It is so difficult at the present day to realize the fact that such dreams could at so recent a period have been entertained as serious realities, that it is necessary specially to note the fact, and to bear in mind, that up to this period the Coalition is the aggressor, and that Prussia's attitude is a defensive one. to with the apparent fervour of religious | brought about in opposition to the will of devotion. With the exception, we believe, Prussia. of one contributor to the Kreuz Zeitung, no Prussian Peels, Cranbournes, or Carnarvons turned away and veiled their faces when the last relics of the ancient faith were taken from their shrines and sacrilegiously cast forth upon the dunghill. Having had on our side of the Channel some experience in this school of neo-Conservatism, it is not so much this phase of M. de Bismarck's political activity that strikes us, as the sure instinct by which he detected and appropriated the Prussianism latent under the German outside of his political opponents. He felt he could strain the internal conflict to any length which suited his purpose without fear of an ultimate collapse, because the sense of Prussian self-preservation would make the most ardent of the National party recoil before a catastrophe which might endanger the safety of the Prussian State. He felt, on the other hand, that he could push his external policy to a crisis, because in the hour of danger and extremity the "Prussian people in arms" would rally to his rescue. In giving his vote as member of the committee, the Prussian Plenipotentiary had contented himself with recording a protest against the competency of the Diet to take the initiative in an organic change of this kind otherwise than is provided by the Act of Confederation, viz., by an unanimous vote of the Plenum,* and had reiterated the objections already formulated to the plan as such. M. de Bismarck chose other ground than that of Frankfort to parry the blow aimed at Prussia's position in Germany, and addressed himself directly to Austria. In a celebrated conversation held on the 13th of December with the Austrian Minister at Berlin, he put the case with a plainness and bluntness of speech very unusual in diplo The conflict with the Würzburg Coalition had by this time assumed the follow-matic intercourse. ing aspect:-Prussia having declined all further discussion of the plans for Federal reform proposed by the Allies, had, like Achilles, retired to her tents. The Coalition, on the other hand, had held conferences at Vienna, at which it was determined that the Diet should be the scene of future operations, and that the trial of strength should be made there. On the 14th of August, 1862, the Governments of Austria, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Würtemberg, Electoral and Grand-Ducal Hesse, and Nassau, moved that a committee be appointed to take into consideration a proposal for the convening of an Assembly of Delegates, to which should be submitted certain projects of law as further specified. On the 14th of December the committee delivered its report. The majority recommended the convocation of the Assembly; the minority, consisting of Prussia and Baden, voted against it. The dilatory forms in use at Frankfort required that some weeks should elapse before the Diet itself pronounced its verdict upon the committee's report, but the Coalition now felt assured that they would obtain a majority, and that by this simple expedient the reconstruction of Germany according to their programme could be *The 20th of September, 1862, was the day on which the Bismarck Cabinet took office. The relations, he said, between Austria and Prussia must get either very much better or very much worse; the Prussian Government desired they should get better, and it lay in the power of Austria that they should do so. She had but to withdraw her support from the Würzburg Coalition, and return to the status quo of the relations which existed between the two Governments previously to 1848. Up to that date there had been a tacit understanding between the two great German Powers, to the effect that Prussia should support Austria's foreign policy, and that Austria should, in return, not interfere with Prussia in Germany. It was owing to this happy understanding that for many years Austria had never had an anxious thought in regard to her external relations, and that Prussia had been able to call such institutions into life as the Zollverein. Since the reconstruction of the Diet in 1851, this policy had been departed from, and Austria had placed herself at the head of all the influences hostile to Prussia in Germany. The climax of this policy was reached when she identified herself with a Coalition the avowed purpose of which was to "majorize" Prussia at the By a shallow device the Coalition had sought to circumvent this provision of the Constitution by proposing merely to summon the delegates ad hoc, and for the discussion of a certain limited number of laws, and therefore not as a permanent institution. The language of M. de Bismarck could not be plainer. An eventual alliance of Prussia with Italy, if the Imperial Cabinet did not withdraw from the Coalition, was the prospect held out to Austria. Immediate war with the Middle States, if they persisted in their Frankfort policy, was the prospect held out to the latter. The warning was lost on Austria, who voted for the project, but the threat produced its effect on the rest of Germany, and in February Prussia found herself in a majority at Frankfort. The plans of the Confederates to force the hand of Prussia by means of Federal machinery had broken down; they resolved to play out their trump card, the mise en scène of the Congress of Sovereigns. The Prussian Government had been obstinate, and had refused to give way. The Prussian Sovereign in person should be challenged. Diet, and to bring about an organic change | maintain the communication between her in the constitution of Germany, in direct Eastern and Western Provinces, to occupy opposition to the wishes and interests of Hesse-Cassel and Hanover. Prussia. If Austria persisted in this policy, she must be prepared to take the consequences. Prussia, thwarted in Germany by her, would become the natural ally of any non-German Power hostile to her. The year 1859 should serve as a warning. The estrangement brought about between the two Governments by Austria's German policy during the preceding eight years had made itself felt to her detriment. There was not that hearty coöperation and goodwill such as between intimate allies would have precluded all idea of misunderstanding. That Prussia had, nevertheless, not availed herself of the opportunity to advance her own interests, but had armed with a view to assist Austria, was owing to the lingering traditions of the former good understanding. Were similar circumstances to occur again, however, Austria's German policy remaining the same, the alliance of Prussia with the enemies of Austria was a contingency that should not be lost sight of. As to the results of a hostile vote at Frankfort, M. de Bismarck's explanations were yet more explicit. Prussia, he said, would regard the acceptation by a majority of the Diet of the proposal to convoke an Assembly of Delegates as an illegal proceeding, and therefore as a formal breach of the contract by which the States of the Confederation were bound to each other, and would at once withdraw her Minister from Frankfort, and cease to consider herself as a member of the Confederation. The immediate consequence of this step, M. de Bismarck observed, would be that the Prussian garrisons in Mayence, and other Federal fortresses, would no longer be Federal troops under Federal orders, but remain where they were in the capacity of soldiers of His Majesty the King of Prussia. Such was the burden of this eventful conversation, as recorded by the Prussian Prime Minister in a circular despatch addressed to the Plenipotentiaries of Prussia at the Courts of Germany. But a version current at the time, and undoubtedly authentic, added several important particulars, amongst others that the Prussian Premier had very plainly told the Austrian Minister that Austria was an Eastern, and not a Western Power, that her capital was Pesth, not Vienna, and that the sooner she seceded from Germany the better for herself and Germany. Also, that in the event of Prussia being forced by an adverse vote at Frankfort to quit the Confederation, it would be necessary for her, in order to On the 24 of August, 1863, the Emperor of Austria had an interview with the King of Prussia, then at Gastein, and left with him a memorandum on the German question. It was a strange document, when we consider out of whose hands the King of Prussia received it. The entire fabric of 1815 was condemned as utterly rotten and worthless. Germany was described as in a state of chaos, the several members of the Confederation as practically no longer united by any common ties, but as merely living on beside each other, awaiting the moment when some tremendous revolution should bring down the tottering walls about their heads. Under these circumstances Austria had resolved boldly to take the initiative into her own hands, and to propose a searching plan of reform. The same evening an aide-de-camp brought an invitation to the King to attend a Congress of the Sovereigns of Germany, to meet at Frankfort on the 16th of the month (i. c., a fortnight from that date), and to which his Imperial Majesty in per son would submit his programme of reform. The King was taken altogether by surprise, as profound secrecy had been observed in regard to the preparations for this last coup. He replied by an autograph letter to the Emperor, in which he expressed his readiness to take into consideration any scheme that might be submitted to him by his Imperial Majesty for a reform of Germany, but in which he declined to attend a Congress of Sovereigns before he had been made acquainted with the measures proposed to be discussed, and had Keeping this in view, we have, in order to submitted them to that mature examination | superadded the positive attributes of a body and careful deliberation to which it was with an international position to assert, and usual in Prussia to submit grave matters of therefore ready to embark upon an indeState before coming to a decision respecting pendent policy of its own. them. His Majesty proposed that the Congress should be postponed to the 1st Oc-judge of the idea underlying the scheme, to tober, and that the interval should be em- seek out, in the mechanism of the proposed ployed in ministerial conferences, in which Confederation, where the Germany lies. the scheme should be examined by profes- which is thus in future to take an active sional statesmen. and independent part in the affairs of Europe. As was to be expected, this request was not attended to. The circular convoking the remaining Sovereigns of the Confederation had been despatched the day before the invitation was delivered to the King, and on the 16th of August the Parliament of Sovereigns assembled in the old imperial city on the banks of the Main. For the purposes of a Parliamentary debate to be carried on by some thirty crowned heads in their own august persons, the Austrian programme, now for the first time made public, was sufficiently complicated. Even at the present day it is not easy to thread one's way through its complex provisions, or to get an altogether clear idea of the political "cosmos" which it proposed to substitute for the existing "chaos." We shall be materially assisted, however, in our endeavours to do so, if we bear in mind that, dating from the year 1859, the moving spring of Austria's activity in the work of Federal reform had been the recollection of her position during the Italian war. Had the question of Germany's immediate participation in the war with France been one which could have been decided by a vote of the Sovereigns of the Confederation, a large majority would have decided that Lombardy was to be defended on the Rhine. A German National Assembly, elected on the basis of population, with the preponderance in such an assembly which Prussia's fifteen millions of Germans gave her, would probably have led to a different result. The objects of the new Confederation as compared with those of the old are clearly expressed in the first paragraph of the project. The Act of Vienna almost went out of its way to insist upon the essentially defensive character of the association. In a line and a half the object of the Union was described to be the external and internal security of Germany. As described in the corresponding paragraph of the Imperial draft, the objects proposed are manifold and complicated, but the first sentence is conclusive. It is no longer the security merely of Germany that is confided to the care of the new Confederation, but her position as a political Power (Machtstellung), i.e., to the negative function of defence are to be The organs which are to replace the Federal Diet are four in number:-1. A Directory; 2. A Federal Council; 3. An Assembly of Delegates; 4. An Ássembly of Sovereigns. The Directory was to consist of five Powers-Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, and two more, to be elected respectively by the States whose contingents make up the eighth and ninth Federal army Corps. Austria is to preside. The Federal Council was to consist of the diplomatic Plenipotentiaries of the States of the Union, voting as they did in the "Restricted Council" of the old Diet; only that Austria and Prussia are in the new Council to have each three votes, so that instead of the seventeen votes, the total number would be raised to twenty-one. The Assembly of Delegates was to consist of 302 members, supplied in equal proportions by the Upper and Lower Chambers of the local Parliaments; Austria to send 75; Prussia, 75; the remaining States, 152. The Assembly of Sovereigns was to consist of the Sovereigns and the Plenipotentiaries of the Free Towns of the Confedera tion. Now, in which of these bodies were the sovereign attributes of Germany as an independent national unit to reside? The Assembly of Sovereigns may at once be dismissed from consideration. Except for the harmony of the thing, and to convey something of the impression of a very august House of Peers, the functions of this Assembly were a sinecure. The functions of the Assembly of Delegates were strictly legislative, and all political activity was carefully excluded from its competency. It was to meet once in three years at Frankfort, and to occupy itself with the framing of laws on such subjects as the scheme specified to be of common Federal interest. It was therefore not in this body that the political Germany of the future was to be found. If, on the other hand, we examine the constitution of the Federal Directory and of the Federal Council, we shall find that it is in these bodies that the unit we seek resides. The Directory, within the sphere of its competency, is invested with the fullest executive powers. To it is intrusted the care of the external and internal security of Germany, and of her position as a politi. cal power. It decides upon all questions by a simple majority. In case there is reason to apprehend danger to the Federal territory from foreign aggression, or supposing that the European balance of power appears threatened in a manner likely to be dangerous to the security of the German Confederation, the Directory is at once to take the necessary steps to avert the danger. It has to appoint a Federal General, to see to the armament and the provisioning of the Federal fortresses, and, if necessary, to place the Federal army, in part or in whole, upon a war footing. The actual decision as to whether war shall be declared or not was to be in the hands of the Federal Council, i.e., of the Governments of the Confederation, acting through their diplomatic Plenipotentiaries, and by means of a voting apparatus in which, be it remembered, Prussia and Austria had each of them only got of the voting power. A majority of two-thirds is required to vote an ordinary war; but in the event of a war threatening the non-German possessions of a member of the Confederation, the question as to whether the Confederation shall or shall not participate in such war is to be decided by a simple majority. No more need be said to show the drift and purpose of the entire plan. It would be easy to reduce it theoretically ad absurdum, by showing that it presupposed the possibility of a majority in the Federal Council deciding upon an aggressive war against the will of Austria and Prussia (who would nevertheless have been bound to participate in it), and without the nation having been consulted, either collectively or in the Parliaments of the several States. But rather than imagine an extreme case of this kind, which, it would be fair to urge, could never arise in practice, let us suppose this Constitution to have been in force in 1859, and see how it would then have worked. Suppose the Directory to have consisted of Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, and Grand-Ducal Hesse. Upon its becoming manifest that France and Italy were taking up a hostile attitude in regard to the Italian question, Austria, Bavaria, and Saxony outvoting Prussia and Hesse in the Directory might have decided that the European equilibrium was threatened in a manner dangerous to the security of Germany, and without more ado have put the entire Federal army on a war footing. Upon the relations between the Austrian and French Cabinets becoming more complicated, they might have summoned the Federal Council, and put to the vote whether the Italian possessions of Austria being threatened, Germany should not at once declare war against France, and the question might, and under the circumstances certainly would, have been carried affirmatively by a majority, though possibly one only of eleven against ten. Now, under these circumstances, Prussia would in the first stage, whether her Sovereign willed it or no, whether her Parliament wished it or not, by the mere ipse dixit of the Emperor of Austria and the Kings of Bavaria and Saxony, have had to put her Federal contingent of 150,000 men upon a war footing, at a cost of many millions of thalers, and to assume a hostile attitude towards Italy and France. In the second stage, she, and perhaps a majority of the States of Northern Germany, would against their will have been dragged into a war on the Rhine for the maintenance of Austrian supremacy and ultramontane principles in Italy. The Congress had taken the public so by surprise, Austria was at the time so popular, the Prussian Government so unpopular, that at the first blush, and before the programme had been thoroughly weighed and its bearings understood, there was an undoubted current of public approval in its favour. But this current soon changed. A Congress held simultaneously at Frankfort, composed of actual or former members of German Legislatures, some 400 strong, and representing in its composition the bulk of the Liberal and National party throughout Germany, although assuming a friendly attitude towards the Congress of Sovereigns, passed resolutions declaring that a National Parliament elected directly by the people, and a central Executive concentrated in one hand, and responsible to that Parliament, remained the unalterable goal of the nation. It could not have expressed a more complete condemnation of the scheme voted by the Sovereigns. The feeling of disappointment grew stronger and stronger as the true character of the scheme became better appreciated, and the popularity of Austria decreased in proportion as the public began to perceive that they had been duped into applauding, as a measure of reform, a movement of which the real purpose was to cancel such limited control as the nation actually possessed over its international relations by means of its local Parliaments, and to place the blood and treasure of Germany at the absolute disposal of a small coterie of Sovereigns, rendered irresponsible by the mechanism of the proposed Constitution. The King of Prussia was the only Sovereign absent from the Congress. He had remained on a visit to his daughter at BadenBaden. The King of Saxony had been deputed by the Congress to go in person and solicit his attendance, but he remained deaf to all entreaty. Engaged in a struggle à l'outrance with a large majority of his own subjects, standing apart and isolated from his crowned peers, the whole current of public opinion setting against him, the situation was one which it required an exceptional amount of self-confidence to face. The programme, with certain amendments, was voted by a large majority of the Sovereigns, and forwarded to Berlin. The reply of the Prussian Cabinet is conclusive. It takes to pieces bit by bit the elaborate mechanism by which the real forces of the nation, viz., the Prussian State and the German people, are sought to be made willless instruments in the hands of an artificial majority, which, when tried by the test of population and the capacity of rendering effectual services to the common country, shrinks into a small minority; and it lays down three conditions as those which must be accepted before Prussia can enter into the discussion of any plan of reform 1. Prussia and Austria each to have a veto in reference to wars not of a defensive kind voted by the Federal Council. 2. Prussia to be placed in a position of parity with Austria in the Directory. 3. Substitution for the Assembly of Delegates of a National Assembly elected directly by the people, on the basis of population, and according to a liberal franchise, and the investment of this Assembly with far wider attributes than those proposed for the Assembly of Delegates-in other words, with political no less than legislative attributes. On the first head the Prussian memorandum conclusively urged that Prussia had at least the right to claim as much for herself and her fourteen and a half millions of Gerinans as was accorded to a third of the votes in the Federal Council. Any minority representing one-third of the votes in the Federal Council could veto a war, but, examined by the test of population, the most powerful third that could be imagined, viz., the four kingdoms, Baden and the two Hesses, only made up twelve millions of inhabitants, whereas twenty-four States, making up the necessary seven votes, could be put together, numbering only two millions. The second condition contained an emphatic protest against the claim to the hegemony of Germany which Austria had, on the occasion of the Würzburg programme, put forward as deducible from her right of presidency in the Diet, and which appeared to be reasserted in the claim to the exclu sive presidency of the Directory. It was in the third condition, however, that the real strength of Prussia's position was made manifest, and that the extent to which the Coalition had succeeded in opening the eyes of even Prussian statesmen to the true position of Prussia in Germany became apparent. Prussia, argues the Prussian memorandum, is called upon to part with a portion of her independence, and to enter into engagements seriously hampering her freedom of action as a great Power; and when she examines in favor of whom these sacrifices are to be made, she finds that it is not the nation or Germany, but those elements which stand, if not in actual opposition to, at least apart from, the body of the nation, and whose centre of gravitation is not necessarily in Germany. In a word, she is called upon to sacrifice her own Particularism to the Particularism of others, and this she will not do. If she is to part with any portion of her independence, she can only do so in favour of a body whose interests, desires, and requirements are identical with those of the German people; and such a body can alone be found in a national representation of the German people. The antagonism between diverging dynastic interests cannot be summarily disposed of by the off-hand process of a majority in the Directory; the only element capable of reconciling such antagonism, in the interest of the German community at large, is an assembly representing Germany in its entirety. Such an assembly can alone afford to Prussia the necessary guarantee that she will be called upon to make no sacrifices but such as shall be for the benefit of Germany. No mere rearrangement of Federal mechanism, however artistic, will suffice to exclude the play of dynastic interests, which can only find their counterpoise and corrective in a national representation. In an assembly elected directly, and in the ratio of population, by the entire German people, the centre of gravity can neither fall outside of Germany, nor settle in a part * Report of the Ministry to the King, of the 10th October, 1863. |