Louis Napoleon is elected president. Metternich is removed from power. Rioting throughout the smaller German states leads to the formation of liberal governments. In Prussia, William IV forms a parliament. The Frankfurt Assembly meets to draw up a constitution for a united Germany.
Princes move the troops in to snuff out many of the gains of the revolutionaries.
Germany is not united into a national-state at this time. The educated elite of society, while still desiring reform, have begun to notice that the lower classes form as much a threat to their society as the nobility. From here on out it will be the ruling classes that are the chief actors in the direction of reform. The general discrediting of revolution and the possibility of reform from below changes the intellectual climate of Europe. The days of a naive romantic hope in the future, such as that of Mazzini, are numbered.