¶ His Majesty grabbed on it, twice, and was at his wit’s end to know how to keep his crown and his declaration of friendship for the people.
In the meantime, twenty-three minor German states having adopted constitutions, more or less liberal, the growing demands of the common people for a share in Prussian government could be no longer denied.
19
Kingcraft comes upon evil days—in the rising tide of liberal ideas, monarchies of old are all but swept away.
¶ When the Napoleonic dynasty collapsed, after Waterloo, there were 39 petty principalities in the German-speaking area grouped about Rhein, the Main, Neckar, Elbe; these knights’ holdings, ecclesiastical strongholds, and domains of various descriptions became merged by cross-fighting throughout the Napoleonic era.
¶ The Congress of Vienna (1815) deeming it advisable to set up a loose confederacy of the multitude of petty powers, founded a German Confederation, but whether it was geographical, racial or political no human being could say.
The local German princes kept full sovereign powers, but gradually, as a matter of expediency, the various states grouped themselves around Prussia and Austria. As for the Nation, there was no German sovereign, no supreme court, no commercial or political relationship worthy of the name. Instead, on every hand was intense local hatred, aloofness and suspicion. This condition continued for very many years.
¶ The plain fact was that the various princes did not want German National unity; for the reason that it is not human nature for men to give up an advantage for an uncertainty. Also, at this time, neither Prussia nor Austria was strong enough to impose her hegemony upon Germany. Austria’s policy was for delay; and in Prussia the general belief existed for many years that Austrian domination was really essential to put down the rising spirit of Democracy.
¶ The authority of the Congress set up a Bond of Confederation, ruled by a Diet or Bundestag, sitting at Frankfort-on-the-Main.
¶ In the hurly-burly, certain centres, such as Saxony, Bavaria and Wuertemberg, were raised in rank from duchies to kingdoms, while still others, such as Westphalia, Grand Duchy of Warsaw, were dissolved. The free cities were reduced to four; caste declined in political importance. The Confederation of the Rhine was set aside.