German Culture Past and Present

by Ernest Belfort Bax

Among the most reactionary of the Junker party in the Prussian Parliament of 1848 was one Count Otto Bismarck von Schönhausen, subsequently known to history as Prince Bismarck (1815-98). This man strenuously opposed the acceptance of the Imperial dignity by the King of Prussia at the hands of the Frankfurt Parliament in 1849, on the ground that it was unworthy of the King of Prussia to accept any office at the hands of the people rather than at those of his peers, the princes of Germany. In 1851 Count von Bismarck was appointed a Prussian representative in the revived princely and aristocratic Federal Assembly. Here he energetically fought the hegemony hitherto exercised by Austria. He continued some years in this capacity, and subsequently served as Prussian Minister in St. Petersburg and again in Paris. In the autumn of 1862 the new King of Prussia, Wilhelm I, who had succeeded to the throne the previous year, called him back to take over the portfolio of Foreign Affairs and the leadership of the Cabinet. Shortly after his accession to power he arbitrarily closed the Chambers for refusing to sanction his Army Bill. His army scheme was then forced through by the royal fiat alone. On the reopening of the Schleswig-Holstein question, owing to the death of the King of Denmark, German nationalist sentiment was aroused, which Bismarck knew how to use for the aggrandisement of Prussia. The Danish war, in which the two leading German States collaborated and which ended in their favour, had as its result a disagreement of a serious nature between these rival, though mutually victorious, Powers.

In all these events the hand of Bismarck was to be seen. He it was who dominated completely Prussian policy from 1862 onwards. Full of his schemes for the aggrandisement of Prussia at the expense of Austria, he stirred up and worked this quarrel for all it was worth, the upshot being the Prusso-Austrian War (the so-called Seven Weeks' War) of the summer of 1866. The war was brought about by the arbitrary dissolution of the German Confederation—i.e. the Federal Assembly—in which, owing to the alarm created by Prussian insolence and aggression, Austria had the backing of the majority of the States. This step was followed by Bismarck's dispatching an ultimatum to Hanover, Saxony, and Hesse Cassel respectively, all of which had voted against Prussia in the Federal Assembly, followed, on its non-acceptance, by the dispatch of Prussian troops to occupy the States in question. Hard on this act of brutal violence came the declaration of war with Austria.

At Königgratz the Prussian army was victorious over the Austrians, and henceforth the hegemony of Central Europe was decided in favour of Prussia. Austria, under the Treaty of Prague (August 20, 1866), was completely excluded from the new organization of German States, in which Prussia—i.e. Bismarck—was to have a free hand. The result was the foundation of the North German Confederation, under the leadership of Prussia. It was to have a common Parliament, elected by universal suffrage and meeting in Berlin. The army, the diplomatic representation, the control of the postal and telegraphic services, were to be under the sole control of the Prussian Government. The North German Confederation comprised the northern and central States of Germany. The southern States—Bavaria, Baden, Würtemberg, etc.—although not included, had been forced into a practical alliance with Prussia by treaties. The Customs Union was extended until it embraced nearly the whole of Germany. Prussian aggression in Luxemburg produced a crisis with France in 1867, though the growing tension between Prussia and France was tided over on this occasion. But Bismarck only bided his time.

The occasion was furnished him by the question of the succession to the Spanish throne, in July 1870. By means of a falsified telegram Bismarck precipitated war, in which Prussia was joined by all the States of Germany. The subsequent course of events is matter of recent history. The establishment of the new Prusso-German empire by the crowning of Wilhelm I at Versailles, with the empire made hereditary in the Hohenzollern family, completed the work of Bismarck and the setting of the Prussian jack-boot on the necks of the German peoples. The Prussian military and bureaucratic systems were now extended to all Germany—in other words, the rest of the German peoples were made virtually the vassals and slaves of the Prussian monarch. This time the King of Prussia received the Imperial crown at the hands of the kings, princes, and other hereditary rulers of the various German States. Bismarck was graciously pleased to bestow unity and internal peace—a Prussian peace—upon Germany on condition of its abasement before the Prussian corporal's stick and police-truncheon. Such was the united Germany of Bismarck. Germany meant for Bismarck and his followers Prussia, and Prussia meant their own Junker and military caste, under the titular headship of the Hohenzollern.

Yet, strange to say, the peoples of Germany willingly consented, under the influence of the intoxication of a successful war, to have their independence bartered away to Prussia by their rulers. In this united Germany of Bismarck—a Germany united under Prussian despotism—they naïvely saw the realization of the dream of their thinkers and poets since the time of the Napoleonic wars—which had become more than ever an inspiration from 1848 onwards—of an ideal unity of all German-speaking peoples as a national whole. It is unquestionable that many of these thinkers and poets would have been horrified at the Prusso-Bismarckian "unity" of "blood and iron," It was not for this, they would have said, that they had laboured and suffered.

As a conclusion to the present chapter I venture to give a short summary of the internal, and especially of the economic, development of Prussia since the Franco-German War from an article which appeared in the English Review for December 1914, by Mr. H.M. Hyndman and the present writer:—

"From 1871 onwards Prussianized Germany, by far the best-educated, and industrially and commercially the most progressive, country in Europe, with the enormous advantage of her central position, was, consciously and unconsciously, making ready for her next advance. The policy of a good understanding with Russia, maintained for many years, to such an extent that, in foreign affairs, Berlin and St. Petersburg were almost one city, enabled Germany to feel secure against France, while she was devoting herself to the extension of her rural and urban powers of production. Never at any time did she neglect to keep her army in a posture of offence. All can now see the meaning of this.

"Militarism is in no sense necessarily economic. But the strength of Germany for war was rapidly increased by her success in peace. From the date of the great financial crisis of 1874, and the consequent reorganization of her entire banking system, Germany entered upon that determined and well-thought-out attempt to attain pre-eminence in the trade and commerce of the world of which we have not yet seen the end. From 1878, when the German High Commissioner, von Rouleaux, stigmatized the exhibits of his countrymen as 'cheap and nasty,' special efforts were made to use the excellent education and admirable powers of organization of Germany in this field. The Government rendered official and financial help in both agriculture and manufacture. Scientific training, good and cheap before, was made cheaper and better each year. Railways were used not to foster foreign competition, as in Great Britain, by excessive rates of home freight, but to give the greatest possible advantage to German industry in every department. In more than one rural district the railways were worked at an apparent loss in order to foster home production, from which the nation derived far greater advantage than such apparent sacrifice entailed. The same system of State help was extended to shipping until the great German liners, one of which, indeed, was actually subsidized by England, were more than holding their own with the oldest and most celebrated British companies.

"Protection, alike in agriculture and in manufacture, bound the whole empire together in essentially Imperial bonds. Right or wrong in theory—which it is not here necessary to discuss—there can be no doubt whatever that this policy entirely changed the face of Germany, and rendered her our most formidable competitor in every market. Emigration, which had been proceeding on a vast scale, almost entirely ceased. The savings banks were overflowing with deposits. The position of the workers was greatly improved. Not only were German Colonies secured in Africa and Asia, which were more trouble than they were worth, but very profitable commerce with our own Colonies and Dependencies was growing by leaps and bounds, at the expense of the out-of-date but self-satisfied commercialists of Old England. Hence arose a trade rivalry, against which we could not hope to contend successfully in the long run, except by a complete revolution in our methods of education and business, to which neither the Government nor the dominant class would consent.

"This remarkable advance in Germany, also, was accompanied by the establishment of a system of banking, specially directed to the expansion of national industry and commerce, a system which was clever enough to use French accumulations, borrowed at a low rate of interest, through the German Jews who so largely controlled French financial institutions, in order still further to extend their own trade. It was an admirably organized attempt to conquer the world-market for commodities, in which the Government, the banks, the manufacturers and the shipowners all worked for the common cause. Meanwhile, both French and English financiers carefully played the game of their business opponents, and the great English banks devoted their attention chiefly to fostering speculation on the Stock Exchange—a policy of which the Germans took advantage, just before the outbreak of war, to an extent not by any means as yet fully understood.