The failure to recall or realize these things was one of the factors responsible for the universal surprise and amazement when the Hohenzollerns were overthrown. The other factor was the general—and justified—impression that the government of Germany was one of the strongest, most ably administered and most homogeneous governments of the world. And yet Germany, too, or what subsequently became the nucleus of Germany, had known revolution. It was but seventy years since the King of Prussia had been forced to stand bareheaded in the presence of the bodies of the "March patriots," who had given their lives in a revolt which resulted in a new constitution and far-reaching concessions to the people.
Even to those who did recall and realize these things, however, the German revolution came as a shock. The closest observers, men who knew Germany intimately, doubted to the very last the possibility of successful revolution there. And yet, viewed in the light of subsequent happenings, it will be seen how natural, even unavoidable, the revolution was. It came as the inevitable result of conditions created by the war and the blockade. It will be the purpose of this book to make clear the inevitableness of the débâcle, and to explain the events that followed it.
For a better understanding of the whole subject a brief explanation of the structure of Germany's governmental system is in place. This will serve the double purpose of showing the strength of the system which the revolution was able to overturn and of dispelling a too general ignorance regarding it.
The general condemnation of Prussia, the Prussians and the Hohenzollerns must not be permitted to obscure their merits and deserts. For more than five hundred years without a break in the male line this dynasty handed down its inherited rights and produced an array of great administrators who, within three centuries, raised Prussia to the rank of a first-rate power.
The kingdom that subsequently became the nucleus for the German Empire lost fully half its territory by the Peace of Tilsit in 1807, when, following the reverses in the Napoleonic wars, Germany was formally dissolved and the Confederation of the Rhine was formed by Napoleon. The standing army was limited to 42,000 men, and trade with Great Britain was prohibited. The Confederation obeyed the letter of the military terms, but evaded its spirit by successively training levies of 42,000 men, and within six years enough trained troops were available to make a revolt against Napoleonic slavery possible. The French were routed and cut to pieces at the Battle of the Nations near Leipsic in 1813, and Prussian Germany was again launched on the road to greatness.
A certain democratic awakening came on the heels of the people's liberation from foreign domination. It manifested itself particularly in the universities. The movement became so threatening that a conference of ministers of the various states was convoked in 1819 to consider counter-measures. The result was an order disbanding the political unions of the universities, placing the universities under police supervision and imposing a censorship upon their activities.
The movement was checked, but not stopped. In 1847 ominous signs of a popular revolution moved King Frederick William IV of Prussia to summon the Diet to consider governmental reforms. The chief demand presented by this Diet was for a popular representation in the government. The King refused to grant this. A striking commentary upon the political backwardness of Germany is furnished by the fact that one of the demands made by a popular convention held in Mannheim in the following year was for trial by jury, a right granted in England more than six hundred years earlier by the Magna Charta. Other demands were for the freedom of the press and popular representation in the government.
The revolution of 1848 in Prussia, while it failed to produce all that had been hoped for by those responsible for it, nevertheless resulted in what were for those times far-reaching reforms. A diet was convoked at Frankfort-on-the-Main. It adopted a constitution establishing some decided democratic reforms and knit the fabric of the German confederation more closely together.
The structure of the Confederation was already very substantial, despite much state particularism and internal friction. An important event in the direction of a united Germany had been the establishment in 1833 of the Zollverein or Customs Union. The existence of scores of small states, [1] each with its own tariffs, currency and posts, had long hindered economic development. There is a well-known anecdote regarding a traveler who, believing himself near the end of his day's journey, after having passed a dozen customs-frontiers, found his way barred by the customs-officials of another tiny principality. Angered at the unexpected delay, he refused to submit to another examination of his effects and another exaction of customs-duties.
[ [1] There were more than three hundred territorial sovereignties in Germany when the new constitution of the union was adopted at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.—There were principalities of less than one square mile in extent. The particularism engendered by this state of affairs has always been one of the greatest handicaps with which federal government in Germany has had to contend.