Chapter XIX. The Unification of Germany

It was after the fall of Napoleon that nations really came to consciousness. In the beginning of Europe, there were many tribes, races, peoples, but no nations owning state property, and no kings as we have them now, representing state interest. Rome was a state of citizens, a republic of free men, when she first began to conquer. In Gaul, in Britain, in Germany, chieftains were chosen as leaders from among the warriors of the tribe. There was no kingship which descended from father to son.

But if men must fight their way forward, they must have a leader whom all obey. And if, after a state or a tribe has made conquests, unity is to be kept, if the people are to be united into one active power, then the leader must not only be absolute, he must be permanent. So we have the great emperors leading Rome, we have hereditary kings at the heads of the tribes.

Still there are no nations, in the modern sense. The whole history of Europe is a history of the breaking down of great institutions to make way for smaller, more numerous, more individual powers. So the greatest of all institutions, the Roman Empire, disappeared utterly. Then arose the Holy Roman Empire, which reached its height in Barbarossa and Frederick II., and disappeared with Napoleon. The Papacy ran parallel with the Holy Roman Empire; but with Victor Emmanuel the popes were driven inside the narrow bounds of the Vatican.

Under Rome, vast numbers of men were slaves. Under the popes, men believed darkly what they were bidden, books and free knowledge were hidden away. Kings arose when emperors and popes declined. But kings are really war-lords, war-chieftains. A king was originally the great overlord of the barons: the people were merely serfs, half slaves. Kings and barons existed as proud fighting-powers; realms consist in the glamour and glory of conflict.

The great change comes when the peoples cease to be unified for fighting purposes, and unite for production. There are two great passions that rule mankind — the passion of pride and power and conquest, and the passion of peace and production. The Renaissance wras the time when the desire for peace and production triumphed over the desire for war and conquest.

After the Renaissance, kingdoms were productive in the first place, and in the second placc, they were fighting powers. Kings were still war-leaders; but they must also lead in prosperity. Kings who ignored the national prosperity were beheaded. The passion for peace and production triumphed over the desire for war. Kings must be no longer proud. The greatest man is he who causes the greatest production of necessary substance — the greatest merchant, the greatest owner of industry. The time comes when the leaders of industry, the rich men of the middle class really rule, as they do in Britain to-day, and in the great republics.

Nations, in the modern sense, arise when mankind chooscs peace and production rather than war and glory. After the Renaissance and the Reformation, nations like England became conscious of their true purpose. The English people realised that their glory was in a life lived in unison and peaceful freedom, not in triumph over others. They wanted to be free from kingly power. They wanted to sum up to one vast, productive nation, not to a resplendent monarch.

And so the idea works itself out: it is the producer who matters, only the producer. Pride is nothing, glory is nothing, only production is important. And the producers in the last instance are the workers themselves. The people now move towards power, as in extreme democracies. Europe is again moving towards a oneness. Nations are once more tending to merge into one vast European state, a vast European rule of the people. Long ago, Europe was one vast realm ruled by a gorgeous emperor in Rome. Now the circle has almost been completed again. Europe seems to move towards unification, towards the institution of one vast state ruled by the infinite numbers of the people — the producers, the proletariat, the workmen.

The national spirit brings us to this, which is ultimately the international or universal spirit. Nations, however, must, in the first instance, be pivoted upon a central power, a king. After the king has served his day, he disappears.

‘Nation awakens by nation, King by king disappears.’

The great Germanic race had never since the Middle Ages had its one king, it had never become a nation. Itself the mother of nations, it was the last to come to national unity. It could only be united under a firm ruler.

The struggle for leadership was between Austria and Prussia. When in 1848 the republicans of France once more drove out their king, Louis Philippe, all Europe was stirred by a revolutionary feeling. France declared a republic, only to elect as president Louis Napoleon, son of Louis Bonaparte, whom the great Napoleon had made King of Holland. In 1852 Louis Napoleon asked the French nation to vote whether he should take the imperial title or not. By 7,800,000 votes to 233,000 they chose that he should. So the Emperor Napoleon hi. came to the throne of France, where he sat rather insecurely.

The year 1848 saw the Austrian Empire on the brink of dissolution. Bohemia, Hungary and North Italy all rose to shake off her foreign sway. Yet chiefly through the activities of the great Austrian minister Metternich, who hated popular governments, Austria kept together.

She had hardly time to notice, at first, what was happening in Germany. There the states loudly demanded independence. The Confederation had been dominated by Austria. With surprising ease they called their own parliament together at Frankfort, in 1848. For a long time they could come to no decision, because they did not want to exclude Austria. Austria proper was German, but the millions of non-German subjects in her empire would swamp the Germans. It was decided to leave Austria out of the new state of Germany, and to face her opposition. A new empire of Germany was to be established, with an emperor entitled Emperor of the Germans. In March 1849, it was decided to offer the new title and office to Frederick William iv. of Prussia.

Prussia herself was struggling with a revolution. In Berlin the people had risen against the power of the Crown. Therefore the King would have nothing to do with offers made by revolutionary parliaments. He refused the imperial crown. And almost at once the whole movement for a united Germany dwindled down and collapsed, and Germany went on as before, with her thirty-nine independent and separate states.

The people’s party in Prussia demanded a parliament of their own. The King declared: ‘ According to the law of God and the country, the Crown must reign according to its free decision and not according to the will of majorities.’ Berlin rose in fierce revolution, the King had to escape. The streets were barricaded, hot fighting took place. The King gave way. He declared that Prussia was henceforth to be absorbed in Germany, and he allowed the National Assembly to meet, to form a new constitution.

But when Austria crushed her revolution in Vienna, Frederick William roused again and struck in Berlin.

The Assembly had begun to wrangle. He ordered it to dissolve. It refused. The military marched down and dispersed it. Then, in December 1848, the King gave a constitution framed by himself, and the power of the Crown was safe.

So it was that three months after, he refused the imperial crown of Germany, which the revolutionary parliament of Frankfort offered to him, calling it a crown of mud and wood. But he invited the various German governments to Berlin, with a view to forming a real federal constitution. Austria and Bavaria declined to come, Saxony and Hanover soon retired. In the end a federal constitution was drawn up for North Germany, headed by Prussia, and including about twenty-eight states.

Austria, always afraid and jealous of Prussia, immediately made a southern federation, with headquarters at Frankfort. It was a question whether Prussia or Austria would lead Germany. A quarrel arose. The Prussian king and ministers were timid, Austria was quick, energetic. She demanded the immediate dissolution of the northern federation, under threat of instant war. Prussia cast away all thoughts of resistance, and surrendered at Olmiitz. Austria was still triumphant, dominant in Germany. Frederick William’s bold words ended in smoke.

In 1861 King William I. came to the throne of Prussia. During the Berlin revolution he had fled to England, for the people hated him as a tyrant. But he did not like English ideas of government. He was a soldier by nature. ‘ I am the first king,’ he said, ‘ to mount the throne since it has been supported by modern institutions, but I do not forget that the crown has come to me from God alone.’ And he prepared to assert the royal power in all its force.

For many years Prussia had been unconsciously leading the way towards union. Every little province and department had its own gate across its own frontier, with customsofficers waiting for every traveller, every wagon either coming or going, to charge a certain percentage on the goods. This very much hampered, and often prevented the selling of commodities from town to town, village to village. So that trade was clogged, industry half strangled, and smuggling was universal. Prussia had gradually done away with all her internal customs barriers. From end to end of Prussian dominions, goods were freely exchanged, there was complete internal free trade. The duty was reduced also on goods which were being brought into the kingdom. But on goods which were being carried across the Prussian territories, say from Denmark to Saxony, a heavy duty was charged. So Prussia stimulated her own trade, and made a profit out of that of others.

The southern states soon saw what an advantage this was. Bavaria and Wurtemberg joined and formed a southern union of free trade, another union was formed between central states. But the advantage of free trade within the German lands was too great to be overlooked. South Germany joined the Prussian union of customs- duties in 1834, Central Germany entered in 1854, and soon the whole of the German states were united in one free- trading combine, Austria only being excluded.

Trade, commerce, is really the basis of union between different states which come together. But the Prussians knew that to keep such a union firm, a perfect army was needed. They steadily proceeded to realise the ideas of the reformers who, after the disaster of October 1806, had worked for the overthrow of Napoleon. William I. of Prussia had three remarkably great ministers, Bismarck, Moltke, and Roon. Roon was the war-minister. It was he who established the modern German army. Universal military service for three years was enforced on all classes, with a further obligation to serve in the reserve, the Landwchr, for four years. New weapons, especially the needle-gun, were introduced, and new, scientific methods of drill and tactics studied. It was a preparation such as Frederick William I. had made a hundred and fifty years before.

But in Prussia the same struggle between king and parliament went on, as elsewhere. In 1861 the progressive party had a large majority in the representative house of the Assembly. They demanded that obligatory military service should be reduced to two years; that the upper house, corresponding to our House of Lords, but much more powerful, should be reformed; and that the ministers who really governed the country, such as the Chancellor, who may be called the Prime Minister, and the War Minister, and the Foreign Minister, should be responsible to the National Assembly, not to the King. The progressive party demanded reforms according to the British model. The King refused. The Assembly then in 1862 refused to vote the money for the army There was a deadlock. The King could do nothing. In his anger, he even thought of abdicating.

Then appeared the powerful figure of Bismarck. Bismarck was a North German nobleman. He had been a member of the National Assembly during the period of the 1848 revolution. He had strongly opposed the merging of Prussia into Germany. ‘ Prussians we are, and Prussians we will remain,’ he said. In all the diplomatic missions, he had held firm as iron against Austrian demands.

Bismarck was chosen chancellor in 1862. He promised the King he would never yield. He did not believe in votes, in government by the people and their representatives. ‘ The decision on these principles,’ he said, ‘ will not come by parliamentary debate, and not by majorities of votes. Sooner or later the God who directs the battle will cast his iron dice.’

The old struggle was repeated. Just as Charles I. and Went worth faced the Long Parliament, just as Louis xvi. and his ministers faced the Estates General, so William i. of Prussia and Bismarck faced the representatives of the people. According to the evidence of history, they were bound to be defeated.

But the defeat was not yet. It was a maxim of those days that an absolute monarchy depended on successful wars — which means, that a nation in its pride of kingship onlv lives by triumphing over its neighbour. Failure in foreign wars brought down the crown of France, and helped to bring down the crown of England. In the pride of its heart, every nation desires to triumph over its neighbours. But pride of heart and the desire for triumph exhaust themselves, it seems. And then in their hearts peoples and nations only wish for ease and prosperity, they have no use for wars. And when they have no use for wars, they have no use for absolute kings with their ministers. Nothing further matters but the dead level of material prosperity.

Bismarck and William I. were successful in war, so they carried Germany with them. First came a great insurrection of the Poles against Russia. The Progressives or Liberals in Germany all wanted to help the Poles. But Bismarck need not ask the people nor the parliament what side he should take. He assisted the Russians in suppressing the rising. He next refused even to hear Austria, when she came forward proposing a new union of Germany. Then the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which lay between Denmark and Prussia, were left without an heir. Denmark, Prussia and Austria all claimed the provinces. Austria and Prussia soon defeated Denmark, who received no help from the other powers.

Austria had now decided that the Duke of Augusten- berg should receive the duchies, for he had the strongest claim. Bismarck intended no such thing. The King of Prussia would have been glad of a peaceful settlement. Bismarck was determined on war. And now at last the two great Germanic powers were to decide which was to lead.

At this time, Cavour and Garibaldi, helped by the French under Napoleon in., had freed Italy, all except Venice and Rome. Venetia remained in Austrian hands, the Pope held out in Rome. Victor Emmanuel was the first King of Italy. Bismarck now cleverly made an alliance with the new King of Italy, and promised that Prussia should make no peace with Austria until Venice was surrendered to Italy. So Victor Emmanuel sent the Italian armies against Austria, Garibaldi fighting in the Tyrol. The Italians were badly beaten, and things would have looked very black for them, save for the interference of Prussia.

In Germany things went differently. The war was the first sign to Europe of a new power risen in their midst, using methods hitherto unknown. The whole campaign had been elaborately worked out by the Army Council, before the war began. Moltke, the great general, sat in Berlin and directed the movements of the campaign by telegraph, receiving telegrams all the time. When a decisive blow was to be struck, a swift express-train conveyed him to the front. After the battle he returned to Berlin.

This was something new in warfare: and it was speedily effective. The Hanoverians were overthrown at Langen- salza, in June 1866, as they were trying to make their way to join the Austrians. In July the Austrians, after a hard and doubtful struggle, were defeated at Koniggratz in Bohemia. It was one of the shortest wars, but one of the most significant.

Bismarck now showed himself a great statesman. Those states of the north that had opposed Prussia — Schleswig, Holstein, Hanover, Hesse, Cassel — were annexed to Prussia, so that her lands now practically covered North Germany. The southern states, Bavaria, Baden, Wurtemberg, were treated very delicately, for Bismarck did not want to make enemies of them. He knew they would immediately join France against him if he did. For Napoleon in. also had the idea that he could only keep his throne in France by winning victories abroad, as his great predecessor had done, and therefore he also was on tenterhooks to declare war somewhere.

Now Bismarck founded the North German Federation, which was the beginning of the German Empire of our day. Bismarck did not follow the British model. He did not like the liberal middle classes of Germany, the tradespeople and manufacturers who were so powerful in Britain. He preferred even the work-people. So he made way for socialism.

The head of the Federation was the Federal Council, composed of envoys, not elected, but chosen from the various governments of the different states., This council brought in all bills, and controlled the administration of the law. Next was the Reichstag, the House of Commons, elected by manhood suffrage, and not by property qualification. Thus it was the people’s house. It was not like the British House of Commons, a chamber of rich men. The Reichstag passed or rejected the bills of the Federal Council, and it controlled finance. But it did not govern. The ministers governed. And the ministers were quite independent of the Reichstag. They represented the Crown, and they alone decided what course should be taken. Reichstag and people’s representatives could not interfere. They only voted money and accepted or rejected the new bills which the Council offered.

The chief of the ministers was the Chancellor. He was a far more powerful person than the British Prime Minister. The British Prime Minister must answer to Parliament for all he does, and Parliament means the nation. The German Chancellor — and Bismarck was the first German Chancellor — answered only to the King. So his power was immense. It was his success in war which saved him, and made him a popular hero. Prussia was still a fighting state, not a commercial state.

Napoleon III. in France was a despot, but very popular, for he conciliated the people all the time. He was a good deal like an Italian Tyrant in the Renaissance. France flourished under him, and Paris became the beautiful modern city it is now. Trade prospered, France was a commercial nation. But Napoleon in. had a fixed idea that it was necessary ‘ to gratify the military and domineering instincts of France.’ He had very successfully interfered in Italy, and brought France out of her wars with much satisfaction and pride to himself and the people. He had acquired Nice and Savoy, and Europe had become quite alarmed, imagining him a dangerous aggressor like Napoleon I.

But after 1860 the French emperor’s foreign policy was a failure, and the people, particularly the commercial and moneyed classes, began to turn against him. They were wearying of their unnecessary war-lord. He attempted to make Maximilian of Austria, Emperor of Mexico. The whole affair was a tragic fiasco, and France lost vast sums of money. Napoleon in. felt very uncertain on his throne.

Yet, on June 30, 1870, when the people of France were asked to vote whether a new, republican constitution should be introduced, or whether they should stand by the Emperor, 9,000,000 votes against 1,500,000 decided for him. Everything seemed most satisfactory. ‘ On whichever side we look there is an absence of troublesome questions; never has the maintenance of the peace of Europe been better assured.’ Fifteen days later war was declared against Prussia. In two months the second empire of France collapsed and disappeared.

We cannot say exactly why the great Franco-Prussian War of 1870 broke out. Neither France nor Germany desired war: only Bismarck wanted it. There had been a revolution in Spain. The Queen, Isabella, had fled to France. Leopold of Hohenzollern, a Roman Catholic, a distant relative of William I., was proposed for the throne of Spain. Napoleon in. protested. William listened to Napoleon’s remonstrance, and Leopold’s name was withdrawn. Then Napoleon thought he would show his power a little further. He sent an ambassador to William of Prussia, asking him to promise to oppose Leopold, even should that prince again be suggested for the throne of Spain. William said he could not promise so much, but that he disapproved of Leopold as a candidate for the Spanish throne. All passed quietly and pleasantly.

Bismarck was bitterly disappointed. He had hoped for a quarrel. He wanted war. He even thought of resigning his post. But then, it seems, he so modified the message he had received from the King, and published it in such a form as to make it appear that the Prussian king had been insulted by Napoleon, and had broken off all communications with France. A loud shout for war went up in Germany, and quite as loud a shout in France.

The French were very jaunty and confident of victory. But the German preparations were perfect, while Francc was in disorder. Half a million German soldiers poured over the French frontier. A marvellously rapid campaign followed. MacMahon was defeated at Worth with great loss to the French. Then Marshal Bazaine’s army was defeated and shut up in Metz. Then the emperor and MacMahon decided to retreat on Paris, to fight under the city fortresses. The Empress Eugenie telegraphed that a retreat would bring about a fall of the dynasty. The army changed its direction and marched against the enemy, hoping to relieve Metz. It was caught by the German army at Sedan, on September 1, 1870, and after losing 17,000 men Napoleon surrendered with 85,000.

At this disastrous news the empire was at once abolished in Paris, and a republic declared. Jules Favre was the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Gambetta was President. The new republic might now have had peace, if she would consent to surrender Strassburg and Metz. She proudly answered that she would not surrender an inch of French soil. So the war went on. The German armies gathered round Paris and the long siege began. No help came. On December 28, the bombardment of the city, which had been deferred so long, commenced. But it was Bismarck’s plan to reduce the 2,000,000 inhabitants by speedy starvation. ‘ Let them stew in their own juice,’ he said.

Wildly excited over these triumphs, the people of Germany united and offered the crown of the German Empire to William, whilst he was with the armies besieging Paris. A deputation waited on him on December 18, 1870, asking him to receive the new dignity. He accepted, and the new state was to come into being on January 1. On January 18, while Paris was still holding out, William I. was crowned emperor at Versailles, twelve miles away from the besieged city. In the great hall of mirrors, where the splendours of Louis xiv. had dazzled the world, the German officers and princes met in uniform, a throng of powerful men. With tremendous shouts they hailed the grey-haired King emperor, the German Emperor, Bismarck and Moltke standing by his side, flashing aloft their swords and shouting with fierce joy.

The bombardment of Paris continued till January 28, when an armistice was signed and the city surrendered. The Prussians then occupied the city. And now came another revolution among the French themselves. A National Assembly had been called at Versailles to settle the new republican constitution. Meanwhile Paris was revolution-mad. Socialism, communism, anarchism were preached frantically. Paris proclaimed ‘ the Commune,’ declaring she would go her own way, have her own government, regardless of the rest of France. For the people of Paris were republican, and they feared the monarchist tendency of the Assembly of Versailles. The Assembly decided that the Parisians must be subdued. The French leader Thiers, with the French armies which had returned from the war, now marched on Paris, Frenchmen attacking Frenchmen with utmost ferocity, French armies marching on the capital of France. The German troops, not yet withdrawn, looked on whilst the ghastly fighting between the two French parties took place. At last MaeMahon became master of the city. The Communists were destroyed, 17,000 were executed, the Socialists entirely stamped out.

In such a way began the Third French Republic, which is the Republic of to-day. And at such a moment the German Empire began. In 1877 Bismarck wished to resign, worn out by his labours. To this the Emperor would not listen, for the state rested on the shoulders of the Iron Chancellor.

William I. died in 1888. His son Frederick, who was married to the daughter of Queen Victoria, died after a reign of ninety-nine days. The Emperor William II. then succeeded. He was twenty-nine years old. The young emperor was far more positive and dictatorial than William I. He did not agree with Bismarck. The old chancellor resigned in 1890, virtually dismissed.

After this, the German Empire and the Kingdom of Prussia were reckoned the most powerful stf.te organisations in Europe. They did their best to resist the growth of Socialism. And yet labour organisation and socialist influence were perhaps stronger among the German people than anywhere. The state was keenly divided against itself. Germany was the last great military power left in Europe, excepting only Russia. And yet, in Germany as in Russia, the working people were most united, most ready to strike against war-lords and military dominion.

It seems as if North Europe, Germany and Russia, were never to take the course which France and Britain and America have taken. These latter three great states broke the monarchic power and established a rule of rich citizens, merchants, and promoters of industry, the rule of the middle classes. But Germany and Russia step from one extreme to the other from absolute monarchy such as Britain never knew, straight to the other extreme of government, government by the masses of the proletariat, strange, and as it seems, without true purpose: the masses of the working people governing themselves they know not why, except that they wish to destroy all authority, and to enjoy all an equal prosperity.

So the cycle of European history completes itself, phase by phase, from imperial Rome, through the mediaeval empire and papacy to the kings of the Renaissance period, on to the great commercial nations, the government by the industrial and commercial middle classes, and so to that last rule, that last oneness of the labouring people. So Europe moves from oneness to oneness, from the imperial unity to the unity of the labouring classes, from the beginning to the end.

But we must never forget that mankind lives by a twofold motive: the motive of peace and increase, and the motive of contest and martial triumph. As soon as the appetite for martial adventure and triumph in conflict is satisfied, the appetite for peace and increase manifests itself, and vice versa. It seems a law of life. Therefore a great united Europe of productive working- people, all materially equal, will never be able to continue and remain firm unless it unites also round one great chosen figure, some hero who can lead a great war, as well as administer a wide peace. It all depends on the will of the people. But the will of the people must concentrate in one figure, who is also supreme over the will of the people. He must be chosen, but at the same time responsible to God alone. Here is a problem of which a stormy future will have to evolve the solution.