1851

Bismarck delivered a speech opposing greater financial power for parliament on the grounds it would make foreign policy impossible. Unlike in Britain with its clear choice of two parties and iron discipline among the majority party controlled by a leader from the Cabinet, Prussia had 5 or 6 parties creating 'a very complicated diagonal of forces'. But his 1853 note to Wilhelm showed this argument was bogus and he opposed parliamentary involvement in foreign policy in any circumstances.

By the end of March at the latest (Gall), it was clear that the Dresden conferences agreed to at Olmütz would simply re-establish the status quo ante, i.e the 1815 constitution for the Bund. Austria would not grant dual leadership, Prussia would not allow the rest of the Austrian Empire to join the Bund.

Spring 1851 German Confederation restored. Showalter: the major states of the Bund established an association of political police forces which met regularly from 1851 to share information on dissidents. Many irreconcilables emigrated to America.

Friedjung: after the Dresden conference, Schwarzenberg said, 'I am no admirer of the existing federal constitution. We have made a serious effort to create something real and practical but if nothing comes of it, things must remain as they are, for a torn, threadbare coat is, at any rate, better than no coat at all. In my humble opinion, the Diet is a cumbersome, outworn instrument, totally unadapted to present circumstances. I think indeed that at the first shock, from within or without, the shaky structure will collapse altogether.'

Leopold Gerlach persuaded FW to appoint Bismarck as Prussian envoy to the Confederation.

Schwarzenberg to Manteuffel: 'We had hoped for better things and have honestly striven for them. I confess that the malicious and inept allusions of the press which see in the restoration of the old Confederation a triumph of Austrian reactionary policy anger and nauseate me.' (Heller, p. 143)

Landtag closed for Easter holidays.

He described Olmutz and the prevention of war as 'very fortunate'. OP: luckily for Bismarck, FW was angered by the article but never learned that Bismarck was author.

(JS) Bismarck's friend von Kleist told him that Manteuffel had told him (vK) that Bismarck would be made envoy to the Bund. (Kleist gave him Psalm 149 and years later he would be struck by how apposite it had been. Steinberg, p.108ff)

He wrote to his wife telling her he had accepted the job: 'I cannot refuse to accept, although I foresee that it will be a fruitless and thorny office. In spite of my best efforts I shall lose the good opinion of many people. But it would be cowardice to decline.' In May (Gall) he wrote to her: 'I am God's soldier and I must go where He sends me, and I believe that He is sending me and that He is cutting out my life as he needs it.' Two days later: 'God helps me along with Him I am more equal to the task than most of our politicians who, but for Him, might be in Frankfurt in my place. I shall perform my office, it is up to God whether He gives me the wit to do so.'

Great Exhibition. Queen Victoria: 'the greatest day in our history, the most beautiful and imposing and touching spectacle ever seen'. A few months earlier she'd written in her diary 'We are capable of doing anything.' Hardy wrote that 1851, the year of the Great Exhibition, marked 'an extraordinary chronological frontier ... a precipice in time.'

The Duke of Devonshire's gardener designed Crystal Palace. 6m visited. Prizes for most ingenious mechanical inventions. Workers got discount tickets. One of the attractions was the flush toilet — 'spend a penny' on a visit, shoe-shine, a towel and comb. Spread of sewers and fresh water as Europe urbanised was one of the great social changes of 1850-1914. Bazelgette built sewers in London from 1858.

(Gall). The three kings met, in principle sorted out issues viz Danish King and S-H, in principle agreed on the Russo-Danish candidate, Prince Christian von Glücksburg. Gall: the SH war had restarted after the 8/48 armistice. Bismarck sought to keep the Bund out of the affair. He also persuaded Augustenburg not to pursue his claims in return for cash. Cf. 4/52.

(EF) He spoke to FW about the Frankfurt job. Gall: there was a two-month transition in which the St Petersburg envoy, von Rochow, would formally head the legation and show him the ropes. FW praised his courage in taking the position. Bismarck (Memoirs): 'The courage is entirely Your Majesty's in entrusting such a position to me...' He was also appointed a Privy Councillor, 'an irony with which God is punishing me for all my abusive remarks about privy councillors' (to Johanna). 2 days later (i.e 10th) he went to Frankfurt. When Prince Wilhelm found out he said, 'And this Landwehrleutenant [junior Landwehr officer] is to become our envoy to the Diet?'

(JS 10/5) Went to Frankfurt (a 25 hour journey then). After his first week (others have different dates for these letters) he wrote, 'Nobody, not the most malignant doubter of a democrat, can believe the amount of charlatanism and self-importance there is in this diplomatic game... Those from the small states are caricatures of pig-tailed diplomacy, who immediately put on their 'official report' face when I ask them for a light for my cigar.' The same day he wrote to Hermann Wagener that he had 'little hope for a favourable results' from the Diet.

To Joanna: 'Read as much French as you can but not by candle light and not if your eyes hurt... I did not marry you in order to have a society wife for others, but in order to love you in God and according to the requirements of my own heart,to have a place in this alien world no barren wind can cool, a place warmed by my own fireplace, to which I can draw near while it storms and freezes outside. And I want to tend my own fire and lay on wood, blow the flames, and protect it and shelter it against all that is evil and foreign.' He thought he would have 21,000 Reichsthaler as salary but a large household to support with it. (p114 JS) JS: this income (~£3,100) was roughly that of Wilfred Thorne in Barchester Towers, published 1857.

To Johanna: 'Frankfurt is horribly boring ... In essence nothing but spying on each other as if we had something worth finding out and worth revealing. Life here is almost entirely pure trivialities with which people torture themselves. I am making astonishing progress in the art of using lots of words to say nothing. I fill pages with nice round script which reads like leading articles in the papers and, if Manteuffel, after he has read them, can say what's in them, then he knows a lot more than I do.'

In his Memoirs, he recalls that he arrived 'well disposed to Austria' but that insight into Schwarzenberg's approach 'dispelled my youthful illusions'. OP: he later 'exaggerated the change that occurred in his attitude at Frankfurt in order to heighten his case against Austria as the sole source of the friction that rent the confederation. More accurate is what he wrote to Otto Manteuffel at the end of his first month: 'When I came here, my expectations of results from the Diet's deliberations were not high but since then they have decreased.'

He took strongly against his counterpart, Count von Thun and got thoroughly under his skin. He described to Leopold Gerlach his Austrian opponent, Thun (22/6 JS): 'He is a mixture of rough-hewn bluntness, which can easily pass for honest openness, aristocratic nonchalance and slavic peasant cunning. He always has “no instructions” and on account of ignorance of the business he seems to be dependent on his staff and entourage... Insincerity is the most striking feature of his character in his relationship to us ... There isn't a single man among the diplomats of any intellectual significance. Most of them are self-important pedants filled with little business who take their letters patent and certificate of plenipotentiary powers to bed with them and with whom one cannot have a conversation...' (Thun wrote of him (21/9/51): 'In all fundamental issues, which concern the conservative principle, Herr von Bismarck is perfectly correct and will cause damage more by his overly great zeal than by hesitation or indecision. On the other hand, he seems to me, as far as I can judge, to belong exclusively to that party which has its eye only on Prussian interests and places no great confidence in what the Bundestag can accomplish in that cause. Having never previously been in the diplomatic service or even held public office, he has no proper knowledge of affairs and argues all matters purely in accordance with his previous parliamentary experience.')

Stories became part of the later legend of how in every detail Bismarck thwarted and challenged Austria. Previously, only the Austrian delegate smoked and removed his coat; now, Bismarck lit up in shirtsleeves. He pushed the personal and political needling to the point where he and Thun came close to a duel.

Schwarzenberg was trying to break the Zollverein and create a new customs arrangement for Germany. Bismarck fought tooth and nail. He thought from the start in Frankfurt that a) the Bund was fundamentally a problem for Prussia, b) Prussia should seek to use the Zollverein and similar treaties to make the Bund obsolete and strengthen Prussia's position in Germany. OP: these calculations recurred in his calculations until 1870. The smaller states now generally sided with Austria as they had seen Prussia flirt with the national idea and they thought they had more to fear from Prussia than Austria. The southern states had a dilemma: politically they wanted closer economic ties with Austria to counter Prussia, but commercial interests warned that secession from the Zollverein would be a disaster. Bismarck tried to break up Austria's alliances and sow divisions. 'Fear and fear alone, that is the only thing which has any effect in the palaces from Munich to Bückeburg.' (From 1853 he sent many of his dispatches first to Gerlach, still the most influential person on the king, who returned them to Bismarck who then submitted them formally to Manteuffel. Do we know when this started?)

'Alliances between large states are of value only when they express the actual interests of both parties... In the middle of Europe it is impossible to wait passively upon the march of events or to try to stay removed from them... If we do not prepare for ourselves the role of the hammer, there will be nothing left but that of the anvil.' Later 1851? (OP p77)

Bismarck-Gerlach: Prussia 'should make some noise' about commercial issues. 'I would consider it very useful if we concerned ourselves in good time with questions of German material welfare. The side which seizes the initiative in this matter, whether it be the federal diet, the Zollverein, or Prussia alone, will have a great advantage in winning the sympathies of those affected, for these matters quae numero et ponder dicunter [number and weights] are more important to the majority of Germans than to you and me. Although I don't value uniformity in weights, measures, bills of exchange and other gimcracks of that sort very highly and regard them as difficult to put into effect, we must still show goodwill and make some noise about it, but more through Prussia than the confederate diet... [T]he consolidation of the sound north German elements with the bond of material interests, even if it should be purchased with the loss of the south German members of the Zollverein, ... would enable us to regard with greater equanimity the development of the policy of the Bund.' He set up various front organisations and mobilised the press to help Prussia in this area at Austria's expense. He spoke of moderate liberals as a useful force to be temporarily mobilised behind Prussian foreign policy; 'at home we have no use to them, but in the small states they are the only elements that want anything to do with us' (11/53). OP (p127ff): He knew that there was potential in reaching over the heads of German rulers to mobilise their publics behind material questions and nationalism, to undermine relations between those rulers and Vienna.

(EF) He wrote about talking to old Amschel Mayer Rothschild, eldest of five sons of the original Rothschild: 'entirely the old haggling Jew and does not want to pretend anything else... a poor man in his palace, childless, widowed, deceived by his own men and badly treated by his frenchified and anglicised nephews and nieces, who will inherit his treasures, without gratitude or love'.

Leopold diary: 'He [FW] takes the credit for everything that turns out all right; things which go bad he blames on his servants.'

To Joanna: 'I cannot understand how a reflective person who knows or wants to know nothing of God can bear his life for contempt and boredom, a life that passes away like a stream, like a sleep, or like a blade of grass that soon withers; we spend our years like a piece of idle gossip. I don't know how I used to stand it; if I lived now as I did then, without God, without you, without the children, I really would not know why I should not cast aside this life like a dirty shirt.'

(JS) Letter to friend von Kleist after weeks of separation from his wife: 'The chief weapon with which evil assaults me is not the desire for external glory but a brutal sensuality that leads me so close to the greatest sins that I doubt at times that I will gain access to God's mercy. At any rate I am certain that the seed of God's word has not found fertile ground in a heart laid waste as it was from youth. Otherwise I could not be so much the plaything of temptation, which even invades my moments of prayer... I am often in hopeless anxiety over the fruitlessness of my prayer. Comfort me, Hans, but burn this without speaking of it to anyone.' Some time over the summer he wrote to his wife about sitting lonely in a window and hearing 'one of your beloved Beethoven pieces' played by an unknown neighbour, 'for me it sounded more beautiful than any concert'.

(JS) His temporary appointment was officially made permanent though he also suffered a pay cut.

(EF) Prussia negotiated for Hanover, Electoral Hesse and some other smaller states to join the Zollverein (cf. February 1853 renewal). Gall: Bismarck made clear to Manteuffel that Prussia ought to support coming to power in Hanover 'only such a ministry as would be prepared to fall in with our policy as embodied in the treaty of 7 September, whatever its political colour'. (There was a power struggle in Hanover with the more conservative faction also the more pro-Austrian.) Davis: It was negotiated in secret to avoid Austrian interference. It was very significant. It seemingly committed the Zollverein to liberalisation and was a great political coup for Prussia: it extended the Zollverein to the North Sea coast thus securing the commercial future of Prussia with or without the southern states. It was generally seen as a sign that Britain was working with Prussia against Austrian plans. The deal was seen as good in London but it was not organised by London. Other Zollverein members were told they had to accept it if they wanted the Zollverein renewed in 1853.

In November Schwarzenberg published a new Austrian tariff as the basis for a new Austrian-led commercial union. Other states were invited to Vienna to discuss in January 1852. Only Prussia did not attend but Schwarzenberg died before discussions ended (see below). In 1852 the FO and Board of Trade thought that the extension of the Zollverein was generally a liberalising force and welcomed it but declined to push publicly for fear of political blowback. The passivity of London's policy 1851-3 was often criticised by British representatives on the ground.

A tugboat pulled HMS Blazer down the Thames — it would lay the first trans-Channel cable. The Times: 'This conquest gained by science over the waves must ever remain recorded as amid the greatest of human achievements since record has existed of the mighty feats accomplished by man.'

To Manteuffel: 'A conservative opposition can only be conducted with and through the king ... not through the public prints, but through personal influence at court; anything else has no basis with us or must become radical...'

(Gall) He moved house, out of town to a modest house in the Bockenheimer Landstrasse, yards from the legation chancellery. A year later he moved back into town, in May 1858 the legation and his home moved again.

Bismarck reported a conversation with Thun to Manteuffel. Thun argued that a) Vienna wanted closer links to the Zollverein and could not tolerate being excluded, b) the Confederation should have a greater role in customs and tariff policy. He was sorry to see Bismarck trying to reduce the Bund to 'a police and military institution', and mouthed 'grossdeutsch fantasies'. 'A predominant Austrian influence in Germany was in the nature of things, he said, provided that Austria devoted itself to Germany without self-seeking'.

Bismarck reported: 'He spoke like Posa [the grandiloquent marquis in Schiller's Don Carlos] and exhibited Greater German zealotry. To complete his train of thought I pointed out that the existence of Prussia and further of the Reformation constituted a regrettable fact but one we were both powerless to alter; we must reckon with facts, not with ideals... [A] Prussia that, as he put it, “renounced the legacy of Frederick the Great” in order to be able to dedicate itself to its true destiny as Lord High Chamberlain to the Emperor did not exist in Europe, and before I sent home a recommendation for such a policy the issue would have to be decided by the sword.' Thun likened Prussia to a gambler 'who, having once won the hundred-thousand-taler jackpot [i.e Frederick the Great's triumph], now bases his budget on a yearly repetition of that event.' (Gall: this was a view widely shared in Europe.) Bismarck replied that 'if these views were as clear in Vienna as they were with him, I must say that I foresaw Prussia's having to rely on the aforesaid lottery once again; whether it won or not was in the hands of God.' The conversation had been conducted 'in a rather jocular tone' but it had fortified him in the conviction that 'Austria must experience the importance of our alliance or our aversion, before it will understand the value of it or act on that understanding'. Gall: In the 1880s, when the Germany-Austria spheres of influence and new alliance were clear, Bismarck had the documents of his Frankfurt period published almost in entirety. He wanted to show that he had been consistent in his goals, despite the necessary twisting and turning forced by circumstance - and he had been.

Palmerston-brother: 'I do not see any rock ahead which is likely to wreck the government.' He thought Derby, plagued by gout, preferred to deal with his estates than politics. Weeks later he was gone.

He wrote to Leopold Gerlach that there is 'nothing to be done' with the Confederation: 'The only way of achieving anything in Germany is through associations within the Confederation, the Customs Union, the military convention, and so on'. Cf. 1/5/53.

(Anniversary of Austerlitz) Napoleon's coup against the Second Republic. He dissolved the National Assembly, proclaimed martial law, arrested leading republicans, made himself President for life. Over previous months he had said: 'the name of Napoleon is in itself a programme. At home it means order, authority, religion and the welfare of the people; and abroad it means national self-respect.' In Der 18te Brumaire des Louis Napoleon (written 1851-2), Marx said of the coup: 'Hegel remarks somewhere that all great world-historic facts and personages appear, so to speak, twice. He forgot to add: the first time as tragedy, the second time as farce.'

Napoleon's determination to overthrow the existing European order was an obvious threat to Austria and opened up new squares on the European chessboard for Bismarck, including the potential to intimidate Austria and south Germany by threats of a French alliance. AJPT: 'If indeed there was a decline in international morality, the origins of this are to be found in Napoleon and his associates ['gangsters'], not Bismarck. He only applied the maxim a corsaire, corsaire et demi.' Palmerston wrote to his brother-in-law that it was 'probably true' that the Assembly would have arrested Napoleon if he hadn't dissolved them and 'it seemed to me to be better for France & for the tranquility of Europe that the President prevail over the Assembly than the Assembly over the President because the success of the Assembly who had no good candidate to offer for the government of France would probably lead to civil war.' He therefore signalled approval when he met the French Ambassador on 3/12. His colleagues opposed. On 13/12 news of Palmerston's move leaked. Cabinet patience snapped. The Queen demanded an explanation from Russell. Meanwhile another row had grown. In December Kossuth, who had led the recent nationalist uprising in Hungary, came to Britain on a speaking tour. Palmerston met him officially. Colleagues objected. Palmertson replied, 'It is not as chief enemy of Austria that Kossuth has hitherto been looked upon, nor is it in that capacity that he is about to be received by the British nation. He has been regarded as a man who among others has stood up for the rights of his country.' Russell tried to forbid the meeting. Palmerston threatened to resign. Russell backed down. On 17/12, after the Cabinet row over Napoleon, Russell finally asked for Palmerston's resignation after complaints 'too frequent & too well-founded... [M]is-understandings perpetually renewed, violations of prudence & decorum too frequently repeated have marred the effects which ought to have followed from a sound policy and able administration'. Palmerston resigned. But Russell and the Cabinet then stressed that they were not changing policy. Across Europe people struggled to understand why he had gone. He'd been criticised for being too liberal but was he pushed out for supporting Napoleon's coup?

Thereafter Schwarzenberg, who had an acrimonious feud with Palmerston, followed a more moderate policy in dealing with Britain. Granville briefly took over from Palmerston. He thought that 'considering the great natural advantages of our foreign commerce, one of the first duties of a British government must always be to obtain for our foreign trade that security which is essential to its progress' but that HMG representatives abroad should push liberal institutions and reduction of tariffs only when the locals asked for advice. Davis: by now, the FO, Board of Trade and chambers of commerce all agreed on the matter of non-interference on trade, and that action should be only reactive and non-political. Trade was considered as separate from foreign policy in the minds of almost all key players. 31 December The Austrian Ambassador to France reported that Schwarzenberg had said, 'The days of principles are gone.' 31 December (Evans) Schwarzenberg cancelled virtually all concessions and constitutions.