Transcript Background to German History

Background to German History in
the 19th century
The drivers of change
The drivers of change
• French Revolution
– Created a legacy of:
• France henceforth seen as the epicentre of radical thought and radicalisation.
• Revolutionary activities in 1830 and 1848 begin in Paris.
• Ideology – from this time forth, governments needed to provide a justification
for themselves, Desire for rights enshrined in a written constitution;
• Nationalism – partly as a reaction to French rule.
• Industrial Revolution
• Changed everything from everyday experience of individuals to power relations
between states;
• Has the general effect of speeding up everything up – production,
manufacture, commerce, communication, time itself;
• Railways and coke-smelting processes the most important technological
developments of the 1st half of the 19th century;
• Industrialisation begins in the north and west of Europe and gradually moves
south and eastwards. Britain is the first to industrialise; France follows but at a
slower pace and, in the second half of the 19th century is overtaken by Prussia;
Russia misses opportunities and lags behind.
• Zollverein and industrialisation gives Prussia advantage over Austria in the
unification debate.
• Second industrial revolution in the 2nd half of the century saw Britain eclipsed
by Germany as the pre-eminent world industrial power before WWI.
The birth of Ideology
• A long term consequence of the French Revolution was the birth of
ideology.
• Napoleon’s revolutionary army was committed to spreading
revolutionary ideas throughout Europe.
• This is partly why the French Revolution sees the birth of ideology.
Until 1789, absolute monarchy required no justification; after that
point, aspirations to political power required justification.
• The following ideologies emerged in the process of revolution in
France or in reaction to it:
– Liberalism (moderate, bourgeois)
– Secularism (moderate to radical)
– Nationalism (Liberal initially, later conservative)
– Socialism (varied from moderate to radical forms)
– Conservatism (tended to take a religious hue)
Liberalism
• Thomas Jefferson’s Declaration of Independence (1776) and the General
Lafayette’s Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen (1789), were
fundamental statements of Liberalism, and found the notion that individuals
have natural rights that are universally held. Thomas Pain’s The Rights of Man,
1791, argued that popular political revolution is permissible when a government
does not safeguard the natural rights of its people.
• Liberals wanted to abolish absolute power, personal privileges and restrictive
limitations upon law courts, churches, universities and newspapers and, above
all, interference in the wealth of its citizens as through Tariffs and customs
duties.
• In social terms, Liberals were ‘self-made’, in the sense that their wealth was
created not inherited. They tended to be merchants, manufacturers,
businessmen and financiers whose views were reflected in Adam Smith’s Wealth
of the Nations (1776) which argued that artificial restrictions by way of taxation,
regulation, restraint or monopoly upon free and a natural course of manufacture
and commerce were harmful.
• Liberalism became identified in Europe and America, with the determination to
establish written constitutions that enshrined the rights and liberties of
citizens. In practice, Citizens were understood to be male, white and propertied.
• Liberals feared popular revolt and therefore still believed that the state should
be strong, but that it should be elected by those with property.
Secularism
• Moderate secularism might merely amount to the disestablishment
of religion from government – as in the American constitution. The
state would remain secular so that citizens had a freedom to
worship in any way the pleased.
• The French revolution represented a more radical rejection of
religion itself.
• Radical secularism might be more associated with radical critiques
of religion itself. In the mid-19th century, the most prominent forms
of radical secularism might be represented by Marxist Commuist
theory which argued that ‘religion was the opium of the masses’, or
developed from Darwin’s theory of evolution, which was
considered the most serious attack on religion at the time.
• Western secularism, in both its moderate and radical forms, was
bitterly opposed by rulers who wanted to argue for absolute
kingship, ‘by the grace of god’ or by ‘divine right’. Partly for those
reasons, conservatism tended to take on a religious hue.
Nationalism
• Nationalism in itself doesn’t contain a fixed body of ideas other than a kind
of intensified patriotism. It is this very elasticity that helps account for its
success. In theory at least, one could be a nationalist as well as a capitalist, a
socialist, a conservative or a liberal. For that reason, ‘Nationalism’ could and
would find mass rather than just elite support.
• At the beginning of the 19th century, however, Nationalism was most closely
associated with Liberal rather than conservative sentiment. In 1792 the
French Republic issued the Edict of Fraternity, proclaiming its war to be a
revolutionary struggle to liberate the peoples of every state from their
tyrannical rulers. At first Napoleon’s armies were welcomed as such.
• Napoleon appeared to be a bourgeois hero – a romantic figure who rose
from the lowest ranks to that of General of the Revolutionary army and
leader of France. He seemed to embody the spirit of romantic
individualism.
• However, he also boosted patriotic sentiment in the countries he
dominated, however, by repressive policies which included high taxation and
a continental blockade of British goods.
• His proclamation of his own imperial status disillusioned bourgeois
romantics like Beethoven who removed Napoleon’s name from the
dedication to his third symphony in 1804, and Liberals who began to see
national unity and constitutional monarchy as necessary preconditions for
the protection of the rights and liberties of the citizens.
German nationalism
• In the geographic area known as ‘Germany’ he boosted the cause of
German liberalism in a direct way – he brought the Holy Roman
Empire to an end in 1806 and reduced its complexity from 314
individual states to 39 (e.g. Bavaria now included what had been 80
autonomous states), imposing the Napoleonic code in the process.
• Unwittingly, however, Napoleon did the cause of German unification
a favour, in another way. By imposing his own taxation and
oppression nationalism grew within those German lands in reaction
to French oppression.
• Liberals within these territories believed that the best way to protect
individual freedoms and international peace was through economic
units like the nation state. Nationalism in Germany – and also in Italy
– therefore went hand in hand with Liberal ideals of protecting the
freedom of Citizens.
• Romantic poets, philosophers and writers within German territories
looked to German language as uniting a unique ‘volk’ who were
otherwise divided politically, religiously and economically.
Germany before Napoleon
During Napoleonic era, before
Austerlitz
After the
Peace of
Tilsit, 1807
Prussia lost 1/3rd of
its territory, pay an
indemnity and
support a French
army.
Germany after Congress of Vienna,
1815
German
Kingdoms
in 1815
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Socialism
Though Liberalism favoured revolution when governments failed to protect the
rights of its citizens, it did not envisage violent popular revolt or the wholesale
redistribution of wealth. This was increasingly envisaged by thinkers who were
termed ‘socialist’.
The French aristocrat Henry, Count of Saint-Simon (1760-1825), for example,
wanted society to be organised by experts who would replace ‘the exploitation of
man by man’ by considering the common good and ensuring a fair distribution of
wealth to everyone - ‘to each according to his ability; to each ability according to
its works’ (Saint-Simon).
By the mid-19th century, socialist thinkers were less ‘academic’ in their approach.
Louis Blanc, The Organisation of Labour (1840), pointed toward revolutionary
means to achieve greater human equality. In a pamphlet of 1840 Pierre Joseph
Proudhon went even further, condemning private property altogether, in the
process coining the expression ‘all property is theft’.
The most important socialist thinker of the period was of course the German
thinker Karl Marx (1818-1883) whose Communist Manifesto of 1848 coincided with
the revolutionary uprisings of that year but Marx was to be depressed when he found
the working classes in Germany more interested in breaking machinery than to smash
the forces of conservatism.
However, it was not long before his ideas began to influence trade unionist and
working class movements. After 1871, Germany became the first European country to
have a recognised Socialist party; like other such groups, it had a radical and a
moderate wing, one favouring socialist change by means of revolution, the other by
constitutional means.
Conservatism
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Conservatism was a reaction to radical ideological ideas and revolutionary change. It
was also deeply suspicious of ‘nationalism’.
In England, conservatism was protestant but increasingly defended in secular terms by
Edmund Burke whose Reflections on the Revolution in France (1790) stressed the
English model of gradual ‘organic’ change rather than the rupture of sudden
revolutionary change that would end, he predicted – accurately as it turned out – in
bloodshed. He looked to the upper classes to ‘look after’ their inferiors as a way of
preventing radicalisation.
On the continent, Conservatism was more often justified by reference to religious
teaching or ‘divine truth’. In Russia it appeared in Orthodox Religious garb. In Austria it
was more Catholic, in Prussia it was Protestant. The most conservative states in Europe
tended to be in the East, were dominated by landowning classes and inherited wealth
and were last to industrialise, perhaps because the dominant classes jealously guarded
the path to power.
Monarchies in Russia, Prussia and Austria each sought to retain absolute power, and for
that reason they established a ‘Holy Alliance’ following the defeat of Napoleon in 1815
in which they agreed to restrain republicanism and secularism in Europe.
In Austria and Russia in particular, conservative monarchical regimes tried to hold on to
absolute power through authoritarian governments and secret police. These regimes
feared Liberalism and secularism which threatened to transform their regimes into
constitutional monarchies like those of England and France and Nationalism which
threatened the break up of their polyglot empires.
After 1815, Prussia combined both industrial areas and rural ones, and this would later
be reflected in the emergence of distinct Liberal and Conservative political groups in the
German Empire after 1871.
The German Federation
• From 1815, Liberals who debated the national question, pondered two
possible solutions – the ‘Grossdeutschland’ that would unite all German
speaking peoples; or a ‘Kleindeutschland’ that would unite some.
• The German Federation seemed to offer some hope. Founded at the
Congress of Vienna in 1815, the German Federation was in a way a kind of
‘zombie’ Holy Roman Empire. Its borders were the same, but rather an
emperor, it looked to a kind of parliament or ‘Bundestag’ for leadership.
• The nominal presidency of the Bundestag lay with Austria, and so long as this
was the case, the latter tended to over-estimate its own influence on the
other states in Germany and under-estimate the growing power of Prussia,
whose borders had been extended to include the Rhineland and the area
around the Ruhr valley.
• Metternich saw the German Federation as a means of inhibiting liberal
impulses, and not as a concession to liberalism. The Bundestag did little to
promote individual freedoms and had little or no control over economic
matters between the states.
• Rather than extend the cause of economic liberalism, however, the
Bundestag was little more than a talking shop designed to preserve the
status quo and enable the leaders of German states to retain their power.
The Revolutions of 1848
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The failure of the German Federation to mature into a liberal state led to
revolutionary uprisings, first in 1830, and then more seriously in 1848.
The revolution of 1848 temporarily brought down the Habsburg monarchy in Austria
and established the Frankfurt Parliament which drew up a ‘kleindeutschland’
constitution known as the Paulskirche constitution which sought to unite the rest of
Germany with Prussia.
However, the Frankfurt parliament lacked foreign recognition, the ability to tax or
raise an army, making it entirely dependent upon Prussia.
A situation arose on the border with Denmark, where the Danish ruler sought to
incorporate the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein into his kingdom by right of
succession through the female line. (This resulted in what the Danes call the First
Schleswig War.)
The Frankfurt Parliament’s nationalist credentials were damaged by this incident,
particularly when it was forced to accept the humiliating Treaty of Malmo.
The Liberal revolution failed in the wider German states in part because of this,
partly because Liberals sided with reactionary forces of monarchy to put down
radical rebellions, and partly also because monarchies in German states introduced
their own constitutions with enough liberal concessions to divide the
revolutionaries.
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Outcomes
Nationalists lost their romanticism. In Germany they began to see the need for a
strong military power if unity was to be achieved. Liberals had invited King
Frederick William IV of Prussia to become Emperor of Germany as a constitutional
monarch, but the latter refused.
Whilst Frederick William refused to divest himself of power to the accept that he
would accept a democratic constitution, he recognised the need for a constitution
and recognised the opportunity which German unification might have to extend
Prussian power at the expense of his Austrian rival.
The power of nationalism as a populist force was beginning to be recognised as
something that could be manipulated to the service of conservatives as well as of
liberals.
Tensions between Liberalism and Nationalism would be revealed for the first time
in the revolutions of 1848, and particularly in Austria, where the German
insurgents in Vienna failed to support Hungarian and Italian groups and this lack of
co-operation enabled the Habsburg monarchy to recover its power.
The Habsburg monarchy was restored largely because of a failure of Austrians,
Hungarians and Italians to work together. By the end of 1849 Franz Joseph was in
power and normal service – as far as the Austrian empire was concerned – was
resumed.
The revolutions of 1848 brought an end to the reign of Louis Philippe in France,
and proclaimed Napoleon III (nephew of the revolutionary General) as Emperor.
He was to prove an effective liberaliser at home, but an incompetent in Foreign
affairs.
Industrialisation
Background
• Britain was – in the 1st decades of the 19th century – the
greatest colonial power in the world; much the greatest
naval power and much the greatest industrial power.
• 1851 census showed that agriculture was still Britain’s
largest single industry (though manufacturing of all kinds
now employed considerably more people) and landed
property and farms still accounted in that year for about
40% of her total capital.
• The British population of people living in towns of over
10,000 people grew from 23.3 to 39.5% between 1801 to
1851. By contrast, the % of Frenchmen living in such areas
grew from 9.5 to only 10.6 in the same period.
Measures of Industrial strength
• Pig iron (best index in 1st half of 19th century of industrial strength)
– In 1850 British consumption of iron, on a per capita basis, was more
than 14 times that of Russia, French consumption 4.5 times as great.
– 1850 - in France, iron production was less than twice what it had been
in 1806; in both Britain and Germany its production had grown 8 or 9
times in the same period.
• Railways – by 1850 Britain had twice as much railway line as
Germany; four times as much as France whose slow progress
prolonged the life of archaic techniques and out of date methods of
economic organization.
– Russia – a vast territory – missed its opportunity, and relied too heavily
on foreign expertise and materials: in 1790 1st steam engine built by a
factory set up by an Englishman; in 1844 1st railway locomotives was
work of American entrepreneurs and engineers; 1836-65 Russian
railways (whose mileage was still tiny in terms of the size and needs of
the empire) imported seven-eighths of their rails, three-fifths of their
locomotives and two-thirds of the freight cars.
The Zollverein
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Liberals and Nationalists increasingly looked not to Austria but to the Prussian monarchy
as their hope for a future Germany in which liberal values might be protected and the
German ‘volk’ united.
The Prussian monarchy did not fear Nationalism in the way that the Austrian monarchy
did.
Prussia also had more incentive to listen to liberal ideas than did Austria. The Congress of
Vienna in 1815 among other things, expanded Prussia to include the Ruhr, thereby uniting
its conservative eastern landowners (Junkers) with more bourgeois industrialists in the
Ruhr valley;
The Zollverein was a customs union that was initially established within Prussia in part to
overcome the problems of opening up trade between different areas within Prussia,
particularly after the addition of the Rhineland territories. This Prussian customs union
was then extended further to include other customs unions. Other north German states
were creating their own customs union. Those unions were then united as the Zollverein
in 1833.
The Zollverein fulfilled one of the key goals of Liberal economics - it broke down internal
custom barriers that had existed during the Holy Roman Empire. It then invited other
German states to join it – all, that is, except Austria which remained committed to its
internal and external tariffs!
As a state it included both landowners of the East – the aristocratic Junker class – and a
growing liberal class from the most industrial regions within Germany. This ‘hybrid’ status
would later be reflected in the constitution of the Second Reich.
Zollverein
• At the same time as Prussia expanded to incorporate industrial regions in the
west, a Prussia established the Zollverein.
• By the 1850s – Railway building within Prussia were far in advance of other
German states. Within the Zollverein - Railways began to link effectively the
coal of the Saar basin, the iron ore of Luxembourg and the growing market of
the Zollverein states in general – paving the way for a great expansion of iron
production in the 2nd half of 19th century.
• By 1870 the Zollverein was already producing 38 millions of tonnes of coal
compared with 13 million tonnes by France; though it still lagged behind Britain
at 118 million tonnes.
• The Zollverein had more and more active entrepreneurs than France. In the
growing Silesian industrial area these were often noble landowners – e.g. Count
Henckel von Donnersmarck. In the West it tended to be members of the
middle class.
• By 1866, most Zollverein states were allied with Austria AGAINST Prussia,
because they were trying to politically counterbalance the economic
subordination to Prussia.
• If a future Bismarck was to unite those states to Prussia, he would clearly have
a job of persuasion to do.
Prussia and Austria
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Prussia had a good education system that emphasised technical knowledge; plentiful supply of coal,
iron and chemicals.
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Prussian industry benefitted from 2 other factors – the assistance of Enlightened officials and an
increasing application of scientific knowledge to technological problems. E.g. Alfred Krupp startled
British ironmasters by showing a block of cast steel weighing two tons, an achievement they could not
match.
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Krupp’s iron foundries in the Ruhr would soon be producing high quality armaments. By the 1860s his
factory at Essen employed thousands of Prussians.
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By the mid 1860s, Prussian economic growth had outstripped that of Austria and France, producing
more coal and steel than France. In 1865 Prussia possessed 15,000 steam engines with a total
horsepower of 800,000 compared with 3400 steam engines with a horsepower of 100,000 in Austria.
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Prussian communications were excellent with the railways growing from 5865 km to 18,876 between
1850 and 1870, which in turn encouraged a host of other industries, such as mining and steel
production.
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By contrast, Austria was in steep decline after 1848-9. It’s economy remained largely industrial, it
faced growing problem of minority nationalism, it had mounting financial problems and after the
Crimean war it lost allies to the east and west.
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Its defeat in Italy in 1859 was serious blow to its prestige.
Prussia’s political potential
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Another thing in Prussia’s favour was that its enormous potential was not spotted. It was regarded
as a second rate power when Bismarck entered power as its Chancellor President in 1862.
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The prevailing view in Britain was that it had nothing to fear from Protestant Prussia and that a
strong Germany would be a useful bulwark against France.
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Following Crimea, Russia took little interest in central Europe, but its sympathies most certainly lay
with Prussia over Austria.
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In 1859 the German National Association was formed, stimulated by the success of Italian
Nationalism, it promoted the idea that Prussia should lead the German cause and become more
liberal in outlook, but it accepted that nothing could be achieved without power and only Prussia
seemed to have that power.
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It is important to realise that whilst many Liberals and nationalists looked to Prussia, their more
conservative governments looked to Austria. By 1866, most Zollverein states were allied with
Austria AGAINST Prussia, because they were trying to politically counterbalance the economic
subordination to Prussia.
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If a future Bismarck was to unite those states to Prussia, he would clearly have a job of persuasion
to do. Famously, he told the Prussian parliament upon his appointment: ‘it is not by speeches and
majority resolutions that the great questions of the time are decided – that was the big mistake of
1848 and 1849 – but by blood and iron.’
Homework
• Read and take notes on:
• Alan Farmer and Andrina Stiles, The
Unification of Germany and the challenge of
Nationalism, 1789-1919, chapters 3 and 4.
• Stephen J. Lee, Imperial Germany, ch. 1.