Friday, December 28, 2018

Rise of the German Empire: 1864-1871

Two massive world wars were fought in the 20th century that caused millions of deaths and permanent injury of millions more and widespread destruction. A united Germany was the center of it. Europe had always known that a united Germany would rival anything on the continent. France had joined the 30 Years War 1618-1648 to stymie Charles VI who as Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire represented a resurgent Germany. One result of this conflict France garnered Alsace and Lorraine from the Germans. Centuries earlier, the Popes fought the Holy Roman Emperor in the Investiture controversy back in the 11th and 12th centuries. Struggling over who had control over the appointment of Bishops, essentially the Popes generated chaos and upheaval in Germany in a 50 year Civil War; inciting German nobles to revolt against the central authority of the Emperor. That was the end of a united Germany that had been gradually falling apart after Charlemagne built his grand Empire in the 9th century. The kingship began to be elective in 919. In contrast the French Capetians were fortunate enough to maintain their dynasty long enough through the centuries to gain a hereditary crown, avoiding the vagaries of election like the Germans. A loosely integrated Germany would be the rule for centuries.

Question here is who was asleep when Germany was allowed to unify in the mid-19th Century? The united Germany created in the mid-19th century would become a ticking time bomb in the center of the continent. 


The real tragedy is the malfeasance and neglect that allowed Germany to be united in the first place during 1866-1871. It wasn’t until the first decade of the 20th Century that the United Kingdom suddenly discovered Germany as the menace to world peace, dare I say. Of a sudden addressing the issue of a dominant power in the heart of Europe becomes of paramount importance for the British Empire. The blunder was committed 50 years earlier in the period 1864-1871, when Germany was allowed to unite.


It was tiny Belgium to which the UK sprang to the aid in 1914, based on a treaty agreed to in 1839, ignoring the fact that they didn’t have an army to defend them. Of course the treaty was meant to protect them from the clutches of the French not the Germans who didn’t even have a nation at the time.  It reminds one of Britain’s pledge to Poland prior to WWII, that was utterly betrayed. The result was Poland completely devastated and crushed by the NAZI’s and Soviets and then placed under the thumb of the Soviets for close to a half a century with Churchill’s complicity.


In addition the British volunteer army before WWI was a fraction of one needed to defeat Germany. Their guarantee of Belgium’s security was largely mythical. They relied on France to bear much of the burden with conscription finally initiated in 1916.


That unleashed a war hitherto unknown in its ferocity and carnage. A war that toppled four empires. Resolved by American involvement in 1917, the first war simply created the environment for an even bigger war 20 years later. But I digress.
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France had been energized by nationalism subsequent to the 1789 Revolution; Napoleon used this popular force to conquer Europe. Germany as well as the rest of Europe had been overrun by the Napoleonic armies. After a great struggle Napoleon was finally subdued in 1815. The Congress of Vienna was an attempt to build a coalition of powers to restrain France. A Bourbon monarchy was reconstituted in France. But the nationalism that ignited France spread to other regions including Germany.


Would Britain notice? In 1832 the United Kingdom had widely broadened its franchise. No longer was it the anointed aristocracy imagined by Edmund Burke ruling the country. The Kings and Aristocracy of Europe in days past were fully aware of the need for balance of power of the continent and the danger a united Germany would represent. And as mentioned above, they did all they could to keep Germany divided, at one point composed of 300 various kingdoms and principalities. Napoleon reduced this to 38 separate jurisdictions, governing bodies. 


The broaden electorate in UK was not attuned to these things. The UK existed in its “Splendid Isolation” unconcerned with the power relationships of continental Europe. The UK rather was concerned with its vast colonial empire and even fought what is called Opium Wars in 1839-1842 with decaying Imperial China on the other side of the world and was engaged maintaining order in the Jewel of the Crown, India. Three hundred thousand British servants ruling three hundred million Indians, the British really did know how to run an empire. Consider United States, with some 150,000 troops struggling to run Iraq, a nation of 17 million. We, democrats, have little idea how to administer an empire. We desire to transform not administer.


France by 1851 was led by Emperor Napoleon III, a nephew of his famous namesake. He was sympathetic to nationalistic urges in Italy and Germany, symbolizing the curtailment of the Peace of Paris 1815 that was to straightjacket France. They would be fellow nation states sympathetic to France. This policy had critics. Thiers, future President of the Third Republic, tried to explain that it was against the interests of France to help Italy and Germany unite. But allowed to unite they were.
Despite UK’s Splendid Isolation they joined Napoleon III in the senseless Crimean War 1853-56 to stop Russia from having undue influence and control over the “Sick man of Europe”, the Ottoman Empire. The British public initially fully supported the military adventure, incensed by the slaughter that accompanied the sinking of 11 Ottoman battleships by the Russians at Sinop in November 1853 on the Northeast coast of Turkey. The main battlefront was the great fortress at Sevastopol on the Crimean peninsula. The French and British could do little else. It held out under siege for 11 months. Meanwhile French and British soldiers died in the thousands by disease. Deaths totaled around 118,000 for French and British. Russia is said to have encountered far more causalities. Military adventures are for keeps. Intervention to save the Ottoman Empire was considered critical…to the maintenance of the British Empire. The British will ignore the nationalism that was transpiring on the European Continent.

In contrast to the British Empires’ ardent interest with a decrepit Ottoman Empire, we will see some years later UK will ignore the process of the unification of Germany under the leadership of Prussia. Something that should have been deemed far more dangerous. A foolish geopolitical error that will have monstrous consequences decades later. Germany, united, would be a powerhouse poised to dominate Europe as the British Empire had dominated the globe.

After the Crimean War, Russia is duly chastised for its aggression toward the failing Ottoman Empire. Once the policeman of Europe after 1815, even saving the Austrian Empire by suppressing the Hungarian revolt in 1848, it remained isolated during the unification of the Germans under Prussia, licking its wounds. Another tragic result of that ludicrous War.

German Nationalism had been kindled by the Napoleonic armies, who conquered Germany. 30 years later 1848 nationalistic revolts broke out throughout Europe. Germany nationalists gathered itself together at Frankfort Parliament in 1850 with the desire to unite Germany under the aegis of Prussia to no result. Another effort under the Erfurt Union that excluded Austria, by the free agreement of the German princes, was put forward by Prussia Foreign Minister Radowitz. This scheme was squelched by the King of Prussia and Emperor of Austria-Hungarian Empire at the Punctuation of Olmutz. Prussia, acquiesced to Austrian concerns and power, backed out of any agreement for a constitutional monarchy of a united Germany. Austria, a multi-ethnic Empire alarmed at nationalism, wanted to retain its ascendant position in Germany and to continue to rule by divine decree not under a constitution with the consent of the governed. The fallout resulted in many German patriots, being forced to emigrate, most of whom to America.

You must understand that republicanism let alone democracy was looked upon with horror after the example of mob rule of the French Revolution. It was an executive branch led by a monarch under a constitution, produced under the consent of the governed that was the accepted form of European Liberalism. France had tried radical republicanism and produced mob violence then an emperor in 1799 and 1851. And even the France Third Republic teetered, on prospect of a very popular Right Wing strong man Georges Boulanger in 1889, who nonetheless lacked the courage to effect a coup d’etat. Note the fall of the monarchs in Europe after WWI resulted in mostly popular dictatorships NOT Jeffersonian Democracies. Even France had a feeble democracy, that couldn’t face the juggernaut of NAZI Germany.  Part of the success of your government depends on how willing your citizens are to fight for it. Soviet Russia demonstrated that its citizens for numerous reasons could fight to the death of millions for the Communist regime. France not so much, fell in 6 weeks to the Germans.

Despite the Prussian diplomatic retreat away from unification in 1851, when King Wilhelm I (ruling in his brother’s stead since 1857) took the crown in 1862 he appointed Otto von Bismarck as his President and Foreign Minister. Bismarck was a brilliant, unprincipled diplomat. In 1864 he first engaged to join Austrian in a territorial dispute with Denmark over Schleswig, a German duchy, of which Denmark had sovereignty. Contrary to the London Protocols of 1850, the King Christian IX of Denmark declared Schleswig part of Denmark, not simply a duchy ruled by the person of the prior King Frederick VII, who died without heirs.

In 1864 Austria and Prussia came to an agreement under the Gastein Convention to act in concert against Denmark. Austria and Prussia overwhelmed Denmark to force it to relinquish control of Schleswig-Holstein.

The diplomatic response to the dismembering of Denmark was censorious. The French Foreign Minister, Drouyn, said, “We regret to find no other foundation for the Convention than force, no other justification than the reciprocal convenience of co-sharers”. Lord Clarendon, Foreign Minister of Britain, called the annexation of the Duchies the most infamous act since the partition of Poland (1795). Here’s where Britain, in its “Splendid Isolation”, needed to intervene diplomatically or militarily with France. They had already allied with France in the mindless Crimean War. Tragically, the theft of Denmark was not requited.

As important as Bismarck’s brilliant diplomacy, it must be noted that King Wilhelm I had made major steps to upgrade the military, which will be used in the next decade to confront Austria, the leading element of Germany and before 1806 the Holy Roman Empire. (I know you’ve all heard it but I can’t resist: neither Holy, Roman nor an Empire.)

In 1866 Bismarck, brilliantly used Italian nationalist desires for control over Italian Venetia, under sovereignty of Austria since 1815, plus disagreements regarding Schleswig-Holstein to confront Austria about the future of a united Germany under Prussian leadership. Newly united Italy attacked Austria’s Venetia (Venice) territory. Meanwhile, Bismarck took over Austrian controlled Holstein, claiming meddling by Austria in Schleswig and Austria declared war on Prussia. The remainder of the states in the German Confederation (39 total), established in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, remained neutral and Austria faced Prussia alone. Austria had already alienated Russia in the Crimean War by remaining neutral and France was sympathetic to Italian nationalist ambitions. 

Britain in its oblivious “Splendid Isolation” ignored continental issues. The French attempted to gain territory as a negotiating ploy, the German states on the left bank of the Rhine. This was dangled as a diplomatic enticement to keep France neutral, and then rebuffed after the Austrian Empire was defeated.

The Prussians soundly beat the Austrians at Koniggratz, July 3, 1866 in today’s Czech Republic. Bismarck quickly settled a peace in what is called the “Seven Week’s War”. Any promised French aid arrived too late. Prussia, enlarged itself and led a group of German States into what was now called the Northern Confederation, in which Austria was excluded. A military union was affected as well by separate treaties with the southern states of Germany outside the Northern Confederation.

And France is presented with a growing peril on its borders. As it happens, a Roman Catholic cadet branch the Hohenzollern, the dynasty of which King Wilhelm IV of Prussia was member, was offered the throne of Spain.  France objected to Hohenzollerns, the Prussian royal family, being on both sides their borders. The offer was withdrawn, but France wanted assurances from King Wilhelm himself. Bismarck was absent at Ems. King Wilhelm sent him a telegram describing the disavowal of claims to the Spanish throne. Bismarck altered the telegram to make the King sound more hostile to French desires. It was published. The seemingly hostile response from King Wilhelm outraged the French public of whom Napoleon III was sensitive. France declared war on July 16, 1870.  

Germany invaded three days later. The French suffered military defeat after military defeat, resulting in the Emperor Napoleon III himself being captured along with his army of over 100,000 at Sedan on September 2, 1870. The famous Commune in Paris with its republican elements carried on the hopeless war for another 5 months, and eventually capitulated. A lesser Germany was united under Prussia; Austrian Hungarian Empire was excluded from the union.

All of Germany including southern states outside the Northern Confederation joined the war. Austria remained neutral, having lost their northern Italian provinces, granted to them under the Congress of Vienna 1815 in the conflict with Prussia in 1866.  Britain in its “Splendid Isolation” didn’t discover Germany until the 20th Century. Russia chastised by France and Britain in the ludicrous Crimean War of 1853-56 stayed on the sidelines. France was isolated against a united Germany.

Later in WWI, largely due to war time propaganda, Germany becomes viewed as an ogre, utterly opposed to higher civilization, represented by the allied democracies, which in fact included the Russian Czar ruling by divine right. Germany had a representative parliament and a constitutional monarchy, which made the misstep to compete against the pretensions of the vast British Empire. Admittedly it was not a Jeffersonian Democracy, but that includes virtually most of the world even today. Thanks to the military intervention of the United States in 1917 the allies won the war to make the World Safe for the British Empire, not as President Wilson claimed to make the World Safe for Democracy.  This only setup another war twenty years later, all the more terrible, that put totalitarian Soviet Russia in control of half of Europe for close to a half century. And Britain would soon give up their Empire, despite the wars they fought to save it.