Prince Hohenlohe’s importance in history, however, begins with the year 1866. In his opinion the war was a blessing. It had demonstrated the insignificance of the small and middle states, “a misfortune for the dynasties”—with whose feelings a mediatized prince could scarcely be expected to be over-sympathetic—but the best possible good fortune for the German nation. In the Bavarian Reichsrath Hohenlohe now began to make his voice heard in favour of a closer union with Prussia; clearly, if such a union were desirable, he was the man in every way best fitted to prepare the way for it. One of the main obstacles in the way was the temperament of Louis II. of Bavaria, whose ideas of kingship were very remote from those of the Hohenzollerns, whose pride revolted from any concession to Prussian superiority, and who—even during the crisis of 1866—was more absorbed in operas than in affairs of state. Fortunately Richard Wagner was a politician as well as a composer, and equally fortunately Hohenlohe was a man of culture capable of appreciating “the master’s” genius. It was Wagner, apparently, who persuaded the king to place Hohenlohe at the head of his government (Denkwürdigkeiten, i. 178, 211), and on the 31st of December 1866 the prince was duly appointed minister of the royal house and of foreign affairs and president of the council of ministers.
As head of the Bavarian government Hohenlohe’s principal task was to discover some basis for an effective union of the South German states with the North German Confederation, and during the three critical years of his tenure of office he was, next to Bismarck, the most important statesman in Germany. He carried out the reorganization of the Bavarian army on the Prussian model, brought about the military union of the southern states, and took a leading share in the creation of the customs parliament (Zollparlament), of which on the 28th of April 1868 he was elected a vice-president. During the agitation that arose in connexion with the summoning of the Vatican council Hohenlohe took up an attitude of strong opposition to the ultramontane position. In common with his brothers, the duke of Ratibor and the cardinal, he believed that the policy of Pius IX.—inspired by the Jesuits (that “devil’s society,” as he once called it)—of setting the Church in opposition to the modern State would prove ruinous to both, and that the definition of the dogma of papal infallibility, by raising the pronouncements of the Syllabus of 1864 into articles of faith, would commit the Church to this policy irrevocably. This view he embodied into a circular note to the Catholic powers (April 9, 1869), drawn up by Döllinger, inviting them to exercise the right of sending ambassadors to the council and to combine to prevent the definition of the dogma. The greater powers, however, were for one reason or another unwilling to intervene, and the only practical outcome of Hohenlohe’s action was that in Bavaria the powerful ultramontane party combined against him with the Bavarian “patriots” who accused him of bartering away Bavarian independence to Prussia. The combination was too strong for him; a bill which he brought in for curbing the influence of the Church over education was defeated, the elections of 1869 went against him, and in spite of the continued support of the king he was forced to resign (March 7, 1870).
Though out of office, his personal influence continued very great both at Munich and Berlin and had not a little to do with favourable terms of the treaty of the North German Confederation with Bavaria, which embodied his views, and with its acceptance by the Bavarian parliament.[2] Elected a member of the German Reichstag, he was on the 23rd of March 1871 chosen one of its vice-presidents, and was instrumental in founding the new groups which took the name of the Liberal Imperial party (Liberale Reichspartei), the objects of which were to support the new empire, to secure its internal development on Liberal lines, and to oppose clerical aggression as represented by the Catholic Centre. Like the duke of Ratibor, Hohenlohe was from the first a strenuous supporter of Bismarck’s anti-papal policy, the main lines of which (prohibition of the Society of Jesus, &c.) he himself suggested. Though sympathizing with the motives of the Old Catholics, however, he realized that they were doomed to sink into a powerless sect, and did not join them, believing that the only hope for a reform of the Church lay in those who desired it remaining in her communion.[3] In 1872 Bismarck proposed to appoint Cardinal Hohenlohe Prussian envoy at the Vatican, but his views were too much in harmony with those of his family, and the pope refused to receive him in this capacity.[4]
In 1873 Bismarck chose Prince Hohenlohe to succeed Count Harry Arnim as ambassador in Paris, where he remained for seven years. In 1878 he attended the congress of Berlin as third German representative, and in 1880, on the death of Bernhardt Ernst von Bülow (October 20), secretary of state for foreign affairs, he was called to Berlin as temporary head of the Foreign Office and representative of Bismarck during his absence through illness. In 1885 he was chosen to succeed Manteuffel as governor of Alsace-Lorraine. In this capacity he had to carry out the coercive measures introduced by the chancellor in 1887-1888, though he largely disapproved of them;[5] his conciliatory disposition, however, did much to reconcile the Alsace-Lorrainers to German rule. He remained at Strassburg till October 1894, when, at the urgent request of the emperor, he consented, in spite of his advanced years, to accept the chancellorship in succession to Caprivi. The events of his chancellorship belong to the general history of Germany (q.v.); as regards the inner history of this time the editor of his memoirs has very properly suppressed the greater part of the detailed comments which the prince left behind him. In general, during his term of office, the personality of the chancellor was less conspicuous in public affairs than in the ease of either of his predecessors. His appearances in the Prussian and German parliaments were rare, and great independence was left to the secretaries of state. What influence the tact and experience of Hohenlohe exercised behind the scenes on the masterful will and impulsive character of the emperor cannot as yet be generally known.
Prince Hohenlohe resigned the chancellorship on the 17th of October 1900, and died at Ragaz on the 6th of July 1901. On the 16th of February 1897 he had celebrated his golden wedding; on the 21st of December of the same year the princess died. There were six children of the marriage: Elizabeth (b. 1847); Stephanie (b. 1851); Philipp Ernst, reigning prince of Hohenlohe-Schillingsfürst (b. 1853), who married Princess Charielée Ypsilanti; Albert (1857-1866); Moritz and Alexander, twins (b. 1862).
All other authorities for the life of Prince Hohenlohe have been superseded by the Denkwürdigkeiten (2 vols., Stuttgart and Leipzig, 1906). With the exception noted above these are singularly full and outspoken, the latter quality causing no little scandal in Germany and bringing down on Prince Alexander, who was responsible for their publication, the disfavour of the emperor. They form not only the record of a singularly full and varied life, but are invaluable to the historian for the wealth of material they contain and for appreciations of men and events by an observer who had the best opportunities for forming a judgment. The prince himself they reveal not only as a capable man of affairs, though falling short of greatness, but as a personality of singular charm, tenacious of his principles, tolerant, broad-minded, and possessed of a large measure of the saving grace of humour.
See generally A. F. Fischer, Geschichte des Hauses Hohenlohe (1866-1871); K. Weller, Hohenlohisches Urkundenbuch, 1153-1350 (Stuttgart, 1899-1901), and Geschichte des Hauses Hohenlohe (Stuttgart, 1904).
(W. A. P.; C. F. A.)
[1] Through her mother, née Princess Stephanie Radziwill (d. 1832). Before Prince Wittgenstein’s death (1887) a new law had forbidden foreigners to hold land in Russia. Prince Hohenlohe appears, however, to have sold one of his wife’s estates and to have secured certain privileges from the Russian court for the rest.