1848 and 1849 were uncertain years for the new Swiss Confederation. The Sonderbund War of 1847, the tensions between the kingdom of Prussia about Neuchâtel and the new constitution of 1848 were decisive events in the old Confederation of 25 sovereign cantons and their mostly different historical, religious, political, linguistic and geographical orientations.
This first democratic state (measured by the standards of the time) on the European continent was, so to speak, the first European Union. The neighbouring regions of Switzerland were much more turbulent in those years. Uprisings and revolutions in France (Habsburg), Italy, Austria and Germany (the German Confederation) ended in military violence and a new absolutism.
Thousands of citizens found refuge in Switzerland, much against the will of the rulers in the neighbouring countries. The Austrian Chancellor Klemens von Metternich (1773-1859) even threatened an invasion!
The Grand Duchy of Baden (1806-1918) was even one of the most important revolutionary territories in the German Confederation. Following the exhibition in the Dreiländermuseum in Lörrach, the museum in Rastatt is now presenting an exhibition on the Rastatt uprising of 1848 and 1849 in the magnificent Residenzpalast. After the failed uprising, many Baden citizens sought refuge in Switzerland.
The exhibition is primarily dedicated to the two phases of the Baden Revolution and focuses on military endeavours. 1848 was dominated by the three “armies’ of Friedrich Hecker (1811-1881), Georg Herwegh (1817-1885) and Gustav Struve (1805-1870) and the battles at Kandern, Dossenbach and Staufen.
The year 1849 was characterised by the Constitutional Campaign of the Deutsche Bund, the flight of the Grand Duke of Baden and the climax of the soldiers’ uprising in Rastatt. The exhibition also looks at the military in Baden at the time and the federal fortress of Rastatt. The defeat of the revolutionary army in the fortress of Rastatt on 23 July 1849 marked the climax and end point of the revolution.