The impact of Napoleon’s return to France had caused the four great powers of Europe – Great Britain, Austria, Russia, and Prussia – to temporarily bury their differences. Britain and Austria quietly nullified the secret alliance made at Vienna, and on the Prussian side Gneisenau and Boyen abandoned detailed plans they had drawn up for a German ‘people’s war’. Although in contradiction of the principle of monarchic legitimacy, this planned war was to solve the German question, if necessary at the expense of the princes; the plans caused Frederick William III and Hardenberg some misgivings, but they were not in the outright opposition.
Prussia reduced its territorial demands and received the smaller northern part of Saxony, while from the grand duchy of Warsaw the province of Posen was detached, thus giving Prussia’s eastern frontier a better defensive line. Furthermore the rest of Vorpommern, as well as the city of Danzig were acquired. Yet these territorial acquisitions were relatively minor when compared with the gains in the west, where along the Mosel, the Saar and in the central region of the Rhine Prussia received a consolidated territory, forged out of 150 individual territorial possessions – the Rhineland. Great Britain had been one of the main supporters of this cession, wishing to see a strong power established along the Rhine as a counter to France. Whilst Prussia now became more and more immersed in Germany (from which the state of Belgium was formed), withdrew territorially into Germany’s south-eastern corner, but was nevertheless still intent upon exerting the major influence in the German states. However, in spite of Prussia’s territorial acquisitions, the state was still divided into an eastern and a western half, with Hesse and Hanover coming between the two parts.
It was at this time that the demand was first voiced for Prussia to assume the leadership of Germany. Boyen and even the arch-conservative Marwitz had already entertained similar ideas, or at least considered making Prussia the leader of the north. But Frederick William III and Hardenberg realized that this pre-eminence could not be achieved without conflict with Austria, and, on the whole, they preferred Austria’s support rather than its opposition. What gave the demand for Prussia leadership in Germany its piquancy was that it did not originate from the leading Prussian politicians but from representatives of the middle classes in south-western Germany, German patriots who had formed themselves into the so-called ‘Hoffman Leage’. Frederick William’s III promise of a constitution and a representative assembly answered the constitutional desires of many Germans and in effect formed part of that moral conquest of Germany which the Prussian Reform Movement had envisaged. But Prussia, although a great power, could act only within the framework of the other great powers, and in 1814/15 a demand of this nature was, though a first sign of the shape of things to come, still premature and unrealistic.
After Napoleon’s return and subsequent defeat, the second Paris Treaty of 20 November 1815 caused France to lose additional territory. At the headquarters of the Prussian army the cession of Alsace and Lorraine was demanded, but Hardenberg and Humboldt, who represented Prussia in Vienna, were content to accept the cities of Saarlouis and Saarbrucken, to which was added an indemnity and the Prussian occupation of various French territories until France had paid.
The result of the Congress of Vienna was a work of restoration which in so far as the German states were concerned established a peaceful German dualism between Austria and Prussia, all within a ‘greater German’ context under the leadership of the House of Hapsburg. This solution was perfectly acceptable to men such as Stein who saw in the creation on 8 June 1815 of the German Confederation the restoration of the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation under a different name, a framework within which the German national spirit could develop and prosper. However, this view ignored the current of national feeling in Europe which, traveling from west to east, had taken hold of the German middle classes. This current was flowing on still further east and south-east, affecting a renaissance of national feeling in the various peoples and ethnic groups in eastern central and south-eastern Europe. Out of that feeling arose the contradiction that the Austrian Empire could not be at one and the same time the leader of a ‘greater German’ national confederation as well as the head of an Empire embracing many different nationalities. The universal roots and traditions of the old Empire were increasingly at odds with the new spirit of the age. Metternich realized this all too clearly and set himself the task of stemming the tide. His ultimate defeat was inevitable, but it is a measure of his ability that the managed to survive for so long until 1848.
The representative organ of the German Confederation was its diet in Frankfurt-an-Main, in which the Hapsburg Empire held the chair. Other members were five kingdoms (Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, and Wurttemberg), the electorate of Hesse, seven grand duchies including Luxembourg, twelve dukedoms, one Margrave and four free imperial cities, a total of 37 hereditary dynasties and four city republics. As some Houses became extinct, ultimately 34 dynasties and the four free cities were left. Of the two major powers, Austria and Prussia, only parts of their territories were members of the Confederation. Neither East or West Prussia or Posen were part of it, nor were the Hungarians, Polish, southern Slav and Italian possessions of the Hapsburgs. The diet’s main objective was to secure the principle of monarchic legitimacy and oppose the forces in favor of German unity – although this was not immediately appreciated by its contemporaries. To them it was an element of European stability, and for almost half a century it fulfilled this function.
The kingdom of Prussia after 1815 constituted two territorially unequal parts (its former southernmost possession, Ansbach-Bayreuth, remained with Bavaria). The eastern part was predominantly Protestant, the western part predominantly Catholic. The western acquisitions especially posed many new tasks for the Prussian state, for it was now necessary to integrate territories where the French influence had been strong and where Napoleonic reforms had been successful. Among the new territories acquired in the west, the Ruhr was still rural country of rich pastures covered by medium-sized farms although the Saarland on the other hand was already showing signs of industrial progress.
Because of the new territories, Prussia developed a new internal organization dividing its territories into 10 provinces (being later reduced to eight), each province having its corporate autonomy and being headed by an Oberprasident. The provinces were Western Prussia, Pomerania, Silesia, Westphalia, Brandenburg, East Prussia, Rhineland, Lower Rhine, Saxony and Posen.
The year 1815 witnessed also the creation of the so-called Holy Alliance. On 26 September Francis of Austria, Alexander of Russia and Frederick William of Prussia concluded this alliance of ‘Christian monarchs’ to establish supranational co-operation for the maintenance of the political and social status quo and the consolidation of the anti-national forces in Europe. To many Germans, Prussians included, this caused their first awareness of the fact that the popular forces raised by the War of Liberation were now to be contained and that their ambitions were to be denied – by force if necessary. A new brand, a reformed brand of monarchy had returned, in which monarchy and bureaucracy were firmly aligned on the one side against a crumbling font of political and military reformers on the other, the latter being backed by sectors of the middle classes who were increasingly politically conscious. Disappointment at this development was voiced by many and is exemplified by the exclamation of the student Arminius Riemann at the Wartburg festival of 1817, the three-hundredth anniversary of the Reformation and the fourth anniversary of the battle of Leipzig: ‘Four long years have gone by since this battle. The German people entertained bright hopes, but they have all come to nothing; everything is different from what we expected.
In fact the Holy Alliance was of more symbolic than practical value. It was symptomatic of the counter-revolutionary spirit of the ruling classes after 1815; Metternich himself said that it was never used. In terms of practical policy the concert of European powers (which after the readmission of France and Great Britain), which its roots in the 18th century, proved a much more effective instrument than the vague formulations of the Holy Alliance – even at times when there was discord in the orchestra.
Among the politically conscious population a feeling of deep resignation spread. Many who had participated prominently in the War of Liberation withdrew from public life and sought refuge in religious, historical and philosophic meditation. This refusal to face political life at the roots of the blossoming of the Romantic movement in Germany, roots that reached back to the 18th century. The movement achieved prominence in literature, music, painting (the most prominent Prussian painter of that period being Caspar David Friedrich), historiography, jurisprudence and philology. But turning their backs on the present, German scholars rediscovered the glory of the Middle Ages – no wonder that the drive to raise funds for the completion of Cologne cathedral, for centuries unfinished, now reached its height and finally achieved its aim. Literary folklore once again awakened a consciousness of the past, idealized perhaps, but in the process saving much that otherwise might have been consigned to oblivion. The brothers Grimm, Achim von Arnim, Clemens von Brentano, Josef von Eichendorf and ETA Hoffman were some of its more prominent protagonists.
The constitutional movement in the middle classes, which since 1815 had been spreading fairly rapidly found its most eloquent spokesman in the publicist Joseph Gorres who had handed to Hardenberg the ‘Coblenz Addrss’ signed by 3,000 Rhinelanders. This, almost in the tone of an ultimatum, demanded from the King that the fulfill his constitution promise of 1815. Frederick William III was quick to see the forces of revolution at work in his kingdom and became less than ever prepared to grant the ‘Magna Carta’ demanded.
By a decree of 5 June 1823 it was ordered that the historic estates of the provinces should form diets, the diet of each province to be constituted from representatives of the nobility, the burghers and the peasants. In practice this meant that the representatives of all three classes were the propertied men, property being the main qualification for membership. The diets of the Prussian provinces comprised of 1,329 deputies of the towns, 2,207 deputies from the propertied peasants and 12,654 estate-owners. Thus was the constitutional promise of 1815, for the time being, buried in Prussia.
The ideological foundation for the process of restoration in Prussia had already been laid in 1816 by the work of the Swiss Karl Ludwig von Haller in his Restauration der Staatswissenschaft. Society consisted of a pyramid of treaties, privileges and liberties as had, according to Haller, been the case in the Middle Ages. Modern development had attacked these foundations, eroding them by sovereignty and centralization, putting the state above the subject, a general leveling process above which stood only the monarch. Haller’s teachings were a protest against the modern state, in personal terms a protest against Hardenber’s policies; they amounted to a complete negation of any social contract theory.
While Hardenberg was still at the helm of the administration, the entire civil service apparatus and the territorial organization was subjected to a thorough overhaul. At First Prussia was divided up into 10 provinces, which were then, by joining the provinces of the Rhineland and East and West Prussia, reduced to eight. In place of the Napoleonic prefect system which Hardenberg had previously used as a model, he returned to the collegiate principle. At the head of each province was a Oberprasident who shared power with the general commanding the army corps of the province. In place of the principle applied at first, namely the centralizing of all aspects of public life into one administration, necessity compelled a separation once again into various branches such as education, health, taxation, post and mining. Basically each provincial administration divided into three branches: internal and police affairs; church and education; and direct taxation, domains and forestry.
One of the major aims of the Prussian reformers had been to create the Rechstaat, the state based upon the law, a demand not originated by them but implicit in the instructions which lay at the origin of the Allgemeine Preussisches Landrecht. The logical consequence of this demand was an independent judiciary, a judiciary outside the power of a royal cabinet order. The financial crisis of 1808 to 1818, which did not leave Prussia untouched, had only been mastered by the issue of credits; these credits, however, could not be obtained unless they were legally fully secured. They also entailed the risk of political demands by those who granted them. To avoid this risk, the Prussian bureaucracy decided to refrain from taking short-term loans from capital sources within the kingdom and instead took up a long-term loan from the House of Rothschild abroad.
Like the ministry of culture the ministry of war was also a new creation. Founded in 1814 under von Boyen it was an institution which was the focal point of the struggles for and against the army reforms introduced between 1807 and 1813. Conscription had been introduced formally for the duration of the war only. By a cabinet order of 27 May 1814 it was lifted again causing anxiety among the reformers that a return to the cantonal realignment would take its place. Boyen’s efforts replaced this, but he too had to pay his price, namely the Landsurm, a force secondary to that of the Landwehr. Thus before Hardenberg’s and Frederick William III’s departure for the Congress of Vienna the King signed, on 3 September 1814, the law making conscription a permanent institution, to be supplemented a year later by new regulations governing the Landwehr. From then on Prussia had a relatively small army of the line numbering approximately 136,000 men (whose members had to do three years’ active service plus two years in the reserve) and a Landwehr of 163,000 (whose members did seven years’ service) which met for a few weeks every year but in time of war was integrated into the army of the line. There was also a second line of the Landwehr for purposes of territorial defense, but this did not participate in peacetime exercises.
By the late 1820’s three blocs were in competition within the German Confederation. One was Austria, which saw the advantages in the removal of internal German trade barriers but at that time was not yet willing to apply a policy of this kind to its territories of other nationalities. The second was Prussia, which recognized that its potential economic power could ultimately win for her dominance in northern Germany. The third block was made up of the states of central and southern Germany which feared being swallowed by either Austria or Prussia. Only this late bloc was divided amongst itself, Hesse-Darmstadt soon beginning to turn towards Prussia, leaving Wurtemberg and Bavaria as one group, Baden and Hesse-Nassau as another. Bavaria and Wurtemberg gave the signal for the events that were to follow; on 18 January 1828 they concluded a customs union, whose institutions were eventually to become those of the German customs union. That left Hesse-Nassau, whose ruler thought that he could survive without associating himself with either Prussia or Bavaria-Wurttemberg. Only Hesse-Darmstadt, on 14 February 1828, joined the Prussian customs union.
Prussia and Bavaria together had brought new mobility into the entire German question. Motz was well aware of the political consequences of his policy; to him it was not merely a question of consequences of his policy; to him it was not merely a question of revising internal conditions of trade and standardizing tariffs, he envisaged a revision of the constitution of the German Confederation and the strengthening of Germany’s national power externally, under the direction and protection of Prussia. When he died in 1830 he did not see the completion of his work in the form of the German customs union, the economic precondition of that work which Bismarck was to complete politically. Kingdoms, principalities and territories still uncommitted began to reconsider their position. Baden came to agreement with Bavaria in 1830, Prussia, Saxony and Thuringia in 1833. this culminated in the German customs union of 30 March 1833 which came into force on 1 January 1834. For the first time in modern German history the German states had given up significant parts of their sovereignty in the interest of the entire German community. The standardization of Prussia’s tariffs had, unforeseen by its originators, led to the economic reunification of Germany.
The July Revolution of 1830 in France, except for seemingly confirming the prejudices of reactionaries everywhere, had few practical repercussions in Prussia. In a European context, however, it brought France closer to Britain where the Liberals had replaced the Tories. This in turn caused the Prussians to lean further towards Russia and Austria again and especially the former because with the death of Alexander, Czar Nicholas I, the son-in-law of Frederick William III, had succeeded to the throne. When the Poles attempted their abortive national rising Nicholas became the epitome of the despot defending legitimism and absolutism in Europe. Devoid of the subtle kid-glove approach of a Metternich, Nicholas preferred the immediate use of brute force.
In spite of this wave of reaction, many advocates of political liberalism and moderation at that time still felt that Prussia remained the hope for Germany. The renowned historian Friedrich Christof Dahlmann, at that time still in Gottingen, wrote in 1832 that in Germany there was one state which, as he put it, ‘possesses a wonderful spear’, and that the fatherland had cause to look at it with admiration but also with anger. That state was Prussia, and Prussia should fulfill its historic mission. If the King of Prussia transformed his country into a constitutional monarchy from that moment it would lead the German Confederation and command the loyalty of every patriotic German. During that same year the south-west German jurist Paul Pfizer published his ‘Letters between two Germans.’ He argued that Austria had developed policies that lay outside the healthy national interests of all Germans, and had therefore alienated itself from the German body politic. ‘It was Prussia which, by the extraordinary exertion of all its physical strength and even more by the moral weight which its enthusiasm could place on the scales, decided the liberation of Germany from Napoleonic rule and has therefore rightfully assumed the claim for hegemony in Germany, lacking only its external confirmation.’ Prussia was destined, historically to become imperative that the minor princes and kings of Germany should place a part of their power and sovereignty into the hands of Prussia.