Background The status-quo that Germany was wallowing in and which was established by Metternich came to an end with the revolution that began in 1848. There was great need to have a strong and unified nation which would offer the kind of leadership that the region demanded. After the revolution, instead of Prussia and Austria using their established positions in Vienna and Berlin respectively to play a unified role of shaping politics in Germany, they opted to make use of the German Confederation to assert their political interests and power in German affairs. As a matter of fact, this was a strategic move by the two countries to gain control and power over the opposing camps. This made it impossible for the two parties to realize their endeavors of unifying Germany as it has been observed and analyzed by historians. Stern posits that the success of either Austria or Prussia in establishing a greater force in Germany required mediatization. 1 This would be the only approach that would a positive difference towards their pursuit for unity. As a result, following the revolution of 1848, Prussia planned to corral both medium and smaller states in Germany into a unified body held by what many leaders had come to unanimously agree with. This was the conservative constitution. The document provided guidelines on how the various parties who were in the union would interact and run their affairs in a more harmonious manner. However, with issues related to different interests exhibited by arch-conservatives to have the conservative powers show national solidarity and the inevitable large scale European war, Prussia could not attain its ambitions of bringing about German national unity. On the other hand, it was compelled to sacrifice its plan to unionize Germany. The consequence of the sacrifice as Tullock puts it in his publication was a massive defeat in managing its international affairs and in pursuing its interests in German politics. 2 In any case, this proved to be a very tricky political arrangement among these states bearing in mind that each one of them had unique interests. On the other hand, Austria tried to unify German by reconvening the Federal Diet and using the power of the president to have all institutions brought into a single executive body. Austria intended to have the executive body put under the Austrian tutelage. To achieve this, it had to ensure that the Federal Diet was expanded, a consideration which saw its involvement in the Prussian Zollverein. This step of action by Austria is believed to have played an important role in establishing a strong unifying force in Germany. Nonetheless, it is imperative to note that this show of unity must have been contributed by myriad of other factors other than just the overlying reasons. Political analysts argue that while all this was happening, including the desire to establish a status quo in political conservative status, some of the prominent interests by Austria that could be felt were its political and economical desires to use the national unity in Germany to subjugate others politically and eventually assume leadership roles in the politics of Germany. According to Clark in his book A firewall to alms: a brief economic history of the world , such a move would only be interpreted as a sour