North German Confederation

“ 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. ”

“ France refuses that the balance of power in Germany and in Europe should be disturbed, by any change in their possessions or their sovereign rights.' Your majesty can divide the German Confederation into a North German and a South German group, the first to be under the leadership of Prussia, the second under Austria, and you can forbid all other change. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Those German lands which have formed the kernel of the Swiss Confederation have risen to a higher political state than that of any kingdom or Empire. But the German lands which still remain so strangely united to the lands of the Magyar and the southern Slave await, at however distant a time, their natural and inevitable reunion. So does a Danish population in the extreme north await, with less hope, its no less natural separation from the German body. Posen, still mainly Slavonic, remains unnaturally united to a Teutonic body, but it is not likely to gain by a transfer to any other ruler. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 disastrous failure of Prussian intervention in Schleswig-Holstein about this time brought Prussia into further disrepute with the rest of Germany. England, France and Sweden [Pg 1128] Denmark's integrity guaranteed united to guarantee the integrity of Denmark. Prussia left the Duchies to their fate. On July 19, Austria called for another assembly of the old Confederation. Prussia and her adherents could not join. On August 17, the German sovereigns met on the call of Austria at Frankfort to consider a plan of federal union. ”

“ There is no such crushing defeat of a strong nation recorded in history.
1871.
Even before the capitulation of Paris the natural political result of the victory was secured to Germany. The cooperation of the three Southern States in the war removed the last barrier to a union of all, except Austria, under the [Pg 448] lead of Prussia. That which the great majority of the people desired was also satisfactory to the princes: the "North-German Union" was enlarged and transformed into the "German Empire," by including Bavaria, Würtemberg and Baden. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The whole Empire was threatened with the fate of Austria. Then, at last, in 1625, Brunswick, Brandenburg, Mecklenburg, Hamburg, Lübeck and Bremen formed a union for mutual defence, choosing as their leader king Christian IV. of Denmark, the same monarch who had broken down the power of the Hanseatic League in the Baltic and North Seas! Although a Protestant, he was no friend to the North-German States, but he energetically united with them in the hope of being able to enlarge his kingdom at their expense. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The latter’s secularization of the ecclesiastical states, overthrow of Austria at Austerlitz (1805) and of Prussia at Jena and Auerstädt (1806) , and formation of the Confederation of the Rhine, completed the extinction of the Holy Roman Empire.
The German Confederation.—The states of Germany were again united by the treaty of Vienna (1815) , in a confederation called the German Confederation (der Deutsche Bund) . In 1818 a general commercial league, called the Zollverein was projected by Prussia, and was gradually joined by most of the German states, exclusive of Austria. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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. ”

“ From this epoch dates the complete union of Brandenburg and Prussia—a union upon which a great man was able to lay the foundation of a powerful North German Kingdom!" During the next dozen years, the Great Elector was chiefly busied in establishing his authority in his dominions and curbing the power of the nobles, particularly in Prussia. {310} In 1674, when Louis XIV. of France provoked war with the German princes by his attack on the Dutch, Frederic William led 20,000 men into Alsace to join the Imperial forces. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ The Diet is, as soon as possible, to draw up the fundamental laws of the Confederation. No state is to make war with another on any pretence. All federal territories are mutually guaranteed. There is to be in each state a 'Landständische Verfassung'--'il y aura des assemblées d'états dans tous les pays de la Confedération.' Art. 14 reserves many rights to the mediatised princes. Equal civil and political rights are guaranteed to all Christians in all German States, and stipulations are made in favour of the Jews. The Diet did not actually assemble before the 5th of November 1816. ”