243. Conservatives and Progressives.—The party situation of the present day has been reached in consequence of the gradual disintegration of the two great political groups with which Prussia entered upon the period of Bismarck's ministry; and to this day the parties of the German Empire and those of the Prussian kingdom are largely identical.[342] The two original Prussian groups were the Conservatives and the Fortschritt, or Progressives, of which the one comprised, throughout the middle portion of the nineteenth century, the supporters of the Government and the other its opponents. The Conservatives were pre-eminently the party of the landed aristocracy of northern and eastern Germany. During twenty years prior to 1867 they dominated completely the Prussian court and army. Following the Austrian war of 1866, however, the Conservative ascendancy was broken and there set in that long process of party dissolution by which German political life has been brought to its present confused condition. To begin with, each of the two original parties broke into two distinct groups. From the Conservatives sprang the Frei Conservativen, or Free Conservatives; from the Fortschritt, the National-Liberal-Partei, or National Liberals. In the one case the new group comprised the more advanced element of the old one; in the other, the more moderate; so that, in the order of radicalism, the parties of the decade following 1866 were the Conservatives, the Free Conservatives, the National Liberals, and the Fortschrittspartei, or Radicals. Among these four groups Bismarck was able to win for his policy of German unification the support of the more moderate, that is to say, the second and third. The ultra-Conservatives clung to the particularistic régime of earlier days, and with them the genius of "blood and iron" broke definitely in 1866. The Free Conservatives comprised at the outset simply those elements of the original Conservative party who were willing to follow Bismarck.

244. Rise and Preponderance of the National Liberals.—Similarly among the Progressives there was division upon the attitude to be assumed toward the Bismarckian programme. The more radical wing of the party, i.e., that which maintained the name and the policies of the original Fortschritt, refused to abandon its opposition to militarism and monarchism, opposed the constitution of 1867 for its illiberality, and withheld from Bismarck's government all substantial support. The larger portion of the party members, however were willing to subordinate for a time to Bismarck's nationalizing projects the contest which the united Fortschritt had long been waging in behalf of constitutionalism. The party of no compromise was strongest in Berlin and the towns of east Prussia. It was almost exclusively Prussian. The National Liberals, on the contrary, became early an essentially German, rather than simply a Prussian, party. Even before 1871 they comprised, in point both of numbers and of power, the preponderating party in both Prussia and the Confederation as a whole; and after 1871, when the Nationalists of the southern states cast in their lot with the National Liberals, the predominance of that party was effectually assured. Upon the National Liberals as the party of unity and uniformity Bismarck relied absolutely for support in the upbuilding of the Empire. It was only in 1878, after the party had lost control of the Reichstag, in consequence of the reaction against Liberalism attending the great religious contest known as the Kulturkampf, that the Chancellor was in a position to throw off the not infrequently galling bonds of the Liberal alliance.

245. The Newer Groups: the Centre.—Meanwhile the field occupied by the various parties that have been named was, from an early date, cut into by an increasing number of newly organized parties and groups. Most important among these were the Clericals, or Centre, and the Social Democrats. The origins of the Centre may be traced to the project which was formulated in December, 1870, to found a new party, a party which should be essentially Catholic, and which should have for its purpose the defense of society against radicalism, of the states against the central government, and of the schools against secularization. A favorite saying of the founders was that "at the birth of the Empire Justice was not present." The party, gaining strength first in the Rhenish and Polish provinces of Prussia and in Bavaria, was able in the elections of 1871 to win a total of sixty seats. Employed by the Catholic clergy during the decade that followed to maintain the cause of the papacy against the machinations of Bismarck, the party early struck root deeply; and by reason of the absolute identification in the public mind of its interests with the interests of the Catholic Church, ensuring its preponderance in the states of the south, and also by reason of the fact that it has always been more successful than any of its rivals in maintaining compactness of organization, it became, and has continued almost uninterruptedly to the present time, the strongest numerically of all political groups within the Reichstag.

246. The Newer Groups: the Social Democrats.—The Social Democratic party was founded in 1869 under the leadership of Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel. In 1863 there had been organized at Leipzig, under the inspiration of the eloquent Marxist Ferdinand Lassalle, a Universal German Workingman's Association. Between the two bodies there was for a time keen rivalry, but at a congress held at Gotha, in May, 1875, they (together with a number of other socialistic societies) were merged in one organization, which has continued to this day to be known as the Social Democratic party. The development of socialism in the Empire between 1870 and 1880, in respect to both numbers and efficiency of organization, was phenomenal. At the parliamentary elections of 1871 the Social Democratic vote was 124,655 (three per cent of the total) and two Social Democrats were chosen to the Reichstag. In 1874 the popular vote was 351,952, and nine members were elected; in 1877 it was 493,288, and the number of successful candidates was twelve. By the Emperor William I. and by his chancellor; Bismarck, as indeed by the governing and well-to-do classes generally, the progress of the movement was viewed with frankly avowed apprehension. Most of the great projects of the Imperial Government were opposed by the Social Democrats, and the members of the party were understood to be enemies of the entire existing order, and even of civilization itself. Two attempts in 1878 upon the life of the Emperor, made by men who were socialists, but disavowed by the socialists as a body, afforded the authorities an opportunity to enter upon a campaign of socialist repression, and from 1878 to 1890 anti-socialist legislation of the most thoroughgoing character was regularly on the statute books and was in no slight measure enforced. At the same time that effort was being made to stamp out socialist propaganda a remarkable series of social reforms was undertaken with the deliberate purpose not only of promoting the public well-being, but of cutting the ground from under the socialists' feet, or, as some one has observed, of "curing the Empire of socialism by inoculation." The most important steps taken in this direction comprised the inauguration of sickness insurance in 1883, of accident insurance in 1884, and of old-age and invalidity insurance in 1889.

For a time the measures of the government seemed to accomplish their purpose, and the official press loudly proclaimed that socialism in Germany was extinct. In reality, however, socialism thrived on persecution. In the hour of Bismarck's apparent triumph the socialist propaganda was being pushed covertly in every corner of the Empire. A party organ known as the Social Democrat was published in Switzerland, and every week thousands of copies found their way across the border and were passed from hand to hand among determined readers and converts. A compact organization was maintained, a treasury was established and kept well filled, and with truth the Social Democrats aver to-day that in no small measure they owe their superb organization to the Bismarckian era of repression. At the elections of 1878 the party cast but 437,158 votes, but in 1884 its vote was 549,990 (9.7 per cent of the whole) and the contingent of representatives returned to the Reichstag numbered twenty-four. In 1890 the socialist vote attained the enormous total of 1,427,298 (19.7 per cent of the whole), and the number of representatives was increased to thirty-five. Repression was manifestly a failure, and in 1890 the Reichstag, with the sanction of the new emperor, William II., wisely declined to renew the statute under which proscription had been employed.

247. Minor Parties.—Aside from the Centre and the Social Democrats, the newer party groups in Germany—the Guelfs, the Poles, the Danes, the Alsatians, the Antisemites, etc.—are small and relatively unimportant. All are particularistic and irreconcilable; all are organized on the basis of local, racial, or religious interests. Apart, indeed, from the National Liberals and the Socialists, it cannot be said that any one of the German political groups, large or small, is broadly national, in either its tenets or its constituency. The Guelfs, or Hanoverische Rechtspartei, comprise the irreconcilables among the old Hanoverian nobility who refuse to recognize the validity of the extinction of the ancient Hanoverian dynasty by the deposing of George V. in 1866. As late as 1898 they returned to the Reichstag nine members. In 1903 they elected but five, and in 1907 their representation was reduced to a single deputy. In 1912 their quota became again five. The Poles comprise the Slavic voters of the districts of West Prussia, Posen, and Silesia, who continue to send to the Reichstag members who protest against the incorporation of the Poles in Prussia and in the Empire. At the elections of 1903 they secured sixteen seats, at those of 1907 twenty, and at those of 1912 eighteen. The Danes of northern Schleswig keep up some demand for annexation to Denmark, and measures looking toward Germanization are warmly resented; but the number of people concerned—not more than 150,000—is so small that their political power is almost nil. They have, as a rule, but a single spokesman in the Reichstag. The Alsatians comprise the autonomists of Alsace-Lorraine, and the Antisemites form a group whose original purpose was resistance to Jewish influence and interests.

IV. Party Politics after 1878

248. Shifting "Government" Parties.—To rehearse here the details of German party history during the period since the Government's break with the Liberals in 1878 is impossible. A few of the larger facts only may be mentioned. Between 1878 and 1887 there was in the Reichstag no one great party, nor even any stable coalition of parties, upon which the Government could rely for support. For the time being, in 1879, Bismarck allied with the Centre to bring about the adoption of his newly-framed policy of protection and of the famous Frankenstein clause relative to the matricular contributions of the states.[343] The National Liberals, left in the lurch, broke up, and in 1881 the remnant of the party was able to obtain only forty-five seats. After the elections of that year the Centre commanded in the Reichstag a plurality of forty. The upshot was that, in the effort to procure the dependable support of the Centre, the Government gradually abandoned the Kulturkampf, and for a time the Centre virtually succeeded to the position occupied prior to 1878 by the National Liberals. The elections of 1887, however, again changed the situation. The Centre retained a plurality of some twenty seats, but the Conservatives, Free Conservatives, and National Liberals formed a coalition and between them obtained a total of 220 seats and, accordingly, the control of the Reichstag. Thereupon the Conservatives became the Government's principal reliance and the Centre dropped for a time into a position of neutrality. At the elections of 1890 the coalition, which in truth had been built up by the Government on the basis of a cartel, or agreement, suffered heavy losses. Of 397 seats it carried only 130,[344] while the Centre alone procured 116. Coincident with the overturn came the dismissal of Bismarck and the elevation to the chancellorship of General von Caprivi. Throughout his years of office (1890-1894) Caprivi was able to rely habitually upon the support of no single party or group of parties, and for the enactment of its measures the Government was obliged to seek assistance now in one quarter and now in another, according as circumstances dictated.

249. The Agrarian Movement and the Rise of the Bloc.—Two or three developments of the period stand out with some distinctness. One was the break-up, apparently for all time, of the Fortschrittspartei, or Radical party, in consequence of the elections of 1893. A second was the rise of the Government's prolonged contest with the Agrarians. The Agrarian group, of which indeed one hears as early as 1876, comprised principally the grain-growing landholders of northern and eastern Germany. By treaties concluded in 1892-1894 with Austria-Hungary, Italy, Belgium, Russia, and other nations, German import duties on grain were considerably reduced in return for advantages given to German manufacturers. Low duties meant cheap foodstuffs, and in the negotiation of these treaties the Government found itself supported with enthusiasm not only by the Centre, but also by the Social Democrats and the surviving Radicals. The Conservatives were divided. Those of Agrarian sympathies (especially the Prussian landholders) allied themselves with the forces of opposition. But the remainder gave the Government some measure of support. And from this last-mentioned fact arose a final political development of large significance during the Caprivi period, namely, the creation of that bloc, or affiliation, of Centre and Conservatives (popularly referred to as the "blue-black" bloc) upon which the Government was destined regularly to rely through upwards of a decade and a half. During the chancellorship of Prince Chlodwig Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst (1894-1900) the struggle with the Agrarians was continued and the preponderance of the bloc became an established fact. Finally, should be mentioned the rapidly accelerating growth of the Social Democracy. In 1893 the popular party cast a total of 1,876,738 votes and elected forty-four representatives. In 1896 its vote was 2,007,076 and the number of members elected was fifty-seven. In 1903 its vote rose to the enormous proportions of 3,008,000 (24 per cent of the total, and larger than that of any other single party), and the quota in the Reichstag was increased to seventy-nine.

250. The Elections of 1903 and 1907.—At the elections of 1903 the bloc suffered numerically a loss of strength. The Centre obtained 102 seats, the Conservatives 53, and the Free Conservatives, or "Party of the Empire," 22—an aggregate of only 177. By deft management, however, Chancellor von Bülow (1900-1908) contrived to play off through several years the opposing forces, and so to preserve, for all practical purposes, the working efficiency of the Government coalition. The elections of January, 1907, brought on by a dissolution of the Reichstag after the refusal of that body to vote the Government's colonial estimates, were of interest principally by reason of the continued show of strength of the Centre and the falling off of the Social Democrats in their representation in the Reichstag. In the practical working out of political forces it had come about that the Centre occupied in the chamber a pivotal position of such consequence that the Government was in effect absolutely dependent upon the vote of that party for the enactment of its measures. Naturally enough, the party, realizing its power, was prone to put its support upon a contractual basis and to drive with the Government a hard bargain for the votes which it commanded. While hardly in a position to get on without Clerical assistance, the Government in 1907 would have been willing enough to see the Centre's power and independence broken. Not only, however, did the Centre not lose seats by that contest; it in fact realized a gain of two. On the other hand, there was compensation for the Government in the fact that the Social Democrats fell back. They polled a total of 3,250,000 popular votes, as compared with 3,008,000 in 1903; but by reason of the antiquated distribution of seats which prevails in the Empire, the unusual vote polled by other parties, and also the unusual co-operation of the party groups opposed to the Social Democrats, their representation in the Reichstag was cut from 79 to 43.[345]