Conservative Militarism in Post-Napoleonic Germany: The Struggle for Political Order

1. Adam Tooze Columbia: War in Germany Lecture 9 The emergence of conservative militarism from an age of revolution 1815-1848

2. Napoleon’s invasion shocked Germany and smashed what was left of the early modern/medieval frame. It also unleashed modernization in the West German states most under the influence of French occupation.

3. In Prussia it had unleashed a patriotic mobilization and spectacular structural changes to state and society – end to serfdom, freedom of trades, spectacular reform of University system including founding of University of Berlin – the modern day Humboldt – named after is inspiration. But by the time that Blücher and Gneisenau were storming to Paris in 1814 to try to blow up the Pont de Jena, the British and Russians were appalled by insubordination of Prussian soldiers. French civilian population apparently preferred to be occupied by the Russians rather than the Germans. Austrians were menaced by Prussia’s new radicals. It was an open secret that Blücher, Gneisenau and war Minister von Boyen wanted to launch a war against Austria to establish Prussian control of Saxony and thus Prussian control of Germany.

4. Napoleon had not only scrambled the geopolitical map. The French revolution was widely thought to have demonstrated that geopolitical competition, as the enlightenment philosophers had argued, was driven by fundamental social and political and cultural change It was about politics and national spirit. In nineteenth century what would come more to the fore is economic growth and capitalism. In very general terms, geopolitical competition has come to be seen as historical. It was not a timeless game played out within a given geometry but open-ended and radical in its consequences.

5. All of this is deeply unsettling to conservatives  politics in aftermath of Napoleonic wars are a desperate struggle by conservatives to put the lid back on: In the peace settlement of 1815; In the wave of repression after 1815; And then again following revolution of 1848 Military were key to this. They did the repressing and had to learn new techniques to do it. Street-fighting against civilians required new tactics. But it went deeper than that. What was in effect going on was a struggle to contain the radical effects of the new mode of war-making revealed by the Napoleonic era. Clausewitz recognized this retreat from absolute war in 1827 and then theorized it in his trinity of passion/people – military skill/soldiers – raison d’état/state

6. Did this rearguard action by conservatives have a disastrous legacy? This is the question that historians of Germany call the question of Germany’s “Special path” or “Sonderweg”: Was it the failure to sustain the liberal momentum built up during 1806-1815 and the failure of the revolution of 1848-1850 that fatally weakened the forces of liberalism in Germany and opened the door to the disasters of the twentieth century? Disasters which were set in motion in 1914 by a reactionary, anti-liberal, military elite drawn largely from Prussia.

7. You can see where this idea comes from, but it presumes a pacific vision of European liberalism as the cradle of a vision of “spring time of peoples”: République universelle, démocratique et sociale. Le pacte Lithographie en camaïeu gouachée. Paris, Imprimerie Lemercier, 1848 Frédéric Sorrieu

8. It involves ignoring the rather obvious fact that liberal powers (what Germany allegedly failed to become) have their own modes of conquest and war-fighting.

9. It involves celebrating the “liberalism” of Prussia’s reformers of 1806-1815 and ignoring their other passions e.g. the desire for vengeance against the Napoleonic regime (which they regard as absolutely evil) and against France itself.

10. And in celebrating revolution as the road to a “liberal-democratic-peace-loving normality”, it ignores the risk of violent revolutionary and counterrevolutionary escalation. France experienced far more political violence in nineteenth than “illiberal” Germany.

11. The intertwining of conservatism, the preservation of order, the prevention of war, and the establishment of peace was best exemplified by the Congress of Vienna which met Nov 1814 to June 1815 to decide the shape of post-Napoleonic Europe.

12. This is often treated as the epitome of balance of power diplomacy headed by Prince von Metternich and the Anglo-Irish Lord Castlereagh. In fact it was far more political than that. The aim was not the balance of power per se, but the instituting of a robust conservative order for Europe. It is far more like the Cold War order i.e. politics and international order intermingled

13. In France the Bourbons were restored. Allégorie du retour des Bourbons le 24 avril 1814 : Louis XVIII relevant la France de ses ruines, by Louis-Philippe Crépin George Cruikshank, 1823

14. Order is held in place by the “Holy Alliance” of Russia, Austria and Prussia. Alexander I of Russia, Francis I of Austria and Frederick Wilhelm III of Prussia This unified the great traditions of Christendom against atheist threat of revolution. And in choosing religion they rejected nationalism.

15. The Congress of Vienna initiated the concert of Europe with a regular series of inter-governmental conferences that govern European affairs and international diplomacy at least down to the 1880s.

16. Vienna 1815 rejected any claim to German nationhood and instead redivided german territory in a new Confederation – Deutscher Bund.

17. The Prussian radicals wanted Saxony but instead were given large chunk of Catholic territory in the West. It was intended as a buffer against France. Ironically, along with Silesia, it would mean that Prussia controlled the two great industrial centers of Germany.

18. Composition of the financial levies for the federal army of 305,000 men gives you an idea of balance of power within the German Confederation: Top 2: Austria & Prussia Then Bavaria Then at some distance Württemberg, Saxony, Hannover, Baden = the “Third Germany” Then the rest.

19. Uneasy dualism btw Prussia and Austria. Both are part in and part out of the Confederation. Crucially, the Habsburg Czech lands – Kingdom of Bohemia - are in. To frustration of radicals of 1813 thanks to compliance of Prussian conservatives, it was Austria calling the shots – the same Metternich who had not wanted to smash Napoleon at Leipzig.

20. But, for German nationalists the question is which option to pursue: Little German – Kleindeutsch solution – excluded Habsburg empire and many ethnic-cultural Germans and begged question of whether Prussia would dominate the new nation sate, or be submerged. Greater German – Grossdeutsch solution satisfied German nationalism, but implied partition of Habsburg Empire and raised Czech question. Antagonized other powers. Greater Austrian solution – created a multi-ethnic state, made Habsburgs predominant and antagonized every other power in Europe. There is no good option!

21. The lack of any good alternative is the argument underpinning the stability policy of Clemens Wenzel Lothar Fürst von Metternich (1773-1859) Photo of Metternich from 1859

22. 18 October 1817 Wartburg Festival: 500 members of the original German student fraternity or Burschenschaft gather at legendary castle where Martin Luther had sought refuge They celebrate anniversary of his protestant reformation They celebrate anniversary of battle of Leipzig Many are veterans and they adopt the black red and gold banner of the Lützow Freikorps - black cloth, red trim, and brass buttons Like Luther’s burning of the papal bull they burn anti-german books including Napoleon’s legal code and works by conservative play write August von Kotzebue a pro-Russian bestseller

23. Metternich puts the lid on: assassination of conservative writer in March 1819  Karlsbad security decrees impose political repression across German Federation in name of “repression of demagogues” Wilhelm Joseph Heine (1813-1839).

24. In Prussia, conservatives around king Frederick Wilhelm III use Metternich’s 1819 crackdown to replace and silence all the key reformers of the Napoleonic war period The radicals of the 1806-1815 moment were retired. Gneisenau retired. Hardenberg remains in office but demoralized and marginalized. Von Boyen forced out as war Minister. Landwehr tamed. Prussian aristocrats put back in charge of the military.  Clausewitz’s writing about the importance of popular passion etc. is part of a struggle within Prussian hierarchy about how to interpret 1806-1815

25. But Metternich’s order does not last. Destabilizing factor 1: Threat of France 1830 revolution in France that brought to power a new, more liberal monarch Louis Philippe. He was a bourgeois king. But his ministers were in a far more aggressive, liberal patriotic mode. Liberty Leading the People by Eugène Delacroix: an allegorical painting of the July Revolution. 26–29 July 1830 Question for German: Where is liberty leading the French this time?

26. Le retour des cendres - 1840 Facing a new Napoleonic threat would the German confederation do any better than the Holy Roman Empire? Loading the remains of Napoleon onto Belle Poule, 15 October 1840. Painting by Eugène Isabey.

27. Destabilizing factor 2: the emergence of Germany as a political nation Keeping the Flame of 1813 Alive: Hambach Festival, May 1832, Popular National Mobilization: 30,000 German and Polish patriots rally for a liberal vision

28. Destabilizing factor 3 If the ancien regime had been able to deliver goods they might have achieved “output legitimacy” but there is fear of a developmental impasse in early 19th c Germany: In Britain by the 1830s the industrial revolution is really in full swing.  will a divided Germany be left behind?

29. Since 1834 Prussia had been building a customs union of the German states, the Zollverein. The Zollverein needs common governance. Hard not to see this as a step towards a Kleindeutsch solution.

30. Destabilizing factor 4: Economic and demographic development  acute social tension that explode in “pauperism crises”. Most dramatically - 1844 the Silesian weavers Misery in Silesia: hunger and desperation and the official solution. (Käthe Kollwitz, 1898)

31. Btw 1815 and 1865 pop of Geman confederation surges from 30 m to 47.7 m One of solutions to intense population pressure and the “Malthusian crisis” = increasing reliance on new crops i.e. potatoes. Potato famine disaster begins to spread from 1844  potato riots in Berlin 1847  answer of the Prussian monarchy: call in the troops

32. By 1847/8 the ancien regime faces the nightmare of the radicals of the 1806-1815: the people are not just indifferent to their state and its army (the empty husk of Frederick the Great’s Prussia) but actively hostile to it.

33. The Ostbahn, the project that almost broke the Prussian monarchy How was Prussian state to borrow funds for essential railway infrastructure? It needed to borrow and to promise tax revenues  parliament.

34. On 11 April 1847, the first Prussian “parliament” assembled in Berlin = assembly of assemblies i.e. a gathering of the three tier provincial estates that Prussian monarchy had granted in 1820 instead of parliaments. Though the overwhelming majority of the assembly approved the railway, only one third of the delegates, one of whom was the young and very noisy delegate Otto von Bismarck, were willing to vote for the loan without Parliamentary approval of the budget and future taxes.

35. Revolution breaks out across Europe On February 23rd 1848, a revolution erupted in Paris. On March 13th, revolution spreads to Vienna  Metternich forced to resign and flee Vienna in a laundry basket. Lamartine in front of the Town Hall of Paris rejects the red flag on 25 February 1848 by Henri Félix Emmanuel Philippoteaux

36. Amongst the “March demands” in Prussia in 1848 control of monarchical militarism is a top priority: • Withdrawal of the troops from the streets of Berlin • Abolition of repressive standing armies in favour of peoples militia • Full freedom the press • Trial by jury • Establishment of a German national parliament.

37. On March 18th in Berlin, the Prussian king attempted to respond by reading out the promise of dramatic constitutional reform but does not withdraw the army  agitated crowd encountered jumpy troops. Shots fell and soon over 300 civilians, including women and children, were killed. Intense street fighting followed, in which the loyal troops were rapidly overwhelmed. March 18 1848 Claiming the Berlin palace as “national property”

38. Berlin, 18-19 March 1848

39. Troops are overwhelmed and king is forced to honor Berlin’s dead March 21 1848

40. On March 21st, the Prussian king surrendered himself to the crowd and rode symbolically through the city without bodyguard followed by German flag, declaiming Deutschlands Freiheit, Deutschlands Einigkeit. As in 1813 a Prussian king was being dragged towards revolutionary national project by popular demand. Revolutionaries demand a militia. The conservative officer corps were appalled and came close to threatening the king. This was a new constellation. In 1812-1813 the Prussian aristocracy had rebelled against their king in the name of anti-French resistance. Now a Prussian king was menaced by his own officers for aligning himself with a German revolution.

41. April 1848: German confederation is abolished and revolutionary assembly meets at Frankfurt to draft a constitution for unified Germany

42. The Frankfurt Parliament 1848-1849: The First German Parliament

43. In France the 1848 revolution sparks class conflict in new and stark forms. In the Habsburg empire the 1848 revolutions unleash deep ethnic tensions. • As revolution spreads across Germany  • this implies possibility of four types of conflict • Revolution v. counterrevolution • Defense of Germans against rival ethnic groups in Polish and Czech territories • Potential clash between Prussia and Austria • Potential clash with foreign powers

44. As soon as they take office in spring of 1848 liberals are convinced there will be intervention and clear where it will come from: Russia <- Liberals across Europe had thrilled to Polish uprising of 1830 23 March 1848 revolutionary government in Berlin proposes a treaty of alliance to revolutionary French government to fight war to liberate Poland and face up to Nicholas I Tsarist regime.

45. Instead of Fighting Russia, revolutionary Germany fights Denmark: early April, a struggle had begun in Schleswig, a German province owned by the king of Denmark. In tune with the liberal times, the Danish king in 1848 proposed to extend the Danish constitution to German territory. This triggered a response by the Frankfurt parliament, which called on a federal army with Prussian army in lead to occupy Schleswig.

46. To confront Denmark, Frankfurt parliament improvises first German navy – the Reichsflotte

47. But Russia would not allow Prussia to seize Schleswig without staking its own claims. And if Russia took control of the Baltic this would force the British to intervene. This was a constellation the Prussian monarch could not risk. Without consulting the national parliament in Frankfurt, Prussia was forced back into accepting a humiliating peace of Malmoe on September 16th 1848 that handed the territory to the Danes.

48. It was another Tilsit moment, a return to 1807, a humiliating admission of Prussia’s inability to lead in the face of the truly great powers  September 1848 Frankfurt parliament denounces the armistice with Denmark at Malmö Frankfurt radicals ambush and murder two monarchist MPs one of whom is a hero of 1813 over surrender to Denmark on orders of Russia

49. Prussian army storms into Frankfurt 18 September 1848 to restore order.

50. Stakes are getting higher: In the summer of 1848 the Neue Rheinische Zeitung edited by Frederick Engels and Karl Marx declared: “Only a war against Russia would be a war of revolutionary Germany, a war by which she could cleanse herself of her past sins, could take courage, defeat her own autocrats, spread civilisation by the sacrifice of her own sons as becomes a people that is shaking off the chains of long, indolent slavery and make herself free within her borders by bringing liberation to those outside.”