German Confederation

“ Is it not inevitable that as years went on we should find an increasing intolerance of all rivals, who wished to alter what he had made, or to take his place as captain of his ship, and at the same time a most careful and strict regard for the loyal fulfilment of the law and spirit of the Constitution? From this time all other interests are laid aside, his whole life is absorbed in the prosperity of Germany. ”

“ The new German Confederation having given the separate States a fresh lease of life, after all their convulsions, the rulers set about establishing themselves firmly on their repaired thrones. Only the most intelligent among them felt that the days of despotism, however "enlightened," were over; others avoided the liberal provisions of the Act of Union, abolished many political reforms which had been introduced by Napoleon, and oppressed the common people even more than his satellites had done. ”

“ In the late 'sixties and early 'seventies it had seemed as if united Germany was to play quite a different political rôle from historic Austria or Prussia. Universal equal suffrage had been introduced in the North German Confederation and extended to the empire. The North German Confederation had legalized coalitions and associations of artisans for trade purposes. ”

“ The Duke of Nemours and Count of Chambord, the respective representatives of the lines of Orleans and Bourbon, have each a large number of partisans; while opposed to all of these are the Democrats and Socialists, of every shade, who are utterly averse to any form of monarchical government.
We gave in our last Number a view of the general state of the German Confederation. It is needless to present the statistics of the minor German States, as they do not possess sufficient weight to act except in subservience to either Austria or Prussia. ”

“ Where there are no common interests there can be no unity of purpose, much less of action. The German Confederation, it is true, was declared [Pg 27] everlastingly indissoluble; yet the Confederation, and its organ, the Diet, never represented German unity. The very highest pitch to which centralization was ever carried in Germany was the establishment of the Zollverein; by this the States on the North Sea were also forced into a Customs Union of their own, Austria remaining wrapped up in her separate prohibitive tariff. ”

“ It may indeed be said that the process has been in some sort a process of adoption, that the Italian and Burgundian elements have been incorporated into an already existing German body; that, as those elements were once subjects or dependents or protected allies, the case is one of clients or freedmen who have been admitted to the full privileges of the gens. This is undoubtedly true, and it is equally true of a large part of the German element itself. Throughout the Confederation, allies and subjects have been raised to the rank of confederates. ”

“ We believe it right to declare before all—not only before Prussia, but before Germany, if such be the will of God, and before the whole united nation, what are the propositions which we have resolved to make to our German confederates. Above all, we demand that Germany be transformed from a confederation of states into a federal state. We admit that this implies a recognisation of the federal constitution, which cannot be carried into effect save by the union of the princes with the people. ”

“ After the fall of Napoleon, the States formerly composing the German empire, entered into a confederation. The parties were Austria and Prussia for their German territories, Denmark for Holstein, the Netherlands for Luxembourg, and 33 independent States and Free Cities, comprising a territory of 244,375 square miles, and containing at present 42,000,000 inhabitants. The principal points agreed to in this Confederation were as follows: That all the members possess equal rights; they bind themselves for the security of each and all from all foreign attacks ”

“ The union of Fatherland would be a mockery, and the revival of the Empire a nullity, without the annexation of those provinces which constitute the birthplace and cradle of its history. Accordingly, when the Germanic Confederation was set up in 1815, as a substitute for the old diet, the German provinces of Austria were deemed of such importance as to confer upon her the leading voice in its councils. ”

“ The German Confederation, essentially as it still exists, was organized at Vienna by the rulers of the several German States and representatives from the free cities, June 8, 1815. Although there was in this assembly no direct representation of the people, it is clear that its deliberations were in great part determined by the unmistakable utterances of the popular mind. For one of the first measures adopted was to provide that in all the States of the Confederacy constitutional governments should be guaranteed. Frederick William himself was one of the most urgent supporters of this provision. ”

“ As before, there was only one department of State where his authority ceased,—the army.
It will be easily understood that this Constitution, when it was laid before the assembly, was not accepted without much discussion and many objections. There were some—the representatives of conquered districts, Poles, Hanoverians, and the deputies from Schleswig-Holstein—who wished to overthrow the new Federation which was built up on the destruction of the States to which they had belonged. Theirs was an enmity which was open, honourable, and easy to meet. ”

“ Germany, by its material strength, is rising far above the point we attained. England, France, Russia, and Austria no longer have any influence, by their diplomacy and alliances, over the hundreds of petty princes and peoples that constituted the German Confederation. They are shut out of Germany. Any pretension to interference [629] would make them a laughing-stock. All these powers, Russia excepted, have pursued a foolish policy, and are receiving the recompense due to their shrewdness. Inheritor of Richelieu, the French Revolution so disturbed Germany as to overthrow all its princes. ”

“ The Kingdom of the Low Countries, on entering into not only the German Customs Union but also the Pangerman Confederation, with the retention of all its rights, will cease to maintain an independent fleet, but will organize an independent Army Corps, with privileges like those of Bavaria, and also a colonial army. ”

“ Of course Austria, as the head of the German confederation, had to be consulted, and she thought well of uniting with Prussia to compel the cession of the twin dukedoms, which would have been quickly absorbed had not the European powers intervened and forbidden this encroachment upon the rights of Denmark. ”

“ By a treaty of August 18, 1866, all the North German States which had survived entered into a treaty with one another and with Prussia; they mutually guaranteed each other's possessions, engaged to place their forces under the command of the King of Prussia, and promised to enter into a new federation; for this purpose they were to send envoys to Berlin who should agree on a Constitution, and they were to allow elections to take place by universal suffrage for a North German Parliament before which was to be laid the draft Constitution agreed upon by the envoys of the States. ”

“ I remembered that even in the short period from 1813 to 1815, from Leipzig and Hanau to Belle-Alliance, the joint victorious struggle against France had rendered it possible to put an end to the opposition between a yielding Rhine-Confederation policy and the German national impetus of the days between the Vienna congress and the Mainz commission of inquiry, days marked by the names of Stein, Görres, Jahn, Wartburg, up to the crime of Sand. ”

“ A few decisive battles, it was thought,214 would be enough to enslave Continental Europe, and to build up, on the basis of that “Mid-European Confederation” of which the German intellectuals speak quite openly to-day, the political supremacy of Germany, while England would be left isolated, an easy prey to her rival in a later campaign. ”

“ In this sense the Empire existed as the presidency of a Germanic confederation, and as something analogous to the modern German empire, with the one great difference that the Hohenzollerns now derive from Prussia a strength which enables them to make their imperial position a reality, while no Luxemburg or Habsburg was able to make his imperial position otherwise than honorary and nominal. In the second place, it continued to exist because the conception of the unity of western Europe still lingered, and was still conceived to need an exponent. ”

“ Our right of occupation was also not well founded. Properly speaking, after the dissolution of the Confederation we ought no longer to have occupied even Rastatt and Mainz. I said that in the Council—I had at that time yet another idea, namely, to hand over Luxemburg to Belgium. In that case we should have united it to a country on behalf of whose neutrality, as people then thought, England would intervene. That would also have strengthened the German element there against the French speaking inhabitants, and at the same time have secured a good frontier. ”

“ In a modern European State, when all men can read and write, and all men must serve in the army, there is no means of limiting the franchise in a way which will command universal consent. In Germany there was not any old historical practice to which men could appeal or which could naturally be applied to the new Parliament ”

“ One member might be at war with any power, while the others were at peace: thus the Confederation took no part in the Italian and Hungarian warfare against Austria, for it guaranteed to her only the possession of her German possessions, and in Schleswig-Holstein, Bavarian troops were in the service of Denmark, and Prussian soldiers in that of the Duchies. ”

“ The German people were practically effaced and lost sight of in an autocratic confederation of states, with the Austrian Empire at its head.
That empire had received back its Italian possessions. Prussia had recovered Westphalia and her territory on the Rhine, and given up her Polish territory to Russia. Belgium and Holland had been merged into a kingdom of the Netherlands. Saxony, Wurtemberg, and Bavaria, which states had been made kingdoms by Napoleon, were permitted to remain such. Switzerland was a republic ”

“ Side by side with the Council we have the Reichstag; this was, in accordance with the proposal made in the spring of 1866, to be elected by universal suffrage. And now we see that this proposal, which a few months ago had appeared merely as a despairing bid for popularity by a statesman who had sacrificed every other means of securing his policy, had become a device convincing in its simplicity ”

“ The twenty-two communities, or cantons, which make up the Swiss Confederation, differ among themselves in language, religion (Roman Catholic or Protestant) , and customs, according to their nearness to Germany, France, or Italy. Nevertheless the Swiss form a patriotic and united nation. It is remarkable that a people whose chief bond of union was common hostility to the Austrian Hapsburgs, should have established a federal government so strong and enduring.
191. EXPANSION OF GERMANY LINES OF GERMAN EXPANSION An examination of the map shows how deficient Germany is in good natural boundaries. ”

“ The federal act creating the Germanic Confederation was incorporated in the work of the Congress of Vienna, and was guaranteed by eight European powers,—France, England, Russia, Prussia, Sweden, Austria, Spain, and Portugal. ”

“ The conversion of Prussia into a military state, the reign and conquests of Frederick the Great, the opinions of the age, and those of the French revolution, have annihilated the Germanic Confederation. The Confederation of the Rhine is only part of a provisional system. ”

“ Millions of Germans in Alsace-Lorraine, Bohemia, Poland, and East Prussia were transferred to alien domination; millions of others in German Austria were denied the right of self-determination in the form of union with Germany ”

“ It might carry on war with foreign states, or enter into alliance with them, but it must do nothing to harm any member of the Confederation. The articles of union, in a spirit of concession to the growing sentiment of the times, provided that all sects of Christians should enjoy equal toleration, and that every state should establish a constitutional form of government. Under this scheme of union Germany was to rest half a century —until 1866. Though Austria was nominally head of the Confederation, Prussia was actually the most powerful member of the league. ”

“ Delenda est Prussia, understanding thereby not, of course, the inhabitants of Prussian territory as such, but Prussia as a State-system and as an independent Power in Europe, must be the watchword in the present crisis of every well-wisher of Humanity, Germany included. A united Germany, if that be insisted upon, by all means let there be—a federation of all the German peoples with its capital, for that matter, as of old, at Frankfurt-on-the-Main, but with no dominant State and, if possible, excluding Prussia altogether, but certainly as constituted at present. ”

“ What is the condition of the lesser states in the German confederacy? We all know that they are exceedingly trampled upon, and that they owe their safety, as far as they enjoy it, partly to their enlisting themselves under the rival banners of the preëminent members, partly to alliances with neighboring princes, which the constitution of the empire does not prohibit. ”