Dawson History of the German Empire

1. Auflage 2017
ISBN: 978-1-5378-0899-4
Verlag: Jovian Press
Format: EPUB
Kopierschutz: 0 - No protection

E-Book, Englisch, 1581 Seiten

AT the opening of the nineteenth century the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation still existed, after a thousand years of chequered life. Long decadent, it was now moribund, however, and perpetuated only in name an august sovereignty which at one time extended over a large part of the European Continent. Diverse in race, language, religion, and political forms, having no common bond in administration, law, justice, or military organization, the many parts of the imperial dominion were kept together in firm union only so long as they were subject to a strong rule, and when once the centre of authority had become weakened, decline and disintegration ran their certain course...

Autoren/Hrsg.

Dawson, William

Leseproben

THE FRANKFORT NATIONAL ASSEMBLY, 1848-1851
~ WHILE THE KING OF PRUSSIA had been making one new Germany in Berlin, another was being made at Frankfort. As at the beginning of the century and again in 1830, so now the cause of national unity was intimately bound up with the endeavour of the constitutional party to place the government of the country upon a broader basis. It is an altogether inadequate view that the only motive behind the democratic movements which turned Germany upside-down in 1848 was to increase the power of the people at the expense of the prerogatives of the Sovereigns and their Governments. A genuine and strong desire for closer union existed at that time, and if it was allied with demands for constitutional reform, and on the part of the extreme democrats for a radical change in the form of government itself, these demands derived much of their force and justification from the fact that it was the Sovereigns who, for their own purposes, were keeping Germany disunited. To the ardent reformers of those days, Liberalism and national unity were merely two aspects of the same question. Without a representative parliament emanating from the free choice of free peoples, and frankly expressing the principle of popular sovereignty, unity had for them neither attraction nor meaning. Herein lay a fundamental difference of principle which hopelessly divided the Sovereigns from the great body of the nation. Many of them were still openly hostile to all constitutional innovations, and chafed sorely under the new restrictions upon their power; such rulers were in no mind to see themselves bound by the fresh restraints which might be expected from the creation of a central parliament. From the belief, common to the popular parties, that unity could be brought about only by the resolute will of the nation itself, proceeded a movement which, though unsuccessful at the time, exerted a powerful influence upon the later course of political events and determined some of the main lines upon which the German question was ultimately to be settled. This was the movement whose outcome was the Frankfort Parliament of 1848. The first impetus came from the South, where the democratic tendencies of the early part of the century had always found promptest and most emphatic expression. In the Baden Lower Chamber the Liberal party had actively identified itself with the national cause, and in February a motion proposed by its leader, Friedrich Daniel Bassermann, calling for the assembly of a parliament of all Germany, had evoked great enthusiasm. For a time it seemed uncertain whether the unity movement, as now revived, would fall into constitutional or revolutionary channels. Early in March the ultra-democrats of Baden, thanks to quick and decisive action, succeeded in obtaining momentary control of the movement in that State and endeavoured to identify it with their extreme political ideas. To their ardent minds the republican cause seemed suddenly to have reached full maturity, and thrones and constitutional monarchies to have become obsolete in a single night. All that remained, therefore, was to inaugurate the new political order, fraught with so much promise, and to this end to create the necessary administrative machinery. Their expectations proved to be short-lived. Following public meetings held in other towns of the South, a conference of South German democrats met at Heidelberg at the beginning of March in order to discuss the basis of a parliament to be representative of the whole nation. The extremists, chief among them Friedrich K. F. Hecker and Gustav von Struve, called for the immediate establishment of a full-fledged German republic. Moderate men were in a majority, however, and led by Heinrich von Gagern, a Darmstadt Minister, a warm friend of national unity, and a sturdy constitutionalist, they made the counter-proposal of a German Empire with a hereditary head. Between aims so antagonistic compromise was impossible. In the hope of forestalling their opponents, however, the constitutionalists appointed a committee of seven and authorized it to issue a general invitation to members of German legislative bodies and estates to a congress or “preliminary parliament” for the discussion of the whole question of federal reform. In 1815 the Sovereigns had reorganized Germany without consulting the people: now the people were to reorganize Germany without consulting the Sovereigns. In the meantime the Federal Diet had been comporting itself in the political storm like a water-logged vessel, rolling helplessly at the mercy of wind and wave. On March 1st it had issued a proclamation containing soothing phrases about the desirability of national unity and its desire to mother the nation with tenderer care than heretofore, but perceiving that its opinions were held as of no account, it soon relapsed into inaction. Cordially welcomed by Senate and citizens, delegates to the number of 576, drawn from all parts of Germany, but chiefly from the South, attended the national congress at Frankfort on the last day of March, and held sessions for four days. It was regarded as a propitious sign that Prussia contributed one quarter of the total number of delegates, but as regrettable that only two came from Austria. The day before the congress met, the Federal Diet, judging where events were tending, had declared its willingness to convene a national assembly in its own name, reasoning that by so doing the Princes would be able to claim credit if good came of the plan. Again, as at Heidelberg, the republican party made a determined attempt to capture the congress, but finding itself hopelessly outnumbered, it broke from the constitutional majority and expended its energy in fomenting revolution in Baden and elsewhere. The more impetuous reformers were in favour of proceeding at once with the drawing up of a constitution and the organization of a federal empire, without waiting for further instructions from the nation. Calmer counsels prevailed, however, and the congress confined its attention to arrangements for convening an elective, representative parliament possessed of an authoritative mandate. Having agreed that this body should be elected by universal and equal suffrage on the basis of one deputy to every 70,000 (later altered to 50,000) inhabitants, sketched a short charter of “fundamental rights of the nation,” and appointed a committee of fifty (six places being reserved for Austria) to make the necessary arrangements for the election of a National Assembly, and in connection therewith – a crowning act of arrogance – to confer with, and if needful advise, the Federal Diet, the congress on April 4th closed its meetings and dispersed with cordial “Au revoirs!” amid the same jubilation which had greeted its arrival in the imperial city. Invited now to summon a national parliament, the Federal Diet accepted the task in the hope of re-establishing itself in public confidence, yet also fearful of the consequences of refusal; it even adopted a resolution empowering this parliament to adopt a constitution for all Germany. The various Governments were left to devise their own electoral arrangements, with the result that the Assembly was chosen on different franchises. Some Governments entered into the movement with energy, and in Prussia particularly earnest endeavours were made to secure the return of men of moderate views, pliant, and sure to give prominence to Prussian interests. Before the Prussian deputies, many of whom were noblemen and Government officials, journeyed to Frankfort they were bidden to remember that they went there as Prussian subjects, and to act accordingly. Only in Austria was the project of a national parliament received with apathy and unconcern. There, too, the Government was now eager that the country should be well represented, but the nation as a whole was half-hearted, and Bohemia and the Slavonic territories in general flatly ignored the congé d’élire. The result was that Austria’s direct voice in the assembly was far inferior to that of Prussia. The German National Assembly so elected met at Frankfort, in the historical St. Paul’s Church, on May 18th, four days before the Prussian National Diet held its first session in Berlin. Thus it was that while at that time the eyes of Berlin were turned to Frankfort, the eyes of Frankfort were turned to Berlin; Frederick William IV, curious to know what the empire-makers on the Main would do, the Frankfort reformers wondering whether that monarch would try to take out of their hands the task of creating a new Germany. The National Assembly was a representative and weighty gathering, for its 550 members included most of the political and many of the best-known intellectual leaders of Germany. Because representative, it was thoroughly mixed in composition; there were among its members Ministers of State and other high officials, bishops and clergy, poets and journalists, professors and lawyers, landowners and merchants; monarchist rubbed shoulders with republican, constitutionalist with absolutist, Protestant with Ultramontane, Great German with Little German and Particularist. Among the best-known members were: of statesmen, the Austrian Anton von Schmerling (President of the Federal Diet), General von Radowitz (the confidant of Frederick William IV), H. W. von Gagern, and Georg von Vincke; the historians Dahlmann, J. G. Droysen, and Georg Waitz; the Munich theologian Ignaz Döllinger, Arndt, now a worn-out old man, the poet Uhland, Jakob Grimm, Robert Blum, the Leipzig democratic leader, and not least famous “Father” Jahn, the patron of the gymnasium. Yet...