The Rise of German Nationalism

1
The Rise of German Nationalism

• 1830s-1870s

2
The Unification of Germany

• This is a map of the German Confederation, which
  was established in 1815 and survived until 1867.

3
Allies of nationalism

• The educated middle-class had become important to
  German society. They were the doctors, lawyers
  and business men, who helped make the German
  states prosperous. Across all 39 states, this
  middle-class wanted more rights and freedoms as
  German subjects to reflect their contribution to
  German states' success.
• They wanted freedom of speech and an elected
  parliament that would represent their interests.
• They thought these ideals would best be realised
  and protected in a united Germany with a new
  constitution.
• By 1859, groups of doctors, lawyers, teachers and
  businessmen formed the Nationalverein. This
  organisation became the Liberal Party, which
  actively campaigned for reforms such as
  parliamentary elections.

4
Economic nationalism

• Industrialisation was gaining pace in Germany.
  Businessmen wanted to increase the markets
  available for their goods to maximise profits.
  Most existing trade was between the 39 states but
  developing this was hampered by tariff barriers.
  A single Germany without so many taxes and
  tariffs would help trade and increase prosperity.
• In 1818 Prussia, the largest and most powerful
  German state, scrapped its trade tariffs between
  its own territories.
• The following year, it offered an economic
  alliance (Zollverein) with similar trade
  concessions to other German states.
• By 1836, 25 other German states had joined this
  economic alliance. Prussia developed its road and
  rail networks to maximise trade opportunities.
  This economic co-operation was so successful it
  made people think of political union.

5
The opponents of nationalism

• 1) Austria
• The Austrian empire was extremely powerful in
  Europe and was competing politically and
  economically with the 39 German states. German
  nationalism might lead to unification of the
  states. This would make them stronger and more of
  a threat to Austria.
• 20 of the people in the Austrian empire were
  German. The Austrian Emperor feared nationalism
  might make them want to break away and join
  Germany. This would leave Austria weaker and
  cause other national groups in the Empire to
  demand their independence.

6
The opponents of nationalism

• 2) German Princes
• Many princes feared that if the German states
  were unified they would lose power and influence
  over their own territories.
• If the German states were unified, there could
  only be one person in charge. Prussia, as the
  dominant state, would be the prime candidate.
• 3) France and Russia
• These countries feared that a strong, united
  Germany would be a political, economic and
  military rival to them.

7
Political turmoil in Germany

• Throughout the 1840s many German states were
  under pressure from nationalist and liberal
  demonstrators wanting greater political
  representation and reform. The reformers
  recognised that a unified Germany with popular
  elections and a constitution would be the best
  way of guaranteeing political freedoms.
• German monarchs, such as Prussia's King Frederick
  William IV, feared that if Germany were to be
  united according to the demands of the
  nationalists they would lose power and influence
  in their territories.

8
A Prussian parliament

• Despite being a staunch opponent of popular
  democracy and written constitutions, the King of
  Prussia was forced in 1848 to draft a Prussian
  constitution and to allow an elected parliament
  to meet and advise him.
• He agreed to this after witnessing increasing
  civil unrest on the streets of Prussia's capital
  city, Berlin.

9
The Frankfurt Parliament of 1848

• After widespread revolts, not only across the 39
  states but also across many other European
  nations such as France, a Parliament was called
  to discuss reforms and attempt to draft a
  constitution for a unified Germany.
• This was seen as being the best way of stopping
  the political unrest.

10
A German constitution

• The constitution was completed in March 1849.
  This would unite the German states as a German
  Empire headed by a German Emperor.
• Government would be provided by an elected
  parliament that represented the populations of
  all 39 states.
• This new German Empire would replace the existing
  Bund.
• The Crown was offered to Prussia's Frederick
  William IV.

11
Victory for the old order

• Frederick William refused to accept the crown
  because it had not been offered by the other
  German Princes, stating that he would not "accept
  a crown from the gutter".
• By late 1849, the movement for political reform
  had lost its impetus and the German Princes and
  the Austrian Emperor were able to regain control
  of politics in their territories.
• After the failure of the Frankfurt Parliament,
  Prussia put forward a plan to unify the German
  states under Prussian control. The question was
  whether a united Germany should contain Austria
  (Grossdeutschland) or leave it out
  (Kleindeutschland).

12
Total victory for the old order

• The Prussians, as rivals of Austria, argued for
  Austria's exclusion.
• The Austrians refused to agree with the Prussian
  plan since it would eliminate their influence in
  German affairs. The Austrians persuaded the
  Bund's Federal Diet to threaten sanctions against
  Prussia.
• In 1850, with Russians supporting Austria, the
  Prussians backed down.
• Another attempt at a unified Germany had failed.

13
Austria and Prussia

• During the early 19th century, Prussia was the
  only German state that could match the power and
  influence of the Austrian Empire.
• They were comparable in terms of size, population
  and wealth. Austria opposed the idea of German
  unification as it saw this as a threat to its own
  empire.
• Although they were a minority, there was a
  significant percentage of German-speakers in the
  empire. If they broke away to join a unified
  Germany, Austria would be smaller and weaker. To
  this end, Prussia and Austria were rivals.

14
Austria in decline

• Austria had lost key allies and was losing
  influence in Europe.
• Austria had refused to help Russia in its war
  against France and Britain (the Crimean War,
  1854-56) and lost a major ally as a result.
• Austria was defeated in a war against the French
  and northern Italian states. As a result, it had
  been forced to surrender some territories.

15
Prussia strengthened

• Prussia had become the most industrialised state
  in Germany. She was now a force to be reckoned
  with in Europe.
• Prussia was producing more key resources such as
  coal and iron than Austria and it had surged
  ahead of its rival in building road and rail
  networks to help promote trade.
• Prussia had successfully set up an economic
  alliance (Zollverein) with other German states
  that made trade between states easier and more
  profitable.

16
Images of Bismarck

• Two images of Otto Von Bismarck

17
Enter Otto

• The man who did most to unite the German states
  was Otto Von Bismarck. He was the Prussian
  Chancellor and his main goal was to strengthen
  even further the position of Prussia in Europe.
  His primary aims were to
• unify the north German states under Prussian
  control
• weaken Prussia's main rival, Austria, by removing
  it from the Bund
• make Berlin the centre of German affairs - not
  Vienna
• strengthen the position of the King of Prussia,
  William I, to counter the demands for reform from
  the Liberals in the Prussian parliament (the
  Reichstag).

18
Bismarcks early career

• In 1849, aged 34, he was elected to the Prussian
  Diet.
• He was reactionary, intensely monarchist and
  class prejudiced and rejected the whole idea of
  Liberal parliamentary government.
• Despising the middle-class Liberals in the
  Prussian parliament, he made it clear that his
  only interest was the power of the Prussian
  monarchy.
• In 1851 he was appointed Prussian representative
  to the Bund, the Austrian-dominated German
  Confederation, in Frankfurt.
• There he pursued an anti-Austrian line,
  relentlessly emphasising Prussia as Austrias
  equal.

19
Bismarcks hour arrives

• In 1862, having been Prussian ambassador to
  Russia and then France, Bismarck was recalled in
  a moment of constitutional crisis, Bismarck was
  made Minister-President (Prime Minister) on
  September 25th, 1862, aged 47.
• The King of Prussia, Wilhelm I, having witnessed
  French and Austrian troops fighting in 1859,
  insisted that Prussia needed to modernise its
  army.
• However, the liberal majority in Parliament
  objected to the length of service in the army and
  the high expense.

20
Iron and Blood

• Von Roon, the Minister for War, advised Wilhelm
  to send for Bismarck as a political hard man to
  push through his desired reforms.
• When the parliament refused to authorise Bismarck
  to collect the taxes, he ignored them and ordered
  the increased taxes to be collected anyway. In a
  famous speech to the parliament, Bismarck
  explained his ideas
• Not by means of speeches and majority verdicts
  will the great decisions of the time be made-
  that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849- but
  by iron and blood

21
Congress of Princes, 1863

• To counter Prussia's growing influence, Austria
  tried to strengthen its position in the Bund. A
  Congress of Princes was to be hosted by Austria
  to revitalise the Bund.
• Since it was in theory the leading member of the
  Bund, an increase in the power of the Bund would
  strengthen Austria.
• Although Wilhelm wanted to attend, Bismarck
  blackmailed him into not attending, pointing out
  that to go would be to confirm Austrias
  supremacy. Wilhelm surrendered and stayed at
  home.
• Bismarck further thwarted Austria's plans by
  insisting on popular elections to the Diet (the
  Bund's parliament).
• Bismarck had successfully ruined Austria's plans
  and was seen, ironically, as a defender of the
  Liberal nationalists.

22
Isolating Austria

• Bismarck knew Austria was a major obstacle to
  unification. To succeed in his aims war seemed
  inevitable. Before he fought the powerful
  Austrian empire, however, he needed to weaken its
  position in Europe.

23
Austrias isolation, contd

• Prussia refused to help Poland when it rebelled
  against Russian control. Bismarck then formed a
  powerful alliance with Russia.
• Bismarck then formed another key alliance with
  France. In a meeting with Napoleon III, he
  promised to support France in its plans to invade
  and control Belgium.
• Bismarck also struck a deal with Italy. Italy
  promised to help Prussia in any war against
  Austria, providing Austria were the aggressor and
  Italy gained Venezia in return.

24
Schleswig-Holstein

• Bismarck got his excuse for a war against Austria
  during a territorial dispute over two small
  German states, Schleswig and Holstein. These were
  under the control of Denmark but not technically
  a part of it.
• In 1863, the King of Denmark declared Schleswig
  and Holstein to be a part of Denmark.
• In 1864, Prussia and Austria teamed up and
  declared war on Denmark. They won easily.

25
Austro-Prussian war

• Bismarck then engineered a treaty with Austria
  (the Treaty of Gastein) which he knew was
  unlikely to work. Prussia was to control
  Schleswig and Austria would control Holstein.
  This treaty was designed to provoke, since
  Austrians would have to go through a hostile
  Prussia to reach Holstein.
• The Austrians tried to use their influence in the
  German Bund to pressure Prussia to address the
  Schleswig-Hostein issue.
• The Bund backed Austria in the dispute over
  Schleswig-Holstein.
• In response, Prussia said that the Bund was
  invalid, declared war on Austria and invaded the
  German states of Hanover, Hesse and Saxony. The
  Austrians were quickly defeated by the Prussian
  army during the Seven Weeks War, with the help of
  Italy.

26
Consequences of Austro-Prussian war

• Bismarck's plan to isolate Austria was working.
  As a result of the Seven Weeks War
• Prussia kept all the territories it had captured.
  (See next slide)
• A North German Confederation was set up under the
  control of Prussia. (See subsequent slide)
• A federal Diet (parliament) was established for
  the states in this North German Confederation.
  The Diet would be elected and each state could
  keep its own laws and customs.
• The southern German states formed their own
  independent confederation.
• Austria promised to stay out of German affairs.
• Austria paid compensation to Prussia but did not
  lose land to it. Prussia did not want to weaken
  Austria too much since it might be a useful ally
  in the future against Prussia's enemies

27
Territory annexed by Prussia in 1866
28
North German Confederation 1867
29
Isolating France

• With Austria weakened, Bismarck now turned his
  attention to the other great stumbling block to
  unification - the French.
• France had watched Prussia's growing power with
  alarm. As he had with Austria, Bismarck tried to
  weaken France as much as possible before war
  started.

30
The national swindle

• At the end of the Austro-Prussian war, France
  demanded lands from Prussia as the price of her
  neutrality.
• Bismarck was preparing for the North German
  Confederation and explained to Napoleon III that
  he could not grant German land to France as
  German national feeling was running so high.
• In private, however, he spoke of the national
  swindle he was sceptical about the notion of a
  German nation instead of separate states, seeing
  it as a middle-class invention.
• In other words, his desire for a more united
  Germany was dishonest, he was only using it as an
  excuse to not weaken Prussias position, relative
  to France.

31
Isolating France, contd

• Officially, Russia was an ally of France but
  Bismarck used diplomacy to make sure Russia
  stayed out of the up-coming war.
• Bismarck also made sure Italy stayed neutral and
  wouldn't fight for France.
• Bismarck gambled that the British would stay out
  of the war since it didn't want France to become
  any more powerful than it already was.

32
Hohenzollern Candidature

• Bismarck found his excuse for war when Spain
  offered its vacant crown to Leopold of
  Hohenzollern, a cousin of Wilhelm I.
• France was outraged since it didn't want Prussia
  becoming more powerful. The French insisted King
  William make his relative refuse the crown. King
  William refused to guarantee this.
• Bismarck used the King's refusal as a way to
  provoke the French. He published a heavily edited
  and provocative telegram, known as The Ems
  Telegram, of the King's refusal, making it seem
  he had insulted the French ambassador. The French
  Emperor, responding to fury from the French press
  and public, declared war on Prussia. In the
  Franco-Prussian war, France was heavily defeated
  and its ruler, Napoleon III, was overthrown by a
  French rebellion.

33
Victory

• In the build up to war, the southern confederate
  German states voluntarily joined the
  Prussian-controlled Northern German
  Confederation. Germany was now unified.
• In the Treaty of Frankfurt, as a result of the
  Franco-Prussian war France lost the territory of
  Alsace-Lorraine on its border with Germany.
• It also had to pay Germany 200 million in
  compensation. A new imperial constitution was set
  up within the now unified German states, with
  William I as Emperor (Kaiser) and Prussia firmly
  in control.

34
The German Empire 1871
35
Summary of Bismarcks contribution to Unification

• Economic co-operation meant that unification may
  have happened eventually anyway, but Bismarck
  made sure that it happened.
• He made sure that the army reforms took place.
• He successfully isolated other countries by
  making them look like aggressors.
• He made Prussia appear to be the defender of the
  German states and protector of their rights.

36
Historiographical debate 1Did Bismarck plan for
war with France?

• The secret treaty he signed with the Southern
  states came into effect in the event of mutual
  danger- war with France was just such a danger.
• Recent elections in these southern states had
  shown a resurgence of anti-Prussian feeling-
  Bismarck had motive to assert his control over
  them quickly
• France had no allies at this stage- a situation
  that was only likely to deteriorate with time as
  they were negotiating with Austria

37
Historiographical debate 1Did Bismarck plan for
war with France?

• However, the NGC did not need the southern
  states- it was an economic success and they would
  only increase the religious tension between the
  mainly Protestant north and the predominantly
  Catholic south.
• There was no guarantee that a war with France
  would be brief- they had a reserve of nearly a
  million men and much new equipment.
• Bismarck himself said,
• Arbitrary interference in the course of history
  has never achieved anything but to shake down
  unripe fruit. That German unity is not yet a ripe
  fruit is obvious.
• Also, Bismarck had no way of knowing that the
  Spanish throne would become an issue of
  contention at that time.
• Finally, he had been much distressed by the grim
  realities of the Austrian war that had left
  thousands dead or crippled.

38
So what do the historians say?

• A.J.P. Taylor, writing in 1958, said that the war
  came about not because of plans, but because
  events overtook them and they were forced to
  react (Hohenzollern at the heart of this
  argument).
• D.G. Williamson (1998) attributes the war to
  short term events- the appointment of the
  strongly anti-Prussian Gramont as French foreign
  secretary and the Hohenzollern Candidature being
  two central ones.
• Otto Pflanze (1963) has spoken of Bismarck having
  a strategy of alternatives, having a number of
  different possible paths and options and thus
  being able to respond to developments. This
  replaced the idea of Bismarck as having a master
  plan which many of his early biographers had
  claimed.
• Bismarck himself cast doubts on any notion of a
  master plan for unification when he said
• Man cannot create the current of events he can
  only float with it and steer.

39
Historiographical debate 2Was Bismarck alone
responsible for unification?

• Quite simply, no.
• Firstly economic developments were important
  iron and blood needed a vibrant industry to
  produce the iron (railways and weapons), for the
  army to be able to shed the blood
• Had Austria been slightly stronger the Zollverein
  would not have happened- denying Prussia much of
  the economic might on which its successes of the
  1860s were built
• D. Blackbourn claims that
• Prussia was always likely to come out on top.
  Austria not only had chronic financial problems
  and non-German distractions it also lagged well
  behind Prussia in economic development.

40
Historiographical debate 2Was Bismarck alone
responsible for unification?

• Secondly, as noted at the beginning, German
  nationalism was a growing force and was certainly
  one that Bismarck made use of (quite cynically if
  the national swindle idea is to be believed).
• In addition, the Prussian war machine
  (initiated by Von Roon and Wilhelm) gave Bismarck
  the necessary means for success and
  simultaneously rendered some of the smaller
  states vulnerable/insecure enough to come under
  Prussias auspices.

41
Historiographical debate 2Was Bismarck alone
responsible for unification?

• International developments were certainly
  favourable to German unification.
• J. Breuilly (1996) points out that in the
  Franco-Prussian war, Britain and Russia were very
  unlikely to intervene, Italy was anxious to
  secure Venice French policy was undone by the
  rapid and unexpected Prussian military success
  and,
• any ordinary statesman in Berlin bent on war
  with Austria would not have done significantly
  worse.

42
Historiographical debate 2Was Bismarck alone
responsible for unification?

• The Zollverein is worthy of attention
• Was it merely a means to increase revenue or a
  precursor to national unity?
• Historians are divided Bohme argues that it gave
  Prussia an important instrument of control over
  the German states.
• Sheehan, however, suggests it was mainly an
  instrument of taxation and was not an important
  factor- in either economic or political terms.
• It certainly increased collaboration between
  states, allowed them to see common cause and
  was, of course, a way of increasing Prussian
  influence at the cost of Austria.

43
Versailles, 1871

• The new Emperor is on top of the steps. The
  figure in white stands proudly surveying what he
  has achieved. It is Bismarck.