The strength of these forces was revealed when the February revolution of 1848 in Paris gave the signal for the outbreak of popular movements throughout Europe. The effect of the revolution in Vienna, involving the fall of Metternich (May 13) and followed by the nationalist movements in Hungary and Bohemia, was stupendous in Germany. Accustomed to look to Austria for guidance and material support, the princes everywhere found themselves helpless in face of the popular clamour. The only power which might have stemmed the tide was Prussia. But Frederick William’s emotional and kindly temperament little fitted him to use “the mailed fist”; though the riot which broke out in Berlin on the 15th of March was suppressed by the troops with but little bloodshed, the king shrank with horror from the thought of fighting his “beloved Berliners,” and when on the night of the 18th the fighting was renewed, he entered into negotiation with the insurgents, negotiations that resulted in the withdrawal of the troops from Berlin. The next day, Frederick William, with characteristic histrionic versatility, was heading a procession round the streets of Berlin, wrapped in the German tricolour, and extolling in a letter to the indignant tsar the consummation of “the glorious German revolution.”
The collapse of the Prussian autocracy involved that of the lesser German potentates. On the 30th of March the federal diet hoisted the German tricolour and authorized the assembling of the German national parliament atGerman nationalism.Frankfort. Arrangements for this had already been made without official sanction. A number of deputies, belonging to different legislative assemblies, taking it upon themselves to give voice to the national demands, had met at Heidelberg, and a committee appointed by them had invited all Germans who then were, or who had formerly been, members of diets, as well as some other public men, to meet at Frankfort for the purpose of considering the question of national reform. About 500 representatives accepted the invitation. They constituted themselves a preliminary parliament (Vorparlament), and at once began to provide for the election of a national assembly. It was decided that there should be a representative for every group of 50,000 inhabitants, and that the election should be by universal suffrage. A considerable party wished that the preliminary parliament should continue to act until the assembly should be formed, but this was overruled, the majority contenting themselves with the appointment of a committee of 50, whose duty it should be in the interval to guard the national interests. Some of those who were discontented with this decision retired from the preliminary parliament, and a few of them, of republican sympathies, called the population of Upper Baden to arms. The rising was put down by the troops of Baden, but it did considerable injury by awakening the fears of the more moderate portion of the community. Great hindrances were put in the way of the elections, but, as the Prussian and Austrian governments were too much occupied with their immediate difficulties to resist to the uttermost, the parliament was at last chosen, and met at Frankfort on the 18th May. The old diet, without being formally dissolved, (an omission that was to have notable consequences) broke up, and the national representatives had before them a clear field. Their task would in any case have been one of extreme difficulty.Frankfort parliament.The new-born sentiment of national unity disguised a variety of conflicting ideals, as well as deep-seated traditional local antagonisms; the problem of constructing a new Germany out of states, several of which, and those the most powerful, were largely composed of non-German elements, was sure to lead to international complications; moreover, the military power of the monarchies had only been temporarily paralysed, not destroyed. Yet, had the parliament acted with promptitude and discretion it might have been successful. Neither Austria nor Prussia was for some time in a position to thwart it, and the sovereigns of the smaller states were too much afraid of the revolutionary elements manifested on all sides to oppose its will. But the Germans had had no experience of free political life. Nearly every deputy had his own theory of the course which ought to be pursued, and felt sure that the country would go to ruin if it were not adopted. Learned professors and talkative journalists insisted on delivering interminable speeches and on examining in the light of ultimate philosophical principles every proposal laid before the assembly. Thus precious time was lost, violent antagonisms were called forth, the patience of the nation was exhausted, and the reactionary forces were able to gather strength for once more asserting themselves. The very first important question brought out the weaknesses of the deputies. This related to the nature of the central provisional executive. A committee appointed to discuss the matter suggested that there should be a directory of three members, appointed by the German governments, subject to the approval of the parliament, and ruling by means of ministers responsible to the latter body. This elaborate scheme found favour with a large number of members, but others insisted that there should be a president or a central committee, appointed by the parliament, while another party pleaded that the parliament itself should exercise executive as well as legislative functions. At last, after a vast amount of tedious and useless discussion, it was agreed that the parliament should appoint an imperial vicar (Reichsverweser) who should carry on the government by means of a ministry selected by himself; and on the motion of Heinrich von Gagern the archduke John of Austria was chosen by a large majority for the office. With as little delay as possible he formed an imperial cabinet, and there were hopes that, as his appointment was generally approved both by the sovereigns and the people, more rapid progress would be made with the great and complicated work in hand. Unfortunately, however, it was necessary to enter upon the discussion of the fundamental laws, a subjectpresenting many opportunities for the display of rhetoric and intellectual subtlety. It was soon obvious that beneath all varieties of individual opinion there were two bitterly hostile tendencies—republican and constitutionalist. These two parties attacked each other with constantly growing animosity, and in a few weeks sensible men outside the parliament gave up all hope of their dealing satisfactorily with the problem they had been appointed to solve.
In the midst of these disputes the attention of the nation was occupied by a question which had arisen before the outbreak of the revolutionary movements—the so-called “Schleswig-Holstein question” (q.v.). In 1846Schleswig-Holstein.Christian VIII. of Denmark had officially proclaimed that Schleswig and the greater part of Holstein were indissolubly connected with the Danish monarchy. This excited vehement opposition among the Germans, on the ground that Holstein, although subject to the king of Denmark, was a member of the German confederation, and that in virtue of ancient treaties it could not be severed from Schleswig. In 1848 the German party in the duchies, headed by Prince Frederick of Augustenburg, rose against the Danish government. Frederick VII., who had just succeeded Christian VIII., put down the rebellion, but Prussia, acting in the name of the confederation, despatched an army against the Danes, and drove them from Schleswig. The Danes, who were supported by Russia, responded by blockading the Baltic ports, which Germany, having no navy, was unable effectually to defend. By the mediation of Great Britain an armistice was concluded, and the Prussian troops evacuated the northern districts of Schleswig. As the Danes soon afterwards took possession of Schleswig again, the Prussians once more drove them back, but, in view of the threatening attitude of the powers, Frederick William summoned up courage to flout the opinion of the German parliament, and on the 26th of August, without the central government being consulted, an armistice of seven months was agreed upon at Malmoe.
The full significance of this event was not at once realized. To indignant patriots it seemed no more than a piece of perfidy, for which Prussia should be called to account by united Germany. The provisional government of the duchiesDisputes in the Frankfort assembly.appealed from Prussia to the German regent; and the Frankfort parliament hotly took up its cause. A large majority voted an order countermanding the withdrawal of the Prussian troops, in spite of the protest of the ministry, who saw that it would be impossible to make it effective. The ministry resigned, but no other could be found to take its place; and the majority began to realize the situation. The central government depended ultimately on the armed support of the two great powers; to quarrel with those would be to ruin the constitution, or at best to play into the hands of the extreme revolutionists. On the 14th of September the question of the convention of Malmoe again came up for discussion, and was angrily debated. The democrats called their adherents to arms against the traitors who were preparing to sell the Schleswig-Holsteiners. The Moderates took alarm; they had no stomach for an open war with the governments; and in the end the convention was confirmed by a sufficient majority. The result was civil war in the streets of Frankfort; two deputies were murdered; and the parliament, which could think of no better way of meeting the crisis than by continuing “with imposing calm” to discuss “fundamental rights,” was only saved from the fury of the mob by Prussian troops. Its existence was saved, but its prestige had vanished; and the destinies of the German people were seen to be in the hands that held the sword.
While these events were in progress, it seemed not impossible that the Austrian empire would fall to pieces. Bohemia and the Italian states were in revolt, and the Hungarians strove with passionate earnestness for independence.The revolution in Austria.Towards the end of 1848 Vienna was completely in the hands of the revolutionary party, and it was retaken only after desperate fighting. A reactionary ministry, headed by Prince Schwarzenberg, was then raised to power, and in order that a strong policy might be the more vigorously pushed forward, the emperor Ferdinand resigned, and was succeeded by his nephew, Francis Joseph.
The prospects of reform were not much more favourable in Prussia. The assembly summoned amid the revolutionary excitement of March met on the 22nd of May. Demands for a constitutional system were urged withReform in Prussia.great force, and they would probably have been granted but for the opposition due to the violence of politicians out of doors. The aristocratic class saw ruin before it if the smallest concession were made to popular wishes, and it soon recovered from the terror into which it had been plunged at the outbreak of the revolution. Extreme antagonism was excited by such proposals as that the king should no longer be said to wear his crown “by the grace of God”; and the animosity between the liberal and the conservative sections was driven to the highest pitch by the attack of the democratic majority of the diet on the army and the attempt to remodel it in the direction of a national militia. Matters came to a crisis at the end of October when the diet passed a resolution calling on the king to intervene in favour of the Viennese revolutionists. When, on the evening of the 30th, a mob surrounded the palace, clamouring for the king to give effect to this resolution, Frederick William lost patience, ordered General Wrangel to occupy Berlin with troops, and on the 2nd of November placed Count Brandenburg, a scion of the royal house and a Prussian of the old school, at the head of a new ministry. On the pretext that fair deliberation was impossible in the capital, the assembly was now ordered to meet in Brandenburg, while troops were concentrated near Berlin and a state of siege was proclaimed. In vain the assembly protested and continued its sittings, going even so far as to forbid the payment of taxes while it was subjected to illegal treatment. It was forced in the end to submit. But the discussions in Brandenburg were no more successful than those in Berlin; and at last, on the 5th of December, the king dissolved the assembly, granted a constitution about which it had not been consulted, and gave orders for the election of a representative chamber.
About the time that the Prussian parliament was thus created, and that the emperor Ferdinand resigned, the Frankfort parliament succeeded in formulating the fundamental laws, which were duly proclaimed to be those of GermanyThe question of the constitution.as it was now to be constituted. The principal clauses of the constitution then began to be discussed. By far the most difficult question was the relation in which Austria should stand to the Germany of the future. There was a universal wish that the Austrian Germans should be included in the German state; on the other hand, it was felt that if all the various nationalities of Austria formed a united monarchy, and if this monarchy as a whole were included in the confederation, it would necessarily overshadow Germany, and expose her to unnecessary external dangers. It was therefore resolved that, although a German country might be under the same ruler as non-German lands, it could not be so joined to them as to form with them a single nation. Had the parliament adopted this resolution at once, instead of exhausting itself by pedantic disquisitions on the abstract principles of jurisprudence, it might have hoped to triumph; but Austria was not likely to submit to so severe a blow at the very time when she was strong enough to appoint a reactionary government, and had nearly re-established her authority, not only in Vienna, but in Bohemia and in Italy. Prince Schwarzenberg took the earliest opportunity to declare that the empire could not assent to any weakening of its influence. Bitter strife now broke out in the parliament between the Great German (Gross-Deutsch) and Little German (Klein-Deutsch) parties. Two of the ministers resigned, and one of those who took their place, Heinrich von Gagern (q.v.), proposed that, since Austria was to be a united state, she should not enter the confederation, but that her relations to Germany should be regulated by a special act of union. This of course meant that Prussia should be at the head of Germany, and recommended itself to the majority of theconstitutional party. It was resisted by the Austrian members, who were supported by the ultramontanes and the democrats, both of whom disliked Prussia, the former because of her Protestantism, the latter because of her bureaucratic system. Gagern’s proposal was, however, adopted. Immediately afterwards the question as to the character of the executive was raised. Some voted that a directory of princes should be appointed, others that there should be a president, eligible from the whole German nation; but the final decision was that the headship of the state should be offered by the parliament to some particular German prince, and that he should bear the title of German emperor.
The whole subject was as eagerly discussed throughout the country as in Frankfort. Austria firmly opposed the idea of a united German state, insisting that the Austrian emperor could not consent to be subordinate to anyProposed empire.other prince. She was supported by Bavaria, but on the other side were Prussia, Brunswick, Baden, Nassau, Mecklenburg and various other countries, besides the Hanseatic towns. For some time Austria offered no counter scheme, but she ultimately proposed that there should be a directory of seven princes, the chief place being held alternately by a Prussian and an Austrian imperial vicar. Nothing came of this suggestion, and in due time the parliament proceeded to the second reading of the constitution. It was revised in a democratic sense, but the imperial title was maintained, and a narrow majority decided that it should be hereditary. Frederick William IV. of Prussia was then chosen emperor.
All Germany awaited with anxiety the reply of Frederick William. It was thought not improbable that he would accept the honour offered him, for in the early part of his reign he had spoken of German unity as enthusiastically as of liberty, and, besides, the opportunity was surprisingly favourable. The larger number of the North-German states were at least not unwilling to submit to the arrangement; and Austria, whose opposition in ordinary circumstances would have been fatal, was paralysed by her struggle with Hungary. Frederick William, however, whose instincts were far from democratic, refused “to pick up a crown out of the gutter”; and the deputation which waited upon him was dismissed with the answer that he could not assume the imperial title without the full sanction of the princes and the free cities.
This answer was in reality a death-blow to the hopes of German patriots, but the parliament affected to believe that its cause was not yet lost, and appointed a committee to see that the provisions of the constitution were carriedEnd of Frankfort parliament.out. A vigorous agitation began in the country for the acceptance of the constitution by the governments. The king of Württemberg was forced to accede to it; and in Saxony, Baden and Rhenish Bavaria armed multitudes kept the sovereigns in terror. Prussia, which, following the example of Austria, had recalled her representatives from Frankfort, sent her troops to put down these risings, and on the 21st of May 1849 the larger number of the deputies to the parliament voluntarily resigned their seats. A few republican members held on by it, and transferred the sittings to Stuttgart. Here they even elected an imperial government, but they had no longer any real influence, and on the 18th of June they were forcibly dispersed by order of the Württemberg ministry.
Although Frederick William had refused to become emperor, he was unwilling to miss altogether the opportunity afforded by the difficulties of Austria. He invited the states to send representatives to Berlin to discuss the conditionThe Prussian Union.of Germany; and he concluded a treaty with the kings of Saxony and Hanover. Two days afterwards the three allies agreed upon a constitution which was in many respects identical with that drawn up by the Frankfort parliament. The functions of the executive were, however, extended, the electoral law was made less democratic, and it was decided that, instead of an emperor, there should be merely a supreme chief aided by a college of princes. This constitution was accepted by a number of states, which assumed the name of “The Union,” and on the 20th of March 1850 a parliament consisting of two houses met in Erfurt. Both houses accepted the constitution; and, immediately after they broke up, the members of the Union assembled in Berlin, and a provisional college of princes was elected. By that time, however, the whole situation of Germany had changed. In the autumn of 1849 Austria had succeeded, by the help of Russia, in quellingPolicy of Austria.the Hungarian insurrection, and she was then in no mood to let herself be thrust aside by Prussia. Encouraged by her, Hanover and Saxony had severed themselves from the Union, and Saxony, Württemberg and Bavaria arrived at an understanding as to a wholly new constitution. Afterwards all four states, with several others, accepted the invitation of Austria to consider the propriety of re-establishing the Confederation. The representatives of the states favourable to this proposal,i.e.Austria, Luxemburg, Denmark and the four kingdoms, came together in Frankfort on the 4th of September 1850, constituted themselves aPlenumof the old diet and refused to admit the other states except under the terms of the act of 1815.
Thus the issue to which the events of about a century had been pointing was apparently raised; Germany was divided into two hostile parties, one set of states grouping themselves around Austria, another around Prussia.Disturbance in Hesse-Cassel.A difficulty which arose in Hesse-Cassel almost compelled the powers to bring their differences to the test of war. In this small state the liberal movement of 1848 had been followed by reaction, and the elector ventured to replace Hassenpflug, the unpopular minister who had been driven from power. Hassenpflug, being detested by the chamber, dissolved it in June 1850; but the new one was not less hostile, and refused to sanction the collection of the taxes until it had considered the budget. For this offence it also was dissolved, and orders were issued for the raising of the taxes without its consent. Many officials refused to obey; the judges remained loyal to the constitution; and when attempts were made to solve the difficulty by the army, the officers instructed to act resigned in a body. Meanwhile, Hassenpflug had appealed to the representatives in Frankfort who claimed to be the restored diet, and under the influence of Austria they resolved to support him. Prussia, on the other hand, announced its determination to carry out the principles of the Union and to maintain the Hessian constitution. Austrian and Bavarian troops having entered Hesse, a Prussian army immediately occupied Cassel, and war appeared to be imminent. Prussia, however, was wholly unprepared for war; and, when this was realized, Radowitz, the foreign minister, who had so far pursued a vigorous policy, retired, and was replaced by Manteuffel, who, although the whole Prussian army was mobilized, began by making concessions. The Union was dissolved; and after Austria had despatched an ultimatum formulating her demands, Baron Manteuffel met Prince Schwarzenberg at Olmütz, and, by a convention signed on the 29th of November 1850, virtually yielded everything he insisted upon. The difficulty in Hesse was to be left to the decision of the German governments; and as soon as possible ministerial conferences were to be held in Dresden, with a view to the settlement of the German constitution.
The Austrian government strove to secure the appointment of a stronger executive than had hitherto existed; but its proposals met with steady opposition from Prussia. Every Prussian scheme was in like manner resistedDiet restored.by Austria. Thus, from the sheer inability of the assembled ministers to devise a plan on which all could agree, Prussia and the states that had joined her in the Union were compelled to recognize the Frankfort diet. From the 12th of June 1851 its sittings went on as if nothing had occurred since it was dispersed.
This wretched fiasco was hardly less satisfactory to the majority of Germans than the manner in which the national claims in Schleswig-Holstein were maintained. The armistice of Malmoe having expired in March 1849, the war with Denmark was resumed. A considerable army was despatched againstthe Danes by the Frankfort government, but on the 10th of July an armistice was signed at Berlin for six months, and a year afterwards Prussia concluded peace. The inhabitants of the duchies, however, continued the war. During the interview at Olmütz between Manteuffel and Schwarzenberg it was agreed that, like the affairs of Hesse-Cassel, those of Schleswig-Holstein should be submitted to the decision of all German states, but that, in the meantime, Prussia and Austria should act together. By the intervention of Austrian troops peace was restored; and when, early in 1852, the government of Denmark, in providing a constitution for the whole monarchy, promised to appoint separate ministers for Schleswig and Holstein, and to do equal justice to the German and the Danish populations, the two powers declared themselves satisfied and the Austrian forces were withdrawn. The diet also, after some delay, professed to be content with this arrangement. While it was discussing the subject, a conference of the European powers met in London, and by the protocol of May 28, 1852, settled that Frederick VII. of Denmark should be succeeded by Christian, duke of Glücksburg, and that the duchies should be indissolubly united to the Danish monarchy. Austria and Prussia accepted the protocol, but it was not signed by the diet.
In all these later events the first place had been taken by Austria. The temporary dissolution of the Zollverein in 1851 gave her an opportunity of trying to extend her influence; she demanded that a union should be formedAustria and the Zollverein.of which she should be the leading member. A congress of all German states, with the exception of Prussia and one or two states which sympathized with her, was held in Vienna; and it was followed by several other congresses favourable to Austrian pretensions. Prussia, however, being here on strong ground, refused to give way; and not only was the customs union restored in accordance with her wishes, but Austria concluded with her in 1853 a treaty of commerce which embodied some important concessions.
Germany had now fairly entered a period which, although it did not last very long, was, in some respects, as humiliating as any in her history. The popular movement, from which great things had been hoped, had on somePolitical reaction.occasions almost touched its goal; and, as might have been expected, a reaction set in, which the princes knew how to turn to the fullest advantage. The Austrian government, after the subjection of Hungary, withdrew every concession it had made under pressure, and established a thorough despotism, trampling upon the rights of the individual nationalities, and forcing all its subjects into a common political mould. In Prussia the parliament, summoned by the king on the 5th of December 1848, met early in the following year. Although the democrats had declined to vote, it was not conservative enough for the court, and not till the 31st of January 1850 was an understanding arrived at respecting the constitution. The system thus established was repeatedly revised, and always with the same object—to reduce to a minimum the power of the national representatives, and to exalt and extend that of the government. At the same time the ministry persecuted the press, and allowed hardly a whisper of discontent to pass unpunished. The smaller states followed with alacrity in the steps of the two leading powers. The Liberal ministries of 1848 were dismissed, the constitutions were changed or abolished, and new chambers were elected under a severely restricted suffrage. Had the battle been fairly fought out between the governments and the people, the latter would still have triumphed; but the former had now, in the Frankfort diet, a mightier instrument than ever against freedom. What it could do was seen too clearly from the case of Hesse-Cassel. After the settlement of Olmütz, federal troops occupied that country, and federal execution was carried out with shameful harshness. Martial law was everywhere proclaimed; officers, and all classes of officials who had incurred the displeasure of the government, were subjected to arbitrary penalties; and such was the misery of the people that multitudes of them were compelled to emigrate. The constitution having been destroyed by theBund, the elector proclaimed one of his own making; but even the chamber elected under the provisions of this despotic scheme could not tolerate his hateful tyranny, and there were incessant disputes between it and the government. TheBundinterfered in a like spirit in Hanover, although with less disastrous results, after the accession of George V. in 1851. For the whole of Germany this was emphatically the period of petty despotism; and not only from Hesse, but from all parts of the country there was a vast stream of emigration, mainly to the New World.
The outbreak of the Crimean War profoundly moved the German nation. The sympathies of Austria were necessarily with the Western powers, and in Prussia the majority of the people took the same side; but the PrussianCrimean War.government, which was at this time completely under the control of Russia, gave its moral support to the tsar. It did, indeed, assent to a treaty—afterwards signed on behalf of the confederation—by which Prussia and Austria guaranteed each other, but it resolutely opposed the mobilization of the confederate army. The Prussian people were keenly irritated by the cordial relations between their court and the most despotic power in Europe. They felt that they were thus most unjustly separated from the main stream of Western progress.
During the Crimean War the political reaction continued with unabated force. In Prussia the government appeared resolved to make up for its temporary submission to the popular will by the utmost violence on which it could venture. A general election took place in the autumn of 1855, and so harshly was the expression of opinion restrained that a chamber was returned with scarcely a single liberal element of serious importance. The feudalists called for a still further revision of the constitution, and urged that even the reforms effected by Stein should be undone. In Bavaria a chamber elected about the same time as that of Prussia was rather less docile; but the government shared to the full the absolutist tendencies of the day, and energetically combated the party which stood up for law and the constitution. The Hanoverian government, backed by the Frankfort diet, was still more successful in its warfare with the moderate reformers whom it was pleased to treat as revolutionists; and in Austria the feudalists so completely gained the upper hand that on the 18th of August 1855 the government signed a concordat, by which the state virtually submitted itself to the control of the church.
The German people seemed to have lost both the power and the will to assert their rights; but in reality they were deeply dissatisfied. And it was clear to impartial observers that, in the event of any great strain upon the powerPrussia and Switzerland.of the governments, the absolutist system would break down. The first symptom that the reaction had attained its utmost development displayed itself in Prussia, whose attention was for a time distracted from home politics by a quarrel with Switzerland. The Swiss authorities had imprisoned some foolish royalists of Neuchâtel, in which the house of Hohenzollern had never resigned its rights. War was threatened by Prussia, but when the prisoners were set free, the two states entered upon negotiations, and in the summer of 1857 King Frederick William withdrew all claims to the principality.
Soon after this, the mental condition of the king made it necessary that his duties should be undertaken by a substitute, and his brother William, the prince of Prussia, took his place for three months. In October 1858 the princeRegency of William of Prussia.became regent. The accession to power of the new regent was universally recognized as involving a change of system. The temper of William, in contradistinction to that of his brother, was pre-eminently practical; and he had the reputation of a brave, piously orthodox Prussian soldier. The nickname “cartridge-prince” (Kartätschenprinz) bestowed upon him during the troubles of ’48 was undeserved; but he was notoriously opposed to Liberalism and, had he followed his own instincts, he would have modified the constitution in a reactionary sense. Fortunately, however, he was singularly open to conviction,and Otto von Bismarck, though not yet in office, was already in his confidence. Bismarck realized that, in the struggle with Austria which he foresaw, Prussia could only be weakened were she to take up an attitude of opposition to the prevailing Liberal sentiment, and that to tamper with the constitution would not only be inexpedient, but useless, since special measures could always be resorted to, to meet special circumstances. The interests of Prussia, he urged, had been too often sacrificed to abstract ideas. William listened and was convinced. He not only left the constitution intact, but he dismissed Manteuffel’s “feudal” ministry and replaced it with moderate Liberals.
The change was more revolutionary in appearance than in reality. Manteuffel and his policy were associated in the regent’s mind with the humiliation of Olmütz, and the dismissal of the ministry symbolized the reversal of this policy. William believed with his whole soul in the unification of Germany, and in Prussia as its instrument; and, if he doubted, it was only as to the how and when. Of one thing he was certain—that whoever aspired to rule over Germany must be prepared to seize it (letter to von Natzmer, May 20, 1849). This attitude had little in common with the Liberal appeal to the voice of the people. Such a revolutionary foundation might be good enough for the ephemeral empires of France; the appeal of Prussia should be to the God of battles alone.
The antagonism between these conflicting principles was not long in revealing itself. In Germany the relations between Austria and Prussia were becoming unpleasantly strained in the question of the admission of the HabsburgPrussia and the Austro-Italian War.monarchy to the Zollverein, in that of the elector of Hesse and his parliament, in that of the relation of the Elbe duchies to the crown of Denmark. But for the outbreak of the Italian war of 1859 the struggle of 1866 might have been anticipated. The outcome of the war increased the prestige of Prussia. She had armed, not with the idea of going to the aid of a German power in difficulties, but in order, at the right moment, to cast her sword into the scale wherein her own interests might for the time lie. At the menace of her armaments, concentrated on the Rhine, Napoleon had stopped dead in the full career of victory; Austria, in the eyes of German men, had been placed under an obligation to her rival; and Italy realized the emergence of a new military power, whose interests in antagonism to Austria were identical with her own.
So striking an object lesson was not lost on the Prussian regent, and he entered on a vigorous policy of reforming and strengthening the army, General von Roon being appointed minister of war for this purpose. To the LiberalMilitary reforms and constitutional crisis in Prussia.ministers, however, and to the Liberal majority in the Prussian diet, this was wholly objectionable. Schemes were under discussion for reforming the constitution of the Confederation and drawing the German states closer together on a Liberal basis; the moment seemed singularly inopportune for Prussia, which had not shown herself particularly zealous for the common interests, to menace the other German governments by increasing her separate armaments. When, therefore, on the 10th of February 1860, the bills necessary for carrying out the reform of the army were introduced into the diet, they met with so strenuous an opposition that they had to be withdrawn. Supplies were, however, granted for fourteen months, and the regent took this as justifying him in proceeding with his plans. On the 1st of January 1861 the standards of the new regiments were solemnly blessed; on the next day Frederick William IV. died, and the new king was face to face with a constitutional crisis.
Austria, meanwhile, had been making the first tentative essays in constitutional concession, which culminated, in May 1861, in the establishment at Vienna of aReichsratfor the whole empire, including Hungary. The popularity she thus gained among German Liberals and Nationalists was helped by the course of events at Berlin. The Prussian diet of 1862 was no whit more tractable than its predecessor, but fell to attacking the professional army and advocating the extension of the militia (Landwehr) system; on the 11th of March the king dissolved it in disgust, whereupon the Liberal ministry resigned, and was succeeded by the Conservative cabinet of Prince Hohenlohe. Public opinion was now violently excited against the government; the new elections resulted (May 6) in the return of a yet larger Liberal majority; on the 22nd of August the army estimates were thrown out. Hohenlohe now declared himself incapable of carrying on the government, and King William entrusted it to Otto von Bismarck.
In choosing this man of iron will as his instrument during the actual crisis the king’s instinct had not betrayed him. For nine years Prussian delegate at the diet of Frankfort, Bismarck was intimately acquainted with all the issuesBismarck.of the German problem; with his accustomed calculated bluntness he had more than once openly asserted that this problem could only be settled by Austria ceasing to influence the German courts and transferring “her centre of gravity towards Budapest”; with equal bluntness he told the committee on the budget, on the 30th of September 1862, that the problem could not be solve “by parliamentary decrees,” but only “by blood and iron.” For the supreme moment of this solution he was determined that Prussia should be fully prepared; and this meant that he must defy the majority within the diet and public opinion without. Some sort of constitutional pretence was given to the decision of the government to persevere with the military reforms by the support of the Upper House, and of this Bismarck availed himself to raise the necessary taxes without the consent of the popular assembly. He regretted the necessity for flouting public opinion, which he would have preferred to carry with him; in due course he would make his peace with Liberal sentiment, when success should have justified his defiance of it. His plans were singularly helped by international developments. The Polish rising of 1863 came just in time to prevent a threatened Franco-Russian alliance; the timid and double-faced attitude of both France and Austria during the revolt left them isolated in Europe, while Bismarck’s ready assistance to Russia assured at least the benevolent neutrality in the coming struggle with the Habsburg power.
Meanwhile, among the German people the object lesson of the Italian war had greatly stimulated the sentiment of national unity. As to the principle, however, on which this unity was to be based, the antagonism that had beenViews as to Germany unity.fatal in 1849 still existed. The German National Union (Deutscher Nationalverein), organized in the autumn of 1859, favoured the exclusion of Austria and the establishment of a federation under the hegemony of Prussia; it represented the views of the so-called “Gothaer,” the political heirs of the rump of the Frankfort parliament which had reassembled at Gotha in June 1849, and supported the Prussian Union and the Erfurt parliament. To counteract this, a conference of five hundred “Great Germans” assembled at Frankfort and, on the 22nd of October 1862, founded the German Reform Union (Deutscher Reformverein), which, consisting mainly of South German elements, supported the policy of Austria and the smaller states. The constitutional crisis in Prussia, however, brought both societies into line, and in 1863 the National Union united with the Reform Union in an attempt to defeat Prussian policy in the Schleswig-Holstein question.
This anti-Prussian feeling Austria now tried to exploit for her own advantage. On the 2nd of August the emperor Francis Joseph proposed to King William, during a meeting at Gastein, to lay before an assembly of the GermanThe “Fürstentag” of Frankfort.princes a scheme for the reconstitution of the Bund. The king neither accepted nor refused; but, without waiting for his assent, invitations were sent out to the other princes, and on the 14th the congress (Fürstentag) opened at Frankfort. Of the German sovereign states but four were unrepresented—Anhalt-Bernburg, Holstein, Lippe and Prussia; but the absence of Prussia was felt to be fatal; the minor princes existed by reason of the balance between the two great powers, and objected as strongly to the exclusion of the one as of the other from the Confederation; an invitation to King William was therefore signed by all present and carried by the king of Saxonyin person to Berlin. Bismarck, however, threatened to resign if the king accepted; and the congress had to do the best it could without Prussian co-operation. On the 1st of September it passed, with some slight modifications, the Austrian proposals for the reconstruction of theBundunder a supreme Directory, an assembly of delegates from the various parliaments, a federal court of appeal and periodical conferences of sovereigns. Everything now depended on the attitude of Prussia, and on the 22nd her decision was received. “In any reform of theBund,” it ran, “Prussia, equally with Austria, must have the right of vetoing war; she must be admitted, in the matter of the presidency, to absolute equality with Austria; and, finally, she will yield no tittle of her rights save to a parliament representing the whole German nation.”
Prussia thus made a bid for the sympathy of the democracy at the same time as she declared war against the dynasties; and her power was revealed by the fact that her veto was sufficient to wreck a proposal seconded by the all but unanimous vote of the German sovereigns. The Austrian stroke had failed, and worse than failed, for Napoleon III., who had been filled with alarm at this attempt to create on his flank an “empire of 70,000,000,” saw in Prussia’s attitude no more than a determination to maintain for her own ends the division and weakness of Germany; and this mistaken diagnosis of the situation determined his attitude during the crisis that followed.
This crisis was due to the reopening of a fresh acute phase of the Schleswig-Holstein question by the accession of the “protocol-king” Christian IX. to the throne of Denmark (November 15, 1863), and his adhesion to theThe Schleswig-Holstein question, 1863.new constitution, promulgated two days before, which embodied the principle of the inalienable union of the Elbe duchies with the Danish body politic. The news of this event caused vast excitement in Germany; and the federal diet was supported by public opinion in its decision to uphold the claims of Prince Frederick of Augustenburg to the succession of the duchies. An agitation in his favour had already begun in Holstein and, after the promulgation of the new Danish constitution, this was extended to Schleswig. On the 24th of December Saxon and Hanoverian troops occupied Holstein in the name of the German Confederation, and supported by their presence and the favour of the population the prince of Augustenburg, as Duke Frederick VIII., assumed the government.
From these proceedings Prussia and Austria held rigorously aloof. Both had signed the protocol of 1852, and both realized that, if the European powers were to be given no excuse to intervene, their attitude must be scrupulously “correct”; and this involved the recognition of King Christian’s rights in the duchies. On the other hand, the constitution of the 13th of November had been in flat contradiction to the protocol of London, which recognized the separate rights of the duchies; and if the two great German powers chose to make this violation of an agreement to which they had been parties acasus belli, Europe would have no right to interfere. Prussia had begun to mobilize in November; and Austria also soon realized that action must speedily be taken if the lesser German governments were not to be allowed to get out of hand. Russia and Great Britain had already protested against the occupation of Holstein and the support given to the Augustenburg claimant; and now Beust, the Saxon minister, was proposing that the federal diet, which had been no party to the protocol, should formally recognize his claim. Bismarck, then, had no difficult task in persuading Austria that the time for action had come. A last attempt of the two powers to carry the diet with them in recognizing the protocol having failed, they formally announced that they would act in the matter asAustro-Prussian alliance.independent European powers. On the 16th of January 1864 the agreement between them was signed, an article, drafted by Austria, intended to safeguard the settlement of 1852, being replaced at the instance of Prussia by another, which stated that the contracting powers would decide only in concert upon the relations of the duchies, and that in no case would they determine the succession save by mutual consent. A clause was also inserted provisionally recognizing the principle of the integrity of Denmark.
Whatever Austria’s ulterior views may have been, Bismarck certainly from the first had but one aim before him. He saw clearly what the possession of the duchies would mean to Germany, their vast importance for the future of German sea-power; already he had a vision of the great war-harbour of Kiel and the canal connecting the Baltic and the North seas; and he was determined that these should be, if not wholly Prussian, at least wholly under Prussian control. Annexation was the goal which from the beginning he kept steadily before his eyes (Reminiscences, ii. 10). As for treaties to the contrary, he was to avow in hisReminiscencesthat these have little force when no longer reinforced by the interests of the contracting parties. His main fear was that the Danes might refuse to fight and appeal instead to a European congress; and, to prevent this, he led the Copenhagen government to believe that Great Britain had threatened to intervene in the event of Prussia going to war, “though, as a matter of fact, England did nothing of the kind.” This sufficed to provoke the defiance of the Danes,Danish War of 1864.and on the 1st of February 1864 the Austrian and Prussian troops crossed the Eider. The issue of a war between powers so ill-matched was a foregone conclusion; the famous rampart of the Dannewerk (q.v.), on which the Danish defence chiefly relied, was turned, and after a short campaign, in which the Danes fought with distinguished courage, peace was concluded by the treaty of Vienna (August 1, 1864), by which Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg were ceded to Austria and Prussia jointly.
The Austro-Prussian alliance had been only an interlude in the great drama in which the two powers were playing rival parts. To the other causes of friction between them had been added, just before the war, a renewed quarrel as toAustria, Prussia and the Zollverein.Austria’s relation to the Zollverein. In 1862, in the name of the customs union, Prussia had concluded with France a commercial treaty, based mainly on free trade principles. This treaty most of the small states refused to sign, and they were supported in their objections by Austria, which loudly complained that Prussia had given to a foreign power what she had denied to a sister state of theBund. Prussia, however, remained firm, and declared that, were the treaty rejected, she would break up the Zollverein. After the war Bismarck in fact succeeded in obtaining the signature of the smaller states to the treaty; and Austria, her protests having proved unavailing, was fain to sign a commercial treaty with the Zollverein, essentially the same as that of 1853. Treaties concluded with Great Britain and Belgium, about the same time, also tended to enhance Prussian prestige.
Austria now sought in the question of the Elbe duchies an occasion for re-establishing her influence in Germany. The ambitions of Prussia were notorious, and Austria had no wish to see her rival still further strengthened byConvention of Gastein.the annexation of the duchies. In this attitude she was sure of the support of the German princes, and of German public opinion, which was enthusiastically in favour of the Augustenburg claimant. She therefore took up the cause of Duke Frederick, and under her influence a small majority of the federal diet decided to request the two powers to invest him with the sovereignty of Holstein. Bismarck’s reply was to deny the competency of the diet to interfere; and in the Prussian parliament the minister of war moved for a special grant for the creation of a war-harbour at Kiel. Against this Austria protested, as having the same right as Prussia to Kiel; an angry correspondence followed; but neither power was quite prepared for war, and on the 20th of August 1865 the convention of Gastein, to use Bismarck’s phrase, “papered over the cracks.” Pending a settlement, Schleswig was to be occupied and administered by Prussia, Holstein by Austria; while Lauenburg was made over absolutely to Prussia in return for a money payment. This was so far a diplomatic victory for Prussia, as it ignored entirely the claims of the duke of Augustenburg.
Bismarck had consented to the convention of Gastein in orderto gain time to prepare the ground for the supreme struggle with Austria for the hegemony of Germany. He had no intention of postponing the issue long; for the circumstances of the two powers were wholly favourable to Prussia. The Prussian army had attained an unprecedented excellence of organization and discipline; the Prussian people, in spite of the parliamentary deadlock, were loyal and united; while in Austria army and state were alike disorganized by nationalist discontent and the breakdown of the centralized system. But there were other factors to be considered. The attitude of Napoleon was dubious; the active alliance of Italy was necessary to the certainty of Prussian success; and the policy of Italy depended ultimately upon that of France. Lastly, the conscience of King William, though since the acquisition of Lauenburg he had “developed a taste for conquest,” shrank from provoking war with a German power. The news of the convention of Gastein, which seemedHostile attitude of France.to re-cement the union of Germany, had been received in France with clamorous indignation; and on the 29th of August, under pressure of public opinion, the French government issued a circular note denouncing it as an outrage on national liberty and European law, the protest being backed by note of the 14th of September circulated by Lord John Russell on behalf of the British government. But Napoleon was himself little inclined to use the warlike tone of his people; and Bismarck found it easy to win him over to his views by explaining the temporary nature of the convention, and by dropping hints at the famous interview at Biarritz (September 30, 1865) of possible “compensations” to France in the event of a Prussian victory over Austria; the probability of a prolonged struggle in Germany between two powers apparently evenly matched, moreover, held out to the French emperor the prospect of his being able to intervene at the proper moment with overwhelming effect.
Napoleon having been successfully hoodwinked, Bismarck turned to Italy. His previous advances had been interrupted by the Gastein convention, which seemed to the Italian government a betrayal of the Italian cause. ItalyEnd of the Austro-Prussian understanding.attempted to negotiate with Austria for the purchase of Venetia; but the offer was curtly refused by the emperor Francis Joseph, and the counter-proposal of a commercialrapprochementwas forestalled by Prussia, which with the aid of most of the lesser states, angered by the betrayal of their interests by Austria at Gastein, arranged a commercial treaty between Italy and the Zollverein, an act which involved the recognition of the Italian kingdom. The counter-stroke of Austria was to embarrass Prussia by allowing full play in Holstein to the agitation in favour of the Augustenburg claimant. To the protests of Prussia, Austria replied that she had a full right to do what she liked in the duchy, and that she still adhered to the declaration of the princes, made on the 28th of May 1864, in favour of Duke Frederick. This “perfidy” removed the last scruples of King William; and the Austro-Prussian alliance came to an end with the declaration of Bismarck that Prussia “must win full freedom for her own entire policy” and his refusal to continue the correspondence.
War, though still postponed, was now certain; and with this certainty the desire of the Italians for the Prussian alliance, now recommended by Napoleon, revived. By the 16th of March 1866 the Austrian war preparations were so far advanced that Count Mensdorff thought it safe to send an ultimatum to Prussia and, at the same time, a circular note to the princes declaring that, in the event of an evasive reply, Austria would move in the diet for the mobilization of the federal forces. On the 24th Bismarck in his turn issued a circular note stating that, in view of the Austrian war preparations, Prussia must take measures for her defence; at the same time he laid before the princes the outline of the Prussian scheme for the reform of the Confederation, a scheme which included a national parliament to be elected by universal suffrage, “as offering surer guarantees for conservative action than limitations that seek to determine the majority beforehand.” Clearly Prussia meant war, and the Italian government thought it safe to sign, on the 8th of April 1866, a treaty of alliance. By this instrument it was agreed that inPrusso-Italian alliance.the event of her proposals for the reform of the federal constitution being rejected by the German princes, Prussia should declare war “in order to give effect to her proposals,” and that, in that case, Italy would also declare war against Austria. As a result of the war Venetia was to be added to Italy and an equivalent amount of territory in North Germany to Prussia. The agreement, however, was only to hold good if war broke out within three months.
On the day after the signature of the treaty the Prussian project of reform was presented to the federal diet. It was, however, no more than a bid for the support of public opinion on the part of Bismarck; for even while it wasPrussian scheme for the reform of the “Bund.”under discussion an angry correspondence was being carried on between Berlin and Vienna on the question of armaments, and by the beginning of May both powers were making undisguised preparations for war. On the 21st of April, the very day when the discussion of the Prussian proposals began in the diet, Austria, alarmed at a threatened attack by Garibaldi on Venetia, began to mobilize in defiance of an agreement just arrived at with Prussia. Five days later, in spite of this, she sent an ultimatum to Berlin, demanding the continuance of the Prussian disarmament and an immediate settlement of the Schleswig-Holstein question. The supreme issue was, however, delayed for a few weeks by the intervention of Napoleon, who, urged on by the loud alarm of the French people at the prospective aggrandizement of Prussia, attempted to detach Italy from the Prussian alliance by persuading Austria to a cession of Venetia. The negotiations broke down on the refusal of Italy to throw over her ally, and Napoleon’s proposal of a European congress, to reconsider the whole settlement under the treaties of 1815, proved equally abortive. Meanwhile the preparations for war had been continued, and on the 1st of June Austria flung down the gage by declaring her intention of submitting the whole question of the duchies to the federal diet and of summoning a meeting of the Holstein estates. This was denounced by Bismarck in a circular note to the powers as a breach of the convention of Gastein and of the treaty of January 16, 1864, by which Austria and Prussia had agreed to govern the duchies in common. At the same time he handed in the formal protest of Prussia to the federal diet. Prussia, he said, would only recognize the right of a reformed federal power to settle the Schleswig-Holstein question, and this power must be based on a German parliament, which alone could guarantee Prussia that any sacrifices she might make would be for the good of Germany and not of the dynasties. The Prussian plan of reform laid before the diet included the exclusion of Austria from the Confederation; the creation of a federal navy; the division of the supreme command of the army between Prussia and Bavaria; a parliament elected by manhood suffrage; the regulation of the relations between the Confederation and Austria by a special treaty. In the event of the actual constitution of the Bund being shattered by war, the German states were asked whether they would be prepared to join this new organization. On the 9th of June Prussian troops had already marched into Holstein, the Austrians, with Duke Frederick, falling back on Altona. On the 14th the Prussian scheme of reform was laid before the diet, together with Austria’s counter-proposal for a decree of federal execution against Prussia. In the event of the rejection of Prussia’s motion, Bismarck had made it clear thatPrussia withdraws from the “Bund.”Prussia would withdraw from the Confederation, and that in the event of her being victorious in the ensuing war those states of northern Germany that voted against her would cease to exist. In spite of this, the Austrian motion was carried by nine votes to six. The Prussian delegate at once withdrew from the diet, and on the following day (June 15) the Prussian troops advanced over the Saxon frontier.
The war that followed, conveniently called the Seven Weeks’ War (q.v.), culminated before a month had passed, on the 3rdAustro-Prussian War of 1866.of July, in the crushing Prussian victory of Königgrätz. The rapidity and overwhelming character of the Prussian successensured the triumph of Bismarck’s policy. The intervention which Napoleon had planned resolved itself into diplomaticpourparlersof which the result was wholly insignificant; and even before the war was ended Bismarck was preparing for an understanding with Austria and with the South German states that should minimize the risk of a French attack. By the preliminary treaty of peace signed at Nikolsburg on the 26th of July the great objects for whichTreaty of Prague, August 23.Prussia had fought were fully secured. By Article I. the integrity of the Austrian monarchy was preserved, with the exception of Lombardo-Venetia; by Article II. Austria consented to “a new organization of Germany without the participation of the empire of Austria,” consented to “the closer union” to be founded by the king of Prussia to the north of the Main, and to the German states south of the Main entering into a union, the national relations of which with the North German Confederation were to be “the subject of an ulterior agreement between the two parties”; by Article III. Austria transferred all her rights in Schleswig and Holstein to Prussia, reserving the right of the people of north Schleswig to be again united to Denmark should they “express a desire to be so by a vote freely given”; by Article V. the territory of Saxony was to remain intact. These Articles,embodyingthe more important terms, were included with slight verbal alterations in the treaty of peace signed at Prague on the 23rd of August. Separate treaties of peace had been signed with Württemberg on the 13th, with Baden on the 17th and with Bavaria on the 22nd of August; treaties with Hesse-DarmstadtAggrandizement of Prussia.followed on the 3rd of September, with Saxe-Meiningen on the 8th of October and with Saxony on the 21st. The other unfortunate North German states which had sided with Austria were left to their fate, and on the 20th of September King William issued a decree annexing Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau and the free city of Frankfort to the Prussian monarchy, and bringing them under the Prussian constitution.
The return of King William to his capital had been a triumphal progress; and Bismarck had shared to the full the new-born popularity of his master. He seized the occasion to make his peace with Liberal sentiment, and the billFederal constitution.of indemnity for past ministerial breaches of the constitution was carried in the new Prussian diet with enthusiasm. On the 24th of February 1867 the constituent diet of the confederation, elected by universal suffrage and the ballot, met in Berlin, and soon accepted in its essential features the constitution submitted to it. It was arranged that the headship of the confederation should be hereditary, that it should belong to the king of Prussia, and that legislative functions should be exercised by a federal council (Bundesrat), representative of the various governments, and by a diet (Bundestag) elected by the whole people.
The federal parliament began at once the task of consolidating the new institutions. In the sessions of 1869 and 1870 it established a supreme tribunal of commerce, sitting in Leipzig, and passed a new penal code. Great as wereNational Liberals.these results, they did not satisfy the aspirations of patriotic Germans, who, having so suddenly and so unexpectedly approached unity, longed that the work should be completed. A party called the National Liberals was formed, whose main object was to secure the union of South with North Germany, and it at once entered into peculiar relations with Bismarck, who, in spite of his native contempt for parliaments and parliamentary government, was quite prepared to make use of any instruments he found ready to his hand. There was, indeed, plentiful need for some show of concession to Liberal sentiment, if a union of hearts was to be established between the South and North Germans. The states south of the Main had issued from the war as sovereign and independent powers, and they seemed in no great haste to exchange this somewhat precarious dignity either for a closer alliance among each other or with the North German Confederation. The peoples, too, fully shared the dislike of their rulers to the idea of a closer union with North Germany. The democrats hated Prussia as “the land of the corporal’s stick,” and Bismarck as the very incarnation of her spirit. The Roman Catholics hated her as the landpar excellenceof Protestantism and free thought. Nothing but the most powerful common interests could have drawn the dissevered halves of Germany together. This sense of common interests it was Bismarck’s study to create. An importantCustoms parliament.South German hostility to union.step was taken in 1867 by the conclusion of a treaty with the southern states, by which it was agreed that all questions of customs should be decided by the federal council and the federal diet, and that, for the consideration of such questions, the southern states should send representatives to Berlin. In reality, however, the customs parliament (Zollparlament) was of little service beyond the limits of its special activity. In the election to the customs parliament in 1868, Württemberg did not return a single deputy who was favourable to the national cause; in Bavaria the anti-nationalists had a large majority; and even in Baden and Hesse-Darmstadt, where the opposition to Prussia was less severe, a powerful minority of the deputies had no liking for Bismarck and his ways. Thus the customs parliament was kept rigidly to the objects for which it was founded, greatly to the disappointment of patriots who had not doubted that it would become an effective instrument for the attainment of far larger purposes. Had the completion of unity depended wholly on internal causes, it certainly wouldIrritation of France.not have been soon achieved; but other forces, not altogether unexpectedly, came to Bismarck’s aid. France had been irritated by the enormous increase of Prussian power, and even before the treaty of Prague was signed the emperor Napoleon III. indicated a wish to be “compensated” with the left bank of the Rhine. This was a claim exactly calculated to play into Bismarck’s hands. The communication of the French emperor’s original proposals to the South German governments, whose traditional policy had been to depend on France to save them from the ambitions of the German great powers, was enough to throw them into the arms of Prussia. The treaties of peace between Prussia and the South German states were accompanied by secret treaties of offensive and defensive alliance, under which the supreme command in war was to be given to the Prussian king. A common war against a common enemy now appeared the surest means of welding the dissevered halves of Germany together, and for this war Bismarck steadily prepared. There were soon plentiful signs of where this enemy was to be sought. On the 14th of March 1867 Thiers in the French Chamber gave voice to the indignation of France at the bungling policy that had suffered the aggrandizement of Prussia. The reply of Bismarck was to publish (March 19) the secret treaties with the South German states. War was now only a question of time, and the study of Bismarck was to bring it on at the moment most favourable to Germany, and by a method that should throw upon France the appearance of being the aggressor. The European situation was highly favourable. France was hampered by the Roman question, which divided her own counsels while it embroiled her with Italy; the Luxemburg question, arising out of her continued demand for “compensation,” had only served to isolate her still further in Europe. French patriotic feeling, suspicious, angry and alarmed, needed only a slight provocation to cause it to blaze up into an uncontrollable fever for war.
The provocation was supplied at the right moment by the candidature of the prince of Hohenzollern for the vacant crown of Spain. To bring the Peninsula under French influence had been for centuries the ambition of French statesmen;The Hohenzollern candidature.it was intolerable that it should fall to a “Prussian” prince and that France should be threatened by this new power not only from the east but from the south. High language was used at Paris; and the French ambassador, Count Benedetti, was instructed to demand from the king of Prussia the withdrawal of the Hohenzollern candidature. The demand was politely but firmly refused, and Bismarck, judging that the moment had come for applying the match tothe powder magazine, published an “edited” version of the telegram from the king describing the episode, a version which “without the addition of a single word” turned the refusalFranco-German War.Proclamation of the German empire.into an insult. The “Ems telegram” made the continuance of peace impossible; on the 14th of July Napoleon III. signed the declaration of war; and on the 2nd of August the affair of Saarbrücken opened the struggle which was to cause the downfall of the French and the creation of the German empire (seeFranco-German War). On the 18th of January 1871, ten days before the capitulation of Paris, William I., king of Prussia, was proclaimed German emperor in the great hall of the palace of Versailles, on the initiative of the king of Bavaria, the most powerful of the South German sovereigns, the traditional ally of France. The cession of Alsace and the greater part of Lorraine, wrested two centuries before by Louis XIV. from the Holy Empire, was the heaviest part of the price that France had to pay for peace (treaty of Frankfort, May 10, 1871).