On October 23, 1850, the German Confederation Federal Assembly convened in Frankfurt. After Austria proposed a joint cabinet for all member states, it swiftly gained broad support at the assembly.
The small states' support probably served only to bolster Austria's momentum. In reality, the final say still rested with the major states.
Prussia and Bavaria naturally opposed it staunchly. Everyone forming a cabinet together, with each state sending one representative—there was no way they would agree to such a rotten idea.
Austria was the leading state of the German Confederation. Once this cabinet was formed, the prime minister would naturally be Austria's representative. There was no doubt about that.
Anyone could see that a cabinet of more than thirty people would inevitably squabble whenever something happened, and the one who ultimately made the decision would naturally be the prime minister.
Under such a system, Bavaria and Prussia's voice would naturally be suppressed to the lowest point, leaving them little different from the other small states.
For a short while, they would still retain influence over the other states. But in time, the small states would no longer play along. After all, under the Confederation's system, everyone had equal rights. Got the guts to bite me?
After winning over the small states, Austria could naturally begin taking strides toward unification—for instance, unifying the Confederation's currency, unifying the Confederation's army, unifying the Confederation's finances...
There was no need to rush. Slowly boil the frog in warm water. In a hundred or eighty years, the German Confederation would truly be unified.
That was the ideal. The reality was that after Prussia and Bavaria objected, Britain, France, and Russia also came out against it.
In short, the German lands could not be unified—not even in name.
The British even proposed dissolving the German Confederation