The
revolutions of 1848–49 in the German states, the opening phase of which was also called the
March Revolution , were initially part of the
Revolutions of 1848 that broke out in many European countries. They were a series of loosely coordinated protests and rebellions in the states of the
German Confederation, including the
Austrian Empire. The revolutions, which stressed
pan-Germanism, demonstrated popular discontent with the traditional, largely autocratic political structure of the thirty-nine
independent states of the Confederation that inherited the German territory of the former
Holy Roman Empire. They demonstrated the popular desire for the
Zollverein movement.