Part 251

"The elections for the new Prussian Constituent Assembly, as well as for the Frankfort Parliament, were to take place (May 1). The Prussian National Assembly was to meet May 22. The Prussian people, under the new election law, if left to themselves, would have quietly chosen a body of competent representatives; but the revolutionary party thought nothing could be done without the ax and the musket. ... The people of Berlin, from March to October, were ... really in the hands of the mob. ... The newly-elected Prussian National Assembly was opened by the king, May 21. ... One of the first resolutions proceeded from Behrend of the Extreme Left. 'The Assembly recognizes the revolution, and declares that the combatants who fought at the barricades, on March 18 and 19, merit the thanks of the country.' ... The motion was rejected. On issuing from the building into the street, after the sitting, the members who had voted against it, were received by the mob with threats and insults. ... In the evening of the same day, in consequence of the rejection of the Behrend resolution, the arsenal was attacked by a large body of laborers. The burgher-guard were not prepared, and made a feeble defense. There was a great riot. The building was stormed and partially plundered. ... The sketch of a constitution proposed by the king was now laid before the Assembly. It provided two Chambers--a House of Lords, and a House of Commons. The last to be elected by the democratic electoral law; the first to consist of all the princes of the royal house in their own right, and, in addition, 60 members from the wealthiest of the kingdom to be selected by the king, their office hereditary. This constitution was immediately rejected. On the rejection of the constitution the ministry Camphausen resigned. ... The Assembly, elected exclusively to frame a constitution, instead of performing its duty ... attempted to legislate, with despotic power, on subjects over which it had no jurisdiction. As the drama drew nearer its close, the Assembly became more open in its intention to overthrow the monarchy. On October 12 discussions began upon a resolution to strike from the king's title the words, 'By the grace of God,' and to abolish all titles of nobility and distinctions of rank. The Assembly building, during the sitting, was generally surrounded by threatening crowds. ... Of course, during this period business was suspended, and want, beggary, and drunkenness, as well as lawless disorder, increased. ... The writer was one day alone in the diplomatic box, following an excited debate. A speaker in the tribune was urging the overthrow of the monarchy, when suddenly the entire Assembly was struck mute with stupefaction. The Prince of Prussia, the late Emperor William I., supposed to be in England, in terror for his life, appeared at the door, accompanied by two officers, all three in full uniform, and marched directly up to the tribune. The Assembly could not have been more astounded had old Barbarossa himself, with his seven-hundred-years-long beard, marched into the hall out of his mountain cave. ... After a slight delay, the President, Mr. von Grabow, accorded the tribune to the prince. He ascended and made a short address, which was listened to, with breathless attention, by every individual present. He spoke with the assurance of an heir to a throne which was not in the slightest danger of being abolished; but he spoke with the modesty and good sense of a prince who frankly accepted the vast transformation which the government had undergone, and who intended honestly to endeavor to carry out the will of the whole nation. ... This was one of many occasions on which the honesty and superiority of the prince's character made itself felt even by his enemies. ... Berlin was now thoroughly tired of street tumults and the horn of the burgher-guard. ... The Prussian troops which had been engaged in the Schleswig-Holstein war, were now placed under General Wrangel. ... He proceeded without delay to encircle the city with the 25,000 troops. At the same time, a cabinet order of the king (September 21) named a new ministry. ... At this moment, the revolution over all Europe was nearly exhausted. Cavaignac had put down the June insurrection. The Prussian flag waved above the flag of Germany. The Frankfort Parliament was rapidly dying out. ... On November 2, Count Brandenburg stated to the Assembly that the king had requested him to form a new ministry. ... On the same day, Count Brandenburg, with his colleagues, appeared in the hall of the Prussian National Assembly, and announced his desire to read a message from his Majesty the King. ... 'As the debates are no longer free in Berlin, the Assembly is hereby adjourned to November 27. It will then meet, and thereafter hold its meetings, not in Berlin, but in Brandenburg' (fifty miles from Berlin). After reading the message, Count Brandenburg, his colleagues, and all the members of the Right retired. ... The Assembly ... adjourned, and met again in the evening. ... On November 10, the Assembly met again. Their debates were interrupted by General Wrangel, who had entered Berlin by the Brandenburg gate, at the head of 25,000 troops. ... An officer from General Wrangel entered the hall and politely announced that he had received orders to disperse the Assembly. The members submitted, and left the hall. ... {1537} An order was now issued dissolving the burgher-guard. On the 12th, Berlin was declared in a state of siege. ... During the state of siege, the Assembly met again under the presidency of Mr. von Unruh. A body of troops entered the hall, and commanded the persons present to leave it. President von Unruh declared he could not consistently obey the order. There was, he said, no power higher than the Assembly. The soldiers did not fire on him, or cut him down with their sabers; but good-naturedly lifted his chair with him in it, and gently deposited both in the street. ... On November 27, Count Brandenburg went to Brandenburg to open the Assembly; but he could not find any. It had split into two parts. ... There was no longer a quorum. Thus the Prussian National Assembly disappeared. On December 5; appeared a royal decree, dissolving the National Assembly. ... Then appeared a provisional octroyirte electoral law, for the election of two Chambers. ... The new Chambers met February 26, 1849. ... Prussia had thus closed the revolution of 1848, as far as she was concerned. Bismarck was elected member of the Second Chamber." Meantime, in the Frankfort Parliament, "the great question, Austria's position with regard to the new Germany, came up in the early part of November, 1848. Among many propositions, we mention three: I. Austria should abandon her German provinces. ... II. Austria should remain as a separate whole, with all her provinces. ... III. The Austrian plan. All the German States, and all the Austrian provinces (German and non-German), should be united into one gigantic empire ... with Austria at the head. ... Meanwhile, the debates went on upon the questions: What shall be the form, and who shall be the chief of what may be called the Prussian-Germany? Among the various propositions (all rejected) were the following: 1. A Directory, consisting of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Würtemberg, and Saxony. II. The King of Prussia and Emperor of Austria to alternate in succession every six years, as Emperor. III. A chief magistracy, to which every German citizen might aspire. IV. Revival of the old Bundestag, with certain improvements. On January 23, 1849, the resolution that one of the reigning German princes should be elected, with the title of Emperor of Germany, was adopted (258 against 211). As it was plain the throne could be offered to no one but Prussia, this was a breach between the Parliament and Austria. ... The first reading of the constitution was completed, February 3, 1849. The middle and smaller German States declared themselves ready to accept it, but the kingdoms remained silent. ... The real question before the Parliament was, whether Prussia or Austria should be leader of Germany. ... On March 27, the hereditability passed by a majority of four. On March 28, the constitution, with the democratic electoral law, universal suffrage, the ballot, and the suspensive veto, was voted and accepted. ... President Simson then called the name of each member to vote upon the question of the Emperor. There were 290 votes for Frederic William IV. ... A deputation, consisting of 30 of the most distinguished members, was immediately sent to Berlin to communicate to the king his election as Emperor. ... To the offer of the crown, his Majesty replied he 'could not accept without the consent of all the governments, and without having more carefully examined the constitution.' ... Austria instantly rejected the constitution, protested against the authority of the Parliament, and recalled all her representatives from Frankfort. The King of Würtemberg accepted; but rejected the House of Hohenzollern as head of the Empire. Bavaria, Hanover, Saxony, rejected; 28 of the smaller German States accepted. In these were included the free-cities Hamburg, Bremen, Lubeck. ... On April 28, Prussia addressed a circular note to the governments, inviting them to send representatives to Berlin, for the purpose of framing a new constitution. The note added: In case of any attempt to force the Frankfort constitution upon the country, Prussia was ready to render to the governments all necessary assistance. ... On May 3, an insurrection broke out in Saxony. ... On May 6, Prussian troops appeared, called by the Saxon government, and attacked the barricades. The battle lasted three days. ... The insurgents abandoned the city. Dresden was declared in a state of siege. ... The King of Prussia now recalled [from the Frankfort Parliament] all the Prussian representatives. ... By the gradual disappearance of most of the moderate members ... the Parliament, now a mere revolutionary committee, dwindled down to about 100 members. A resolution, proposed by Carl Vogt, was passed to transfer the sittings to Stuttgart. ... On June 6, the Rump Parliament in Stuttgart elected a central government of its own. ... The Assembly was then dispersed. ... The German revolutions commenced and ended in the Grand Duchy of Baden. ... By a mutiny in the regular army, it intrenched itself in the first-class fortress, Rastadt. There were, in all, three attempts at revolution in Baden [and one in the Palatinate]. ... A large number of the leaders were tried and shot. ... It was for taking part in this insurrection that Gottfried Kinkel was sentenced to imprisonment for life in the fortress of Spandau. Carl Schurz aided him in escaping."

_T. S. Fay, The Three Germanys, chapters 25-26 (volume 2)._

ALSO IN: _C. A. Fyffe, History of Modern Europe, volume 3, chapter 2._

_H. von Sybel, The Founding of the German Empire, books 2-5 (volumes 1-2)._

See, also, CONSTITUTION OF PRUSSIA.

GERMANY: A. D. 1848-1862. Opening of the Schleswig-Holstein question. War with Denmark.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862.

GERMANY: A. D. 1853-1875. Commercial treaties with Austria and France. Progress towards free trade.

See TARIFF LEGISLATION (GERMANY): A. D. 1853-1892.

GERMANY: A. D. 1861-1866. Advent of King William I. and Prince Bismarck in Prussia. Reopening of the Schleswig-Holstein question. Conquest of the duchies by Prussia and Austria. Consequent quarrel and war.

"King Frederic William IV. [of Prussia], never a man of strong head, had for years been growing weaker and more eccentric. ... In the early part of 1857, symptoms of softening of the brain began to show themselves. That disorder so developed itself that in October, 1857, he gave a delegation to the Prince of Prussia [his brother] to act as regent; but the first commission was only for three months. ... The Prince's temporary commission was renewed from time to time; but it soon became apparent that Frederic William's case was hopeless, and his brother was formally installed as Regent in October, 1858. {1538} Ultimately, the King died in January, 1861, and his brother succeeded to the throne as William I." In September, 1862, Otto von Bismarck became the new King's chief minister, with General Roon for Minister of War, appointed to carry out a reorganization of the Prussian army which King William had determined to effect. Bismarck found his first opportunity for the aggrandizement of Prussia in a reopening of the Schleswig-Holstein question, which came about in November, 1863, when "Frederic of Denmark died, and Prince Christian succeeded to the throne of that kingdom. Already before his accession, the duchies were possessions of the Danish monarchy, but had in certain respects a separate administrative existence. This Denmark, in the year of Christian's accession, had materially infringed in the case of Sleswig, by a law which virtually incorporated that duchy with the Danish monarchy. The German Confederation protested against this 'Danification' of Sleswig, and having pronounced a decree of Federal execution against the new King of Denmark as Duke of Holstein and, in virtue of that duchy, a member of the German Confederation, sent into Holstein Federal troops belonging to the smaller States of the Confederation. The Confederation, as a collective body, favoured the establishment of the independence of the duchies, and had with it the wishes probably of the great mass of the German nation. But the independence of Sleswig and Holstein scarcely suited the views of Bismarck. He desired the annexation to Prussia of at all events Holstein, because in Holstein is the great harbour of Kiel, all important in view of the new fleet with which he purposed equipping Prussia; if Sleswig could be compassed along with Holstein, so much the better. But there were two difficulties in Bismarck's way. Prussia was a co-signatory of the Treaty of London. If he were to grasp at the duchies single-handed, a host of enemies might confront him. England was burning to take up arms in the cause of the father of the beautiful princess she had adopted as her own. The German Confederation would oppose Prussia's naked effort to aggrandise herself; and Austria, in the double character of a party to the Treaty of London and of a member of the Confederation, would rejoice in the opportunity to strike a blow at a power of whose rising pretensions she had begun to be jealous. The wily Bismarck had to dissemble. He made the proposal to Austria that the two states should ignore their participation as individual States in the Treaty of London, and that as corporate members of the German Confederation they should constitute themselves the executors of the Federal decree, and put aside the minor states whose troops had been charged with that office. Austria acceded. It was a bad hour for her when she did, yet she moves no compassion for the misfortunes which befell her as the issue. ... The Diet had to submit. The Austro-Prussian troops marched through Holstein into Sleswig, and on the 2nd of February, 1864, struck at the Danes occupying the Dannewerke. ... The venerable Marshal Wrangel was commander-in-chief of the combined forces until after the fall of Düppel, when Prince Frederic Charles succeeded him in that position; but throughout the campaign the control of the dispositions was mainly exercised by the Red Prince. But neither strategy nor tactics were very strenuously brought into use for the discomfiture of the unfortunate Danes. Their ruin was wrought partly because of the overwhelmingly superior force of their allied opponents, partly because of their own unpreparedness for war in almost everything save the possession of heroic bravery; but most of all by the fire of the needle-gun and the Prussian advantage in the possession of rifled artillery. Only part of the Prussian infantry had used the needle-gun in the reduction of the Baden insurrection in 1848; now, however, the whole army was equipped with it. ... In their retreat from the Dannewerke into the Düppel position, the Danes suffered severely from the inclemency of the weather, and fought a desperate rear-guard engagement with the Austrians. ... The Prussians undertook the task of reducing Düppel; the Austrians marched northward into Jutland, and driving back the Danish troops they encountered in their march, sat down before the fortress of Fredericia, and swept the Little Belt with their cannon. The sieges, both of Düppel and of Fredericia, were conducted with extreme inertness." But the former was taken and the latter abandoned. "The Danish war was terminated by the Treaty of Vienna on the 30th October, 1864, under which the duchies of Sleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg were handed over to the sovereigns of Austria and Prussia. ... Out of the Danish war of 1864 grew almost inevitably the war of 1866, between Prussia and Austria. The wolves quite naturally wrangled over the carcase, and the astuter wolf had so much the better of the wrangle that the duller one, unless he chose to be partly bullied, partly tricked out of his share, had no alternative but to fight for it, with the result that he clean lost that and a great deal more besides. The future of the Elbe Duchies was played at pitch and toss with between Prussia and Austria for the best part of a year; the details of the game were too intricate to be followed here. The condominium of the two Powers in the duchies produced constant friction, which was probably Bismarck's intention, especially as Prussia had taken care to keep stationed in them twice as many troops as Austria had left there. Relations were becoming very strained when in August, 1865, the Emperor Francis Joseph and King William met at the little watering-place of Gastein, and from their interview originated the short-lived arrangement known as the Convention of Gastein. By that compact, while the two Powers preserved the common sovereignty over the duchies, Austria accepted the administration of Holstein, Prussia undertaking that of Sleswig. Prussia was to have rights of way through Holstein to Sleswig, was given over the right of construction of a North Sea and Baltic Canal; and while Kiel was constituted a Federal harbour, Prussia was authorised to construct there the requisite fortifications and marine establishments, and to maintain an adequate force for the protection of these. Assuming the arrangement to be provisional, as on all hands it was regarded, Prussia clearly had the advantage under it. ... But the Gastein Convention contained another provision--that Austria should sell to Prussia all her rights in the duchy of Lauenburg (an outlying appanage of Holstein) for the sum of 2,500,000 thalers: thus making market of rights of which she was but a trustee for the German Confederation. {1539} The Convention of Gastein pleased nobody, but that mattered little to Bismarck. ... Bickerings recommenced before the year 1865 was out, and early in 1866 Austria began to arm. ... In March, 1866, a secret treaty was formed between Italy and Prussia. ... Prussia threw the Convention of Gastein to the winds by civilly but masterfully turning the Austrian brigade of occupation out of Holstein. Then Austria in the Federal Diet, complaining that by this act Prussia had disturbed the peace of the German Confederation, moved for a decree of Federal execution against that state, to be enforced by the Confederation's armed strength. On the 14th June, Austria's motion was carried by the Diet, its last act; for Prussia next day wrecked the flimsy organisation of the German Confederation, by declaring war against three of its component members, Hanover, Hesse, and Saxony. There was no formal declaration of war between Austria and Prussia, only a notification of intended hostile action sent by the Prussian commanders to the Austrian foreposts. On the 17th the Emperor Francis Joseph published his war manifesto; King William on the 18th emitted his to 'My People;' on the 20th, Italy declared war against Austria and Bavaria."

_A. Forbes, William of Germany, chapters 7-8._

ALSO IN: _H. von Sybel, The Founding of the German Empire, books 9-16 (volumes 3-4)._

_C. Lowe, Prince Bismarck, chapters 5-7 (volume 1), and appendices. A, B, C (volume 2)._

_J. G. L. Hesekiel, Life of Bismarck, book 5, chapter 3._

_Count von Beust, Memoirs, volume 1, chapters 22-28._

GERMANY: A. D. 1862. The Schleswig-Holstein question.

See SCANDINAVIAN STATES (DENMARK): A. D. 1848-1862.

GERMANY: A. D. 1866. The Seven Weeks War. Defeat of Austria. Victory and Supremacy of Prussia. Her Absorption of Hanover, Hesse, Nassau, Frankfort and Schleswig-Holstein. Formation of the North German Confederation. Exclusion of Austria from the Germanic organization.