It became almost impossible when, in spring 1848, Europe erupted into unrest. After decades of reactionary politics, a wave of revolutions swept across the continent. When economic decline and the suppression of political gatherings sparked violent protests in Paris, a terrified King Louis Philippe abdicated on 26 February, and escaped to Britain. Two days later, the French declared the Second Republic and within weeks more revolutions rippled through Italy, Denmark, Hungary and Belgium, among others. In Vienna the conservative Chancellor of State, Prince von Metternich, tried and failed to control uprisings in which students and the working classes had joined forces. On 13 March Metternich resigned and he too fled to London. Two days later the Austrian emperor, Ferdinand I, promised his people a constitution. Rulers across Europe panicked. As newspapers reported the revolts in Europe that spring, Prussians read the articles aloud to each other in Berlin’s coffee houses. In Munich, Cologne, Leipzig, Weimar and dozens of other German cities and states people rose against their rulers.
