Blood and Iron Part 12

Then and there the Biblical phrases of democrat-mongering kings, under the Holy Alliance, ceased in the high courts of Russia and Prussia.

Metternich got hold of Fr: Wilhelm, also the other political tools of the Frankfort Diet, and at Carlsbad decrees were issued sounding the doom of Liberalism and the return to power of the old-line kings.

By gag-law and intimidation Metternich rushed the decrees through the Diet;--and for a generation "Carlsbad" signified the suppression of Democratic sentiments throughout Germany.

-- Metternich fought free speech, free parliaments and a free press.

His iron laws were aimed to stifle democratic mutterings. Austrian spies were everywhere, searching out revolutionary societies.

-- The hope that Prussia might be the leader in the new German spirit of nationality now vanished. William III definitely withdrew his promise of a written Const.i.tution, made in 1813, and reiterated in 1815.

Persecutions continued north and south; Prussia hounded Jahn for five long years, this Jahn whose gymnastic societies had been so helpful in hardening young men to Prussian army services; and the poet Arndt, whose impa.s.sioned verse intensified the National spirit of Germany, was shamefully treated, his papers scattered and the man driven from his university.

-- For many a long year the gloomy spirit of "Carlsbad" decrees hung over Germany.

-- However, the Germans have an intensely practical side as well as a dreamy poetical side. It is not surprising, therefore, that the earliest steps in the direction of German unity (1818) came through Prussian customs house reforms under the patriot, Maa.s.sen.

-- There had been, as we explained heretofore, no freedom of trade throughout Germany; each of the petty thirty-nine states was surrounded by Chinese walls; for example, to send goods from Hamburg to Vienna, the s.h.i.+pper had to pay ten separate tolls.

-- Under the old Prussian system there were in vogue at one and the same time no less than sixty-seven conflicting tariff systems. All this tax oppression meant a harvest for smugglers. But Maa.s.sen, at a stroke, established a common tariff in Prussia; made the tax so low that smuggling became unprofitable. The other states protested vehemently at first, but one by one entered this new customs union.

-- And we may understand now certain sarcastic remarks sometimes made about Germany by her historical enemies: "Paper, cheese, sauerkraut, ham, and matches, served to unite German hearts more than political ties!"

-- This slur is ill-deserved; at best, it simply means that the advantages of the "Zollverein" were economic as well as political; and, in later years, the necessity for a common system of doing business played a deservedly important part in helping along Bismarck's plans.

-- The customs league, called the "Zollverein," is generally held to be the very beginning of practical unity for Germany.

-- On the poetical side of German character, earliest appeals for the Fatherland--one and united!--were expressed down through the years; long indeed before actual political union was possible, Germany's bards, in their impa.s.sioned, semi-religious songs awakened in German hearts the spirit of intense longing for the common Fatherland, based on blood-brotherhood and language.

-- One of the famous types of this patriot-poet was Arndt, son of an emanc.i.p.ated slave. Arndt was a n.o.ble democrat; his history of slavery in Pomerania inspired Adolphus to abolish that evil, 1806; the Prussian aristocrats held Arndt a life-long grudge.

"Spirit of the Times," his patriotic trumpet-call aroused Prussians to fight France. Napoleon tracked the lyric poet out; Arndt fled to Sweden; but continued to write for the cause. He returned to Germany, 1809.

-- "Was ist des Deutschen Vaterland?" remains one of the great semi-religious songs of nations. Arndt asks what comprises the Fatherland? Surely not Prussia, not Swabia, nor this nor that, but all side by side comprise the German brotherhood of race and language.

Where is the German Fatherland?

Is't Swabia? Is't Prussia's land?

Is't where the grape glows on the Rhine, Where sea-gulls skim the Baltic's brine?

Oh, no! more great, more grand Must be the German Fatherland!

-- Here is a spirited verse from "The G.o.d That Lets the Iron Grow":

The G.o.d who made earth's iron h.o.a.rd Scorned to create a slave Hence, unto man the spear and sword In his right hand he gave!

Hence him with courage he imbued Lent wrath to Freedom's voice-- That death or victory in the feud Might be his only choice!

-- "Der Gott, der Eisen wachsen liess," "Was blasen die Trompeten,"

were on all patriotic lips; at this, William III, mightily offended, had Arndt arrested and sent him into retirement for twenty years.

-- The old man lived to become a great National hero. He died January 29, 1860, aged 91. It is pleasant to record that on his ninetieth birthday Germany united in good wishes for their national poet of the dark hours.

The people built him a monument at the place of his birth, Schoritz, and another at Bonn, where for many years he had been professor of history.

21

It is not time, O William, to go to church but to go to war; yet you and your son keep on reading your Gothic Bible.

-- Now comes the year 1840; William III goes to the tomb of his ancestors, and is succeeded by Fr: William IV, with whom began anew the long battle between the principle of Divine-right of kings and political democracy exercised by the ma.s.ses. William IV, intensely addicted to Divine-right theories of government, was in the course of a turbulent reign forced to face great political agitators. However, the King had behind his throne, always, that conservative cla.s.s (found in every country) that clings tenaciously to the past and dreads the future. The watchword of all William's enemies was "Liberty!" The cry, visionary as it was, served as a rallying point for those who favored some form of French const.i.tutionalism; and while, as a whole, the so-called friends of Liberty were very impracticable, had no definite plan for relief, we find among the political agitators foremost in their discontent many of the brightest minds in Germany, college graduates, professional men, the clergy, and solid middle cla.s.s merchants. All were zealous for immediate political reforms.

-- Consider the position of our Fr: William IV. He was a peculiar man, to begin with--and an irresolute man, to end with. He was not built for times of war. Yet he had to face cannon!

Early in life, in impressionable years, through a court blunder, young William had had a tutor, Delbrueck, who poisoned his charge's mind against the Prussian military and bureaucratic system.

The att.i.tude of Delbrueck was certainly heresy as vile as though your own child's nurse should bring your boy up to fear and despise his own father. Surely, you would not like that?

-- Delbrueck was quickly given the sack; and it was well that he got off without a broken head!

He was succeeded by a preacher, Ancillon, of renown in church affairs.

This Ancillon started young William off on another track; antiques, church history, Bible study, architecture, the brotherhood of man, and the fatherhood of G.o.d.

-- Then William studied art under Rausen, and under Sc.h.i.n.kel; and also the future king became absorbed in landscape gardening and in architecture.

-- William was presumed to be "liberal" in his views, that is to say, he was, in a sense, supposed to be a "democrat."

-- Of course, the Radicals at this hour knew nothing of Bismarck, who was to be the power behind the throne. They saw instead only a weak king; and history tells over and over again, down through time, what becomes of weak kings when the people are throwing up barricades in the streets and are tossing up their caps and crying "Liberty!"

-- Under his royal nose the Liberals kept sticking his father's pledge of the glorious year, 1813. How about that long-promised Const.i.tution, your Majesty? Thousands of deluded Prussians now believed that they could accurately define the peculiar word "Liberty!" It looked as though the people were bent on casting out a king. As yet there were in Prussia no organized party lines; the general situation was summed up in the growing hopes that the common people placed in French const.i.tutionalism--wherever that might lead.

-- At any rate, the old regime must go.

22

Bad business, this promising a written Const.i.tution--The deluge breaks.

-- The Prussian n.o.bility, always bound to the King by feelings of ardent loyalty, formed a military caste; the peasantry was industrious, thrifty and hard-working; the State officials were devoted to a spirit of discipline at once thorough and pedantic; the Prussian school-system was first in square-headed masters, who ruled with rods of iron. Thus, the Prussian National ideal was based on Discipline military in its severity, self-sacrifice and energy.

"Throughout Prussia was a spirit of affirmation, expressive of the vigorous National egotism. As time pa.s.sed, the machine men of olden Prussia were gradually replaced by free-willed, self-conscious citizens taking an enlightened interest in their country; the old-time tutelage headed by the monarchs underwent a transformation; and the trend was toward enlightened self-government; but many years were to pa.s.s before this ideal was reached."

-- William did indeed cherish, in a way, an idea of German Unity, and in this respect he was a democrat or a radical, whatever you wish to term him. Here, we must make one fact plain. It will make you smile at William's simplicity, will show you how utterly he was out of touch with the tendencies of the times; how good-natured he was; how honest he was. He believed that German Unity, if ever it came, should historically be an extension of the old Holy Roman Empire, through the ill.u.s.trious House of Hapsburg!

Which is equivalent to saying that your own family should advance by humbling itself before your own greatest rival; that you should bow to your political enemy and submit to being effaced, to heighten your rival's glory.