Part 14

In the federal council Prussian policy nearly always prevails, for though Prussia has only seventeen votes out of fifty-eight, the smaller states of the North nearly always support her; practically she controls the vote of Waldeck and since 1885 those of Brunswick. A definite defeat of Prussia on an important question of policy must bring about a serious crisis; it is generally avoided because, as the meetings are secret, an arrangement or compromise can be made. Bismarck, knowing that nothing would more impede the consolidation of the empire than an outbreak of local patriotism, always so jealous of its rights, generally used his influence to avoid constitutional disputes, and discouraged the discussion of questions which would require an authoritative interpretation of the constitution. It was, however, opposition in the Bundesrat which obliged him to abandon his scheme for imperial railways, and when, in 1877, it was necessary to determine the seat of the new supreme court of justice, the proposal of the government that Berlin should be chosen was out-voted by thirty to twenty-eight in favour of Leipzig. On this occasion Bismarck accepted the decision, but when important interests were at stake he showed himself as ready to crush opposition as in the older days, as in the case of Hamburg and Bremen.

The great personal qualities of the reigning emperors and the widely extended family connexions of the house of Hohenzollern have enabled them to hold with ease their position as leaders among the ruling families. So far as is known, with one or two unimportant exceptions, the other princes loyally accepted their new position. It is only as regards the house of Brunswick that the older dynastic questions still have some political importance.

Hanover.

The other princes who were dispossessed in 1866 have all been reconciled to Prussia. The elector of Hesse and the duke of Nassau have formally relinquished their claims. In 1883 the daughter of the duke of Augustenburg, the former claimant to the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, married the heir to the Prussian throne, who became William II. On the other hand, the royal family of Hanover has never ceased to protest against the acts by which they were deprived of their dominions. King George to the end of his days, whether in Austria or in France, still regarded himself as in a state of war with Prussia. As he had used his large personal property to organize a regiment in order to regain his possessions, the Prussian government had sequestrated that part of his income, amounting to some L50,000, over which they had control, and used it as secret service money chiefly for controlling the press; to this fund the name "Welfen-Fond" was commonly given. After 1870 the Hanoverian regiment was disbanded, but the sequestration continued. The death of the old king in 1878 made no difference, for his son in a letter to the king of Prussia announced that he assumed and maintained all his father's rights, and that he did not recognize the legal validity of the acts by which he was, as a matter of fact, prevented from enjoying them. His protest was supported by a considerable number of his former subjects, who formed a party in the Reichstag. The marriage of the duke of Cumberland (the title by which the king called himself till he could come into his possessions) with Princess Thyra of Denmark in the same year was made the occasion of a great demonstration, at which a deputation of the Hanoverian nobility assured the duke of their continued attachment to his house.

After Bismarck's retirement the emperor attempted to bring about a reconciliation with the duke and the Hanoverians. His attention had been drawn to the bad moral effect of the use to which the Welfen-Fond was applied, and on the duke of Cumberland writing him a letter, in which, while maintaining his claims to the throne of Hanover, he recognized the empire and undertook not to support any enterprise against the empire or Prussia, with the consent of the Prussian parliament the sequestration of his property was removed. The attitude of passive resistance is, however, still maintained, and has affected the position of the duchy of Brunswick.

Duchy of Brunswick.

Waldeck.

In 1884 William, duke of Brunswick, died after a reign of fifty-four years. The younger son of the duke who fell at Quatre Bras, he had been called to the throne in 1831 to take the place of his elder brother Charles, who had been deposed. Duke Charles had died at Geneva in 1873, and as both brothers were childless the succession went to the duke of Cumberland as head of the younger branch of the house of Brunswick-Luneburg. Duke William before his death had arranged that the government should be carried on by a council of regency so long as the heir was prevented from actually assuming the government; at the end of a year a regent was to be chosen from among the non-reigning German princes. He hoped in this way to save his duchy, the last remnant of the dominions of his house, from being annexed by Prussia. As soon as he died the town was occupied by the Prussian troops already stationed therein; the duke of Cumberland published a patent proclaiming his succession; the council of state, however, declared, in agreement with the Bundesrat, that the relations in which he stood to the kingdom of Prussia were inconsistent with the alliances on which the empire was based, and that therefore he could not assume the government. The claim of the duke of Cambridge as the only male heir of full age was referred to the Bundesrat, but the duke refused to bring it before that body, and after a year the Brunswick government elected as regent Prince Albert of Hohenzollern, to hold office so long as the true heir was prevented from entering on his rights. On the death of Prince Albert in September 1906, the Brunswick diet petitioned the Bundesrat to allow the youngest son of the duke of Cumberland to succeed to the duchy on renouncing his personal claims to the crown of Hanover. This was refused, and on the 28th of May 1907 Duke John Albert of Mecklenburg-Schwerin was elected regent by the diet. Under the regency of Prince Albert, Brunswick, which had hitherto steadily opposed all attempts to assimilate and subordinate its institutions to those of Prussia, though it retained formal independence, was brought into very close dependence upon Prussia, as is the case with all the other northern states. In them the armies are incorporated in the Prussian army; the railways are generally merged in the Prussian system; indirect taxation, post office, and nearly the whole of the judicial arrangements are imperial. None, however, has yet imitated the prince of Waldeck, who in 1867, at the wish of his own subjects, transferred the administration of his principality to Prussia. The local estates still meet, and the principality still forms a separate administrative district, but it is managed by a director appointed by Prussia. The chief reason for this act was that the state could not meet the obligations laid upon it under the new system, and the responsibility for any deficit now rests with Prussia.

Lippe.

A curious difficulty, a relic of an older state of society, arose in the principality of Lippe, in consequence of the extinction of the elder ruling line and a dispute as to the succession (see LIPPE). Some political importance attached to the case, for it was not impossible that similar difficulties might occur elsewhere, and the open support given by the emperor to the prince of Schaumburg-Lippe, who had married his sister, caused apprehension of Prussian aggression.

The Mecklenburg constitution.

A much more serious question of principle arose from the peculiar circumstances of Mecklenburg. The grand-duchies, which, though divided between two lines of the ducal house, had a common constitution, were the only state in Germany in which the parliament still took the form of a meeting of the estates--the nobility and the cities--and had not been altered by a written constitution. Repeated attempts of the grand-dukes to bring about a reform were stopped by the opposition of the Ritterschaft. Buffing, one of the Mecklenburg representatives in the Reichstag, therefore proposed to add to the imperial constitution a clause that in every state of the confederation there should be a parliamentary assembly. This was supported by all the Liberal party and carried repeatedly; of course it was rejected by the Bundesrat, for it would have established the principle that the constitution of each state could be revised by the imperial authorities, which would have completely destroyed their independence. It is noticeable that in 1894 when this motion was introduced it was lost; a striking instance of the decay of Liberalism.

Public affairs: political parties.

The public political history of Germany naturally centres around the debates in the Reichstag, and also those in the Prussian parliament. In the Prussian parliament are discussed questions of education, local government, religion and direct taxation, and though of course it is only concerned with Prussian affairs, Prussia is so large a part of Germany that its decisions have a national importance. A very large number of the members of the Reichstag and of the Prussian parliament sit in both, and the parties in the two are nearly identical. In fact, the political parties in the Reichstag are generally directly descended from the older Prussian parties.

Conservatives.

The first place belongs to the Conservatives, who for twenty years had been the support of the Prussian government. The party of the feudal aristocracy in North Germany, they were strongest in the agricultural districts east of the Elbe; predominantly Prussian in origin and in feeling, they had great influence at court and in the army, and desired to maintain the influence of the orthodox Lutheran Church. To them Bismarck had originally belonged, but the estrangement begun in 1866 constantly increased for the next ten years. A considerable number of the party had, however, seceded in 1867 and formed a new union, to which was given the name of the _Deutsche Reichspartei_ (in the Prussian House they were called the _Frei Conservativen_). These did not include any prominent parliamentary leaders, but many of the most important ministers and officials, including Moltke and some of the great nobles. They were essentially a government party, and took no part in the attacks on Bismarck, which came from the more extreme Conservatives, the party of the _Kreuzzeitung_.

National Liberals.

The events of 1866 had brought about a similar division among the Progressives. A large section, including the most important leaders, determined to support Bismarck in his national policy and to subordinate to this, though not to surrender, the struggle after constitutional development. Under the name of _National-Liberal-Partei_ they became in numbers as in ability the strongest party both in Prussia and the empire. Essentially a German, not a Prussian, party, they were joined by the Nationalists from the annexed provinces of Hanover and Hesse; in 1871 they were greatly strengthened by the addition of the National representatives from the southern states; out of fourteen representatives from Baden twelve belonged to them, seventeen out of eighteen Wurttemberger, and a large majority of the Bavarians. It was on their support that Bismarck depended in building up the institutions of the empire. The remainder of the Progressives, the _Fortschrittspartei_, maintained their protest against the military and monarchical elements in the state; they voted against the constitution in 1867 on the ground that it did not provide sufficient guarantees for popular liberty, and in 1871 against the treaty with Bavaria because it left too much independence to that state. Their influence was strongest in Berlin, and in the towns of East Prussia; they have always remained characteristically Prussian.

These great parties were spread over the whole of Germany, and represented the great divisions of political thought. To them must be added others which were more local, as the _Volkspartei_ or People's party in Wurttemberg, which kept alive the extreme democratic principles of 1848, but was opposed to Socialism. They had been opposed to Prussian supremacy, and in 1870 for the time completely lost their influence, though they were to regain it in later years.

The Centre.

Of great importance was the new party of the Centre. Till the year 1863 there had been a small party of Catholics in the Prussian parliament who received the name of the _Centrum_, from the part of the chamber in which they sat. They had diminished during the years of conflict and disappeared in 1866. In December 1870 it was determined to found a new party which, while not avowedly Catholic, practically consisted entirely of Catholics. The programme required the support of a Christian-Conservative tendency; it was to defend positive and historical law against Liberalism, and the rights of the individual states against the central power. They were especially to maintain the Christian character of the schools. Fifty-four members of the Prussian parliament at once joined the new party, and in the elections for the Reichstag in 1871 they won sixty seats. Their strength lay in Westphalia and on the Rhine, in Bavaria and the Polish provinces of Prussia. The close connexion with the Poles, the principle of federalism which they maintained, the support given to them by the Bavarian "patriots," their protest against the "revolution from above" as represented equally by the annexation of Hanover and the abolition of the papal temporal power, threw them into strong opposition to the prevailing opinion, an opposition which received its expression when Hermann von Mallincrodt (1821-1874), the most respected of their parliamentary leaders, declared that "justice was not present at the birth of the empire." For this reason they were generally spoken of by the Nationalist parties as _Reichsfeindlich_.

This term may be more properly applied to those who still refuse to recognize the legality of the acts by which the empire was founded. Of these the most important were the so-called Guelphs (_Welfen_), described by themselves as the _Hannoverische Rechtspartei_, member of the old Hanoverian nobility who represented the rural districts of Hanover and still regarded the deposed King George V. and, after his death, the duke of Cumberland as their lawful sovereign. In the elections of 1898 they still returned nine members to the Reichstag, but in those of 1903 their representation had sunk to six, and in 1907 it had practically disappeared. A similar shrinkage has been displayed in the case of the protesting Alsace-Lorrainers, who returned only two deputies in 1907. A pleasant concession to Hanoverian feeling was made in 1899, when the emperor ordered that the Hanoverian regiments in the Prussian army should be allowed to assume the names and so continue the traditions of the Hanoverian army which was disbanded in 1866.

Poles.

The government has also not succeeded in reconciling to the empire the alien races which have been incorporated in the kingdom of Prussia. From the Polish districts of West Prussia, Posen and Silesia a number of representatives have continued to be sent to Berlin to protest against their incorporation in the empire. Bismarck, influenced by the older Prussian traditions, always adopted towards them an attitude of uncompromising opposition. The growth of the Polish population has caused much anxiety; supported by the Roman Catholic Church, the Polish language has advanced, especially in Silesia, and this is only part of the general tendency, so marked throughout central Europe, for the Slavs to gain ground upon the Teutons. The Prussian government has attempted to prevent this by special legislation and severe administrative measures. Thus in 1885 and 1886 large numbers of Austrian and Russian Poles who had settled in these provinces were expelled. Windthorst thereupon raised the question in the Reichstag, but the Prussian government refused to take any notice of the interpolation on the ground that there was no right in the constitution for the imperial authority to take cognizance of acts of the Prussian government. In the Prussian parliament Bismarck introduced a law taking out of the hands of the local authorities the whole administration of the schools and giving them to the central authority, so as to prevent instruction being given in Polish. A further law authorized the Prussian government to spend L5,000,000 in purchasing estates from Polish families and settling German colonists on the land. The commission, which was appointed for the purpose, during the next ten years bought land to the amount of about 200,000 acres and on it settled more than 2000 German peasants. This policy has not, however, produced the intended effect; for the Poles founded a society to protect their own interests, and have often managed to profit by the artificial value given to their property. It has merely caused great bitterness among the Polish peasants, and the effect on the population is also counteracted by the fact that the large proprietors in purely German districts continue to import Polish labourers to work on their estates.

In the general change of policy that followed after the retirement of Bismarck an attempt was made by the emperor to conciliate the Poles. Concessions were made to them in the matter of schools, and in 1891 a Pole, Florian von Stablewski (1841-1906), who had taken a prominent part in the Kulturkampf, was accepted by the Prussian government as archbishop of Posen-Gnesen. A moderate party arose among the Poles which accepted their position as Prussian subjects, gave up all hopes of an immediate restoration of Polish independence, and limited their demands to that free exercise of the religion and language of their country which was enjoyed by the Poles in Austria. They supported government bills in the Reichstag, and won the commendation of the emperor. Unfortunately, for reasons which are not apparent, the Prussian government did not continue a course of conciliation; in 1901 administrative edicts still further limited the use of the Polish language; even religious instruction was to be given in German, and an old royal ordinance of 1817 was made the pretext for forbidding private instruction in Polish.

All these efforts have been in vain. The children in the schools became the martyrs of Polish nationality. Religious instruction continued to be given to them in German, and when they refused to answer questions which they did not understand, they were kept in and flogged. In 1906, as a protest, the school children to the number of 100,000 struck throughout Prussian Poland; and, as a result of a pastoral issued by the archbishop, Polish parents withdrew their children from religious instruction in the schools. The government responded by fining and imprisoning the parents. The efforts of the government were not confined to the forcible Germanization of the children. Polish newspapers were confiscated and their editors imprisoned, fines were imposed for holding Polish meetings, and peasants were forbidden to build houses on their own land. The country gentlemen could not have a garden party without the presence of a commissary of police.

The climax, however, was reached in 1907 when Prince Bulow, on the 26th of November, introduced into the Prussian parliament a bill to arm the German Colonization Committee in Posen with powers of compulsory expropriation. He pointed out that though the commission had acquired 815,000 acres of land and settled upon it some 100,000 German colonists, nearly 250,000 acres more had passed from German into Polish hands. He proposed, therefore, to set aside a credit of L17,500,000 for this purpose. On the 26th of February 1908 the discussion on this bill was continued, Count Arnim defending it on the ground that "conciliation had failed and other measures must now be tried!" The Poles were aiming at raising their standard of civilization and learning and thus gradually expelling the Germans, and this, together with the rapid growth of the Polish population, constituted a grave danger. These arguments were reinforced by an appeal of Prince Bulow to the traditions of Bismarck, and in spite of a strenuous and weighty opposition, the bill with certain modifications passed by 143 votes to 111 in the Upper House, and was accepted by the Lower House on the 13th of March. A bill forbidding the use of any language but German at public meetings, except by special permission of the police, had been laid before the Reichstag in 1907 by Prince Bulow at the same time as he had introduced the Expropriation Bill into the Prussian parliament. The bill, with certain drastic amendments limiting its scope, passed the House on the 8th of April by a majority of 200 to 179. This law gave increased freedom in the matter of the right of association and public meeting; but in the case of the Poles it was applied with such rigidity that, in order to evade it they held "mute" public meetings, resolutions being written up in Polish on a blackboard and passed by show of hands, without a word being said.[4]

Danes.

Compared with the Polish question, that of the Danes in North Schleswig is of minor importance; they number less than 150,000, and there is not among them, as among the Poles, the constant encroachment along an extended line of frontier; there is also no religious question involved. These Danish subjects of Germany have elected one member to the Reichstag, whose duty is to demand that they should be handed over to Denmark. Up to the year 1878 they could appeal to the treaty of Prague; one clause in it determined that the inhabitants of selected districts should be allowed to vote whether they should be Danish or German. This was inserted merely to please Napoleon; after his fall there was no one to demand its execution. In 1878, when the Triple Alliance was concluded, Bismarck, in answer to the Guelphic demonstration at Copenhagen, arranged with Austria, the other party to the treaty of Prague, that the clause should lapse. Since then the Prussian government, by prohibiting the use of Danish in the schools and public offices, and by the expulsion from the country of the numerous Danish optants who had returned to Schleswig, has used the customary means for compelling all subjects of the king to become German in language and feeling.[5]

Alsace-Lorraine.