Austrian Empire the Empire until 1848—the Year of Revolutions—and the rise of liberalism equated to his political downfall. The result was that the Austrian Empire was seen as one of the great powers after 1815, but also as a reactionary force and an obstacle to national aspirations in Italy and Germany. Crown lands of the Austrian Empire after the 1815 Congress of Vienna, including the local government reorganizations from the Revolutions of 1848 to the 1860 October Diploma: The old Habsburg possessions of Further Austria (in today's France, Germany and Switzerland) had already been lost in the 1805 Peace of Pressburg. From
History of the Catholic Church in Germany of the Teutonic Knights and Knights of Saint John. Monasteries and abbeys lost their means of existence as they had to abandon their lands. The secularization of society became a main theme of European history in the 18th and especially 19th century and was vehemently opposed by the Catholic Church, resulting in a struggle which was later termed “Kulturkampf”. In Germany, this process had its first culmination in the German revolutions of 1848–49 and, after their suppression, gained new momentum with the establishment of liberal governments in various German states in the 1850s and 1860s and in the empire in