1858

Landtag, worried about the crash of previous autumn, approved a three-month suspension of restrictions on interest rates. Cf February 1859.

Orsini, an Italian republican, and a gang tried to assassinate Napoleon. As he rode with his wife in a carriage to the theatre, a gang threw bombs, killed bystanders, he was lucky to survive. The terrorists had lived in London and the bombs made in Britain. The French government asked for assurances that Britain would take steps not to allow a repeat.

Palmerston circulated a note: across Europe we are suspected of harbouring terrorists and revolutionaries to cause havoc everywhere, while we hide behind constitutional arguments to the effect that we cannot stop such plotters operating here; while some of the argument is nonsense, it's widely believed and partly fair. He proposed that the government was to have the right for the next five years to expel by order of the Secretary of State any foreigner suspected of plotting against a foreign power or its ruler, the expulsion subject to secret Parliamentary scrutiny. France will be asked to 'leave off' sending disruptive elements in French society to Britain and should be encouraged to send them to the United States instead, 'the only difference being that the longer passage would be a little more expensive'.

Cabinet was mainly opposed to his measures. With previous Alien Acts the object had been protection of the UK government, never foreign governments. A compromise was suggested to Parliament. Palmerston tried to get agreement with Derby on a Conspiracy to Murder Bill, introduced on 8/2. In the meantime, French newspaper reports suggesting hostility to Britain wound up MPs and the government was criticised for its handling of the affair. It lost a vote in February. Palmerston wrote that after winning a vote by 145, many MPs left London for the weekend and he'd been ambushed! (Brown p411) (Evans: one of Orsini's accomplices was sent to Devil's Island from which he escaped and ended up in General Custer's 7th Cavalry where he somehow managed to survive the massacre at Little Big Horn!)

The Prussian Crown Prince married Princess Victoria in London.

The Crown Princess arrived in Berlin. Bismarck soon convinced that she was hostile to him. Memoirs: after the 1866 war the two sat next to each other and she said 'in a half-jesting tone' that he was ambitious to be a King or 'at least president of a republic'.

The War Ministry presented ideas for army reform to Wilhelm. Gordon Craig (GC): Neither Wilhelm nor liberals were looking for a conflict over the army at the start of his reign. Wilhelm had first asked for ideas in October 1857 before he was Regent.

Palmerston introduced the India Bill to abolish the 'double government' of the East India Company and the Governor General. By now, Palmerston was engulfed in many problems: response to France, India, radicals opposing him viz domestic Reform and a clampdown on revolutionaries in London, he'd enraged people by promoting Clanricarde, rumoured to be at the suggestion of his wife. (When Lord Lansdowne heard of the appointment he asked Palmerston 'if he was out of his mind'. Disraeli to Lady Londonderry: 'The appointment has greatly injured the Government - but I hear that everything was tried and everybody sounded before it was decided on.... When all failed, Lady Palmerston rallied, and made a successful charge, and carried her protégé. There is nothing like female friendship - the only thing worth having.')

After losing the vote on the Conspiracy to Murder Bill the previous night, the Cabinet did not want to fight on as a government and Parliament went to the Queen and resigned, Derby took over as PM, Disraeli as Chancellor (this government fell June 1859). (Cobden and Bright, Gladstone, Russell, all were somewhat hostile to Palmerston but he kept control of the Liberals.) In spring, Parliament considering an India Bill, Palmerston and other liberals opposed, but Russell and others wary that defeating Derby might bring Palmerston back. A lot of clandestine factionalism and personality-driven politicking.

Bismarck's 100 page 'Booklet': Austria will manoeuvre Berlin into having to choose between violation of the Bund constitution or surrender of Prussian independence. Prussia will have to choose the former and Austria will force a war. (OP: it's 'highly unlikely' Bismarck actually believed this.) What should Prussia do? Mobilise the middle states, economic interests and nationalism to counter Austria. Prussia's 'needs and course of development' are 'homogenous with those of the rest of the German population'. Instead of Bund legislation, Prussia could give Germans what they wanted — viz commercial rules, customs, railways etc — on the model of the Zollverein. 'There is nothing more German than the development of Prussia's particularist interests as properly understood'. He was thinking about some sort of Parliament to go with the renewal of the Zollverein in 1865. (Cf. similar idea to Auerswald, 11/60.)

OP (p135): In May 1857 he had written that Prussia had to improve her position via European and German combinations. Now he argued for looking inside Germany. This was a new argument for Bismarck who in the 1850s had consistently opposed (and often mocked) those who appealed to the 'German' interest. By now he had conceived 'a revolutionary plan for Prussian expansion, the execution of which would one day startle Germany' (OP) — the exploitation of the moral and material power of nationalism. His core aim was the same — the furtherance of Prussia's, and the Prussian monarchy's, interests. Neither Gall nor Pflanze think this got much serious reading from Wilhelm, any more than the Prachtbereit memo of 1856. When he talked to Wilhelm about these ideas in the summer he got nowhere and the new government chose a different path from October.

He argued that while opinions may differ as to whether a close alliance with Austria is desirable, there could be no doubt that Prussia could not rely on feelings of gratitude or feelings of any kind. 'Her interests constrain her [Austria] to fight against and detract from Prussia's prestige and influence in Germany to the best of her ability, but in case of war or any of the multifarious dangers by which Austria is surrounded becoming imminent, she desires to be able to count upon the fullest support on the part of Prussia's armed forces. In this twin necessity lies Prussia's only possibility of coming to a clear and satisfactory arrangement with the southern German Great Power; she must give Vienna plainly to understand that her support, at a moment of peril to the Empire, will be languid and even doubtful, unless Austria shall observe greater moderation in her German policy, and make terms with Prussia'. Prussia must face that she is being 'tricked and fooled in every direction' by Austria and emancipate relations from 'the conventional formula of disingenuous expressions of good will and reestablish them upon the firm basis of respective interests'. Prussia should greatly limit her cooperation in the Bund to nothing more than the barest minimum and make clear there would be no customs union with Austria. Other German states will become easier to deal with 'when they shall have recognised that Prussia is resolved to bear, in every respect, with the inconveniences of an isolated position, rather than allow them to dictate laws to her for the regulation of her own behaviour and interests.'

OP (p150): In a 1858 letter to Below-Hohendorf, he first discussed the possibility that Prussia may be forced to dissolve the Zollverein in 1865 when it was due for renewal. It would, he argued, then be necessary 'to adopt one of the features of the project of 1849 by establishing a kind of customs parliament with provision for itio in partes, if the others demand it'. ('itio in partes', going into parts, was a reference to a procedure in the Holy Roman Empire.) It would give to German taxpayers an institution to counteract the particularism of the lesser states. Economic interests could be rallied behind Prussia's interests. Further, 'Parliament and the press could become the most powerful aids for our foreign policy.'

Lord Aberdeen-Guizot: There's been a very rapid change in public opinion, 'the Emperor has become universally unpopular' and people look at France with alarm.

Derby in Lords: 'My Lords, in politics, as in everything else, the same course must be pursued - constant progress, improving upon the old system, adapting our institutions to the altered purpose they are intended to serve, and by judicious changes meeting the demands of society.'

to Manteuffel: 'My period of office here, nearly seven years of it, has ... been one continuous struggle against encroachments of all kinds, against the incessant attempts that have been made to exploit the Confederation as an instrument for the exaltation of Austria and the diminution of Prussia.'

Disraeli presented his budget. He didn't have much room for manoeuvre. But after this he had to prepare his next budget and although he didn't give it, the issue is important. In 1858 ironclad ships suddenly presented a huge challenge to all navies. Suddenly Britain's dominance since Trafalgar was potentially disrupted. Warrior, Britain's first ironclad, was launched in 1860 but the decision to build it was 1858. These calculations affected Disraeli's budget. Later in the year in November, Disraeli argued that the navy and some officials were exaggerating the money needed. Derby would always listen to reason but told Disraeli that economy could not come 'at the sacrifice of great national objects'. He wanted to use a loan and treat the old wooden navy as if it had been wiped out — if your mansion were destroyed by a fire, you would not try to pay for the whole lot out of current income but would charge the capital sum by way of a loan against the estate. Blake: Disraeli's approach to the question was blinkered and wrong.

(JS) Wilhelm asked Roon for a plan for army reform.

Napoleon secretly met with Cavour at Plombières to plot the unification of Italy. They agreed on how to provoke Austria while keeping Britain and Russia out. In return for helping Piedmont, Napoleon would get Nice and Savoy.

Loftus-Malmesbury, memo on British commercial policy. The Zollverein is industrialising fast. Railways are spreading. There will be growing competition for trade in the East. Davis: British free trade changed tone after the Crimean War. The first real expression was initiatives re sea and river dues and the issue of transit.

(JS: 18/7) Roon delivered a plan for the reform of the Landwehr and an extension of military service from two to three years.

OP (p166): Under the reforms of 1814-15 Prussian citizens had to serve three years in the regular army then two in the reserve and 14 years in the militia (Landwehr). Scharnhorst intended to develop the idea of a citizen's army motivated by patriotism to replace the mercenary army of the 18th century. The concept of the army as a civilian force became as crucial to the liberals as the concept of the Rechtstaat and constitutionalism. The size of the army had not kept pace with the growing population because of the restricted military budget. Only half the eligible youths were drafted. The usual term of service in the line had come to be two years; increased to three in 1856, reduced to 2.5 in practice. The reserve and Landwehr received only a few weeks training. Instead of being an extension of the regular army, the Landwehr had become almost a separate organisation and most of its officers had only 1 year of military training. Gall: the middle classes found it increasingly burdensome and it was ever harder to find suitable candidates as Landwehr officers.

Wilhelm wanted to change the system. He thought that three years training for infantry and four years for other branches were necessary. He wanted to raise the number of draftees, lengthen service, and increase service in the reserve. This would double the size of the army. And he wanted to change the Landwehr, the sorry sight of which he had disliked watching on military parades. He wanted it separated from the regular army and relegated to the rear. Roon and Wilhelm disliked the Landwehr for precisely the reasons the liberals liked it. Roon described the Landwehr as a 'politically false institution'. Roon hated the idea that part of the army was 'civilians in uniform' therefore the King had to consider public opinion when considering the use of the army. (FWIV had said, 'I know that my army is the condition for the existence of my throat.') They did not (unlike some absolutists of previous decades) want to drop universal conscription — they wanted to extend the period of it to make it more effective in imbuing conscripts with the right ideas. The plan would require an increase in taxes of ~25%. When these ideas became known, the middle classes rightly feared the Junkers were trying to strengthen their own position.

It was not primarily a military-technical issue. In April 1862 a board of 15 generals appointed by Wilhelm, including Moltke, agreed that 2.5 years was enough. Under Wilhelm II, it was changed back to two years.

GC: Roon's later claim that he was motivated just by technical issues, not politics, is incompatible with his memo but he probably was mainly driven by military issues (p140). Bonin, the War Minister, thought Roon's plan was politically explosive but did not fight directly, he procrastinated and tried to persuade Wilhelm not to listen. Bonin's delays 'irritated Wilhelm profoundly'. After the Italian War, Bonin's enemies were strengthened, particularly Edwin von Manteuffel — chief of the military cabinet (1857-65), cousin of the minister-president — who also fought Bonin's insistence on the war ministry's involvement in military affairs per the Constitution.

Manteuffel was 'the most interesting and the most controversial' (GC) of 19th Century political generals in Germany. He was 'an incurable romantic', 'a gifted military administrator, a diplomatist of more than ordinary competence, and a field commander who was to prove himself' in 1866 and 1870. He was held back by 'the distrust caused by his intense personal vanity and his burning ambition.' Even admirers were amused/repelled by his attempts to model himself on Epaminondas and Hannibal. Bismarck, often irritated by him, once referred to him as 'a fanatical corporal'. He thought granting a constitution had been a catastrophe. He generally agreed with Roon about ends and he helped persuade Wilhelm to make Moltke chief of the General Staff with wide powers. As chief of the military cabinet, he had a 'curiously dual position' (GC) — he was both head of the Division of Personnel in the War Ministry and chief of the bureau which handled Wilhelm's military correspondence. This gave him a lot of scope to keep information from the War Minister and therefore Parliament. He also tried, with incomplete success, to remove all matters of personnel from the Ministry's jurisdiction. (p224). See 9/1859.

Memoirs: An attempt was made to get the Queen to get the King's signature to a letter taking back control of government, with government then under control of the Queen and 'gentlemen of the Court'. Bismarck refused to participate saying it would be 'government by harem'. Bismarck told Wilhelm about it and advised him to summon Manteuffel who 'was at his own estate awaiting the result of the plan, with which he was acquainted.'

First Atlantic cable from Newfoundland to Ireland, a joint effort by the USS Niagara and HMS Agamemnon. In New York, hundreds of thousands of people celebrated. 'Glory to God in the highest, on earth peace, goodwill towards men' read the first electric message between London and New York. It didn't last long and new cables were laid in 1865-6.

The Congress of German Economists founded to argue for free trade and free enterprise. Local chambers of commerce started discussing common problems in 1858 and in 1860 formed the Prussian Commercial Association (Handelstag). Hamerow (p340): the Congress was more important than the Nationalverein or other similar pressure groups. It mobilised the true intellectual and business elite. It generally supported political liberalism and small German unification (though it claimed impartiality viz Prussia v Austria). Cf. 13 May 1861.

Wilhelm became regent. He had supported Radowitz's plan, but opposed Olmütz. He had shared his brother's enthusiasm for the ill-fated Erfurt Union. 'Whoever wants to govern Germany must conquer it first. Whether the time for this unification has come, God alone knows; but that Prussia is destined to stand at the summit of Germany is an underlying fact of our history. But when and how? That is the question,' he had written in May 1849. In the 1850s he wanted the Zollverein and legislation — moral, not military, conquests — to lead Prussian policy. He deplored the military state of Germany and was determined on military reforms. He supported Prussia's right of parity in the Bund. He wanted the Bund's forces in wartime to have two commands, Prussian and Austrian.

He dismissed the unpopular Interior Minister, Westphalen.

He swore an oath to uphold the constitution against the advice of FW and hardliners.

Palmerston, who had been forced out partly because of perception he was too pro-French, visited Napoleon, criticised by British press.

Throughout November a committee of the UK Cabinet held repeated meetings to draft a Reform Bill for the next session. Tortuous discussions. Presented in February.

Wilhelm dismissed Otto Manteuffel, announced a new ministry and 'New Era' with more liberal-inclined ministers (JS: Manteuffel resigned 'to give the Regent a free hand', others say dismissed). Prince Karl Anton of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen replaced Manteuffel as Minister President, von Schleinitz became Foreign Minister, Bonin became war Minister. Bethmann Hollweg became culture minister. Von Auerswald became minister without portfolio. Pourtalès (Bethmann's son-in-law) went to Paris in January, Goltz to Constantinople, Usedom to Frankfurt. The new circle drew heavily from the Wochenblattpartei (which the talented, but hated by Bismarck, Goltz belonged to). The new ministers were liberal conservatives who opposed a reactionary approach and wanted to keep the constitution. Many saw Britain as a model for domestic development. Gall: they wanted reform in the British direction, alliance with the right of liberalism, a small Germany led by Prussia without Austria. (Bismarck told Wilhelm the new cabinet did not contain 'a single individual of statesmanlike calibre'!)

OP: The new Cabinet decided on rapprochement with Austria and Britain, and even Gerlach approved because of fears of France, so it was natural for them to move Bismarck from Frankfurt.

Speech from Throne announcing a new program. 'Prussia must make moral conquests in Germany by wise legislation at home, by accentuating every ethical element and by seizing upon unifying factors such as the Customs Union, though this will need to be reformed. The world must know that Prussia is everywhere prepared to protect the law. A firm, consistent and if necessary resolute conduct of policy, coupled with wisdom and circumspection, must earn Prussia the political respect and give it the position of power that it is not able to achieve by its material might alone.' Gall: People largely overlooked those passages that reflected the views of Wilhelm. 'Above all I would warn against the empty cliché that the government must let itself be pushed farther and farther in the direction of developing liberal ideas because otherwise these will force their own way through... If all its actions bespeak truth, lawfulness and consistency, then a government is strong because it has a clear conscience and that gives one the right robustly to withstand all evil.' Bismarck noticed these qualifications and hoped they were reliable signals.

EF: He was toying with shifting career to Parliament. To sister Malle: 'After 30 years it matters nothing to me whether I play the diplomat or the Landjunker and up to now the prospect of a brisk, honest fight, without official handcuffs ... has had as much attraction for me as a continued regime of truffles, telegrams and grand crosses.'

Landtag elections: KL: turnout was much higher than the 1/6 of 1855. The conservatives declined from 181 to 47 (per Gall - some say 57); liberals led by von Vincke grew from 48 to 151. But the liberals were moderate and were not pushing a radical agenda, they wanted cooperation with the new regime. 'The radical tradition was nearly extinct' and 'for the first time in Prussian constitutional history, monarch, cabinet, chamber, and people appeared united' (OP). The only opposition was from the tougher conservatives. But even before the election Wilhelm was suspicious — 'What have I done to merit praise from that crowd?' Gerlach and Wagener both lost their seats. Ludwig Gerlach wrote in his diary some time after this, 'A look at my desolate life. The blossoms have all vanished, how many of them without fruit! No Frederick William IV anymore, ... no party. All prospects are gloomy in the state and even more so in the church.'

Hamerow (p374) Conservatives declined from 236 to 57; liberals grew from 57 to 210. Feuchtwanger: conservatives declined from 'about 200 to 60'; liberals grew from '60 to about 210'.

(JS) At Roon's first audience with Wilhelm to discuss his possible appointment as Minister for War, he urged him to appoint Bismarck as Minister President. (Surely it cannot have been a month between Wilhelm dismissing Manteuffel and talking to Roon?)

OP: Bismarck conceived his plan to exploit German nationalism over 1858/9. Conditions seemed ripe. Wilhelm wanted to reconcile the Crown with subjects. There was enthusiasm for the 'new era'. The Nationalverein seemed willing to act as a bridge between the monarchy and nation. But the new era was an illusion. Wilhelm's main three advisers were Alvensleben, Edwin von Manteuffel, and Roon. Liberal ministers never had control. (Pflanze Vol 1.p.164 ff.)

Memoirs. Bismarck says Wilhelm had not been well prepared for the role but took his duties very seriously and read all the papers, studied, sacrificed other pleasures to focus on his job. His only recreation was a box at the theatre and even there Bismarck would bring him papers and discuss affairs. He was never cross even when woken in the middle of the night. (Steinberg writes that a legacy of Frederick the Great was that Prussian kings thought they had to do their homework diligently.) He had good common sense but stuck too much to 'princely, military and local traditions'. Wilhelm was not vain and 'no one would have dared to flatter him to his face.' But Augusta - whatever I wanted to do, she pushed for the opposite the whole time. 'I found no work more disagreeable and difficult than the provision of the necessary supply of phrases for speeches from the throne and similar utterances.' 'He was one of those figures, princely alike in soul and body, whose qualities belong more to the heart than the understanding.' (2p303ff)

In his Memoirs (1p41) he wrote: 'I was obliged to recognise in Queen Augusta an opponent who put both my ability to do what I considered my duty and my nerve to the severest test they ever experienced' and mentioned three particular episodes — the four years of constitutional conflict, the Austrian War, and the Kulturkampf. She would set out at the breakfast table certain things for Wilhelm to read, often at Schleinitz's bidding. If Bismarck remarked on this to Wilhelm, he refused to listen. The Queen's behaviour also drove Alvensleben mad — her behaviour would sometimes 'put him at times into a state of excitement to which he gave vent in words that I do not want to repeat, but that expressed all the indignation of a patriotic soldier over ladies playing at politics in language that very nearly came within the penal statutes.'