A Short History of Germany

by Mary Platt Parmele

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.