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1849 Campaign Medal
(Miniature)
1849戰役獎章
(迷你版)
Oberst z.D. Karl Ziegler, commander of the Landwehr-Bezirks-Kommando Speyer with Order of the Zähringer Lion & 1849 Campaign Medal Source: Gentleman’s Military Interest Club (https://gmic.co.uk/topic/82143-oberst-zd-karl-ziegler/)
This Campaign Medal for 1849 miniature intended to be worn with civilian evening dress (such as a tailcoat).
The Campaign Medal for 1849 (Gedächtnismedaille für 1849)
The obverse bears the inscription “DEM TAPFEREN BEFREIUNGS HEER 1849” (“To the brave army of liberation, 1849”), encircled by a laurel wreath tied with a ribbon at the base. Around the outer margin appears “LEOPOLD GROSSHERZOG VON BADEN” (“Leopold, Grand Duke of Baden”).
The reverse displays an unsheathed sword flanked by palm branches. At the top the medal is fitted with two rings for mounting on a support bar, with the ribbon sewn in medal-bar form. The ribbon is yellow (originally perhaps orange), with narrow silver stripes near each edge.
This medal was instituted by Grand Duke Leopold I of Baden on AD 1849 August 29 as a one-time distinction. It was awarded to those members of other German Confederation states who participated in suppressing the Baden Revolution during the German revolutions of AD 1848–1849. Owing to its function as an award for operations against fellow Germans, it acquired the nickname “Brother-Slayer Medal” (Gedächtnismedaille Brudermordmedaille).
The German revolutions of AD 1848–1849 were a wave of liberal and nationalist movements that swept through the states of the German Confederation. Their origins lay in long-standing social and economic tensions in early nineteenth-century Europe: agrarian hardship, unemployment accompanying early industrialisation, the bourgeois demand for constitutional government and civil rights, and the immediate catalyst of the French February Revolution. The uprisings spread rapidly from March AD 1848—thus also known as the “March Revolution”—forcing rulers to accept liberal ministries, abolish censorship, and convene the Frankfurt National Assembly, which attempted to draft a constitution for a unified, constitutional German polity. Yet the revolution faltered as conservative forces regrouped, armies reasserted control, Prussia and Austria rejected the Assembly’s imperial plan, and deep divisions persisted within the revolutionary camp—between advocates of a Greater or Lesser Germany, and between republicans and constitutional monarchists. By late AD 1848 the movement was in retreat.
Baden had been regarded even before the revolution as the most constitutionally liberal state within the German Confederation, and its demands for a democratic republic proved particularly resolute. The first Baden uprising of AD 1848 began with military mutinies and democratic agitation but was swiftly suppressed after Prussian intervention. In spring AD 1849, following the rejection of the Frankfurt Constitution by most German states, Baden became the main centre of the “Imperial Constitution Campaign” (Reichsverfassungskampagne). Revolutionary forces and democrats seized power in Karlsruhe and Freiburg and sought to establish a republic; large portions of the Baden army defected to the revolutionaries, making Baden the most militarily significant revolutionary state. However, under overwhelming Prussian pressure the revolutionary armies were defeated in June and July, notably at Waghäusel and Rastatt. The fall of the Rastatt fortress on 23 July marked the definitive end of the Baden Revolution and the German revolutions of AD 1848–1849. After the defeat, many leaders were executed or fled to North America and Switzerland, and the revolutionary institutions were abolished.
Grand Duke Leopold I, who succeeded to the throne in AD 1830 after succession adjustments following the Congress of Vienna restored the Zähringen dynasty in Baden, governed during a period of rapid social and political transformation across the German lands: economic strains from early industrialisation, agrarian difficulties, the rise of liberal and nationalist ideas, and growing demands for parliamentary reform. Although comparatively liberal among German princes—implementing limited administrative and legal reforms and permitting broader public discourse in the AD 1840s—his moderate policies failed to satisfy radical democrats and republicans. During the AD 1848 revolution, Baden became a stronghold of radical democratic forces, many soldiers defected, and the government faced an unprecedented crisis, ultimately forcing Leopold I to flee Karlsruhe and rely on Prussian troops to suppress the uprising.
King Friedrich Wilhelm IV of Prussia, who ascended the throne in AD 1840, ruled at a time when conservative monarchy and liberal movements clashed dramatically. Steeped in a romantic conception of kingship and viewing himself as a ruler by divine grace, he favoured a revival of medieval hierarchical order over modern constitutional governance. Externally his reign confronted the loose structure of the post-Vienna German Confederation and Austria’s constraints; internally it faced the poverty and unrest generated by early industrialisation and growing liberal demands for constitutions, press freedom, and representative government. When revolution broke out in AD 1848 he initially offered symbolic concessions—such as adopting the black-red-gold colours—to appease public sentiment, but soon relied on military force to suppress uprisings in Prussia and across German territories. His refusal to accept the imperial crown drafted by the Frankfurt Assembly doomed its constitutional project. After the revolution’s failure he introduced a conservative constitutional framework in the AD 1850s that preserved royal authority and laid structural foundations for the military reforms and Prussian ascendancy later directed by his brother, Wilhelm I.
“Statutem” Großherzoglich Badisches Regierungs-Blatt, no. LXVI, 1849, pp. 533–534. https://books.google.de/books?id=BnwrAQAAMAAJ&hl=de&pg=RA1-PA533#v=onepage&q&f=false
Borna Barac, Reference Catalogue Orders Medals and Decorations of the World : instituted until 1945 : Part II Bronze Book D-G. Zagreb: OBOL d.o.o., 2010.
Burke, Bernar. The book of orders of knighthood and decorations of honour of all nations. London: Hurst and Blackett, 1858.
Militär-Handbuch des Königreiches Bayern 1876. München, 1876. https://www.bavarikon.de/object/bav:BSB-MDZ-00000BSB11331549