THE EXPANSION OF GERMANY
Beginnings of Modern World Power
William I of Prussia—Bismarck’s Early Career—The Schleswig-Holstein
Question—Conquest of the Duchies—Bismarck’s Wider Views—War Forced on
Austria—The War in Italy—Austria’s Signal Defeat at Sadowa—The Treaty
of Prague—Germany after 1866
The effort made in 1848 to unify Germany had failed for two
reasons—first, because its promoters had not sufficiently clear and
precise ideas, and, secondly, because they lacked material strength.
Until 1859 reaction against novelties and their advocates dominated in
Germany and even Prussia as well as in Austria. The Italian war, as was
readily foreseen, and as wary counselors had told Napoleon III, revived
the agitation in favor of unity beyond the Rhine. After September 16,
1859, it had its center in the national circle of Frankfort and its
manifesto in the proclamation which was issued on September 4, 1860, a
proclamation whose terms, though in moderate form, clearly announced
the design of excluding Austria from Germany. It was the object of
those favoring unity, but with more decision than in 1848, to place the
group of German states under Prussia’s imperial direction. The
accession of a new king, William I, who was already in advance called
William the Conqueror, was likely to bring this project to a successful
issue. The future German emperor’s predecessor, Frederick William IV,
with the same ambition as his brother, had too many prejudices and too
much confusion in his mind to be capable of realizing it. Becoming
insane towards the close of 1857, he had to leave the government to
William, who, officially regent after October 7, 1858, became king on
January 2, 1861.
WILLIAM I OF PRUSSIA
The new sovereign was almost sixty-four years old. The son of Frederick
William III and Queen Louisa, while yet a child he had witnessed the
disasters of his country and his home, and then as a young man had had
his first experience of arms towards the close of the Napoleonic wars.
Obliged to flee during the revolt of 1848, he had afterwards, by his
pro-English attitude at the time of the Crimean war, won the sympathies
of the Liberals, who joyfully acclaimed his accession. To lower him to
the rank of a party leader was to judge him erroneously. William I was
above all a Prussian prince, serious, industrious, and penetrated with
a sense of his duties to the state, the first of which, according to
the men of his house, has ever been to aggrandize it; and he was also
imbued with the idea that the state was essentially incarnate in him.
“I am the first king,” he said at his coronation, “to assume power
since the throne has been surrounded with modern institutions, BUT I do
not forget that the crown comes from God.”
He had none of the higher talents that mark great men, but he possessed
the two essential qualities of the head of a state—firmness and
judgment. He showed this by the way in which he chose and supported
those who built up his greatness, and this merit is rarer than is
generally supposed. A soldier above all, he saw that Prussia’s
ambitions could be realized only with a powerful army.
Advised by Von Moltke, the army’s chief of staff after 1858, and Von
Roon, the great administrator, who filled the office of minister of
war, he changed the organization of 1814, which had become
insufficient. Instead of brigades formed in war time, half of men in
active service and half of reserves, regiments were now recruited by a
three (instead of a two) years’ service and reinforced in case of need
by the classes of reserves. The Landwehr, divided into two classes
(twenty-five to thirty-two years and thirty-two to thirty-nine), was
grouped separately. This system gave seven hundred thousand trained
soldiers, Prussia having then seventeen million inhabitants. This was
more than either France or Austria had. The armament was also superior.
Frederick William I had already said that the first result to be
obtained in this direction was celerity in firing. This was assured by
the invention of the needle gun.
BISMARCK’S EARLY CAREER
Such a transformation entailed heavy expenses. The Prussian Chamber,
made up for the most part of Liberals, did not appreciate its utility.
Moreover, it was not in favor of increasing the number of officers,
because they were recruited from the nobility. After having yielded
with bad grace in 1860, the deputies refused the grants in 1861 and
1862. It was at this time that Bismarck was called to the ministry
(September 24, 1862). Otto von Bismarck-Schonhausen, born April 1,
1815, belonged by birth to that minor Prussian nobility, rough and
realistic, but faithful and disciplined, which has ever been one of the
Prussian state’s sources of strength. After irregular studies at the
university of Gottingen, he had entered the administration, but had not
been able to stay in it, and had lived on his rather moderate estates
until 1847. The diet of that year, to which he had been elected,
brought him into prominence. There he distinguished himself in the
Junker (poor country squires’) party by his marked contempt for the
Liberalism then in vogue and his insolence to the Liberals. Frederick
William IV entrusted him with representing Prussia at Frankfort, where
he assumed the same attitude towards the Austrians (1851–59).
He was afterward ambassador at St. Petersburg, and had just been sent
to Paris in the same capacity when he became prime minister.
His character was a marked one. In it was evident a taste for sarcastic
raillery and a sort of frankness, apparently brutal, but really more
refined than cruel. His qualities were those of all great politicians,
embracing energy, decision and realism; that is, talent for
appreciating all things at their effective value and for not letting
himself be duped either by appearances, by current theories, or by
words. Very unfavorably received by the parliament, he paid little heed
to the furious opposition of the deputies, causing to be promulgated by
ordinance the budget which they refused him, suppressing hostile
newspapers, treating his adversaries with studied insolence, and
declaring to them that, if the Chamber had its rights, the king also
had his, and that force must settle the matter in such a case. To get
rid of these barren struggles, he took advantage of the first incident
of foreign politics. The Schleswig-Holstein question furnished him with
the desired opportunity.
THE SCHLESWIG-HOLSTEIN QUESTION
This was the first of the various important questions of international
policy in which Bismarck became concerned. The united provinces of
Schleswig-Holstein, lying on the northern border of Denmark had long
been notable as a source of continual strife between Germany and
Denmark. The majority of the inhabitants of Schleswig were Danes, but
those of Holstein were very largely Germans, and the question of their
true national affiliation lay open from the time of their original
union in 1386. It became insistent after the middle of the nineteenth
century.
The Treaty of London in 1852 had maintained the union of Holstein with
Denmark, but did not put a definite end to the demands of the Germans,
who held that it was a constituent part of Germany. The quarrel was
renewed in 1855 over a common constitution given by King Frederick VII
to all his states. This was abolished in 1858, and afterwards the Danes
sought to grant complete autonomy to the duchies of Schleswig and
Lauenburg, this movement being with the purpose of making more complete
the union of Schleswig with their country. This step, taken in 1863,
led to a protest from the German diet.
In all this there was food for an indefinite contest, for, on the one
hand, Schleswig did not form a part of the Confederation, but, on the
other, certain historical bonds attached it to Holstein, and its
population was mixed. The death of Frederick VII (November 15, 1863),
who was succeeded by a distant relative, Christian IX, further
complicated the quarrel. The duke of Augustenburg claimed the three
duchies, though he had previously renounced them. The German diet, on
its part, wanted the Danish constitution abolished in Schleswig.
The dream of the petty German states hostile to Prussia, and especially
of the Saxon minister, Von Beust, was to strengthen their party by the
creating of a new duchy. Bismarck admirably outplayed everybody. He
knew that the great Powers were at odds with one another over Poland.
He, on the contrary, could count on Russia’s friendship and the
personal aid of Queen Victoria, whom Prince Albert had completely won
over to pro-German ideas. He used England to make Christian IX consent
to the occupation of Holstein, which, he said, was in reality an
acknowledgment of that king’s rights. At this stage, had the Danes
yielded to the necessities of the situation and withdrawn from
Schleswig under protest, the European Powers would probably have
intervened and a congress would have restored Schleswig to the Danish
realm. Bismarck prevented this by a cunning stratagem, making the
Copenhagen government believe that Great Britain had taken a step
hostile to that government. There was no truth in this, but it
succeeded in inducing Denmark to remain defiant. As a consequence, on
the 1st of February 1864, the combined forces of Prussia and Austria
crossed the Eider and invaded the province.
It was a movement to regain to Germany a section held to be non-Danish
in population and retained by Denmark against the traditions and will
of its people. Austria, which did not wish to appear less German than
Prussia, though the matter did not directly appeal to that country,
joined in the movement, being drawn into it by Bismarck’s shrewd
policy.
It was not the original intention to go beyond the borders of the
duchies and invade Denmark, but when Christian IX tried to resist the
invasion this was done. The Danewerk and the Schlei were forced, and
the Danish army was defeated at Flensburg and driven back into Dueppel,
which was taken by assault. A conference of the great Powers, opened at
London (April 25th to June 25th), brought about no result. Napoleon III
did not refuse to act, but he wanted as a condition that England would
promise him something more than its moral support, which it refused to
do. Finally Jutland was invaded and conquered, and Van Moltke was
already preparing for a landing in Fuenen when Christian IX gave up all
the duchies by the Vienna preliminaries (August 1st), confirmed by
treaty on October 30th following.
CONQUEST OF THE DUCHIES
The fate of the conquest remained to be decided upon. Bismarck settled
it, after a pretence of investigation, by concluding that the rights of
King Christian over the duchies were far superior to those of the duke
of Augstenburg, who had a hereditary claim, and that as Prussia and
Austria had won them from the king by conquest, they had become the
lawful owners. An agreement was made in which Holstein was assigned to
Austria and Schleswig to Prussia, and for the time the question seemed
settled.
BISMARCK’S WIDER VIEWS
This was far from being the case. Bismarck held views of far more
expanded scope. He wanted to exclude Austria from the German
confederation, and to do so desired war with that country as the only
practical means of gaining his ends. In 1865 he made the significant
remark that a single battle in Bohemia would decide everything and that
Prussia would win that battle. A remark like this was indicative of the
purpose entertained and the events soon to follow.
In such a war, however, it was important to secure the neutrality of
France. The alert Prussian statesman had already assured himself of
that of Russia. To gain France to his side he held an interview with
Napoleon III at Biarritz in October, 1865. The cunning diplomat offered
the emperor an alliance with a view to the extension of Prussia and
Italy, by means of which France would take Belgium. Napoleon saw very
clearly that the offer was chimerical, but he believed that Prussia if
fighting alone would be rapidly crushed, and that the alliance of Italy
would aid him in protracting the war, thus enabling him to intervene as
a peacemaker and to impose a vast rearrangement of territory, the most
essential provision of which would be the exchange of Venetia for
Silesia. Whatever Napoleon’s views, Bismarck saw that he was safe from
any interference on the part of France, and returned with the fixed
design of driving Austria to the wall.
WAR FORCED ON AUSTRIA
He found the desired pretext in the Holstein question and the far more
serious one of reforming the federal government. On January 24, 1866,
he reproached the Austrian government with favoring in Holstein the
pretensions of the Duke of Augustenburg. The grievance soon became
envenomed by complaints and ulterior measures. In April Bismarck
denounced the so-called offensive measures which Austria was taking in
Bohemia and which, in short, were only precautionary. Yet at the same
time he himself was signing with Italy a treaty, concluded for three
months, by virtue of which Victor Emmanuel was to declare war against
Austria as soon as Prussia itself had done so.
Bismarck, now invited to lay the Austrian-Prussian dispute before the
diet, answered by asking that an assembly elected by universal suffrage
be called to discuss the question of federal reform. And when Austria
offered to disarm in Bohemia if Prussia would do so on its part,
Bismarck demanded, in addition, disarmament in Venetia, a condition he
knew to be unacceptable. On May 7, 1866, he declared he would not
accept the diet’s intervention in the duchies question, and on the 8th
ordered the mobilization of the Prussian army.
Napoleon III at this juncture proposed the holding of a congress for
settling the duchies question and that of federal reform. Thiers had
warned him in vain, in an admirable speech delivered on May 3d, that
France had everything to lose by aiding in bringing about the unity of
Germany. The emperor obstinately persisted, proposing to tear up those
treaties of 1815 which, two years before, he had childishly declared to
be no longer in existence. His proposition of a congress, however,
failed through the refusal of Austria and the petty states to take part
in it. He next signed with Austria a secret treaty by which the latter
promised to cede Venetia after its first victory and on condition of
being indemnified at Prussia’s expense. By a strange inconsistency the
French emperor proposed at the same time to make Prussia more
homogeneous in the north.
Bismarck acted in a far clearer manner than the French emperor. On June
5th, General von Gablenz, the Austrian governor of Holstein, convened
the states of that country, Austria declaring that the object of this
measure was to enable the federal diet to settle the question. A German
force under General Manteuffel at once invaded the duchy and, having
far superior forces at his disposal, took possession of it. On the
10th, Prussia asked the different German States to accept a new
constitution based on the exclusion of Austria, the election of a
parliament by universal suffrage, the creation of a strong federal
power and a common army. The diet answered by voting the federal
execution against Prussia. Thereupon the Prussian envoy, Savigny,
withdrew, declaring that his sovereign ceased to recognize the
Confederation.
Events proved how correctly Bismarck had judged in his confidence in
Prussia’s military strength. The Prussian forces amounted to 330,000
men, who were to be aided in the south by 240,000 Italians. Austria had
335,000 troops and its German allies 146,000. Generally the last named
had little zeal.
The Austrian government acted slowly, while its adversary vigorously
assumed the offensive. On June 16th, after an unavailing notice, the
Prussian troops invaded Saxony and occupied it without resistance, the
Saxon army withdrawing to Bohemia. The same was the case in Hesse,
whose grand duke was taken prisoner, while his army joined the
Bavarians. Still less fortunate was the king of Hanover, who did not
even save his army, which also retreating towards the south, was
surrounded and obliged to capitulate at Langensalza (June 29th).
In the south the Prussian General Vogel von Falkenstein, who had but
57,000 men against over 100,000, took advantage of the fact that his
adversaries had separated into two masses, the one at Frankfort, and
the other at Meiningen, to beat them separately, the Bavarians at
Kissingen (July 10th) and the Prince of Hesse, commanding the other
army, at Aschaffenurg (July 14th). On the 16th the Prussians entered
Frankfort, which they overwhelmed with requisitions and contributions.
General Manteuffel, Falkenstein’s successor, then drove the federal
armies from the line of the Tauber, where they had united, back to
Wurzburg. On the 28th an armistice was concluded.
THE WAR IN ITALY
The Italians had been less successful. Archduke Albert, who commanded
in Venetia, had only 70,000 men, but they were Croatian Slavs, that is,
Austria’s best troops. Confronting him, Victor Emmanuel commanded
124,000 men on the Chiese and Cialdini 80,000 in the neighborhood of
Ferrara. They proved unable to act together. Cialdini let himself be
kept in check by a mere handful of troops, while the Austrian archduke
attacked the Italian royal army at Custozza. Serious errors in tactics
and panic in an Italian brigade, which fled before three platoons of
lancers that had the audacity to charge it, gave victory to the
Austrians. Cialdini had remained behind the Po. Garibaldi, who had
undertaken with 36,000 men, to conquer the Trent region, defended by
only 13,000 regulars and 4,000 militia under General von Kuhn, found
himself not only repulsed in every attack, but, had it not been for the
evacuation of Venetia, his adversary would have pursued him on Italian
territory. The important events which took place at sea have been
described in the preceding chapter.
AUSTRIA’S SIGNAL DEFEAT OF SADOWA
It was not on these events that the outcome of the war was to depend,
but on the victory or defeat of the chief Austrian army. The forces of
the two Powers on the Silesian and Saxon frontier were almost equal;
but the Austrian commander-in-chief, Benedek, brave and brilliant as a
division leader, proved unequal to his present task. He dallied in
Moravia until June 16th, while the Prussians entered Bohemia in two
separate masses, one on each side of the Riesen Gebirge. Benedek
wavered and blundered. He sent only 60,000 men against 150,000 under
Prince Frederick Charles, and they suffered four defeats in as many
days (June 26–29th). At the same time he had made the same mistake in
regard to the Prince Royal, who won in over half a dozen skirmishes.
During the following night, June 29–30th, the second Prussian army
reached the Elbe.
Benedek’s incapacity was now completely demonstrated. He telegraphed to
the emperor to make peace at any cost, and retreated on Olmutz. Then he
changed his mind and decided to fight, seeking to throw the blame for
his own errors on his subordinates. The battle-field chosen by him was
near the village of Sadowa, and here his army, though sadly
demoralized, fought with much bravery. The Austrians, whom their
general had notified of the imminent battle only in the middle of the
night, had fortified the slopes and villages as best they could. At
eight in the morning Frederick Charles began the attack by crossing the
Bistritz. Benedek’s center resisted, but the right and left wings lost
ground. At half past eleven the Prussians were losing ground and seemed
ready to retreat. At this critical moment the army of the Prince Royal
appeared, coming from the north.
The second and sixth Austrian corps, obliged to confront the new troops
with a flank march under the fire of the Prussian artillery, could not
hold out long, and about three o’clock the strongest Austrian position
was lost. It was necessary at any cost to regain it, but all efforts
failed against their own intrenchments, defended by the captors with
desperate energy. At half past four retreat became necessary. Half of
the Austrian army escaped without much difficulty; but the rest, three
army corps, driven towards the Elbe by the entire victorious army,
would have been annihilated but for the devotedness of the cavalry and
the artillerymen. These formed successive fire lines, and continuing to
shoot until the muzzles of their guns were reached, saving the infantry
from destruction through dint of dying at their posts. Despite this
diversion it was a frightful rout, which cost the vanquished 40,000 men
and 187 pieces of artillery. The Prussians lost only 10,000 dead and
wounded.
THE TREATY OF PRAGUE
The Austrians tried to fall back on Vienna, but only three corps out of
eight reached there, as the Prussian army by a rapid march had forced
the others to seek refuge at Presburg. On July 18th the Prussian armies
were concentrated on the Russbach. Archduke Albert, recalled from
Italy, had taken command of the troops covering Vienna, but the
internal condition of the empire, where Hungary was in agitation, was
too disquieting for it to be possible, without aid, to continue the
war. This aid Napoleon III could and should have furnished. The French
army had suffered from the expedition to Mexico. Yet it would have been
possible to put a hundred thousand men on foot immediately, and later
on, Bismarck acknowledged that this would have sufficed to change the
result. But Napoleon III was ill and swayed between opposing
influences. Prince Napoleon, whom he heeded very much, was decidedly in
favor of Prussia. Accordingly, no step was taken but an offer of
mediation. Then he had the weakness, in spite of his minister, Drouyn
de Lhuys, to consent to the annexations which Prussia wished to bring
about in northern Germany. He asked, however, that Austria lose only
Venetia, but it was precisely Bismarck’s will that had, and not without
difficulty, persuaded King William that he must not, by territorial
demands, compromise the alliance which he afterwards realized.
On July 26th the peace preliminaries of Nikolsburg were signed. Austria
paid a considerable indemnity, abandoned its former position in
Germany, acknowledged the extension of Prussian authority to the line
of the Main and the annexations which Prussia would deem it to its
purpose to make. The three Danish duchies were likewise abandoned. It
was stipulated only that the inhabitants of northern Schleswig should
be consulted as to their wish to be restored or not to Denmark, which
was never done. The definitive treaty was signed on August 25th at
Prague. As for Italy, Francis Joseph had ceded Venetia to Napoleon III,
who was to transmit it to Victor Emmanuel, but the Italians protested
loudly against the idea of being satisfied with so little. They wanted
in addition at least the Trent country. “Have you, then,” Bismarck said
to them, “lost another battle to claim a province more?” On August 10th
the preliminaries of peace were signed on that side. The final treaty,
that of Vienna, was concluded on October 3, 1866.
GERMANY AFTER 1866
Prussia, now master of Germany, annexed Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Nassau
and the city of Frankfort, which increased its population by four and a
half millions. The rest of the northern states as far as the Main were
to form under its direction the Confederation of Northern Germany
(proclaimed July 1, 1867), with a constitution exactly the same as that
of the German empire of today. As for the southern states, they
remained independent, but signed military agreements which connected
them with Prussia. Napoleon III tried in vain to obtain a compensation
for that enormous increase of power. To the first overtures which he
made to this end (he wanted the Palatinate) Bismarck answered with a
flat refusal and a threat of war. He added, however, that he would
consent to an enlargement of France from Belgium, a project which he
was afterwards careful to mention as coming from the Paris cabinet.
Bismarck had succeeded in humbling Austria and reducing its importance
among the great Powers of Europe, and had expanded Prussia alike on the
north and south and made it decisively the ruling nation in Central
Europe. As we have seen, it had concluded military agreements with the
states of southern Germany. It held them also in another manner,
namely, by means of the Zollverein, signed anew on June 4, 1867. But it
was as yet far from having brought about a peaceful realization of
unity. The southern states, not merely the sovereigns only, but the
peoples as well, had always shown little taste for Prussian leadership,
and after 1866 this feeling was very visible. It was for that reason
that Bismarck had need of a war against France to strengthen his
position. Union against the foreigner was the cement with which he
hoped to complete political unity. Such a war came near breaking out in
1867 in relation to Luxembourg. Napoleon III keenly desired to have at
least that country as compensation for Prussia’s aggrandizements, and
the king of Holland was disposed to cede his rights for a
consideration. But Bismarck, after having secretly approved of the
bargain, officially declared his opposition to it. Napoleon, hampered
at one and the same time by the Paris Exposition of that year and by
the bad condition of his army, was too happy to escape from
embarrassment, since it was evident that the Prussians were not willing
to evacuate the fortress of Luxembourg, by obtaining with the aid of
the other Powers that the little duchy be declared neutral and the
walls of its capital destroyed.
In spite of this arrangement, it remained certain to everybody that a
conflict would break out in a short time between France and Prussia. We
have seen what reasons Bismarck had for the methods pursued by him and
those projected. Napoleon III’s government, justly censured by opinion
for the weakness which it had shown in 1866 and constantly losing its
authority, was destined to fall into the first trap its adversary would
set for it. What this trap was and the momentous events to which it led
will be described in the next chapter.