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At the head of the Austrian Government, as
chief minister of the Emperor Ferdinand I, was Metternich, who for many
years had been the great reactionary leader of Europe. He was compelled
now to face conditions such as, in his long and varied career of
statecraft and diplomacy, he never had confronted. Ferdinand himself,
always a weak ruler, succumbed to the revolution provoked by his
minister, whose downfall was followed by the Emperor's abdication
(December 2, 1848) in favor of his nephew, Francis Joseph, the present
ruler of Austria.
The most interesting of the German struggles of 1848 was that in Saxony.
Robert Blum [Footnote: Blum, born at Cologne in 1807, was a writer and
an agitator, leader of the Liberal party in Saxony. He was executed in
November, 1848.--ED.] was present at a ball in Leipsic when the news
arrived of the French revolution. He at once hastened to consult his
friends; and they agreed to act through the Town Council of Leipsic, and
sketched out the demands that they desired should be laid before the
King.


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