The next installments.
I Don’t Think Now Is the Best Time.
The decade of the 1860s may have seen the destruction of a way of life and a social system in the United States, but in Europe that decade was one of the overthrow of great ancient empires and the culmination of the nationalist-motivated strife that had been unleashed by the Revolutionaries and Napoleon and only had been checked, not defeated, during the great year of 1848. Italy was the scene of a short, decisive war that saw in two short battles the expulsion of Habsburg influence and then, with an equally short, decisive campaign the assertion of Liberal Piedmontese control everywhere in the peninsula save the Patrimony of St. Peter and Venetia – the culmination and greatest success of the storied
Risorgimento. The success of the Italians and the consequent loss of Habsburg prestige saw several other nations and peoples begin to strain at the shackles of the Vienna settlement that had entrapped them back in the old regimes; the German
Burschenschaften, only briefly driven out following the failure of the Frankfurt Reichstag, began to trickle back into the Confederation, and Hungarians like Lajos Kossuth began once more agitating for reform and a greater role for the Empire’s Magyars. Only with great difficulty was Kaiser Franz Josef able to keep the various nationalistic forces in his imperial control enclosed in his iron fist; but only a swift kick and the whole rotten structure would quickly come crashing down. [1]
Prussia, despite the outward appearance of being a conservative kingdom just like its larger neighbor to the south, was already working to overthrow the Vienna settlement. Its King, Friedrich Wilhelm IV, had caved to revolutionary demands in 1848, and only with the support of the army were the Junkers able to reassert order. Thus far, the nationalist forces had been kept in check; now, the Prussian leadership, especially the Army head officers Lieutenant General Albrecht von Roon (head of a royally appointed commission to prepare the Army for enlarging reforms) and head of the
Grosser Generalstab [2] Helmuth, Graf von Moltke. In 1858, the King took ill, and had his brother,
Prinz Wilhelm, act as Regent. It was in this capacity that Wilhelm ordered the Army to mobilize in 1859 to force the French to bring a rapid conclusion to the Austro-Sardinian War; already, the Prussians, passive for so long (during the Crimean War they had decided to not intervene whatsoever on either side), were beginning to flex their muscles and utilize their enormous industrial and economic strength granted by the
Zollverein. Finally, in 1861, Friedrich Wilhelm IV died and was duly replaced by his Regent, who was crowned Wilhelm I,
König der Preußen.
Upon his ascension, Wilhelm had to deal with a political crisis. Von Roon, newly appointed War Minister, had finished his report and proposed a reform based on its findings. This new model army would have the conscripts’ term of service increased to three years to enlarge the actual size at any given time, and would also create a trained
Landwehr militia to act as backup for the regular army. In 1862 the program’s passage was stalled in the fairly liberal House of Deputies, which refused to pass a budget that would allocate enough funds to carry out the reforms. Desperate to find a politician skilled enough to force the bill’s passage and help solidify his new rule, Wilhelm sought out the new Ambassador to France, Otto von Bismarck, an old-style Junker from back east. Von Bismarck demanded that he be allowed the full powers of not only the prime ministry but also that of the foreign minister. The King vacillated, but soon enough decided that this was more important than having more control over foreign policy, and relented, appointing von Bismarck
Ministerpräsident [3] in late September. The newly minted
Ministerpräsident quickly found a loophole: technically, there was nothing whatsoever in the Constitution about what to do if the legislators didn’t pass the year’s budget, so instead of proposing a new one, von Bismarck just used last year’s old budget, which allocated enough funds to allow von Roon and von Moltke to carry out the necessary army reforms. To show his repeated position as the friend of monarch and military, the
Ministerpräsident noted that he would play the position of Strafford to the King of Prussia (a patently absurd but memorable statement [4]) and in his first speech to the legislative branch, said that the “great questions of the day would not be decided through speeches and majority votes – the great error of 1848 and 1849 – but instead through iron and blood”. Those last three words, transposed into “blood and iron”, became the memorable phrase of von Bismarck’s reign; they seemed to symbolize his later achievements and the idea that he had had the whole thing planned out from the day he first went into politics.
His position duly cemented, von Bismarck now began a frenzy of diplomatic activity that he would keep up until the end of his ministry. If his eventual actions in German unification are to be taken as planned out from the very beginning, he would have to break the Holy Alliance (still somehow extant despite the Crimean War), of which Prussia was still a member. After all, the entire purpose of that Alliance was to stamp out Revolution wherever it occurred in Europe, and German unification was a revolution of the worst terms to Vienna. The problem of the Holy Alliance wasn’t really even given to von Bismarck to solve, though; the aforementioned Crimean War had deeply split Russia and Austria, the latter of which had seemed to betray her erstwhile ally to ensure such a minor objective as
peace (bah!). One of the great problems that his predecessors had faced if German unity had been among their objectives had been surmounted without von Bismarck having to lift a finger. Meanwhile, the remainder of the European Powers weren’t about to intervene in Germany in concert against von Bismarck; the British were on bad terms with France (they were more than a little ill at ease at having
another Bonaparte just across the Channel, and the expected cooperation in Mexico had fallen through), Russia (over the whole Crimean War business), and Austria (which was still seen as the champion of Reaction, something any good Whig/Liberal would find distasteful); the Russians and French were on bad terms with Britain and Austria but on good ones with each other (due to the
entente of 1856), but there was no chance that either would intervene to uphold the 1815 settlement anywhere, because Napoleon III wanted to reestablish the glory of the First Empire with the excuse of nationalism as a
casus belli and Alexander II wanted to destroy the Peace of Paris and have his own way in the Balkans (another sore spot with the Austrians).
The only major alliance in Europe was therefore the Franco-Russian
entente, and since that was the only alliance in existence it looked pretty impressive, more so than it actually was. Von Bismarck, following one of his oft-quoted maxims, would obviously try to make a triple out of this supposedly formidable anti-Austrian alliance (for that was the only conceivable enemy against which the French and Russians could work together). If the Prussians were to pressure the Austrians in Germany, they would thusly have Franco-Italian support in Venetia and that of the Russians in Eastern Europe and the Balkans. Such a fearsome combination might even force the Austrians to acquiesce to von Bismarck’s aims without the sacrifice of a single Pomeranian grenadier; an idiotic ultimatum, per the Austrian examples of 1856 and 1859, would certainly not have been issued against this deadly triplet. [5] Naturally, though, von Bismarck’s diplomatic material was not a perfect fit; instead of something else, he got the Polish affair of 1863. The Poles, as was their wont, had decided to revolt in the Congress Kingdom again, and as the rest of Europe made sympathetic noises about their plight von Bismarck contacted St. Petersburg and informed them that Prussian military bases would be open for Russian use against these rebels. This was not a particularly brilliant device; while the rest of Europe looked to the Tsar as though they were being their usual straightforward nuisance selves, the Prussians were cunningly trying to make capital out of his difficulties in Poland, just as they had tried to do so in the Austro-Sardinian War by mobilizing against the French. The Russians were however inclined to see what capital they themselves could make out of the deal, and after signing the Alvensleben Convention – by which Russia was allowed to formally annex Poland and use Prussian bases in quelling any resistance – and getting down to the unpleasant business of actually crushing those silly Poles, Foreign Minister Gorchakov proposed an alliance with von Bismarck against the Austrians and French. Naturally, the Prussians recoiled in horror from this deal, once again confirming Russian belief that the policymakers in Berlin were just being insincere; for von Bismarck’s part, he obviously wanted no part in a war whose purpose would have been solely Russian and which would have turned all of Germany and perhaps even Britain against him.
Von Bismarck was now in a bit of a rough spot. Diplomatically, he had been unable to form his desired triple with France and Russia against the Habsburgs and had had to settle not only for breaking the
entente but really getting the concrete support of neither. Even worse, the Austrians were now tiresomely pretending to be Liberal in order to recoup their political loss in Italy by gaining in Germany. Since 1861 the Austrians had had a German Parliament; von Bismarck’s position now seemed even worse because he was a declared enemy of Liberalism, having publicly compared himself to Strafford. The Austrians were emboldened by Prussia’s seeming isolation; at the Confederation Diet in Frankfurt in 1863, they proposed a reform of the Confederation, allowing for greater representation from the parliaments of the Austrians, Prussians, and the various
Kleinstaaterei [6]. Von Bismarck, however, was able to save his position by replying that not only would this proposal not allow complete Austro-Prussian equality and thus duality, but that Prussia would yield none of her rights to any entity save one representing “the entire German nation”. Basically nobody thought that von Bismarck wanted or even was capable of creating a Parliament for all of Germany, and this was obviously a fake counter to Austria’s equally fraudulent Liberalism. However, soon an affair arose that offered von Bismarck an opportunity to make real book, not this piss-ant German and Polish stuff. A war was in the offing this time…
Denmark and Prussia had already fought one war over Schleswig-Holstein in 1848, when the Prussians had, in the spirit of pan-Germanism and the Revolutionary Year, invaded Denmark to ensure that Schleswig remained closer to Holstein than to Denmark. Inconclusive fighting had resulted in a peace – the London Protocol – that reestablished the
status quo ante bellum, angering many Germans, especially those who lived in the Duchies. This peace had been supported primarily by Russia and France; one was the enemy of revolution and therefore opposed to changes to the Vienna system, and the other was simply flexing her new Republican (and later Imperial) muscles abroad in favor of an old ally. Over the decade of the 1850s, though, things changed dramatically. The Russians lost the Crimean War, which put other concerns on the backburner as they concentrated on the Balkans and the Ottoman Empire; the French, now eager to seek diplomatic advantage or even territorial compensation from Germany, would rather be Prussia’s partner than rely on Denmark’s losing hand. The positions of the other Powers, Britain and Austria, were even a little more nebulous: Britain’s monarch, Victoria, was certainly sympathetic to nationalist Germans in the Duchies, but there was also the growth of Prussian naval power to worry about; Franz Josef in Vienna was worried about Prussia seizing advantage in the German Confederation, but also wanted to gain the support of most Germans so as to have his own advantage over the Prussians.
The Danish themselves did not help the situation. King Frederik seemed to believe that his
status quo peace had given him the right to do as he wished in the Duchies despite the London Protocol, and soon passed national constitutions that affected Schleswig and Holstein without consulting the estates of either. The German Confederation naturally refused to recognize this constitution, and the search for a more equitable one went on. Denmark eventually withdrew the constitution for Holstein and Lauenburg, but not for Schleswig, which violated the Treaty of Ribe of 1460 (in which King Christian I stated that the two duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, were indivisible). Frederik’s constant attempts to try to get Schleswig (which only had an ethnic majority of Danes in the extreme northern part) accepted as an integral part of Denmark were seen as land grabbing by most of the Great Powers, though, and slowly Denmark’s political allies drifted away. When in 1860 Denmark tried to pass a law that affected the Duchies without consulting the estates of Schleswig and Holstein themselves again, the Concert of Europe acted once more on an
ad hoc basis; Britain, Prussia, Austria, and the Tsar all accepted a proposal by Lord Russell that would give the Duchies assemblies based on population proportional representation. Since this would destroy the concept of Danish sovereignty over Schleswig and Holstein, Denmark flatly refused in the spring of 1861. Met with staunch resistance and with virtually nobody willing to tear themselves away from the American drama now beginning to play an active role in the affairs of the Duchies, the issue seemed to go away; in the hearts and minds of many Germans, though, the Danish dominance continued to sting. Seeing this open field, Frederik, now ailing, acted, and in 1863 he formally repudiated all concessions that Denmark had given up in 1852 at the end of the Schleswig War. [7]
The problem probably wouldn’t have been so big if not for the fact that Frederik VII was not only old and intransigent, but also without male issue. The most direct heir that could be found wouldn’t be the first in line for control of the Duchies (or at least of Holstein and Lauenburg, according to most Danes), and so the recognition that the situation almost certainly
had to change fired the passions of the German nationalists in Schleswig and Holstein. Frederik feverishly attempted to draft a new constitution (basically along the same lines of his old ones, except with new paper and ink stating that Denmark and Schleswig would have one parliament for the two of them and be governed by the same ruler), but died before it could be ratified. His successor, former Duke Christian of Glücksburg, was crowned Christian IX in 1863. Almost immediately – in November – he was approached with the Constitution to ratify. This Constitution, however, would nullify his right to rule over at the very least Holstein and Lauenburg, and open up the probability of war with the extremely angry Germanic Confederation. Christian, however, chose not to go against the sentiments of Denmark north of the Schleswig border, and signed the Constitution on November 18. Immediately, a hue and cry arose from the Germans. Friedrich, duke of Augustenburg, immediately renewed his claim to leadership of the unified duchies of Schleswig and Holstein; in the Confederation Diet, a motion from Otto von Bismarck was passed that called for the occupation of Holstein by German troops. The Danes were forced to withdraw military forces from Holstein as Saxon and Hanoverian troops marched in and proclaimed Friedrich “Duke Frederick VIII of Holstein”. Through January of 1864, as Meade and Lee camped near the Wilderness and Grant fortified Atlanta, Germanic and Danish forces engaged in a staring match along the banks of the Eider. Von Bismarck in Berlin, though, knew what he wanted out of this war. Here was an opportunity to make profit by the mistakes of someone else and act in concert not only with German national opinion but also that of Austria as well, solidifying Prussian ties with the Frankfurt Confederation government and increasing the likelihood that war wouldn’t be needed when Austria was finally excluded from German affairs. He browbeat first King Wilhelm into submission by getting him to approve war with Denmark north of the Eider with a specific (but secret) goal of annexation, and then pressured the Austrians into acting in concert with him. On January 16, as Prussian forces under Field Marshal von Wrangel (veteran of the 1848 war) massed in Holstein, von Bismarck – in conjunction with the Austrians – issued an ultimatum to the Danish government demanding the repudiation of the November Constitution. Denmark refused, and on 1 February 1864, Prussian and Austrian troops crossed into Schleswig and kicked off the Second Schleswig War.
Unlike its predecessor from 1848-52, the Second Schleswig War was very short and very unimaginative. The Prussians and Austrians first maneuvered the Danes into giving up the line of the Danevirke, an ancient earthen fortification just north of the Eider. Through February, the Danish army slowly withdrew towards the great fortress of Dybbol, suffering heavy casualties to the horrid weather and the lack of supplies due to a dearth of railroads. The Prussians besieged Dybbol from late February to April 18, after which the fort was seized by the German allies. Following this, the Germans flooded into Jutland, consistently defeating smaller Danish detachments in every battle until the armistice in the summer. Meanwhile, on the high seas, the Austrians and Prussians fought a drawn battle with the Danish navy at Helgoland, and eventually forced a Danish naval retreat following the loss of bases on the Jutland peninsula, which was entirely occupied by the Prussians by July 14. From August and the armistice on to October, the Danes haggled with the Germans in Vienna, but the world knew that Denmark had lost, alone and isolated, and the Danes reluctantly signed the Treaty of Vienna on October 30. By its terms, Denmark ceded Schleswig
and Holstein and Lauenburg to Austria and Prussia, and renounced all claims thereto.
The division of the spoils proved intractable for the Prussians and Austrians. With the Danes once more out of the picture, they could get back to squabbling over German affairs, which they did with gusto. Intense negotiations were held over the issue of Schleswig and Holstein, presided over by von Bismarck. Eventually – in 1865 – they signed the Gastein Convention, which awarded Schleswig to Prussia and Holstein to Austria, leaving the poor duke of Augustenburg out in the cold again. It seemed as though the two Great Powers had finally papered over their differences; von Bismarck, who wasn't really intent on war with his erstwhile partner, failed to explode any war against the Habsburgs. Austria, on the other hand, wanted to continue gathering strength in the Confederation; the Kaiser was entirely conscious of the Germans' opinions that Vienna and Berlin were gathering altogether too much power to themselves and leaving none for most of Germany. Von Bismarck was not entirely unaware of these machinations, and thusly, when, in violation of Gastein, Austria brought up the issue before the Diet in Frankfurt, the Prussians had a reply prepared and a few friends in the wings...