- 10 -

not so easily seek models to imitate abroad."¹¹

Bismarck was thus separated from his friends by a
gulf scarecly less wide than that parting him from his ene-
mies. For if he defended the claims of the aristocracy he
did so for a two-fold reason which had nothing to do with
the doctrinal rigidity of his circle: Because he was a
"Junker" which was a "fact" implying certain necessary con-
clusions; and because liberalism represented a challenge to
the distinguishing characteristics of Prussian history. Bis-
marck sought to rescue Prussia's uniqueness from dissolu-
tion, the conservatives sought to defend general principles.
Bismarck strove to eliminate domestic discord in order to
keep Prussia fit for foreign policy; his friends aimed at
the same thing, but in order to assure the triumph of le-
gitimate rule. For the moment still they might walk hand
in hand. But the time might come when other "facts" emerged
which the naturalist might insist on manipulating. Indeed
the assumption of Prussia's uniqueness might well imply that
Prussia could utilize the forces at large in the world with
impunity, that it could reduce the ideals of an impatient
century to "forces" to be manipulated and to disintegrate
the existing structure by dissolving its restraints.

And although the stenographic reports of Bismarck's
early speeches record many snickers by the liberal sections
of the parliament this only indicated that the popular move-
ment had gone to consider certain contingencies as incon-
tinues.

II. Kohl I, p. 51.

- 11 -

ceivable. That an appeal to Prussian nationalism might
supersede that of Germany, that an autocratic Prussia
might still appeal to liberals in other parts of Germany,
was beyond the imagination of all deputies. There was in-
deed what proved the ultimate danger to liberalism and the
failure to recognize it as such only accentuated it: that
nationalism and liberalism be separated and indeed become
antagonistic. But as the first diet closed this could not
be apparent -- only posterity can make these claims by an
exegesis with hindsight.

and before the next session of
the Vereinigte Landtag an event occurred which brought all
these tensions to a sharp focus.

For in March 1848 the Revolution which had started
as an uprising in Paris reached Berlin and Frederick
William IV, king of Prussia by the grace of God, soon found
himself forced to parade through Berlin with a cash in the
revolutionary color around his waist.

(several spaces)

- 12 -

11

For 33 years the subtle "Metternich system" had assured European tranquility. Starting from the assumption of Austria's special vulnerability, geographically in the center of the Continent and morally as a polyglot Empire in an era of nationalism, the wily Austrian minister had managed to construct an international system whose legitimizing principle was identical with that of Austria's domestic structure. In the face of the rising current of nationalism, Europe was organized on the principles of legitimacy and equilibrium, on the sanctity of historical rule, and the necessity of a balance of power. The Holy Alliance had been transformed into an instrument by which Prussia, Austria and Russia could police Europe against revolutionary outbreaks. And Germany was organized into a confederation of many sovereignties and therefore of wills whose very structure would inhihibit both the Prussian quest for hegemony and the liberals' goal of unity. The crowning achievement of Metternich's policy was his ability to legitimize it by Prussia's acquiescence, by persuading Prussia's monarchs that they had more to fear from a revolution than they could gain by making themselves the advocates of the trends of their period.

Any movement to achieve German unity was therefore confronted with formidable difficulties. It faced 33 sovereign states jealous of their prerogatives and the potential opposition of the three major continental powers. To be sure

- 14 -

let a "scrap of paper" stand between him and his people, felt obliged to promise a constitution and freedom of the press. It only underlined the relationship between Prussia's domestic policy and the German question that the same document called for a transformation of the German Confederation into a Federal state with its own national army. Three weeks later, on March 13, Metternich, the man who had dominated Europe for a generation, was forced to resign. Soon no important German state remained unaffected by the revolutionary current. On March 19, street fighting broke out in Berlin and the unstable king hiding his indecision behind alternating declarations full of bombast and appeals to his "beloved Berliners" finally took an irrevocable step. To the chagrin of his officers he ordered his troops to quit Berlin and placed himself under the protection of the revolutionary "citizens". On March 31, he saluted the funeral procession of the victims of the street-fighting from the balcony of the palace and later that day he permitted himself to be prevailed upon to ride through Berlin with the revolutionary colors draped around his waist. The procession ended with a royal proclamation that henceforth "Prussia was dissolved in Germany". The revolution seemed to have triumphed all along the line.

But after the first heady excitement was over it became apparent that victory is not the end of revolutions but their beginning and that Metternich had built better than many of his opponents had realized. For however successful the

- 15 -

revolution in its components, Germany remained fragmented. The 33 sovereign governments still remained and no less jealous of their prerogatives. To be sure, by the end of March there met in Frankfurt a <u>Vorparlement</u>, a preliminary National Assembly to prepare the way for a Constituent Assembly elected by universal suffrage which was to draft a German constitution. But Frankfurt was not Paris. It was not the center of administration of Germany, but simply the former meeting place of permanent _________ of German diplomatic representatives which had been designed to remain ineffective. The new Constituent Assembly had therefore to operate side by side with 33 sovereign governments and its power was no greater than their willingness to obey or to surrender voluntarily their prerogatives.

And there always remained Austria. For Austria was not only a German state but a polyglot Empire based on a set of feudal relationships. Its German provinces performed a dual function: they belonged to the German Confederation but they also were the nucleus for controlling millions of Magyars, Slavs and Poles. Thus, the role of Austria in a unified Germany presented almost insurmountable difficulties: If Austria joined the new state with its German provinces only, its Empire would perforce disintegrate. But if it joined its entirety, the German Empire would mortgage its future by absorbing some 25 million foreigners. On the other hand, a Germany without Austria was harder still to conceive.

- 16 -

The memory of 400 years of Holy Roman Emperors from the Hapsburg dynasty could not be erased nor the historical achievement of what had been Germany's bulwark towards the East. From its beginning therefore the Preliminary Assembly and later the Constituent Assembly was torn by schisms of structure, of history, and of aspirations. And wherever it turned, it came up against the stark reality that the Gordian knot could not be cut by constitutional theories, only by leadership and that only Prussia was capable of supplying it.

But Prussia was far from ready to serve as the spearhead for a liberal, unified Germany. Its revolution had been only skin-deep and successful more because of the indecisiveness of the King than through widespread popular exertion. Neither of the pillars of the Prussian state, the army and the bureaucracy, had been fundamentally shaken. And the King with his romantic notions of feudal fealty proved a weak reed for the nationalists. Already the first delegation of the Frankfurt Parliament was to learn that here was a man for the magnificent pose but not for the decisive action: "Should an imperial crown come about for German," announced Frederick William then, "it should adorn the Austrian ruler and with pleasure would I hold the silver chalice for him at the coronation."¹² In this manner time was lost and while constitutional fine points were being discussed in Frankfurt, the traditional Prussia collected its composure and its strength for the moment when it could impatiently sweep away the idealistic debates of the reformers.

12. Stern. VII. 3. 64

- 17 -

No segment of the society had been more painfully
aware of the transformation than the Junkers. It was their
army which had been ordered to retreat before what they con-
sidered rabble; it was their notion of hierarchy and order
which seemed under most violent attack. What did it matter
that their King might now become Emperor of Germany? The
crown of Prussia had ever possessed a lustre for this group
that needed no enhancing -- this indeed had been the condi-
tion of their loyalty. And for Bismarck there was an addit-
ional reason for bitterness. His whole conception of patrio-
tism was based on a notion of Prussia's peculiarity, its
specific sense of duty, its special embodiment of authority.
To be sure he wanted to see Prussia great, but not at the
cost of its dissolution in another entity however exalted.
A liberal Prussia, with the King deprived of authority, a
Prussia which might become a province of a united Germany,
this to Bismarck was no longer Prussia. It was almost as if
the Seven Year War had been lost a century after its conclu-
sion. When Bismarck spoke of patriotism at this time and
for a long while thereafter he meant Prussia and not Ger-
many and German unity was not an end sanctified by abstract
principles but a means to assure the defense of Prussia.

It was only natural therefore that Bismarck should
react violently to the news of the revolution and that he
should treat it as a personal challenge: "...Not even the
dead can I forgive," he wrote more than a year later. "...My

- 18 -

heart is bursting with poison when I see what they have made
out of *my* (my italics) fatherland, these murderer at whose
graves the Berliners now worship idols ..."¹³ Bismarck's
next reaction was equally characteristic. His loyalty to
authority was never unconditional but depended on their abil-
ity to incarnate his conception of the necessary. Now the
traditional Prussia crumbling and its disintegration sanc-
tioned by the King, Bismarck seriously thought of making a
counterrevolution and it bespoke his feudal past that he
wanted to use his own peasants as a nucleus. But behind the
vehemence of Bismarck's passions there always lurked a streak
of canny deliberateness Which caused the would-be revolu-
tionary to visit Berlin to reconnoiter and if possible to
stiffen the backbone of the King. Bismarck found Berlin in
the hands of the revolutionaries, however, and it proved im-
possible to penetrate to the royal palace. His excursion
would therefore have proved a tragi-comic interlude had it
not led to an interview which was fundamentally to affect
his future relationship with the court. Thwarted in his ef-
fort to reach the king, Bismarck sought out his younger
brother Prince Karl, well known for his reactionary tenden-
cies. Through him there was arranged a meeting with Princess
Augusta, the wife of the Prince of Prussia, the eldest bro-
ther of the childless king, who was the heir presumptive to
the throne but who had been forced to flee to England because

13. W. 14/I, p. 143. September 16, 1849.

- 19 -

the population considered him the incarnation of the military
spirit. It was for this reason, with the King inaccessible in
Berlin and the heir presumptive in exile, that Bismarck spoke
to Augusta.

Two accounts of their meeting exist, a note by Augusta
written in 1862 to her husband then King and considering the
appointment of Bismarck as his First Minister and a chapter
in Bismarck's memoirs written 40 years after the event. Both
agree about the substance of the conversation: that the King
was to be declared incompetent, that the Prince of Prussia
succeed him, only to resign in favor of his son, that Prince
Karl be appointed Regent and presumably lead a counter-revo-
lution based on the Officers' Corps on Potsdam. They disagree
as to who originated the project, Augusta ascribing it to
Bismarck while Bismarck insisted that he indignantly rejected
Augusta's propositions.14 But aside from the fact that no
motive would seem to exist for Augusta to bring up this mat-
ter if she was the guilty party, the dispute tends to ob-
scure the fundamental point: Both agree that plans to de-
pose the king were being discussed. And if Bismarck is tell-
ing the truth, it is perhaps even more significant that
Augusta should select out of the whole group of conservative
deputies perhaps the youngest, whose public career was then
hardly a year old. The hatred which Bismarck bore Augusta
through his life may well have been primarily because she
understood his revolutionary quality, that Bismarck could

14. Augusta's account, E.I, p.88; Bismarck's account, W. VII,
p. 106, G.E. I, p.

- 20 -

obey only on terms he reserved the right to define, that
his loyalty was therefore always conditional.

How Bismarck conceived his relationship to the
King was fully revealed in an interview two months later
in the garden of the palace of Potsdam. When Frederick
William inquired about the state of public opinion in the
provinces Bismarck replied sharply: "It was good, but
since we have been innoculated with the revolutionary
virus by the royal authorities with royal blessing, it
has deteriorated. What is lacking is confidence in the
assistance of the King." Every word was chosen for max-
imum effect in this ambiguous defiance, whose show of
daring was ameliorated by the fact that Bismarck was ac-
cusing the King of not being sufficiently royalist. That
Bismarck had conquered the moral terrain became immediately
apparent in Frederick William's plaintive query what pre-
cisely Bismarck was accusing him of. When Bismarck re-
plied "the evacuation of the troops from Berlin," the
Queen interrupted with the statement that the King was
"innocent" for he had not slept for three days before
giving his orders. But the Queen was no match for Bismarck
who replied with a sentence which summed up both his conception
of authority and his diplomatic skill: "A king must be able
to sleep."15 Here was nothing of the deferential sense of
hierarchy of the conservative nor of the awe before the ruler
by the grace of god of the legitimist. What was at stake was

15. G. E. I, p. ___

- 21 -

the basic unit of Bismarck's thinking, the nature of the
Prussian state and the King was valuable only as long as
he lived up to Bismarck's notion of its specific essence.
And when the King attempted to evade his responsibility
by pleading human frailty, Bismarck silenced him with an
unanswerable argument which at the same time defined his
attributes. The King was left with the choice of either
accepting Bismarck's definition of the nature of the Prus-
sian state or of denying that he was a King. Not for the
last time was Bismarck to deal with his King by confront-
ing him with impossible alternatives.

The whole complexity of Bismarck's elemental
nature came to expression upon his return to Berlin 10
days later after his interview with Augusta. The occasion
was a convocation of the <u>Vereinigte Landtag</u> called to pro-
vide the legal continuity in the transformation of Prussia
into a constitutional state. It was to be replaced, ac-
cording to royal promise, by a parliament based on univer-
sal suffrage. Bismarck found a city which treated Prussia's
transformation as an accomplished fact and the unification
of Germany as imminent. "Everyone is for a German parlia-
ment," he reported to his brother, "even the nobility."16
In this atmosphere it was not surprising that the first
order of business of the <u>Vereinigte Landtag</u> was to vote on
an address of thanks to the King for the measures taken dur-
ing March. There existed two sets of attitudes in the chamber
16. W. 14/1, p. 102. March 28, 1848.

- 22 -

on this issue: the overwhelming majority eager to build on
the gains already achieved and a tiny group of die-hard
conservatives, opposing all change on doctrinaire grounds.
It was typical for Bismarck that he represented neither di-
rection. He was too much a Junker to be able to welcome
the revolution, but he was also too much a realist to oppose
an accomplished fact on theoretical grounds. The revolution
might be undesirable, but it was here and it was the state-
man's task to utilize it for his own ends. The result was
a speech of great ambiguity derided by the liberals and
scorned by the conservatives:

"I am one of the few who will vote against the ad-
dress [of thanks] and I have only asked for the floor to
motivate my vote and to explain that I accept the address
as a program for the future ... for the simple reason that
I can not help myself ... I do so not voluntarily but under
the pressure or circumstance for I have not changed my opin-
ion in the last six months ... The past is buried and I re-
gret it more deeply than many of you that no human power
can re-awaken it now that the crown has itself thrown the
earth on its coffin. But if I accept what has been imposed
I can nevertheless not quit the Vereinitge Landtag with the
lie that I am grateful or happy about what I must consider
at best an erroneous direction. Should it really prove pos-
sible to achieve a unified German fatherland by means of the
new road we have taken or even a legal order then the moment

- 23 -

will have come to thank the originators of the new system;
but now I find it impossible."¹⁷

All of the strains of Bismarck's thought are con-
centrated in this brief passage: The empirical view of pol-
icy ever ready to accept unalterable facts; the implicit
rejection of dogmatism; the barely suppressed defiance to-
wards royal authority which was bound by the terms of the act
of submission; the willingness to use any material available
in the construction of a political order. And finally the
tremendous passion which reduced all of politics to personal
terms, so strong that at the end of the first paragraph of
his speech, Bismarck suffered a fit of weeping and had to
leave the rostrum.

But Bismarck's outburst was premature for it
proved more difficult to subdue the traditional Prussia
than it had seemed in the first flush of revolutionary suc-
cess. By the middle of April the King was permitted to
leave Berlin for Potsdam where surrounded by his officers
he soon came to regret his impetuous gestures of a few weeks
previous. Particularly active in strengthening Frederick
William's backbone was his immediate environment, especially
his Aide-de-Camp, Leopold von Gerlach, who as early as March
30, the very day on which Frederick William received his
liberal ministers for the first time, noted in his diary:
"First attempt at creating a ministere occulte."¹⁸ Thus

17. Kohl I, p. 46.

18. E. Y. K. I, p. 91.

- 24 -

was born the "Camarilla" of ultra-conservatives which for nearly a decade influenced Prussian policy through the personal relationship of its members with the King.

Throughout the summer the conservatives strengthened their organization. In order to have a counterweight to the prevalent liberalism of the press they called into being the *Kreuzzeitung*, named after the Iron Cross at its masthead. And in August there met in Berlin the so-called Junkerparliament, a congress of large landowners of Eastern Prussia, to discuss counter-measures against the official Parliament which was debating the abolition of feudal rights. Bismarck was one of the most active members of the conservative group. He had now sufficient time to devote to its activities for with the introduction of universal suffrage his parliamentary career had come to an end for the time being. Soon the Kreuzzeitung was to be deluged with articles from him, distinguished by the sharpness of their personal attacks. And through Leopold von Gerlach he always had access to the King. He came to spend more and more time in Berlin from where he wrote letters containing a strange combination of nostalgia for the country and an impatient desire for a conflict between the King and Parliament.¹⁹ "I commence to be very homesick," he wrote in one such letter, "and [your] mother's letters made me feel sad and empty; the heart of a husband and father ... is not suited for the hubbub of

19. See f.e. W. 14/I, p. 116, 118.

- 25 -

politics and intrigue. On Monday the die will be cast.
Either the ministry will be weak as its predecessors, a
contingency against which I am attempting to work, or it
does its duty in which case blood will flow either Monday
evening or Tuesday morning ... If things get going, I should
like to remain in the vicinity of the king; there you can
be certain (I say so regretfully) that there will be no
danger."20

The clash Bismarck was anticipating so ardently
finally took place at the end of October. Using the pre-
text of several riots, Frederick William moved the troops
back into Berlin while the Parliament was prorogued to
Brandenburg in the heart of traditional Prussia in order to
"assure the freedom of its deliberations." And the futility
of the last gesture of the majority of the Parliament, its
appeal to the people to refuse to pay taxes, "in sign of pro-
test" only served to demonstrate that the tradition of legal
continuity and obedience was stronger than theories of con-
stitutional government. But it was equally symptomatic for
the nature of the Prussian state, that even now with a Par-
liament most of whose liberal members absented themselves,
the King felt nevertheless obliged to grant the constitution
he had promised. To be sure, it was imposed by royal decree
on December 5 and it fell far short of instituting a parlia-
mentary democracy. The king still retained an absolute veto,
20. W. 14/I, p. 113.

- 26 -

the competence of the two-chamber legislature in the finan-
cial field remained purposely vague, and the ministers were
responsible not to parliament but to the king. But even in
this form the constitution was anathema to the "Camarilla"
which consoled itself, however, that the new ministry which
Frederick William had called into office, headed by General
Brandenburg, an illegitimate offspring of the dynasty -- the
Prince of Prussia called him the "bastard of Prussia" -- and
Otto Manteuffel would be ready to do its bidding. And Par-
liament was powerless against the united opposition of the
King and the ministry.

In January Parliament was dissolved and new elect-
ions called in order to secure a more pliable assembly. Bis-
marck threw himself actively into the campaign. Even the
central committee of the conservatives seemed to him not
sufficiently intransigent and he therefore joined a new
committee composed of adherents of the Kreuzzeiting which
appealed to the landed gentry to exert its influence on be-
half of "the truly conservative candidates who rejected any
transaction with the revolution."21 It proved extremely
difficult however to find a constituency for Bismarck. Even
conservative districts recoiled before so flamboyant a can-
didate. It speaks for Bismarck's eagerness to continue his
parliamentary career that he sufficiently overcame his pride
to appeal personally to a former minister to call the atten-
tion of the electors of a certain district to his person.22

21. E.Y.K. I, p. 117.

22. W. 14/I, p.

- 27 -

Finally a relative of Bismarck's wife proposed him for a "safe" conservative district in Magdeburg. When Frederick William IV opened the new Prussian parliament on February 26, 1849 Bismarck was again among its deputies.

But at precisely the moment that the revolution in Prussia was defeated, that of Germany sought to culminate its effort. For a year the Nationalversammlung -- the constituent assembly -- meeting in Frankfurt had debated the form of the unification of Germany unaware that its material basis was slipping away and that its authority had never been greater than the fear of revolution of the German princes. Its very insistence on legality, on maintaining as far as possible the integrity of the component states hampered its work. The nationalversammlung in its majority had decided that Germany should have an Emperor, but the Prussian king to whom all eyes were turned was engaged in mystifying ambiguities while repressing within Prussia the very institution on which the unified Germany was to be based. He never tired of protesting that Austria "deserved the crown of Charlemagne"²³ and that he would not be party to the "mediatization" i.e. dethronement, of German princes. For its part the Nationalversammlung was thus placed in the anomalous position of having to reassure the various princes and above all the King of Prussia, so that the Prussian parliament found itself disavowed by that of

23. See f.e. letter to Bunsen, Stern VII, p. 317.

- 28 -

Germany when it appealed to the people to refuse to pay taxes. And Austria's membership in a German Empire remained as insoluble a problem as ever. Rent by revolution, it was still too weak to play an active role although the dispatches of Schwarzenberg, its energetic and unscrupulous new minister, could leave no doubt about its attitude. Only when Schwarzenberg on March 13, 1849 imposed a constitution of his own, so centralist in tendency that it was clear that if Austria joined the projected German Empire it would have to do so with its millions of Slavs, did the Nationalversammlung overcome its hesitations. On March 29 it elected Frederick William IV as Emperor of Germany with 290 votes and 248 abstentions. It came exactly one year too late.

For the act of the Nationalversammlung came to
demonstrate its impotence while it brought to a head all the
dormant tensions within Prussia. And in the process it set
the stage for Bismarck's first fundamental utterances on the
German question, speeches whose radical novelty made them
incomprehensible to his colleagues on both sides of the aisle.
It was hardly noticed therefore that in two great speeches
Bismarck was sweeping away the entire framework of the pre-
vious discussions. For both the proponents as well as the
antagonists of German unity and liberal institutions were
still arguing in the categories of a generation of stability
whose intuition of permanence was expressed in its demand

- 23 -

that institutions justify themselves by a claim to univers-
ality. But the extent of their acrimony merely underlined
the revolutionary dilemma, that the tragic aspect of a rev-
olutionary situation inheres not in the challenge to the
existing order nor in the adequacy of the reply, but in the
fact that the challenge was possible at all. Whatever else
happens the spontaneity of the social order will be lost.
What had been taken for granted must now be defended, but
the act of defense exhibits the possibility of an alterna-
tive. An innocence lost can not be recaptured and societies
whose cohesiveness has once been rent can never return to
the starting point. Thus comes about the increasing frus-
tration and bitterness of revolutionary contests for the
adversaries, still inspired by the memory of stability,
will consider incomplete a victory which assures them any-
thing less than universality. And therefore, too, revo-
lutionary situations are never resolved by theoretical
agreement, only by superior power, because the situation
has become revolutionary precisely because the antagonists
have ceased to speak the same language.

What separated Bismarck from almost all his col-
leagues was his ability to distinguish the essence of revo-
lution from its form. He understood that however the con-
tending parties may legitimize themselves, they have in fact
been transformed into contending forces. The restraint imposed

- 30 -

by a consensus on a legitimizing principle had fallen away
and power has become the final arbiter. In such situations
the victory tends to go to the most ruthless, the one in
short not inhibited by the memory of the maxims of the dis-
integrated legitimacy. And for this reason Bismarck's re-
action to the question of German unity was extremely ambiva-
lent. He had opposed the revolution in Prussia partly be-
cause it seemed to challenge the prerogatives of the Junkers
but above all because by transforming Prussia's historic es-
sence it would restrict its power at a moment of unexcelled
opportunity. For Bismarck was too much the naturalist not
to see that with the disintegration of the "Metternich sys-
tem" Prussia was once more the largest purely German state,
strong enough to dictate its will to the remainder. He
therefore opposed the labors of the Frankfort Nationalver-
sammlung which he called the "German fraud," because it
attempted to dissolve Prussia in the larger whole and on
the basis of constitutional principles foreign to its nature.

But the violence of his opposition was merely the reverse
side of his conviction that if Germany must not dissolve
Prussia, Prussia might absorb Germany. When Bismarck de-
rided the work of the Frankfort liberals, he was not, as
his conservative friends imagined, defending the unity of
conservative interests but the pre-eminence of Prussia. And
when he opposed the revolution within Prussia, he did so,
in a sense, to free Prussia to pursue a more active revolu-

- 32 -

deputy moved that the Prussian Parliament accept the legality
of the Frankfort constitution. It was to this motion that Bis-
marck addressed himself on April 21, 1849.

It was only appropriate that Bismarck's speech began
with an attack on a governmental system which threatened to
limit the King's freedom of action in foreign affairs, the ele-
ment, that is, to which in Bismarck's view Prussia owed her
greatness: "...Should the ministry accept this procedure /the
motion/, it would admit that the second chamber possesses the
executive power. It would recognize that the ministers are not
officials of the King but of the Second Chamber. This may be
considered proper constitutional doctrine by some ... in Prus-
sia only that is constitutional which is based on the Prussian
constitution ... I do not consider the Prussian constitution
among the best of which history informs us; its chief advantage
is that it exists."

This sarcastic phrase merely served to introduce the
real crux of Bismarck's argument, that not only was Prussia
sacrificing its essence to abstract dogmas, the sacrifice was
all the more inexcusable because it stood in no relationship
to the existing balance of forces: "The declaration of 28 gov-
ernments which together possess hardly six and one-half million
subjects, ... governments whose ministers are eagerly at work to
secure their /revolutionary/ achievements by means of the consti-
tutional anarchy offered to them from Frankfort, such declara-
tions are not sufficiently weighty to change our attitude where

- 33 -

the fate of Prussia is concerned." Prussia, not Germany, was therefore the basic unit of Bismarck's thought and it was not surprising that he judged the projected German constitution by its degree of approximation to that of Prussia, which he maintained contained the minimum executive powers consistent with the mission of Prussia. Nor that he found the projected constitution wanting on a number of grounds, because a hierarchical arrangement of constitutions of states of such disparate power was difficult in any case; because it limited the executive power both by giving the Emperor only a suspensive veto and finally because through its system of universal suffrage "the influence of each class increases in proportion as its political judgment...diminishes." And all this culminated in the challenge: "Everyone who speaks German wants German unity, but with this constitution I do not."

This was the profession of faith of a traditional Prussian proud, defiant, and even somewhat conventional. But the concluding portion of Bismarck's speech revealed his real intention, that he was rejecting the projected union not in the name of conservative principles but of the reality of power, that he was vindicating Prussia the right to prescribe its laws to Germany on the simple basis of its superior strength. In this manner Bismarck advanced the most fundamental challenge to what had come to be considered the trend of the period: the union of liberalism and nationalism, the insistence that national aspirations could be satisfied only by constitutional governments.

- 34 -

By combatting this doctrine not in the name of legitimacy but of Prussian nationalism, Bismarck exhibited the tenuousness of the liberals' quest. For the claim for constitutions was legitimized by the doctrine of individual liberty and tended to be identified with freedom from governmental restraint; while the appeal of nationalism was that of community which in spirit tends always to be antithetical to assertions of the primacy of individual freedom. To be sure, the liberal's too, appealed to a community, that of shared language; but Bismarck proceeded to prove that there existed another community no less real and perhaps deeper, that of shared historical experience: "If we refuse our support (to the 28 governments), we will be in an all the stronger position to force German unity ... [But] before I see that my king becomes the vassal of the followers of the Messrs. Simon and Schaffrath [well-known liberals] I would prefer that Prussia remain Prussia. As such it will always be in a position to prescribe Germany its laws, not to receive them from others ... I therefore feel duty-bound to oppose a motion designed to undermine the edifice cemented ... by the blood of our fathers. The crown of Frankfort may seem very brilliant, but its lustre ... is to be obtained by smelting it with that of Prussia and I do not believe that this will succeed under the present constitution."26

But if this analysis was correct a Prussian statesman had a dual task, to defeat the revolution domestically, not to 26. Kohl I, p. 85f.

- 35 -

restore the former state of things and its restraints; rather
to be able to profit from the opportunity: to crush the revo-
lution in Prussia and liberalism in Germany so that Prussia
could consumate its domination of Germany. And for this rea-
son Bismarck's next attack had to be directed, not only at
those who wanted to dilute Prussia's sense of hierarchy, but
against those who wanted to give it universal application. If
it was necessary to defend the authority of the King against
parliamentary institutions, it was no less crucial to vindi-
cate this freedom of action against moral scruples. Neither
the slogans of nationalism nor those of legitimacy should re-
strain Prussia from exploiting its superiority of force to
achieve hegemony in Germany. It was only natural therefore
that when Bismarck spoke on the German question his target
should be the Prussian minister Radowitz, the personal friend
of the King, who was attempting to salvage German unity from
the wreckage left by Frederick William's refusal of the crown.

Josef Maria von Radowitz inherited the well-night
impossible task of achieving a German constitution through
negotiation among the princes as had been proclaimed in the
Prussian circular note of April 3. Since it was clear that
the inclusion of Austria would present insuperable difficulties,
Radowitz strove to create a union of like-minded German states
without Austria capable of assimilating the remainder in time.
But his first step in this direction merely served to illus-
trate the difficulty of his position. For the "pact of the

- 36 -

three kings" of Saxony, Hannover, and Prussia agreeing on the
outline of a German constitution was hedged in a manner which
indicated the inward reserve of the smaller powers: Both Sax-
ony and Hannover made their agreement contingent on the adhes-
ion of Bavaria and Wuerttemberg which under the pressure of
Austria showed no signs of any willingness to surrender the
smallest part of their sovereignty. But even this agreement
seemed to Bismarck to threaten Prussia's preeminent position,
all the more so as the projected constitution in its major
outlines was similar to that of the Frankfort assembly.27 On
September 6, he therefore attacked it in a major speech which
at the same time marked the gulf separating him from both the
liberals and the conservatives.

He began with a cardonic remark which secured his
moral terrain, that he would vote for the government despite
his disagreements over its policy because he saw in it the
guardian of social order and authority, because, in short, he
wanted to keep it fit for the policy he had in mind. But he
coupled with it the hope that "this be the last time that the
gains of Prussia's sword be given away ... to satisfy the in-
satiable demands of a phantom which under the pretended name
of public opinion addles the reason of the princes and peoples
with its din until everyone is afraid of everybody else's shad-
ow and it is forgotten that under the lion-skin is hidden a
being of noisy but timid nature." But if the conservatives

27. The major difference between the Frankfort and the "Radfowitz"
constitutions was the fact that the latter contained a provision
for an absolute veto by the head of state and the substitution of the
newly-adopted Prussian 3-class vote by the previous universal
suffrage.

- 37 -

rejoiced at this intransigent statement, they would have done
well to heed its successor which could only be directed against
their insistence on the solidarity of conservative interests
and againsts its corollary, the sanctity of historical rule:
Even of the minor German princes. "We life in a wondrous time
in which the strong is weak because of his scruples and the
weak strong because of his audacity."

Then came another catalogue of criticisms of the
provisions of the projected German constitution for not taking
into account Prussia's preponderant strength and culminating
in this ironic phrase: "I can find no equivalent for our
sacrifices, the ... consciousness of having pursued a noble
and selfless policy, of having responded to the requirements
of national rebirth ... or whatever else the expressions
might be which are more beautiful than precise ..." But Bis-
marck's real venom was directed against the remarks of a pre-
ceding speakers who had identified Radowitz' policy with that
of Frederick the Great: "This is an identification in which I
do not believe. Frederick II <the Great> would not have made
it; on the contrary I believe that he would have addressed
himself to the most characteristic Prussian trait, to the war-
like element and not without success. He would have known
that even today, as in the days of our fatners, the sound of
the trumpet ... has not lost its attraction for Prussian ears
... He would have had the option of attaching himself to
Austria and there play the brilliant role which came to be

- 41 -

attention to German problems. Soon the moment would come when the deliberations at Erfurt would become ridiculous if, in Bismarck's words, "the greatest exertion of the half-cooled steam of Frankfurt will not suffice to blow up the value of princely opposition."30

Through this period Bismarck's attitude was consistent and intransigent. He was above all concerned that out of the chaos there not emerge another legitimacy which would again submerge Prussia's power in its restraints. Even the restoration of the old German Confederation would be preferable to a new order which would sanctify the continued application of fetters to Prussia's quest for hegemony in Germany. For however restrictive the confederation it would never again enjoy the nimbus surrounding the 'Metternich system' before 1948 and without it, its life would be precarious. Bismarck's behavior in Erfurt, where he was a Prussian representative, merely paralleled his attitude in the Prussian parliament. He spoke ominously of the Prussian spirit as a horse which would carry its accustomed rider joyfully but which would be certain to throw the Sunday stroller to the ground." And he predicted that soon nothing would be left to do for the Constituent Assembly but to debate the cause of its demise.31

The demise was not long delayed, because Austria under the able Schwarzenberg was becoming strong enough for a showdown. In August 1850 Schwarzenberg invited the Assembly

30. Kohl I, p. 231.

31. Kohl I, p. 239.

- 42 -

of the Confederation to reconvene in Frankfurt as if nothing had happened since 1848. And when the craven Grandduke of Hesse appealed to it to assist him in his conflict with his parliament, help was vouchsafed to him. Austrian and Bavarian troops moved into the little state and thus with one blow exposed the whole ambiguity of Prussia's position. For Hesse was not only part of the projected union under Prussian leadership whose constitution was even then being de-bated in Ernhurt, but it also was situated athwart Prussia's lines of supply to its Rhenish provinces whose inviolability had been guaranteed at the Congress of Vienna. The presence of foreign troops in Hesse was thus a direct challenge both to Prussia's pretension for hegemony in Germany and to its position as a great power. Gone now as the illusion of Frederick William that all options remained open to him, that he could defeat the revolution at home while utilizing it in Germany, that he could achieve German unity while keeping intact the union of conservative monarchs of Austria, Russia and Prussia. The Russian troops ominously massing in Poland made clear the Tsar's conception of which side represented the conservative interests while across the Rhine the enigmatic Napoleon was waiting for an opportunity to take up again the projects of his great uncle in the Rhineland.

"[Napoleon]" said Bismarck in a speech, "knows very well that he can find in the cathedral of Cologne the jewel which will consummate his revolution: The Crown of the French Empire."

But to withdraw from Hesse might be equally dangerous. It

- 50 -

to his wife he wrote that he had sat down among the Center party so that in an effort to get rid of him they would adopt an extreme position and discredit themselves. 35

As Bismarck was readying himself for his new post, however, no one could have foreseen that the man who was to stabilize the German Confederation would one day dissolve it. It was still thought that his invocation of Prussia's greatness was a sufficient guarantee for conservative intentions and that his intransigent defense of the royal prerogative would insure the harmony of the legitimist powers. But one man at least had no illusions about how far he would travel with his conservative colleagues. For a short three months before Bismarck had written to his wife from Erfurt regarding the chief conservative theoretician: "Our beloved Stahl is throwing his pearls before swine ... He still has pearls for me, but the day will come when our ways will part, if we live to see it." 36

35. W. I, p. 135.

36. E. I, p. 152.

depends on two factors; that the different domestic notions of justice be compatible and that the components of the international order be made to feel secure by its arrangements. If the domestic legitimizing principles are incompatible, all disputes are transformed into revolutionary contests. When there is no agreement on what constitutes a "just" or a "reasonable" claim no basis for negotiation exists. Then the emphasis will be less on the settlement of disputes than on the subversion of loyalties to bring about the degree of compatibility which will permit statesmen to "understand" each other. BUT no matter what the degree of harmony of the domestic notions of justice, no major power will accept a settlement in which its survival depends entirely on the continued good-will of another sovereign state. For too great a dis-proportion of strength undermines self-restraint in the powerful and induces in the weak the irresponsibility brought about by the consciousness that events can not be affected by one's actions.

This was the problem of the statesmen who created the Vienna settlement and of Metternich on whom fell the main burden of organizing Germany. No one familiar with European history could be blind to the fact that the greatest threat to European tranquillity was the existence of an impotent Central Europe which would whet the ambitions of the two great continental powers: France in the West and Russia in the East. Four generations of French rulers had used the dissensions of Germany to expand France's power and Russia had exploited each such opportunity to advance further into Europe. But equally a too powerful Germany might bring about the very coalition of Russia and France which had proved so pernicious to the peace or Europe heretofore. Metternich therefore sought to create a Central Europe strong enough to resist attacks from both the East and the West, but not so powerful as to disquiet its neighbors; sufficiently unified to be able to mobilize its forces but not so centralist as to overthrow its historic components and thereby put into question the legitimization of the settlement. However cumbersome the machinery of the German Confederation and however little it corresponded to the predominant trends of the country, it was well designed for the task that had been set for it. The very intricacy of its structure guaranteed that

The Crimean War

In the settlement of 1815, the equilibrium maintained by the Central Powers had been conceived <u>only</u> as a safety-valve, a last resort all the more effective for never being put to an explicit test. The real cement of the settlement was the appeal to legitimacy not only within Germany but also in the remainder of Europe. To be sure, the postulate of the <u>safety</u> of historical rule could not by its mere existence stem the currents of a century — and <u>revolutions</u> in Belgium, Spain, Italy, and France revealed that tranquillity, though desirable, is not sufficient to inspire men. But the very proximity of the abyss solidified the unity of the three great traditional rulers of the Continent, the King of Prussia and the <u>Emperors</u> of Russia and Austria. Only the closest cooperation among the defenders of the conservative interests seemed capable of saving the world from imminent chaos. Thus, the Holy Alliance of Austria, Prussia, and Russia conceived originally as an instrument to protect the territorial settlement of 1815 became in effect an organization held together by the common fear of revolution and the common determination to prevent the spreading of liberal institutions. It seemed almost a matter of course therefore that the Tsar in 1846 used his troops to help quell the revolution in Hungary and in 1851 to bring back into line a Prussia dangerously wavering towards a national, if not a liberal, policy.

In these circumstances there was an inherent limit to the disputes of the German Confederation in Frankfurt: that the requirement of the unity of the Conservative monarchs superseded all considerations of local advantage. And while it was easy enough for Bismarck to ridicule the claims

3. case of the demise of the "sick man of Europe." But the emergence of a new Napoleon Bonaparte in France furnished a reasonable assurance that Britain's attention would be focused more on the protection of the Low Countries than on the security of the Straits.

The crisis in the Balkans therefore took the course which had become almost traditional in the disputes between Russia and the Ottoman Empire: an insistence by the Tsar that both history and specific treaty relationships had made him the protector of the Christian faith in the Ottoman Empire, coupled with an intransigent demand for specific guarantees.

4. The POKE, in turn, resorted to dilatory measures while it sought help from the other powers. Finally when faced with the threat of war, the Sultan issued a POKE in which he acceded to most of the Russian demands. But it soon became apparent that the Tsar was less interested in his co-religionists than in the humiliation of the Turks. A special envoy, Mensikov, was dispatched to Constantinople with demands that the Sultan reiterate the POKE in the form of a treaty and in effect recognize the Russia formally as the protector of the Greek-Orthodox Church in the Ottoman Empire. And if the POKE hoped to buy peace successfully with such a surrender of sovereignty, Mensikov's arrogant behavior made it clear that nothing less than POKE would placate the autocrat in St. Petersburg.

3. See Stern VI, p. 45.

4. The specific issue this time concerned the protection of the Holy places in Jerusalem and the theft from them of religious objects some years previously. It was complicated by the fact that not only the Tsar but also Napoleon sought to use this opportunity to appear as the protectors of Christianity: the former to inherit the Turkish Empire, the latter to appeal to French Catholicism.

- 14

was directed however against the proposition that the refusal of Russian
OFFER
entailed an alliance with Austria as a logical corollary: "[Austria]
has at most 40-80 thousand men available for war beyond its borders,"
he wrote to Gerlach, his channel to the king. "We therefore do not assume
an easy task if we challenge our century arm in arm with Austria. Never-
theless I would never advise against running risks if only we can gain
by it (Bismarck's italics); but for heaven's sake no sentimental alliances
where the consciousness of having performed a good deed furnishes the sole
reward for our sacrifice." "I could answer the question whether it is
in accordance with our interests to weaken the European position of Austria
further only if I knew the degree of boldness and energy which will animate
our policy," Bismarck wrote cautiously to Manteuffel, his source of
influence in the government. "Many statesmen are of the opinion that it is
preferable to have Austria as an enemy than as a friend. Be that as it may,
I should be concerned were we to seek safety before possible storms by
hitching our smart and seaworthy frigate to the worm-eaten hulk of Austria.
We are the better swimmers and a welcome ally for everyone. . . The great
crises supply the climate conducive to Prussia's growth; if we use them
without fear, perhaps even with great ruthlessness. If we wish to continue
to grow we must not be afraid to stand alone with 400 thousand men,
particularly as long as others do the battling. . . The value of our
assistance will increase with the growing entanglement of the powers, and we
will be paid more for it later than now."

And the entanglements of the powers soon created a situation which
confronted Prussia with fateful decisions. A plaintive Austrian circular note

15. L.G., p. 130, 20 February, 1854.

16. W. I., p. 425, 15 February, 1854.

- 13

On the contrary, the fall of Pourtales was due to a victory in Berlin of
the national party which had not opposed the convention in principle but had
been put off by the threats of the English press and of English statesmen.

Here was the first example of the policy of keeping all options
open until the best moment which was to characterize all of Bismarck's
diplomacy, the confusing frankness, the bold caution, the unanswerable
personal appeal. But it was a diplomacy doomed to futility with a monarch
of Frederick William's indecision. For no sooner had he obtained his
freedom of action than he came to use it and on April 20 he signed a treaty
of alliance with Austria which guaranteed Austria's territory and even
promised Austria Prussian assistance if Russia should refuse to halt its
advance across the Danube or to evacuate the Principalities.

In this manner ended the first phase of the Crimean War as anti-
climactically as it had begun and with Austria seemingly successful in
imposing its policy on Prussia. But Austria's victory was only apparent.
For an alliance represents an accretion of strength only if its members are
in accord about their objectives. In the absence of such an agreement the
requirement for unity can be used to exact a veto over allied actions and
the policy of the alliance will be shaped by its weakest, on at least its
most irresolute components. Anyone familiar with the psychology of the
Prussian King, moreover, could be certain that he would shrink from the
consequences of his audacity. It was one thing to make a treaty to please
the traditional ally in Vienna; it was quite another to put that treaty to

22. Valentin, p. 98; L. G., p. 43, 17 April, 1854.

23. Stern VIII, p. 70.

safety? The canons of the Metternich system would have counselled an
alliance with Austria, a reliance on the German Confederation, and the
closest relationships with Great Britain. Each of these elements was
demolished by Bismarck in turn. Britain would have difficulty maintaining
control of the seas against a resurgent French navy aided perhaps by
the United States. In any case Britain's land-forces were so negligible
that the Central Powers would have to bear the brunt of the conflict. The
German Confederation was an illusory force. "Aided by Russia, Prussia,
and Austria, the German Confederation would probably hold together, because
it would believe in victory even without its support; but in the case of
a two-front war towards East and West, those princes who are not under
the control of our bayonets would attempt to save themselves through
declarations of neutrality, if they did not appear in the field against us.
. . With a million troops of the Holy Alliance behind it, the German
Confederation may seem durable; in the present situation it is unable to
resist a foreign danger."

But what about the alliance with Austria, the cardinal postulate
of Prussian policy for over a generation? Not only was Austria a weak
ally, Bismarck replied, but an incongruous one. "If we remained victorious
against a Franco-Russian alliance for what would we have fought? For the
continuation of Austria's predominance in Germany and the miserable
constitution of the Confederation. . . for that we can not possibly risk our
existence or bleed to death victoriously." On the contrary, Austria was
the chief obstacle of Prussia's growth: "Germany is too small for the two
of us. . ., as long as we plow the same furrow, Austria is the only state
against which we can make a permanent gain and to which we can suffer a