Germany from the Earliest Period, Volume 4

by Wolfgang Menzel

The antipathy with which the new dynasty on the throne of France was generally viewed rendered Ferdinand, Duke of Orleans, Louis Philippe's eldest son, for some time an unsuccessful suitor for the hand of a German princess; he at length conducted Helena, princess of Mecklenburg-Schwerin, although against the consent of her stepfather, Paul Frederick, the reigning duke, to Paris in 1837, as future queen of the French. He was killed in 1842, by a fall from his carriage, and left two infant sons, the Count of Paris and the Duke of Chartres. The Czarowitz, Alexander, espoused Maria, Princess of Darmstadt.

The French chambers and journals have reassumed toward Germany the tone formerly affected by Napoleon, and, with incessant cries for war, in which, in 1840, the voice of the prime minister Thiers joined, demand the restoration of the left bank of the Rhine. Thiers was, however, compelled to resign office, and the close alliance between Austria, Prussia, and the whole of the confederated princes, as well as the feeling universally displayed throughout Germany, demonstrated the energy with which an attack on the side of France would be repelled. The erection of the long-forgotten federal fortresses on the Upper Rhine was also taken at length under consideration, and it was resolved to fortify both Rastadt and Ulm without further delay.

Nor have the statesmen of France failed to threaten Germany with a Russo-Gallic alliance in the spirit of the Erfurt congress of 1808; while Russia perseveres in the prohibitory system so prejudicial to German commerce, attempts to suppress every spark of German nationality in Livonia, Courland, and Esthonia, and fosters Panslavism, or the union of all the Slavonic nations for the subjection of the world, among the Slavonian subjects of Austria in Hungaria and Bohemia. The extension of the Greek church is also connected with this idea. "The European Pentarchy," a work that attracted much attention in 1839, insolently boasts how Russia, in defiance of Austria, has seized the mouths of the Danube, has wedged herself, as it were, by means of Poland, between Austria and Prussia, in a position equally threatening to both, recommends the minor states of Germany to seek the protection of Russia, and darkly hints at the alliance between that power and France.

Nor are the prospects of Germany alone threatened by France and Russia; disturbances, like a fantastic renewal of the horrors of the Middle Age, are ready to burst forth on the other side of the Alps, as though, according to the ancient saga of Germany, the dead were about to rise in order to mingle in the last great contest between the gods and mankind.

CCLXXII. Prussia and Rome

While Austria remains stationary, Prussia progresses. While Austria relies for support upon the aristocracy of the Estates, Prussia relies for hers upon the people, that is to say, upon the public officers taken from the mass of the population, upon the citizens emancipated by the city regulation, upon the peasantry emancipated by the abolition of servitude, of all the other agricultural imposts, and by the division of property, and upon the enrolment of both classes in the Landwehr. While Austria, in fine, renders her German policy subordinate to her European diplomacy, the influence exercised by Prussia upon Europe depends, on the contrary, solely upon that possessed by her in Germany.

Prussia's leading principle appears to be, "All for the people, nothing through the people!" Hence the greatest solicitude for the instruction of the people, whether in the meanest schools or the universities, but under strict political control, under the severest censorship; hence the emancipation of the peasantry, civic self- administration, freedom of trade, the general arming of the people, and, with all these, mere nameless provincial diets, the most complete popular liberty on the widest basis without a representation worthy of the name; hence, finally, the greatest solicitude for the promotion of trade on a grand scale, for the revival of the commerce of Germany, which has lain prostrate since the great wars of the Reformation, for the mercantile unity of Germany, while it is exactly in Prussia that political Unitarians are the most severely punished.

The great measures were commenced in Prussia immediately after the disaster of 1806: first, the reorganization of the army and the abolition of the privileges of the aristocracy in respect to appointments and the possession of landed property; these were, in 1808, succeeded by the celebrated civic regulation which placed the civic administration in the hands of the city deputies freely elected by the citizens; in 1810, by freedom of trade and by the foundation of the new universities of Berlin (instead of Halle), of Breslau (instead of Frankfort on the Oder), and, in 1819, of Bonn, by which means the libraries, museums, and scientific institutions of every description were centralized; in 1814, by the common duty imposed upon every individual of every class, without exception, to bear arms and to do service in the Landwehr up to his thirty-ninth year; in 1821, by the regulation for the division of communes; and, in 1822, by the extra post.

In respect to the popular representation guaranteed by the federal act, Prussia announced, on the 22d of May, 1815, her intention to form provincial diets, from among whose members the general representation or imperial diet, which was to be held at Berlin, was to be elected. When the Rhenish provinces urged the fulfilment of this promise in the Coblentz address of 1817, the reply was, "Those who admonish the king are guilty of doubting the inviolability of his word." Prussia afterward declared that the new regulations would be in readiness by the February of 1819. On the 20th of January, 1820, an edict was published by the government, the first paragraph of which fixed the public debt at $180,091,720,[1] and the second one rendered the contraction of every fresh debt dependent upon the will of the future imperial diet.[2] The definitive regulations in respect to the provincial Estates were finally published on the 5th of June, 1823, but the convocation of a general diet was passed over in silence.

The prosperity of the nations of Germany, wrecked by the great wars of the Reformation, must and will gradually return. Prussia has inherited all the claims upon, and consequently all the duties owing to Germany. Still the general position of Germany is not sufficiently favorable to render the renovation of her ancient Hanseatic commerce possible.[3] It is to be deplored that the attachment of the Prussian cabinet to Russian policy has not at all events modified the commercial restrictions along the whole of the eastern frontier of Prussia,[4] and that Prussia has not been able to effect more with Holland in regard to the question concerning the free navigation of the Rhine.[5] Prussia has, on the other hand, deserved the gratitude of Germany for the zeal with which she promoted the settlement of the Customs' Union, which has, at least in the interior of Germany, removed the greater part of the restrictions upon commercial intercourse, and has a tendency to spread still further. Throughout the last transactions, partly of the Customs' Union, partly of Prussia alone, with England and Holland, a vain struggle against those maritime powers is perceptible. England trades with Germany from every harbor and in every kind of commodity, while German vessels are restricted to home produce and are only free to trade with England from their own ports. Holland finds a market for her colonial wares in Germany, and, instead of taking German manufactured goods in exchange, provides herself from England, throws English goods into Germany, and, in lieu of being, as she ought to be, the great emporium of Germany, is content to remain a mere huge English factory. The Hanse towns have also been converted into mercantile depots for English goods on German soil.