How Far Did Austrian Influence Over Germany

To what extent did Austrian influence over Germany survive the upheavals of the years 1848-50?
The revolutions of 1848-9 impacted Austria’s previously dominant political power significantly. With the Austrian chancellor Metternich fleeing from power in March 1848 and revolutions resulting in chaos that threatened the extinction of any future Austrian influence, the crippling state’s main focus was to supress anything that could jeopardize its weakened power even further, rather than establishing any plans to increase dominance. However certain events such as the failure of the Erfurt union, the humiliation at Hesse-Cassel and the meeting at Olmutz tightened Austria’s grasp by an almost transfer of power from Prussia to Austria and enabled it to begin a process of re-establishing previously existing influence and attempt to supress any Prussian political advantages. Eventually Austria’s newly found power would be put to the test as it started to draw up future plans for an even greater Austrian hold than had previously existed prior the upheavals. These plans, such as a ‘zollunion’ and the establishment of alternative custom unions can truly reveal the extent of Austria’s influential survival.
Austria did manage to start to reinforce
Firstly, after Olmutz, Schwarzenberg put forward his plans for an ‘Austrian-dominated middle Europe’ which would include 70 million people from all of the German states. This idea was not accepted among the smaller states and it would mean that their power would be decreased so that larger states, such as Austria, could increase in power. This meant that many states chose to support Prussia’s plan to return back to the status quo which existed before. The failure of being unable to influence other states to support Austria’s plan shows that although it could control certain situations its power could only go so