By 1890 Bismarck Had Achieved A Unified But Not UnitedGermany - How Far Do You Agree With This Statement
"By 1890 Bismarck Had Achieved A Unified But Not United Germany." - How Far Do You Agree With This Statement?
In January 1871, as the Franco-Prussian war neared its end, King William I of Prussia was announced as the Emperor of the Second Empire (or Reich), with Otto Von Bismarck as his Chancellor, in the Palace of Versailles. From this point Bismarck had led a once weak nation into achieving his acclaimed 'master plan': to become the most dominant power in Europe, this was then confirmed ten days later with the defeat of the French army; to united all German speaking nations, excluding Austria, where Prussia was the dominant power; and to obtain political and military victories over Austria. However, although this was undeniably achieved, were the peoples and leaders of the Second Reich united in aim and feeling?
The theory of unification was all very well, but each of the 25 states (now excluding Austria and Prussia annexations from the German Confederation) had its own traditions and ethos, so to unite the people in fact, as the nations had been, proved more complex than anticipated.
Although the aim of the liberals of 1849 had been achieved, they were displeased by the manner in which unification had been imposed from above, rather than through popular national movement. The German Empire also ensured Prussian dominance in the Reich, with both the Emperor and Chancellor being Prussian as well as Prussia having the large majority in both the Reichstag and the Budesrat, with 17 out of the 58 votes. As only 14 votes were necessary to veto any decisions, Prussia was always able to so if she wished, as well as her dominance (30% of the votes in the Budesrat) meaning in practice she was unlikely to ever be outvoted. This would naturally have displeased other unified states, thus showing that although the German Empire was unified geographically it was not united politically.
Although the Second Reich claimed to be a constitutional democracy, the above is clear evidence that it was not, as it does not allow individual smaller states, their rulers, or the people any opportunity to apply their so-called democracy. We can see from the way in which the state was run that the Reich Government was "a fig leaf covering the nakedness of absolutism" - Karl Leibknecht talking about the Reichstag - as the Emperor, always the King of Prussia, made the majority of decisions, commanded the army, controlled all foreign policy and had the authority to dissolve the Reichstag or dismiss the Chancellor. Yet with Bismarck as the Chancellor he was always very influential in any decision making due to his dominating and persuasive persona. Although on the surface the Bundesrat and Reichstag appear to have a certain amount of power in the acceptation or rejection of legislation, when put into practice Prussia always held the vote with her dominance. Thus this is further evidence of ways in which Prussia upset the people of the Empire.
Prior to unification Bismarck had always relied on the National Liberal Party for their support in the Reichstag, which they granted willingly, and being the largest single party in parliament this always gave Bismarck success. However, now he had firmly established his role as Chancellor, Bismarck's views on the party began to change. He saw them as increasingly inferior and knew the strength of his position would let him get away with such treatment, as now the Emperor had put Bismarck in charge of the civil service and all governmental ministers. The National Liberals continued to irritate Bismarck ...
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Prior to unification Bismarck had always relied on the National Liberal Party for their support in the Reichstag, which they granted willingly, and being the largest single party in parliament this always gave Bismarck success. However, now he had firmly established his role as Chancellor, Bismarck's views on the party began to change. He saw them as increasingly inferior and knew the strength of his position would let him get away with such treatment, as now the Emperor had put Bismarck in charge of the civil service and all governmental ministers. The National Liberals continued to irritate Bismarck after a quarrel over the military budget - a now very important aspect of the Empires life, due to its new found strength and authority following the defeats of both Austria in 1866 and France later in 1871 - and continued to push for, what Bismarck considered 'unreasonable', parliamentary rights.
Ever the opportunist Bismarck saw the chance to break ties with the party, and in turn strengthen his support from other parties. Part of his alliance with the National Liberal party had been on the policy of free trade; thus Bismarck bought in dramatic changes to the legislation. He answered the calls of the industrialists and landowners for tariffs to protect their home industries and produce, and in doing so gained their support as well as that of the Conservatives and Centre Party in the Reichstag, and, furthermore, establishing a fixed income and stable financial basis for the government.
After large electoral losses in 1877 such support for Bismarck from larger parties was able to easily overrule the protests of the diminishing Liberals. However, this does not show us evidence of a man trying to unite the people of the Empire in aim and feeling, but of one trying to eradicate those he saw as a nuisance to his cause. Having said this the demise of the National Liberals in the process of the tariff introductions allowed Bismarck to once more stress national interests to the population and strengthen the idea of a German identity throughout the Reich.
For Bismarck's part, he viewed the Catholics as the major cause of disunity in his Protestant, Prussianized government he had so carefully set up, and so saw them as a threat to the peace, and believed they were plotting Prussia's downfall. Catholic dominated countries surrounded the borders of the Empire and even the south German states still associated with the Austrians, a Catholic country, rather than the Prussians. This fact alone is yet another sign of already instituted disloyalty within the Union, meaning that it would take a lot to unite such a diversity of people in national objective and attitude. This led Bismarck to believe that to attack the Catholics would weaken, and hopefully destroy, one of the main causes of hostility in the Empire. Nevertheless, the states involved in the North German Confederation had been largely Protestant, leaving the Catholics as a minority culture.
The policy he launched became known as the 'Kulturkampf', translated as 'struggle for culture', and represented the struggle for power between the protestant Bismarck and the Roman Catholic Church. Yet this threat was only bought to light by the success of the Catholic Centre Party in the 1871. Although relatively a minor success as, Bismarck still saw them as a threat to what he saw as a united Empire, as he believed they would encourage civil disobedience when state policies conflicted with the views of the Pope. He was aided in his plans by an unexpected division among the Catholics themselves.
Bismarck thought that by repressing the Catholics, he would remove this potentially dangerous body capable of international conspiracy, his biggest worry being their influence over the education system and that they could easily use this to manipulate children into their beliefs. However, Bismarck underestimated the loyalty and religious consciousness of those who worshipped in the Catholic Church. Instead of crumbling under the new anti-catholic legislation, the 1873 Falk Laws, the church thrived on persecution and the ever-growing support for the Centre Party. Besides being evidence of an un-united Empire, this shows two key facts, first, that their were elements of the German society willing to resist Bismarck and his policies, and second, that Germany had not lost its political consciousness shown by the increase in the number of seats obtained by the Centre Party.
Bismarck made a similar mistake in his dealings with the socialists. Bismarck was able to pass his anti-socialist legislation in 1878, in the after-math of what he claimed to be a socialist assassination attempt on Kaiser William. This legislation was particularly aimed at the Social Democratic party, another element of his opposition in the Reichstag, and as with the Catholic population was introduced to prevent them gaining too much say in the control of the state. The persecution of the socialists commenced, but instead of having the desired effect of reducing socialist influence in Germany, the party simply became a more effective, well-organised 'underground' party, operating from outside Germany. Bismarck's policy had not only failed to reduce socialist influence in Germany, but it had also delayed the integration of a large proportion of the working classes into the new system of government.
Bismarck made a key realisation early on during his time in office that allowed him to manipulate the politically conscious elements of society. Bismarck realised that Liberalism and Nationalism could be separated and used one against the other. In this way Bismarck manipulated the National Liberals. He used the Nationalist tendencies within the party to win their favour by unifying Germany, and consequently gaining their support whilst repressing their Liberal ideas. By splitting these two key ideologies, Bismarck also cleverly split the opposition. This was key to Bismarck's eventual almost supreme power. Despite the opposition in the Reichstag, Bismarck reduced and divided the revolutionary elements within society and this aided his chances of pushing his policies through the Reichstag.
Despite this series of persecution, Bismarck also introduced social legislation: the first of this kind and scale. His welfare program was a great pioneering effort, and also extremely forward-looking as it pre-dated other developed countries such as Britain by nearly a quarter of a century. However, his welfare reforms were not the result of a concern for the poorer elements of society, but more intent on suppressing the revolutionary elements. He did not really succeed in appeasing the revolutionary elements of society, nor did he change their political ideas, but he did succeed in preventing them from gathering support. Bismarck's idea of 'State socialism' in 1883 was that if he made the people content with the state, the way in which the country was governed, they would not revolt and overthrow the conservative government that gave the country prosperity and gave its people concessions. As Bismarck himself said: "Whoever has a pension fro his old age, he is much more content and easier to handle than the person who has no prospects."
Furthermore, Bismarck also built on the economic prosperity of Prussia. He kept the standards of living in Prussia exceptionally high, and the economic prosperity and standard of living contented the potentially explosive elements of middle-class Germany. In this way Bismarck removed the threat of the revolution predicted by Karl Marx.
In conclusion to this, although the people of the German Empire were not all united in aim as Bismarck had hoped, this was always an unlikely dream as even in modern society there are different political parties representing the different views the nation holds. It could even be said that his obsessive views of nationalism leading to the persecution of what he saw as minority groups set a basis for the extreme views and beliefs seen in Germany prior to the Second World War. Having said this, Bismarck did more in terms of state welfare for the nation than any other country had even began to anticipate, although perhaps not for the right reasons, this fact cannot be overruled. Therefore, despite not achieving unity within the united states making up the German Empire, or achieving his objective in the discrimination of such groups as the Socialists, Bismarck lay down the founding feelings of nationalism for future generations as well as leading the way in welfare reform for other countries to follow.
Bibliography
* The Unification of Germany 1815-90 - Andrina Stiles
* www.msn.co.uk/learning/encarta
* The Hutchinson History Library - PC CD-ROM
