History of the World/History of the World (Bureau Development, Inc.)(1992).BIN/dp/0473/04730.txt

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$Title{Unification Of Germany}
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$Author{Reich, Emil}
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$Subject{german
germany
unity
bismarck
war
france
germans
austria
europe
prussia}
$Date{}
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Title:       Unification Of Germany
Author:      Reich, Emil

Unification Of Germany

1871

     Before the end of 1870, while the Franco-Prussian War was in progress,
the North German Confederation made federative treaties with the Southern
States of Germany, and thus the foundations of Germanic unity were laid, and
in the following year the present Empire was established.  This fulfilment of
a long-cherished dream of German patriots was one of the two chief results of
the war with France, the other being the establishment of the Third Republic
on the ruins of the Second Empire.

     After the surrender of Napoleon III at Sedan (September 2, 1870) and the
proclamation of a republic by the French, the German armies marched on Paris
and laid siege to the city.  Soon a large French army that had been shut up in
Metz surrendered; and when on January 28, 1871, Paris itself capitulated, the
German triumph was complete.  Already it had been suggested in Germany that
the possession of presidential rights in the new confederation by King William
I of Prussia should "be coupled with the imperial title." Later the suggestion
took the form of Parliamentary and diplomatic request, presented to King
William in an official address at Versailles, December 18, 1870; and there, in
the palace, January 18, 1871, he was proclaimed German Emperor.

     William formally assumed the imperial dignity in the presence of all the
German princes or their representatives, and of many military officers.  The
ceremony was conducted by the Crown Prince Frederick William, and a
proclamation to the German people was read by Prince Bismarck, first
Chancellor of the new Empire.  On March 17th the Emperor returned to Berlin,
and in April a constitution for the German Empire was adopted and published.

     In the following pages Emil Reich, who has devoted particular attention
to the development of modern Europe, treats the making of the German Empire
not after the manner of the ordinary chronicler, but in the profound spirit of
the philosophic student.  His survey of the historical antecedents of this
unification of national life is especially illuminating.

     The unity of Germany forms in many ways one of the most instructive
chapters of history.  For it is in Germany perhaps more than in most countries
that the old perennial and terrible fight of man against nature has been
fought out, and finally led to results perhaps all-important.  Like all the
other nations of Europe the Germans, too, have always tried to make the limits
of their country conterminous with the limits of their language. Europe has at
no time been given to the Roman ideal, and just as a united states of Europe
is impossible in the near or in the far future, so it was impracticable in the
last two thousand years.  Europe consists at present of more than forty highly
organized polities, each of which clings to its personality in language, law,
custom, and every other feature of national life with uncompromising tenacity.
Each of these States has at all times tried to combine and unite its members
and to separate itself from its neighbors.  The centripetal forces in Europe
have always been in the minority, and even the greatest emperors and
conquerors have found that their dreams of uniting Europe under one rule were
short-lived and sterile.

     This work of union, this attempt to bring together in one highly
differentiated state the members of one and the same nation, this old
historical endeavor of the European peoples, has been realized in some
countries earlier than in others.

     Of the diverse elements of what was called the Holy Roman Empire of the
Germanic nation in previous centuries, it is very difficult to form a definite
idea.  The number of sovereigns, from a small lord to the Emperor, who all had
sovereign rights over their respective subjects, is amazing.  The Emperor had
no fixed nor considerable revenue; he had no standing and efficient army; and
being at the same time the ruler of Austria and Hungary he had no vital
interest in the welfare of his Provinces outside his Danubian monarchy.  In
fact, the interest of the Hapsburg emperors was rather the other way.  The
more Germany was split up into innumerable little sovereignties, the more it
was unable to offer very great resistance to the Hapsburgs.  The great
international Treaty of 1648 the so-called Peace of Westphalia, had really
increased the almost anarchic state of Germany, and by its terms Sweden and
France stood as guarantors or perpetuators of this condition.  It is almost
impossible to realize the confusion, the chaos, the incredible disorder, that
reigned in Germany in consequence of this political dismemberment.  Each
sovereign had coins of his own, had customs-lines of his own, had little
armies of his own, separate individual codes of law of his own; the religion
of the sovereign decided as a rule the religion of his subjects, and a very
considerable portion of Germany was "under the crozier," belonging as it did
to powerful ecclesiastical potentates such as the Archbishops of Cologne, of
Mainz, of Treves, and the Bishops of Bamberg and Wurtzburg.  Litigation in the
courts of these small sovereigns, and appeals to the central court of the
Emperor, were, as a rule, exposed to the most exasperating delays and to
ruinous expense.

     The German poet Schiller, in his tragedy Kabale und Liebe ("Intrigue and
Love"), has given us a terrible picture of the cruelty and oppression
practised by these petty tyrants.  Commerce flourished very little, and the
German towns had long fallen from that commercial importance which they had
reached in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries.  The people were
indifferent to their lot, and did not even rise when the Landgrave of Hesse
sold them like chattels to the English to fight the Americans in the war of
1775-1783.

     The position of the women, especially in the seventeenth century, was
most degrading.  The German woman, at no time credited with any superior
intellectual energy, was in the seventeenth century an altogether obscure and
insignificant partner of her husband.  It is true that in the first half of
the eighteenth century the status of German women was considerably raised, and
we hear of many an energetic, highly intellectual, and cultivated woman in
that century.

     The Germans, while politically paralyzed and unable to shake off the
torpor that had fallen upon them since the end of the Thirty Years' War in
1648, had yet one great ideal in common.  While Germany was practically a mere
geographical expression, Deutschthum ("Germandom") as they call it themselves,
soon began to exert itself.  To put it in plain words, the unity of the
Germans was, in contrast with that of the English and the French, at first not
a political unity, but an intellectual one.  They were politically as diverse
as if they had been total foreigners to one another.  But intellectually, in
the second half of the eighteenth century, they had begun to learn the immense
value of their language in scientific and literary works, and so to feel a
consciousness of German nationality which, although still lacking political
union, yet prepared the way for it.  In this sense the history of German
literature is even more important to the historian than is the history of
French or English literature.  The works in which for the first time the
unparalleled resources of the German language were made use of were the
greatest possible incentive to a feeling of nationality in Germany.

     Even up to the middle of the eighteenth century all the most valuable
works published in Germany were still written in Latin or in French.  When,
however, in the second half of that century, Lessing, Herder, Goethe, Wieland,
Schiller, and other German writers manifested the power of the German idiom,
its adaptability to prose and poetry alike, its capacity for the highest
philosophical researches as well as for the lowest comedy, its force in
narrative, didactic and descriptive style alike - when all this became clear
to the enthusiastic readers of these authors, the Germans felt that a new era
had begun in their history.  As in the sixteenth century the spiritual effect
of the Reformation had brought home to the Germans their spiritual unity, so
in the second half of the eighteenth century and in the first half of the
nineteenth the constantly increasing number of classical works written in
German impressed upon the Germans the fact that they were fast becoming united
intellectually.

     The military disasters that fell upon the Germans in 1805-1807 could not
but impart to every German a feeling that a nation cannot rest with a unity
that is only intellectual and spiritual.  More than that was needed. Political
unity was required, and it now became not only a dream, but a practical
interest, for all Germans to consolidate their political edifice in order to
reap the full benefit of their spiritual and intellectual unity.  At that time
the question really was, not whether the political unity of Germany should be
attempted - for on that point all German-speaking nations were at one - but
which German power should realize the unity?  The house of Hapsburg played,
even in 1815, a considerable role in the so-called German Confederation; and
until 1850 the King of Prussia, the only rival of the Hapsburgs, could not
secure any ascendency or hegemony in that Confederation; and thus it was that
many expected the unity of Germany to come from Austria. The problem,
therefore, which the Germans had to solve in the second half of the nineteenth
century was, whether their political unity should come from South Germany or
Austria, whence had come their spiritual and intellectual unity, or whether it
should come from North Germany or Prussia, which had hitherto done little or
nothing for the intellectual regeneration of the nation except the
establishment of a few universities, and which in 1807 and 1804 had proved
itself to be utterly helpless, disorganized, and decadent. Those who hoped to
see the unity of Germany realized by Austria were singularly mistaken about
the nature of that power.  The Hapsburgs, for reasons that are not quite
clear, have never been able to unite any of the nations that have come under
their rule in a real union.  Austria (or rather the Hapsburgs) has at all
times been unsuccessful in its attempts at bringing about that political and
national unity which in the latter half of the nineteenth century many a
patriotic German hoped to see introduced into his own country.

     In order to understand this important point very clearly, we must hark
back for a moment to the times of a struggle that took place long before the
period here treated, but the influence of which is clearly evident at the
present day.  We mean the famous Silesian wars, which, with the interruption
of a few years (1748-1756) raged from 1740 to 1763.  In 1741 Frederick the
Great succeeded, by one victory, in wresting from Austria the large and
fertile Province of Silesia.  Prussia, which obtained the heterogeneous
elements of three portions of Poland in 1772, 1793, and 1795, was yet rich in
her German Provinces, especially after the Congress of Vienna in 1815, when
she obtained large provinces on the Rhine; and her national unity was
infinitely superior to that of Austria.  She occupied a very considerable part
of Germany proper, had German people as subjects, and a unity of language and
also largely of religion; all that she lacked was some one great statesman who
might realize the old hope.  On the other hand, Austria's ethnography was a
bar to any statesmen who should have tried to realize the unity of Germany.
Prussia, indeed, wanted great men; Austria could not have done much even with
the greatest man at the helm.  Moreover, Austria had neither a powerfully
organized and united army, nor a regular and well-stocked exchequer.  Prussia,
through the reforms introduced by non-Prussian statesmen - such as Stein,
Hardenberg, Scharnhorst, and Altenstein - from 1807, had created a system of
national education both in law - and high-schools, by works both scientific
and literary; and in her army as well as in her national revenue she had made
herself highly efficient.

     The old question whether Athens made Themistocles or Themistocles made
Athens is to the mind of many a historian an insoluble problem.  However, we
find that in any case of a really great man in history the possibilities of
his career had long been prepared by the state or the nation to which he
belonged.  It cannot be denied that the influence of Bismarck after he came to
power and to the enjoyment of the complete confidence of King William of
Prussia was a decisive factor in the history of that country and of Germany.
Yet it is equally certain that without the previous reforms made by such men
as Luther, Melanchthon, and Brenz, and the still greater literary and artistic
lights of Germany, Bismarck's genius alone could not have effected anything.

     From the Revolution in 1848 to the end of the 'fifties Prussia was still
held to be subordinate to Austria in point of influence in Germany; and an
attack on Austria was not considered in any way as promising sure success for
the Prussian army.  At the same time the Prussian army, since the great defeat
of Jena in 1806, had been reformed and improved and made a fighting-instrument
second to none in Europe, and, as subsequent events have proved, superior to
most.

     When Austria in 1859 had been defeated by France, and had been deprived
of most of her territory in Italy; when at the same time the uncompromising
position of the Hungarians toward Austria rendered her interior security more
than problematic - a new view of the relation of the Danubian monarchy to
Prussia was taken by Prussian statesmen.  Of those men, Bismarck was even at
that time the most important.  He came from a small family in North Germany,
and had to recommend him neither wealth nor remarkable personal connections.
His strongest recommendation was his extraordinary political genius.  All his
measures were based on information regarding the persons and circumstances he
was called upon to deal with, such as very few statesmen have ever used.  In
addition to a perfect knowledge of Prussia, and of the influential men and
women of recent history, Bismarck had a rare insight into the general
political state of Europe.  He was master of the French language, and had also
a surprising command of English; and when he was ambassador in Russia he
acquired a working knowledge of Russian.  Of the courts and the political
situation of the Powers in Europe he had acquired from personal study and from
a judicious course of reading such ample and accurate knowledge that as a rule
he was better informed about the tendencies and character of political events
than most men dealing with them directly or indirectly.  Accordingly, he was
seldom mistaken in the strategy of his actions, though at all periods of his
life the wisdom of his methods was challenged, doubted, attacked, and even
ridiculed by men in important and commanding positions.

     Bismarck had firmly seized the necessity of bringing about the unity of
Germany under Prussian ascendency by the most careful conduct of Prussia's
foreign policy.  He knew that the consummation of the great work could not be
effected by introduction or academical spread of mere ideas.  He knew it was
preeminently a matter of diplomacy and war.  He clearly indicated, in letters
and speeches, that while some nations may bring about their national unity
through treaties, or the slow work of mutual assimilation, the Germans, he
rightly held, could not possibly realize their secular hope without
establishing themselves as a great military power.  This is the sense of his
famous utterance that history is made by blood and iron.  Nobody admired
Cavour, the unifier of Italy, more than did Bismarck; likewise nobody
acknowledged the surpassing merit of Francis Deak in bringing about the unity
of Hungary in a peaceful way more than did Bismarck; but nobody saw more
clearly that the problems with which Deak or Cavour had to contend, although
identical in object with that of Bismarck, yet had a character so different
that for their realization other means were required.  As diplomatic reverses
at home or abroad could never discourage him, even so the greatest triumphs in
the field or in diplomatic negotiations were never able to beguile him into
excessive actions.  We must admire both his courage and his moderation.

     His adversaries were numerous.  It is well known that the Empress
Frederick III, the daughter of Queen Victoria, was the persistent and
implacable enemy of Bismarck; the historian Mommsen was likewise continually
hostile to him; and it is certain that the great man lived in a world of
incessant intrigues directed against his person and against his work.  His
greatest successes did not persuade the Empress Frederick that she was in
error, and all his enemies and opponents were conspiring to shake the nerve of
the Titan.

     In addition to physical resources of the rarest strength, Bismarck, like
most great men, had also an unusual amount of good luck.  Like Richelieu and
Mazarin, Bismarck could, under all circumstances, count on the unswerving
attachment and friendship of his sovereign.  Against this powerful friendship
and steadfast confidence of the monarch all the shafts of envy and jealousy
were hurled in vain.  Not that the Emperor always shared the opinions or the
desires of Bismarck; in fact, he was, in 1864, in 1866, and in 1870, very
reluctant to accept the policy of his great minister.  But in the end he
consented to it.

     The victories of the Prussians in 1866, the ascendency of Prussians in
Germany since the day of Sadowa, were events the importance of which was clear
to every statesman and diplomatist in Europe.  Thiers, Edgar Quinet, and other
politicians and public men of France pointed out clearly that Bismarck could
not possibly rest on the laurels of his Austrian campaign; that he was
necessarily striving to complete the unity of Germany, which in 1867 was yet
far from complete.  Bismarck in 1866 had united the Northern States of Germany
into the North German Confederacy; but the Southern States - Bavaria,
Wurtemberg, and Baden - were not yet combined with Prussia.  It has been said
that if his military success over Bavaria in 1866 had been as complete as his
success over Austria, Bismarck might very well have forced Bavaria and other
Southern States of Germany to join the North-German Confederation.  In that
way the Franco-Prussian War might have been avoided, and the unity of Germany
secured in a peaceful manner, without the terrible loss in men and money
entailed by that gigantic war.

     It cannot be denied that in these arguments there are some elements of
truth; and Bavaria might have been persuaded to join the North German
Confederacy without the terrible war against France.  On the other hand,
Bismarck's considerations were of a deeper and, on the whole, of a juster
nature.  He felt that the South German States could not be permanently held as
members of a united Germany unless a great and successful war should put an
end to any attempt at separation.

     Moreover, those Southern States - in 1867 as well as in 1740 or in 1645 -
were always coquetting with France, and had, by secular tradition and habit, a
policy of friendship, nay, of alliance with the French.  These old historical
traditions and tendencies, Bismarck rightly felt, could not be efficiently
combated by anything short of a successful war against France, in which the
Bavarians too would be obliged to undergo the sufferings and accept the
sacrifices necessary to the completion of the great plan.  Bismarck therefore,
made no definite attempt at persuading the Southern States from 1866 to 1870
to join the North German Confederation.

     The war between Prussia and France at once manifested the inner unity of
the German nations; for the Southern States at once joined Prussia and the
Northern States; and under the leadership of Moltke, of the Crown Prince
Frederick, and of Prince Frederick Charles, the German armies invaded France,
and in nearly every single battle worsted the French, even when, as at
Gravelotte, the Germans had not a superiority of numbers.

     At the first blush it appears inexplicable that the German generals, none
of whom had seen or experienced a great war - except the war of 1866, which
lasted only a few weeks - should prove so immeasurably superior to the French
generals, every one of whom had gone through numerous campaigns previous to
1870.  In fact, it must be said that in 1870 theory proved superior to
practice; and the German officers, mere theorists, so to speak, undid all the
plans, practice, and routine of the French generals.  The explanation of this
remarkable puzzle may be found in the fact that the experience of the French
generals was great indeed, but it had been acquired, not in Europe and against
European armies so much as in Mexico, in Algeria, in China; that is, against
nations of a civilization and science inferior to those of Europe.  The
Germans were prepared for that war, and for more than two generations had
studied its possibilities in minutest detail.

     After the terrible disasters of Sedan and Metz came the siege of Paris.
The French, maddened by their unprecedented reverses, accepted for a time the
guidance of Gambetta, a man of energy and insight, but one who lacked the
ruthless powers of an efficient dictator.  He was able to create new armies,
to offer to the Germans a resistance on the Loire and in the north of France
which in many ways was more efficient than that offered to the Germans by the
old regular army of France.  The Germans, after October, 1870, were unable to
repeat those wholesale captures of armies which characterized the first stage
of their war with France; yet Gambetta was not quite equal to the different
situation created in France through the German victories.

     We now know, from German military writers, that the Germans could not
have continued the war for another three months, after January, 1871.  The
winter was terribly cold; Bismarck, as he tells us himself in his memoirs,
spent sleepless nights in apprehensions of international interference; the
financial resources of Germany began to be exhausted, and a popular and
implacable war, in the manner of the Spanish resistance to Napoleon, would
have forced the Germans to retreat, and may have possibly deprived them of
Lorraine, if not also of Alsace.

     However, in France, as usual, there were strong parties filled with
personal ambition, who, in the collapse of the old regime, welcomed an
opportunity for raising themselves to power.  Of these parties Adolphe Thiers
was the head.  He wanted peace, and peace by any means, for he knew that peace
meant his own coming to power.  He had been unsuccessful in his long and
wearisome travels to the various courts of Europe asking for help and
intervention.  Bismarck - and that was his greatest diplomatic feat - had so
completely isolated France that neither England nor Russia seriously thought
of intervening.  After the occupation of Paris, France was obliged to accept,
in 1871, the terms of peace dictated by Bismarck at Frankfort-on-the-Main, by
the terms of which France lost Alsace altogether, and of Lorraine the portion
inhabited by German-speaking people; and, moreover, she was obliged to pay an
indemnity of $1,000,000,000.  The real cost of the war to France was
$5,000,000,000, and but for the immense wealth of the country the war would
have ruined it financially, as it did politically.

     The Germans at Versailles - that is, in the very palace of Louis XIV, who
in the seventeenth century had so deeply humiliated the Prussian Elector and
the Germans generally - constituted themselves into the German Empire. King
William of Prussia accepted the new dignity of the imperial crown rather
reluctantly; and there were great difficulties about the title, which was
finally settled as King William, German Emperor.  Thus the great purpose of
Bismarck, to bring about the unity of Germany by a successful war with France,
rather than by negotiations and treaties with and between German sovereigns
themselves, was completely realized; and Germany, which hitherto had been a
lax and inefficient conglomeration of small and great sovereignties, was now
launched on a career of political and commercial prosperity, and speedily
became a world-power.