1850

Repeal of the Navigation laws in Britain encouraged free trade. Davis (Britain and the Zollverein): suspicious protectionists in Europe claimed it was hypocritical, that after climbing ahead via protectionism Britain was now trying to kick away the ladder for others. But this misunderstood Britain. It was supreme economically. It wanted to preserve the status quo in Europe. Public opinion was rarely bothered by Europe unless the press whipped something up. The security of Britain guaranteed by the navy was taken for granted. Free trade was seen as a domestic issue, not one mainly of international relations or national security. Free trade became infused with the evangelicalism of the mid-19th C. The supposed implications of spreading free trade — 'progress' including smaller government, less power for the landed aristocracy, less international tension — were welcome to British liberals of many types. Cobden: 'I see in the Free Trade principle that which shall act on the moral world as the principles of gravitation in the universe — drawing men together, thrusting inside the antagonism of race, and creed, and language, and uniting us in the bonds of eternal peace.' Unilateralism dominated in the 1840s and 50s, then Cobden-Chevalier 1860 and other treaties including Prussia 1865, then after 1867 unilateralism revived until the 20th C. Unilateralists dominated the Board of Trade: not so much a department as an auxiliary to other departments; small staff; President a political appointment but not an integral part of the Cabinet; 'characterised by a sense of the ad hoc and the ex officio' (Davis); they saw trade as separate from politics. What European countries saw as hypocrisy hiding hidden plans was in reality an institutional vacuum generated by a feeling of unchallenged supremacy. The Board of Trade was heavily influenced by Benthamite arguments of the 1840s — cf. Report on the Prussian Commercial Union, 1840, which saw the Zollverein's effect of pushing commercial union and deregulation as positive, and went a long way to support unilateral free trade and argued the Corn Laws had created growth in industry and protectionism in Europe. Many free traders thought that Prussian interests were hostile to protection and the Prussian government realised this — but this was a serious misunderstanding. Britain engaged in a 'propaganda campaign of enormous force' driven by moralising internationalism.

(Davis p22ff) Until Clarendon's 1857 reforms, the main source of commercial information re the Zollverein was quarterly reports from Consuls (situated at ports and trade centres like Leipzig). Their focus in 1830s and 40s was the supply of corn to UK and export of manufactured goods especially textiles. This system did not keep pace with the huge changes of the 1850s. Statistics were poor and encouraged London to underrate the growth of German industry. (Cf. Loftus report for Clarendon, 1856). Diplomats were not much interested in trade in the 1840s/50s. Until 1860 the Zollverein was Britain's main source of wheat and the largest market for industrial produce in Europe, taking 2X that of France. Zoll: coal production rose from 4.4m tonnes 1848 to 11.4m 1857; raw iron from 111k tonnes 1830-4 to 1m in 1865-9. 1829-30 agriculture was 88% of total value of exports from Prussia of which most went to Britain; by 1867 this was just 42%. In 1850s the pattern of British exports of coal, iron, textiles changed significantly but this was masked by statistics and the overall growth of trade as Germany industrialised. London did not have good intelligence on what was really happening and why.

Davis (p48ff) In German states there was fascination and love-hate relationship with Britain. Commercial and industrial interests wanted to learn from Britain but also feared competition. There was widespread hostility for what was seen as British desire to undermine German modernisation and to divde-and-rule Germans. January Schwarzenberg plan for new Customs Union uniting the whole Habsburg monarchy, Zollverein and Confederation (70m people). The ideas had been developed by Bruck (Minister of Commerce 11/49). It would have reduced Prussia to a 'second-rate power' (OP). The plan fizzled out and after Schwarzenberg died the ideas were mostly abandoned. (Heller, biographer of Schwarzenberg, who searched all available documents, concluded: 'The mitteleuropäische idea, exactly like the kleindeutsch idea, was not the intellectual property of any one man. Schwarzenberg and Bruck advocated it from the beginning of their joint efforts in complete agreement and with frank determination.') In late February (Barclay), Schwarzenberg encouraged Bavaria, Hanover, Saxony, and Wurttemberg to call for the inclusion of the entire Habsburg Empire in the reformed Bund.

Davis (p75): Bruck's plan held out the prospect of reviving Article 19 of the Federative Act, 1815, which had foreseen the Bund as the centre of commercial organisation. The Bruck plan was also explicitly seen as anti-British, as wresting control from Britain — Mitteleuropa had to compete with Britain.

FW proclaimed the new constitution. Other conservative features were added to the constitution in the 'constitutional charter'. But even so the overall result of the 1848-50 constitutional changes was 'a constitutional monarchy of mixed powers' similar to what moderates had long advocated — though it was 'a constitutional facade behind which the old order remained essentially intact' (OP p24). Radowitz had developed a compromise to punt some decisions to 1852. The Camarilla's attempts to prevent the oath failed (Barclay p215).

(JS) Elections for the new Erfurt Union, met 20 March.

FW After spending the previous night in Potsdam (he tried to avoid Berlin after March 1848) he appeared in uniform in the Knights' Hall in Berlin to swear an oath to the new constitution in front of deputies and ministers. His speech was odd, including the sentiment that 'I do not govern because I enjoy it, God knows! But because it is part of the divine order of things...' To Ludwig's disgust he chatted with some liberal deputies afterwards.

(OP p118) Despite Hardenberg's land settlements 1811-16 and ~360,000 serfs escaping manorial obligations by 1848, servile dues were still a source of peasant unrest in 1848. The Manteuffel government introduced a statute that created state land banks to issue mortgage bonds to indemnify estate owners for remaining dues and services. The rural nobility was appeased by the restoration of its right to establish entailed estates (1852), its powers in county and provincial government (1853) and its manorial police authority (1856). Except for some hunting rights and judicial powers 'the Junkers had regained the prerogatives they possessed before the revolution' (OP). Many of the newly 'independent' farmers were too small and vulnerable to escape dependence on landlords and depended on payment in kind and wages. By 1856, only 60% of the 12,339 noble estates were still in the hands of aristocratic families including recently ennobled: average size 1,200 acres. (Barclay: more than 5,000 of 12,399 estates had been taken over by bourgeois owners.) Feudal rights were an attribute of the estate so acquisition by bankers, businessmen etc gave them social ascent. Cf. INTRO and 1807 reforms. Barclay: there were fairly liberal reforms to local and regional government, repealed 1852.

A Prussian ordinance: clubs organised for political purposes were required to register with the police, and prohibited participation by women, students and apprentices. For politically motivated workers the 1850s were a time of 'surveillance and espionage, arrest and imprisonment, flight and exile' which fed the emerging socialist movements of the 1860s (OP).

Metternich: 'The imperial government could have used the revolution in the interest of the necessary reforms, as the field was prepared for what was needed in terms of the new!' But the government didn't know how to use 'the freedom that the heavens had dropped on it.'

Erfurt Union assembly met, elected on a limited suffrage and with the Union's armed forces under Prussian control. Russia made clear its opposition. (It was 'almost exactly the Germany which Bismarck created twenty years later. But at the time he could not denounce it enough.' AJPT) Democrats had boycotted the elections so it was almost entirely Gotha liberals and extreme conservatives like Stahl and Ludwig Gerlach. There was a row over whether the constitution should be agreed en bloc, as the Gotha set and Radowitz wanted, or revised bit by bit, as the Gerlach set wanted. FW wavered, a compromise was hashed out and a Congress of Princes was called to meet in Berlin in early May. By this point FW was losing enthusiasm. Only 12/26 states accepted the constitution. Further fudges and punting of decisions. By now Radowitz was under concerted attack at court by the Camarilla and was himself complaining about FW's unreliably and susceptibility to dodgy unofficial influences! (Barclay p201).

Leopold Gerlach formally appointed Adjutant General, role at court now official and even more powerful. He did not overestimate his influence and often felt isolated and depressed (Barclay p203-4). He came close to resigning in autumn 1850 when it seemed Radowitz's ideas might triumph.

(JS) Bismarck told the new Erfurt parliament — if you try to ignore the old Prussia and prattle about a 'German empire', you will be 'dumped into the sand'. On 19th he wrote to Johanna that 'things are heading for a crisis', Radowitz and Manteuffel oppose each other, FW is pulled this way and that, Manteuffel will insist on ditching Erfurt.

Austria started insisting on the reinstatement of the old Bund, supported by Russia who strongly opposed the Radowitz plan. By June Manteuffel was saying he could not stay in the government if Radowitz continued with his plans (which Manteuffel increasingly thought were being hijacked by domestic enemies). Cf. 19/8.

(Barclay p205, unmentioned almost anywhere) Russia hosted a conference in Warsaw with the Tsar, Schwarzenberg, the Prince of Prussia. Inconclusive.

At noon FW went to the train station with the Queen, a man in an army uniform ran up and shot FW at close range hitting his arm. Not a serious injury. The would-be assassin (discharged from the army for mental problems) was beaten and arrested. The King went to Charlottenburg to recover. There was little public outcry. There were rumours that he had been used by a conspiracy of royalists who wanted FW replaced. Even the King himself and the Gerlachs came to believe this was possible(!) and they worried FW's response may lead to a 'tyrannical regime'. FW became more worried about security. As the decade went on there was greater use of spies, informants, press censorship etc. (I've only seen mention of this affair in Barclay, p215ff.)

New French electoral law used residency and tax qualifications to exclude over 3m from voting.

Bruck-Schwarzenberg: We must prevent 'above all' the Zollverein, due to expire in 1852, renewing 'before the Austro-German Customs Union is irrevocably settled on a sure foundation.' If we fail and it's renewed Prussia 'would scarcely be persuaded to enter the Customs Union with Austria'. We need to sell our vision publicly, the economic and political and cultural benefits.

Palmerston's 'civis Romanus sum' speech in Commons over Don Pacifico: 'We have shown that liberty is compatible with order; that individual freedom is reconcilable with obedience to the law. We have shown the example of a nation, in Which every class of society accepts with cheerfulness the lot which Providence has assigned to it; while at the same time every individual of each class is constantly striving to raise himself in the social scale — not by injustice and wrong, not by violence and illegality — but by persevering good conduct, and by the steady and energetic exertion of the moral and intellectual faculties with which his Creator has endowed him. To govern such a people as this, is indeed an object worthy of the ambition of the noblest man who lives in the land; and therefore I find no fault with those who may think any opportunity a fair one, for endeavouring to place themselves in so distinguished and honourable a position. But I contend that we have not in our foreign policy done anything to forfeit the confidence of the country. We may not, perhaps, in this matter or in that, have acted precisely up to the opinions of one person or of another — and hard indeed it is, as we all know by our individual and private experience, to find any number of men agreeing entirely in any matter, on which they may not be equally possessed of the details of the facts, and circumstances, and reasons, and conditions which led to action. But, making allowance for those differences of opinion which may fairly and honourably arise among those who concur in general views, I maintain that the principles which can be traced through all our foreign transactions, as the guiding rule and directing spirit of our proceedings, are such as deserve approbation. I therefore fearlessly challenge the verdict which this House, as representing a political, a commercial, a constitutional country, is to give on the question now brought before it; whether the principles on which the foreign policy of Her Majesty's Government has been conducted, and the sense of duty which has led us to think ourselves bound to afford protection to our fellow subjects abroad, are proper and fitting guides for those who are charged with the Government of England; and whether, as the Roman, in days of old, held himself free from indignity, when he could say Civis Romanus sum [I am a Roman citizen]; so also a British subject, in whatever land he may be, shall feel confident that the watchful eye and the strong arm of England, will protect him against injustice and wrong.'

When he left the House crowds gathered and cheered. His enemies, who had thought they might get rid of him for a major error, were confounded and his popularity grew. Over the next year he repeatedly made the case that Britain should support liberals in Europe and frequently intervened. Evans: the 'principle of the age' in 1850s Britain was self-help, its bible was Self-Help: with Illustrations of Character and Conduct (1859) by the Scottish journalist and ex-Chartist Samuel Smiles. It sold 20,000 copies in its first year and 250,000 by the time of the author's death.

To sister: 'The boy screaming in a major key, the girl in a minor one, two singing nannies and me as the suffering father of the family between wet nappies and milk bottles.'

Letter to Hermann Wagener, having left Erfurt and enjoying summer on his estate lying in the sun, reading poetry, listening to music: 'A state that cannot, as a result of a salutary thunderstorm, tear itself free from a bureaucracy such as ours, is and remains doomed to extinction... The bureaucracy is cancerous from head to foot; only its belly is sound and the laws it excretes are the most straightforward shit in the world. With this bureaucracy including the judges on the bench we can have press laws written by angels and they cannot lift us from the swamp. With bad laws and good civil servants one can still govern, with bad civil servants the best laws cannot help.'

peace with Denmark over Schleswig-Holstein.

Bismarck on Radowitz. He is average other than 'an astonishing memory' and has figured out how to manipulate FW's weaknesses. As a private person he is 'a decent and unobjectionable human being, an excellent father of his family, but as a politician without an idea of his own, he lives from small expedients and fishes for popularity and applause driven by immense personal vanity'.

The Kassel Conference of the Zollverein. Prussian ideas re raising tariffs discussed at the conference were very unpopular in London. David: There was mutual incomprehension between London and Berlin, with Berlin pursuing primarily political aims. The conference was halted in November because of the row over Hesse-Kassel. Cf. 9/51.

To sister: 'The nearer it comes the more I see this as a ticket to the madhouse or to the Upper Chamber of parliament for life. I see myself with children on the platform at Genthin station, then in the compartment where both satisfy their needs ruthlessly and emit an evil stink, the surrounding society holding its nose. Johanna too embarrassed to give the baby the breast so he screams himself blue, the battle with the crowd, the inn, screaming children on Stettin station and in Angermünde 1 hour waiting for horses, packing up, and how do we get from Kröchlendorf to Külz? If we had to spend the night in Stettin, that would be terrible. I went through that last year with Marie and her screaming... I am, I feel, somebody to whom a dreadful injustice has been done. Next year I shall have to travel with three cradles, three nurses, nappies for three, bed clothes; I wake at 6 in the morning in a gentle rage and cannot sleep at night because I am haunted by all sorts of travel pictures, which my fantasy paints in the blackest hues, right to the picnics in the dune of Stolpmünde. And if there were only daily payments for this but instead it causes the ruin of a once flourishing fortune by travelling with infants — I am very unhappy.'

A stormy Crown Council confrontation between Radowitz and Manteuffel. By now Stockhausen (War Minister) also opposed Radowitz and even Foreign Minister Schleinitz (the 'servile' (Gerlach) supporter of Radowitz) had doubts. Manteuffel insisted Prussia make clear the Union is abandoned and with it the constitution. Radowitz answers that the only alternatives to a German federal state were 'the revolutionary unitary state or the old form of a confederation of states' which had been a failure. Barclay: after this 'furious debate', FW could not bear to break with his friend but the Union idea had 'sputtered out' and Radowitz knew it. Barclay (p210): in September-October, Leopold Gerlach withdrew to his estate at Rohrbeck, weary of the FW's distrust and temper, and attempted to resign over Radowitz.

(JS) Schwarzenberg declared the Erfurt Union plans incompatible with the Federal Act and called for an emergency meeting of the Confederation on 2 September in Frankfurt.

2 Sepptember Schwarzenberg forced through reconstitution of the Bund (without delegates from the union territories) at Frankfurt. He tried to increase its powers and expand QMV.

A crisis in Hesse-Kassel ('a small territory that straddled the network of Prussian military roads linking Rhineland and Westphalia with the East-Elbian core provinces' Clark). The reactionary Elector (a 'degenerate', Barclay) and his minister Hassenpflug tried to force through counter-revolutionary measures. Elements of the bureaucracy and army refused, the supreme court pronounced the Elector's decisions unconstitutional. (Gall: 'for the first and only time in a German state in the nineteenth century — the armed forces offered actual resistance to their sovereign'.)

On 17 September the Elector called on the Bund for a federal execution, i.e military intervention, to restore his authority, on the basis of the 1815 treaties and it being the job of the Bund to safeguard the monarchical principle. While the Elector looked to Vienna, the opposition looked to Berlin. Schwarzenberg saw an opportunity: 'the deployment of Confederal troops in Hesse-Kassel would force the Prussians to back away from their unionist plans and to accept the resurrected Confederal Diet, with its Austrian presidency, as the legitimate political organization of the German states' (Clark p496). The issue was vital for Prussia because roads connecting her east and west territories, vital to the army, ran though Hesse. Both Prussia and Austria claimed the right to send troops into Hesse-Kassel to quell trouble.

To Leopold Gerlach: 'My estates come to me so burdened by debt that once I quit my own four walls scarcely enough of my regular income remains for me to wear la cape et l'épée with decency.'

Bund decided to intervene for the Elector. Bund then was a 'rump' (Gall) dominated by Austria, with Prussia and others not sitting. Prussia strongly objected. Radowitz replaced Schleinitz as Foreign Minister, a clear signal FW would resist Schwarzenberg. (Tsar unhappy by the appointment, Wilhelm supported it.)

Schwarzenberg engaged Bavaria and Wurttemberg to take joint action, including military action, against Prussia. He also had support from Russia. Nicholas I had been furious with FW ('king of the pavements', he mocked) though he also pressured Vienna to negotiate, he did not want a war.

Bund ordered Bavarian and Hanoverian troops to invade Hesse-Kassel. Prussian troops were on the Hessian frontier poised to resist. (EF account seems confused)

Gall: only Radowitz was set on fighting if necessary, the King, Minister President and War Minister wanted a way out, Gerlachs opposed war with Austria (p75)

Barclay: Brandenburg had been sent to Warsaw to negotiate a deal with Schwarzenberg and the Tsar. He was dismayed to learn of Radowitz's language. When he returned from Warsaw on 31/10 it seemed Radowitz would be pushed out.

A cabinet meeting. Brandenburg, Manteuffel and Stockhausen opposed Radowitz. Two other ministers came out in opposition at a second meeting later that day. That evening news reached Berlin the federal execution had begun; Bavarian troops had entered Hesse.

Morning, a Crown Council at Bellevue Palace, Radowitz forced out. The majority of ministers announced opposition to full-scale mobilisation in response, and supported accepting conditions for talks set out by Schwarzenberg in Warsaw. FW, Wilhelm, and Radowitz opposed the majority. But FW said — I'm shattered by this situation, I disagree with the majority, but I'll accept it and ministers must take responsibility. Weeping he complained to Leopold about his 'un-Prussian, craven' ministers especially Manteuffel. A weeping Wilhelm cursed the ministers. Radowitz had already written his resignation. He was sent on a 'special mission' to London. The shock pushed FW to hysteria for weeks, constantly crying, furious, despairing, and talking of abdication again — he was 'theatrical and self-absorbed' particularly when most depressed (Barclay). Prokesch described him on 10/11 as 'broken to the depths of his being' (presumably this was passed back to Schwarzenberg).

EF: Bismarck wrote to Wagener that he had drunk champagne and ridden around his dining table on a chair in celebration of Radowitz's dismissal (this is often referred to in the context of Olmutz a few weeks later).

Barclay: Schwarzenberg did not relent, he now demanded Prussian troops evacuate military roads on Hessian territory. On 6/11, Prussia reversed and reluctantly agreed general mobilisation. (JS says 1/11, wrong.) Ill since his return from Warsaw, Brandenburg suddenly died (unmentioned in practically all books!). An exasperated Tsar said, 'In Berlin they have done Rauch to his death, they've driven Brandenburg to his death, they really won't rest until every imaginable person is driven to his death! How many people has the King used up already!' (!)

Otto von Manteuffel took over as Minister President and Foreign Minister on a temporary then from 4 December permanent basis. The new government demanded parity for Prussia in the control of the Confederation. But the government was divided and confused. Russia sided with Austria. Prussia backed down. (OP p27)

Bismarck simultaneously summoned to his regiment as an officer of the Landwehr and as deputy to the impending session of the chamber. On his way to his regiment via Berlin he spoke to the War Minister, von Stockhausen, 'a dashing old soldier'. He told Bismarck that they must avoid war for now and play for time as they did not have sufficient forces ready to stop the Austrians. Memoirs: It was not Stockhausen's fault but the King's and government's. 'Men were too much preoccupied with public opinion, speeches, newspapers and constitution-mongering to arrive at decided views and practical aims in the domain of foreign policy.' Stockhausen ordered Bismarck to stay in Berlin and try to organise his friends.

there was a skirmish between Prussian and Austrian forces near Fulda on Hessian territory. 'Germany hovered on the brink of civil war' (OP).

FW told Schwarzenberg's envoy, Baron Anton Prokesch von Osten: 'Austria is the first, Prussia is the second state in Germany.' We 'will come to an understanding within a short time over the question of the Confederation,' he added. (Quoted in Engel-Janosi, A Struggle for Austria in Berlin and Frankfort, 1849-1855, p. 45.)

Pflanze describes Bismarck's changing mood in this crisis and says we cannot now construct exactly what he thought as the crises evolved. He was pleased on hearing of Radowitz's dismissal (OP p71). Pflanze does not give precise dates for the below, but it seems this was after Prussian troops had moved into Hesse and before 19 November. Bismarck and Leopold Gerlach disagreed on the right course. Gerlach thought that the priority was avoiding war between the conservative monarchies. Bismarck said that Prussia could not tolerate 'too much Austrian impertinence... We cannot permit 100,000 Bavarians and Austrians to take up positions between our eastern and western provinces'. Gerlach said Austria was acting for the Confederation and in accordance with the law. Gerlach's daughter recorded Bismarck's shocking reply: 'He recognises no law in foreign affairs, only convenience. Friedrich II, 1740, is his example.' But 'three days later' (OP) Bismarck wrote to his wife in terms that were close to Gerlach — Radowtiz had sent troops into Hesse-Kassel in violation of international and confederate law', there was now almost agreement on a joint occupation, why would we lay waste to Europe over such a 'petty issue' that was really just 'a matter of military etiquette'. 'There is the greatest danger that for the sake of such bagatelles conservative armies, which love and respect each other, will slaughter one another and place the fate of Germany in the hands of foreigners.' France might try to grab the Rhineland. England would not help. The democrats of national revolution would be our only allies and the only winners. (OP doesn't give the dates for these different statements.)

(13/11 Gall) Bismarck published an article in Kreuzzeitung arguing for parity in the Confederation. If Prussia were refused, war would be justified.

FW opened the new session of parliament with a bellicose speech justifying mobilisation and denouncing the invasion of Hesse.

Schwarzenberg issued an ultimatum demanding complete Prussian withdrawal from Hessian territory within 48 hours. Manteuffel and the Austrian emissary Prokesch were 'desperate' (Barclay) for a settlement. Manteuffel wanted to meet Schwarzenberg, FW agreed and sent him to meet at the Bohemian city of Olmütz. At first Schwarzenberg didn't compromise but softened on the second day. (Barclay p208ff)

Olmütz agreement. Prussia demobilised, dropped the Radowitz plan and Erfurt Union, agreed to discuss a reconstituted German Confederation without a commitment of parity with Austria. The only face-saving was an announcement of conferences of ministers of the Bund to discuss reform ideas which occurred in spring. (7/1/51 Leopold Gerlach diary: Manteuffel thought 'we had no option but to choose between an alliance with the great powers of Europe or with the revolution; in that situation the choice was not in doubt'. LG described Bismarck as a waverer in the battle.)

Heller: Schwarzenberg had always thought that only Austria and Prussia together could defeat 'revolution' and create a solid conservative Mitteleuropa. But he supports Friedjung's view that his moderation at Olmütz allowed the opportunity to slip of a Habsburg-led Mitteleuropa. (Heller, Schwarzenberg, p. 119-20)

AJPT (The Habsburg Monarchy, p. 90): 'Schwarzenberg devised a new policy; his failure was in not conducting it with new weapons. A policy of adventure could not be based solely on the Habsburg army; it needed demagogy, the appeal to German nationalism. Ten years later Bismarck solved the problem which had baffled Schwarzenberg: with the assistance of German nationalism he gave Germany, and the Habsburg monarchy too, security against both Russia and France, and yet tied German liberalism to the service of the Prussian King. Schwarzenberg had Bismarck's daring and freedom from prejudice; he lacked Bismarck's master-weapon, the call to popular enthusiasm.'

Gall (p77): reasonable to argue that Prussia sort of lucked out — in a terrible situation the outcome stopped Schwarzenberg pushing his desired goal — but at the time the overriding impression was one of Prussia's abject humiliation.

(Gall has typo of September) Bismarck defends Olmütz publicly. He began by arguing against the idea of a war against Austria and Russia while France 'mobilises on our frontier, eager for conquest'.

What sort of war is being proposed? 'No expedition by individual regiments into Schleswig or Baden, no military parades through restless provinces, but a war on a grand scale against two of the three major continental powers, while the third, eager for booty, arms on our frontier and knows very well that Cologne Cathedral holds the treasure that would be just the thing to end the revolution in France and strengthen that country's ruler, namely the French Imperial Crown. A war, gentlemen, that will place us under the necessity of giving up some of the more remote Prussian provinces from the outset, in which large tracts of the country will be immediately overrun by hostile armies and in which our provinces will experience the horrors of war to the full.'

The liberals have no good justification for 'a long vista of battlefields', burning ruins, destitution and corpses. The Union constitution, changing ministers in minor states, loss of face for some politicians — are not good enough. Prussian honour does not require war.

However, 'I would not shrink from such a war, nevertheless; in fact, I would advise it, if someone could prove to me that it is necessary, or could show me a worthy goal ... that cannot be attained in any other way. Why do large states go to war nowadays? The only sound basis for a large state is its egoism and not romanticism; this is what distinguishes a large state from a small one. It is not worthy for a large state to fight for a thing that is not in its own interest. Just show me an objective worth a war, gentleman, and I will agree with you.' (OP p73: France had mobilised and put 40,000 on the Rhine frontier. Bismarck was referring to the romanticism of FW and Radowitz embracing the nation cause, not the Gerlachs' romanticism.)

Neither the German union nor the integrity of Hesse were such objectives, he argued. Prussian interest lay in 'avoiding every shameful alliance with democracy' and achieving parity with Austria. 'We do not wish to make conquests. I do not want to discuss here how much this fact is to be deplored, nor how willingly perhaps one might conduct a war simply because his king and commander says, “This country strikes my fancy and I want to have it.”... At the moment this question does not concern us.' We should await the outcome of discussions in Dresden before deciding to demobilise. (OP — he had apparently not been told that at Olmutz FW had already agreed to demobilise.)

The nation has risen to support the King. I came here hoping to find the same spirit. 'I have found nothing great here but personal ambition, nothing great but mistrust, nothing great but party rancour. These are three greatnesses that, in my opinion, stamp this age as petty, and afford the friend of his country a dismal glimpse into our future... It is easy for a statesman ... to use the people's wind to give a blast on the war trumpet while warming his feet at his fireside or delivering rousing speeches from this platform, and to leave it up to the musketeer bleeding in the snow whether or not his system wins the day and reaps the glory. There is nothing easier, but woe betide the statesman who in this age fails to seek a reason for war that remains valid after the war is over. Prussian honour does not consist in Prussia playing the Don Quixote all over Germany for the benefit of every disgruntled parliamentary celebrity who feels his local constitution is in jeopardy... I seek Prussia's honour in this: that Prussia should first and foremost hold itself aloof from every ignominious association with democracy, that in this present question, as in every question, Prussia should not permit anything to happen in Germany without Prussia's consent, that what Prussia and Austria, after joint independent consideration, regard as sensible and politically right should jointly be put into execution by the two equal protecting powers of Germany.'

He also warned the liberals 'you will never succeed in turning the Prussian army into a parliamentary army; it will always remain the army of the King and seek its honour in obedience.' And he warned conservatives that nobody should 'deceive themselves who believed they could start such a war under the banner of the Union and stop it too.' Such a war would soon see the Union mantle 'torn from their backs' and 'nothing left but the red lining of that most flimsy garment'. It would be 'a propaganda war' that would lead Prussia 'to ignominious ruin even in victory'. In his Memoirs he claimed that he was trying to delay any war 'until we were equipped' but could not say so clearly at the time. The negotiations in Q1 1851, though, were not used either to gain a greater result or a justifiable pretext for war, though it is unclear whether this weakness came from the King or Manteuffel. 20,000 copies of his speech were distributed by the conservative network.

Schwarzenberg memo on Olmütz. It's unclear when Bismarck saw it, he refers in his Memoirs to 'a crisis in my views which occurred in Frankfurt when Prince Schwarzenberg's dispatch of 7 December, 1850, until then unknown to me, first came under my eyes. In this he represents the results of Olmütz as if it had depended on him to “humiliate” Prussia or magnanimously to pardon her... [Notwithstanding Olmütz] I had come to Frankfurt well disposed towards Austria. The insight into Schwarzenberg's policy of avilir puis démolir [debase then demolish] which I there obtained by documentary evidence, dispelled my youthful illusions. The Gordian knot of German circumstance was not to be untied by the gentle methods of dual policy, it could only be cut by the sword: it came to this, that the King of Prussia, conscious or unconscious, and with him the Prussian army must be gained for the national cause, whether from the 'Borussian' point of view one regarded the hegemony of Prussia, or from the national point of view the unification of Germany, as the main object: both aims were co-extensive. So much was clear to me and I hinted at it when in the budget committee (30 September 1862) I made the much misrepresented deliverance concerning iron and blood.'

He elaborated — 'Never, not even at Frankfurt, did I doubt that the key to German politics was to be found in princes and dynasties, not in publicists, whether in parliament and the press, or on the barricades.' Opinion of the cultivated public might push the dynasties but also could provoke their resistance. Different states had different interests and many feared Prussian dominance. In the 1850s it became clear that there was no future in a dual entity, of a friendly partnership. Given 'the basis of the authority of the Bund', Prussia would not even be able to restore her position pre-1848.

'In order that German patriotism should be active and effective it needs as a rule to hang on the peg of dependence upon a dynasty... The German needs either attachment to a dynasty or the goad of anger hurrying him into action, the latter phenomenon however by its own nature is not permanent. It is as a Prussian, a Hanoverian, a Württemberger, a Bavarian or a Hessian, rather than as a German, that he is disposed to give unequivocal proof of patriotism and in the lower orders and the Parliamentary groups it will be long before it is otherwise... The German's love of Fatherland has need of a prince on whom it can can concentrate its attachment. Suppose that all the German dynasties were suddenly deposed: there would then be no likelihood that the German national sentiment would suffice to hold all Germans together from the point of view of international law amid the friction of European politics... The Germans would fall prey to more closely welded nations if they once lost the tie which resides in the princes' sense of community of rank... The other nations of Europe have need of no such go-between for their patriotism and national sentiment... The preponderance of dynastic attachment, and the use of a dynasty as the indispensable cement to hold together a definite portion of the nation calling itself by the name of the dynasty, is a specific peculiarity of the German Empire. The particular nationalities, which among us have shaped themselves on the bases of dynastic family and possession, include in most cases heterogeneous elements, whose cohesion rests neither on identity of stock nor on similarity of historical development, but exclusively on the fact of some acquisition by the dynasty whether by the right of the strong, or hereditary succession by affinity or compact of inheritance, or by some reversionary grant obtained from the imperial Court as the price of a vote.

'Whatever may be the origin of this factitious union of particularist elements, the result is that the individual German readily obeys the command of a dynasty to harry with fire and sword, and with his own hands to slaughter his German neighbours and kinsfolk as a result of quarrels unintelligible to himself. To examine whether this characteristic be capable of rational justification is not a problem of the German statesman, so long as it is strongly enough pronounced for him to reckon upon it. The difficulty of either abolishing or ignoring it, or making any advance in theory towards unity without regard to this practical limitation, has often proved fatal to the champions of unity, conspicuously so in the advantage taken of the favourable circumstances in the national movements of 1848-50... In the German national sentiment I see the preponderant force always elicited by the struggle with particularism, for particularism came into being only by resistance to the collective German community, to Emperor and Empire, in revolt from both, leaning first on papal, then French, in all cases on foreign support, all alike damaging and dangerous to the German community...

'The German people and its national life cannot be portioned out as private possessions of princely houses... That the dynasties have at all times been stronger than press and Parliament is established by the fact that in 1866 countries belonging to the Bund, whose dynasties lay within the sphere of Austrian influence, disregarded national policy and sided with Austria, those alone which lay under the Prussian guns throwing in their lot with Prussia.' (Memoirs, p319ff)

The Central Agency for Press Affairs was created to coordinate press policy in Prussia, used by Bismarck after 1862. It subsidised some journalists.