VICTORY!
How had this changed since the days of Erfurt and Olmütz?
In judging of the rupture with the Diet, it must be here again borne in mind, what had become of it since 1851, what position it had assumed towards Prussia. Count Bismarck, on the re-establishment of the Diet in 1851, had been sent to Frankfurt as a friend of Austria. Prussia desires to co-operate openly and freely with Austria, and that this was also the endeavor of Count Bismarck, his whole political behavior had testified at the very time, in the most unequivocal manner, when Austria, weakened by internal revolution, was obliged to resort to foreign assistance. He soon perceived, however, that such co-operation was impossible. The necessary condition of it was the equalization of Prussia with Austria, and this had also been promised at Olmütz. Count Bismarck could not allow Prussia to be the second German power. He used to say that as Austria was “one,” so also Prussia was “one;” nor could he interpret the treaties in any other way than as they were understood until 1848; that Prussia, no more than Austria, could subordinate herself to resolutions of the majority.
But this principal condition Austria allowed only to herself: a hegemony over Germany was the policy of Prince Schwarzenberg, and his successors adhered to this word. Count Bismarck soon convinced himself that all federal complaisance only called forth further demands, that gratitude and sympathy in the policy of the empire were as little thought of as national feelings and German interests.
Austria did not desire any nearer approach to Prussia; she would come to any understanding. She began by securing to herself an obedient majority at the Diet, and believed that she could dispense with extending the competency and sphere of action of the Federation, after making the Diet, by the institution of the influence of the majorities, and the suppression of the right of protest in the minority, a serviceable instrument of Viennese policy, and thus gradually do away with the right of protest and the independence of the individual States, and thus also that of Prussia. The Austrian Ministers went so far as to assert that Austria alone in the Federation had any right to a foreign policy; and this Austrian policy should be endowed with the semblance of legality by the resolution of the servile majority in the Diet. In such an aspiration Austria found from the Central States an only too willing sympathy. To the ambition and thirst for action of the Ministers of the latter, the territorial dimensions of their own country and the circle of activity assigned to them seemed not important or distinguished enough. It flattered them to be engaged in questions of European policy. This, indeed, they could enter upon without danger or a necessity for reciprocity; and they speedily found a natural consequence of the principle of federal law in the fact, that the members of the Federation need follow no foreign policy of their own, but would only have to follow such as might be dictated by the majority.
But the mediatization of the foreign policy of Prussia was not the only object held in view. If the course of European politics admitted of it, it was proposed as a further consequence to declare as an undoubted issue of federal jurisprudence, that the constitution and laws of Prussia should be subject to the determination of the majority.
The Central States saw themselves placed on an equality with Prussia with the highest satisfaction. They were ready to make any sacrifice otherwise so obstinately refused, except independence, if Prussia were only subjected to the same. They could not forgive Prussia her greatness and high position, and therefore they experienced an especial delight in making Prussia feel the importance of the Federation. The securer they felt of the majority, the less concealed and bold were their pretensions, and every demand of Austria on Prussia, however unjust, found ready support from the Central States, especially if the question were to combat the estimation and influence of Prussia in Germany. The majority was always to decide, even as to the question of their own right of decision, and there was no hesitation in doing violence to words and sound common sense to prove a united vote as to such a proceeding. They endeavored to deceive the world and themselves by the fallacy that “Federal Diet” and “Germany” were identical ideas, and the opinions of Prussia were stigmatized as being non-German, while Prussia was accused of stirring up strife in the Federation, when she declined unconditionally to submit to the arbitrary decisions of the majority in the Diet, while Austria allowed herself to be praised to the skies in her paid press as the exclusive representative of Germany and German interests. But even at that time did many believe this? Had not Austria betrayed her real views and intentions in the secret dispatch of the 14th of January, 1855, in a most unequivocal manner? Openly and without any reticence she had declared in that document that she would have no hesitation in destroying the Federation to carry through her policy. She had invited the Federal Governments, in contravention of the articles of federation, to enter into a warlike alliance with her and place her troops at the disposition of the Emperor of Austria, and promised them advantages at the expense of those who refused such an alliance—that is, by way of territorial aggrandizement.