men a much needed rest when word came of the Prussian successes to the east. The defeat of the rebels by the Hessian and Prussian forces marked the end of the revolution in Hanover, which was also the last of the revolutions in Germany that would see any kind of success.
By the time that the uprising in Hanover had been put down the revolutions that had sprung up all over Germany were petering out. The reasons for the failure of the revolutions are many, but were chiefly caused by a lack of cohesion among the rebels. Though the revolutionaries had established a Federal Assembly to guide the revolution to victory, it had never been able to function properly and had only served as a venue for various factions to debate one another. Despite all the talk of unity and German brotherhood that went on there, each delegation was chiefly concerned with local matters and no real effort was made to form a united military front. As a result, each of the local uprisings, though ostensibly part of a great pan-German revolution, went unsupported from the outside and were easily crushed by government troops who were usually aided by Prussia.
With the revolutions inside Hesse-Darmstadt defeated, Grand Duke Karl returned to Darmstadt to devote himself to governing the nation. As he prepared to lead his country forward the events surrounding his rise to power were foremost in his mind. He had attained the crown because his brother had been forced to abdicate in the face of a popular uprising. Though the old order had prevailed, Karl knew that the issues and the difficulties that had caused the people to turn against the government were still there and needed to be addressed before further unrest could develop. Though liberalism had been defeated on the battlefield it still lived on in the hearts and minds of many of the people, and Karl could not help but wonder whether his victory was only a temporary one. Karl's main goal was to achieve his father's aim of making Hesse-Darmstadt a true power in Germany, and for that he would need the people united behind him. In the interest of that unity, Karl reasoned that a change in the status quo would be necessary.