ABSTRACT
The high aims of the revolution had come to nothing but the struggle for unity and freedom went on. It was Frederick William IV who issued a manifesto on 15 May 1849 in which he held out to all Germans the prospect of unity and freedom on the basis of the Reich constitution worked out by the Frankfurt National Assembly, with a few modifications. Radowitz dealt with relations with Austria in a memorandum which proposed an indissoluble alliance governed by international law and amounting to a ‘union’ between the Austrian monarchy and the German Federal State. At the end of September, 1849, Austria and Prussia concluded the Interim, which gave them jointly the powers of the Reichsverweser. Prussian policy grew more and more reactionary and was sharply criticised by German liberals and democrats. In 1853, a law was passed in Prussia prohibiting the employment of children until they had completed their twelfth year and other socio-political measures followed.
