The issues arising out of this dispute made it plain to every one that the Parliament of all Germany was impotent to enforce its decrees against one of the German Powers possessed of a preponderating military strength.

By the end of 1848 the revolution in Vienna was completely crushed and a strongly reactionary Government appointed by the new Emperor.

Meanwhile in Berlin the Junkers and the reactionaries generally had already again come into power, a crisis having been caused by the attempt of the democratic section of the Prussian National Assembly, convened by the King in March, to reorganize the army on a popular democratic basis.

We need scarcely say the Prussian army has been the tool of Junkerdom and reaction ever since.
The last despairing attempt of the Frankfurt Parliament to give effect to the national Germanic unity, which all patriotic Germans professed to be eager for, was the offer of the Imperial crown to the King of Prussia.

Against this act, however, nearly half the members--i.e.all the advanced parties in the Assembly--protested by refusing to take any part in it They had also declined to be associated with a previous motion for the exclusion of German Austria from the new national unity, in the interest of Prussian ascendancy.