Survival of Monarchies: Prussia, Part VI

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Baden, Bavaria, Frederick III, Frederick III of Germany, German Empire, Hesse, Kingdom of Prussia, North German Confederation, Otto von Bismark, South German Confederation, Württemberg, Wilhelm I of Germany

On January 18, 1871 the Prussian army occupied the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles Palace and King Wilhelm I of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor. The title “German Emperor” was carefully chosen by Bismarck after heated discussions even up to and after the day of the proclamation. Wilhelm I grudgingly accepted this title grudgingly but he would have preferred “Emperor of Germany” which, however, was unacceptable to the federated monarchs, and would also have signaled a claim to lands outside his realm (Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg etc.) and also superiority over the other monarchs within the Empire. The title “Emperor of the Germans”, as proposed in 1848, was ruled out as he considered himself chosen “by the grace of God”, not by the people as in a republic. Wilhelm I also viewed his Kingship of Prussia as much more important than the title of German Emperor. He complained to his son, Crown Prince Friedrich about having to exchange “the radiant Prussian crown for this filth-crown.”

With this ceremony, the North German Confederation united with the South German Confederation and was transformed into the German Empire (“Kaiserreich”, 1871–1918). This Empire was a federal state; the emperor was head of state and president (primus inter pares – first among equals) of the federated monarchs (the kings of Bavaria, Württemberg, Saxony, the grand dukes , Mecklenburg, Hesse, Baden, as well as other principalities, duchies and the senates of the free cities of Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen).

Bismarck describes Wilhelm I as an old-fashioned, courteous, infallibly polite gentleman and a genuine Prussian officer, whose good common sense was occasionally undermined by “female influences”. This was a reference to Wilhelm’s wife, (Princess Augusta of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach 1811-1890. the second daughter of Carl-Friedrich, Grand Duke of Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach and Maria Pavlovna of Russia, a daughter of Emperor Paul I of Russia and Sophie Dorothea of Württemberg) who had been educated by, among others Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and was intellectually superior to her husband. She was also at times very outspoken in her opposition to official policies as she was a liberal. Wilhelm however, had long been strongly opposed to liberal ideas. Despite possessing considerable power as Kaiser, Wilhelm I left the task of governing mostly to his chancellor and limited himself to representation, embodying the dignity of the state and approving Bismarck’s policies.

Here we have, in the relationship between Kaiser and Chancellor, the seeds of a limited Constitutional Monarchy. Yes, the German Empire did have a Constitution but it gave the monarch considerable power. Wilhelm I was content to allow Bismark to rule in his name. When Wilhelm won the Imperial Crown he was 74 years old an advanced age for the 19th century. He would continue to rule until 1888 when he died at the age of 91. With the precedent of allowing the Chancellor to wield the power, and the Crown Prince Friedrich being Liberal, things looked promising for the Empire to evolve into a similar system to that of Great Britain.

Sadly, it was not meant to be. In 1888 when Kaiser Wilhelm I was nearing the end of his life, his son the Crown Prince, was also near the end of his as he was dying from throat cancer. When Kaider Wilhelm I died in March of 1888 the new Emperor, Friedrich III, ruled for only 99 days and kept Bismark on and was not able to implement any of his liberal policies. The premature demise of Friedrich III is considered a potential turning point in German history; and whether or not he would have made the Empire more liberal if he had lived longer is still discussed.

Friedrich III was succeeded by his very conservative and bombastic son, as Kaiser Wilhelm II, and he would lead the German Empire to its downfall.

Surviving Monarchies: Prussia Part V

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Count Benedetti, Ems Telegraph, Franco-Prussian War, Isabel II of Spain, Kaiser Wilhelm I, Prussia, Treaty of Frankfurt

There is so much to this topic it is taking longer than I originally thought. Also, the subject of German Unification is a topic that could, in itself, take mane pages to write about. This post will be just a basic survey of the subject as it is relevant to the topic of the survival of monarchies.

After the failure of the 1849 Frankfurt Parliament to unify Germany the desire for a unified country still existed. The problem was dualism. During this time of the German Confederation we had a Germany with two heads: Austria and Prussia. For Prussians many felt Austria had to go its own way. The man who felt most strongly about that was Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismark. Not a supporter of Liberalism at all Bismark believed that Germany needed to be forged out of blood-and-iron and under the leadership of Prussia.

In 1861 King Wilhelm I became King of Prussia and shortly thereafter he appointed Otto von Bismarck as the Chancellor. To unify Germany Bismark developed a plan that would exclude Austria, and then join the southern German States with Prussia and the other northern German States. Bismark knew that these steps would only be accomplished through a series of wars. In 1864 a crisis in Denmark provided the first step. There was a great controversy over the ownership of the thrones of the united Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Both Denmark and Prussia had claims. In 1863 the king of Denmark, Christian IX, annexed these territories which violated the London Protocol of 1853.

Under Bismark’s plan the Austrian Empire was deliberately drawn into this war by Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Prussia. The Austro-Prussian war was short and an easy Prussian victory led to Schleswig, the northern part, being governed by Prussia and Holstein, the southern part, being governed by Austria. (Treaty of Vienna (1864). The next step in German unification for Bismark was to remove Austria from German interests and to do this he goaded them into war. This opportunity came in 1866 when Bismarck accused the Austrian Empire of stirring up troubles in Prussia-held Schleswig. Austria declared war on Prussia and Prussian troops drove into Austrian-held Holstein and took control of the entire state of Schleswig-Holstein. The short seven weeks war found Austria swiftly defeated. The resulting Treaty of Prague (1866) formally dissolved the German Confederation and Prussia created the North German Confederation to include all Germanic states except the pro-French, southern kingdoms of Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg which formally created the Southern German Confederation.

Bismark’s next step was to bring the Southern German Confederation into union with the Prussian lead North German Confederation. The next step was complex so I will simplify it. In 1868 Queen Isabel II of Spain was deposed and the Spanish Parliament voted Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen as their king. The French who were ruled by Napoleon III did not want to be sandwiched in by two Hohenzollern empires. After a series of rejections of the candidacy of Leopold for the Spanish throne the matter seemed settled. It wasn’t. In 1870 Napoleon III, demanded territories of the Rhineland in return for his neutrality during the Austro-Prussian War. This increased tensions between France and Prussia. Bismarck used the Spanish Succession question and the Ems Telegram to King Wilhelm to start a war. The Ems Telegram was a harmless telegram from the French ambassador to King Wilhelm looking for reassurance that the candidacy of Prince Leopold was dropped. Bismark reworded the Ems telegram to give the French the impression that King Wilhelm I had insulted Count Benedetti; likewise, the Germans interpreted the modified dispatch as the Count insulting the King. As a result Napoleon III declared war against Prussia.

The Franco-Prussian War 1870-71 was also swift and ended with Prussian troops capturing Paris, the capital of the Second French Empire. Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg were incorporated into the North German Confederation in the Treaty of Frankfurt (1871). Bismarck then proclaimed King Wilhelm I, now Kaiser Wilhelm I, as leader of the new, united Germany (German Reich). With the German troops remaining in Paris, Napoleon III dissolved the French Empire and a new republic, Third French Republic, was created under Adolphe Thiers. The Prussian Constitution became the Constitution for the German Empire and gave both the Chancellor and the Emperor considerable power.

Survival of Monarchies: Prussia Part IV

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Conservative, Frankfurt Parliament, Frederick William IV of Prussia, French Revolution, German Empire, Habsburg, Holy Roman Empire, Liberal, Nicholas I of Russia, Prussia

When the 1848 revolutions swept Germany many Liberals sought to unify Germany under a liberal constitution. However, King Friedrich-Wilhelm IV of Prussia was not sympathetic toward the revolutionaries. The king initially moved to repress it with the army, but on March 19 the king had a change of heart and recalled the troops and place himself at the head of the revolutionary movement.

The king committed himself fully to the ideal of German unification. The king formed a liberal government, convened a national assembly, and ordered that a constitution be written. It would seem the conservative Prussian king had become a liberal. Or had he? These actions did calm the tensions in the State and once his position was more secure again, however, he quickly had the army reoccupy Berlin and in December dissolved the Liberal assembly.

Although the king’s change from conservatism to liberalism was a ruse to keep order, He did, however, remain dedicated to unification for a limited period of time. In reality his support for German Unification was paper-thin. When the moment came to unify Germany as a Liberal state, the king blinked. On April 3rd, 1849, the Frankfurt Parliament offered Freidrich-Wilhelm IV the Imperial Crown of Germany. The King flatly refused saying that he would not accept “a crown from the gutter”.

It is interesting to note that the king did not want to unify Germany under his Hohenzollern dynasty. The King had romantic aspiration were to re-establish the medieval Holy Roman Empire, comprising smaller, semi-sovereign monarchies under the limited authority of a Habsburg emperor. Therefore Friedrich-Wilhelm IV would only accept the imperial crown if he had been elected by the German princes, as per the former empire’s ancient customs. He would not accept the crown from German politicians whom the king did not believe had the authority to create an emperor. He expressed this sentiment in a letter to his sister the Empress Alexandra Feodorovna of Russia (wife of Emperor Nicholas I of Russia), in which he said the Frankfurt Parliament had overlooked that “in order to give, you would first of all have to be in possession of something that can be given.” In his eyes, only a reconstituted College of Electors (consisting of princes of the Empire) could possess such authority.

After the failure of the Frankfurt Parliament even King Freiedrich-Wilhelm IV began considering a Prussian-led union where all German states, excluding those ruled by the Habsburgs, would be unified under Hohenzollern authority. However, Friedrich-Wilhelm IV abandoned the idea of German Unity after the Punctuation of Olmütz on November 29, 1850, in the face of renewed Austrian and Russian resistance to the notion of a Hohenzollern controlled German Empire. The German Confederation remained the common government of German Europe.

One of the benefits of these failures was that Friedrich-Wilhelm IV promulgated a new constitution that created a Parliament of Prussia with two chambers, an aristocratic upper house and an elected lower house. The lower house was elected by all taxpayers, but in a three-tiered system based on the amount of taxes paid, so that true liberal principle of universal suffrage was denied. The constitution also reserved to the king the power of appointing all ministers, reestablished the conservative district assemblies and provincial diets, and guaranteed that the civil service and the military remained firmly in the hands of the king. This was a more liberal system than had existed in Prussia before 1848, but it was still a conservative system of government in which the monarch, the aristocracy, and the military retained most of the power. This constitution remained in effect until the dissolution of the Prussian kingdom in 1918.

After 1850, the increasingly depressed king withdrew from the public eye and began surrounding himself with advisers who preached absolute orthodoxy and conservatism in religious and political matters. In 1857 a stroke left the king partially paralyzed and largely mentally incapacitated, and his brother (and heir-presumptive) Prince Wilhelm served as regent from 1858 until the king’s death in 1861, at which point the regent acceded to the throne himself as Wilhelm I of Prussia.

Next week. German unification under Wilhelm I and Chancellor Bismark.

Survival of Monarchies: Prussia part III

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Baden, Bavaria, Confederation of the Rhine, Congress of Vienna, German Confederation, Germany, Holy Roman Empire, Napoleon, Prussia

After the fall of the Holy Roman Empire the question of German unity became inevitable. But how to unify such a patchwork quilt of nation states? Prior to the end of the empire some states within its boundaries were elevated in rank. Bavaria, Saxony, and Württemberg became Kingdoms under the influence of Napoleon. Baden became a Grand Duchy and after the Napoleonic wars, Hanover also became a kingdom. The real question was would it be Prussia or Austria to gain the upper hand and unit Germany under their authority?

From 1806 until 1813 the German States formed the Confederation of the Rhine without the inclusion of Austria and Prussia. The Confederation was to be run by common constitutional bodies, but the individual states wanted unlimited sovereignty. This loose confederation suffered some of the same problems the old Holy Roman Empire suffered from and that is there was not a strong central government.

The Holy Roman Emperor had at its head an Emperor. The Confederation, since it was not considered an empire was ruled by Karl Theodor von Dalberg, the former Arch Chancellor of the Holy Roman Empire and he carried the of a Prince-Primate of the confederation. This made him President of the College of Kings and presided over the Diet of the Confederation, designed to be a parliament-like body though it never actually assembled. The President of the Council of the Princes was held the Prince oef Nassau-e. At its heart the Confederation was a conservative minded military alliance. As mentioned, this body was under the influence of Napoleon who elevated many of the states to Kingdom status. During its short existence the members of the confederation found themselves more subordinated to Napoleon than they had been to the Habsburgs.

The Confederation of the Rhine collapsed in 1813, with the aftermath of Napoleon’s failed campaign against the Russian Empire. Many of its members changed sides after the Battle of Leipzig, when it became apparent Napoleon would lose the War of the Sixth Coalition. In 1814 the major European powers gathered in Vienna for the Congress of Vienna which redrew the map of Europe after the defeat of Napoleon. German unity did not come at this juncture but instead we saw the creation of the German Confederation with both Austria and Prussia included. The Habsburg Emperor of Austria was its nominal head, holding the title of President of the Confederation.

This Confederation, which was basically the old Holy Roman Empire in all but name, lasted until 1866 when Prussia began to consolidate its power among the German states and began the path of unification without Austria. Prior to that, in 1848, there was an attempt to create a more liberal unified German Empire. That is what we will look at in depth next week.

Survival of Monarchies: Prussia Part II

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Brandenburg, Cleves, Constitutional Monarchy, Frederick the Great, Holy Roman Emperor, Holy Roman Empire, Kingdom of Prussia, Mark, Pomerania, Ravensberg

It was during the reign of Friedrich II “The Great” that we see the rise in militarism and the consolidation of Hohenzollern lands into the great state of Prussia. Many of the traditions that were started by Friedrich were continued throughout the monarchy as each Hohenzollern king or emperor tried to emulate their ancestor. To be honest The House of Hohenzollern never did produce a leader as effective as Friedrich the Great. Now in this survey of how monarchies survived into the 21st century I cannot do the reign of Friedrich the Great justice. What I will do is establish how he consolidated the Prussian state and how that was carried on, at least in spirit, with his successors.

When Friedrich II came to the throne in 1740 his lands were strewn throughout the Holy Roman Empire and the Kingdom of Poland. His Brandenburg lands were part of the Holy Roman Empire. The entire Prussia state consisted of scattered territories, including Cleves, Mark, and Ravensberg in the west of the Holy Roman Empire; Brandenburg, Hither Pomerania, and Farther Pomerania in the east of the Empire; and the former Duchy of Prussia, outside of the Empire bordering the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. It was through a series of wars with Austria and Russia, annexing portions of Poland, that made Prussia the top military state and one of the most powerful nations in Europe.

By 1772 Friedrich II was able to call himself King of Prussia without any protests from Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II. With Prussia a solid European power and a strong military power to back it up, the Hohenzollern kings and the military became not only the actual power behind the throne but the symbolism of the military was steeped in Prussian culture. Every Prussian prince joined the military, if only nominally, at the age of 10 or 11. During the 19th century fancy court dress was replaced by military uniforms as the proper attire for a prince or king.

The rise and strengthening of Prussia during the reign of Friedrich II was also a nail in the coffin of the Holy Roman Empire. From 1648 until the end of the reign of Friedrich II in 1786 all the states in the Empire were, for the most part, autonomous, but none were considered powerful. With Prussia we see the rise of a new nation-state that could rival Austria. Although the Holy Roman Empire would limp on for another 20 years before it was dissolved in 1806. In reality the Empire disappeared as Prussia and Austria grew as rivals and began to compete over the future of the German states and the two also became the strong central powers in Europe.

Forged out of War and conquest Prussia was a mighty military state. After the dissolution of the empire in 1806 Austria looked to dominate the Confederation of the Rhine, the state that took its place, however, Prussia could no longer sit under the thumb of Austria. In the early and mid part of the 19th century when the unification of the German lands became the central issue the question of under whose leadership would Germany be unified; Prussia or Austria? Also, as the Liberal Revolutions of 1848 spread across German lands the question then became would Germany be united as a Liberal or Conservative state?

That is what we will examine next week.