Unification of Germany 1
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-en.png)
Map of
the Austrian Habsburg monarchy-led Holy Roman Empire (HRE) in 1789. The two
biggest lands of the HRE were the German-speaking part of Austria (orange) and
the German-speaking part of Prussia (blue), besides a large number of small
states (many of them too small to be shown on the map).
Early history
Germans emerged in medieval
times among the descendants of the Romanized Germanic peoples in the area of
modern western Germany, between the Rhine and Elbe rivers, particularly the
Franks, Frisians, Saxons, Thuringii, Alemanni, and Baiuvarii.[1] The region was
divided into long-lasting divisions, or "Stem duchies", based upon these
ethnic designations, under the dominance of the western Franks starting with
Clovis I, who established control of the Romanized and Frankish population of
Gaul in the 5th century, and began a new process of conquering the peoples east
of the Rhine. In subsequent centuries the power of the Franks grew
considerably.[2] By the early 9th century AD, large parts of Europe had been
united under the rule of the Frankish leader Charlemagne, who expanded the
Frankish Empire (Francia) in several directions including east of the Rhine,
where he conquered Saxons and Frisians.[3] A confederated realm of German
princedoms, along with some adjacent lands, had been in existence for over a
thousand years; dating to the Treaty of Verdun i.e. the establishment of East Francia
from eastern Frankish Empire in east of the Rhine in 843, especially when the
Ottonian dynasty took power to rule East Francia in 919. The realm later in 962
made up the core of the Holy Roman Empire, which at times included more than
1,000 entities and was called the "Holy Roman Empire of the German
Nation" from 1512 with the Diet of Cologne (new title was adopted partly
because the Empire lost most of its territories in Italy and Burgundy to the
south and west by the late 15th century, but also to emphasize the new
importance of the German Imperial Estates in ruling the Empire due to the
Imperial Reform). The states of the Holy Roman Empire ranged in size from the
small and complex territories of the princely Hohenlohe family branches to
sizable, well-defined territories such as the Electorate of Bavaria, the
Margraviate of Brandenburg or the Kingdom of Bohemia. Their governance varied:
they included free imperial cities, also of different sizes, such as the
powerful Augsburg and the minuscule Weil der Stadt; ecclesiastical territories,
also of varying sizes and influence, such as the wealthy Abbey of Reichenau and
the powerful Archbishopric of Cologne; and dynastic states such as Württemberg.
Among the German-speaking states, the Holy Roman Empire's administrative and
legal mechanisms provided a venue to resolve disputes between peasants and
landlords, between jurisdictions, and within jurisdictions. Through the
organization of imperial circles (Reichskreise), groups of states consolidated
resources and promoted regional and organizational interests, including
economic cooperation and military protection.[citation needed]
Early modern era and Eighteenth century
.jpg)
Hans Burkmair
Since the 15th century,
with few exceptions, the Empire's Prince-electors had chosen successive heads
of the House of Habsburg from the Duchy of Austria to hold the title of Holy
Roman Emperor. Although they initially sought to restore central Imperial
power, preserving a weak and fragmented Empire was convenient for France and
Sweden, and therefore, their ensuing intervention led to the Peace of
Westphalia which effectively precluded any serious attempts to reinforce the
imperial central authority and petrified fragmentation and leading to the
existence of more than 300 German-speaking political entities, most of them
being parts of the Holy Roman Empire, as the Napoleonic Wars dawned. Still
though, portions of the extensive Habsburg Monarchy (exclusively its large
non-German-speaking territories: Lands of the Crown of Saint Stephen and the
Austrian partition of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) or of the Hohenzollern
Kingdom of Prussia (both the German-speaking former Duchy of Prussia and the
non-German-speaking entire territory of the Prussian partition of
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth) as well as the German-speaking Swiss cantons
were outside of the Imperial borders. This became known as the practice of
Kleinstaaterei ("small-statery"). As a further consequence, there was
no typical German national identity as late as 1800, mainly due to the highly
autonomous or semi-independent nature of the princely states; most inhabitants
of the Holy Roman Empire, outside of those ruled by the emperor directly,
identified themselves mainly with their prince rather than with the Empire or
the nation as a whole. However, by the 19th century, transportation and
communication improvements started to bring these regions closer together.[4]
Dissolution of the Old Empire
Invasion of the Holy Roman
Empire by the First French Empire in the War of the Second Coalition (1798–1802)
resulted in a massive military defeat for the Empire's and allied forces at the
hands of Napoleon Bonaparte. The treaties of Lunéville (1801) and the
Mediatization of 1803 secularized the ecclesiastical principalities and
abolished most free imperial cities and so these territories along with their
inhabitants were absorbed by dynastic states. This transfer particularly
expanded the territories of Württemberg and Baden. In 1806, after a successful
invasion of Prussia and the defeat of Prussia at the joint battles of
Jena-Auerstedt 1806 during the War of the Third Coalition, Napoleon dictated
the Treaty of Pressburg which included the formal dissolution of the Holy Roman
Empire and the abdication of Emperor Francis II from the nominal reign over it.
Napoleon established instead a German client state of France known as the
Confederation of the Rhine which, inter alia, provided for the mediatization of
over a hundred petty princes and counts and the absorption of their
territories, as well as those of hundreds of imperial knights, by the
Confederation's member-states. Several states were promoted to kingdoms
including the Kingdom of Bavaria, the Kingdom of Saxony or the Kingdom of
Hanover.[5] Following the formal secession from the Empire of the majority of
its constituent states, the Emperor dissolved the Holy Roman Empire.[6] In his
abdication, Francis released all former estates from their duties and
obligations to him, and took upon himself solely the title of Emperor of
Austria, which had been established since 1804.[7
Rise of German nationalism under Napoleon
The Battle of the Nations monument, erected for the centennial in 1913, honors the efforts of the German people in the victory over Napoleon
Under the hegemony of the
First French Empire (1804–1814), popular German nationalism thrived in the
reorganized German states. Due in part to German-speaking peoples' shared
experience, albeit under French rule, various justifications emerged to
identify "Germany" as a potential future single state. For the German
philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte, The first, original, and truly natural boundaries
of states are beyond doubt their internal boundaries. Those who speak the same
language are joined to each
other by a multitude of invisible bonds by nature herself, long before any
human art begins; they understand each other and have the power of
continuing to make themselves
understood more and more clearly;
they belong together and
are by nature one and an inseparable whole.[8]
A common language may have
been seen to serve as the basis of a nation, but as contemporary historians of
19th-century Germany noted, it took more than linguistic similarity to unify
these several hundred polities.[9] The experience of German-speaking. Central Europe during the
years of French hegemony contributed to a sense of common cause to expel the
French invaders and reassert control over their own lands. Napoleon's campaigns
in Poland (1806–07) resulting in his decision to re-establish a form of Polish
statehood (the Duchy of Warsaw) at the cost of Prussian-conquered Polish
territories, as well as his campaigns on the Iberian Peninsula, in western
Germany, and his disastrous invasion of Russia in 1812, disillusioned many
Germans, princes and peasants alike. Napoleon's Continental System nearly
ruined the Central European economy. The invasion of Russia included nearly
125,000 troops from German lands, and the destruction of that army
encouraged many Germans,
both high- and low-born, to envision a Central Europe free of Napoleon's
influence.[10] The creation of student militias such as the Lützow Free Corps
exemplified this tendency.[11]
The debacle in Russia
loosened the French grip on German princes. In 1813, Napoleon mounted a
campaign in the German states to bring them back into the French orbit; the
subsequent War of Liberation culminated in the great Battle of Leipzig, also
known as the Battle of Nations. In October 1813, more than 500,000 combatants
engaged in ferocious fighting over three days, making it the largest European
land battle of the 19th century. The engagement resulted in a decisive victory
for the Coalition of Austria, Prussia, Russia, Saxony, and Sweden. As a result,
the Confederation of the Rhine collapsed and the French period came to an end.
Success encouraged the Coalition forces to pursue Napoleon across the Rhine;
his army and his government collapsed, and the victorious Coalition
incarcerated Napoleon on Elba. During the brief Napoleonic restoration known as
the 100 Days of 1815, forces of the Seventh Coalition, including an
Anglo-Allied army under the command of the Duke of Wellington and a Prussian
army under the command of Gebhard von Blücher, were victorious at Waterloo (18
June 1815).[a] The critical role played by Blücher's troops, especially after
having to retreat from the field at Ligny on the 17th, helped to turn the tide
of combat against the French. The Prussian cavalry pursued the defeated French
on the evening of the 18th of June, sealing the allied victory. From the German
perspective, the actions of Blücher's troops at Waterloo, and the combined
efforts at Leipzig, offered a rallying point of pride and enthusiasm.[13] This
interpretation became a key building block of the Borussian myth expounded by
the pro-Prussian nationalist historians later in the 19th century.[14]
Congress of Vienna and the rise of German dualism
double eagle, black on gold
coat of arms
Coat of arms of the German
Confederation, also called the Deutscher Bund
After Napoleon's defeat,
the Congress of Vienna established a new European political-diplomatic system
based on the balance of power. This system reorganized Europe into spheres of
influence, which, in some cases, suppressed the aspirations of the various
nationalities, including the Germans and Italians.[15]
Generally, an enlarged
Prussia and the 38 other states consolidated from the mediatized territories of
1803 were confederated within the Austrian Empire's sphere of influence. The
Congress established a loose German Confederation (1815–1866), headed by Austria,
with a "Federal Diet" (called the Bundestag or Bundesversammlung, an
assembly of appointed leaders) that met in the city of Frankfurt am Main. Its
borders resembled those of its predecessor, the Holy Roman Empire (though there
were some deviations e.g. Prussian territory in the Confederation was extended
to include the formerly Polish territories of the Lauenburg and Bütow Land and
the former Starostwo of Draheim, while the Austrian part was extended to
include the formerly Polish territories of the Duchy of Oświęcim and the Duchy
of Zator) for the years 1818–1850, meaning that large portions of both Prussia
and Austria were left outside the new borders. In recognition of the imperial
position traditionally held by the Habsburgs, the emperors of Austria became
the titular presidents of this parliament. Despite the term Diet (Assembly or
Parliament), this institution should in no way be construed as a broadly, or
popularly, elected group of representatives. Many of the states did not have
constitutions, and those that did, such as the Duchy of Baden, based suffrage
on strict property requirements which effectively limited suffrage to a small
portion of the male population.[16]
Problems of reorganization
map of Europe, showing
territory of predominantly German-speaking population, and Austria's
multi-national, multi-linguistic territory
Boundaries of the German
Confederation. Prussia is blue, Austria-Hungary yellow, and the rest grey.
Problematically, the built-in
Austrian dominance failed to take into account Prussia's 18th-century emergence
in Imperial politics. This impractical solution did not reflect the new status
of Prussia in the overall set-up. Although the Prussian army had been
dramatically defeated in the 1806 Battle of Jena-Auerstedt, it had made a
spectacular comeback at Waterloo. Consequently, Prussian leaders expected to
play a pivotal role in German politics.[17] Ever since the Prince-Elector of
Brandenburg had made himself King in Prussia at the beginning of that century,
their domains had steadily increased through inheritance and war. Prussia's
consolidated strength had become particularly apparent during the Partitions of
Poland, the War of the Austrian Succession and the Seven Years' War under
Frederick the Great.[18] As Maria Theresa and Joseph tried to restore Habsburg
hegemony in the Holy Roman Empire, Frederick countered with the creation of the
Fürstenbund (Union of Princes) in 1785. Austrian-Prussian dualism lay firmly
rooted in old Imperial politics. Those balance of power manoeuvers were
epitomized by the War of the Bavarian Succession, or "Potato War"
among common folk. Even after the end of the Holy Roman Empire, this
competition influenced the growth and development of nationalist movements in
the 19th century.[19]
The period of Austrian and
Prussian police-states and vast censorship between the Congress of Vienna and
the Revolutions of 1848 in Germany later became widely known as the Vormärz
("before March"), referring to March 1848. During this period,
European liberalism gained momentum; the agenda included economic, social, and
political issues. Most European liberals in the Vormärz sought unification
under nationalist principles, promoted the transition to capitalism, and sought
the expansion of male suffrage, among other issues. Their
"radicalization" depended upon where they stood on the spectrum of
male suffrage: the wider the definition of suffrage, the more radical they had
the potential to be.[20]
The surge of German nationalism,
stimulated by the experience of Germans in the Napoleonic period and initially
allied with liberalism, shifted political, social, and cultural relationships
within the German states.[21] In this context, one can detect nationalism's
roots in the experience of Germans in the Napoleonic period.[22] Furthermore,
implicit and sometimes explicit promises made during the German Campaign of
1813 engendered an expectation of popular sovereignty and widespread
participation in the political process, promises that largely went unfulfilled
once peace had been achieved.[23]
Emergence of liberal nationalism and conservative response
.jpg)
students carrying flags and
banners march to the castle on the hill
In October, 1817,
approximately 500 students rallied at Wartburg Castle, where Martin Luther had
sought refuge over three centuries earlier, to demonstrate in favor of national
unification. Wartburg was chosen for its symbolic connection to German national
character. Contemporary colored wood engraving[24]
men and women marching to
the ruined castle on top of a hill
Pro-nationalist
participants march to the ruins of Hambach Castle in 1832. Students and some
professionals, and their spouses, predominated. They carried the flag of the
underground Burschenschaft, which later became the basis of the flag of modern
Germany.
Men sitting around a table.
Most of them are muzzled, some are gagged as well, some have blindfolds on, and
some have their ears muffled.
A German caricature mocking
the Carlsbad Decrees, which suppressed freedom of expression
Despite considerable
conservative reaction, ideas of unity joined with notions of popular
sovereignty in German-speaking lands. The Burschenschaft student organizations
and popular demonstrations, such as those held at Wartburg Castle in October
1817, contributed to a growing sense of unity among German speakers of Central
Europe.[25]
At the Wartburg Festival in
1817 the first real movements among students were formed – fraternities and
student organizations emerged. The colors black, red and gold were symbolic of
this. Agitation by student organizations led conservative leaders such as
Klemens Wenzel, Prince von Metternich, to fear the rise of nationalist
sentiment.[23]
The assassination of German
dramatist August von Kotzebue in March 1819 by a radical student seeking
unification was followed on 20 September 1819 by the proclamation of the
Carlsbad Decrees, which hindered intellectual leadership of the nationalist
movement.[23] Metternich was able to harness conservative outrage at the
assassination to consolidate legislation that would further limit the press and
constrain the rising liberal and nationalist movements. Accordingly, these
decrees drove the Burschenschaften underground, restricted the publication of
nationalist materials, expanded censorship of the press and private
correspondence, and limited academic speech by prohibiting university
professors from encouraging nationalist discussion. The decrees were the
subject of Johann Joseph von Görres's pamphlet Teutschland [archaic:
Deutschland] und die Revolution (Germany and the Revolution) (1820), in which
he concluded that it was both impossible and undesirable to repress the free
utterance of public opinion by reactionary measures.[25]
Pro-nationalist
participants march to the ruins of Hambach Castle in 1832. Students and some
professionals, and their spouses, predominated. They carried the flag of the
underground Burschenschaft, which later became the basis of the flag of modern Germany.
.jpg)
A German caricature mocking the Carlsbad Decrees, which suppressed freedom of expression
The Hambach Festival
(Hambacher Fest) in May 1832 was attended by a crowd of more than 30,000.[26]
Promoted as a county fair,[27] its participants celebrating fraternity,
liberty, and national unity. Celebrants gathered in the town below and marched
to the ruins of Hambach Castle on the heights above the small town of Hambach,
in the Palatinate province of Bavaria. Carrying flags, beating drums, and
singing, the participants took the better part of the morning and mid-day to
arrive at the castle grounds, where they listened to speeches by nationalist
orators from across the political spectrum. The overall content of the speeches
suggested a fundamental difference between the German nationalism of the 1830s
and the French nationalism of the July Revolution: the focus of German
nationalism lay in the education of the people; once the populace was educated
as to what was needed, it would reach those goals. The Hambach rhetoric
emphasized the overall peaceable nature of German nationalism: the point was
not to build barricades, a very "French" form of nationalism, but to
build emotional bridges between groups.[28] As he had done in 1819, after the
Kotzebue assassination, Metternich used the popular demonstration at Hambach to
push conservative social policy. The "Six Articles" of 28 June 1832 above
all else reaffirmed the principle of monarchical authority. On 5 July, the
Frankfurt Diet voted for an additional 10 articles, which reiterated existing
rules on censorship, restricted political organizations, and limited other
public activity. Furthermore, the member states agreed to send military
assistance to any government threatened by unrest.[29] Prince Wrede led half of
the Bavarian army to the Palatinate to "subdue" the province. Several
hapless Hambach speakers were arrested, tried and imprisoned; one, Karl
Heinrich Brüggemann (1810–1887), a law student and representative of the
secretive Burschenschaft, was sent to Prussia, where he was first condemned to
death, but later pardoned.[26]
Crucially, both the
Wartburg rally in 1817 and the Hambach Festival in 1832 had lacked any
clear-cut vision for unification. At Hambach, the positions of the many
speakers illustrated their disparate agendas. Held together only by the idea of
unification, their notions of how to achieve this did not include specific
plans but instead rested on the nebulous idea that the Volk (the people), if
properly educated, would bring about unification on their own. Grand speeches,
flags, exuberant students, and picnic lunches did not translate into a new
political, bureaucratic, or administrative apparatus. While many spoke about
the need for a constitution, no such document emerged from the key nationalist
rallies. In 1848, nationalists sought to remedy that problem.[30]
Economy and the customs union
This drawing offered a satirical commentary on the prevalence of toll barriers in the many German states, circa 1834. Some states were so small that transporters loaded and reloaded their cargoes two and three times a day.
drawing of a wagon loaded
with barrels, covered with a tarp, stuck between two border signs, the driver
paying a fee to cross. Caption reads "German cartoon on customs prior to
the Zollverein, 1834".
This drawing offered a
satirical commentary on the prevalence of toll barriers in the many German
states, circa 1834. Some states were so small that transporters loaded and
reloaded their cargoes two and three times a day.
Several other factors
complicated the rise of nationalism in the German states. The man-made factors
included political rivalries between members of the German confederation,
particularly between the Austrians and the Prussians, and socio-economic
competition among the commercial and merchant interests, and the old
land-owning and aristocratic interests. Natural factors included widespread
drought in the early 1830s, and again in the 1840s, and a food crisis in the
1840s. Further complications emerged as a result of a shift in
industrialization and manufacturing; as people sought jobs, they left their
villages and small towns to work during the week in cities, returning for a day
and a half on weekends.[31]
The economic, social and
cultural dislocation of ordinary people, the economic hardship of an economy in
transition, and the pressures of meteorological disasters all contributed to
growing problems in Central Europe.[32] The failure of most of the governments
to deal with the food crisis of the mid-1840s, caused by the potato blight
(related to the Great Irish Famine) and several seasons of bad weather, encouraged
many to think that the rich and powerful had no interest in their problems.
Those in authority were concerned about the growing unrest, political and
social agitation among the working classes, and the disaffection of the
intelligentsia. No amount of censorship, fines, imprisonment, or banishment, it
seemed, could stem the criticism. Furthermore, it was becoming increasingly
clear that both Austria and Prussia wanted to be the leaders in any resulting
unification; each would inhibit the drive of the other to take the lead in
unification.[33]
Formation of the
Zollverein, an institution key to unifying the German states economically,
helped to create a larger sense of economic unification. Initially conceived by
the Prussian Finance Minister Hans, Count von Bülow, as a Prussian customs
union in 1818, the Zollverein linked the many Prussian and Hohenzollern
territories. Over the ensuing thirty years (and more) other German states
joined. The Union helped to reduce protectionist barriers between the German
states, especially improving the transport of raw materials and finished goods,
making it both easier to move goods across territorial borders and less costly
to buy, transport, and sell raw materials. This was particularly important for
the emerging industrial centers, most of which were located in the Prussian
regions of the Rhineland, the Saar, and the Ruhr valleys.[34] States more
distant from the coast joined the Customs Union earlier. Not being a member
mattered more for the states of south Germany, since the external tariff of the
Customs Union prevented customs-free access to the coast (which gave access to
international markets). Thus, by 1836, all states to the south of Prussia had
joined the Customs Union, except Austria.[35]
In contrast, the coastal
states already had barrier free access to international trade and did not want
consumers and producers burdened with the import duties they would pay if they
were within the Zollverein customs border. Hanover on the north coast formed
its own customs union – the "Tax Union" or Steuerverein – in 1834
with Brunswick and with Oldenburg in 1836. The external tariffs on finished
goods and overseas raw materials were below the rates of the Zollverein.
Brunswick joined the Zollverein Customs Union in 1842, while Hanover and
Oldenburg finally joined in 1854[36] After the Austro-Prussian war of 1866,
Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg were annexed by Prussia and thus annexed also
to the Customs Union, while the two Mecklenburg states and the city states of
Hamburg and Bremen joined later because they were reliant on international
trade. The Mecklenburgs joined in 1867, while Bremen and Hamburg joined in
1888.[35]
Roads and railways
An illustration of the first
macadamized road in the United States between Boonsboro and Hagerstown in Maryland in 1823; in the foreground, workers are
breaking stones "so as not to exceed 6 ounces [170 g] in weight or to
pass a two-inch [5 cm] ring".
By the early 19th century,
German roads had deteriorated to an appalling extent. Travelers, both foreign
and local, complained bitterly about the state of the Heerstraßen, the military
roads previously maintained for easy troop movement. As German states ceased to
be a military crossroads, however, the roads improved; the length of hard–surfaced
roads in Prussia increased from 3,800 kilometers (2,400 mi) in 1816 to 16,600
kilometers (10,300 mi) in 1852, helped in part by the invention of macadam. By
1835, Heinrich von Gagern wrote that roads were the "veins and arteries of
the body politic..." and predicted that they would promote freedom,
independence and prosperity.[37]As people moved around, they came into contact
with others, on trains, at hotels, in restaurants, and for some, at fashionable
resorts such as the spa in Baden-Baden. Water transportation also improved. The
blockades on the Rhine had been removed by Napoleon's orders, but by the 1820s,
steam engines freed riverboats from the cumbersome system of men and animals
that towed them upstream. By 1846, 180 steamers plied German rivers and Lake
Constance, and a network of canals extended from the Danube, the Weser, and the
Elbe rivers.[38]
As important as these
improvements were, they could paled in comparison to the impact of the railway.
German economist Friedrich List called the railways and the Customs Union
"Siamese Twins", emphasizing their important mutually beneficial
relationship.[39] He was not alone: the poet August Heinrich Hoffmann von
Fallersleben wrote a poem in which he extolled the virtues of the Zollverein,
which he began with a list of commodities that had contributed more to German
unity than politics or diplomacy.[40] Historians of the German Empire later
regarded the railways as the first indicator of a unified state; the patriotic
novelist, Wilhelm Raabe, wrote: "The German empire was founded with the
construction of the first railway..."[41] Not everyone greeted the iron
monster with enthusiasm. The Prussian king Frederick William III saw no
advantage in traveling from Berlin to Potsdam a few hours faster, and
Metternich refused to ride it at all. Others wondered if the railways were an
"evil" that threatened the landscape: Nikolaus Lenau's 1838 poem An
den Frühling (To Spring) bemoaned the way trains destroyed the pristine
quietude of German forests.[42]
The Bavarian Ludwig
Railway, which was the first passenger or freight rail line in the German
lands, connected Nuremberg and Fürth in 1835. Although it was 6 kilometers (3.7
mi) long and only operated in daylight, it proved both profitable and popular.
Within three years, 141 kilometers (88 mi) of track had been laid, by 1840, 462
kilometers (287 mi), and by 1860, 11,157 kilometers (6,933 mi). Lacking a
geographically central organizing feature (such as a national capital), the
rails were laid in webs, linking towns and markets within regions, regions
within larger regions, and so on. As the rail network expanded, it became
cheaper to transport goods: in 1840, 18 Pfennigs per ton per kilometer and in
1870, five Pfennigs. The effects of the railway were immediate. For example,
raw materials could travel up and down the Ruhr Valley without having to unload
and reload. Railway lines stumulated economic activity by creating demand for
commodities and by facilitating commerce. In 1850, inland shipping carried three
times more freight than railroads; by 1870, the situation was reversed, and
railroads carried four times more. Rail travel changed how cities looked and
how people traveled. Its impact reached throughout the social order, affecting
the highest born to the lowest. Although some of the outlying German provinces
were not serviced by rail until the 1890s, the majority of the population,
manufacturing centers, and production centers were linked to the rail network
by 1865.[43]
John Loudon McAdam
was born in Ayr, Scotland, in 1756. In 1787, he became a trustee
of the Ayrshire Turnpike in the Scottish Lowlands and during the next seven years his hobby
became an obsession. He moved to Bristol, England, in 1802 and became a Commissioner for
Paving in 1806.[6] On 15 January 1816, he was elected surveyor general of roads for the Bristol turnpike trust and was responsible for 149 miles of road.[6] He then put his ideas about road construction
into practice, the first 'macadamised' stretch of road being Marsh Road at Ashton Gate, Bristol.[6] He also began to actively propagate his ideas in two
booklets called Remarks (or Observations) on the Present System of Roadmaking, (which ran nine editions between 1816 and 1827) and A Practical Essay on the Scientific Repair and Preservation of Public
Roads, published in 1819.[7]
Geography, patriotism and language
-es.svg.png)
German linguistic area
(green) and political boundaries around 1841 (grey) in comparison to the text's
geographic references (bold blue)
As travel became easier, faster, and less expensive, Germans started to see unity in factors other than their language.
The Brothers Grimm, who compiled a massive dictionary known as
The Grimm, also assembled a compendium of folk tales and fables, which
highlighted the story-telling parallels between different regions.[b] Karl
Baedeker wrote guidebooks to different cities and regions of Central Europe,
indicating places to stay, sites to visit, and giving a short history of
castles, battlefields, famous buildings, and famous people. His guides also
included distances, roads to avoid, and hiking paths to follow.[45]
The words of August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben expressed not only the linguistic unity of the German people but also their geographic unity.
.jpg)
In Deutschland, Deutschland
über Alles, officially called Das Lied der Deutschen ("The Song of the
Germans"), Fallersleben called upon sovereigns throughout the German
states to recognize the unifying characteristics of the German people.[46] Such
other patriotic songs as "Die Wacht am Rhein" ("The Watch on the
Rhine") by Max Schneckenburger began to focus attention on geographic
space, not limiting "Germanness" to a common language.
Schneckenburger wrote "The Watch on the Rhine" in a specific
patriotic response to French assertions that the Rhine was France's
"natural" eastern boundary. In the refrain, "Dear fatherland,
dear fatherland, put your mind to rest / The watch stands true on the
Rhine", and in other such patriotic poetry as Nicholaus Becker's "Das
Rheinlied" ("The Rhine"), Germans were called upon to defend
their territorial homeland. In 1807, Alexander von Humboldt argued that
national character reflected geographic influence, linking landscape to people.
Concurrent with this idea, movements to preserve old fortresses and historic
sites emerged, and these particularly focused on the Rhineland, the site of so
many confrontations with France and Spain.[47]
German revolutions and
Polish uprising of 1848–1849
.jpg)
The widespread—mainly
German—revolutions of 1848–49 sought unification of Germany under a single
constitution. The revolutionaries pressured various state governments,
particularly those in the Rhineland, for a parliamentary assembly that would
have the responsibility to draft a constitution. Ultimately, many of the
left-wing revolutionaries hoped this constitution would establish universal
male suffrage, a permanent national parliament, and a unified Germany, possibly
under the leadership of the Prussian king. This seemed to be the most logical
course since Prussia was the strongest of the German states, as well as the
largest in geographic size. Meanwhile, center-right revolutionaries sought some
kind of expanded suffrage within their states and potentially, a form of loose
unification. Finally, the Polish majority living in the share of Polish
territory annexed by Prussia pursued their own liberation agenda.
|
Battle at Miłosław, 1868 painting
by Juliusz Kossak. |
||
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Frankfurt Parliament
Romanesque church, men
marching into it, through a phalanx of uniformed men, houses and church are
draped in banners and flags
Pre-parliament delegates
processing into Paul's Church in Frankfurt, where they laid the groundwork for
electing a National Parliament[48]
Their pressure resulted in
a variety of elections, based on different voting qualifications, such as the
Prussian three-class franchise, which weighted votes based on the amount of
taxes paid and therefore gave some electoral groups—chiefly the wealthier,
landed ones—greater representative power.[49]
On 27 March 1849, the
Frankfurt Parliament passed the Paulskirchenverfassung (Constitution of St.
Paul's Church) and offered the title of Kaiser (Emperor) to the Prussian king
Frederick William IV the next month. He refused for a variety of reasons. Publicly,
he replied that he could not accept a crown without the consent of the actual
states, by which he meant the princes.
Privately, he feared opposition from the other German princes and military
intervention from Austria or Russia. He also held a fundamental distaste for
the idea of accepting a crown from a popularly elected parliament: he would not
accept a crown of "clay".[50] Despite franchise requirements that
often perpetuated many of the problems of sovereignty and political
participation liberals sought to overcome, the Frankfurt Parliament did manage
to draft a constitution and reach an agreement on the kleindeutsch solution.
While the liberals failed to achieve the unification they sought, they did
manage to gain a partial victory by working with the German princes on many
constitutional issues and collaborating with them on reforms.[51]
German revolutions and Polish uprising of 1848–1849
Romanesque church, men
marching into it, through a phalanx of uniformed men, houses and church are
draped in banners and flags
Pre-parliament delegates
processing into Paul's Church in Frankfurt, where they laid the groundwork for
electing a National Parliament[48]
Their pressure resulted in
a variety of elections, based on different voting qualifications, such as the
Prussian three-class franchise, which weighted votes based on the amount of
taxes paid and therefore gave some electoral groups—chiefly the wealthier,
landed ones—greater representative power.[49]
On 27 March 1849, the
Frankfurt Parliament passed the Paulskirchenverfassung (Constitution of St.
Paul's Church) and offered the title of Kaiser (Emperor) to the Prussian king
Frederick William IV the next month. He refused for a variety of reasons.
Publicly, he replied that he could not accept a crown without the consent of
the actual states, by which he meant the princes. Privately, he feared
opposition from the other German princes and military intervention from Austria
or Russia. He also held a fundamental distaste for the idea of accepting a
crown from a popularly elected parliament: he would not accept a crown of
"clay".[50] Despite franchise requirements that often perpetuated
many of the problems of sovereignty and political participation liberals sought
to overcome, the Frankfurt Parliament did manage to draft a constitution and
reach an agreement on the kleindeutsch solution. While the liberals failed to
achieve the unification they sought, they did manage to gain a partial victory
by working with the German princes on many constitutional issues and
collaborating with them on reforms.[51]
The aborted 1848–1849
German Empire in retrospective analysis
Further information: German
Empire (1848–1849)
Scholars of German history
have engaged in decades of debate over how the successes and failures of the
Frankfurt Parliament contribute to the historiographical explanations of German
nation building. One school of thought, which emerged after The Great War and
gained momentum in the aftermath of World War II, maintains that the failure of
German liberals in the Frankfurt Parliament led to bourgeoisie compromise with
conservatives (especially the conservative Junker landholders), which
subsequently led to the so-called Sonderweg (distinctive path) of 20th-century
German history.[52] Failure to achieve unification in 1848, this argument
holds, resulted in the late formation of the nation-state in 1871, which in
turn delayed the development of positive national values. Hitler often called
on the German public to sacrifice all for the cause of their great nation, but
his regime did not create German nationalism: it merely capitalized on an
intrinsic cultural value of German society that still remains prevalent even to
this day.[53] Furthermore, this argument maintains, the "failure" of
1848 reaffirmed latent aristocratic longings among the German middle class;
consequently, this group never developed a self-conscious program of
modernization.[54]
More recent scholarship has
rejected this idea, claiming that Germany did not have an actual
"distinctive path" any more than any other nation, a historiographic
idea known as exceptionalism.[55] Instead, modern historians claim 1848 saw
specific achievements by the liberal politicians. Many of their ideas and
programs were later incorporated into Bismarck's social programs (e.g., social
insurance, education programs, and wider definitions of suffrage). In addition,
the notion of a distinctive path relies upon the underlying assumption that
some other nation's path (in this case, the United Kingdom's) is the accepted
norm.[56] This new argument further challenges the norms of the British-centric
model of development: studies of national development in Britain and other
"normal" states (e.g., France or the United States) have suggested
that even in these cases, the modern nation-state did not develop evenly. Nor
did it develop particularly early, being rather a largely
mid-to-late-19th-century phenomenon.[57] Since the end of the 1990s, this view
has become widely accepted, although some historians still find the Sonderweg analysis
helpful in understanding the period of National Socialism.[58][59]
Problem of spheres of
influence: The Erfurt Union and the Punctation of Olmütz
The allegorical figure of
Germania (robed woman, sword, flowing hair) is standing, holding sword
This depiction of Germania,
also by Philipp Veit, was created to hide the organ of the Paul's Church in
Frankfurt, during the meeting of the Parliament there, March 1848–49. The sword
was intended to symbolize the Word of God and to mark the renewal of the people
and their triumphant spirit.
After the Frankfurt
Parliament disbanded, Frederick William IV, under the influence of General
Joseph Maria von Radowitz, supported the establishment of the Erfurt Union—a
federation of German states, excluding Austria—by the free agreement of the
German princes. This limited union under Prussia would have almost eliminated
Austrian influence on the other German states. Combined diplomatic pressure
from Austria and Russia (a guarantor of the 1815 agreements that established
European spheres of influence) forced Prussia to relinquish the idea of the
Erfurt Union at a meeting in the small town of Olmütz in Moravia. In November
1850, the Prussians—specifically Radowitz and Frederick William—agreed to the
restoration of the German Confederation under Austrian leadership. This became
known as the Punctation of Olmütz, but among Prussians it was known as the
"Humiliation of Olmütz."[60]
Although seemingly minor
events, the Erfurt Union proposal and the Punctation of Olmütz brought the
problems of influence in the German states into sharp focus. The question
became not a matter of if but rather when unification would occur, and when was
contingent upon strength. One of the former Frankfurt Parliament members,
Johann Gustav Droysen, summed up the problem:
We cannot conceal the fact
that the whole German question is a simple alternative between Prussia and
Austria. In these states, German life has its positive and negative poles—in
the former, all the interests [that] are national and reformative, in the
latter, all that are dynastic and destructive. The German question is not a
constitutional question but a question of power; and the Prussian monarchy is
now wholly German, while that of Austria cannot be.[61]
Unification under these
conditions raised a basic diplomatic problem. The possibility of German (or
Italian) unification would overturn the overlapping spheres of influence system
created in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna. The principal architects of this
convention, Metternich, Castlereagh, and Tsar Alexander (with his foreign
secretary Count Karl Nesselrode), had conceived of and organized a Europe
balanced and guaranteed by four "great powers": Great Britain,
France, Russia, and Austria, with each power having a geographic sphere of
influence. France's sphere included the Iberian Peninsula and a share of
influence in the Italian states. Russia's included the eastern regions of Central
Europe and a balancing influence in the Balkans. Austria's sphere expanded
throughout much of the Central European territories formerly held by the Holy
Roman Empire. Britain's sphere was the rest of the world, especially the
seas.[62]
This sphere of influence
system depended upon the fragmentation of the German and Italian states, not
their consolidation. Consequently, a German nation united under one banner
presented significant questions. There was no readily applicable definition for
who the German people would be or how far the borders of a German nation would
stretch. There was also uncertainty as to who would best lead and defend
"Germany", however it was defined. Different groups offered different
solutions to this problem. In the Kleindeutschland ("Lesser Germany")
solution, the German states would be united under the leadership of the
Prussian Hohenzollerns; in the Grossdeutschland ("Greater Germany")
solution, the German states would be united under the leadership of the
Austrian Habsburgs. This controversy, the latest phase of the German dualism
debate that had dominated the politics of the German states and Austro-Prussian
diplomacy since the 1701 creation of the Kingdom of Prussia, would come to a
head during the following twenty years.[63]
External expectations of a unified Germany
Other nationalists had high
hopes for the German unification movement, and the frustration with lasting
German unification after 1850 seemed to set the national movement back.
Revolutionaries associated national unification with progress. As Giuseppe
Garibaldi wrote to German revolutionary Karl Blind on 10 April 1865, "The
progress of humanity seems to have come to a halt, and you with your superior
intelligence will know why. The reason is that the world lacks a nation [that]
possesses true leadership. Such leadership, of course, is required not to
dominate other peoples but to lead them along the path of duty, to lead them
toward the brotherhood of nations where all the barriers erected by egoism will
be destroyed." Garibaldi looked to Germany for the "kind of
leadership [that], in the true tradition of medieval chivalry, would devote
itself to redressing wrongs, supporting the weak, sacrificing momentary gains
and material advantage for the much finer and more satisfying achievement of
relieving the suffering of our fellow men. We need a nation courageous enough
to give us a lead in this direction. It would rally to its cause all those who
are suffering wrong or who aspire to a better life and all those who are now
enduring foreign oppression." [c]
German unification had also
been viewed as a prerequisite for the creation of a European federation, which
Giuseppe Mazzini and other European patriots had been promoting for more than
three decades:
In the spring of 1834,
while at Berne, Mazzini and a dozen refugees from Italy, Poland and Germany
founded a new association with the grandiose name of Young Europe. Its basic,
and equally grandiose idea, was that, as the French Revolution of 1789 had
enlarged the concept of individual liberty, another revolution would now be
needed for national liberty; and his vision went further because he hoped that
in the no doubt distant future free nations might combine to form a loosely
federal Europe with some kind of federal assembly to regulate their common
interests. [...] His intention was nothing less than to overturn the European
settlement agreed [to] in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, which had
reestablished an oppressive hegemony of a few great powers and blocked the emergence
of smaller nations. [...] Mazzini hoped, but without much confidence, that his
vision of a league or society of independent nations would be realized in his
own lifetime. In practice Young Europe lacked the money and popular support for
more than a short-term existence. Nevertheless he always remained faithful to
the ideal of a united continent for which the creation of individual nations
would be an indispensable preliminary.[65]
Prussia's growing strength: Realpolitik
three men in military
uniforms carrying pickel helmets—the ones with pikes sticking out of the crowns
The convergence of
leadership in politics and diplomacy by Bismarck, left, reorganization of the
army and its training techniques by Albrecht von Roon (center), and the
redesign of operational and strategic principles by Helmuth von Moltke (right)
placed Prussia among the most powerful states in European affairs after the
1860s.
King Frederick William IV
suffered a stroke in 1857 and could no longer rule. This led to his brother
William becoming prince regent of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1858. Meanwhile,
Helmuth von Moltke had become chief of the Prussian General Staff in 1857, and
Albrecht von Roon would become Prussian Minister of War in 1859.[66] This
shuffling of authority within the Prussian military establishment would have
important consequences. Von Roon and William (who took an active interest in
military structures) began reorganizing the Prussian army, while Moltke
redesigned the strategic defense of Prussia by streamlining operational
command. Prussian army reforms (especially how to pay for them) caused a
constitutional crisis beginning in 1860 because both parliament and William—via
his minister of war—wanted control over the military budget. William, crowned
King Wilhelm I in 1861, appointed Otto von Bismarck to the position of
Minister-President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck resolved the crisis in favor of
the war minister.[67]
The Crimean War of 1854–55
and the Italian War of 1859 disrupted relations among Great Britain, France,
Austria, and Russia. In the aftermath of this disarray, the convergence of von
Moltke's operational redesign, von Roon and Wilhelm's army restructure, and
Bismarck's diplomacy influenced the realignment of the European balance of
power. Their combined agendas established Prussia as the leading German power
through a combination of foreign diplomatic triumphs—backed up by the possible
use of Prussian military might—and an internal conservatism tempered by
pragmatism, which came to be known as Realpolitik.[68]
Bismarck
expressed the essence of Realpolitik in his subsequently famous "Blood and
Iron" speech to the Budget Committee of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies
on 30 September 1862, shortly after he became Minister President: "The
great questions of the time will not be resolved by speeches and majority
decisions—that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849—but by iron and
blood."[69] Bismarck's words, "iron and blood" (or "blood
and iron", as often attributed), have often been misappropriated as evidence
of a German lust for blood and power.[70] First, the phrase from his speech
"the great questions of time will not be resolved by speeches and majority
decisions" is often interpreted as a repudiation of the political
process—a repudiation Bismarck did not himself advocate.[d
Editor ‘note:
This story end part two
With
affection,
Ruben
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