Unification
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Second, his emphasis on blood and iron did not
imply simply the unrivaled military might of the Prussian army but rather two
important aspects: the ability of the assorted German states to produce iron
and other related war materials and the willingness to use those war materials
if necessary.[72]
By 1862, when Bismarck made
his speech, the idea of a German nation-state in the peaceful spirit of
Pan-Germanism had shifted from the liberal and democratic character of 1848 to
accommodate Bismarck's more conservative Realpolitik. Bismarck sought to link a
unified state to the Hohenzollern dynasty, which for some historians remains
one of Bismarck's primary contributions to the creation of the German Empire in
1871.[73] While the conditions of the treaties binding the various German
states to one another prohibited Bismarck from taking unilateral action, the
politician and diplomat in him realized the impracticality of this.[74] To get
the German states to unify, Bismarck needed a single, outside enemy that would
declare war on one of the German states first, thus providing a casus belli to
rally all Germans behind. This opportunity arose with the outbreak of the
Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Historians have long debated Bismarck's role in
the events leading up to the war. The traditional view, promulgated in large
part by late 19th- and early 20th-century pro-Prussian historians, maintains
that Bismarck's intent was always German unification. Post-1945 historians,
however, see more short-term opportunism and cynicism in Bismarck's
manipulation of the circumstances to create a war, rather than a grand scheme
to unify a nation-state.[75] Regardless of motivation, by manipulating events
of 1866 and 1870, Bismarck demonstrated the political and diplomatic skill that
had caused Wilhelm to turn to him in 1862.[76]
From north to south: The Danish
part of Jutland in purple and terracotta, Schleswig in red and brown, and
Holstein in lime yellow. The Schleswig-Holstein Question was about the status
of those territories.
Three episodes proved
fundamental to the unification of Germany. First, the death without male heirs
of Frederick VII of Denmark led to the Second War of Schleswig in 1864. Second,
the unification of Italy provided Prussia an ally against Austria in the
Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Finally, France—fearing Hohenzollern encirclement—declared
war on Prussia in 1870, resulting in the Franco-Prussian War. Through a
combination of Bismarck's diplomacy and political leadership, von Roon's
military reorganization, and von Moltke's military strategy, Prussia
demonstrated that none of the European signatories of the 1815 peace treaty
could guarantee Austria's sphere of influence in Central Europe, thus achieving
Prussian hegemony in Germany and ending the dualism debate.[77]
The Schleswig-Holstein
Question
Main article: Schleswig–Holstein question
The first episode in the
saga of German unification under Bismarck came with the Schleswig-Holstein
Question. On 15 November 1863, Christian IX became king of Denmark and duke of
Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg, which the Danish king held in personal
union. On 18 November 1863, he signed the Danish November Constitution which
replaced The Law of Sjælland and The Law of Jutland, which meant the new
constitution applied to the Duchy of Schleswig. The German Confederation saw
this act as a violation of the London Protocol of 1852, which emphasized the
status of the Kingdom of Denmark as distinct from the three independent
duchies. The German Confederation could use the ethnicities of the area as a
rallying cry: Holstein and Lauenburg were largely of German origin and spoke
German in everyday life, while Schleswig had a significant Danish population
and history. Diplomatic attempts to have the November Constitution repealed
collapsed, and fighting began when Prussian and Austrian troops crossed the Eider
river on 1 February 1864.[citation needed]
Initially, the Danes
attempted to defend their country using an ancient earthen wall known as the
Danevirke, but this proved futile. The Danes were no match for the combined
Prussian and Austrian forces and their modern armaments. The needle gun, one of
the first bolt action rifles to be used in conflict, aided the Prussians in
both this war and the Austro-Prussian War two years later. The rifle enabled a
Prussian soldier to fire five shots while lying prone, while its muzzle-loading
counterpart could only fire one shot and had to be reloaded while standing. The
Second Schleswig War resulted in victory for the combined armies of Prussia and
Austria, and the two countries won control of Schleswig and Holstein in the
concluding peace of Vienna, signed on 30 October 1864.[78]
War between Austria and Prussia, 1866
Main article:
Austro-Prussian War
Situation at the time of
the outbreak of the war:
Prussia
Austria
Prussia's allies
Austria's allies
Neutral members of the German Confederation
Under joint administration
(Schleswig-Holstein)
The second episode in
Bismarck's unification efforts occurred in 1866. In concert with the newly
formed Italy, Bismarck created a diplomatic environment in which Austria
declared war on Prussia. The dramatic prelude to the war occurred largely in
Frankfurt, where the two powers claimed to speak for all the German states in
the parliament. In April 1866, the Prussian representative in Florence signed a
secret agreement with the Italian government, committing each state to assist
the other in a war against Austria. The next day, the Prussian delegate to the
Frankfurt assembly presented a plan calling for a national constitution, a
directly elected national Diet, and universal suffrage. German liberals were
justifiably skeptical of this plan, having witnessed Bismarck's difficult and
ambiguous relationship with the Prussian Landtag (State Parliament), a
relationship characterized by Bismarck's cajoling and riding roughshod over the
representatives. These skeptics saw the proposal as a ploy to enhance Prussian power
rather than a progressive agenda of reform.[79]
Choosing sides
The debate over the
proposed national constitution became moot when news of Italian troop movements
in Tyrol and near the Venetian border reached Vienna in April 1866. The
Austrian government ordered partial mobilization in the southern regions; the
Italians responded by ordering full mobilization. Despite calls for rational
thought and action, Italy, Prussia, and Austria continued to rush toward armed
conflict. On 1 May, Wilhelm gave von Moltke command over the Prussian armed
forces, and the next day he began full-scale mobilization.[80]
In the Diet, the group of
middle-sized states, known as Mittelstaaten (Bavaria, Württemberg, the grand
duchies of Baden and Hesse, and the duchies of Saxony–Weimar, Saxony–Meiningen,
Saxony–Coburg, and Nassau), supported complete demobilization within the
Confederation. These individual governments rejected the potent combination of
enticing promises and subtle (or outright) threats Bismarck used to try to gain
their support against the Habsburgs. The Prussian war cabinet understood that
its only supporters among the German states against the Habsburgs were two
small principalities bordering on Brandenburg that had little military strength
or political clout: the Grand Duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and
Mecklenburg-Strelitz. They also understood that Prussia's only ally abroad was
Italy.[81]
Opposition to Prussia's
strong-armed tactics surfaced in other social and political groups. Throughout
the German states, city councils, liberal parliamentary members who favored a
unified state, and chambers of commerce—which would see great benefits from
unification—opposed any war between Prussia and Austria. They believed any such
conflict would only serve the interests of royal dynasties. Their own
interests, which they understood as "civil" or "bourgeois",
seemed irrelevant. Public opinion also opposed Prussian domination. Catholic
populations along the Rhine—especially in such cosmopolitan regions as Cologne
and in the heavily populated Ruhr Valley—continued to support Austria. By late
spring, most important states opposed Berlin's effort to reorganize the German
states by force. The Prussian cabinet saw German unity as an issue of power and
a question of who had the strength and will to wield that power. Meanwhile, the
liberals in the Frankfurt assembly saw German unity as a process of negotiation
that would lead to the distribution of power among the many parties.[82]
Austria isolated
officer on horseback
ordering his enthusiastic massed infantry into battle
Prussian Prince Friedrich
Carl ordering his enthusiastic troops to attack at the Battle of Königgrätz
Although several German
states initially sided with Austria, they stayed on the defensive and failed to
take effective initiatives against Prussian troops. The Austrian army therefore
faced the technologically superior Prussian army with support only from Saxony.
France promised aid, but it came late and was insufficient.[83] Complicating
the situation for Austria, the Italian mobilization on Austria's southern
border required a diversion of forces away from battle with Prussia to fight
the Third Italian War of Independence on a second front in Venetia and on the
Adriatic sea.[84]
Aftermath of the war:
Prussia
Territories annexed by Prussia
Prussia's allies
Austria
Austria's allies
Neutral members of the German Confederation
A quick peace was essential
to keep Russia from entering the conflict on Austria's side.[85] In the
day-long Battle of Königgrätz, near the village of Sadová, Friedrich Carl and
his troops arrived late, and in the wrong place. Once he arrived, however, he
ordered his troops immediately into the fray. The battle was a decisive victory
for Prussia and forced the Habsburgs to end the war with the unfavorable Peace
of Prague,[86] laying the groundwork for the Kleindeutschland (little Germany)
solution, or "Germany without Austria."
Founding a unified state
There is, in political
geography, no Germany proper to speak of. There are Kingdoms and Grand Duchies,
and Duchies and Principalities, inhabited by Germans, and each [is] separately
ruled by an independent sovereign with all the machinery of State. Yet there is
a natural undercurrent tending to a national feeling and toward a union of the
Germans into one great nation, ruled by one common head as a national unit.
— article from
The New York Times published on July 1, 1866[87]
Peace of Prague and the
North German Confederation
The Peace of Prague sealed
the dissolution of the German Confederation. Its former leading state, the
Austrian Empire, was along with the majority of its allies excluded from the
ensuing North German Confederation Treaty sponsored by Prussia which directly
annexed Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, and the city of Frankfurt, while Hesse
Darmstadt lost some territory but kept its statehood. At the same time, the
original East Prussian cradle of the Prussian statehood as well as the
Prussian-held Polish- or Kashubian-speaking territories of Province of Posen
and West Prussia were formally annexed into the North German Confederation,
thus Germany. Following adoption of the North German Constitution, the new
state obtained its own constitution, flag, and governmental and administrative
structures.[citation needed]
Through military victory,
Prussia under Bismarck's influence had overcome Austria's active resistance to
the idea of a unified Germany. The states south of the Main River (Baden,
Württemberg, and Bavaria) signed separate treaties requiring them to pay
indemnities and to form alliances bringing them into Prussia's sphere of
influence.[88] Austria's influence over the German states may have been broken,
but the war also splintered the spirit of pan-German unity, as many German
states resented Prussian power politics.[89]
Unified Italy and
Austro-Hungarian Compromise
Further information:
Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867
The Peace of Prague offered
lenient terms to Austria but its relationship with the new nation-state of
Italy underwent major restructuring. Although the Austrians were far more
successful in the military field against Italian troops, the monarchy lost the
important province of Venetia. The Habsburgs ceded Venetia to France, which
then formally transferred control to Italy.[90]
The end of Austrian
dominance of the German states shifted Austria's attention to the Balkans. The
reality of defeat for Austria also caused a reevaluation of internal divisions,
local autonomy, and liberalism.[91] In 1867, the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph
accepted a settlement (the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867) in which he
gave his Hungarian holdings equal status with his Austrian domains, creating
the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary.[92]
War with France
Biarritz is a city on the Bay of Biscay, on the Atlantic coast in the Pyrénées-Atlantiques department in the French Basque Country in southwestern France. It is located 35 kilometres (22 mi) from the border with Spain. It is a luxurious seaside tourist destinat
The French public resented
the Prussian victory and demanded Revanche pour Sadová ("Revenge for
Sadova"), illustrating anti-Prussian sentiment in France—a problem that
would accelerate in the months leading up to the Franco-Prussian War.[93] The
Austro-Prussian War also damaged relations with the French government. At a
meeting in Biarritz in September 1865 with Napoleon III, Bismarck had let it be
understood (or Napoleon had thought he understood) that France might annex
parts of Belgium and Luxembourg in exchange for its neutrality in the war.
These annexations did not happen, resulting in animosity from Napoleon towards
Bismarck.[citation needed]
Background
Main article: Causes of the
Franco-Prussian War
By 1870 three of the
important lessons of the Austro-Prussian war had become apparent. The first
lesson was that, through force of arms, a powerful state could challenge the
old alliances and spheres of influence established in 1815. Second, through
diplomatic manoeuvring, a skilful leader could create an environment in which a
rival state would declare war first, thus forcing states allied with the
"victim" of external aggression to come to the leader's aid. Finally,
as Prussian military capacity far exceeded that of Austria, Prussia was clearly
the only state within the Confederation (or among the German states generally)
capable of protecting all of them from potential interference or aggression. In
1866, most mid-sized German states had opposed Prussia, but by 1870 these
states had been coerced and coaxed into mutually protective alliances with
Prussia. If a European state declared war on one of their members, then they
all would come to the defense of the attacked state. With skilful manipulation
of European politics, Bismarck created a situation in which France would play
the role of aggressor in German affairs, while Prussia would play that of the
protector of German rights and liberties.[94]
At the Congress of Vienna
in 1815, Metternich and his conservative allies had reestablished the Spanish
monarchy under King Ferdinand VII. Over the following forty years, the great
powers supported the Spanish monarchy, but events in 1868 would further test
the old system, finally providing the external trigger needed by
Bismarck.[citation needed]
Spanish prelude
Spanish prelude
A revolution in Spain overthrew Queen Isabella II, and the throne remained empty while Isabella lived in sumptuous exile in Paris. The Spanish, looking for a suitable Catholic successor, had offered the post to three European princes, each of whom was rejected by Napoleon III, who served as regional power-broker. Finally, in 1870 the Regency offered the crown to Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a prince of the Catholic cadet Hohenzollern line. The ensuing furor has been dubbed by historians as the Hohenzollern candidature.[95] Over the next few weeks, the Spanish offer turned into the talk of Europe. Bismarck encouraged Leopold to accept the offer.[96] A successful installment of a Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen king in Spain would mean that two countries on either side of France would both have German kings of Hohenzollern descent. This may have been a pleasing prospect for Bismarck, but it was unacceptable to either Napoleon III or to Agenor, duc de Gramont, his minister of foreign affairs. Gramont wrote a sharply formulated ultimatum to Wilhelm, as head of the Hohenzollern family, stating that if any Hohenzollern prince should accept the crown of Spain, the French government would respond—although he left ambiguous the nature of such response. The prince withdrew as a candidate, thus defusing the crisis, but the French ambassador to Berlin would not let the issue lie.[97] He approached the Prussian king directly while Wilhelm was vacationing in Ems Spa, demanding that the King release a statement saying he would never support the installation of a Hohenzollern on the throne of Spain. Wilhelm refused to give such an encompassing statement, and he sent Bismarck a dispatch by telegram describing the French demands. Bismarck used the king's telegram, called the Ems Dispatch, as a template for a short statement to the press. With its wording shortened and sharpened by Bismarck—and further alterations made in the course of its translation by the French agency Havas—the Ems Dispatch raised an angry furor in France. The French public, still aggravated over the defeat at Sadová, demanded war.[98]
A revolution in Spain
overthrew Queen Isabella II, and the throne remained empty while Isabella lived
in sumptuous exile in Paris. The Spanish, looking for a suitable Catholic
successor, had offered the post to three European princes, each of whom was rejected
by Napoleon III, who served as regional power-broker. Finally, in 1870 the
Regency offered the crown to Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a prince of
the Catholic cadet Hohenzollern line. The ensuing furor has been dubbed by
historians as the Hohenzollern candidature.[95] Over the next few weeks, the
Spanish offer turned into the talk of Europe. Bismarck encouraged Leopold to
accept the offer.[96] A successful installment of a Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen
king in Spain would mean that two countries on either side of France would both
have German kings of Hohenzollern descent. This may have been a pleasing
prospect for Bismarck, but it was unacceptable to either Napoleon III or to
Agenor, duc de Gramont, his minister of foreign affairs. Gramont wrote a sharply
formulated ultimatum to Wilhelm, as head of the Hohenzollern family, stating
that if any Hohenzollern prince should accept the crown of Spain, the French
government would respond—although he left ambiguous the nature of such
response. The prince withdrew as a candidate, thus defusing the crisis, but the
French ambassador to Berlin would not let the issue lie.[97] He approached the
Prussian king directly while Wilhelm was vacationing in Ems Spa, demanding that
the King release a statement saying he would never support the installation of
a Hohenzollern on the throne of Spain. Wilhelm refused to give such an
encompassing statement, and he sent Bismarck a dispatch by telegram describing
the French demands. Bismarck used the king's telegram, called the Ems Dispatch,
as a template for a short statement to the press. With its wording shortened
and sharpened by Bismarck—and further alterations made in the course of its
translation by the French agency Havas—the Ems Dispatch raised an angry furor
in France. The French public, still aggravated over the defeat at Sadová,
demanded war.[98]
Open hostilities and the
disastrous end of the Second French Empire
a tired sick old man in
French military uniform, sitting beside an erect senior officer in Prussian
uniform, spiked helmet, and sword
Emperor Napoleon III (left)
at Sedan, on 2 September 1870, seated next to Prussian Chancellor Otto von
Bismarck, holding Napoleon's surrendered sword. The defeat of the French army
destabilized Napoleon's regime; a revolution in Paris established the Third
French Republic, and the war continued.
Napoleon III had tried to
secure territorial concessions from both sides before and after the
Austro-Prussian War, but despite his role as mediator during the peace
negotiations, he ended up with nothing. He then hoped that Austria would join
in a war of revenge and that its former allies—particularly the southern German
states of Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria—would join in the cause. This hope
would prove futile since the 1866 treaty came into effect and united all German
states militarily—if not happily—to fight against France. Instead of a war of
revenge against Prussia, supported by various German allies, France engaged in
a war against all of the German states without any allies of its own.[99]
The reorganization of the
military by von Roon and the operational strategy of Moltke combined against
France to great effect. The speed of Prussian mobilization astonished the
French, and the Prussian ability to concentrate power at specific points—reminiscent
of Napoleon I's strategies seventy years earlier—overwhelmed French
mobilization. Utilizing their efficiently laid rail grid, Prussian troops were
delivered to battle areas rested and prepared to fight, whereas French troops
had to march for considerable distances to reach combat zones. After a number
of battles, notably Spicheren, Wörth, Mars la Tour, and Gravelotte, the
Prussians defeated the main French armies and advanced on the primary city of
Metz and the French capital of Paris. They captured Napoleon III and took an
entire army as prisoners at Sedan on 1 September 1870.[100]
Proclamation of the German
Empire
%20(1).jpg)
painting of well dressed
and portly princes and dukes cheering a king on a dais
January 18, 1871: The
proclamation of the German Empire in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of
Versailles. Bismarck appears in white. The Grand Duke of Baden stands beside
Wilhelm, leading the cheers. Crown Prince Friedrich, later Friedrich III,
stands on his father's right. Painting by Anton von Werner
Main article: Proclamation of the German Empire
The humiliating capture of
the French emperor and the loss of the French army itself, which marched into
captivity at a makeshift camp in the Saarland ("Camp Misery"), threw
the French government into turmoil; Napoleon's energetic opponents overthrew
his government and proclaimed the Third Republic.[101] "In the days after
Sedan, Prussian envoys met with the French and demanded a large cash indemnity
as well as the cession of Alsace and Lorraine. All parties in France rejected
the terms, insisting that any armistice be forged "on the basis of
territorial integrity." France, in other words, would pay reparations for
starting the war, but would, in Jules Favre's famous phrase, "cede neither
a clod of our earth nor a stone of our fortresses".[102] The German High
Command expected an overture of peace from the French, but the new republic
refused to surrender. The Prussian army invested Paris and held it under siege
until mid-January, with the city being "ineffectually
bombarded".[103] Nevertheless, in January, the Germans fired some 12,000
shells, 300–400 grenades daily into the city.[104] On January 18, 1871, the
German princes and senior military commanders proclaimed Wilhelm "German
Emperor" in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles.[105] Under
the subsequent Treaty of Frankfurt, France relinquished most of its
traditionally German regions (Alsace and the German-speaking part of Lorraine);
paid an indemnity, calculated (on the basis of population) as the precise
equivalent of the indemnity that Napoleon Bonaparte imposed on Prussia in
1807;[106] and accepted German administration of Paris and most of northern
France, with "German troops to be withdrawn stage by stage with each
installment of the indemnity payment".[107]
War as "the capstone
of the unification process"
Victory in the
Franco-Prussian War proved the capstone of the unification process. In the
first half of the 1860s, Austria and Prussia both contended to speak for the
German states; both maintained they could support German interests abroad and
protect German interests at home. In responding to the Schleswig-Holstein
Question, they both proved equally diligent in doing so. After the victory over
Austria in 1866, Prussia began internally asserting its authority to speak for
the German states and defend German interests, while Austria began directing
more and more of its attention to possessions in the Balkans. The victory over
France in 1871 expanded Prussian hegemony in the German states (aside from
Austria) to the international level. With the proclamation of Wilhelm as
Kaiser, Prussia assumed the leadership of the new empire. The southern states
became officially incorporated into a unified Germany at the Treaty of
Versailles of 1871 (signed 26 February 1871; later ratified in the Treaty of
Frankfurt of 10 May 1871), which formally ended the war.[108] Although Bismarck
had led the transformation of Germany from a loose confederation into a federal
nation state, he had not done it alone. Unification was achieved by building on
a tradition of legal collaboration under the Holy Roman Empire and economic
collaboration through the Zollverein. The difficulties of the Vormärz, the
impact of the 1848 liberals, the importance of von Roon's military reorganization,
and von Moltke's strategic brilliance all played a part in political
unification.[109] "Einheit – unity – was achieved at the expense of
Freiheit – freedom. The German Empire became," in Karl Marx's words,
"a military despotism cloaked in parliamentary forms with a feudal
ingredient, influenced by the bourgeoisie, festooned with bureaucrats and
guarded by police." Indeed, many historians would see Germany's
"escape into war" in 1914 as a flight from all of the
internal-political contradictions forged by Bismarck at Versailles in the fall
of 1870.[110]
Internal political and administrative unification
.svg.png)
The German Empire, also referred to as Imperial Germany, the Second Reich, or simply Germany, was the period of the German Reich from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the November Revolution in 1918, when Germany change
The new German Empire
included 26 political entities: twenty-five constituent states (or
Bundesstaaten) and one Imperial Territory (or Reichsland). It realized the
Kleindeutsche Lösung ("Lesser German Solution", with the exclusion of
Austria) as opposed to a Großdeutsche Lösung or "Greater German
Solution", which would have included Austria. Unifying various states into
one nation required more than some military victories, however much these might
have boosted morale. It also required a rethinking of political, social, and
cultural behaviors and the construction of new metaphors about "us"
and "them". Who were the new members of this new nation? What did
they stand for? How were they to be organized?[111]
Constituent states of the Empire
Though often characterized
as a federation of monarchs, the German Empire, strictly speaking, federated a
group of 26 constituent entities with different forms of government, ranging
from the main four constitutional monarchies to the three republican Hanseatic
cities.[112]
State Capital
Kingdoms (Königreiche)
Prussia (Preußen) as a whole Berlin
Bavaria (Bayern) Munich
Saxony (Sachsen) Dresden
Württemberg Stuttgart
Grand Duchies
(Großherzogtümer)
Baden Karlsruhe
Hesse (Hessen) Darmstadt
Mecklenburg-Schwerin Schwerin
Mecklenburg-Strelitz Neustrelitz
Oldenburg Oldenburg
Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach (Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach) Weimar
Duchies (Herzogtümer)
Anhalt Dessau
Brunswick (Braunschweig) Braunschweig
Saxe-Altenburg (Sachsen-Altenburg) Altenburg
Saxe-Coburg and Gotha (Sachsen-Coburg und Gotha) Coburg
Saxe-Meiningen (Sachsen-Meiningen) Meiningen
Principalities
(Fürstentümer)
Lippe Detmold
Reuss-Gera (Junior Line) Gera
Reuss-Greiz (Elder Line) Greiz
Schaumburg-Lippe Bückeburg
Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt Rudolstadt
Schwarzburg-Sondershausen Sondershausen
Waldeck and Pyrmont (Waldeck und Pyrmont) Arolsen
Free and Hanseatic Cities
(Freie und Hansestädte)
Bremen
Hamburg
Lübeck
Imperial Territories
(Reichsländer)
Alsace–Lorraine (Elsass-Lothringen) Straßburg
Political structure of the
Empire
The 1866 North German
Constitution became (with some semantic adjustments) the 1871 Constitution of
the German Empire. With this constitution, the new Germany acquired some
democratic features: notably the Imperial Diet, which—in contrast to the
parliament of Prussia—gave citizens representation on the basis of elections by
direct and equal suffrage of all males who had reached the age of 25.
Furthermore, elections were generally free of chicanery, engendering pride in
the national parliament.[113] However, legislation required the consent of the
Bundesrat, the federal council of deputies from the states, in and over which
Prussia had a powerful influence; Prussia could appoint 17 of 58 delegates with
only 14 votes needed for a veto. Prussia thus exercised influence in both
bodies, with executive power vested in the Prussian King as Kaiser, who
appointed the federal chancellor. The chancellor was accountable solely to, and
served entirely at the discretion of, the Emperor. Officially, the chancellor
functioned as a one-man cabinet and was responsible for the conduct of all
state affairs; in practice, the State Secretaries (bureaucratic top officials
in charge of such fields as finance, war, foreign affairs, etc.) acted as
unofficial portfolio ministers. With the exception of the years 1872–1873 and
1892–1894, the imperial chancellor was always simultaneously the prime minister
of the imperial dynasty's hegemonic home-kingdom, Prussia. The Imperial Diet
had the power to pass, amend, or reject bills, but it could not initiate
legislation. (The power of initiating legislation rested with the chancellor.)
The other states retained their own governments, but the military forces of the
smaller states came under Prussian control. The militaries of the larger states
(such as the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Saxony) retained some autonomy, but they
underwent major reforms to coordinate with Prussian military principles and
came under federal government control in wartime.[114]
Historical arguments and
the Empire's social anatomy
.JPG)
Statue of the allegorical
figure Germania
Germania, also called the
Niederwald Monument, was erected in 1877–83 at Rüdesheim.
The Sonderweg hypothesis
attributed Germany's difficult 20th century to the weak political, legal, and
economic basis of the new empire. The Prussian landed elites, the Junkers,
retained a substantial share of political power in the unified state. The
Sonderweg hypothesis attributed their power to the absence of a revolutionary
breakthrough by the middle classes, or by peasants in combination with the
urban workers, in 1848 and again in 1871. Recent research into the role of the
Grand Bourgeoisie—which included bankers, merchants, industrialists, and
entrepreneurs—in the construction of the new state has largely refuted the claim
of political and economic dominance of the Junkers as a social group. This
newer scholarship has demonstrated the importance of the merchant classes of
the Hanseatic cities and the industrial leadership (the latter particularly
important in the Rhineland) in the ongoing development of the Second
Empire.[115]
Additional studies of
different groups in Wilhelmine Germany have all contributed to a new view of
the period. Although the Junkers did, indeed, continue to control the officer
corps, they did not dominate social, political, and economic matters as much as
the Sonderweg theorists had hypothesized. Eastern Junker power had a
counterweight in the western provinces in the form of the Grand Bourgeoisie and
in the growing professional class of bureaucrats, teachers, professors,
doctors, lawyers, scientists, etc.[116]
Beyond the political
mechanism: forming a nation
high angle view the
confluence of two major rivers, marked by the statue of a man on a horse, with
a city behind
Monument to Kaiser Wilhelm,
at Koblenz, where the Moselle River (upper river) meets the Rhine River (lower
river), called the Deutsches Eck, or the German corner
If the Wartburg and Hambach
rallies had lacked a constitution and administrative apparatus, that problem
was addressed between 1867 and 1871. Yet, as Germans discovered, grand
speeches, flags, and enthusiastic crowds, a constitution, a political
reorganization, and the provision of an imperial superstructure; and the
revised Customs Union of 1867–68, still did not make a nation.[117]
A key element of the
nation-state is the creation of a national culture, frequently—although not
necessarily—through deliberate national policy.[118][111] In the new German
nation, a Kulturkampf (1872–78) that followed political, economic, and administrative
unification attempted to address, with a remarkable lack of success, some of
the contradictions in German society. In particular, it involved a struggle
over language, education, and religion. A policy of Germanization of non-German
people of the empire's population, including the Polish and Danish minorities,
started with language, in particular, the German language, compulsory schooling
(Germanization), and the attempted creation of standardized curricula for those
schools to promote and celebrate the idea of a shared past. Finally, it
extended to the religion of the new Empire's population.[119]
Kulturkampf
Main article: Kulturkampf
For some Germans, the
definition of nation did not include pluralism, and Catholics in particular
came under scrutiny; some Germans, and especially Bismarck, feared that the
Catholics' connection to the papacy might make them less loyal to the nation.
As chancellor, Bismarck tried without much success to limit the influence of
the Roman Catholic Church and of its party-political arm, the Catholic Centre
Party, in schools and education- and language-related policies. The Catholic
Centre Party remained particularly well entrenched in the Catholic strongholds
of Bavaria and southern Baden, and in urban areas that held high populations of
displaced rural workers seeking jobs in the heavy industry, and sought to
protect the rights not only of Catholics, but other minorities, including the
Poles, and the French minorities in the Alsatian lands.[120] The May Laws of
1873 brought the appointment of priests, and their education, under the control
of the state, resulting in the closure of many seminaries, and a shortage of
priests. The Congregations Law of 1875 abolished religious orders, ended state
subsidies to the Catholic Church, and removed religious protections from the
Prussian constitution.[121]
Integrating the Jewish
community
Allegorical figure of
Germania (woman with flowing robes, sword, flowing hair) standing, holding
crown in right hand, sword partially sheathed
In this close-up of the
Niederwald Monument (see long shot above), Germania towers 40 meters (131 ft)
above the town of Rüdesheim. She holds a crown in her right hand and carries a
sword at her side. The Niederwald Germania was erected 1877–1883.
The Germanized Jews
remained another vulnerable population in the new German nation-state. Since
1780, after emancipation by the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Jews in the
former Habsburg territories had enjoyed considerable economic and legal
privileges that their counterparts in other German-speaking territories did
not: they could own land, for example, and they did not have to live in a
Jewish quarter (also called the Judengasse, or "Jews' alley"). They
could also attend universities and enter the professions. During the
Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, many of the previously strong barriers
between Jews and Christians broke down. Napoleon had ordered the emancipation
of Jews throughout territories under French hegemony. Like their French
counterparts, wealthy German Jews sponsored salons; in particular, several
Jewish salonnières held important gatherings in Frankfurt and Berlin during
which German intellectuals developed their own form of republican
intellectualism. Throughout the subsequent decades, beginning almost
immediately after the defeat of the French, reaction against the mixing of Jews
and Christians limited the intellectual impact of these salons. Beyond the
salons, Jews continued a process of Germanization in which they intentionally
adopted German modes of dress and speech, working to insert themselves into the
emerging 19th-century German public sphere. The religious reform movement among
German Jews reflected this effort.[122]
By the years of
unification, German Jews played an important role in the intellectual
underpinnings of the German professional, intellectual, and social life. The
expulsion of Jews from Russia in the 1880s and 1890s complicated integration
into the German public sphere. Russian Jews arrived in north German cities in
the thousands; considerably less educated and less affluent, their often dismal
poverty dismayed many of the Germanized Jews. Many of the problems related to
poverty (such as illness, overcrowded housing, unemployment, school
absenteeism, refusal to learn German, etc.) emphasized their distinctiveness
for not only the Christian Germans, but for the local Jewish populations as
well.[123]
Writing the story of the nation
Further information: Historiography
and nationalism
Another important element
in nation-building, the story of the heroic past, fell to such nationalist
German historians as the liberal constitutionalist Friedrich Dahlmann
(1785–1860), his conservative student Heinrich von Treitschke (1834–1896), and
others less conservative, such as Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) and Heinrich von
Sybel (1817–1895), to name two. Dahlmann himself died before unification, but
he laid the groundwork for the nationalist histories to come through his histories
of the English and French revolutions, by casting these revolutions as
fundamental to the construction of a nation, and Dahlmann himself viewed
Prussia as the logical agent of unification.[124]
Heinrich von Treitschke's
History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century, published in 1879, has perhaps a
misleading title: it privileges the history of Prussia over the history of
other German states, and it tells the story of the German-speaking peoples
through the guise of Prussia's destiny to unite all German states under its
leadership. The creation of this Borussian myth (Borussia is the Latin name for
Prussia) established Prussia as Germany's savior; it was the destiny of all
Germans to be united, this myth maintains, and it was Prussia's destiny to
accomplish this.[125] According to this story, Prussia played the dominant role
in bringing the German states together as a nation-state; only Prussia could
protect German liberties from being crushed by French or Russian influence. The
story continues by drawing on Prussia's role in saving Germans from the
resurgence of Napoleon's power in 1815, at Waterloo, creating some semblance of
economic unity, and uniting Germans under one proud flag after 1871.[e]
Mommsen's contributions to
the Monumenta Germaniae Historica laid the groundwork for additional
scholarship on the study of the German nation, expanding the notion of
"Germany" to mean other areas beyond Prussia. A liberal professor,
historian, and theologian, and generally a titan among late 19th-century
scholars, Mommsen served as a delegate to the Prussian House of Representatives
from 1863 to 1866 and 1873 to 1879; he also served as a delegate to the
Reichstag from 1881 to 1884, for the liberal German Progress Party (Deutsche
Fortschrittspartei) and later for the National Liberal Party. He opposed the
antisemitic programs of Bismarck's Kulturkampf and the vitriolic text that
Treitschke often employed in the publication of his Studien über die Judenfrage
(Studies of the Jewish Question), which encouraged assimilation and
Germanization of Jews.[127]
Although the Prussian army had gained its
reputation in the Seven Years' War, its humiliating defeat at Jena and
Auerstadt crushed the pride many Prussians felt in their soldiers. During their
Russian exile, several officers, including Carl von Clausewitz, contemplated
reorganization and new training methods.[12]
They traced the roots of the German language,
and drew its different lines of development together.[44]
The remainder of the letter exhorts the
Germans to unification: "This role of world leadership, left vacant as
things are today, might well be occupied by the German nation. You Germans,
with your grave and philosophic character, might well be the ones who could win
the confidence of others and guarantee the future stability of the
international community. Let us hope, then, that you can use your energy to
overcome your moth-eaten thirty tyrants of the various German states. Let us
hope that in the center of Europe you can then make a unified nation out of
your fifty millions. All the rest of us would eagerly and joyfully follow
you."[64]
Bismarck had "cut his teeth" on
German politics, and German politicians, in Frankfurt: a quintessential
politician, Bismarck had built his power-base by absorbing and co-opting
measures from throughout the political spectrum. He was first and foremost a
politician, and in this lied his strength. Furthermore, since he trusted
neither Moltke nor Roon, he was reluctant to enter a military enterprise over
which he would have no control.[71]
Beyond the political mechanism:
forming a nation
.jpg)
Monument to Kaiser Wilhelm, at Koblenz, where the Moselle River (upper river) meets the Rhine River (lower river), called the Deutsches Eck, or the German corner
End
With affection,
Ruben
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