Prussia's De Profundis
16
Humiliations heaped upon her by France; the strange
combination, the lash and the kiss!
¶ First, let us quote from Bismarck, who looking backward after his
amazing politico-military triumph at Koeniggraetz, (1866), tells a
French interviewer for "Le Siecle" this root-fact about Germans, their
weakness and their power:
¶ "No government, however it may act, will be popular in Prussia; the
majority in the country will always be opposed to it; simply from its
being the Government;--and holding authority over the individual, the
central authority is always doomed to be constantly opposed by the
moderates, and decried and despised by the ultras. This has been the
common fate of all successive governments since the beginning of the
dynasty. Neither liberal ministers, nor reactionary ministers have
found favor with our Prussian politicians.
¶ "Frederick William III, surnamed the Just, had succeeded as little
as Frederick William IV in satisfying the Prussian nation.
¶ "They shouted themselves hoarse at the victories of Frederick the
Great, but at his death they rubbed their hands at the thought of
being delivered from the tyrant! Despite this antagonism, there exists
a deep attachment to the royal house. No sovereign or minister, no
government, can win the favor of Prussian individualism. Yet all cry
from the depths of their hearts, 'God save the King!' And they obey
when the King commands."
* * * * *
¶ With this clue from the master before us, the thing to do is,
clearly, to reach out after this German Unity idea in a broad way.
¶ Napoleon's armies had marched everywhere, during all those
victorious years, and each soldier had been a living exemplar of the
power of National glory.
This National spirit in his armies had helped Napoleon amazingly,
despite his genius as a soldier. The great Prussian patriot, Stein,
one of the leading men of his time and an early believer in the high
destiny of his country, began studying some of the more obscure but
vital forces behind Napoleon's career of glory. Stein finally read the
secret and urged that as Napoleon had won by National spirit, so
Napoleon could in the end be defeated by a similar National spirit
when properly opposed to him; and Napoleon with one terrifying black
look saw that von Stein had divined the real force of French
solidarity, a proclamation was out for von Stein's head, and the
patriot who dreamed of his Confederation of Germany, against the
French, or any other foreign foe, was obliged to make his escape to
the heart of the Bohemian mountains.
* * * * *
¶ Fr: Wm. II (1797-1840), child of the Revolution, to his dying day
remained untouched by the new political principles that had their
origin beyond the Rhine. Compound of dreams and realities, William had
led a repressed life; for one thing, he did not fight for his
opinions; indeed his opinions were literary and artistic; a peculiar
pietism bound him; he believed too much in man's natural goodness;
being an honest man himself, he did not readily suspect others.
¶ This Frederick was always thinking of a Germany built on the
traditional order, with all intervening social grades, from peasant to
king upon his throne, each bowing and scraping to the other; and
Frederick, as the father of his kingdom, exercising a despotic
paternalism.
¶ Nor did he see that the French revolution had been fought and
Napoleon's armies had carried afar if not the seeds of political
equality, at least the glorious conception that "revolution means
opportunity for men of talents, everywhere."
¶ The pressure on the king was found in this: that under duress he had
promised a written constitution.
¶ And behold Frederick in these troublous times! For eleven long
years, off and on, he tries to find a common ground of religious
formulas for the united Lutheran and Reformed churches. He even
attacks Rome on the question of mixed marriages. Of course, he failed
utterly, this noble-minded Hohenzollern who believed too implicitly in
the inherent goodness of mankind.
¶ Repair then to your church windows and read your blackletter Bible,
you dreaming Frederick; such is your story, in a few words.
Gabble about your Gothic restorations as you will, and your correct
revisions of the liturgy, Frederick, it remains for your Louise to do
a man's work against French foes, and thus hasten the slow-coming of
United Germany.
* * * * *
¶ In the meantime, Prussia is falling to pieces for lack of the mailed
fist. Everything is going to rack and ruin; beloved Prussia
repeatedly humiliated by French invaders; and had it not been for
noble Queen Louise there might well be no Prussian glory at this hour
to record.
¶ Her lovely countenance, wreathed in smiles, is immortalized for us
through the art of Joseph Grassi; and is to be seen in the
Hohenzollern Museum.
The artist depicts her with youthful charm, her fair brow adorned by
her slender crown, whose weight, alas, although slight, gave her no
rest till death.
Her eyes are gentle, and about her face and form is the indefinable
touch of ever-present girlishness, never to fade, even in the
woman-grown.
¶ It were nearer the truth to say Louise personifies Prussia's
ambition to power.
¶ This beautiful woman bore indeed a heavy burden; well she knew the
dread and fear of kings and kingly office.
¶ On the one side was the tyrant Napoleon, on the other Fr: Wilhelm,
her kingly husband, without an idea outside of cathedral architecture
and bishoprics in Jerusalem; yet Louise willed that Prussia should
seize the reins of power, shake off the French yoke, and mount the
heights of glory.
* * * * *
¶ As a foil to the ferocious Bismarck--himself a majestic
king-maker--here we reveal to you a true creator of National honor, in
the form of a frail, fair woman; showing thus how far the pendulum of
Time and Chance often rocks in bringing about political changes.
Though poles apart, the brutal Bismarck stands side by side with the
lovely Louise; the blood and iron of the man were of no avail without
the finesse of the woman.
Thus this singular cross-fertilization, compounded of smiles and
frowns--the kiss and the lash--the white jeweled hand and the mailed
fist in the end makes it possible for humiliated Prussia to rise
again--the late harvest of the years bringing the reality of our
United Germany.
¶ Bismarck's amazing story we spread before you in detail, but beside
that frowning rock we stoop for a moment to pluck the modest violets
clinging all unobserved in a gloomy place where the sun seldom comes;
these flowers are Louise and their subtle perfume symbolizes the
penetrating yet delicate incense of her pathetic life.
¶ Without Louise, our story were soon ended. Otherwise Bismarck
himself could not have come into the illustrious pages of history.
Noble Prussian queen, heroine of Prussian glory, mother-consoler in
the twilight, your gentle spirit hovers like some evening-star,
luminous with hope.
17
Napoleon's hated Continental system of domination causes
Prussian downfall--The Queen decides to fight back.
¶ The treaty of Luneville, February, 1801, now seemed to lend color to
Napoleon's greatest delusion of grandeur; he would restore the ancient
domain of Charlemagne, comprising France, Germany and Italy! Signing
with Prussia and Bavaria, Napoleon confiscated broad Papal domains
along the Rhine, lands that had been in possession of the church since
Roman times. With this bribe for secular princes, as the price of the
readjustment, exactly 112 Teutonic domains, petty in size but
all-powerful with the prestige of centuries, vanished from the map.
The holy Electors of Treves and Cologne, those empire-makers of
ancient days, were stripped of their worldly possessions, and expelled
from the Papal lands.
¶ There were even rumors of a French-supported Emperor of
Prussia--think of that!
Francis of Austria, for reasons of policy, gave up the high-swelling
title, "Holy Roman Emperor," and more modestly contented himself with
"Emperor of Austria."
¶ And now, when Napoleon's delusion--Charlemagne--seemed on the very
point of realization, there came the third Coalition against him;
Prussia joined against France; but Napoleon soon gained the most noted
of his victories, Austerlitz; 15,000 prisoners, 12,000 dead on the
field, represented Austria's loss alone, but this was not all.
The victorious French pressed on to Vienna. By the treaty of
Pressburg, Austria was excluded from Germany; Wuertemberg, Bavaria
and the Rhinelands went over to the French, Napoleon setting himself
up as Protector of the Rhine country, with his representative
President Karl von Dalberg, former archbishop of Mainz.
* * * * *
¶ Louise was high-spirited, impulsive, courageous, imaginative--the
very foil of her slow-going Frederick, with his church restorations
forevermore. The Queen, always for an aggressive policy, by her
sympathy encouraged the Prussian war party; patriots, restive under
the indecision of Frederick, were eager to shake off French
domination. The appeal was to Militarism, but what would you? The Hun
was not only "at the gate," but was inside the walls; and if a man
will not fight for his fireside, then he must remain a slave. It was a
virtuous cause.
¶ The cabal at the Prussian court, secretly in opposition to the
easy-going King, was aided by Louise. There were the King's brothers,
the ambitious Hardenburg, the King's cousin, Ferdinand, the gifted
Rahel Levin--and many others.
These plots within the palace gave to Louise's life strange political
aspects.
¶ The Queen desired to strike.
¶ By 1805 Austria, Russia and Great Britain were united, but Russia
still wavered.
¶ Louise's secret influence became a watchword for Prussian patriots,
who despised French rule.
* * * * *
¶ After Austerlitz, Napoleon read Prussia his ultimatum: Shall it be
war or peace? Peace and Hanover, or war with me?
¶ A treaty was drawn giving to Napoleon control over Prussia; and this
document Fr: William weakly signed. After that Napoleon simply ignored
Prussia; made it so hot for Prussian ministers that they resigned when
Paris frowned, or danced when Paris smiled. Napoleon set up his new
Rhein Confederation without consulting Prussia; and Prussian patriots
felt themselves mortified beyond endurance.
¶ Young men in Berlin, by way of protest, made a demonstration. Going
to the doorsteps of the French minister, they there sharpened their
swords! Napoleon was furious; he sought out the bookseller circulating
an anti-French pamphlet, "The Deepest Humiliation of Prussia," lured
him across the frontier, and had him assassinated.
¶ The Prussian patriotic party, begun as a court cabal secretly headed
by Louise, decided on war.
¶ The troops were drilled night and day in preparation for the great
war of liberation. Never before had a downtrodden nation worked harder
to win liberty through liberation from the French yoke. However, the
immediate results were to be disastrous.
¶ The Queen's dragoons went to the front; the Queen rode near by in
her carriage; she wore a smart military coat, colors of her crack
regiment; and General Kalkreuth, in a burst of enthusiasm, vowed that
the Queen could herself win the war should she remain with the troops.
¶ Yes, Louise was actually going out to fight Napoleon's veterans,
Napoleon's famous marshals, Berthier, Murat and the others; and even
the great Napoleon himself.
The decisive struggle took place at Jena, October 16, 1806; Prussian
forces were annihilated.
¶ Napoleon came on to Berlin and housed himself in the Prussian
palace. From here he now issued bulletins denouncing Louise as the
cause of the war; he attacked her character, accusing her of a liaison
with the handsome Alexander of Russia, and of still other intrigues
with high army officers; he presented her as a compound of shameless
camp-follower and dangerous woman, plotting against her own husband,
thus bringing ruin to her native land.
Napoleon even had Louise's apartments broken into and the Queen's
papers seized, to see if incriminating evidence could not be
uncovered. Ah, he knew all the tricks of love as well as of war!
* * * * *
¶ But Napoleon went too far. His cruel persecution caused Prussians to
sympathize with their Queen, instead of reviling her.
18
Years before the great question is settled Prussia indeed
becomes Germany--in moody thoughtfulness--in stubborn
determination--in unflinching courage.
¶ Louise now reveals herself a glorious National heroine. In spite of
her animosity toward Napoleon for his atrocious slanders, the Queen
decided to arrange an interview with the conqueror and beg favorable
terms for her beloved Prussia.
¶ The meeting took place July 6, 1807. Napoleon sent his coach, drawn
by six white horses, to bring the Queen to the miller's house, where
the interview was staged in an upper room. Louise had on her finest
court robe, white crepe embroidered with silver, and wore her famous
crown of pearls; her loveliness and her woman's wit were to be used in
behalf of prostrate Prussia.
¶ Napoleon rode up in great style, surrounded by his brilliant
staff--Berthier, Murat and the others. Louise awaited him at the head
of the rickety stairs. As he went up in the semi-darkness, he stumbled
and fell.
The Queen apologized that she was forced to meet the Emperor in so
mean a place; but he immediately replied that to see so lovely a woman
was well worth a few minor obstacles.
¶ Louise now began pleading with Napoleon for leniency toward Prussia.
What an interview that was!
How eloquently she set forth her people's sufferings in the great
French wars; she pictured the sorrows of Prussia so vividly that at
last Napoleon became mightily interested. Finally he said:
¶ "Ah, your Majesty asks very much indeed, but I am dreaming!" By this
he meant, "I do not hear a word you say; I am looking at your
beautiful eyes."
¶ The clever Louise saw that she was progressing with her arguments,
and undoubtedly had the Emperor under the spell of her fatal beauty;
to oblige a grand lady in distress, he would be willing to concede
much indeed, in his famous rôle of lady-killer and protector of
feminine loveliness.
But at that precise moment, who should enter the room but Fr: Wilhelm
himself, the Queen's blundering husband!
¶ Always in the way--mentally clumsy--he spoiled everything! The
interview ended abruptly.
¶ Louise, heartbroken, retired in utter despair. She had believed that
the justice of her cause, her eloquence, her loyalty to her people
would go far to soften Napoleon's wrath, but in all this she was
cruelly disappointed. Next day the French tyrant announced his terms:
Indemnity of 154,000,000 marks; one-third cash; one-third payable in
lands; the final third "on time," in the interim he would garrison in
five fortified towns 30,000 French troops and 10,000 French cavalry,
whose support was at the expense of Prussia, till the debt was paid.
¶ This great Queen, after life's fever, sleeps enshrined in her snowy
marble tomb at Charlottenburg.
One day you will stand with uncovered head beside her royal grave, and
recall her noble life. She deserves well of her country!
* * * * *
¶ But mark this well: out of Prussia's humiliations came her ultimate
strength; the vanquished, as is often the story of human life, was
strengthened more than the victors. Prussia, chastened by her severe
lessons, henceforth proceeded to build herself up slowly till at last
she was ready, many, many years later, to strike for German Unity that
final blow at the palace of the French kings at Versailles.
¶ In the wearisome stretch of time till that distant day of German
glory, Prussia henceforth becomes Germany--in spirit--in moody
thoughtfulness--in stubborn determination--yes, under God, by blood
and iron! There float before us many noble names, poets, prophets,
soldiers who aid in stimulating "German national faith"--Fichte,
Arndt, Kleist, Roon, Moltke, Scharnhorst, Humboldt--and in the
historical twilight big with mutterings and rumblings of the New Time
to come with all its glory, taking the place of the Prussian ruin
between 1806 and 1813, is Queen Louise, her gentle spirit a veritable
evening-star, luminous with hope.
* * * * *
¶ By 1813, Fr: William III had been induced by the pressure of public
opinion to join Russia to fight off the French. May 17, 1813,
William's famous decree, "To My People!" called for help to expel
invaders, thereby to recover Prussian independence; and Napoleon was
totally defeated in the tremendous battle of Leipzig, October 16-19,
or "Battle of the Nations," as the Germans call Prussia's return to
power and glory.
¶ It was this patriotic appeal "To My People," that made William's
troubles; the Prussian Liberals felt that the Government owed the
people a Liberal political Constitution, in return for Leipzig.
¶ His Majesty grabbed on it, twice, and was at his wit's end to know
how to keep his crown and his declaration of friendship for the
people.
In the meantime, twenty-three minor German states having adopted
constitutions, more or less liberal, the growing demands of the common
people for a share in Prussian government could be no longer denied.
19
Kingcraft comes upon evil days--in the rising tide of liberal
ideas, monarchies of old are all but swept away.
¶ When the Napoleonic dynasty collapsed, after Waterloo, there were 39
petty principalities in the German-speaking area grouped about Rhein,
the Main, Neckar, Elbe; these knights' holdings, ecclesiastical
strongholds, and domains of various descriptions became merged by
cross-fighting throughout the Napoleonic era.
¶ The Congress of Vienna (1815) deeming it advisable to set up a loose
confederacy of the multitude of petty powers, founded a German
Confederation, but whether it was geographical, racial or political no
human being could say.
The local German princes kept full sovereign powers, but gradually, as
a matter of expediency, the various states grouped themselves around
Prussia and Austria. As for the Nation, there was no German sovereign,
no supreme court, no commercial or political relationship worthy of
the name. Instead, on every hand was intense local hatred, aloofness
and suspicion. This condition continued for very many years.
¶ The plain fact was that the various princes did not want German
National unity; for the reason that it is not human nature for men to
give up an advantage for an uncertainty. Also, at this time, neither
Prussia nor Austria was strong enough to impose her hegemony upon
Germany. Austria's policy was for delay; and in Prussia the general
belief existed for many years that Austrian domination was really
essential to put down the rising spirit of Democracy.
¶ The authority of the Congress set up a Bond of Confederation, ruled
by a Diet or Bundestag, sitting at Frankfort-on-the-Main.
¶ In the hurly-burly, certain centres, such as Saxony, Bavaria and
Wuertemberg, were raised in rank from duchies to kingdoms, while still
others, such as Westphalia, Grand Duchy of Warsaw, were dissolved. The
free cities were reduced to four; caste declined in political
importance. The Confederation of the Rhine was set aside.
Thus the close of the Napoleonic period found German territory without
political unity.
* * * * *
¶ The last stand of kingly ultra-conservatism is the one great
political feature of Europe, from the downfall of Napoleon, 1815, to
the popular outbreaks of 1848. During this dark period the cause of
constitutional liberty in Prussia made little progress. Old forms as
well as new were under suspicion. On the one side were ultra-conservative
conceptions of Divine-right, upheld by Metternich, and on the other
side was the idea that sovereignty came not from heaven but from
earth, making the will of the people the voice of God.
¶ Prussia and Austria, as the representatives of Divine-right,
closely watched these revolutionary tendencies, suppressed uprisings,
muzzled the press, in an attempt to check the surging tide of
liberalism.
However much the kings had feared the wars of Napoleon, kingcraft was
now confronted by an enemy more deadly. The babble of the bondsmen
about to break their chains portended far greater disaster to
dynasties than ever did bullets on the battlefield of Waterloo.
* * * * *
¶ With might and main, the monarchs, resisting the demands of the
people for constitutional government, stamped out everything that
looked like the first signs of National sentiment.
¶ Nor was Germany alone in this reactionary attitude. The kingly side
of all Europe stood shoulder to shoulder against new political
experiments.
In Italy, Greece, Spain, sovereigns applied the lash the harder, in an
endeavor to suppress this new evil against kingcraft; nevertheless,
among the common people there continued to grow consciousness of
political rights.
¶ "Napoleon in many of the lands he conquered," says Ffyfe, "set up
many revolutionary ideas that sounded the death knell of the Feudal
system. It was part of his administrative genius to take the lands
from barons and their class, and turn them over to peasants; it
happened in France with the lands of the ecclesiastical barons of the
church; it happened in North Germany, in 1810, when the decree of
administrative following the annexation of the North German Coast
swept away with a few strokes of the pen, thirty-six forms of Feudal
privileges."
¶ And these could never be restored, even after the Congress of Vienna
spent seven or eight months, after Waterloo, dividing the loot among
the old royal houses.
¶ The system of monarchical Absolutism maintained itself in one way or
another for years, but the old-line conception of the political
legitimacy of despotic rulers had been rudely shattered.
¶ In spite of a brave show of gold cloth, diamonds, laces, jewels,
swords, silk stockings, lackeys, grooms, guards and crowns, kingcraft
was now placed on the defensive. The cry of the people, "Liberty!"
filled many a market-place.
¶ Forces of democracy were working everywhere, ill-directed to be
sure, but never despairing of ultimate victory over kingcraft, which
indeed had now come upon evil days. It is an undeniable fact that
Bonaparte had purged the political ideas of French Revolution of many
excesses, and had turned to practical account certain forms of
liberty, for example, ridding captured lands, as Ffyfe tells us, of
offensive special privileges, on part of irresponsible rulers of petty
degree; but the danger was found in this: that a mere "desire" for
political expediency, however surrounded by the halo of popular
rights, avails nothing unless ultimately sustained by strong central
authority; and it requires no profound knowledge of men's way to know
that at no time in the history of the world has collective rulership
been other than a theory. The excesses of the French Revolution were
not readily overlooked by the conservative elements in Germany.
20
German hope of National Union gleams like a star.
¶ There gradually grew throughout Germany a spirit of intense longing
for country, and many a noble spirit had in a vision seen from afar
the common Fatherland. Especially in the universities, the feeling was
strong.
The German universities were hotbeds of political excitement. For many
years after Napoleon's downfall all manner of theories of government
were strenuously debated, to the accompaniment of duels,
beer-drinking, private feuds, and popular agitation, often ending in
blood. The Burschenschaft, as the student brothers were called,
finally formed themselves into a league comprising sixty schools; and
held a famous meeting at Wartburg, 1817.
¶ The patriots took Holy Communion, made impassioned speeches, built
bonfires and cast into the flames hated books supporting Metternich's
system of kingcraft. Also the patriots consigned to the fire an
illiberal pamphlet by King Fr: Wilhelm III of Prussia.
¶ Metternich became alarmed. Kotzebue, hated as a spy of Russia in
Germany, was stabbed to the heart by Karl Sand. This gave to
Metternich the desired opportunity, and he proceeded forthwith to
impress on Fr: Wilhelm and the Czar the absurdity of toying longer
with "Democratic ideas and paper constitutions."
Then and there the Biblical phrases of democrat-mongering kings, under
the Holy Alliance, ceased in the high courts of Russia and Prussia.
Metternich got hold of Fr: Wilhelm, also the other political tools of
the Frankfort Diet, and at Carlsbad decrees were issued sounding the
doom of Liberalism and the return to power of the old-line kings.
By gag-law and intimidation Metternich rushed the decrees through the
Diet;--and for a generation "Carlsbad" signified the suppression of
Democratic sentiments throughout Germany.
¶ Metternich fought free speech, free parliaments and a free press.
His iron laws were aimed to stifle democratic mutterings. Austrian
spies were everywhere, searching out revolutionary societies.
¶ The hope that Prussia might be the leader in the new German spirit
of nationality now vanished. William III definitely withdrew his
promise of a written Constitution, made in 1813, and reiterated in
1815.
Persecutions continued north and south; Prussia hounded Jahn for five
long years, this Jahn whose gymnastic societies had been so helpful in
hardening young men to Prussian army services; and the poet Arndt,
whose impassioned verse intensified the National spirit of Germany,
was shamefully treated, his papers scattered and the man driven from
his university.
¶ For many a long year the gloomy spirit of "Carlsbad" decrees hung
over Germany.
* * * * *
¶ However, the Germans have an intensely practical side as well as a
dreamy poetical side. It is not surprising, therefore, that the
earliest steps in the direction of German unity (1818) came through
Prussian customs house reforms under the patriot, Maassen.
¶ There had been, as we explained heretofore, no freedom of trade
throughout Germany; each of the petty thirty-nine states was
surrounded by Chinese walls; for example, to send goods from Hamburg
to Vienna, the shipper had to pay ten separate tolls.
¶ Under the old Prussian system there were in vogue at one and the
same time no less than sixty-seven conflicting tariff systems. All
this tax oppression meant a harvest for smugglers. But Maassen, at a
stroke, established a common tariff in Prussia; made the tax so low
that smuggling became unprofitable. The other states protested
vehemently at first, but one by one entered this new customs union.
¶ And we may understand now certain sarcastic remarks sometimes made
about Germany by her historical enemies: "Paper, cheese, sauerkraut,
ham, and matches, served to unite German hearts more than political
ties!"
¶ This slur is ill-deserved; at best, it simply means that the
advantages of the "Zollverein" were economic as well as political;
and, in later years, the necessity for a common system of doing
business played a deservedly important part in helping along
Bismarck's plans.
¶ The customs league, called the "Zollverein," is generally held to be
the very beginning of practical unity for Germany.
* * * * *
¶ On the poetical side of German character, earliest appeals for the
Fatherland--one and united!--were expressed down through the years;
long indeed before actual political union was possible, Germany's
bards, in their impassioned, semi-religious songs awakened in German
hearts the spirit of intense longing for the common Fatherland, based
on blood-brotherhood and language.
¶ One of the famous types of this patriot-poet was Arndt, son of an
emancipated slave. Arndt was a noble democrat; his history of slavery
in Pomerania inspired Adolphus to abolish that evil, 1806; the
Prussian aristocrats held Arndt a life-long grudge.
"Spirit of the Times," his patriotic trumpet-call aroused Prussians to
fight France. Napoleon tracked the lyric poet out; Arndt fled to
Sweden; but continued to write for the cause. He returned to Germany,
1809.
¶ "Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?" remains one of the great
semi-religious songs of nations. Arndt asks what comprises the
Fatherland? Surely not Prussia, not Swabia, nor this nor that, but all
side by side comprise the German brotherhood of race and language.
Where is the German Fatherland?
Is't Swabia? Is't Prussia's land?
Is't where the grape glows on the Rhine,
Where sea-gulls skim the Baltic's brine?
Oh, no! more great, more grand
Must be the German Fatherland!
¶ Here is a spirited verse from "The God That Lets the Iron Grow":
The God who made earth's iron hoard
Scorned to create a slave
Hence, unto man the spear and sword
In his right hand he gave!
Hence him with courage he imbued
Lent wrath to Freedom's voice--
That death or victory in the feud
Might be his only choice!
¶ "Der Gott, der Eisen wachsen liess," "Was blasen die Trompeten,"
were on all patriotic lips; at this, William III, mightily offended,
had Arndt arrested and sent him into retirement for twenty years.
¶ The old man lived to become a great National hero. He died January
29, 1860, aged 91. It is pleasant to record that on his ninetieth
birthday Germany united in good wishes for their national poet of the
dark hours.
The people built him a monument at the place of his birth, Schoritz,
and another at Bonn, where for many years he had been professor of
history.
21
It is not time, O William, to go to church but to go to war;
yet you and your son keep on reading your Gothic Bible.
¶ Now comes the year 1840; William III goes to the tomb of his
ancestors, and is succeeded by Fr: William IV, with whom began anew
the long battle between the principle of Divine-right of kings and
political democracy exercised by the masses. William IV, intensely
addicted to Divine-right theories of government, was in the course of
a turbulent reign forced to face great political agitators. However,
the King had behind his throne, always, that conservative class (found
in every country) that clings tenaciously to the past and dreads the
future. The watchword of all William's enemies was "Liberty!" The cry,
visionary as it was, served as a rallying point for those who favored
some form of French constitutionalism; and while, as a whole, the
so-called friends of Liberty were very impracticable, had no definite
plan for relief, we find among the political agitators foremost in
their discontent many of the brightest minds in Germany, college
graduates, professional men, the clergy, and solid middle class
merchants. All were zealous for immediate political reforms.
* * * * *
¶ Consider the position of our Fr: William IV. He was a peculiar man,
to begin with--and an irresolute man, to end with. He was not built
for times of war. Yet he had to face cannon!
Early in life, in impressionable years, through a court blunder, young
William had had a tutor, Delbrueck, who poisoned his charge's mind
against the Prussian military and bureaucratic system.
The attitude of Delbrueck was certainly heresy as vile as though your
own child's nurse should bring your boy up to fear and despise his own
father. Surely, you would not like that?
¶ Delbrueck was quickly given the sack; and it was well that he got
off without a broken head!
He was succeeded by a preacher, Ancillon, of renown in church affairs.
This Ancillon started young William off on another track; antiques,
church history, Bible study, architecture, the brotherhood of man, and
the fatherhood of God.
¶ Then William studied art under Rausen, and under Schinkel; and also
the future king became absorbed in landscape gardening and in
architecture.
¶ William was presumed to be "liberal" in his views, that is to say,
he was, in a sense, supposed to be a "democrat."
¶ Of course, the Radicals at this hour knew nothing of Bismarck, who
was to be the power behind the throne. They saw instead only a weak
king; and history tells over and over again, down through time, what
becomes of weak kings when the people are throwing up barricades in
the streets and are tossing up their caps and crying "Liberty!"
* * * * *
¶ Under his royal nose the Liberals kept sticking his father's pledge
of the glorious year, 1813. How about that long-promised Constitution,
your Majesty? Thousands of deluded Prussians now believed that they
could accurately define the peculiar word "Liberty!" It looked as
though the people were bent on casting out a king. As yet there were
in Prussia no organized party lines; the general situation was summed
up in the growing hopes that the common people placed in French
constitutionalism--wherever that might lead.
¶ At any rate, the old régime must go.
22
Bad business, this promising a written Constitution--The deluge
breaks.
¶ The Prussian nobility, always bound to the King by feelings of
ardent loyalty, formed a military caste; the peasantry was
industrious, thrifty and hard-working; the State officials were
devoted to a spirit of discipline at once thorough and pedantic; the
Prussian school-system was first in square-headed masters, who ruled
with rods of iron. Thus, the Prussian National ideal was based on
Discipline military in its severity, self-sacrifice and energy.
"Throughout Prussia was a spirit of affirmation, expressive of the
vigorous National egotism. As time passed, the machine men of olden
Prussia were gradually replaced by free-willed, self-conscious
citizens taking an enlightened interest in their country; the old-time
tutelage headed by the monarchs underwent a transformation; and the
trend was toward enlightened self-government; but many years were to
pass before this ideal was reached."
¶ William did indeed cherish, in a way, an idea of German Unity, and
in this respect he was a democrat or a radical, whatever you wish to
term him. Here, we must make one fact plain. It will make you smile at
William's simplicity, will show you how utterly he was out of touch
with the tendencies of the times; how good-natured he was; how honest
he was. He believed that German Unity, if ever it came, should
historically be an extension of the old Holy Roman Empire, through the
illustrious House of Hapsburg!
Which is equivalent to saying that your own family should advance by
humbling itself before your own greatest rival; that you should bow to
your political enemy and submit to being effaced, to heighten your
rival's glory.
Strauss calls William "A romanticist on the throne of the Cæsars!"
This Fr: William IV wished to be an absolute monarch, after the
traditional Hohenzollern style, yet he had so few soldierly instincts
that the army hated him.
¶ This political attitude with William was not a form of romantic
idealism bordering on lunacy; it was instead a token of his blundering
stupidity; also in a sense his four-square frankness in owning that
Prussia was playing second fiddle to Austria, at this interesting
moment. And, in truth, all that William thought was logical; the
stream was tending that way; few denied it, except politicians
interested in advancing their own fortunes by setting Austria back in
the great game of grab. However, William, instead of loading cannon
and turning them on the Radicals, now swarming around his palace, was
much pleased to send a bishop to Jerusalem.
¶ Nicholas of Russia warned William to beware of democrats, and to
stand up for Divine-right of kings, but what is the use of advising a
coward to be a hero, a fool to be a wise man? In the end, a man must
go through life with the sort of head he has--round, square, flat, or
mushy--is it not true? You are no exception, yourself; and our
church-building William, in turn, was true to his own æsthetic nature,
regardless of bayonets poked under his nose.
¶ Bad business this promising the people a written Constitution;
ominous for the breed of kings; a situation, in short, not unlike that
forced on the Grand Monarch at an earlier day, that is to say, no
money without the States' General.
¶ After 1840, Liberal opinions were directed against the King,
personally, charging him with political reactionary tendencies. The
course of popular liberty was taken by noted men, among them Arnold
Ruge, Karl Marx, Feuerbach, Strauss, Bauer, Fallersleben, Dingelstedt,
Meissner, Beck, Kinkel, and others. Also, when Ischech attempted to
assassinate William IV, the dastardly act found supporters who gloried
in the "patriot's" effort to rid the country of a "tyrant," even
through cold-blooded murder.
¶ Also, the very memory of the frightful excesses of the French
Revolution still shocked the conservative political element of Europe.
The land-owning classes of Prussia, backed by the Prussian army, stood
shoulder to shoulder for their old titles. The new call of political
liberalism was, therefore, in the view of Prussian conservatives, to
be put down at all hazards. The position was, of course, largely
selfish, but it was very human.
* * * * *
¶ Matters came to a crisis in '47; King William IV needed money for a
little railroad project in East Prussia. In his dilemma, he called his
Baby Parliament, or Diet, April 11, 1847, and "deigned" to permit
therein the right of petition; there were in truth no privileges of
political significance, no real powers; it was a side-show, so far as
the "people" were concerned--and for eleven weeks volleys of oratory
crackled and thundered.
* * * * *
¶ Here, we meet Bismarck face to face; and you should now be prepared,
from what you have read, to understand the gigantic problem Bismarck
was called upon to face--single-handed!
¶ Furthermore, Bismarck's attitude was not, as has often been
recorded, a case of "might is right." The French Revolution had proven
conclusively that there can be no political "right" without a
political "might." We should not forget this fact throughout the
Bismarck story of Prussia's rise to power.
BOOK THE THIRD
Bismarck Supports His King