A Short History of Germany

by Mary Platt Parmele

CHAPTER XVIII.

Now came the difficult task of reconstruction and redistribution of territory. In what form should they arise out of this chaos? The dream of the people, like that of Hermann eighteen hundred years before, was of a German UNITY; not a renewal of the empire, but a great and new national life, in some firmer and truer form than it had yet known. But these were only dreams, vague and without any practical ideas as to their realization.

In the meantime men well versed in the arts and tricks of governing were deciding how all should be arranged. The plan proposed by Metternich, that master of diplomacy, who was minister to the Emperor of Austria, was the one adopted.

There was to be a confederation of thirty-nine German states. The Act of Union, by which this was effected, had a pleasant sound to the ear of the German people. But the Union existed only in a mutual defense against foreign foes, and a mutual aid in keeping the people of Germany well in check! The one outward and visible expression of this Unity was in a General Diet, to be held at Frankfort, under the presidency of Austria!

And this was what the people who had liberated their country were to receive as their reward! They were in no way recognized; were to possess no political power; the right of suffrage was not bestowed, and the Diet was prohibited from making any change in this form of confederation, except by a unanimous (!) vote. The German people were practically effaced and lost sight of in an autocratic confederation of states, with the Austrian Empire at its head.

That empire had received back its Italian possessions. Prussia had recovered Westphalia and her territory on the Rhine, and given up her Polish territory to Russia. Belgium and Holland had been merged into a kingdom of the Netherlands. Saxony, Wurtemberg, and Bavaria, which states had been made kingdoms by Napoleon, were permitted to remain such. Switzerland was a republic; and by the successful diplomacy of Talleyrand, Alsace and Lorraine, those insecure possessions, passed to France.

Such were some of the territorial adjustments. That the rulers of these kingdoms were reactionary in their purposes soon became apparent. One of the first acts of the King of Wurtemberg was to court-martial and cashier the general who had gone over to the German side at the battle of Leipzig! If none had gone over to the German side, where would have been the kingdom of Wurtemberg? In Mecklenburg the people were openly declared serfs. The Elector of Hesse-Cassel gave evidence that he was looking backward by putting his soldiers into the dress of the last century and powdered queues, and almost without exception the sovereigns were trying to construe the provisions of the Act of Union in a way to give the least liberty to the German people.

The currents of German thought and feeling move slowly, but they are deep and persistent. They had never been intemperate in their desires for freedom, but had simply asked for a government which should be more in conformity with the existing views of human rights. Their disappointment had been profound and bitter. The fathers earnestly talked over their wrongs at home, while their more fiery sons at the universities made speeches, sang songs, and banded themselves together into societies, with mottoes and badges and insignia, all under the same inspiring ideas,—UNION AND FREEDOM.

This began to look like Revolution. The freedom of the press was abolished. The formation of societies among students and mechanics was prohibited, and the universities were placed under the immediate control of the government. A savage police system was established. Hundreds of young men were thrown into prison, and hundreds more fled the country.

But while this repression produced a calm surface, it did not change the conditions beneath. In the meantime a "Holy Alliance" had been formed between Russia, Austria, and Prussia, for the purpose of repressing aspirations toward liberty in other lands, where this pestilential modern spirit was also rife.

But in 1830 there was a popular uprising in France. Charles X., another brother of the murdered Louis, had been pursuing a reactionary policy precisely similar to the one employed by the sovereigns in Germany. It was too late to do that in France. The people with small ceremony flung the Bourbon aside, and set up a constitutional monarchy with Louis Philippe at its head. This stirred anew the latent feeling in Germany. The people did not rise in a body, but so threatening did it appear that the Diet quickly yielded certain reforms and concessions for fear of more extreme resistance.

Francis II. died in 1835, and was succeeded by an almost imbecile son, Ferdinand I. In 1840 Frederick William III. of Prussia also died, and Frederick William IV., his son, became King. Metternich was now guiding the affairs of Austria, and William von Humboldt was the adviser of the new Prussian King, who inspired the people with a hope of better things. But while this King fostered science and art, he gave little care to the redressing of political wrongs, and things drifted toward a crisis.

Again a revolution in France reacted upon Germany. In 1848, Louis Philippe was cast aside as unceremoniously as had been his predecessor, and a Republic was proclaimed, with Louis Napoleon, nephew of the great Napoleon, at its head.

This new Bonaparte was a son of Louis Bonaparte, whom his imperial brother had made King of Holland. He married Hortense, the daughter of Josephine. So Fate intended that a child of the discarded Josephine, and not of Napoleon, should rule over France.

The proclamation of a republic in France awoke the slumbering forces of revolution in Europe. Not in one place, nor in two, did the fires spring up, but simultaneously in every German state. Hungary, led by Kossuth, was in revolt, and fighting to the death to be freed from the Hapsburgs. In Italy Victor Emmanuel, the young King of Sardinia, was trying to drive the Austrian governor of Milan out of the kingdom, and when checked, he shook his sword at the advancing Austrians and said prophetically, "There shall yet be an Italy!" And while these things were going on in Italy and in Hungary, men were fighting in the streets of Vienna. The ozone of freedom had penetrated even to that last stronghold of despotic sentiment. The Emperor Ferdinand abdicated in this time of agitation, and his young nephew, Francis Joseph, ascended the Austrian throne.

The things the people were demanding in every state were: freedom of speech and of the press; the right of every man to bear arms; of all to assemble when and where they liked for political or other purposes; trial by jury; and the abolition of the hated Diet, with a complete reorganization of the state governments.

The princes were terrified. It seemed as if their expulsion, like that of Louis Philippe, was at hand.

And so it was, and would have ensued, had the people known their power or how to use it. But gradually the opportunity was lost. Concessions were made, new liberties were gained, but the Unity they hungered for was to come in another and unexpected way, and for ten years the confederation was to exist practically unchanged.

Still, although the fruits of their efforts seemed meager in comparison with what had been hoped, there had been one great concession made. The Diet, under the pressure of the crisis, had consented to steps which led finally to the formation of a National Parliament.

When that parliament met at Frankfort, German patriots believed the hour of liberation had struck. Full of hope and confidence they thought the end was attained, when six hundred men of character and intelligence came together to formulate a new plan of union based upon The Sovereignty of the People!

But such a task requires something more than patriotism and enthusiasm, and theoretic views about human rights. It needs practical political experience, and clearly defined plans for action. After vainly trying to harmonize conflicting opinions a plan of union was finally adopted, and Frederick William IV. was elected "Hereditary Emperor of Germany."

All save the smaller states refused to accede to the proposed plan, and Frederick William himself declined the proffered title, saying, "They forget that there are princes still in Germany, and that I am one of them."

So the attempt at reorganization was a miserable failure, and the national parliament gradually dissolved. In the meantime the revolutionary fires in Europe had burned out. Hungary was again submissive in the grasp of the Hapsburgs, and Austria was also once more supreme in Italy; while the French republic, which had lighted this conflagration, had become a monarchy.

The national party had developed no great leader, had shown no ability to grasp its opportunity. The people, disheartened and in sullen disappointment, saw the old Bund-Diet restored at Frankfort, in 1851, and found themselves back in a slightly improved and amended confederation, still under the headship of Austria.

Then Louis Napoleon's assumption of Imperial power, in 1851, gave renewed strength to the German rulers. It demonstrated the instability of popular governments, and the sure return to the good old methods of their fathers, as soon as the temporary madness of the people had subsided.

So all things conspired to depress aspiration and to make the hopes awakened in 1848 a tantalizing delusion. It was not night, but it was a very dark and dreary day for patriotism in Germany. The country was under a spell which no one knew how to break.

In 1857 Frederick William IV. was stricken with apoplexy, and his brother, Prince William, was appointed Prince Regent.

The new emperor of the French, with oppressive sense of the greatness of his name, was looking about for opportunities to be Napoleonic. In 1856 he had formed an alliance with England against Russia. The fact of the alliance of itself gave weight to the rather flimsy fabric of his greatness, while the results of the Crimean War added much to its solidity. In the year 1859 Italy was vainly struggling to free herself from the grasp of Austria. Mazzini, the exalted dreamer, and Garibaldi, the soldier and patriot, with Cavour, the no less patriotic statesman, though with different ends in view, were working together for the destruction of the Austrian yoke, which must be preliminary to any form of Italian nationality. The astute statesman saw in the ambition of Napoleon III. a means to that end.

When Napoleon promised an "Italy free from the Alps to the Apennines," and when the splendid victory of Magenta was quickly followed by that of Solferino, and when the young Francis Joseph, with tears in his eyes, ordered the retreat of his defeated army over the Mincio, the dream of centuries seemed about to be realized. Then came the startling news that the two emperors were in consultation at Villafranca over the terms of peace! Venice was not to be liberated. There was to be a consolidation of the Italian kingdoms "under the honorary Presidency of the Pope"—whatever that meant—and a "general amnesty" was declared. It was with sullen rage that the disappointed patriots saw Nice and Savoy handed over to France, and Rome garrisoned with French troops, while a French emperor was posing as the liberator of an Italy which was not liberated! But although the mills of the gods were moving slowly, they were going to grind exceeding fine. Victor Emmanuel and a regenerated Italy were not far off, and for Germany there was at hand a new era.

Frederick William IV. died, and in 1861 William I. was crowned King of Prussia.