At this time, Frederick William IV of Prussia had suffered a stroke and was incapable of governing. All the dangers he had left behind erupted during William I's regency as the Prince of Grapeshot.
It was not merely the problem of the east-west divide. At this point, the Junker Landowners had not allied themselves with Prussia's domestic bourgeoisie. More frightening still, Prussia lacked a bourgeoisified aristocracy.
Thus, the conflict between the two sides was exceptionally sharp. The Junker nobles hoped to restore their former glory and monopolize the army and government, while the bourgeoisie wished to follow Britain's example—expanding the power of the lower house to shatter the Junker nobility's monopoly, or rather, to obtain political standing commensurate with their economic strength.
The most direct conflict between them lay in their economic positions. The Junker Landowners feared the Austrian Empire's cheap grain, but feared overseas grain from Russia and the United States even more. Therefore, they were bound to want stronger trade barriers.
Yet Prussia's Liberals wanted Free Trade. They could hardly wait for foreign grain to smash those Junker Landowners into pulp.
However, neither the Junker nobility nor Prussia's bourgeoisie was a solid monolith. For example, the industrial Junkers looked down on the traditional agrarian Junkers.
But the industrial bourgeoisie did not regard the industrial Junkers as one of their own either. On the contrary, they still saw them as their greatest enemies.
This was because Prussia's industrial Junkers frequently abused their privileges, driving the country's factory owners to distraction. The western Rhineland, in particular, hated these privilege-wielding lords to the bone. What they wanted was fair competition.
The bourgeoisie itself was likewise riddled with contradictions. The big bourgeoisie wanted property-based suffrage, parliamentary politics, and monopolistic operations; the petty bourgeoisie, meanwhile, wanted universal suffrage and restrictions on monopolizing the