War in Germany 2018: Lecture 10 Bismarck and German unification

1. War in Germany 2018: Lecture 10 Bismarck and German unification

2. In the course of 1848-1850 the Prussia monarchy was humiliated four times King humbled by revolutionaries Prussia forced to make peace with Denmark at Malmo August 1848 Prussia offered the crown of a unified Germany in April 1849 by the Frankfurt parliament and turned it down. Prussia developed its own project of German unification with the Erfurt confederation but backed away from confrontation with Austria and Russia in 1850  humiliation of Olmütz.

3. It wouldn’t have mattered if the 19th century had been the way the 19th century is often imagined. You will hear tell of a century of peace between Napoleonic wars and 1914. In fact 1848 saw opening of a massive era of warlike activity. Taiping rebellion – 1850-1864 2nd Opium war – 1856-1860 Crimean war – 1853-156 “Indian wars” Indian “mutiny”/rebellion/war of independence – 1857 1st War of Italian unification - 1859 American civil war – 1861-65 French intervention in Mexico – 1861-67 Japanese civil war – 1863-69 It was alarming to be as powerless as Prussia appeared to be.

4. In Europe, Britain was now an undisputed world empire, Russia was the bastion of reaction, Austria was recovering from the revolution  Napoleon III of France was disreputable, but cut a spectacular figure

5. Germany and its leading power – Prussia – seemed once more out of the picture. In 1860 the Times of London asked the question. Prussia was: “always leaning on somebody, always getting somebody to help her, never willing to help herself … present in congresses, but absent in battles … ready to supply any amount of ideals or sentiments, but shy of anything that savours of the actual. She has a large army, but notoriously one in no condition for fighting … no one counts on her as a friend; no one dreads her as an enemy. How she became a great power, history tells us; why she remains so nobody can tell.” Prussia needed to respond to the challenge on all three points of the Clausewitzian trinity!

6. All three points of the Clausewitzian trinity are shifting. What releases Prussia from its impasse and resolves the German question in the Borussian direction, is a triple development: in raison d’etat, in military affairs and in politics.

7. 1. A new raison d’etat Amongst the younger Prussians frustrated with the situation was the one time hell raiser, member of Frankfurt parliament and now diplomat, Otto von Bismarck • For conservatives of his ilk it was clear that • The times are a changing  he starts his career in parliament • Prussia was tragically weak. Trauma of Olmütz • Austria was curbing Prussian potential in Germany. Austria alone was nothing. Russia was key to its strength as 1848-1850 revealed. counterrvolution and savior of Vienna.

8. March 1854, France and Britain declared war on Russia in support of Ottoman empire in what became known as the Crimean war. Fatally Austria takes advantage to extract concessions on Danube delta  Austro-Russian alienation v. Prussia which remains neutral

9. The young Bismarck saw the opportunity but also the risk, as he argues in pivotal memorandum of 1856: Prussia must seize opportunity of Austria’s isolation from Russia to challenge for dominance in Germany. If Prussia did not take advantage of Russia’s detachment from Austria, others word. Above all if Russia was uncoupled from Austria, what Bismarck feared was the emergence of a Russo-French alliance. Russia was going through turmoil in wake of Crimean war. In the 1860s, it entered into convulsive change by freeing serfs. But in due course Franco-Russian coalition was to be feared. It could crush the life out of any effort to establish Prussia as a great power. “Passive planlessness” was not an option in the middle of Europe. Remember 1806. “We will be the anvil if we do not make ourselves into the hammer” Bismarck 30. Mai 1857 to Leopold von Gerlach, Generaladjutanten of the King.

10. Predictably it was the French not the Austrians who first took advantage of Austrian isolation: 1859 Frances allies with Piedmont to defeat Austria and unify Italy. The French Army defeats the Austrian army at Solferino, June 1859

11. For Prussia to play on these divides required a reconceptualization of policy. This is what marks Bismarck as radical. As an unabashed exponent of Realpolitik. He denied the legitimacy of the Holy Alliance. He explicitly insists on the need to fight out the long standing dispute with the Habsburgs. It was a struggle that would establish Prussia in a truly strong position. And would silence domestic opposition if the monarchy could pull off a win.

12. 18 January 1871, The German Empire is proclaimed at Versailles Bismarck is at the center of the picture but in the 1850s he is a second rank figure. The man who was the pivot was the man who he was declaring Emperor.

13. 2. The Prussian army remade by Prussia’s second “soldier king” William Frederick Louis of Prussia (22 March 1797 – 9 March 1888), of the House of Hohenzollern 1858 prince regent – November program King of Prussia (2 January 1861 – 9 March 1888) First German Emperor (18 January 1871 – 9 March 1888).

14. When Prince William took over as regent in 1858 from his ailing brother Frederick Wilhelm IV he had one mission. Restore the Prussian army. Born 1797, he had worn a soldier`s uniform since the age of 7. His formative years were spent in the regular army after the defeat of 1806 and the subsequent recovery. Unlike his father, who had been humiliated by Napoleon, or his romantic brother, Wilhelm thought of himself as the true inheritor the tradition of Frederick the Great. He had nothing but contempt for liberals and revolutionaries. He had nothing but contempt for the romantic liberal mythology about the Landwehr and 1813. It was the monarchical armies that had defeated Napoleon. The liberals were nothing but excitable hangers-on.

15. In 1848/49 Prince William of Prussia earns his reputation as the “grapeshot prince”: He is most reactionary figure in king’s circle, accusing him of cowardice in compromising with the revolution.  The prince’s palace is seized by the revolutionary crowd. Forced to go into exile in disguise in England in March 1848. Returns in 1849 to put down the revolution Baden.

16. Ten years after the revolution, in November 1858 the “grapeshot prince” Wilhelm becomes regent to replace his ailing brother  immediately promotes his circle of military friends and advisors Reactionary firebrand Edwin von Manteuffel Technician of military personnel policy: Albrecht von Roon

17. Mixed motives of reactionary militarism: • Counterrevolutionary force • General source of societal discipline • Army as tool of state policy • Army able to withstand the extreme stresses of modern war Prussian army essentially unchanged since 1813-1814 period is no longer fit for purpose. It wasn’t a reliable counterrevolutionary force. Nor was it a army ready to fight a major enemy.

18. From 1814 Prussian army is based on draft: 3 years regular service 2 year reserves Then Landwehr 1st and 2nd class until middle age. Those with means can reduce their compulsory service to one year by buying their own equipment. In 1814 c. 45 % of officers were bourgeois. By 1861 it was down to 33 % But they are concentrated in technical branches and artillery They are excluded from elite regiments 85 % of officers of colonel rank or above are aristocratic by birth or by promotion. By 1861 only 5 % of regiments had a non-aristocratic commander Every year they draft 40,000  through 1850s total size of the peacetime army is frozen at 130,000 men = c. 1 percent of the population but declining = half the size of Frederick the Great’s army Share of budget falls from 40 to 30 % between 1815 and 1848

19. The Roon reforms of 1859/60: Following the 1859 mobilization to ward off any aggression by France, reserve regiments remain in being. Annual draft raised from 40,0000 to 63,000  peacetime army of 210,000 not 130,000 Period in reserve extended from 2 to 5 years  in case of war they have 8 years of well-trained soldiers = war army of 450,000 plus Landwehr cadres Call is for a 20 % budget increase. 9.2 m thaler for first year. This will bring Prussian army up to date. It will make it a far more effective force both for internal order and external influence.

20. Clausewitzian question 3: can you rally the people behind the new army that Wilhelm and his conservative clique want to construct? 1859 is big moment for German nationalism: anniversary of Schiller’s birthday Following Italian example, 1859 saw the formation of the Nationalverein an elite patriotic club to push unification along Kleindeutsch lines.

21. The German liberals were not anti-military. Militarism since 1806, to reiterate, was a liberal cause in German history. The liberals were not anti-war either. They had wanted to fight the Danes in 1848. They had wanted to fight the Russians. What was at stake in Prussia in the constitutional struggle that extended between 1859 and 1866 was not military reform or militarism but the political constitution of Germany. What the liberals treasured was the legacy of the Landwehr of 1813, which in subsequent myth making had become a people`s army that had driven out the French. They resented the demand that men should serve a 3 year conscription period in an army that reinstated the draconian drill and discipline of the 18th century. They rightly sensed in this vision not a popular army incorporating the live forces of civil society, but the attempt by reactionaries to inculcate an alien form of military discipline. In practice in 1860 the parliament agrees to a compromise vote of 9 m thaler as an interim agreement. But then von Roon goes ahead with the changes anyway  military core of Prussian power is strengthened but is placed in legal limbo.

22. When he becomes king in 1861, Wilhelm seems to be reverting to his conservative roots: He has the new regiments dedicate their colors at tomb of Frederick the great and chooses to be crowned in January 1861 not in Berlin but in old Prussian Königsberg.

23. 1861-1862 stand off: Edwin von Manteuffel leader of reactionary wing prepares plans for counterrevolutionary use of the army including firing squads for anyone who opposes restoration of . May 1861 Manteuffel challenges liberal anti-militarist journalist to duel in which he shoots off his arm and insists on serving a few months in prison to make the point!

24. Anti-Manteuffel Fortschritt (progressive) liberal party formed in 1861 on platform of 2 year military service, establishment of Prussia as parliamentary state and unification of Germany under Prussia  win the Prussian parliamentary elections of December 1861. Under the three class system which gives little weight to peasants or workers, the liberal middle-class dominates. http://www.wahlen-in-deutschland.de/klPreussen.htm

25. In March 1862 king Wilhelm dissolved the Prussian parliament and calls new elections for May. But these result in an even larger victory to progressive liberal opposition. The monarchical clique drew up a plan for a military coup. But the king did not want to break with legality. He would rather abdicate in favor of his liberal son and his English wife. In desperation in September 1862, von Roon called the young conservative firebrand Otto von Bismarck back to Berlin from the Paris embassy for a personal interview with the king. Bismarck promised the king that he would deliver the army reform, that monarchical rule would be preserved and if necessary at the expense of a military dictatorship.

26. Bismarck hoped to win over the nationalist liberals by promising them national unification under Prussian auspices if necessary by blood and iron. But he underestimated the strength of liberal resistance and the fear aroused by talk of a military coup. The new parliament refused their cooperation and Bismarck was forced to rule without a legal budget, effectively in breach of constitutional legality. Bismarck justified this to himself and the conservative public by insisting that it was the liberals who were refusing to uphold Prussian statehood by voting a budget and that it was therefore his role to fill the gap by means of emergency measures = “gap theory” In 1863 he twice tried to get better majorities in parliament and fails. Like Manteuffel he challenges liberal leaders to duels.

27. More constructively, he also discussed the possibility of an alliance with socialist labor movement against the liberals. It was at this point that he converted to belief in universal manhood suffrage to allow the conservative silent majority to be brought into play against the rebellious progressive liberals. But what actually saved him was war. Ferdinand Lassalle early German socialist and nationalist with whom Bismarck in 1863 discussed ways to sideline the liberals.

28. Prussian politics July 1863: King Wilhelm seeks to tame the lions of parliament, press, law & public opinion whilst Bismarck plays the tune This will go well – as long as it does.

29. For Bismarck the way out was not talk but “blood and iron” (Bismarck 29 September 1862) . In 1863 the Schleswig Holstein question blew up again. The Danes were once more attempting to impose a unitary national constitution on overwhelmingly German territory. The German federation called for joint action. But this would have to be led by the great powers. February 1864 Prussia and Austria combined to attack the Danes. Initially Prussian performance was embarrassing compared to both Austrians and Danes  Bismarck is terrified that it will be another embarrassment. London is preparing to push for peace negotiations on 12 April 1864. Prussian attack on Danish fortress of Dybbøl/Düppel had been repulsed on 4 April This threatens another Olmütz i.e. Russia and Britain will impose peace whilst Prussia is left looking inadequate.

30. Bismarck gets London peace negotiations put back to 25 April  Prussian army makes second attack on Düppeler Schanze after 6 hour artillery bombardment with 10,000 men on 18 April 1864. Scores the victory Prussia needs at cost of 1000 lives and 1600 Danes killed.

31. For Bismarck fighting Denmark was helpful. It wins a group of liberals over who would soon split away to form the National Liberals. But he had fought the Danes with the wrong allies – the Austrians. Once more he raised the ante. Schleswig was supposed to be jointly administered with Austria. But Berlin used disputes over control as a wedge to force the issue with Austria. In the summer of 1866, Bismarck got the second war he wanted. This time against Austria. The confrontation is planned well in advance.

32. October 1865 Bismarck travels to meet Emperor Napoleon III at Biarritz to sound out French on their reaction to Prussian consolidation of North Germany under its control. No formal treaty but informal understanding that: Prussia will support Italian claims on Veneto. France will remain neutral in any Prusso-Austrian clash. Prussia may offer France “compensation” in case of rearrangement of Germany. 28 Feb 1866 Prussian crown council decides on need for an alliance with Italy for coming war with Austria and Austria’s allies in Southern Germany.  Bismarck has isolated the Austrian enemy and prepared ground for a final battle for supremacy in Germany.

33. Fighting a war against the Habsburg Empire was still a major risk for Prussia. Population Balance 1860s Habsburg Empire (excl Italy) 36 m Prussia 19 m Other members of German federation 18 m War was not popular in Prussia – it really was a civil war. Feeling was shared by Prussia’s king who thought the war would feared that it would benefit only democrats and Frenchmen. Prussian King Wilhelm hesitates so long it puts the mobilization planning of the Prussian army in severe danger and allows Austrians to move troops into Bohemia to block Prussian advance and threaten Prussia.

34. The German civil war, 14 June – 23 August 1866 Prussian coalition: blue Austrian coalition: red and pink Prussia had an army of 250,000, Austria of 350,000. When the confederal troops of 150,000 were added the odds against Prussia rose to 2 to 1, with the Prussian army facing three ways at once against Austria, Saxony and Hannover.

35. But then something shocking happened. Prussia won a sudden Napoleonic scale victory. On 3 July 1866 the two main armies clashed between the river fortress of Koeniggraetz on the Elbe and the Bohemian town of Sadowa. It was a battle that was Napoleonic in scale. 500,000 men were engaged in a single encounter. = twice the size of the largest battle of US civil war (Fredericksburg in 1862) The effect on the Austrians was devastating. The Austrian army suffered 40,000 killed and wounded. Every single Austrian infantry brigade was mauled.

36. How had Prussia pulled it off? 1. Italians chose moment to exploit Austrian weakness -> 2nd war of Italian unification distracting 100k of Austrian force of 350k is launched 24 hours before Prussia and Austria declare war. 2. Bavaria which contributed almost half the federal forces announced that it would deploy its 65,000 soldiers only if Prussians actually invaded. The Hanoverians were knocked out of the war already by 29 June. The Saxons were forced to abandon their homeland to rally to the Austrians in Bohemia.

37. 3. The Prussian secret weapon: The Dreyse bolt-action rifle and cartridge

38. For first time in a century and a half, technology was beginning to transform the battlefield again. The industrial revolution was making itself felt. For first time leading German powers were actually in forefront. Everyone in 1850s was experimenting with new basic infantry firearms. Austrians had gone for the Minié rifle which was more accurate and longer range than the Prussian needle guns but had a much slower rate of fire.

39. Minié obsolete but deadly muzzle-loading rifle Heavy rifle bullet will take off limbs.

40. Prussia’s Dreyse bolt action “needle gun”

41. New technology required reorganization: With Prussia’s new rifle, its infantry could fire off 60 rounds in 15 minutes They could fire from prone There was a large risk of losing control  solid disciplined lines of soldiers would dissolve into decentralized and uncontrollable “skirmishers’ soup” (Schuetzenbrei). In October 1854, the traditional single-rank skirmish line was replaced by a structure of small fighting teams under the direct control of a noncommissioned officer responsible both for directing and controlling the fire of his men and for transmitting the orders of the platoon and company commander = what we take for granted today as infantry combat. Prussians enormously helped by fact that their enemies continued to prioritize Napoleonic mass infantry attack with bayonets fixed, which the Prussian could destroy at long range and then counterattack with bayonets of their own.

42. But technological not all on Prussia’s side. Prussia’s artillery remains the blind spot of its army. Its cannon are hopelessly outclassed by their Austrian counterparts.

43. 4. Prussian General staff Their organization of the conduct of war which translated Napoleon (as seen by Clausewitz) into an organization and military culture. General Staff had emerged out of the disaster of 1806 on Scharnhorst’s initiative. Gneisenau was seen as its spiritual father. In 1821 the Quartermaster General Staff was renamed to the General Staff, and its officers were identified by red trouser stripe. Though its members are aristocratic, the leadership of the general staff is strikingly meritocratic: General von Krauseneck, who was the Chief of the General Staff from 1829 to 1848, was the son of a Brandenburg organ player and had been promoted from the ranks. General von Rheyer, Chief of the Prussian General Staff from 1848 to 1857 was a shepherd in his youth.

44. Recruitment is from the Kriegsakademie where Clausewitz was director until 1830. Forming an elite group of c. 350 officers by the 1860s. Staff officers are trained in a common culture and alternate between main office of the General staff where the complement is c. 80 officers and assignment to their regular commands. Common culture is developed through intensive training, map exercises and “staff rides”. Intelligence is gleaned through close contacts with diplomatic service.

45. 1857/58, as Wilhelm takes over, he promotes one of his favorites to command the General Staff: Helmuth von Moltke

46. The staff organization is NOT top heavy: its 350 members are spread across the Prussian army. Moltke and the Grosser Generalstab A Prussian Brigadier General and His Staff in the field.

47. Prussian general staff does infrastructural work to enable modern military control e.g. Mapping In 1816, there was still no comprehensive map survey of Prussia. The general staff began remedying that throughout the period between Waterloo and the revolutions of 1848. In the process, the Prussians transformed mapmaking from an art, based heavily on an individual cartographer’s perceptions and drawing skills, to a science in which mathematics were at least as important as an eye for ground, and then into a technology, keeping pace with mechanical and photomechanical techniques to make maps a mass-production item, available not only for the army but for sale to civilian markets as well. The general availability of identical maps facilitated developing common perspectives of terrain within the officer corps. It correspondingly diminished the element of individual insight into terrain, that coup d’oeil, historically described as essential to a successful commander. Citing: Showalter, Dennis. The Wars of German Unification (Modern Wars) (Kindle Locations 734-740). Bloomsbury Publishing. Kindle Edition.

48. Field Telegraph: command and control and intelligence Information was FAR from complete but by 1866 Moltke’s staff had huge flow of information from the front enabling them to form an independent assessment of course of war.

49. But the Prussian general staff did NOT believe in micromanaging war. They have learned from Napoleon via Clausewitz: Moltke: “Our will soon meets the independent will of the enemy. To be sure, we can limit the enemy's will if we are ready and determined to take the initiative, but we cannot break if by any other means than tactics, in other words, through battle. The material and moral consequences of any larger encounter are, however, so far-reaching that through them a completely different situation is created, which then becomes the basis for new measures. No plan of operations can look with any certainty beyond the first meeting with the major forces of the enemy . . . . The commander is compelled during the whole campaign to reach decisions on the basis of situations which cannot be predicted. All consecutive acts of war are, therefore, not executions of a pre-meditated plan, but spontaneous actions, directed by military tact. The problem is to grasp in innumerable special cases the actual situation which is covered by the mist of uncertainty, to appraise the facts correctly and to guess the unknown elements, to reach a decision quickly and then to carry it out forcefully and relentlessly . . . . It is obvious that theoretical knowledge will not suffice, but that here the qualities of mind and character come to a free, practical and artistic expression, although schooled by military training and led by experiences from military history or from life itself.”

50. The key technology for the Prussian general staff is the railway: 1836 first Prussian general staff study of railways asks for the war ministry to have a say in all railway projects. Moltke personally invests in railways and joins board of directors of Berlin-Hamburg railway in 1841 In May 1849 in putting down revolution in Dresden the Prussian army had used railways to deploy Prussian forces virtually overnight to the Saxon capital. By 1850s railways routinely used in maneuvers and general staff had worked out plans with civilian rail companies to transport Korps sized units of 30,000 men according to prearranged schedules. When Moltke took over in 1858 he used his enthusiasm for railways to impress Wilhelm. In March 1858, the general staff issued its first general policy statement on the use of railroads for large-scale troop movements.