The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871 9781350000070, 9781350000100, 9781350000087

Table of contents :
Cover
Half Title
Title
Copyright
Dedication
Contents
Figures
Maps
Acknowledgements
Note on Translation
Abbreviations
Maps
Introduction
The methodology of unification studies
Why Württemberg?
Intentions
1 States and the Nation in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries
German nationalism before German nationhood
The German balance of power
The smaller states
Revolution and war
Delusions of grandeur under and after Napoleon
Beginning a new German era
2 Independence and Early South German Particularism
Saving Württemberg
The Verfassungskampf of 1815–1819
The rise of South German regionalism
The meaning of early political Third Germanism
3 Models of German Unification, 1815–1848
The origins of Württemberg popular nationalism
Greater Germany and Württemberg’s relationship with Austria
Collective security and the dangers of Austrian exceptionalism
Prussia, Lesser Germany and Württemberg
The Zollverein as a harbinger of unity
Dashing nationalist hopes
The third way
4 The Years of Prophecy and Change, 1848–1849
Warning signs before 1848
The advent of revolution
Liberal emergencies and consolidations
The National Assembly: Once as tragedy, twice as farce
The end of a noble experiment
5 Counterrevolution, Reaction and Reappraisals, 1850–1859
The state of the nation after the National Assembly
The Hesse-.Kassel emergency
The resurgence of Third Germany and the rise of ethnic nationalism
Repositioning Württemberg in European geopolitics
The Second Italian War of Independence: Third Germany’s best hope
The beginning of the end?
6 Six Years of Autumn, 1860–1866
Sovereignty and reality
Renewed regionalist agitations: The Würzburg Conferences, 1859–1861
The necessity of Germany
Competing models: The Nationalverein and pro-Prussian sympathies
The end of Wilhelmine Württemberg?
The Varnbüler ministry and the changing face of Germany
Fighting for the heart of Germany
7 The Unification of Germany, 1866–1871
State and national decisions for war
Württemberg at war
Revival and opportunity: Third German regionalism in 1866
The belated rise and fall of Third Germany
The end of South German independence and the rise of the French threat
Endgame
8 Remembering and Forgetting Württemberg, 1871–1914
From Sedan to Versailles
From Versailles to Berlin
From Berlin to the world
Conclusion
Notes
Introduction
1 States and the Nation in the Late Eighteenth andEarly Nineteenth Centuries
2 Independence and Early South German Particularism
3 Models of German Unification, 1815– 1848
4 The Years of Prophecy and Change, 1848– 1849
5 Counterrevolution, Reaction and Reappraisals, 1850– 1859
6 Six Years of Autumn, 1860– 1866
7 The Unification of Germany, 1866– 1871
8 Remembering and Forgetting Württemberg, 1871– 1914
Conclusion
Bibliography
Archival locations
Berlin
Darmstadt
Esslingen
Karlsruhe
London
Stuttgart
Primary sources
Newspapers
Unpublished materials
Published materials
Secondary sources
Index

Citation preview

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–​1871

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–​1871 Bodie A. Ashton

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc

LON DON • OX F O R D • N E W YO R K • N E W D E L H I • SY DN EY

Bloomsbury Academic An imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square 1385 Broadway London New York WC1B 3DP NY 10018 UK USA www.bloomsbury.com BLOOMSBURY and the Diana logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published 2017 © Bodie A. Ashton, 2017 Bodie A. Ashton has asserted his right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. No responsibility for loss caused to any individual or organization acting on or refraining from action as a result of the material in this publication can be accepted by Bloomsbury or the author. British Library Cataloguing-​in-​Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. ISBN: HB: 978-​1-​3 500-​0 007-​0 ePDF    : 978-​1-​3 500-​0 008-​7 ePub   : 978-​1-​3 500-​0 009-​4 Library of Congress Cataloging-​in-​Publication Data A catalog record for this book is available from the Library of Congress. Cover design: Adriana Brioso Cover image: A train crossing the Neckar river near Rosenstein Palace, Germany, c. 1840 (Photo by SSPL/Getty Images) Typeset by Newgen Knowledge Works (P) Ltd., Chennai, India.

To Ingrid and Albert, and for Kevin, Ric and Jutta.

Contents List of Figures List of Maps Acknowledgements Note on Translation

viii

List of Abbreviations

xiii

ix x xii



Introduction

1

1

States and the Nation in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

9

2

Independence and Early South German Particularism

33

3

Models of German Unification, 1815–​1848

49

4

The Years of Prophecy and Change, 1848–​1849

71

5

Counterrevolution, Reaction and Reappraisals, 1850–​1859

6

Six Years of Autumn, 1860–​1866

103

7

The Unification of Germany, 1866–​1871

125

8

Remembering and Forgetting Württemberg, 1871–​1914

147



Conclusion

155

Notes Bibliography Index

85

161 189 213

Figures 1

Friedrich, king of Württemberg

26

2

The Württemberg capital, Stuttgart

50

3

The university city of Tübingen, the traditional centre of Württemberg liberalism, in 1835

65

4

King Wilhelm

72

5

King Karl of Württemberg

148

Maps 1

The Kingdom of Württemberg and its post-​1815 borders

xiv

2

The German confederal borders (1819) and the proposed national borders of ‘Greater Germany’

xv

3

The proposed national borders of ‘Lesser Germany’, excluding Austria

xvi

4

The proposed national borders of ‘Third Germany’ (the ‘Beust plan’, 1861), excluding Prussia and Austria

xvii

5

The ‘Federation of the United States of South Germany’ (1866), between the North German Confederation and Austria

xviii

Acknowledgements There is never enough space, and there are never enough words, to thank everyone who deserves to be thanked. In the course of writing this book, I have become increasingly aware, to bastardize the old cliché, that it takes a village to raise a historian. We speak nowadays of the ‘global village’, and my thanks are truly international. This book and its author owe much to the Department of History at the University of Adelaide. I  have been extremely fortunate to work alongside and be mentored by a number of outstanding historians. I cannot thank enough, in particular, Robin Prior and Gareth Pritchard, whose constant support and faith have been vital; I can only hope they do not feel it was misplaced. Other lecturers and staff members, most notably Claire Walker, Vesna Drapac and Tom Buchanan, have also ensured that the environment was friendly, encouraging and inspiring. ‘Up the hill’ from us, at Flinders University, Matthew P. Fitzpatrick has taken an interest in my work since the first time I  met him at a conference, and his willingness to chat about virtually any topic in history or contemporary politics (or, occasionally, football) demonstrates that the days of ‘ivory tower’ academia are over, and rightly so. All of these people are examples to follow, and my work has benefited greatly from knowing them. Research for this project was supported at every turn by teams of outstanding archivists and librarians. The University of Adelaide’s Barr Smith Library remains an impressive and time-​honoured resource for any historian based at the institution. In Germany, the staff of the Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Bundesarchiv (all in Berlin), Hauptstaatsarchiv Stuttgart, Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt and Stadtarchiv Esslingen, among many others, made the research phase of this book possible. I can only express my profoundest gratitude to all my family. In particular, my parents have given an enormous amount of time, effort and support, while in Germany, my brother, Kristian Ashton, and my brother-​in-​law, Ralph Edele, have time and again been gracious hosts and enthusiastic supporters. This work would never have been possible without them, and I owe them a debt I can never repay. I have also benefited from some truly extraordinary friends and colleagues, who have not only assisted in proofreading and editing, but whose incisive questions and comments have also helped me to sharpen or refine my arguments. It goes without saying that any errors are in spite of their best efforts. To be surrounded by such sharp minds –​Hilary Jane Locke, Daniel Ashdown, Thomas A. Mackay, Astrid Lane, Kylie Galbraith, Meleah Hampton, Kelly Birch, William Prescott, Tamika Glouftsis, Matilda Handsley-​Davis, Sheridan Cox and Samuel Finch, to name only a few –​reminds me that the age of the great thinkers who surrounded Goethe is not yet over; only the names and faces have changed. The maps have been produced by Luke Hampton,

Acknowledgements

xi

who was kind enough to lend his time and expertise in order to present this work as attractively as it has turned out. Far too many others have been so accommodating throughout the difficult days and nights that accompany writing and editing. So, to Kostas, Bridget, Clary, Ellen, Dan, Simmo, Stef, Jess, Georgia, Jeremy, Chris, Tim, Joe, Nick, Celeste, Tom, Lewis, James, Ash, Emily, Zak, Erin, Emma, Thuc, Jacob, Patrick, Mark, Stephanie, Caitlin, Leah, Miranda, Phoebe, Tomsk, Holunderle and so many more: my dearest thanks. Finally, I would like to express my gratitude to Rhodri Mogford and Emma Goode at Bloomsbury Publishing, without whom  –​obviously  –​this book would not have been published.

Note on Translation German is a logical language governed by rules, but it is not so easy to integrate it into an English-​language work. Adjectives change their suffixes depending on what grammatical case the sentence takes. For example, the newspaper Schwäbischer Merkur could, in fact, be written as Schwäbischen Merkur or Schwäbischem Merkur, depending on whether it appears as the subject, direct object or indirect object in a sentence. If preceded by the definite article (der), it would also be written as der Schwäbische Merkur. For the ease of reading, these titles appear as though they are in nominative case without article. Hence:  Schwäbischer Merkur, Württembergisches Heer, or Schwäbische Kronik. A number of the kings, regents, princes and dukes vital to the history told here have similar names. At the same time as there was a King Wilhelm of Württemberg, there was also a King Wilhelm of Prussia. In order to differentiate them, dynastic surnames are used in the references –​‘Württemberg’ for the House of Württemberg, ‘Wittelsbach’ for the Bavarian royal family, ‘Zähringen’ for the Badenese, ‘Hesse’ for Prince Alexander of Hesse-​Darmstadt, ‘Hohenzollern’ for the Prussians and ‘Habsburg’ for the Austrians. This work also uses a number of contemporary newspaper sources. In many cases, presumably depending on the copy editor or journalists working on a given day, title formats and other details often altered on an issue-​by-​issue basis. One Württemberg newspaper appears within the same year, month or week as Staats-​ Anzeiger für Württemberg, Staatsanzeiger für Württemberg or, simply, Staats-​Anzeiger or Staatsanzeiger. For the purposes of clarity, the present work will commonly refer to this particular paper as the Staats-​Anzeiger für Württemberg, regardless of the titular flourish of that particular issue. All translations from German or French to English, unless otherwise noted, are the responsibility of the author. Any errors are mine and mine alone.

Abbreviations BArch fl FO GlaB GStAPK Hes.StAD K.W.St.E. PAdAA StadtAE WVLG ZWLG

Bundesarchiv Berlin-​Lichterfelde, Berlin Gulden or Florin; Württemberg unit of currency Foreign Office, London Generallandesarchiv Baden, Karlsruhe Geheimes Staatsarchiv Preußischer Kulturbesitz, Berlin Hessisches Staatsarchiv Darmstadt, Darmstadt Königlich Württembergische Staatseisenbahn (Royal Württemberg State Railway) Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts, Berlin Stadtarchiv Esslingen, Esslingen Württembergische Vierteljahrshefte für Landesgeschichte (Württemberg Quarterly Journal of State History) Zeitschrift für Württembergische Landesgeschichte (Journal of Württem­ berg State History)

newgenprepdf

Maps

MAP 1  The Kingdom of Württemberg and its post-1815 borders

Maps

xv

MAP 2  The German confederal borders (1819) and the proposed national borders of ‘Greater Germany’

xvi

Maps

MAP 3  The proposed national borders of ‘Lesser Germany’, excluding Austria

Maps

xvii

MAP 4  The proposed national borders of ‘Third Germany’ (the ‘Beust plan’, 1861), excluding Prussia and Austria

xviii

Maps

MAP 5  The ‘Federation of the United States of South Germany’ (1866), between the North German Confederation and Austria

Introduction

As this book is being written, edited and printed, the nation remains the fundamental unit of sociopolitical identification. The United States is deep into a presidential election campaign whose central theme is how to recapture (or reinvent) American greatness, and it is hard to point to any other campaign in living memory that has not turned on this theme. In Europe, the influx of refugees fleeing the war-​torn Middle East has caused all sides of politics to re-​examine the values of the society to which they belong. The co-​opting of national symbols for every side of a debate or issue means that the framing apparatus for that debate is one of how the country in question sees itself. Does opening one’s borders to people from a fundamentally different cultural heritage dilute the national values and spirit? Or does it in fact exemplify everything that is good and right about the nation –​that it is open to change, that it helps those in need, that diversity rather than insularity makes it stronger? Elsewhere, and throughout history, similar debates rage, and the terms are very similar. In the 1950s, Joseph McCarthy’s witch-​ hunts during the Red Scare and the Lavender Scare demonstrated explicitly, through the auspices of the conveniently named House Un-​American Activities Committee, that to be a communist, gay or lesbian was incompatible with being an American. Since then, the same language is used with increasing frequency to define a set of behaviours that fall within (and, by definition, outside of) the virtuous norms of the nation. At the beginning of the European refugee crisis, the German interior minister labelled anti-​Muslim movements as ‘un-​German’. The suggestion in some American right-​wing circles that Muslims in the United States must register, and that Muslim migration must be suspended or otherwise heavily regulated, implies that the ability of people of Islamic faith to display American virtue is at best difficult, if not impossible. In Russia, the Putin government’s campaign against ‘homosexual propaganda’ suggests much the same for the queer community. Clearly, even in the twenty-​first century, there are constraints and contradictions within national identities, and these turn on far more than just where one was born. These questions will not be resolved because they cannot be. The reason for this is twofold. First, the same questions, albeit in different guises, have been at the heart of the concept of nationhood since its inception. Key to defining what a nation is is

2

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

identifying what a nation is not. The second factor is that it is unlikely that there will ever be a consensus on what it means to be American, British, German, Australian, Indonesian, Congolese, Brazilian or anything else. This is because, at a fundamental level, the nation does not exist. It is not a natural unit. No giant, black lines scorched into the earth demarcate where one nation ends and another begins. If nationality is more than simply the coincidence of a location of birth, but also comprises a set of values, attitudes, behaviours, linguistics and cultures, then it is clear that no one is born as a member of a nation. These characteristics are learnt, ingrained by education and habit. They are neither biological nor hereditary. As an identity, then, nationhood is fundamentally different from so many others. A gender is conferred at birth. A sexuality is the product of psychological impulses. Eye and hair colour, skin pigmentation, stature: these are all inborn, inalienable and immutable characteristics. A nationality, beyond the obvious identifier of holding a passport and a right to vote, is an artificial and arbitrary construct. In this modern age, however, its existence is largely taken as a given. But why is ‘the nation’ so important to us? This question is at the core of this work. Over the course of the next eight chapters, we will observe the process of nation-​ building in action, and how an overarching concept of nationhood is constructed. In this case, the nation is Germany, and the prism through which we view the events is a southern state called Württemberg.

The methodology of unification studies Today, Württemberg (or, rather, the federal state of which it is now a part, Baden-​ Württemberg) is a prosperous region, a major centre of German industry, and the driving force behind the second-​wave ‘Economic Miracle’ that not only supports itself but much of Europe in a time of financial crisis. This influence is a relatively modern development. At the beginning of the nineteenth century, Württemberg was a state of minor importance. Its population numbered significantly fewer than one million, and it was little more than a small duchy nestled in the southwest of the German region –​ one of about 360 independent states occupying the same area. Over the course of the next seven decades, however, that regional picture would change. By 1806, those 360 states had become 38, the result of sweeping territorial changes originating from Napoleon Bonaparte’s military thrust through central Europe. By 1871, Württemberg had ceased being a sovereign state in its own right, and had instead become a founding member of a new, unified nation-​state: Germany. The process by which Germany unified has been the subject of countless historical works, virtually dating back to the moment of its creation. However, the discourse has always been open to political influence. That is to say, most works focusing on the German unification have had some sort of political point to make by doing so. The first efforts –​those of the Prussian historians Heinrich von Treitschke and Heinrich von Sybel –​emphasized the romanticized liberal-​nationalist origins of the German state.1 The Kingdom of Prussia was a guiding, protective power, which was able to focus the desire of the disparate Germans to become one. Germany was young, its people for the

Introduction

3

first time united. It was therefore urgent that the recorded history of Germany should reflect the efforts of the great early German nationalists, such as Ernst Moritz Arndt and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, and emphasize that the German people were united in culture, language, patrimony, blood and history. Treitschke and Sybel, of course, are not the only historians who have focused on the popular and cultural will of the German Volk as the defining characteristic of the German unification, with Prussia as the standard-​bearer. Certainly, this romanticized view did not go unchallenged. In particular, the rise of the Third Reich and the advent of the Second World War caused another wave of historiography. These works written by National Socialist historians can scarcely be taken seriously; at one point, even Hermann Goering turned his hand to writing a history of German unity. But the works written during the same time by non-​German historians of Germany were similarly compromised by the overwhelming political sentiment of the era. Emblematic of this movement is the renowned English historian, A. J. P. Taylor. Taylor’s Course of German History was first published in 1945, and soon became one of the most influential German history texts ever written. Taylor saw in the German unification a malevolent force that had inexorably resulted in the cataclysm of two world wars. Prussia was the militant core of Germany, but the other German states had willingly entered into the unification as a group of ‘Little Prussias’, intoxicated by the promise of geopolitical dominance of Europe and drawn together by a commonality of barbarity and militancy.2 In doing so, Taylor popularized a thesis known as the Sonderweg (special path), which argued for a unique development of German society and politics. This, Taylor attempted to use to trace an unbroken line of German continuity and historical development between Adolf Hitler and Otto von Bismarck (or, somewhat more ambitiously, Charlemagne). With some modification, this thesis continued to influence the histories of Germany throughout the twentieth and into the twenty-​first century. The social historian Hans-​ Ulrich Wehler, for instance, used the Sonderweg as the central plank for his argument that Germany’s unique internal tensions led inexorably to the outbreak of the First World War in 1914. Perhaps more ambitiously, the Hamburg historian Fritz Fischer used it to argue that there had been a continuity in German war aims between 1914 and 1939, while more recently Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, arguing the Germans were imbued with a unique and almost genetic drive to destroy Jews, adopted the Sonderweg approach to explain German ‘eliminationist antisemitism’. Heinrich August Winkler, though acknowledging that ‘no country in the world can be said to have followed a “normal path” ’, nevertheless concludes that there was a normative developmental project in the West; it was this path from which Germany deviated, thereby paving its own road that led to Hitler and the National Socialists.3 To be sure, the Sonderweg thesis is not without its detractors, with even one of its proponents dismissing the term itself as ‘useless’.4 Whatever its merits or otherwise, though, the Sonderweg thesis has had another, unintended consequence: it effectively denies a history of diversity on the path to unification. In more recent times, other historians, made suspicious by the simplicity of these arguments and their provenance, have attempted to redress the balance by casting light on the institutions and traditions of the other German states in the approach to unification. One of the most important works to question the nature of the German unification is David Blackbourn’s The

4

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

Long Nineteenth Century. To Blackbourn, German unification as an idea was inevitable, but what was not clear was the model it would follow. The centralized, Berlin-​based bureaucracy was merely one outcome, albeit the most likely.5 James J. Sheehan’s seminal German History 1770–​1866 remains arguably the gold standard for English-​language studies of pre-​unification Germany, and its focus sits very firmly on the German region as a whole, and not simply on one or two more important countries. Abigail Green’s excellent 2001 work, Fatherlands: State-​Building and Nationhood in Nineteenth Century Germany, focuses on the institutions and traditions of the kingdoms of Saxony, Hanover and Württemberg.6 Green’s work has been complemented by those of other scholars, emphasizing the particularist roots of many of the Kleinstaaten (small states) or Mittelstaaten (middle states). In particular, and perhaps unsurprisingly, these works have tended to focus on the larger, more ‘important’ Mittelstaaten, such as Bavaria or Saxony.7 As a result, they tend to fall into the trap of removing Prussia from the German Question, but finding a proxy replacement. This, of course, is hardly something that Bavaria or Saxony can fulfil. Of more general works, the late Thomas Nipperdey’s expansive Deutsche Geschichte series is a masterful achievement of quantitative and qualitative analysis of German society as a whole throughout the nineteenth century, and as such it does not fall within the norms of the old ‘Borussian school’ of German history, which focuses largely on Prussia.8 Dieter Langewiesche, meanwhile, has investigated the democratic traditions of Württemberg.9 In reference to specific events, the smaller states are also well-​represented; Hans-​Werner Hahn’s work on the formation of the German Customs Union, or Zollverein, bases its argument on the experiences of the states of Hesse-​ Kassel and Hesse-​Darmstadt, for example, and Manfred Hanisch’s Für Fürst und Vaterland, dealing with Bavaria, is a particularly impressive academic work on that state’s political development during the formative years that led to unification.10 Most recently, Brendan Simms’ ambitious survey of German history, Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, contains a masterful overview of the role of the smaller states as a whole throughout a period of five centuries. The expansive nature of the book, however, precludes a more in-​depth analysis of the role of each of these states in the context of specific examples and events.11 These works are important, not just because they investigate states and parties that are otherwise drowned out of the German historical discourse, but because they implicitly acknowledge that there is far more to German history than the meek cowing of the smaller states, or the (perhaps) forced conformity with Prussia. At the same time, however, they perpetuate their own problems. These nuanced and conscientious works, regardless of their exceptional scholarship or discursive elegance, may achieve academic acclaim but do not fire the passions of the interested reading public in the same way that Taylor’s oversimplified fire-​and-​brimstone approach continues to do. Green recently remarked that the era of the Borussian school is long gone, and in the halls of the academy she might be correct.12 Perhaps the Borussian school is dead and buried, but its spectre haunts studies of Germany like a malevolent Poltergeist, and the best efforts of the new acolytes of German history have yet to exorcize it. Nor are they likely to, if the recent reissuing of The Course of German History by Routledge in 2008 is any indication.13

Introduction

5

Why Württemberg? Where does Württemberg fit within this discussion of nationalism and nation-​ building? At first glance it does not appear to be particularly important:  a duchy that became a kingdom, a state with struggling industry, a population of no great size. Yet it is this which makes Württemberg a logical case study for the German experience during the unification process. The state’s role as a ‘middle state’ makes it more representative of the ‘typical’ German state experience, inasmuch as there can be a typical experience of so many disparate states. Austria and Prussia, with their enormous populations and expansive territories, wielded far greater economic and political power than their counterparts. On the other hand, Württemberg’s size made it similar to Hanover, Saxony, the two Hessian states,14 Baden and numerous other middle states. Its economy, not superior by any means, worked in close conjunction with those around it. In times of war, Württemberg could wield military power that was comparable to that of its neighbours. Like Baden, it had a strong tradition of liberal political engagement in civil society. Like Bavaria, it tempered this liberalism with occasional forays into monarchical absolutism. Like all of the middle states, Württemberg’s economy was driven largely by agriculture and, though it was slower than some other states to adopt a statewide economic policy that favoured industry, it began to industrialize with modern machinery supplanting traditional manufacturing methods in a similar timeframe as its counterparts. Moreover, while some of the Mittelstaaten were exclusively aligned with Austria or Prussia during this period, Württemberg’s geographical position, not to mention its dynastic ties, meant that it would, at various points, foster favourable relations with both of the German great powers, as well as foreign powers, such as France and Russia. In a sense, then, while the experience of Württemberg and Württembergers during this period cannot be a comprehensively accurate representation of the experience of all Germans (or even, all non-​Austrian, non-​Prussian Germans) between 1815 and 1871, it can be considered similar to a line of best fit. Thus, a study of Württemberg’s role during these years of change, and what effect those years had on the state itself, approximate the role of other comparable Mittelstaaten during the same era. While historians writing many years later seem by implication to have dismissed the importance of the Mittelstaaten in German politics, this view is not borne out by the actions of the political figures, the press and the general public of Württemberg during this era. On more than one occasion, the kingdom attempted to take control of regional national efforts. In other cases, Stuttgart took part in elaborate plans of subversion and deceit. In yet more cases, the state cooperated with the great powers. In each instance, however, Stuttgart and the powers-​that-​be in the Neues Schloß worked in accordance with their own conception of Württemberg’s greater good. The state’s development may have been roughly representative of that of the Mittelstaaten, but it was also unique. Regardless of the hue and cry of German nationalists, the various German states were not homogenous, and time and again Württemberg demonstrated curious divergences from what we may have considered the ‘norm’. In its own right, Württemberg deserves reappraisal.

6

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

This is not a ‘Great Man’ history. Undoubtedly, there were indeed great men and women who shaped the history of Württemberg, its role in the unification process and the role the unification process played in its political and social constellation. Many of these figures will play prominent roles in the story to follow. Some will appear in many ways to be truly heroic, while others will be objects of sympathy and, in some cases, pity. Some are to be admired. But this is also the history of great social movements, driven not by political supermen but by the masses of the public, whose faces and names are lost to us. Most of all, this is a history of the confluence of these people –​the leaders and the followers –​as they attempted to create a new identity from nothing. What this meant to their lives, and what this meant to their state, is our focus.

Intentions This work is divided into eight chapters. In Chapter 1, the reader will be presented with a ‘prehistory’ of Württemberg in the mirror of German nationalism. In particular, this will focus on the era of the Napoleonic Wars, in which German nationalism, which had previously been only of minor significance, blossomed under the pressure of foreign aggression. During this time, Württemberg and many of its neighbouring states grew in influence and power, and this engendered in the political class a particularism that often clashed with the pan-​German identity beginning to develop elsewhere. Moreover, the influence of Napoleon on Germany, not to mention the privations inflicted upon the people of the German states, would shape much of Germany’s development in subsequent years. In particular, the German sphere was left with two major powers –​ Austria and Prussia –​and it was largely expected that, if the German states were to unify, the impetus and leadership for this unification would come from either of these two countries. The foundations of Württemberg’s political particularism and its interest in forming more binding relationships with its neighbours (notably Baden and Bavaria) are discussed in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 revolves around the cultural, social and political relationship between Württemberg, Austria and Prussia, as well as between the state and its Mittelstaaten counterparts. These chapters demonstrate the growing appeal, within political and popular circles alike, of German unification; furthermore, they also show that the form of ‘ideal’ unification was highly individual, differing from actor to actor and theorist to theorist. By 1848, however, the appeal had become an imperative, as liberal-​nationalist revolutions swept the German heartland. These revolutions and their aftermath are discussed in Chapter  4, while Chapter  5 charts the consequences of these years of upheaval between 1850 and 1859. In particular, it is significant that the decade of the 1850s embodied a notable upswing in both official and unofficial representations of the nation, corresponding with a newfound sense of political adventurism. This era led inexorably to the various crises of the 1860s (sometimes descriptively but erroneously termed ‘the wars of German unification’); during these years, the political arenas in many states (of which Württemberg was no exception) were courts of intrigue, with each authority jostling for its share of respective power in a game of power whose

Introduction

7

outcome –​probably German unity –​was unpredictable. Eventually, these power plays led to the foundation of the German Empire in 1871. These years and their events are discussed in Chapters 5, 6 and 7. Finally, Chapter 8 provides a coda to the story, reflecting on how Württemberg was affected by these events in the years immediately following unification, and the changing role of the state and regional identity in the new German era that came to a shuddering halt in 1914. In short, there was nothing about this unification that could be characterized as being the product of overwhelming force, nor of fanciful concepts of nationality. This was, in fact, a development that was actively initiated by rational states, which until the very last had control and agency over their own affairs. This was indeed a truly popular unification, not a conquest of arms or ideas. The history of Germany and its gradual march towards unity is one that often defies easy definition. It is awash with contradictions. Some historians have attempted to impose order where none existed, differentiating between trends of ‘nationalism’, ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy’ as though these were mutually exclusive terms. German liberals, Alon Confino tells us, ‘believed in freedom through unification’, while democrats ‘believed in unification through freedom’.15 Yet the definition was never quite so neat; activists regularly adapted their political philosophies, allied themselves with (by this model) political opponents and otherwise defied conventions. Julius Hölder, a prominent Württemberger whose political activities pepper both the era and this book, is a prime example, appearing at various junctures as an advocate of Württemberg’s autonomy, a proponent of Austrian leadership of Germany, an agitator for an expansion of political and social rights that bordered on liberal socialism and finally a committed believer in the Bismarckian Germany that eventuated from 1871. In this context, such descriptors as those above are inadequate and synthetic. What bound many of these actors together was a belief in German nationhood of some type or another, coupled with (often) an adherence to broadly ‘liberal’ values. The term ‘liberal-​nationalist’ is used here not as definitive explanation of ideology, but as a conventional identification of activists, theorists and citizens whose political philosophies to some degree overlapped. With this in mind, it is clear that liberal nationalism was alive and well in Württemberg in the years between the Napoleonic Wars and the Franco-​Prussian War. As this work will demonstrate, destiny was certainly influenced to a great extent by the larger powers, but the smaller states also had important roles to play. None of the motives for doing so are inscrutable, and the behaviours that determined the manner in which these roles were performed were neither common nor predetermined. Ralf Dahrendorf, in his influential 1968 work Society and Democracy in Germany, noted that the historical discourse is permeated with the idea that the German experience was a common one, and that any German should think and behave like any other German, ‘much as “the man”, “the secondary school teacher”, “the fellow clubman” [should]’.16 The following pages will demonstrate that this common experience is a myth. But they will also prove that, somewhat paradoxically, these unique political, economic, social and cultural experiences contributed to the construction and foundation of the unified German nation.

1

States and the Nation in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

It is difficult to speak of ‘Germany’ in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. This is not because Germany was an unknown proposition at the time; indeed, a German ‘character’ had been known for centuries. Tacitus’ Germania was the first in a long line of texts that pointed to a distinction between the Germanic peoples and those found elsewhere. The German region was vaguely defined, as were its inhabitants. To some degree, Germany was even represented politically, through the aegis of the Holy Roman Empire. None of this, however, should suggest any sort of united purpose, identity or power. In 1789, on the eve of the French Revolution, the Holy Roman Empire comprised some 360 states, most of them within the broadly defined German region. Each of these states enjoyed a significant degree of autonomy, since the Holy Roman Empire did not operate as a de facto nation-​state in the manner that many of its contemporaneous empires, such as the Spanish or French, did. Except in the weakest of terms, there was no imperial capital, no united imperial army, no consolidated foreign or domestic policy, and its members were free to forge their own alliances, treaties and agreements with other states. It was for this reason that the Holy Roman Empire was most frequently an object of derision, both among its subjects and foreign observers. Voltaire’s famous quip –​ that it was neither holy, nor Roman, nor an empire  –​was matched by others. Karl von Moor, Friedrich Schiller’s protagonist in his first play, Die Räuber, despairs of the Empire’s irrelevance. Moor prefers to see Germany united as a republic, and sees the imperial diet as an ineffectual hindrance to glory. ‘Set me at the head of an army of fellows like myself ’, he declares, ‘and we will make Germany a republic compared to which Rome and Sparta will be but nunneries!’ Schiller’s contemporary, mentor and, later, collaborator, Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, was hardly more complimentary. In one early scene in Goethe’s masterpiece, Faust, a group of student revellers in Leipzig’s Auerbach Tavern sings the lament: ‘The Holy Roman Empire. Oh, poor thing! How does it hold together?’ Much later, when the Empire had collapsed under Napoleon’s onslaught, Goethe remarked that the ordinary squabbles of coachmen were more interesting than the fate of the imperial institutions.1

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The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

Neither Schiller nor Goethe were opponents of German unity. Far from it: Schiller’s Moor desires a united German nation, but believes that the only way to achieve it is through republicanism. Similar themes are addressed in Schiller’s second work, Die Verschwörung des Fiesko zu Genua (The Conspiracy of Fiesco of Genoa), a drama based on the historical republican conspiracy against the doge of Genoa in 1547. Indeed, Schiller’s subtitle for the play was A Republican Tragedy. Moreover, both Schiller and Goethe formed the core of a new pan-​German literary movement (loosely termed the ‘Weimar Circle’, after the city in which most of them assembled). In many senses, Goethe and Schiller were early examples of German proto-​nationalists, and they were by no means alone in this regard. But implicit in this ideal of national unity was a criticism of the existing institution of the Empire. The principal issue was not that the Empire existed, but that it was not, in fact, a signifier of the nation. The other issue facing early German nationalists was that of provincialism. Schiller and Goethe –​and, indeed, many others –​may have reflected a nascent German identity (though, as we shall see, defining that identity proved to be a recurring problem), but this conflicted with local or regional identification, often encouraged by state apparatuses, that had just as much appeal as that of the nation. This chapter navigates the question of what it meant to be German, how Germans identified, and how those identities were crafted, in the period preceding and during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars. Württemberg’s experience in this is crucial to understanding the events that followed; so, too, is the placement of Württemberg within a highly complex and ever-​changing geopolitical context.

German nationalism before German nationhood ‘A patriot is too strong to be the slave of another, and he is too righteous to be the lord over another.’ With these words, attributed to the Swiss philosopher Isaak Iselin, the Württemberg author and politician Baron Friedrich Karl von Moser began his 1765 study into what he termed the ‘German national spirit’. These opening words reflected some of the uniquely liberal traditions that had typified Württemberg politics since 1514; what followed, however, was rather more modern. When Moser referred to ‘national spirit’, he meant that of Germany, not of Württemberg. To this end, he argued that Germany would benefit from the education of its constituent princes in national behaviours and sympathies, and to identify with being German rather than adhering to what he saw as petty dynastic provincialism. This was all very well and good, but what was Germany to Moser? The baron’s work is forthright, and he pulls no punches, demanding that the highest duty of a German is to love the Fatherland. A description of what that Fatherland is, however, is conspicuous in its absence. At times, Moser points to the rule of law within the Holy Roman Empire as a signifier of common identity. At other junctures, he laments the bureaucracy and technicality of political systems that have driven Germans from identifying themselves through passion as Germans. ‘We do not know ourselves anymore’, he lamented. ‘Among ourselves we have become strangers, our spirit has left us.’2 In another passage, his disdain for the Holy Roman Empire as a national institution

States and the Nation in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

11

is more scathing. ‘[F]‌or centuries we have been a puzzle of political constitutions’, he complained, prey to our neighbours, the object of their ridicule, extraordinary in the history of the world, disunited amongst ourselves, powerless in our divisions, [but] strong enough to harm ourselves, ignorant of the honour of our name, indifferent to the dignity of the law, jealous of our rulers, mistrustful of one another, separated by principles, violent in their expression, a great and at the same time despised people, potentially happy but in practice regretful unto ourselves.3

Moser’s Germany was less a geopolitical expression, and certainly not embodied in the Holy Roman Empire. Rather, it was a land of sentiment and emotion. One felt that one was German; constitutional fealty and citizenship, while laudable, were not firm indicators of national identity. Thus, Germans who counted themselves as imperial subjects could still be strangers to one another. Moser’s ideas would not be unfamiliar to the works of the twentieth-​century political scientist Benedict Anderson, who argued that national identities are little more than ‘imagined communities’ and, indeed, to Moser, it was the mental conviction that one was German, and the creative construction of what that meant, that mattered. It was this he wished to promote among the leaders of the German states. Perhaps Moser’s reticence in defining Germany’s physical boundaries owed to the fact that, even today, Germany has very few. In the west, the Rhine represents the most obvious border, yet it has always been a point of contention; at various times, both banks of the river have been claimed by France or by a German state. In the south, the Alps are similarly an apparently reliable border, but the mountains are hardly impenetrable. The Baltic coast in the north offers no insurmountable barrier, and in the east no clear boundary exists at all. So, if Germany could not be readily defined by its geography, perhaps the German nation could instead be defined by its people. This, Moser had attempted to do in 1765. ‘We are one people’, he declared, ‘characterized by one name and language, gathered under a single rule, under the same constitution, rights, and obligatory laws, bound to a great common interest of freedom’.4 In part, Moser had created an imagined community of common institutions:  linguistics, law, and a dedication to the vague principle of ‘freedom’.5 His understanding of what it was to be a ‘nation’ of peoples did not necessarily require a German nation-​state to exist, merely that Germans could conceive of themselves and identify themselves as being ‘German’; that is, similar to one another, but different to other Europeans. The concept of a German national consciousness predates Moser’s exegesis on the ‘national spirit’ by at least a century. Pamphlets, books, and patriotic poems and lyrics, all appealing to ‘Germany’ and ‘the German’, appeared before the Thirty Years’ War, and the oath ‘Deutschland über alles’ dates back at least to the seventeenth century.6 Yet this concept of Germany was not simply a question of institutional convenience; as we have seen, Germans were not Germans simply because they happened to live within the Empire. For Moser, the institutions of empire, regardless of the fact that they theoretically united the German states under a constitutional ‘umbrella’, did little to

12

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

advance the cause of German nationalism. Germany and being German was separate to the bureaucracies and administrations of governance, whether that governance was in the name of the German nation or not. Thus, the key to what made a German a German lay beyond the convenience and coincidence of the establishment. In other words, a nation –​that is, a body of people adhering to a common identity –​could exist without a state or semi-​state structure to support it. But a community (even an imagined one) must have some basis for considering itself to be a community. The historian Eric Hobsbawm suggests that the basis for proto-​ nationalism is, in general, found in three key identifiers: religion, language and ethnicity.7 This hardly makes it easier. For one, it is true that Germany was overwhelmingly Christian. However, most of northern Germany was Lutheran Protestant. Conversely, it was widely reported that, as late as 1800, only three Protestants lived in Catholic Bavaria’s capital, Munich.8 Historically, the schism between Protestants and Catholics had been particularly traumatic in Germany. In the mid-​sixteenth century, for example, a series of devastating fires in the north were widely blamed on a Catholic conspiracy revolving around the Archbishop of Mainz. Well into the nineteenth century, prominent Lutherans based their mistrust of Catholics on the belief that the Enlightenment had bypassed the Catholics entirely, and had only benefitted Protestant Europe. Not to be outdone, the Catholics of Bavaria resisted any well-​meaning attempts by their government in the first decade of the 1800s to promote tolerance and legal protection for Protestant churches.9 In part, the difficult relationship between Protestant German nationalists and their Catholic counterparts was due to the latter’s devotional fealty to Rome and the Pope, which made Catholic loyalty to a national identity questionable. This same objection would ultimately become one of the planks of Bismarck’s ‘culture struggle’ (Kulturkampf) against Catholics in the 1870s.10 In any event, the religious situation in Germany was hardly straightforward, with Catholic majorities in Austria, Bavaria, Swabia, parts of the Rhineland, Lutheranism elsewhere, and smatterings of Calvinists (including the Hohenzollern royal family of Prussia), Franciscans and, away from the Christian divisions, small but influential Jewish communities. Language was even more problematic. In his hymn Des Deutschen Vaterland (Of the German Fatherland), the nationalist author Ernst Moritz Arndt wrote that Germany extended ‘as far as the German language rings, as long as God in Heaven sings’.11 During the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, the German vernacular developed and spread so that it became the basis of a ‘linguistic society’ (Sprachgesellschaft), which differentiated the states in what was loosely termed ‘Germany’ from those outside it.12 This common ground, however, is misleading. Far from uniting people with a common ethnolinguistic background, language is, as Anthony D. Smith notes, ‘often irrelevant or divisive for the sense of ethnic community’. Welsh national identity, for instance, is not hindered by the fact that the southern Welsh generally speak English, as opposed to the Welsh-​speaking Welsh of the north. On the other hand, Serbo-​Croat ‘represents a unified language which affords no basis for two nationalisms’, though tensions between Serbian and Croatian nationalism is historically significant.13 In the case of German, regional dialectic variations transformed it almost beyond recognition. Swiss German, for example, is far removed from the harsh, nasal vernacular of East Prussia. German was the common language of Austria, but the Austrian German taught in schools tended to

States and the Nation in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

13

ignore the linguistic modernisations and reforms standardized in northern Germany.14 In any event, while the language the Austrians spoke was undeniably German, there was enough variation to declare it a dialect of its own, unique to Austria and therefore somewhat distinct from ‘proper’ German. Even then, significant variations persisted throughout Germany. A  Hanoverian or a Hamburger, for example, speak in a profoundly different fashion to a Bavarian speaking Oberfränkisch. The Swabian dialect, common in Württemberg, is so different from standard Hochdeutsch, that it is the subject of one of the comical fairytales of the Brothers Grimm. In the story Die sieben Schwaben (The Seven Swabians), a hapless band of Swabian adventurers trek as far as the Moselle. At one point, they ask the locals whether the river can be forded. Unfortunately, the locals cannot understand their dialect, and the leader of the group, Schulz, drowns while attempting to cross. Even worse, his comrades succeed him to a watery grave, because the croaking of a frog is so similar to the Swabian manner of expressing the verb ‘to wade’ (waten) that they believe Schulz is actually commanding them to follow.15 In spite of Arndt’s somewhat hopeful identification of language as a unifying factor, the sheer breadth of variation in regional German made it, in some places, almost a completely different language. Finally, the last of Hobsbawm’s nationalist differentiators, ethnicity, is in no way any more helpful than the previous two.16 Leaving aside the difficulties of defining a particular German ethnicity, early German nationalists also had to contend with the distribution of Germans, and the inclusion of non-​Germans inside what would normally have been considered German territory. East Prussia, for example, was heavily populated with Slavic Poles. A vast number of Poles, Italians, Czechs, Slovenes and others lived inside Austrian borders. And then, there were sizeable German populations living inside Russian Baltic territories, or in what would have been called Slavic lands, excised from the German Fatherland. Austria’s territorial interests along the Adriatic and into the Balkans also confused matters; if a nation were to be formed, would Austria be forced to renounce its imperial aspirations? Would Austria even be included, given its extensive multi-​ethnic composition? Certainly, the idea that Austria might not be part of Germany was all but unthinkable, given the large ethnic German population and the institutional heritage of the Holy Roman Empire and the Habsburg monarchy. And yet, such problems of ethnicity seemed insurmountable. The discussion to this point was based on the assumption that Germans wanted to be united, but struggled to find the common ground that would facilitate this unification. Increasingly, this would become the case –​especially after the Napoleonic Wars –​but this was not always true. The barriers to pan-​German nationalism existed on both a political and popular level. Certainly, the governments of autonomous states had little desire to unite with others, and thereby dilute their own independence. Moreover, there was no imperative to do so. Indeed, Germany had been a fractious region for centuries and, though countless wars, famines and other emergencies had devastated the region in that time, it was not immediately apparent that unity would provide any particular benefits in these regards. In any case, most of the German states were, in fact, bound together –​however loosely –​under the banner of the Holy Roman Empire. Among the populations of the German states, there was even less cause to promote national unity. Nationalism as a public force was, at this stage, in its infancy, and by and

14

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

large the general populations of Europe were ignorant of the processes of high politics. Diplomacy was the purview of the nobility, even in a state such as Württemberg, with its uncommonly liberal constitution. Simply put, affairs of the state or the nation meant little to people who were typically provincial farmers with interests that did not extend much further than their immediate farm, neighbourhood, village, parish or district. There was certainly a groundswell of German nationalist sentiment among the general population, and this was exploited and reflected in the works of political visionaries like Moser, or literary figures such as Goethe and Schiller. But, for the moment, the agency for change remained solely in the imaginations of these figures, and their works, while firing the interests of their audiences, hardly provoked their activism in this regard. All this, however, was to change as the eighteenth century approached its dramatic climax. The leaders of individual states would soon find themselves faced with existential crises against which they had no defence or recourse. The supra-​state body charged with protecting them, the Empire itself, would fall far short of its obligations, as a result of systemic weaknesses and the sort of malaise that Goethe and Schiller commented on in their works. These circumstances would have consequences that would shape the experiences not only of provincial leaders but also their subjects.

The German balance of power In order to examine the importance of the Holy Roman Empire (and, crucially, its demise at the hands of Napoleon), it is necessary to examine the Empire’s provenance, its reason for existence, and its position in the experiential constellation of Germany and the Germans. Given the nature of the Empire, however, we must also keep in mind that the balance of power in the German region was not only perpetuated between the Empire and other powers, but also between the Empire as a whole, its member states as individual actors, as well as foreign countries. The emergent picture, on the eve of the French Revolution, is fractured and labyrinthine; with the benefit of hindsight we could categorize Germany as verging on chaos. Perhaps no historical geopolitical body was as complex as the Holy Roman Empire. It lasted for a millennium, and at various junctures it was of vital importance. But what it actually was is difficult to define, and its lasting significance is obscured by the events that overtook it. It offered a loose, overarching political framework, some form of directed foreign policy, variable forms of taxation and a centrally mandated federal legal system that was (sometimes) adhered to by the constituent states. Its official name –​the Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation –​belied the fact that it was not a nation in any recognized sense of the word. Instead, the Empire was divided into ‘districts’ (Kreise), a ponderous regional system in which various neighbouring autonomous provinces were banded under a local administration, which was then answerable to the Empire as a whole. This form perhaps suggests that it was less like an empire as we might understand the term, and more a medieval and early modern analogue of the European Union, holding much theoretical oversight over its members, while in a practical sense having little direct power of influence over the individual

States and the Nation in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

15

governments. Inclusion in the Empire did not preclude member states from diplomatic or even military conflict amongst themselves. Even in times of peace, the Empire offered few benefits. Taxation within the imperial borders was defined at a local level, as were most matters of law. The German region was divided into over 1,800 tariff zones, each with its own regulations and tolls. On the relatively short 600-kilometre stretch of the Rhine between Strasbourg and the Dutch frontier town of Nijmegen, for example, a trader might pass through over thirty distinct German customs zones, and each time he would be required to pay a locally determined number of tariffs at variable rates.17 The existence of independent, imperially mandated enclaves within the borders of sovereign states also complicated matters. In the case of Württemberg, the road between Stuttgart and the nearby town of Vaihingen an der Enz was subject to customs duties, though the journey itself was only thirty kilometres long. This was because Vaihingen was an imperial city, and travellers between the two towns were therefore traveling between separate countries. More customs duties were introduced for travel to the imperial enclaves of Brackenheim, Göppingen and Ulm.18 Similar imperial settlements, and the multitude of travel and tax regulations that accommodated them, were dotted throughout Germany. Given the Empire’s lack of political authority, it is not surprising that ambitious states attempted to fill this power vacuum in central Europe. This resulted in a clash between two states in particular: Austria and Prussia. In the south, Austria  –​the seat of the Habsburg monarchy that presided over the Empire  –​was undeniably the most prosperous and powerful. Increasingly, a succession of Habsburg rulers had turned their attentions away from their position at the head of the Empire, and towards that of a presider over their hereditary Austrian holdings.19 As early as 1684, the Austrian civil servant Philip Wilhelm von Hörnigk had suggested that if the Habsburgs constrained themselves to Austria, then Austria would become the preeminent European great power, ‘if she only wills it’.20 By the 1740s, the dynasty had come to similar conclusions. In contrast to the Empire’s lack of centralized bureaucracy, Austria had begun to develop a strong and dynamic state apparatus that stood independent from the Holy Roman throne. This was largely the result of the rule of one of the most fascinating, influential and extraordinary women of the age, Archduchess Maria Theresa (1740–​1780). Unable by virtue of her gender to preside over the Empire, she nonetheless built up a strong political power base. Theoretically expected to hand control of Bohemia to her husband Franz, and later to her son Joseph II, both Holy Roman emperors, Maria Theresa resisted. It is testament to her extraordinary capacity for organization and administration that she was not challenged by her spouse, nor by her progeny, who recognized both her skills in governance as well as the loyalty among her subjects. This is especially remarkable when it is considered that Joseph, crowned Holy Roman emperor in 1765, endured the unique and presumably uncomfortable position of holding sway over an increasingly unwanted empire while having precious little influence over his own ancestral lands. The lesson of these years was stark: the power behind the Holy Roman Empire was Austria, and while Austria could exist without the Empire, the Empire could not exist without Austria. Joseph seems to have taken this to heart; in 1784, four years after

16

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

Maria Theresa’s death, he even considered abdicating the Holy Roman throne, so as to bolster his more concrete political and dynastic aspirations at home.21 This was not simply a question of dynastic politics. Increasingly, the Austrian Habsburgs were alarmed by the shortcomings of the Holy Roman Empire as a military union. A series of military crises involving Austria and Prussia in the middle of the eighteenth century demonstrates the problems facing the Habsburgs. In 1740, Prussia under Friedrich the Great invaded Silesia, thereby stripping Austria of a prosperous agricultural region. Yet, try as she might to reclaim it, Maria Theresa simply could not convince Austria’s imperial partners to bring enough force to bear. In times of war, the Austrians could not rely on the Empire to furnish them with an adequate military force, an especially galling situation when Austria’s own army reserves were often bled dry on the imperial fringes.22 Even when the Empire chose to stand for Austrian interests, the support of the member states was hardly unconditional. When Prussia invaded and occupied Saxony in 1756, for example, Maria Theresa saw this as a justification to reclaim Silesia for Austria, thereby drawing Prussia into a war that would weaken the upstart northern kingdom. The resulting Seven Years’ War, though, did not eventuate as Maria Theresa intended. While she had the support of Austria’s partner states in the Empire, this support was conditional. The imperial diet agreed to prosecute war against the Prussians only so as to liberate Saxony. Once this was achieved, the diet had little interest in Austria’s ambition to reconquer Silesia. In other words, while engaging the Prussians over Saxony was viewed as a justifiable defence of a wronged state, Maria Theresa’s Silesian expedition was, in imperial eyes, an unreasonable adventure. In the face of this imperial malaise, and the paltry number of troops supplied for the purpose by the other imperial states  –​the imperial army never numbered greater than 32,000 men –​Austria could not hope to succeed in the manner its archduchess expected.23 Austria’s experience during the Silesian emergencies, and the Seven Years’ War, undoubtedly soured the attitude of the Habsburg dynasty towards its own imperial crown. A renewed focus on the Austrian heartland, on the other hand, would also allow the Habsburgs to focus on the most economically prosperous regions of the Empire, precisely at a time when European markets were becoming increasingly intertwined and important. Austrian provinces, Bohemia and Galicia in particular, were home to a promising agricultural sector. Sweeping reforms of transport and trade infrastructures, including the building of new roads and impressive port facilities at Trieste, elevated Austria to the status of a dependable (if not preponderant) financial power. Regular censuses and the introduction of house numbers streamlined tax collection, as did the creation of a common customs policy in 1775. Compulsory secondary schooling, also introduced in the same year, aimed to stamp out illiteracy and nurture a new generation of educated entrepreneurs. This also coincided with Joseph’s advocacy for agronomy and modern agricultural methods. Vienna, Austria’s capital, expanded significantly, and became the cradle of a nascent industrial and mercantile system easily more successful and lucrative than any other in the Empire.24 These reforms, and their successes, demonstrated that the source of any power the Holy Roman Empire could wield resided firmly within the borders of Austria. It was Austria in particular –​not the

States and the Nation in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

17

Empire as a whole –​that would become the more important instrument of Germany’s future. Austria’s great rival in extending this influence was a former vassal state of the Empire, the Kingdom of Prussia. Whereas Austria’s rise to eminence might seem obvious with the benefit of hindsight, Prussia had none of Austria’s natural advantages, and its grasp for power surprised contemporary observers. As late as 1870, the capital, Berlin, was surrounded by putrid bogs and impenetrable pine forests, and its inhabitants were considered to be primitive, coarse and uncultured.25 Voltaire referred to Prussia as ‘the sandy country of Brandenburg’.26 The source of Prussia’s power was not its resources, nor its geography. Instead, its rise to regional power was accomplished through the extraordinary drive of the Hohenzollern dynasty. The royal family seems to have had near limitless ambition, as well as an obsession with guarding the meagre resources at the state’s disposal. Having begun as somewhat minor provincial lords, the Hohenzollerns had cultivated a favourable position within the Holy Roman Empire, rising to the rank of imperial electors, before Friedrich I had crowned himself ‘king in Prussia’ (as opposed to ‘king of Prussia’, which the Holy Roman Emperor would not countenance) in 1701.27 By 1740, Prussia had grown in military if not geopolitical power. Its new king, Friedrich II, was a dynamic and genuinely enlightened monarch, a polymath who excelled in musical composition, philosophy and, most importantly for the era, making war. His inspired leadership, which saw Prussia double in size, defeat Austria in the Seven Years’ War, and elevate his kingdom to a (contentious) position of a European great power, resulted in his being afforded the title of ‘Friedrich the Great’.28 Most significantly, Prussia’s annexation of Silesia created for the first time a political counterpoint to Austria within the German sphere and contributed to the undermined confidence in the institutions and efficacy of the Holy Roman Empire. In barely one hundred years, Prussia had embraced a position of economic, geopolitical and military strength that, while not necessarily matching that of Austria, at least rivalled it. To contemporaries, it was clear that the immediate future of Germany would be dominated by the question of whether Germany’s existence was led by a Habsburg or a Hohenzollern, and Prussia placed itself in direct competition with Austria in that regard. Even approaching the end of his life, Friedrich was able to sway many of the German princes. When, in 1785, Joseph II attempted to trade the sovereignty of Bavaria, the largest of the smaller German states, Friedrich convened the so-​called League of Princes, or Fürstenbund, a consultative body of the leaders of Germany designed to bilk the desire of the Holy Roman Emperor to expand his own territory and power at the expense of others.29 While the Fürstenbund was short-​lived, its significance should not be ignored. It was a coalition of states that followed a cohesive and common policy for defending and safeguarding the sovereign interests of those states. It therefore acted as a rather more effective defensive bloc than the Holy Roman Empire ever had, and while it was not intended to replace the Empire, it served to underscore the apparent split between Austria and its fellow member states. Austrian dynastic interests, it was perceived, had been defeated by this unique coalition. This would not be the last time that this would be the motive for pan-​German unity.

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The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

The smaller states The balance of power in Germany was maintained and shifted according to the actions of these two great powers. The battleground for this struggle, however, was the space between them. There were more than three hundred states during the period in question that could be considered (and considered themselves) ‘German’, and they all had their own peculiar quirks and unique characteristics. It is difficult to capture the complexities of the region, with all of these states crammed into a relatively small area. Bavaria, in the southeast, was predominantly Catholic, and its royal house, the House of Wittelsbach, enjoyed close ties with the Habsburgs of Austria. Others, such as the Bishoprics of Salzburg, Würzburg or Bamberg, were minuscule religious principalities, led by prince-​bishops and numbering usually no more than a few thousand citizens.30 Many ‘states’ were nothing more than towns that had become the sovereign fiefdoms of local dukes or princes. We have visited some of the small imperial enclaves already, but there were also genuine ‘free cities’ which governed themselves. In the north, the great ports of Hamburg and Lübeck, with their eclectic populations of immigrants and itinerant traders, were led by elected republican senates.31 While these states cherished their autonomy, the smaller ones in particular recognized the need for powerful patrons. To that end, many of the petty princes accepted the patronage of the Holy Roman Empire or other European royal houses. This was most commonly expressed in the commissions that many of these princes held in the part-​time imperial army of the Holy Roman Empire, or in the Austrian or Prussian armies.32 This system of patronage offered some means of military or diplomatic protection, while at the same time allowing smaller states to develop and maintain unique identities, largely based on their dynasties, and invoking individual bureaucracies, cultural idiosyncrasies, financial institutions, traditions and other pillars of society that, in their own ways, provided peace, justice and welfare on behalf of the state apparatus.33 In this sense, Württemberg is a prime example of the diversity of the smaller states. In terms of its physical size and population, it was quite unremarkable; by the beginning of the nineteenth century, there were perhaps 650,000 Württembergers living in this little state in the southwest. Economically, it was resource-​poor in terms of coal and metals, though in this pre-​industrial era this disadvantage took on less importance than it would later. In other areas, Württemberg was not an economic powerhouse, but neither was it a hopeless weakling. Crop farming was prosperous, and benefitted from a climate that experienced regular rainfall during all months of the year. These conditions also led to a growing wine industry that was popular both at home and abroad. The banks of the Neckar proved to be well suited for planting grapes, and visitors to Stuttgart often remarked on the rows of vines that lined the valley. The Rems Valley and the foothills of the Swabian Alps also lent themselves to vineyards, and by the nineteenth century the state had built a healthy export market. Partly, this was because of the excellent quality of the wines. But the growth of the industry was also a fortunate coincidence of geography. Demand was driven by the states along the Danube, further to the east; Danubian regions were less suited

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for grape production and, while the most prized wines of the German region were those produced in vineyards in Alsace or along the Rhine, these were so far away and separated from the consumer market by so many separate customs zones, that import costs were prohibitively high. In any case, the state-​mandated export duties at Württemberg’s distribution points were generally low, making Württemberg wines particularly attractive to the eastern market. Wine, therefore, became Württemberg’s most profitable export, but other sectors also profited from Württemberg’s relatively liberal customs duties. Textiles, typically cotton, were produced in traditional artisans’ workshops on handlooms in Calw and Heidenheim, and readily found a market in the other German states. Pork, cabbage, cherries and snails were also, to a lesser degree, profitable products that enhanced the state’s solid financial position. Württemberg’s most notable feature, though, was its constitution. In this, it was quite unique, not only among the German states but also in Europe as a whole. The constitutional heritage dated back to 1514, when Duke Ulrich had signed the Treaty of Tübingen. This was a power-​sharing agreement between the crown and the estates (Stände) that played a similar role in the Württemberg body politic that the Magna Carta did in England. It was for this very reason that the British Whig Charles James Fox believed that there were only two truly constitutional states in Europe: Britain and Württemberg. The Treaty of Tübingen guaranteed the existence of a state parliament, or Landtag, which would act as a check and balance to ducal excess. The Stände were represented in its chamber, since their control of the state’s financial interests could be brought to bear in order to compel or limit the actions of the duke. This concentrated in the hands of the Landtag’s representatives a significant amount of coercive power; ostensibly, this protected the state’s citizens from the sort of absolutist megalomania seen in other contemporaneous European monarchies. In 1692, for example, the regent Friedrich Karl attempted to create a Württemberg standing army. This was opposed by the Stände, who saw such an army as an unreasonable financial burden on the citizenry. They also felt that the army, when created, would be impossible for the parliamentary system to extend any influence over. Therefore, it was potentially a means by which the duke could circumvent the representative arrangement embodied in the Treaty of Tübingen. Unsurprisingly, Friedrich Karl’s attempt to form a permanent army failed. In 1789, the Enlightenment philosopher Friedrich Nicolai remarked that the defining characteristic of the Württemberger was his pride in the state constitution, which granted electoral rights that were virtually unthinkable elsewhere.34 Yet this pride was only partly well-​founded. It goes without saying that the supposedly representative Landtag was, in fact, not representative at all, since the poorer classes, non-​landowners and those outside the power structure of the Stände, including women, had no voice whatsoever. This is not at all surprising –​for the Treaty of Tübingen to have extended a universal electoral franchise would have been unthinkable –​but in other ways, too, the treaty and its provisions had pitfalls. Examples such as that of Friedrich Karl’s failed 1692 army bill portray the Landtag as adversarial; instead of acting in partnership with the ducal dynasty, on more than one occasion the Landtag tied its hands. In an era of absolutism, this was less likely

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The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

to be seen as prudent political evolution, and more an insult to the ‘rightful’ ruler of the duchy. Moreover, while the Landtag could act as a mitigator of ducal excess, there was little to be done about the potential excesses of the Stände themselves. Indeed, the financial interests of the estates often guided their hands more than their duty to the citizenry. Friedrich Karl’s appeal for a standing army appears far more prudent, and the Landtag’s decision guided more by selfish economic ambition, when it is considered that the debate occurred in the middle of the Nine Years’ War (1688–​1697), a conflict that occasionally spilled over Württemberg’s borders. Only a generation earlier, the Thirty Years’ War (1618–​1648) had devastated Württemberg, much as it had the entire region; even by the standards of the Thirty Years’ War, however, Württemberg’s experience was particularly brutal. The important trading town of Marbach was torched to its foundations by occupying French forces in 1639, its population falling in this time by half. Marbach’s fate was replicated throughout the duchy. Not one district did not experience a population deficit, which ranged in severity from 23 to 69 per cent. The census of 1655 indicated that the duchy’s net population loss to that point was approximately 57 per cent, though even this figure is generous. By the time the census was conducted, the war had been over for seven years. Moreover, the initial population figures, based on 1634 levels, reflected a decline of close to three-​quarters of the population since the outbreak of the war some sixteen years earlier. On top of this demographic disaster, Württemberg’s indemnities (mostly resulting from extended periods of occupation by the combatant powers) all but bankrupted the state treasury.35 By the time Friedrich Karl’s standing army proposal was rejected by his parliament, these privations were still within living memory. In an era when war was an endemic fact of European life, the Landtag’s reticence remains peculiar. The issue of a standing army was delayed but not resolved in 1692, and it would resurface periodically. It is a key example of the growing discord between the parliament and the succession of dukes that oversaw it. This would also not be the only time that the self-​interest of the Stände would overrule their obligations to the people they represented; the Landtag’s intransigence would become a recurring theme of Württemberg’s nineteenth century, and a major influence in the directional development of the state in its own terms and in relation to ‘German Question’. Württembergers may well have been proud of their constitution, and perhaps rightly so, but it was nevertheless a further complication. This complication would come into stark relief after the ascension of Duke Friedrich II to the Württemberg throne. Friedrich was ambitious, ruthless, coarse and, above all, opportunistic; he was certainly not one of Nicolai’s proud constitutional Württembergers, but instead saw the Treaty of Tübingen as a blight on his aspirations. It is a matter of historical coincidence that Friedrich, arguably the most vociferous opponent of Württemberg constitutionalism, came to power just before his state, and indeed its constitution, faced its most dangerous existential crisis. So it was, then, that this duchy of middling power, middling size and middling economic means, existing both as a unique oddity and as an analogue for the smaller German states as a whole, would enter the era of the Revolution and the Napoleonic Wars.

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Revolution and war The outbreak of revolution in Paris caught most of the German states by surprise. It did not, however, cause any immediate panic or concern. Many German governments experienced a similar reaction to that of Prussia:  since the Bourbon monarchy was frequently capricious, mercurial and given to making war on the continent, its collapse represented an opportunity rather than a danger.36 In the main, the political status quo was unconcerned by the French Revolution –​providing, that is, that it affected only the French. The most excited reactions to the Revolution, however, were experienced in intellectual and artistic circles rather than political ones. Here, the storming of the Bastille and the removal of Louis XVI from the French throne was seen as a triumph of philosophy, ideals and aesthetics over the rigid mendacity of the ancien régime. As a result, the Revolution’s defenders often framed their praise within the context of the great cultural and intellectual achievement that they saw it to be. ‘Oh, it wasn’t you, my Fatherland, who climbed to the summit of Freedom to serve as an example for the People’, wrote the great poet Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock in 1790. ‘It was France!’37 The Württemberger Friedrich Hölderlin was similarly enthused. In 1792, his exultant hymn An die Freiheit (On Freedom) equated the rise of the revolutionary ideals to ‘the Earth approaching holiness’.38 Hölderlin became one of the Revolution’s greatest proponents, even through the murderous Terror instigated by Robespierre. His most celebrated work, the novel Hyperion, used the Greek struggle for independence from under Ottoman rule as an allegory for the revolutionary freedoms embodied in the French Revolution. The rise to prominence of Napoleon Bonaparte within the French military also caught his imagination. In 1797, he wrote the couplet Buonaparte, fêting a hero so possessing of human spirit and vitality that he transcended both reality and the poetic world of verse. If the Revolution reflected ‘holiness’, then its drivers were demigods or supermen. Friedrich Schlegel, meanwhile, described the Revolution as one of the three ‘greatest tendencies of our age’. The other two, demonstrating where the French Revolution sat within Schlegel’s intellectual conception, were Johann Gottlieb Fichte’s epistemological doctrines (known as the Wissenschaftslehre), and Goethe’s novel Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre.39 Outside of literary circles, others were even more enthusiastic. The eccentric Prussian nobleman and libertine Jean-​Baptiste du Val-​de-​Grâce, baron de Cloots, saw the storming of the Bastille as the culmination of French destiny. In June 1790, he presented himself to the National Convention as a self-​appointed spokesman for thirty-​six foreigners residing in Paris, each of whom was an admirer of the Jacobin revolutionaries. Cloots was soon drawn to the more radical Girondins; he renounced his title, renamed himself ‘Anacharsis Cloots’ (after the Scythian philosopher of the same name), and predicted spontaneous uprisings of emboldened German peasants against their masters, as far afield as Bohemia.40 Elsewhere, Jacobin clubs formed in the Rhineland, particularly in the cities of Mainz, Speyer, and Worms, while the manufacturing town of Altona, near Hamburg, became the home of the ‘Jacobin Club of True Republicans’ during Autumn 1792.41 It is true that most Germans with Jacobin sympathies were not as radical as Cloots who, in any case, was in the thick of the action in Paris. Nevertheless, in the early years

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The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

of the Revolution many intellectuals continued to stand by their support of the new regime. The opportunity to express and put into practice the ideas of the rights of man, freedom of speech and of expression created a heady atmosphere of revolutionary fervour. Enthusiasm took the form of pan-​Germanism; to Klopstock, Hölderlin and many others, the republican morality of the Revolution and the spirit of liberté, égalité and fraternité would be unifying factors for Germany as a whole, and not just for individual states in particular.42 Not all were impressed, though. In some cases, enthusiasm for the French Revolution has often been overstated. Anacharsis Cloots remains a colourful and noteworthy figure precisely because he was so unusual; certainly, no other German-​ born revolutionary had nearly as much impact during these years of upheaval. The various Jacobin clubs within Germany were neither long-​ lived nor particularly important. Altona’s ‘True Republicans’ numbered perhaps twenty-​two, and the club there wound down its activities in 1793, having produced a handful of flyers and broadsheets but little of any significance. Mainz’s Jacobin organization, which was certainly the most important, had around 400 members. While many of these were active political reformers before 1789, they lacked any means of enacting change, until the occupation of the city by French troops in October 1792. By July 1793 the city had been retaken by Austro-​Prussian troops, and the power of the Mainz Jacobins melted away.43 As T. C.W. Blanning has noted, the ‘obsession [ . . . ] of German historians with the Rhenish radicals’ ignores the fact that they were few and far between, while most Rhinelanders chose instead to resist the encroachment not just of French ideas but also of French soldiers. This was true even in Mainz, where direct French occupation led to the foundation and existence of an independent republic along Revolutionary lines between March and July 1793. Alienated by the violent excesses of the French occupiers as much as they were by the paradoxical concept of ‘enforced freedom’, the Rhineland Germans had little will to defend Jacobinism when the Prussians and Austrians arrived at the gates of the city.44 Behind the front lines, intellectual accommodations with Revolutionary ideals were undergoing a metamorphosis of their own. Like most of his Weimar colleagues, the Swabian poet Christoph Martin Wieland perceived 1789 to be a triumph of a specifically French brand of liberalism, tailored to resolve problems unique to France. By 1791, however, he believed the Revolution had lost its way by becoming a ‘political’ (as opposed to a philosophical) movement. Two years later, Wieland’s opinion had again evolved. Now, the Revolution was an existential threat to the German people, and he argued that this threat could only be met and countered by a united front. ‘There are perhaps –​or more accurately, there are without any doubt –​Brandenburg, Saxon, Bavarian, Württemberg, Hamburg, Nuremberg, Frankfurt patriots, and so on’, he wrote. ‘But German patriots, who love the whole of [Germany] as their Fatherland, who love it above all else [ . . . ] Where are they? Who answers the call? What have they done? And what can we still expect from them?’45 Wieland’s disappointment was also reflected in the attitudes of his friend Goethe. From the outset, Goethe had seen the French Revolution as a necessary development. Responsibility for the Revolution rested with Louis XVI, who had brought it upon himself as a result of his ‘imperious caprice’. ‘Revolutions are impossible’, he explained

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to his young protégé, Johann Peter Eckermann, ‘as long as governments are constantly righteous and alert [to the needs of the people]’; clearly, in Goethe’s estimation, this was not the case for the Bourbon king. But Goethe was adamant that those conditions were unique to France and, as long as revolutionary forces remained contained to the west of the Rhine, it followed that the French had every right to see through their experiment in democracy. In the estimations of Goethe, Wieland and others, the majority will in France constituted a truly national spirit that trumped the wishes of the royalist minority and, by inference, those of the other European powers that advocated a Bourbon restoration.46 But their acceptance and tolerance had limits. Once the revolutionaries had attempted to export the Revolution to Germany, and thereby ‘engineer artificially the same scenes in Germany that were a result of great need in France’, he found he could not condone them. ‘I could be no friend of the French Revolution’, he told Eckermann, ‘for its abominations were too near to me and enraged me by the day and hour’.47 No figure of the Weimar Circle, however, was more convinced of the destructive nature of the Revolution than the Württemberger, Friedrich Schiller. At first glance, this may be something of a surprise. Schiller made no bones about his republican sympathies. After the premiere of Fiesko in Mannheim in 1784, he angrily wrote to his friend and future brother-​in-​law, Reinwald von Lengefeld:  ‘The public does not understand Fiesko. In this land, republican freedom is a noise without meaning, an empty name.’ He lamented that his audiences would not be imbued with a revolutionary republican spirit, ascribing this to the fact that ‘in [their] veins [ . . . ] flows no Roman blood’.48 Schiller had also published Hölderlin’s Hyperion in his literary journal, Thalia, thus publicizing his fellow countryman’s enthusiasm for the Revolution for his quite considerable readership. The revolutionaries in government in France certainly seemed to believe that Schiller was their natural ally, bestowing upon him the title of ‘Freedom Poet’ and, in 1799, honorary citizenship of the Republic. Nonetheless, Schiller was suspicious of the Revolution, and feared the war that, he felt, would inevitably result from such upheaval. In this, he was prophetic. Goethe and Wieland had seen the Revolution spill into Germany by the time they launched their stinging criticism of it. Even while the forces of the Revolution were contained within France, as early as 1790, however, Schiller wrote to his friend, the Saxon jurist Christian Gottfried Körner: ‘I tremble at the prospect of war, for we will feel it in every corner of Germany.’49 For all his republican sympathies, Schiller never attempted to justify the French Revolution, even in the conditional fashion of Goethe, and he certainly never supported it as readily as Hölderlin. The arena for his war against the French was his literary output; after the wars, Schiller’s works would become emblematic of an imagined ‘war of liberation’ that inspired Germans in general, and his compatriot Württembergers in particular. Schiller’s fears proved prescient. Napoleon’s coup d’état of 9 November 1799, and his increasing desire for conquest, quickly turned much of the favourable weight of opinion in Germany against the French. The successful French campaigns against the German powers, particularly the crushing defeat of the Austrians at Austerlitz in 1805, and a similarly decisive victory against the Prussian army at Jena in 1806, left the French either directly in control of or exerting influence over most of Germany. At a stroke, the much-​maligned Holy Roman Empire was dismantled, Prussia and Austria

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The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

were made to accept humiliating peaces and Napoleon began to redraw the map of Germany. Gone was the ineffectual and often-​ignored cumbersome legal system of the Empire. Instead, the rule of law was now governed by the Code Napoléon. German states that had sided with France were rewarded with territories annexed from the defeated powers. Some of the defeated states disappeared completely, absorbed by Napoleon’s allies.50 Among the benefactors was Württemberg. The French emergency, and especially the rise to prominence of Napoleon and his seemingly inexorable march through Europe, presented an opportunity to Württemberg’s ambitious Duke Friedrich II. The dismantling of the Holy Roman Empire offered him the chance to expand his own state, thus increasing its geopolitical importance as well as its economic potential. This could only be achieved, however, through an alliance with the French.51 To give Friedrich his due, he had very few choices open to him. By April 1805, Britain had formed the so-​called Third Coalition, an uneasy partnership with Austria and Russia, whose sole purpose was to challenge France for European supremacy. Southern Germany was a logical battleground. However, the southern German states were hardly potential partners in the Third Coalition, and in the absence of consultation from the Coalition members, Friedrich was faced with an uncomfortable prospect. It was more than likely that France would come to blows with some or all of the Coalition within or in the general vicinity of Württemberg. Given the dynastic aspirations of both the Austrian Habsburgs and the Russian Romanovs, it was unlikely that Austria or Russia would guarantee Württemberg’s sovereignty and security. On the other hand, Napoleon had much to gain from friendly relations with the south German states. Most notably, southern Germany would be a useful buffer zone bordering on Austria and Russia. Furthermore, if Napoleon wished to press further east, he would not be required to leave armies of occupation in friendly German territories. They could police themselves, leaving his army free to continue the conquests it had already begun. The reverse also held: it was in Napoleon’s best interests to commit to Württemberg’s sovereignty for precisely the reason that it would secure him a dependable ally. Indeed, the benefits for the French so outweighed the risk that Napoleon had already begun discussing plans with his foreign minister, Talleyrand, in the event that Friedrich did not agree. These plans included engineering some way to remove Friedrich from the throne and replacing him with his son, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm. To sweeten the deal, the French proposed that Friedrich Wilhelm would be given his own regiment in the Grande Armée, would assume the rank of major-​general and would be awarded the Légion d’honneur.52 In the event, this secret contingency was unnecessary, because in truth Friedrich had little choice in the matter. His first inclination was to declare Württemberg neutral. But neutrality hardly guaranteed the security he required. Nor would it satisfy either France or Austria, neither of which would likely observe Württemberg’s impartiality. The net result would be that Württemberg was under the same threat, but without any patron to help in the very likely case of invasion. In truth, there was no choice at all. By August the neighbouring Bavarian government bowed to the inevitable and signed a treaty with Napoleon, and Friedrich was encouraged to do the same. Eventually, though

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not without reservations, Friedrich added his signature to a Franco-​Württemberg alliance on 5 September 1805. Friedrich’s fears of Austria were apparently well-​founded. Austrian troops entered Württemberg from the south shortly after the conclusion of the September agreement and soon quartered troops in several towns. Worse, the Austrian government immediately demanded that Stuttgart provide supplies and stores for its soldiers. The French responded almost immediately, and on 25 September crossed the Rhine, engaging Austrian troops in Mühlacker, Freudenstadt, Herrenalb, Liebenzell, Leonberg and Heilbronn, just 50 kilometres from Stuttgart.53 While the defensive action undertaken by the French fulfilled their obligations to Württemberg under the terms of the treaty, it also confirmed that Württemberg was entirely dependent upon Paris for matters of state defence. At a stroke, the French ‘rescue’ subordinated Württemberg to France, creating what the Bavarian minister Maximilian von Montgelas termed the ‘préfecture française’  –​French hegemony in southern Germany.54 Napoleon’s terms of alliance would seem to confirm Montgelas’s worst fears. Württemberg was required to house and feed French forces, and would supply its own contingent to the Grand Armée. Württemberg would also be compelled to join a new alliance of Napoleon’s creation, the Confederation of the Rhine (Rheinbund). This would be a collection of several Francophile German states, bound by economic policies, the Code Napoléon, and their common treaties of friendship with the French Empire, forming a coalition that would serve as a useful buffer against the Coalition in central Europe.55 The danger in this arrangement was readily apparent. The Rhenish states would be France’s first line of defence against the Austrians, the Russians and, if they recovered from their own crippling defeats, the Prussians. Moreover, Napoleon’s demands on the Württemberg army (Heer) were extensive. In 1806, this semi-formal force could field roughly 12,000 men; Napoleon insisted that some 5,500 of them be seconded to the French.56 But not all of the treaty was (or seemed to be) to Württemberg’s disadvantage. In the first instance, the French agreed that no troops would be quartered in Stuttgart or Ludwigsburg. This meant that the centre of state politics and the seat of the royal house would remain free from foreign occupation. The French government also offered to reimburse Württemberg in cash for any costs accrued by housing and feeding French soldiers. The Austrians had either refused to pay for goods and services they had seized, or else had paid in imperial paper money that was, by this stage, functionally worthless. Most importantly, Württemberg was offered significant territorial compensation for its support of France. In sum, the larger of the Rheinbund powers  –​Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden, Hesse-​Darmstadt and Nassau  –​gained approximately 65,000 square kilometres of territory expropriated from the collapsed imperial territories or abolished smaller principalities. Württemberg’s reward would be, among others, the old Duchy of Swabia, and its territory and population would more than double as a result. Consequently, Napoleon would also bestow upon Friedrich the title of king, and Württemberg would become a kingdom.57 Ultimately, France’s mastery of Europe convinced Friedrich that his only option was to side with Napoleon.

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The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

FIGURE 1  King Friedrich of Württemberg in a portrait by Wendelin Moosbrugger from around 1810. Wikimedia Commons.

Delusions of grandeur under and after Napoleon Though it may have grown in size and population, Württemberg –​whether a kingdom or not –​was still a relatively minor power, and it was soon clear that it was the junior partner in the Franco-​Württemberg Alliance. Almost immediately, Napoleon reneged on many of the promises he had made to guarantee Friedrich’s partnership. French troops did not enter Ludwigsburg, but a large contingent was soon garrisoned in Stuttgart. Some 80,000 soldiers of the Grande Armée were stationed in Württemberg, and the soldiers were governed by rules set in Paris, not Stuttgart. On the orders of the French ambassador, François Charles Luc de Didelot, soldiers placed the envoys from Austria and Russia under house arrest, despite Friedrich’s insistence that this breached Württemberg’s sovereignty and its duty towards foreign representatives. Moreover, in spite of France’s promise to remunerate the costs of garrisoning troops, it was Württemberg that was soon required to pay France, to the order of some eight million francs and 2,000 horses, for service in Napoleon’s further campaigns in Europe. More requisitions followed as Napoleon’s campaigns became more and more taxing.58

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The greatest privation, however, was the human cost. The initial, forced secondment of 5,500 men into French service was understood to be for duties in occupied territories, rather than on the front lines. Those 5,500 men were soon joined by more and more of their countrymen. At its peak, the Grand Armée comprised some 600,000 men. Of these, at least a third were conscripted from the Rheinbund, and some 40,000 were Württembergers. In fact, Napoleon’s levy on Württemberg manpower was such that any male citizen between the ages of sixteen and forty was liable to be conscripted. As the ranks of Württembergers expanded, so too did their duties. Some 15,800 Württembergers took part in the ill-​fated Russian campaign of 1812, as well as during the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in 1813. Of these, only about 500 survived. Overall, of the 40,000 Württembergers in the Grande Armée, almost 27,000, or roughly 68 per cent, were killed between 1806 and 1813.59 Given the treatment of Württemberg by the French, it is unsurprising that Friedrich soon attempted to resist them, or else use the relationship between the empire and the new kingdom to his advantage. This coincided with the near-​total collapse of any remaining support for the French among German intellectuals. By this stage, Friedrich Schiller was gone, having died of tuberculosis in Weimar in 1805, but his last works –​ including the play Wilhelm Tell, completed in the year before Schiller’s death –​argued eloquently that the forces of despotism could only successfully be battled through a united front. Just as Wilhelm Tell united the Swiss cantons to defeat the draconian governor Gessler, so the German states must unite to beat Napoleon Bonaparte. Others did not attempt to veil their arguments, even if Schiller barely did so. Ernst Moritz Arndt and Friedrich Ludwig Jahn, two of the most prominent contemporary German proto-​nationalists, argued that the German was defined by the fact that he (and always ‘he’) was not French, and that the traits characterizing French nationalism were despicable and alien to the German.60 Arndt’s 1813 battle cry, Des Deutschen Vaterland, insists that the German Fatherland, the victim to be rescued in a nationwide war of liberation, encompassed all states and territories in which German was spoken, and ‘where any Frenchman is called an enemy’. Heinrich von Kleist’s Katechismus der Deutschen (1809) has a boy arguing with his father as to the nature of Germany; in this text, Kleist saw Germany as being defined by its opposition to France. When asked by his sceptical father who his enemy is, the son replies: ‘Napoleon, and as long as he is their emperor, the French.’ When his father presses him –​‘Is there anyone else you hate?’ –​his son’s reply is forceful and direct: ‘No one, in the whole world.’61 To these authors and thinkers, the German was obligated violently to oppose the Frenchman, who was his nemesis and the antithesis of what it meant to be German. By implication, that resistance to the French would be for the common benefit of all Germans in all of Germany. This argument was readily accepted by subjugated populations, as well as those disenfranchised by the massive territorial changes that had occurred in Germany as a result of Napoleon’s conquests. The pan-​German Lützow Free Corps, an infantry unit made up of volunteers from all over Germany and formed in 1813, fired the public imagination and became an emblem of the nationalist movements in decades to come (though, in fact, the corps achieved very little, and suffered from extremely high desertion rates). In many southern districts, the arrival of Austrian troops in the latter years of the wars was greeted with significant nationalist

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The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

fervour. One widow in the former imperial town of Villingen, integrated into Baden by Napoleon’s machinations, declared triumphantly that ‘we are imperial again.’ Such responses indicate a broad-​based eagerness to return to the structure of the Holy Roman Empire, or rather, what the Holy Roman Empire nominally represented: the German nation.62 Even the Bavarian king, when he turned against the French in the dying stages of 1813, regarded the war against the French as the securing of ‘the independence of the German nation’.63 It is for this reason that, while in English the conflicts are collectively known as the ‘Napoleonic Wars’, in German they have traditionally been named die Befreiungskriege: The Liberation Wars.64 Friedrich was very much aware of the shift in public opinion, and even more so the increasingly detrimental impact of the French alliance on his state. However, for most of the period between the signing of the alliance in 1805 and the defeat of the French at the Battle of the Nations in 1813, he had no means of altering Württemberg’s foreign policy trajectory. The first and most obvious reason for this was the fact that Württemberg was in no position to challenge the French. The large French garrison at Stuttgart and elsewhere dwarfed the Württemberg army by orders of magnitude when it arrived. Given time, Friedrich hoped to expand his military forces, and he believed that the absorption of the old Swabian and Holy Roman territories would afford him the opportunity to grow the Heer to include 30,000 men or more.65 This force would significantly increase Württemberg’s regional military might. But it would not happen overnight, and Friedrich was forced to bide his time. But even if the terms of the Franco-​Württemberg Alliance were unequal, Friedrich initially had much to gain. While Schiller and the like may have been protesting in vague, national terms, Friedrich’s mind was set solely on the question of personal and state power. Ever since he had come to power as duke in 1797, Friedrich had been unimpressed by his capital and had drawn up a construction plan designed to redevelop Stuttgart into a classically influenced city fit for the residence of a royal dynasty. At the same time, he ordered the renovation of the great palaces, particularly Ludwigsburg, Monrepos and Solitude. The alliance with the French, and the transformation of Württemberg into a kingdom, came as a windfall for Friedrich, as he was able successfully to request and receive French financial assistance to carry out his building plans.66 Perhaps the greatest example of Friedrich’s use of the alliance was an indirect consequence of it. The annexation of Swabian and imperial territories provided the opportunity for the king to suspend the Treaty of Tübingen and dissolve the Landtag. This he could achieve through a disingenuous appeal to the Landtag’s sense of fair play: the ‘New-​Württembergers’ had never been subject to the Treaty of Tübingen, and indeed had not been party to any form of constitutionalism. To impose Württemberg’s centuries-​old constitution on them now, just after the trauma of their states having disappeared, would impose confusion on these new citizens, and would be a bureaucratic nightmare for the state. At the same time, the constitution could hardly apply only to half the population. At a stroke, then, Napoleon’s ‘gifts’ to Friedrich –​ kingship, territorial annexations and a much larger population –​had given Friedrich the impetus he needed to remove the constitution that had acted as a check to the House of Württemberg’s absolutism. Thereafter, for the rest of his reign, Friedrich governed Württemberg through direct personal rule.

States and the Nation in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

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Finally, though Württemberg was clearly subordinate to France in their alliance, Friedrich did have some recourse to resist the French when he felt that his interests were best served by doing so. It will be recalled that Württemberg was expected to become a founding member of the Rheinbund, Napoleon’s confederation of friendly German buffer states. This was to include Napoleon’s other German allies, among them Saxony, Bavaria and Baden (the latter two sharing borders with Württemberg). Ostensibly there may have been some benefits to the Rheinbund members, including a streamlining of trade and the formation of a common defence policy. But there was no hiding the fact that the Bund was a puppet and tool of French foreign policy, designed to benefit the French, rather than the Germans. Moreover, Württemberg was not the only state to have expanded as a result of the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire. Bavaria, in particular, had become significantly more powerful as a result of its gains, and had also risen to the status of kingdom. This aggrandizement suited Napoleon’s interests because it simplified German affairs; so many states were dissolved as a result of the French conquests that the 360 separate entities that had existed at the time of the outbreak of Revolution had, by 1806, been reduced to just thirty-​eight, of which thirty-​ six became Rheinbund member states (the exceptions being Austria and Prussia). Many of these states, including Württemberg, had ceased to be Kleinstaaten (small states) in any real sense of the word, and had instead become Mittelstaaten (middle states), occupying a position within the state hierarchy somewhere between the great powers and what they had once been. With increased territories, populations and resources came a growing perception of self-​importance and a desire to satisfy state ambitions. Having found themselves at the helm of larger (and therefore, potentially more powerful) territories, the royal houses of these states were unwilling to dilute their newfound sense of sovereignty by unifying as an instrument of French foreign policy. As a result, these states dragged their heels on the establishment of the ‘fundamental statute’ that would formalize the Rheinbund.67 The confederation therefore existed in name, but while the Mittelstaaten were bound to one another by the will of the French emperor, the constitution that would make this a de jure relationship simply did not exist. Nevertheless, while there were advantages to be gained through the French alliance, and some of the more distasteful elements of that relationship could be avoided through clever diplomatic manoeuvring and bloody-​ minded obstinance (which Friedrich had in abundance), there could be no denying that the experience was, generally speaking, not a good one. Before the alliance had been formed, public opinion of the French in southern Germany had generally reflected Hölderlin’s attitude more than it had Schiller’s. One contemporary history refers to the ‘high opinion of [the French] character, which he had already established through all of Swabia at the time of the first invasion’.68 Even after the advent of Napoleon and the agreement between Paris and Stuttgart, Württembergers did not immediately react with alarm. In 1808, the Stuttgart publisher Johann Cotta remained impressed by Napoleon; in letters to Goethe, he predicted that the alliance would usher in a new era of political liberalism.69 Presumably, Cotta believed that the dissolution of the Treaty of Tübingen was only a temporary measure. But not even Cotta could justify the increasing privations resulting from constant war with the various anti-​Napoleonic coalitions. Especially

30

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

after Napoleon’s disastrous campaign against Russia, Württembergers and south Germans in general turned against the French. Consistent, overwhelming demands on Württemberg’s resources bankrupted the state, and the economic hardships, not to mention the devastating effect of conscription, caused citizens to riot in protest.70 Five years after insisting that the alliance was beneficial, Cotta was acting as a confidential courier and a sort of private ambassador-​at-​large, shuttling letters between Stuttgart and Vienna, and attempting to negotiate a settlement with the Austrians.71 Friedrich, too, noted the shift in public opinion as the casualties mounted. In 1813, writing to his foreign minister, Count Ferdinand Ludwig von Zeppelin, he lamented: ‘The return of the officers, more and more of the sick and wounded, cripples, and those unfit for service, [ . . . ] daily stokes a great voice [of protest].’ He recorded the ‘distaste’ of ‘everything that is French’, and he warned Zeppelin that ‘one is beginning to hear, from different districts throughout the land, calls to the people, in which one speaks of liberation from the yoke’.72 Finally the moment had come when Friedrich could no longer support his own policy. The enormous losses at the Battle of the Nations at Leipzig in October were the last straw. By December, Friedrich instigated extraordinary tax legislation, not with the aim of providing Napoleon with the means to wage war but in fact as a means to raise his own ‘army of liberation’ against the French. In this manner, Friedrich was following the lead of the Bavarians, who had only slightly earlier declared their intention to leave the Rheinbund and fight on the side of the Sixth Coalition. Baden also followed suit. The sluice gates had opened, though these three southern states were benefitted by fortunate circumstances. Once 80,000 strong, the French garrison in Württemberg numbered only 10,000 by the time of the Leipzig defeat, and these were mostly reserves  –​the cream of the army, of course, had either been lost on the Russian steppe, or else had been called up to fight in the desperate defence outside Leipzig. Thus, when Friedrich raised a 12,000-​strong army under the command of his son, Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, he was almost totally unopposed.73 Hence, when Napoleon was eventually deposed, the Württembergers were partners of the victorious Coalition –​a position they would take to the conference table at the Congress of Vienna in September 1814. Friedrich entered the wars as one of Napoleon’s friends, and he ended them as one of his vanquishers. In coming years and decades, the mythology of the Befreiungskriege would point to the actions of the German princes as a defining moment of German national identity. Germany united in a common interest and Friedrich, among so many others, fought in the name of Germany when he annulled his alliance with the French in 1813. This, however, was a breathtaking rewriting of history. Friedrich became Napoleon’s ally not only out of necessity but also because it suited him. He ceased to be so for the same reasons. Importantly, though there were many opportunities to do so, the southern states did not act in a concerted fashion, either during the wars or after them. Bavaria left the Rheinbund without consulting its fellow southern Mittelstaaten. Stuttgart did not negotiate with Karlsruhe, Dresden or Darmstadt in doing the same. He acted in a particularist, provincial and individual manner. The lack of unity on even a regional level can be seen in Friedrich’s first act at the Congress of Vienna, when he proposed to annex an eastern sliver of Baden. Fortunately for Baden, Friedrich’s proposal gained no traction.74 Meanwhile, Baden and Bavaria began a diplomatic

States and the Nation in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries

31

stoush over the status of the Bavarian Palatinate, a territory physically unconnected to but governed by Bavaria that bordered northern Baden. Karlsruhe insisted that the Palatinate should be ceded to Baden; Bavaria, unsurprisingly, disagreed. This disagreement would continue for more than fifty years, with serious consequences for the Badenese-​Bavarian diplomatic relationship. Thus, the common cause that united Germany in the eyes of authors, poets, historians and even the public at large was generally absent from south German considerations by the end of the Napoleonic Wars. None of these Mittelstaaten would risk their sovereign independence through closer cooperation, which may have been seen as the beginning of state-​sanctioned German nationalism. Friedrich acted not in solidarity with his fellow southern German monarchs, but with his own deeply particularist interests at heart. He aimed to expand his fiefdom, and his gains would solely benefit his state, rather than Germany as a whole.

Beginning a new German era The Germany of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras was one fraught with crises of identity. A great many German minds, not to mention the population in general, viewed the ideals of the Revolution with significant interest and no small amount of enthusiasm. For many, the promise of liberalism was equated with profound opportunities for German nationalism, and the spirit of fraternité, in particular, could act as a catalyst for the creation of a liberal and universal German identity. In this reading, expressed at various junctures by Klopstock, Hölderlin and Cotta, the inevitable consequence of the exportation of the Revolution into Germany would be, in fact, the unification of Germany along Revolutionary lines. Others were far less enthusiastic. Goethe was horrified by the excesses of the Revolution and, while he recognized its necessity as a reaction to the despotic Bourbons, it had no place in Germany. Schiller saw the Revolution not as a liberator, but rather a harbinger for the destabilization of all the German states. Similar beliefs were held by Kleist, Arndt and Jahn, among others. Crucially, just as the proponents of the Revolution saw it as the bringer of national unity, so its opponents argued that its defeat was a necessary step towards German unification, and in turn could only be accomplished by a common force of will. Regardless their position, then, both the greatest supporters and the bitterest enemies of the Revolution and, later, Napoleon, held German national unity (whatever that may mean) as their ideal outcome. By and large, however, these nationalist sentiments were not reflected in the policies of the various German governments, and German nationalism was immature and prototypical. Many states, such as Württemberg, acted in their own narrowly defined state interest, hungrily grasping at the discarded territories of the failed and defeated German states, and allying themselves with the French when it seemed that such a move might be of material benefit. Nationalist conceptions did not enter the equation in the public policy of Württemberg. Friedrich acted pragmatically, siding with France when such a manoeuvre seemed advantageous and necessary. Friedrich defected to the side of the Sixth Coalition only when it

32

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

became clear, first, that Württemberg was suffering from its continued relationship with France and, second, that France would almost certainly be defeated by the Coalition. The Napoleonic years set the scene for what would be half a century of German national development. It is, therefore, vital to understand the influence of the Napoleonic Wars on the German states in general and, for the purposes of our study, Württemberg in particular, for it was the circumstances of these years that led to the German states precariously attempting to balance national and state interests. Napoleon’s Rheinbund had introduced the concept of the Mittelstaaten, and these states had spent the better part of seven years determining their position in Germany and Europe, and the extent and limits of their powers. The wars and their aftermath consolidated the reality that there were two major powers in Germany, being Austria and Prussia, and their respective influences over Germany would be vital for the future in the region. It also established that cooperation between the Mittelstaaten, while unfulfilled in deed between 1806 and 1813, was certainly possible. This, after all, was the entire raison d’être of the Mittelstaaten. Finally, while Napoleon never intended the Mittelstaaten he had effectively created to behave as independent political actors, the actions of the governments of these states –​and in particular, the actions of the government in Stuttgart –​demonstrated that they were at least willing to attempt to operate autonomously of any larger state or collection of states. How these four elements –​the influence of Austria, the influence of Prussia, potential political cooperation between the Mittelstaaten and the particularist desires of the smaller states  –​developed in the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars is the subject of the next three chapters.

2

Independence and Early South German Particularism

Württemberg emerged from the Napoleonic Wars as a curious case. Its newfound prosperity and strength had permitted King Friedrich eventually to resist Napoleon, but it was entirely because of Napoleon that it enjoyed this strength. This made Württemberg’s immediate postwar standing among the other German and Coalition powers difficult, to say the least. Friedrich argued that his state had been a victor in the Napoleonic Wars and a loyal ally to the Sixth Coalition. Indeed, his son, Friedrich Wilhelm, had led the Württemberg army in a number of engagements against the French in the latter months of 1813 and the early half of 1814. To this end, the state should surely be rewarded. This argument was met with uneasiness and some degree of anger by many of Württemberg’s fellow combatants, who pointed out that Württemberg had been a French ally until the Battle of the Nations in October 1813. In any case, Friedrich’s focus was solely on the affairs of his state as an independent body. His diplomacy was not intended to benefit any form of the nebulously defined German ‘nation’, but instead was aimed at consolidating Württemberg’s Napoleonic gains and, if possible, extending them further. In doing this, though, he found himself at an historical crossroad. Even while he was arguing for a greater role in European geopolitics, other forces –​including, as it happened, his own son –​began to recognize that the upheaval of the Napoleonic era had transformed the German region. Existing state identities had fractured throughout Germany as a result of the exchanges of populations and the shifting borders. In Württemberg, the constitution, which had been a source of pride for Württembergers, had not existed since 1806. Public traumas merged with popular calls for national unity to create a nascent, though admittedly poorly defined, nationalist groundswell. At the same time, new realities of foreign policy and economics made the proposition of disunited state independence increasingly dicey. Friedrich did not live long after the cessation of hostilities, and the ascension of his son to the throne in 1817 brought the national question to the fore of Württemberg state politics. In order to do this, however, a number of political actors and commentators attempted to define Germany; their solution, most often, was to look to Württemberg’s immediate neighbours in the south, rather than the great powers of Austria and Prussia that were further afield.

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The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

Saving Württemberg Having successfully extricated himself from an increasingly damaging alliance, Friedrich found himself in a difficult position. The Austrians had been grateful for Württemberg’s change of sides during the Battle of the Nations; its place at the victors’ table, however, was not greeted with universal satisfaction on the part of the Congress delegates. Partially, this was due to the sheer bloody-​mindedness of the other Coalition partners. Prussia, for one, had not forgotten that the southern states had defected from the Rheinbund only when it became clear that the tides of fortune had shifted against France. Friedrich arrived in Vienna characteristically full of bluster and confident that the deals he had made with Austria in 1813 (largely through the good offices of Johann Cotta) would secure his state’s future. But whatever promises had been made during the wars, what occurred after them would be an entirely different matter. The experiences of one of Württemberg’s fellow Mittelstaaten provided Friedrich with ample reasons for concern. Like Württemberg, Saxony had aligned with Napoleon, and it had gained considerable territory as a result. The Saxon army had fielded some eighteen infantry battalions, as well as cavalry, artillery and logistical support, thereby supplying a large contingent for the French invasion of Russia in 1812. What distinguished the Saxons from the Württembergers was twofold. First, while Friedrich had voluntarily entered into an alliance with Napoleon, his Saxon counterpart, Friedrich August, had been compelled to do so. Saxons had actually fought alongside the Prussians in the disastrous debacles at Jena and Auerstedt in October 1806 and had concluded a peace with Napoleon only in December, after Prussia had itself negotiated with the French.1 The other distinction was that, in 1813, Saxony had not been able to withdraw from its alliance with the French at the pivotal moment as the Württembergers and Bavarians had. This was less a result of King Friedrich August’s continued fealty to Napoleon, although his hosting of Napoleon’s birthday banquet in Dresden in August probably did not help his image amongst the Coalition.2 Leipzig, the site of the Battle of the Nations, was Saxony’s second city and, while Württemberg’s French garrison had been whittled down by 1813, Saxony was teeming with Grand Armée soldiers. Napoleon had used around 120,000 troops to hold Dresden in late August; at Leipzig in October he commanded some 200,000. As a result, Saxony was still considered an enemy combatant when Gebhard von Blücher’s Prussian troops arrived to occupy the kingdom. Its status had not changed by the time negotiations began in Vienna in 1814, and it was at this point that Prussia demanded penance. According to the Prussian delegation, principally the reform-​minded minister Karl August von Hardenberg, Saxony was a defeated opponent in a costly war. It was only right and proper, therefore, that it should suffer the consequences. Hardenberg intended that Saxony would cease to exist, as it would be absorbed into Prussia; in this, he had the support of the British delegation, led by Lord Castlereagh.3 Castlereagh’s acquiescence to Hardenberg’s designs was predicated on the assumption that the southern states (no matter their position at the end of the wars) had forfeited their rights to sovereignty by having been Rheinbund members in the first place. Britain itself had no territorial interests in the German hinterland, but Whitehall was certain that the Congress would result in Austria annexing the

Independence and Early South German Particularism

35

southernmost states –​Baden, Bavaria and Württemberg. This would tilt the balance of power on the continent in favour of Vienna; as a result, Berlin required its own compensation, which in this case would be Saxony.4 Whether the Badenese, Bavarian and Württemberg delegates were aware of Castlereagh’s machinations, or even his estimation of Austrian plans, is unknown. But the Saxon issue clearly concerned Friedrich to such a degree that he refused to take part in further proceedings until the Coalition’s exact intentions regarding Saxon territorial exchanges were made known.5 It is unlikely that the parochial and self-​interested Friedrich had any significant empathy for his Saxon counterpart. More likely, his obstructive behaviour towards the German Committee at the Congress was born from a suspicion that Saxony’s fate could set a precedent for the great powers’ dealings with the former Rheinbund states. His concerns can hardly have been helped by a series of press initiatives instigated in particular by the Prussians. The Prussian delegation seems to have understood the vital and growing importance of shaping public opinion. As Brian E. Vick notes in his recent study of the Congress, the Napoleonic Wars had ushered in an era of unprecedented public participation in the affairs of state, such that the peace conference to end those wars was always going to be a spectacle of open display, media engagement and popular involvement.6 Hardenberg’s press advisor, Karl Varnhagen von Ense, was particularly industrious, though whether he could be viewed as successful is a different matter. Under his influence, a large number of newspapers began to appear throughout Germany. Occasionally, Varnhagen’s influence was shadowy. Johann Cotta, fresh from his secret negotiations with the Austrians, returned to his usual occupation as editor and proprietor of the Allgemeine Zeitung, a paper he had begun in Tübingen in 1798 before moving its operations to the Bavarian-​Swabian town of Augsburg in 1807. By late 1814, much of the financial support for the paper came via Varnhagen, who also supplied Cotta with materials approved by the Hardenberg ministry. In spite of this, Cotta’s shrewd journalistic instinct meant that he would balance his received materials with those he gained from sources within the Austrian and Bavarian governments; largely because of this, the Allgemeine Zeitung built a reputation as the most objective and authoritative German news outlet of the era. The same could not be said for the Rheinische Merkur, based in Koblenz, which made no secret of its pro-​Prussian sympathies. The Merkur’s proprietor, Joseph Görres, was another of Varnhagen’s marks, though his propensity for radicalism proved impossible for Berlin to control. In fact, Hardenberg would ultimately demand the Merkur’s suppression in 1816. By this point, however, received common knowledge throughout Germany painted Görres as Varnhagen’s stooge, and the Merkur as a mouthpiece of Hardenberg’s government. Görres’ pet subject –​the southern states (particularly Bavaria) and their unforgivable treachery during the wars –​became extremely concerning, since it was assumed that his position was, in turn, Berlin’s official position. Even Friedrich’s character counted against him. His reputation for authoritarianism and boorishness preceded him; Stein, the erstwhile Prussian, dismissed him as ‘the Württemberg tyrant or sultan’, and the wife of the Russian diplomat, Count Nesselrode, wrote disparagingly of Friedrich’s ‘despotism’.7 Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, who accompanied him to Vienna, was similarly the subject of scorn, in spite of his leading

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The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

role in the Württemberg victories against the French at the start of 1814. Archduke Johann of Austria, a fellow military commander, thought little of his opposite number. ‘The crown prince of Württemberg, for all his talents and character, is playing an invidious role here’, he wrote. ‘Ambition gnaws at him.’ In particular, Johann was wary of Friedrich Wilhelm’s motives. ‘What do courage, knowledge or talents matter’, he grumbled, ‘when the character is not clear, strong or steadfast?’8

The Verfassungskampf of 1815–​1819 So, while Württemberg entered the Congress of Vienna as a victor, it also did so at what its leaders perceived to be a significant disadvantage. In the event, Friedrich’s fears were only partly correct. The Prussian delegation was hardly complimentary to the Rheinbund states, but its territorial claims were, for the most part, limited to Saxony, and did not extend any further south. Even here, and in spite of Castlereagh’s support, Hardenberg was not entirely successful, and Prussia gained only part of northern Saxony, as well as some Rhenish territories. Though these gains were by no means insignificant, neither were they commensurate to what the Prussian delegation had expected. Moreover, Castlereagh’s rationale for his support of Hardenberg’s reparations  –​that Austria would lay claim to the southern states  –​proved to be unfounded. This is not to say that Württemberg was beyond censure, but reproach came not as a result of its role in the war. The Congress’ status as a peace conference was not much more than a pretext. It soon became clear that France was not going to be held accountable for the wars; fault for the destruction wrought across Europe rested on Napoleon’s shoulders and Napoleon’s alone. Once the Bourbons were restored to the throne, the conference’s attention turned to Germany and its restructuring. One of the fundamental requirements of the German Committee was that the German states adopt ‘estate-​based constitutions’. This may appear surprising at first glance; before the French Revolution, only Württemberg’s Treaty of Tübingen could truly have been considered constitutional in the sense the Committee now established as a standard. Prussia and Austria, the major guiding forces behind the Committee, were hardly known for liberal reform. But, in the euphoria of victory, a cautious liberalism pervaded the conference. Moreover, the Prussian representatives  –​Hardenberg, Wilhelm von Humboldt and, in his semi-​independent capacity, Stein  –​were noted reformers.9 Finally, the decisions of the Mittelstaaten to join the French had, without exception, been made unilaterally without consultation; by introducing a check to monarchical power by extending a greater franchise to the Stände, the Committee presumably hoped to head off similar acts in the future. The Committee’s insistence on state constitutionalism also demonstrated a fundamental shift in European politics in the aftermath of the French Revolution. Traditionally absolutist governments may have despised the destruction wrought by the Revolution, but they could not deny the appeal of the language of human rights, liberty and equality that the Revolution had utilized so effectively. It should be recalled that the most popular voices against the Revolution, such as Schiller, Wieland, or Goethe, were often exponents of those values that the Revolution professed to hold

Independence and Early South German Particularism

37

dear. Their opposition came from the fact that they believed that this was a pretence. Until late in the day, Johann Cotta had supported Napoleon because he believed that his lordship over Europe would usher in an era of liberalism. Ludwig van Beethoven’s only opera, Fidelio, finally achieved critical success when it was staged in Vienna during the course of the Congress. It, too, had at its core themes of liberty and brotherhood that would not have looked out of place in Revolutionary propaganda of the early 1790s, but its 1814 production implied that it was the Coalition, in the form of Florestan’s heroic wife Leonore, embodying these virtues, while the villain Pizarro represented the profound injustice of Revolutionary governance.10 The Coalition had co-​opted the language of human rights for its own purposes, in order to justify the wars against Napoleon. It could hardly jettison those concepts now, when victory had been achieved. But, the Committee’s delegates argued, fairness and an expansion of rights could be achieved through reform rather than revolt. This meant reinstating power in the hands of traditional power-​brokers  –​the nobility, the aristocracy and the monarchy –​and expecting them to do right by their respective subjects. This was a remarkably astute political manoeuvre and, it could be argued, a cynical one. On the one hand, it was intended to placate the populist activism that had accompanied the euphoric tone of victory. On the other hand, estate-​based constitutions would make certain that ‘right’ men remained at the helm of their states. This explains not just the support of the Prussian reformers (among others), but also that of the Austrian minister-​president, the archconservative Clemens von Metternich: Congress-​backed constitutionalism would cement an acceptably stable status quo, rather than giving in to adventurous liberalism. One of Friedrich’s first acts as king was to take advantage of the opportunity to suspend the Treaty of Tübingen. Now, he was being asked to reinstate it. His response, on 18 January 1815, was to announce a new constitution  –​or, rather, a new ‘fundamental law’ that would govern the state. Initially, this was received with enthusiasm the by Committee, whose delegates did not expect Friedrich to be so accommodating. But suspicion soon overtook approval. Friedrich’s unicameral Landtag did not invest nearly as much oversight in the Stände as the old constitution had. Representatives of the Stände noted with conspicuous disapproval that the landed gentry were to be poorly represented compared to nobles directly attached to the House of Württemberg. Nor was it clear from the king’s proclamation whether the established interests of the traditional Württemberg Stände would be protected from the meddling of New-​Württemberg estates. In short, the estates believed that Friedrich’s fundamental law signified a further dilution of their legislative powers, rather than a reestablishment of them.11 The estates also found support within the population at large. The poet Ludwig Uhland, at the time practicing as a lawyer in Stuttgart, came to public attention through his ‘Fatherland Poems’ (Vaterländische Gedichte), which centred on Württemberg. In 1816 he published a further six Fatherland Poems, four of which directly addressed what Uhland saw as the usurpation of the ‘altes gutes Recht’ (old good law) of constitutionally based estate rights and representation by the state. Representative of these poems is the second of the series, Würtemberg, in which Uhland praises the natural beauty of his home state, referring to it as a ‘garden’ and a ‘paradise’, before lamenting that the one missing element  –​the old good

38

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

law  –​sullies everything praiseworthy about the state.12 Uhland was joined by other critics. The most prominent of these was the chancellor of the University of Tübingen and government minister Karl August von Wangenheim. In 1815 he published a political treatise, The Idea of the State Constitution. The Treaty of Tübingen, he opined, was the very basis of order in Württemberg and was intended as nothing short of a guarantee of the ‘personal and political freedom of the Wirtembergers [sic]’, until it was abrogated by Friedrich in 1806.13 Wangenheim also defined his ‘three principles’ of the ideal civil society –​freedom, equality and security –​in terms of how they were to be administered: freedom could be accomplished through the ownership of property, equality through the constitutional contract between the bodies politic and social, and security through electoral franchise. Of these, only property law remained largely intact after 1806.14 Furthermore, his insistence that the Württemberg regent could only exercise ‘his law-​given power under the constitutionally accepted agreement with the representatives of his people’ seems an especially bold statement for a state appointee to make, at a time when his regent was quite clearly exercising power derived from his own, personal law, having vacated the representatives of their responsibilities whatsoever.15 His description of the powers of the parliament also appear quaint and out of place, since that body had been essentially stripped of any meaningful power when Friedrich suspended the constitution.16 At least part of Wangenheim’s treatise can be seen, in this context, to be a nostalgic representation of Württemberg’s history, and a lament of the more recent break with this lineage. Certainly, in many instances, Wangenheim’s offered withering critiques. He expounded on the role of a citizen within a state, and the state’s obligations to its citizens. ‘If Man is to love the state more than he loves himself  –​and this he must do, for this is to him a matter of culture  –​then he must himself help to build the state’, Wangenheim insists in a sentiment that would not have been out of place in Friedrich the Great’s meditations. Similarly, the state ‘must be recognized as a spiritual organism, in which freedom wins over the necessity of excessive force’.17 In essence, then, Wangenheim argues against absolutist elements that had become ubiquitous in Württemberg since it had become a kingdom. The constitutional struggles (Verfassungskämpfe) were not resolved in Friedrich’s lifetime. On 30 October 1816, Friedrich died, aged sixty-​one. Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm, then thirty-​five years old, thus assumed the title of king and, to distinguish from his father, became known by his second given name. Wilhelm inherited his kingdom at a dangerous moment in its history. Friedrich had presided over the state essentially as its only political force for a decade, and had left in his wake a constitutional crisis. In doing so, he had alienated both the conservative elements of the Stände, which wished to return to the altes gutes Recht of the Treaty of Tübingen, as well as the more progressive liberals, such as Cotta, who saw the old constitution as the first step in an inexorable movement towards greater popular rights and political engagement. The foundations of the monarchy’s legitimacy were therefore strained. The conflict over the constitution was not the only major crisis facing Wilhelm’s administration. Since 1814, the ministry of finance, aware of the debts accrued by years of war, had attempted to stem the deficit by stimulating the export market. Württemberg was still largely an agrarian state, and this meant that surpluses in agricultural

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production were traded extensively. But 1816 was unusually cold, largely as a result of the environmental disruptions caused by the eruption of Mount Tambora in the Dutch East Indies, and grain yields across Europe fell dramatically. This ‘Year without a Summer’ was acutely felt in Württemberg; not only had all reserves been drained by the government’s aggressive policy of trade, but the expansion of Württemberg in the Napoleonic Wars actually worsened the problem, as there were now double the mouths to feed, and most of the casualties of the wars had come from the able-​bodied farming population. The end result, the Hungerzeit (time of hunger), was part of what has been called ‘the last subsistence crisis of the Western World’.18 Between 1816 and 1817, nearly all Württembergers suffered from some form of malnutrition, while deaths from typhus, oedema and starvation skyrocketed. In Laichingen, 86 per cent of the population went without bread or food supplies in the month of May 1817. Similar shortages were experienced in all of Württemberg’s major population centres, and the situation began to improve only in the latter months of 1817.19 The Hungerzeit’s timing was significant, coming as it did in the middle of the Verfassungskämpfe between state and Stände. To Wilhelm’s credit, his government attempted to respond swiftly. Wilhelm’s finance minister, Ferdinand Heinrich August von Weckherlin, saw the shortages as a problem that could be solved through economic modernization. Weckherlin noted that Britain in particular had shifted its trade base from agricultural commodities to industrially produced goods. If Württemberg were to develop an industry-​centred economy, he reasoned, agriculture would not have to bear the burden both of supporting the domestic and export markets. Weckherlin’s proposals, however, were opposed by the Stände. For the most part, the estates were made up of landowners with vested financial interests in farming. State investment in new fields of mechanized industry would necessitate a corresponding decrease in investments and subsidies for agriculture. This was seen as another attempt by the crown to strip the Stände of influence, this time economically. In the face of this opposition, Weckherlin and Wilhelm backed down, though a couple of Weckherlin’s more innocuous policies, mostly relating to tax and customs reform, were subsequently passed into law.20 The conflation of policies intended to soften the effects of the Hungerzeit (or, at least, to preclude the Hungerzeit from occurring again) with elements of the constitutional struggle, however, set a precedent of behaviour. The lack of diversified trade was a clear weakness in the Württemberg economy, but henceforth any attempt by the crown to address the issue would be perceived by the Stände as another attack on the old good law. Nevertheless, in this marriage of the economic and political challenges, something had to be done. The public debt that had resulted from Friedrich’s reign, and which the ministry of finance had tried to resolve so disastrously, continued to balloon. By 1820, some 20 per cent of the state budget was earmarked for servicing the interest accrued alone.21 At the same time, Wilhelm faced the problem that Friedrich had created, postponed, but never solved: the proper integration of the mediatized territories of New Württemberg into the state. Friedrich’s solution had been simply to ignore the problem, and his dodging of the constitutional crisis merely extended the issue. Admittedly, integration was hardly a straightforward process. In Baden, where similar territorial absorptions had taken place, the grand duke’s attempts to

40

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

extend his power and influence over Baden’s expanded territories resulted in years of conflict verging on civil war.22 Unlike his father, however, Wilhelm was not averse to constitutional rule, and in 1819 he proposed an answer to the Verfassungskämpfe. His solution was an extraordinary document. Named after the seat of the royal house, the Ludwigsburg Constitution was to some degree patterned on the old Treaty of Tübingen. However, Wilhelm expanded the degree of public participation in the political process. As a result, the Ludwigsburg Constitution was more liberal than any similar document of its time. The Stände were to be sated by investing them with significant legislative power; at the same time, Wilhelm hoped to rein in their more reactionary tendencies through a complete overhaul of the Landtag system. This would be achieved through the establishment of a bicameral assembly. The First Chamber, similar to Britain’s House of Lords, comprised the leading members of the Stände, while the Second Chamber comprised twenty-​three ‘privileged’ members (nobles, the highest officials of the Lutheran and Catholic Churches and the chancellor of the University of Tübingen) and seventy ‘people’s representatives’, made up of seven from Stuttgart, Tübingen, Ludwigsburg, Ellwangen, Ulm, Heilbronn and Reutlingen, and another sixty-​three from the remaining electoral districts. These seventy representatives were elected through direct suffrage. All male taxpayers in the kingdom carried the right to vote, a particularly permissive policy given that even the most even-​handed of suffrage rights in other European countries usually only extended to property owners or members of a certain class or social milieu.23 These reforms opened the Landtag to influence from more areas of society than previously had been permitted. Where once the parliament had been dominated by landowners and agriculturalists, this was no longer guaranteed. This was especially vital when people like Weckherlin, who saw the agrarian dominance in the Landtag as a retarding factor in the state’s economic development, were few and far between in the political process. Thus, while Weckherlin was attempting to introduce policies aimed at diversifying Württemberg’s economic output, his king was attempting to open the parliament to those without the traditional agricultural interests. The other major distinction between the Ludwigsburg Constitution and its predecessor was, of course, the inclusion of New-​Württembergers in both the electoral franchise and in the institutions of parliament. In some cases, such as Reutlingen and Ulm, New-​ Württemberg electorates were afforded special privileges. This was a clear attempt to offer New-​Württembergers incentives to bind themselves to the state apparatus  –​a state with which they heretofore had no common relationship. Wilhelm hoped to build a consensus of Verfassungspatriotismus (constitutional patriotism); in effect, much as Nicolai had written a quarter-​century earlier, Württembergers would be united by their constitutional heritage. Such was the breadth of freedoms and rights guaranteed under the Ludwigsburg Constitution that this aspect of it was incredibly successful; by 1826, the writer Karl Julius Weber, travelling through Württemberg, reported that former citizens of the Duchy of Swabia now confidently told him in the broad Swabian dialect: ‘Noi, i bin a Wirtaberger’ –​‘No, I am a Württemberger’.24 In time, the Stände’s vested interests would prove to be more difficult to overcome than Wilhelm had hoped. Nevertheless, the Ludwigsburg Constitution, regardless its

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faults, at least temporarily resolved the simmering existential crisis that had haunted Württemberg since the end of the Napoleonic Wars.

The rise of South German regionalism The end of the Verfassungskämpfe in 1819 provides us with a moment to reflect upon the state of Württemberg and its position within Germany in the immediate post-​ Napoleonic era. The state had undergone significant changes in recent years. At the level of governance, the relationship between the crown, the estates and the politically engaged public was dynamic and complex. The old Treaty of Tübingen had been a source of the citizenry’s pride but, even though the new Ludwigsburg Constitution was significantly more liberal in character and scope, the events that preceded its creation had soured the relationship between the king and his Stände. The necessity of modernization also made conflict between the Landtag and the king’s government all but inevitable. Finally, though the Ludwigsburg Constitution went some way to building bridges between the populations of Old-​and New-​Württemberg, the very fact that it was intended to do so reveals a recognized distinction and divide between the identities of those who had always been subjects of the Württemberg state and those who, by coincidence and through no actions of their own, were forced into being so. The Ludwigsburg Constitution was perhaps the first of Wilhelm’s conspicuous triumphs as monarch of his kingdom. Over the course of his long reign, he would have many others. But the circumstances surrounding its creation also demonstrate that the state was precariously balanced. In this sense, it was little different from most of the other Mittelstaaten, each of which experienced similar obstacles. Perhaps it was this experience that caused Wilhelm to turn his attentions to Württemberg’s place in Germany. It will be recalled that one of the chief aims of the Congress of Vienna was to redraw the map of Germany, in order to stabilize a region that had suffered chaos throughout the preceding years. One of the means of doing so was the creation of the German Confederation. Encompassing the entire German region, it was intended to be a loose body of the states, with a confederal diet based in Frankfurt. It was governed by a set of acts, and it was stewarded by the two German great powers, Austria and Prussia. It was not, however, a unification of Germany by any means, but rather acted as a consultative arena to address the grievances of its members. Its powers were extremely limited so as to not impose on its members’ sovereignty; in this regard, it was a worthy successor to the institutionally weak Holy Roman Empire. Much like its predecessor, the German Confederation was hardly a beloved body. Its critics came from across the political spectrum. Friedrich had not been keen on it, labelling it an ‘absurdity’ and ‘fraudulent’ when it was put before him at the Congress of Vienna.25 His objection had been that the Confederation would dilute Württemberg’s sovereignty. However, the Confederation also attracted criticism that was markedly similar to that levelled against the Holy Roman Empire by the likes of Schiller and Goethe; namely, that it did not go far enough. One of the most notable voices against the Confederation was Friedrich List. List, the Landtag representative

42

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

for the New-​Württemberg electorate of Reutlingen, was also a professor of public law and commerce at Tübingen. In 1821, he presented the Landtag with the so-​called Reutlinger Petition, a treatise attacking petty state-​based politics while advocating an expansion of the role of the Confederation in administrating Germany. List believed that the Ludwigsburg Constitution in fact placed too much emphasis on the vested rights of the Stände; echoing Weckherlin, he argued that the self-​interest of the estates would only harm the population at large. This also engendered within the state a tendency towards bureaucracy and inefficiency. His solution was the revocation of the constitution, a radical overhaul of the taxation system, and the sale of all state-​owned assets to cover the public debt. These sweeping reforms, List insisted, were necessary to stop the state bureaucracy and government from ‘devouring the marrow of the land, and destroying the freedom of the people’.26 The crowning achievement of the reforms, he hoped, would be a binding free trade zone encompassing all of Germany, which would, in turn, facilitate the formation of a united German state. List’s proposal was, in fact, remarkably similar in many ways to ideas that had already been mooted. At the height of the Hungerzeit, Wilhelm himself had appealed to the Confederation for assistance, hoping that the body might compel the lifting of tariffs that made importing much-​needed foodstuffs prohibitively uneconomical. Had he been successful, this would have placed nation-​wide customs policies in the competence of the Confederation –​perhaps not quite the free trade zone advocated by List in 1821, but certainly policy along the same lines. But Wilhelm had not succeeded, at least in part due to Prussian and Austrian reservations that they might lose control of their own taxes to the Frankfurt diet.27 This episode convinced Wilhelm of the need for pan-​German cooperation, while also suggesting that neither Prussia nor Austria could be trusted to do what was right on behalf of the smaller states. Consequently, in 1820, Wilhelm, along with his opposite numbers from Bavaria and Baden, signed his name to the so-​called Viennese Punctation (Wiener Punktation).28 This was a statement of intent to form a ‘commercial-​political triad’ within Germany, with Austria and Prussia pursuing their own systems. The Mittelstaaten would therefore become an economic (and to an extent political) union. Progress on cementing this bloc, however, was slow and unwieldy. The customs conference stumbled on matters of policy, and ultimately dissolved in the middle of 1823, a full three years after it was first convened, without coming to any significant agreement.29 It would not be until October 1824 that Württemberg and Bavaria took the first steps towards creating a true customs body, forming the Bavarian-​Württemberg Customs League. A  month later, in Heidelberg, Hesse-​Darmstadt and Baden also agreed to the measure, renaming the league the South German Customs Union, or süddeutsche Zollverein. Representatives of the member states met in Stuttgart the following February, along with a deputation from Nassau, who sought membership status, to forge the fundamental laws and regulations of the new body. This regional initiative, involving the Mittelstaaten acting in conjunction with each other and excluding the great powers of Austria and Prussia from their affairs, was one of the first examples of a model of national unity that became known as ‘Third Germany’. The name distinguished it as an alternative to the prevailing models of unification known as ‘Greater Germany’ and ‘Lesser Germany’, which will be discussed

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at length in the next chapter. In general, Third Germany refers to any foundation of a Germany based solely or mostly around the Mittelstaaten and Kleinstaaten. As we shall see, Third Germany had a number of proponents within the nascent but steadily expanding popular liberal-​nationalist movement. At this stage, however, the state-​backed versions of it were to a large extent products of political and economic expediency. Wilhelm supported the Wiener Punktation in principle, and the South German Customs Union in fact, precisely because experience had demonstrated that these developments could have economic benefits for Württemberg. Likewise, Friedrich List, though no doubt approaching the issue as a nationalist idealist, based his proposals on clear, pragmatic propositions. Yes, the Stände of Württemberg had vested economic interests in an agrarian economy. Yes, this had been shown to be dangerous, especially in light of the Hungerzeit. No, there appeared to be no realistic recourse to redress the balance, except by concentrating economic policy at a national rather than at state level. Wilhelm had decided early in his reign that German nationalism was a force to be harnessed. This contrasted markedly with the attitude of his father, who saw pan-​ Germanism as a cause to be avoided. The rationale behind both positions was similar, as both kings sought advantages for Württemberg. Where Friedrich saw the danger of losing his grip on independence, however, Wilhelm saw the opportunity for fruitful collaboration. Over the years his position would become more and more idealistic; by the twilight years of his reign his views on pan-​German nationalism would not have seemed out of place at a liberal-​nationalist rally. At this early stage, though, his priority was clearly Württemberg. It very quickly became apparent that Third Germany offered Wilhelm his best opportunity to benefit that priority. In March 1819, the playwright and outspoken opponent of liberal-​nationalism, August von Kotzebue, was stabbed to death in his home in Mannheim. His assassin, a student from the University of Jena named Carl Ludwig Sand, was ‘politically confused, mentally unbalanced, and artistically untalented’, according to James J.  Sheehan.30 He was also a founding member of the Burschenschaft nationalist student union at the University of Erlangen, and a member of many other similar Burschenschaften. Sand killed Kotzebue because he viewed the playwright as a traitor to Germany; in fact, Sand’s act did far more to damage the nationalist cause than Kotzebue ever did. His attempt to commit suicide failed, and he was swiftly arrested, tried, convicted and beheaded. His many connections to nationalist movements gave the Austrian government all the impetus it required to insist that the German Confederation clamp down on universities, student assemblies, the Burschenschaften and any press agencies that were pan-​Germanist in character. Even the traditional defenders of German nationalists had a hard time defending them in the aftermath of the Kotzebue murder. Baron vom Stein, the venerable Prussian diplomat, had at the height of the Napoleonic Wars declared: ‘I have but one Fatherland which is called Germany, and I am devoted with my whole heart to it alone and to no particular part of it.’31 Now, he wrote to the newspaper proprietor, Görres, denouncing the student nationalists as ‘this accursed sect’, and demanding that the Burschenschaften ‘be punished and […] become the object of public repugnance’.32 The resulting Karlsbad Decrees, which legislated just this, were

44

The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

essentially the product of Metternich’s advocacy, rather than a truly consultative effort on the Confederation’s behalf. Wilhelm, however, was rather less impressed by the need to repress the nationalists. In part, his reluctance to accede to the Karlsbad Decrees may have been driven by the fact that he himself was increasingly turning towards some form of national cooperation as the answer to his state’s woes. Certainly, more reticence came from a distaste for doing Austria’s dirty work. It was Wilhelm’s representative in the confederal diet, the former Tübingen chancellor Wangenheim, who voted against the adoption of the Karlsbad Decrees, and he continued his obstructionist approach to the suppression of the nationalists at every opportunity. In May 1822, he even managed through fierce campaigning to push through legislation demanding that the investigative commission tasked with rooting out the Burschenschaften be dissolved, essentially stripping Metternich of the confederal authority to investigate and pursue illegal nationalist organisations.33 Wilhelm’s liberal inclinations did not take long to get him into trouble. The appointment of Wangenheim to the confederal diet had been his first provocative move. Wangenheim, it will be recalled, was vocal in his demands for liberal-​ democratic reforms. Largely for this reason, he was also poorly disposed towards both Austria and Prussia –​the most preponderant powers in the Confederation –​ because of what he considered to be their reactionary tendencies. His Idea of the State Constitution had also (somewhat disingenuously, it must be said) criticized these powers for what he viewed as their ‘unmanliness’ and cowardice during the Napoleonic Wars. ‘No Wirtemberger [sic] obeyed the laws of France’, he claimed. ‘[N]‌one bled in Spain; none grovelled before French ministers, and none felt the influence of the French secret police!’34 His appointment to the diet was not met with universal approval, and shortly after he had taken the position, the British envoy Brook Taylor felt compelled to report to Castlereagh that Wangenheim had ‘rendered himself so conspicuous in the last discussions with the States’; to Taylor, Wangenheim was unpredictable, irascible and a surprising choice given the duties that would be entrusted to him.35 Taylor was right to be skeptical. Out of principled habit Wangenheim had a tendency to vote against any motion put before the diet by either Vienna or Berlin no matter what it was, which did nothing to improve his standing with them. Neither did the arrest in 1819 of a university student in Berlin by the name of Karl Heinrich von Wangenheim, on suspicion of plotting a public outrage. It does not appear that this Wangenheim was of any relation to the Württemberg minister; nevertheless, the coincidence was unfortunate.36 In March of the next year, at the confederal conference in Vienna, Wangenheim took the remarkable step of greeting the arrival of King Wilhelm with the declaration:  ‘Here he comes, the king of the Germans!’37 This announcement rather clumsily signposted Wilhelm’s intention to discuss the prospects of a south German Bund with his fellow Mittelstaaten leaders; this was the precursor to the aforementioned Wiener Punktation. The Austrians and Prussians responded, unsurprisingly, with censure, and temporarily recalled their consular officials from Stuttgart in protest.38 Another event in 1820 also piqued the unwanted interest of the Austrians and Prussians. In September 1820, a publication, the Manuskript aus Süd-​Deutschland,

Independence and Early South German Particularism

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was printed in London and distributed throughout Germany. The book was written by Friedrich Ludwig Lindner, a radical liberal who wrote under the pseudonym ‘George Erichson’. In the aftermath of the Napoleonic Wars, Lindner argued, the southern states (particularly Württemberg and Bavaria) had embodied the ‘spirit of moderation’, which was threatened by the authoritarianism practiced by Vienna and Berlin. The evils of censorship and repression, he continued, had only been ameliorated by the tireless work of the Houses of Württemberg and Wittelsbach.39 In opposing Austrian and Prussian confederal initiatives, Württemberg ‘did more for the cause of freedom and independence of the Germans than all of the lovely words at the Congress [of Vienna] did’. Dismissing Prussia and Austria completely, Lindner, while acknowledging the profound differences in culture, politics and traditions between the thirty-​six states, declared that ‘we wish to raise this motley country to a position in which its fractious nature disappears before our very eyes’.40 Lindner’s solution was to group the states together according to region  –​North Germany and South Germany –​with both working together in a form of cooperative autonomy, governed by their own statutory regulations and administrative systems. The end result would be to create an independent German nation-​state based upon the Mittelstaaten. The core of this new bloc would be Württemberg and Bavaria, since they had adopted ‘contemporary constitutions [ . . . ] as their fundamental law’.41 Lindner’s Manuskript caused a sensation when it appeared. Its southern separatist leanings alarmed the Austrians in particular, who feared that the sentiments could disrupt their attempts to create a friendly (or at least neutral) buffer of states just to their north. Furthermore, while Lindner was, by himself, of little concern, the ideas he espoused were in line with those promoted by King Wilhelm. In spite of Lindner’s less than auspicious political pedigree, the indignant Austrian and Prussian governments suspected that his hand had been guided by the Württemberg king.42 Suspicions were further raised when another of Lindner’s publications appeared, this time under the name of Karl Heinrich Kollmanner (ostensibly a member of the privy council in Saxony). This time, Lindner stated that the ties that had bound Germany to Austria were those born of ‘spirit, friendship and fear’, but that the time had come to shake off the Austrian influence. Once more, Bavaria and Württemberg were singled out as the guiding lights of Germany, the only states capable of securing the sovereignty of the Klein-​ and Mittelstaaten against the influences of Austria and Prussia.43 Again, the author appealed for unity between the smaller states. The hand of Stuttgart officialdom was again suspected, and this time the Austrians responded with some venom. The Austrian politician Friedrich von Gentz, for instance, published his own rebuttal to the new pamphlet, suggesting that it came from the same mind as the earlier Manuskript. The architect of it all, he thought, was Wilhelm, who wished to destabilize Germany for his own gain. Wilhelm, Gentz argued, was nothing more than a ‘German Bonaparte’.44 The Lindner affairs did nothing to help Württemberg’s standing with Austria or Prussia. Gentz and others were right to see Wilhelm as the force behind the documents; certainly, there is enough circumstantial evidence to suggest that Wilhelm had commissioned Lindner for the purpose. For a king to cooperate and act in conjunction with an infamous left-​wing radical was itself an unprecedented outrage.

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The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815–1871

But even if Wilhelm had not been involved in the printing of the Manuskript and the later pamphlet, the ideas espoused within them were so close to the Württemberg state policy that they only served to make the more reactionary elements in the diet more acutely aware of the dangerous nature of that policy. Indeed, the Landtag in Stuttgart was forced to issue a denial that Wangenheim was in fact Kollmanner.45 Despite the denial, the closeness of Lindner’s arguments to those of Wangenheim in the diet and the furore surrounding the publication of the documents were contributing factors to the worsening diplomatic relationship between Württemberg, Austria and Prussia, which eventually resulted in the latter two again recalling their diplomats from Stuttgart and demanding Wangenheim’s dismissal from his role as state representative to the confederal diet. While this was not the occasion of Wangenheim’s departure from his seat in the diet, his time was now short and, in July 1823, the Austrian and Prussian diplomats successfully engineered his downfall.

The meaning of early political Third Germanism What did all this political manoeuvring amount to? It is tempting to say that Württemberg’s Third German project was a singular failure. Wilhelm’s greatest advocates, Wangenheim and Lindner, were too divisive for the initiative to gain any traction under their direction. Wilhelm himself, still relatively young, was tainted by the impression he had given at the Congress of Vienna, as an ambitious and ‘invidious’ figure in the mould of his father. Consequently, Gentz could point to him as another potential despot. In this regard, Wilhelm was hardly helped by Wangenheim calling him the ‘king of the Germans’, a title that certainly rankled not just the Austrians and Prussians but also the other leaders of the Mittelstaaten. The state’s unwillingness to outlaw the nationalist movements, as Austria had demanded through the Karlsbad Decrees, should not be seen as Stuttgart’s ringing endorsement of freedom of expression and politics, either. Friedrich List, the professor and Landtag deputy whose Reutlinger Petition argued for nationalization of economic policy, found himself in difficulties as a result of this distinction. List had  –​perhaps inadvisedly  –​taken the opportunity to attack not just the privilege of the Stände and the inefficiency of bureaucracy, but also the very institution of the Württemberg state and crown. The British diplomat Hamilton Hamilton, reporting to Castlereagh in London, devoted much of his attention to List’s liberalism:  ‘The Delinquent, Mr. List, had been long celebrated for the democratic Nature of his political tenets’, he informed Whitehall. Moreover, his thesis that economic unification would benefit the people politically was ‘pregnant with Arguments of the most obnoxious Tendency’.46 More problematic for List, at least in the eyes of the law, was the fact that he used the Petition to ‘censure, abuse, and vilify unsparingly, every Individual employed in the Service of His Majesty [King Wilhelm]’.47 The judgement against him was essentially a foregone conclusion, made more certain by List’s attempt to use the trial as a means to further his political platform rather than defend himself from criminal charges.48 Sentenced to ten months of hard labour, List absconded to Strasbourg, but returned in 1824, whereupon his sentence was commuted to exile to the United States.49

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Of all Wilhelm’s initiatives, the South German Customs Union seemed to offer the most promise. Even this soon failed. Negotiations proved indecisive. Moreover, infighting among the delegates caused major tensions. The Bavarian foreign minister, Aloys von Rechberg und Rothenlöwen, vehemently opposed the formation of any binding south German system on the grounds that his ministry’s competence in the field of foreign affairs would be limited if Bavaria’s policy was tied to that of the other Mittelstaaten. Therefore, Rechberg attempted at every opportunity to undermine the work of his own finance minister, Maximilian von Lerchenfeld. This infighting amongst the delegations mired the conference in irrelevancies, such as the tedious and interminable discussions of whether escargot was to be considered a subsistence food or an export delicacy.50 Rechberg was soon busy squabbling with his Badenese opposite number over the status of the Palatinate, a recurring territorial dispute that hampered regional cooperation throughout the century. This resulted in Baden withdrawing from the Union, followed closely by Hesse-​Darmstadt and Nassau. This left Bavaria and Württemberg alone to continue the process they had begun.51 Not even the most confident proponents of the system believed that a two-​state body could deliver the desired solutions, and Wangenheim, one of the major driving forces behind the Union, took the withdrawal of Hesse-​Darmstadt and Nassau as a personal insult. In a telegram to Lerchenfeld, he derided Darmstadt’s ‘Carthaginian loyalty and un-​Carthaginian politics’.52 In this instance, however, Wangenheim’s insults, elegantly framed though they were, were not going to get him his own way. The Bavarian-​Württemberg Customs League, as it was once more, limped on into the 1830s with little chance of success, and was ultimately surpassed by a more truly pan-​German effort under the Prussian aegis, the Zollverein, at the same time. On the other hand, Wilhelm’s early attempts had provided a pattern to be followed. The failures in these early years were hardly fatal to the Third German cause; on the contrary, they demonstrated that, sufficiently motivated, the Mittelstaaten could collaborate on a wide range of issues. Not even the Customs Union was a total failure, since Prussia used it as an exemplar for its own customs experiment with the tiny state of Schwarzburg-​Sondershausen; this body would expand over the 1820s until it at last became the very Zollverein that rendered the southern initiative obsolete. Up to this point, Wilhelm’s attempts to forge ahead with some sort of Third German national body had been predicated upon his own perceptions of the state interest. The forces that had arrayed themselves for the nation were in their own ways fringe groups, not representing the German population as a whole. Wangenheim and Wilhelm were experimentalists in this regard. The unfortunate Friedrich List was well known as a radical, and the Burschenschaften were perceived to be violent, maladjusted agitators; Sand did nothing to soften this image by killing Kotzebue. However, between 1830 and 1848, the number of parties with a vested interest in the German Question exploded. Battles over the character of nationhood would be fought on the floors of various Landtage, in the coffeehouse haunts of the Burschenschafter and in the lecture theatres of universities. But now battle was joined by the increasingly important force of public opinion. In order to examine this crucial period, then, we must understand what was at stake. Where interests had previously been narrow, now a multitude of issues became national affairs. It is

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also vital for us to recognize that ideas of nationalism and the shape of the nation differed from person to person and group to group. Broadly speaking, they fell into three categories: Greater Germany (Großdeutschland), which would involve a federation of German states directed by Vienna; Lesser Germany (Kleindeutschland), which would not involve Austria at all but would transfer power to Prussia; and Third Germany. Württemberg acted as a microcosm for these national ideas, as the concept of unification exited the purely political or economic sphere, and became public property.

3

Models of German Unification, 1815–​1848

The proponents of German unification in the years immediately after the Congress of Vienna were, for the most part, exceptional figures with exceptional agendas. Those nationalist acolytes based in Württemberg were hardly exceptions to this rule. List’s Reutlinger Petition may have been written and presented in the name of the people he represented in his electorate, but there is no doubting that the motivation behind it lay with List himself; as one of the most brilliant economic theorists of his age, he was uniquely placed to recognize what he saw as the profound economic benefits to political unification and political benefits to economic unification. Similar can be said of August von Wangenheim, whose experience as chancellor at the University of Tübingen, management of the financial portfolio within the state government and, eventually, his position in the assembly of the Frankfurt diet, all gave him a singular perspective on the problems facing Württemberg and Germany as a whole. Even King Wilhelm had practical experience of German unity. At the head of an army supposedly engaged in ‘national liberation’ in 1814, he had been afforded a certain perspective on pan-​German cooperation and, at the Congress of Vienna, he had tried in vain to argue that the military affairs of the nascent German Confederation should come under a unified command (perhaps, he hinted, to be headed by himself). This was the ‘invidious role’ that had angered Archduke Johann of Austria. In terms of the popular participation in displays of nationalist fervour, however, momentum remained relatively slow. True, the Burschenschaften were conspicuous in their pan-​Germanism, but they were relatively small groups of variable efficacy. In any case, the involvement of the Jena Burschenschaft in the assassination of Kotzebue in 1819, and the subsequent Karlsbad Decrees, which made similar organizations illegal, tainted their brand of liberal nationalism. In short order, though, public political discourse increasingly shifted towards an implicit belief that national unification was not only desirable but vital. The reasons for this shift, the shape the debate took and the intricacies of the models of unity are discussed in this chapter.

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FIGURE 2  The Stuttgart Neues Schloß at the beginning of the nineteenth century, painted by Wilhelm Johannes Esaias Nilson in 1809. Wikimedia Commons.

The origins of Württemberg popular nationalism The great German social historian Hans-​Ulrich Wehler placed the appeal of nationalism mostly on the attractiveness of forming an inclusive identity. The Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars, he claimed, had created ‘a type of socio-​phychic vacuum, in the words of Freud: a deep disturbance’.1 In many ways, Wehler was correct. As we have seen, Germany underwent enormous social and political changes between 1789 and 1815, many of which resulted in a fundamental shift in the ways of life of many of its inhabitants. Wilhelm’s appeals to Verfassungspatriotismus notwithstanding, the New-​ Württembergers were essentially attached to a state in which they had no history and no habit of loyalty. In this context, it is not surprising that the newly enfranchised Reutlingers chose as their representative in the Landtag Friedrich List, a man who, the British delegate to Stuttgart noted, was well-​known for his democratic and nationalist arguments, and pursued them with ‘obnoxious tendency’. In a more modern parlance, we might consider List ‘anti-​Establishment’ or even ‘anti-​politics’; regardless, his appointment to the Landtag (however short-​lived) was the act of an electorate flexing its nonconformist muscles and reminding the status quo that it was in some way different. In this regard, we can see Wehler’s argument as an extension of Benedict Anderson’s ‘imagined communities’. The overarching community to which the New-​ Württembergers had belonged  –​as Swabians, as imperial subjects and so on  –​was lost, they felt little affinity for the identity that had been forced upon them, and they sought to construct a new community  –​‘Germany’  –​that would both satisfy their

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need to redress their communal loss, as well as connect them with millions of other Germans in a similar position. Germany was an ethereal concept invented by people who straddled identities they could not define. This logic is intellectually satisfying, and there is no doubting that there is some truth to it. Certainly, the dissolution of many of the smaller states led many to search for a new means of belonging. But there is more to this. Nationalism was a relatively new phenomenon in the nineteenth century, though aspects of it had existed earlier. The general lack of public engagement with it, however, was largely due to the compartmentalization of individual and communal identities. In spite of the works of Arndt, Jahn, Goethe and others, people often defined themselves through narrow lenses: by profession, religion or locality. Andreas Hofer, the Tyrolean woodsman who led a band of guerrillas in Bavaria, was co-​opted into the myth of the Befreiungskriege after his death in 1810, but the rebellion he led had nothing to do with Germany and everything to do with local rights for now-​disenfranchised and stateless Tyroleans. Jakob Walter, a conscript in Napoleon’s Russian campaign, similarly exemplifies the issue of localization. He was an Old-​Württemberger (his family came from Ludwigsburg, the ancestral seat of the House of Württemberg), though he was a Catholic when Württemberg (before Napoleon, at least) had been predominantly Lutheran. Wounded in action, he returned home via Stuttgart. The state capital, however, seemed alien to him, and he felt no affinity for it. Indeed, he had felt more welcome when he had crossed into Catholic Saxony, but it was only when he finally arrived in Ludwigsburg that he felt as though he had left foreign territory.2 Even most of the literary proto-​nationalists found problems in their own concepts of nationhood. Wieland’s 1793 lament of the lack of German patriotism in favour of more limited, state-​based loyalties is only one example. One anonymous contributor to the influential journal Allemannia took the opposite view to Wieland. German nationalism was an ideal, he claimed, but it could only be a consequence of the foundation of state identities. It was pointless to speak of Germany unless citizens could identify themselves first as ‘Prussian[s]‌, Saxon[s], Bavarian[s], Hessian[s], [or] Nassauer[s]’.3 Schiller, whose proto-​nationalist credentials are exemplary, nevertheless had difficulty demarcating what he meant by ‘Germany’. ‘But where is it located? I cannot find the country’, he admitted in his poem Das deutsche Reich, which became part of his great collaboration with Goethe, known as the Xenien. He added: ‘where the academic [Germany] begins the political [Germany] ends.’4 Goethe, meanwhile, was perfectly satisfied with defining Germany and ‘German-​ness’ as a philosophical concept, a ‘nation of the mind’. But the practicalities of a less ephemeral, geopolitical definition of the nation continued to elude and confound him. As late as 1830, he complained to Eckermann that ‘[w]e have no city, or rather we don’t even have a country, of which we can definitively say: here is Germany.’5 In part, the problem with Wehler’s concept of the ‘socio-​psychic vacuum’ is that it presumes the former citizens of Swabia and the other dissolved states were sufficiently invested in their state identity that its sudden disappearance caused an identity crisis for those same citizens. Yet, as Rogers Brubaker demonstrates, the institution of ‘territorial patriotism’ (Territorialpatriotismus) was never as strong in the German states as it was in France, Britain or elsewhere. This was a result of the intrinsically patchwork nature

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of the region before 1805, and indeed a consequence of the vague oversight of the Holy Roman Empire. Even in Prussia, usually considered the most bureaucratically centralized of the German states, authority rested in local districts rather than in the court in Berlin. The communal apparatus of the ‘state’ was, for the most part, broken up into smaller ‘law communities’, which served to secure and emphasize the local nature of one’s citizenship.6 There is no doubt that territorial changes had some effect on the citizenry, and that in some cases the disenfranchised responded with violence bred by disappointment; Baden and its perpetual emergencies is only the most obvious example.7 But the argument that nationalism was driven by a desire to recapture Territorialpatriotismus in the various ‘new territories’ does not explain the sheer breadth of nationalist sentiment throughout Germany. Nationhood was not necessarily a question purely of identity, but of rights. The early proto-​nationalists recognized this; in spite of their inability to draw the boundaries of Germany, they were nonetheless enthusiastic in their advocacy for unification, and clear on what this would mean for the citizenry. The young writer Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg (better known as Novalis), one of Goethe’s Weimar Circle, saw nationalism not as a phenomenon defined by geographical borders, but in terms of sets of common, liberal laws and rights. In Novalis’s estimation, unification would mean the foundation of a republican-​type system of representation and greater freedoms of expression and association, overseen by a benevolent but largely symbolic monarchy. Like Marx many decades later, Novalis saw historical development as an unavoidable progression, and his ‘kingly republic’ would be the inevitable outcome of liberal nationalism. ‘There will come a time and soon’, he confidently predicted, ‘when it will generally be acknowledged that no king can exist without a republic, and no republic without a king, for both are indivisible, like a body and a soul’.8 The composition of the nation was almost incidental in this construction; indeed, Novalis assumed that the constituent states would retain a large degree of freedom to legislate and govern as they saw fit, since local conditions varied and a centralized government, no matter how conscientious, was unlikely to be able to accommodate these. To an extent, Novalis also seemed to believe that location was not a consideration of nationalism at all, arguing at times that, because the French had adopted some German customs as a result of the Revolution, they had absorbed aspects of ‘Germanity’ and had become more German as a result.9 Like Goethe, Novalis was less interested in the application of German identity to the political borders and definitions of Europe, and far more in the philosophical characteristics that made Germans Germans in their intellectual capacities. These views regarding the geographical location of the nation (or the lack of it) were at the more extreme end of German proto-​nationalism, but even those with (relatively) clearer ideas of the borders of Germany still championed the primacy of rights and the extension of them as the price of membership.10 Arndt, the Prussian propagandist, had little trouble equating his national call to arms with an appeal for community, humanity and liberty against the oppressive and dictatorial forces of Napoleonic conquest.11 Once done, however, the conflation of German nationalism with liberty and liberalism could not easily be undone. In other words, if German nationalism stood for the liberation

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of the people from the oppressive yoke in the Befreiungskriege, then it should similarly act as a liberating force after the wars. These were also similar to Schiller’s liberal-​ republican views, which caused the French to consider him a ‘freedom poet’ in spite of his belief that French republicanism had betrayed the commitment to human rights that it should have engendered. In this way, liberal ideals became increasingly intertwined with the national question, as a means to escape the caprices endemic in petty state and dynastic politics. Of course, we should not presume that the intricate national philosophies codified by a select group of quite extraordinary literary figures were adopted chapter and verse by the population at large. But, in the same way that we can accept the reality of black holes and the Big Bang without understanding Hawking’s equations, so too could the Weimar Circle’s romanticized nationalism be adopted in its broadest strokes by a much larger audience that appreciated its core principles of democratic reform and the expansion of rights without necessarily engaging with the Greco-​Roman classicism in which the poets had based them. At the same time, the same poets became symbols of the same movement. In particular, the emphasis was placed on Schiller, whose fiery disposition, outspoken opposition to the French and heroic-​tragic struggles for his art made for the foundations of a compelling legend. In 1825, Stuttgart held the first Schillerfest (Schiller Festival) celebrating his works. The greatest of the Schillerfeste, however, came in 1839. Stuttgart hummed with the busy hubbub of raised and dramatic voices; public readings of his lyrics vied for attention with performances of his plays, culminating in the staging of his magnum opus, Wilhelm Tell. Beyond the artistry, however, the memorialization of Schiller was now in full swing. At Marbach, a park overlooking the picturesque Neckar was dedicated (though its completion was still a year away), and named Schillerhöhe (Schiller Heights). In the centre of Stuttgart, in the square bordered by the Collegiate Church and the Old Castle, a statue of the poet was unveiled amid great fanfare. Christian Reinhold Köstlin, a prominent art critic and jurist from Tübingen, wrote in effusive terms of the significance of the occasion: ‘At last there was the means to create a fitting memorial for the spiritual hero, in the very city from which he had once fled as an outlawed prophet, and through this memorial the whole Nation will recognize him as their representative.’12 Köstlin’s description tells us much of the tone of the event. It was undeniably a celebration of Schiller as a literary figure, but it was also a proxy celebration of the concept of Germany, as embodied in Schiller. The Schillerdenkmal in the centre of Stuttgart was, as Köstlin noted, a focal point, a centre of pilgrimage for the entire nation, not merely Stuttgarters, Württembergers or Schiller enthusiasts. But, the reader is reminded, Schiller was not just a prophet, but an outlawed one, banished by the forces of statist particularism in the form of the Württemberg government. That it was, in fact, Schiller who had effectively exiled himself by travelling to Mannheim without leave from his army posting hardly came into it; Schiller had suffered from the illiberalism at a parochial and provincial level that ‘the nation’, in its transformative role, would resolve. The fact that Wilhelm Tell rounded off the festivities was also no accident. It had some contentious claims to being Schiller’s defining work but, far more importantly, it was his most unabashedly nationalist play. Thus, the Schillerfest may have had the poet at its core but, more exactly, it championed his ideas, under

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the guise of memorialization  –​a powerful and state-​sanctioned display of artistic liberal-​nationalism. The public may have hoped for liberal reforms, but they also took advantage of the extant liberalism of their own state in order to make their views known. The most immediate method of doing so was through voting. List and Wangenheim, undeniably liberal in their views and nationalist in their inclinations, were soon joined by other elected representatives to the Landtag who espoused similar sentiments. In the Landtag election of 1831, for example, three radical liberals –​two editors of the radical newspaper Hochwächter and the journalist and philosopher Paul Pfizer –​took positions in the parliament. Just as Friedrich List had raised the ire of Hamilton Hamilton, so too did this cause the new British representative in Stuttgart, Edward Cromwell Disbrowe, to cable London to express his misgivings. Referring to the liberals as ‘unprincipled Agitators’ and ‘factious demagogues’ who ‘find a Trafic [sic] in Agitation and Ultra Liberal Doctrines more profitable’, Disbrowe warned that they could become a destabilising force in Württemberg politics, since they had been ‘elected in very considerable numbers’.13 But the central involvement of liberals in Württemberg politics reflected not a weakness, as Hamilton and Disbrowe had believed, but rather a core principle of Wilhelmine rule, and it remained a peculiarity somewhat unique to Württemberg that liberals continued to be returned to the Landtag, becoming increasingly important. Pfizer, prominent not just because of his reform-​minded liberalism but also because of his reputation as an author, soon found company in the form of Friedrich Römer, an even more radical liberal-​nationalist republican representing Geislingen, and Robert von Mohl, a professor of political science at Tübingen, who was vocal in his calls for social justice reforms and an expansion of the electoral franchise.14 All three, as we might expect, would play prominent roles during the revolution of 1848; before this, however, they were still extremely important as a bridge between the political machinations of the state and the will of the population at large. Crucially, Pfizer, Römer and Mohl all couched their liberal rhetoric in the vocabulary of the nation, believing that only change on a scale that would sweep the entire German region could usher in the reforms they desired at a local level. In an era well before opinion polls, it is impossible for us to gauge with certainty the degree to which the population sympathized with these radicals. But their electoral success gives us some indication of the fact that the liberal-​nationalist platforms on which Pfizer, Römer and Mohl (among others) based their political campaigns had significant resonance with the electorate at large. Their success is also an indicator of the state’s willingness to accommodate them, and to facilitate discussions at the highest political levels on the German Question.15 What it meant to be German, then, was enshrined in a set of behaviours or values rather than where one lived. This was as much a question to be grappled with by the public as it was by the politicians. So, while the political forces within Württemberg turned their attention to models of unification based on pragmatic considerations, popular national movements turned to idealism. What unification model best embodied their conception of national virtues?

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Greater Germany and Württemberg’s relationship with Austria It is commonly assumed that the nationalists of southern Germany gravitated naturally towards Austria as a partner and a Germany led by Austria as a model of unity. This model, Großdeutschland, foresaw a nation-​state not dissimilar to the German Confederation, with Austria at the head of a federated system of the German states. Greater Germany was a desirous outcome, the proponents of the model argued, because Austria was a great power, had shown a propensity to allow the states to pursue their own course and had experience presiding over the nation (broadly defined). There was also the matter of legitimacy. The Habsburgs had been the holders of the Holy Roman crown for centuries; before them, the Hohenstaufen dynasty, including the legendary Emperor Friedrich Barbarossa, hailed from Austrian territory. If the Germans were an ancient people, then their leadership should be similarly ancient. Austria was the only option. Greater Germanists certainly existed. Arguments supporting the Habsburgs’ claim to the leadership of Germany were prolific and vocal. But they were hardly hegemonic. The arguments of historians after the fact are predicated on two major assumptions. In the first instance, Austria must have been willing to lead Germany. In the second case, German nationalists must have been enthusiastic about the prospect of the Austrians as leaders of Germany. While both propositions may be supportable in isolated cases, in the main the relationship between Austria and German nationalism was complex and fraught. In no example is this more readily apparent than in the case of Württemberg. *** In 1815, when the Napoleonic Wars drew to their end, the most powerful of the German states was undoubtedly Austria. Among the powers of the Sixth Coalition, it was Austria that had played the most intricate diplomatic role. Austria had facilitated the shifting loyalties of southern Germany, and Austria hosted the peace conference to end the wars, turning the Congress as much into a spectacle of the Habsburg monarchy’s achievements as it was a victory of a truly grand and improbable alliance of powers that were normally far too suspicious of one another. If there was to be a guiding light of German unity in this period, many assumed that it must therefore come in the form of the emperor, Franz, and his minister-​president, Clemens von Metternich. As we have seen, in some parts of Germany, Austrian troops liberating towns and villages from French occupation were welcomed as harbingers of some kind of return to Holy Roman rule, and potentially one that was more binding and concrete than it had been by the end of the eighteenth century. In the beginning, there were some promising signs. For one, and in spite of the expectations of the British and the Prussians, Austria did not seek to annex the south of Germany. Indeed, when Hardenberg announced Prussia’s ambitious plans to absorb all of Saxony, Metternich leapt to Dresden’s defence, and it was largely the Austrian delegation’s efforts that limited Prussia’s eventual gains. Austria was also the driving force behind the formation of the German Confederation, which, though weak, was at least some attempt to bring the German states together in a diplomatic relationship. Furthermore, the requirement that each member of the Confederation would enact

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a state constitution –​the issue that vexed Friedrich, and was resolved by Wilhelm in 1819 –​offered some appeal to the liberal-​minded pan-​Germanists. These hopes were quickly dashed. Metternich had made all the right noises, but he had no intention of bowing to nationalist wishes. The German Confederation was intended to be a body of mutual security, a means by which Austria, in its largely self-​appointed role as steward of the region, could shape the development of state policies without opening itself to the greater liability that, in Metternich’s eyes, had caused Austria such problems under the Holy Roman Empire. Metternich was cut from the same cloth as his seventeenth-​century predecessor, Hörnigk, who had advised the Habsburgs to jettison the Holy Roman crown and focus on the Austrian heartland. For Metternich, the vital first step to safeguarding Austrian interests in Europe was to guarantee the integrity of Austria itself, rather than extending its direct influence over more territory. The way to this goal was twofold:  Austria would promote a solution to the difficult issues facing Germany that would secure a general and lasting peace, but would not entangle itself directly in matters of state. In other words, Austria’s answer to the German Question was to try to avoid answering altogether.16 Vienna’s desire to avoid a stronger Germany soon became clear to those who hoped in vain that the Congress was the birth of a new national movement. The Confederation, which might have been seen as the first step towards this goal, was anything but. This, Metternich made clear in his dealings with the other European powers, which were keen to avoid the rise of another revolutionary imperial power so soon after the destruction of the Napoleonic years. In private conversations with the British ambassador to Austria, Sir Charles Stewart, Metternich laid out his plans for the ‘Germanick [sic] Confederation’. Stewart’s subsequent reports to his half-​brother, Lord Castlereagh, made it clear that the Austrians saw the Confederation as a means to rein in the liberal nationalists, rather than encouraging them. ‘His Highness’ impression with regard to this Body’, Stewart wrote, ‘is to give it as little as possible a political Attitude, that it should be as much as possible confined to its administrative functions’. In this fashion, Stewart continued, Metternich hoped to avoid ‘the same focus for Intrigue [. . . ] as formerly existed in [the Holy Roman Empire]’.17 The insistence on state constitutions was little more than a sham to guarantee the states’ acquiescence to the Confederation; this became clearer when neither Austria nor Prussia, in spite of insisting on the measure in the Mittelstaaten, instituted constitutional reforms of their own. Furthermore, there were limits to what Austria was willing to countenance. During the final drafting of the Ludwigsburg Constitution, for example, the more liberal concessions raised concerns between both Franz and Metternich that Wilhelm, in expanding the electoral franchise, was in fact encouraging the ‘scourge of revolution’. This, Metternich feared, could have significant consequences throughout the region, and he encouraged his emperor to intervene diplomatically. ‘The balance of the Württemberg assembly’, he wrote to Franz, ‘may perhaps decide the destiny of Germany’.18 In response, Wilhelm showed some degree of the resolve that would characterize his reign; he dismissed Vienna’s fears, arguing that the Ludwigsburg Constitution, far from encouraging division, in fact solidified the intimate bond between the royal house and the general population.19

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The most prominent blow landed by the Austrians against liberal-​nationalist hopes, however, came in the form of the Karlsbad Decrees. The assassination of Kotzebue provided Metternich with the occasion to crack down on the nationalists around Germany but, as we have seen, this was the inevitable and logical conclusion of policies that, from the outset, had been designed to neuter them as a political force. Once more, the move met with the approval of the British government, with Charles Stewart praising the minister-​president for his ‘singular judgement and ability upon this late occasion’.20 In Württemberg, however, the reaction was rather less favourable. In contrast to Stewart’s glowing reports to Castlereagh, Sir Brook Taylor in Stuttgart remarked upon the ‘considerable sensation’ caused in political circles by the announcement of the repressive laws. The only foreseeable reason why popular displays of anger and protest would not follow, Taylor continued (not without a degree of irony), was because the measures of the Decrees were specifically designed to ‘prevent any public manifestation of discontent or complaint’.21 Nevertheless, Wilhelm’s government did its best to resist. Wangenheim’s objections in the diet have already been remarked upon. But he was not alone. In Frankfurt, he was briefly joined by the foreign minister, Heinrich von Wintzingerode, who argued in a private sitting of the assembly that the decrees contravened the spirit of the Confederation. In a more private initiative, Wilhelm sent an emissary to Karlsruhe, to appeal to Grand Duke Leopold of Baden to support a Württemberg initiative to energetically oppose the adoption of Metternich’s anti-​liberal-​nationalist protocols. At the same time, in a more oblique act of diplomacy, Wilhelm sought the backing of his brother-​in-​law, Alexander I of Russia, hoping perhaps that Vienna would not risk St Petersburg’s ire. In the event, Wilhelm’s objections failed. Wintzingerode and Wangenheim were unsuccessful in the diet. Leopold, while similarly liberal-​minded, was unwilling to challenge Metternich. The tsar, if he even considered Wilhelm’s request, was never likely to embroil Russia in a diplomatic squabble with Austria over matters that did not directly concern him (and, in any event, Russia was hardly a champion of political liberalism).22 Metternich’s manoeuvres to neuter the liberal-​ nationalists had far-​ reaching consequences. The most obvious of these was that the relationship between Württemberg and Austria, and the idealized picture of Austria as the worthy successor to the crown of Barbarossa, was hopelessly and irrevocably damaged. At the Congress of Vienna, the British prime minister, the Earl of Liverpool, astutely observed that Metternich was ‘a Minister in whom no one can trust’. Within a few years, Germany as a whole, and Württemberg in particular, had come to a similar conclusion. No doubt, Metternich was acting in what he saw as the best interests of the Austrian Empire; in this narrow sense, he can hardly be faulted. But German nationalists expected him to exceed this brief and on every occasion they found him wanting.

Collective security and the dangers of Austrian exceptionalism On many occasions, disappointment turned to fear, as Austrian self-​interest threatened to drag Germany into conflicts in which it had no vested interest. Principally those concerns rested in the southwestern states, as Austrian ambitions often clashed with

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those of France. In those instances, if arguments turned to war, Württemberg would be in the firing line just as it had been in 1805. Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars, Stuttgart had kept a wary eye on France. Initially, this was a prudent precaution for a state that had bartered for its place at the victors’ table in Vienna by betraying the French at their moment of greatest need. This caution was well-​founded. Even though French public opinion had begun to turn against Napoleon as the costs of defeat kept mounting, soon after the restoration of the Bourbon monarchy it took a decisive swing back in favour of Bonaparte. Hardships were quickly forgotten as a new wave of ‘neo-​Bonapartists’, including liberals who had previously denounced Napoleon’s dictatorial leadership, such as Benjamin Constant, now idealized his reign and turned against those who had been disloyal.23 Many years later, Napoleon’s illegitimate nephew, Louis-​Napoleon Bonaparte, elected president of the Second Republic, recognized that his stunning electoral success was almost entirely the result of his famous surname. ‘The name of Napoleon’, he surmised, ‘is a programme in itself ’.24 French antipathy towards its turncoat, one-​time allies would hardly have been a problem if peace terms had been punitive. But France came out of defeat in a remarkably strong position; not only was it represented at the Congress of Vienna, in the guise of the foreign minister, the formerly committed Bonapartist Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-​Périgord, but Talleyrand was soon treated like an old friend, and France like a rehabilitated ally. Liverpool, in the same letter that dismissed Metternich as untrustworthy, remarked to Wellington that the only sovereign power to be trusted on continental Europe was France –​a remarkable statement coming from the leader of France’s most implacable enemy. The favourable treatment afforded Restoration France confused other delegates. When the Russian delegation suggested to Stein that France was a natural ally of the victorious powers, he offered a blistering rebuke: why, then, he asked, had they fought France at all? Why had they occupied French soil, and why were they determining the reparations that the French would pay?25 Talleyrand would later gloat that ‘France’s territory was secured, the foreign soldiers had quitted French soil, and, by the return of the garrisons of foreign fortresses and of the prisoners, she possessed a superb army.’26 The restoration of France as a European great power was conceived by the Coalition forces as a method by which the balance of power would be retained. To officials in Stuttgart, however, it was this last concession –​the maintenance of the French army –​that seemed to suggest that balance might soon take a back seat to vengeance. In 1818, King Wilhelm sent a directive to the Württemberg mission to Paris, requesting a complete survey be conducted on the state of the French military recovery. These surveys, when completed, would form part of what, in modern terms, would be regarded as a threat assessment. The exhaustive reports, covering recruitment, disposition, budget and even the average wages of the army, were finally delivered in February 1819. They painted a stark picture. Only four years after the defeat at Waterloo, the French could call close to 150,000 men to the colours. Württemberg could field perhaps 14,000.27 For Württemberg, then, an imperative aspect of the German Confederation was an emphasis on collective security, since it could hardly face this potential threat alone.

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And yet, in spite of this need, Metternich seemed not only serenely unconcerned, but positively obstructive. Wilhelm’s military negotiations at the Congress had failed, but Württembergers must have hoped that this would mean that Austria would respond with its own counter-​proposal to promote regional security. This did not happen. Certainly, Metternich offered to construct fortifications in southern Germany, which he argued would protect the southern states from hostile actions. Almost immediately, these plans were met with scorn. Friedrich Lindner’s Manuskript aus Süd-​Deutschland derided the plan to build a fortress at Ulm, about halfway between Stuttgart and Munich, as being functionally useless for the defence of the German states from any potential aggressor. To Lindner, the geographical position of the fortress provided no protection for Württemberg or Baden, but only made sense as a ‘palisade for Austria, not for Germany’.28 Nearly two decades later, in 1840, Württemberg was still waiting for the Austrians to deliver on their promised fortifications, leading Wilhelm to complain to George Shee, another British envoy to Stuttgart, on the sorry state of Württemberg’s defensive situation: His Majesty went on to say that though this Country was small they were equally interested in great European questions, that its frontier was within four days march of the french [sic] frontier and open to the first attack. ‘Thanks’ He said, ‘to Monsr. de Metternich who has so long prevented a fortress being built to defend us. But his influence among us is gone. His policy has always been to forward the interests of Austria at the expence [sic] of those of the rest of Germany, and he may depend upon it, that let the events turn out as they may, our eyes are open to the mischief he has done, and it will not be his councils that direct us’.29

The situation had become even more grave in the intervening years. The Württemberg army might now have numbered about 20,000 men, but recruitment had ballooned the French army to approximately half a million. Worse, Bonapartist sentiments only grew stronger with the passage of time, beginning with the secret Mason-​like organizations known as the charbonnerie to a number of influential and key figures within the body politic.30 The periodic instability at the top of the French state particularly concerned Wilhelm; in the same conversation with Shee, he worried ‘that the caprice of a Minister or the slightest shew [sic] of popular feeling might convert what was meant only for defence [i.e. the French army] into an engine of Attack’.31 Wilhelm’s palpable anger at the Austrians for delaying work on their supposed defensive plans for southern Germany, and his continued concern at French designs, were no doubt stoked by the fact that it was the Austrians themselves who seemed to be antagonizing Paris. For a number of years, Austrian possessions in Italy had been a sore point in Austro-​French relations, due to vying French claims on the same territories. In 1830, Charles X, the unpopular Bourbon monarch, was even considering a military expedition against the Habsburgs over Italy, mostly as a means of distracting his subjects from miserable domestic conditions. Though he never had a chance to attempt this, his toppling in the July Revolution did not ease the strain on the relationship between the two powers. Not only did the revolt in Paris inspire similar unrest in Vienna, but to the leftist revolutionaries in France, Italy was still a cause worth championing –​not

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because they had claim to Italy, but because they objected to the Habsburgs’ repression of Italian liberal reformers and nationalist movements. Those objections came to the fore beginning in February 1831, when Italian patriots in Modena, Parma and elsewhere began a series of uprisings against Austrian rule. In spite of the new French King Louis Philippe agreeing that France would not interfere in internal Austrian affairs, in public his ministers and diplomats openly suggested quite the opposite.32 For months, and to the panic of the south German states (particularly Baden, which directly bordered on France, and Württemberg, with its southern frontier bordering Austria), the Italian affair seemed likely to boil over into a major war between these two great powers. Though tensions eventually eased, the 1831 war scare was a portent of things to come. Austria might not exactly have been mad, bad and dangerous to know, but its adventurism, poor relations that emphasized the perennial French threat to Germany and apparent willingness to place the smaller states in harm’s way for its own ends jaded its image in the eyes of Württembergers who may otherwise have been favourable. Metternich’s political machinations, as much as his broken promises, caused more than Wilhelm to open his eyes to ‘the mischief he has done’. In March 1831, at the height of the Austro-​French war scare, Edward Disbrowe summed up the public attitude towards Austria as ‘unpopular and looked on with some degree of Suspicion’.33 This suspicion only grew in the coming years. So, while Württembergers continued to develop a growing engagement with the German Question and the intricacies of nationalism, the idea of submitting to any form of Austrian leadership was unwelcome on most counts. First, public and state alike distrusted Metternich and his administration and did not believe that they held Germany’s best interests at heart. Even had this suspicion not existed, though, there was still the fact that Metternich himself had no desire whatsoever to lead a united Germany. Far from it; he hoped to see German nationalism blunted as a political force. As a result, if Württemberg hoped for a powerful patron, it would have to look elsewhere. Its most obvious option was Berlin.

Prussia, Lesser Germany and Württemberg If Austria was a suspicious and untrustworthy villain, then Prussia was an unknown quantity, a mercurial would-​be giant with inscrutable motives and goals. Its status as a great power had been an unsteady one ever since Friedrich the Great had secured it during the Seven Years’ War, and since then it had maintained difficult relations with most of the German states, but particularly with Austria. Their alliance during the Napoleonic Wars was the very definition of a friendship of convenience; after the end of the wars, it was neither expected nor destined to last. Prussia might seem a peculiar candidate as a potential leader of a popular national expression of Germany. Its delegation’s demands at the Congress of Vienna earned it few friends among the smaller states. Its army had long been considered the core of the state; Mirabeau famously quipped that Prussia was no so much a state in possession of an army, but an army in possession of a state. In the middle of the eighteenth century, even when Friedrich the Great had sought to reinvent Berlin and Potsdam as centres of

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Enlightenment thought and culture, his sometimes house guest, Voltaire, despaired of the fact that this new northern Athens still maintained Spartan militarism in its bowels. Occasionally, this military tradition lent itself to ruthlessness. In March 1815, the Saxon army, seconded to Prussia’s garrison at Liège, mutinied upon receiving word (false, as it turns out) that Saxony had been totally annexed and no longer existed. Blücher’s response was particularly brutal. The ringleaders of the revolt, quickly captured, were summarily shot. General Borstell, the commander of the Saxon army, was stripped of his post and placed in Prussian military custody. Humiliatingly, Blücher also ordered all Saxon flags, standards and colours to be torn down and publicly burnt. Finally, in a letter to Friedrich August, Blücher not only blamed the king for bringing ‘the profoundest disaster upon your subjects’, but also threatened to ‘have the entire Saxon army shot down’ if there was any further agitation.34 Others in the Prussian military were also aggrieved at the failure to make sweeping territorial gains after the war, and were incensed that Saxony and the other former allies of Napoleon remained (largely) intact. The great strategist Carl von Clausewitz recalled that, on one occasion during the proceedings of the Congress, a fellow officer had delivered a note to Metternich, ‘warn[ing] him that the Prussian army would not just let the matter drop, should someone wish to deprive the state of its richly deserved reward’.35 On the other hand, to reduce Prussia to an army (as Mirabeau had done) risks trivializing a state that was complex and multifaceted. Blücher was an old-​guard Prussian general who lived and breathed the army, but he was still answerable to a state bureaucracy. That bureaucracy was in the midst of sweeping reforms, and those at the helm were among the most progressive of any to be found in any German state at the time. Stein, although no longer officially a member of the Prussian government, still exerted significant influence on Berlin. Wilhelm von Humboldt, Hardenberg’s offsider at the Congress, could hardly be considered a reactionary arch-​conservative; as a philosopher and linguist of significant renown, he and his younger brother, the famous naturalist and explorer Alexander von Humboldt, had founded the University of Berlin in 1810, and he had instituted vast reforms designed to open education to the masses. His skills as a diplomat were no less impressive or liberal: it was Humboldt who had negotiated with Austria to secure Prussia’s reentry into the wars and into the Sixth Coalition, and it was Humboldt who had negotiated the treaty with Saxony that ended its resistance to the Coalition. And then there was the minister-​president himself. Karl August von Hardenberg’s career was peppered with examples of pronounced reforms, including the abolition of class restrictions in the civil service. His family name should also have given liberal-​nationalists some hope: Novalis was a distant relative. Finally, the Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm III, was no bellicose hawk, but rather a sensitive man who was considered cautious, sometimes to a fault. He also relied heavily on Hardenberg, Humboldt and Stein and trusted them implicitly.36 Liverpool thought he was ‘well-​meaning’ but weak. As much as the army might have rattled sabres, these were not the men likely to unleash a ruthless campaign of conquest or revenge. But if Prussia was unlikely to be aggressive towards the other German states, nor was it particularly willing to become embroiled in their affairs unless they provided some clear benefit. In a similar way to Metternich’s Austria, Hardenberg’s Prussia had wounds to lick and its own interests to protect. Having failed to make good on all

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of its claims in Saxony, Prussia effectively withdrew from European affairs for a few years. This was hardly surprising because, in truth, the wars had exhausted Prussia. Furthermore, although Prussia had gained comparatively little from the Congress of Vienna, there were still administrative difficulties in incorporating the new Rhenish and Saxon territories awarded them. Before the Congress, the surviving Prussian territories encapsulated some five million people; after the inclusion of northern Saxony and the areas of the Rhineland ceded through the conference, that population had increased to 10.5 million. Furthermore, while prewar Prussia had been overwhelmingly Protestant, the Prussia that emerged from the Congress of Vienna was now home to at least four million Catholics. The sweeping reforms of the Stein and Hardenberg ministries had to be consolidated, there having been little time during the war to apply many of the social or economic innovations that had been developed before 1810. Finally, the territories that had been taken by Napoleon during the campaigns up to 1806 had been so fundamentally changed at an administrative level that the sheer scale of the task of reintegrating them into Prussia was staggering. According to Treitschke, ‘never in recent history has a great power had such difficult administrative problems to solve’.37 When it did raise its eyes to German issues, however, Prussia seemed less a militant threat and more a potential force of liberal unity. We will recall Wilhelm’s doomed attempts to create a confederal army; in 1818, Prussia offered a plan that was almost exactly the same in detail. The rationale was also very similar. Prussia’s army had been severely depleted by the wars and, since the army was central to the Prussian state, the security concerns that this engendered were of vital importance to resolve. Berlin’s proposed solution was a confederal army made up of divisions from all the members of the Confederation, and with the general staff and upper echelons managed by the Prussian officer corps. This would not only blunt any possible threat to Prussia from another German state (presumably Austria), but it would also allow Prussia to use a pan-​German army as a de facto substitute for the Prussian army, thus limiting the cost of returning the latter to full strength. Once more, nothing came of these plans, mostly due to the objections of the Austrians.38 Suitably frustrated, the Prussians responded by launching an ambitious but costly rearmament and reorganization programme, beginning in 1824.39 In these years, Württemberg’s attention paid to Prussia oscillated between interest and concern. An 1821 report on Prussian military manoeuvres, for example, bore a striking resemblance to the 1819 surveys of the French army, insofar that it reproduced the numbers, disposition and formation of the infantry and cavalry involved.40 The due diligence of the Berlin consulate reflected a pattern of caution within the Württemberg state apparatus. It may also have been spurred by Prussia’s campaign of rearmament, though Wilhelm’s interest in this was of a more professional nature. The invention of the so-​called needle-​gun rifle (Zündnadelgewehr) by Johann Nikolaus von Dreyse in the 1820s particularly piqued Wilhelm’s interest, both in his private capacity as a hunting enthusiast, and in his past role as a military commander. But Dreyse’s invention would take years to perfect. Only in 1839 would the Prussian war ministry place orders in bulk (first for 60,000, then for an additional 240,000); even then, the manufacturing techniques were so new and time-​consuming that Dreyse’s massive metalworks at Sömmerda could only produce about 10,000 units per annum. This was

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likely a disappointment for Wilhelm, who was not only enthusiastic about the needle-​ gun’s abilities but also championed it as a potential replacement for the Württemberg army’s stocks of obsolete smoothbore muskets. The slow progress of production might also have been a blessing in disguise, insofar that it should have allayed any fears of Prussian aggression. The war ministry’s order, totalling 300,000 rifles, was its calculation of the minimum number of weapons necessary in the event of war. As Prussia was unlikely to declare war on any but its own terms, this should have been more than enough to calm nerves in Stuttgart.41 On another military matter, too, Prussia seemed to take some tentative steps towards a benevolent oversight of Germany. In late 1830 and early 1831, as the Austro-​ French crisis over Italy deepened, a number of the southern states considered their military options. Their position was soon bolstered, perhaps surprisingly, by a Prussian undertaking to defend the south in the event of war. Though this was never actually required, Berlin’s (admittedly cautious) commitment to the territorial integrity of Württemberg, Bavaria and Baden reflected a positive development in the eyes of many nationalists. Württemberg pan-​German nationalists looked on with approval and, as Disbrowe wrote to London at the height of the crisis, Berlin’s guarantees had helped to paint it as a ‘a purely German power’ that could be trusted –​or, at least, favoured.42

The Zollverein as a harbinger of unity In one particular aspect, Prussia was able not only to mend fences with the other German states, but indeed build bridges. While Berlin’s militarism raised some eyebrows, its real impact was in the field of state economics. In 1819, in the midst of its own insular turn, the Prussian government proposed a simplification of its customs arrangement with the Principality of Schwarzburg-​Sondershausen. A  tiny province nestled on Prussia’s southwestern border, Schwarzburg-​Sondershausen was of virtually no consequence, but its insignificance provided a clear example of the ‘fantastic insanity’ of the confusing and superfluous trade barriers. It also made for the perfect subject for Prussia’s simplified customs experiment.43 The success of this initiative soon led Prussian commercial reformers to think in larger terms. For this, they looked to the south. Württemberg and Bavaria’s attempts to form their own southern customs union had been on shaky ground from the outset, but the idea was sound enough. The opportunity to expand soon presented itself when Hesse-​Darmstadt, disillusioned by the conflict between Baden and Bavaria, withdrew from the süddeutsche Zollverein; by 1828, Prussia had successfully enticed both Hesse-​ Darmstadt and Hesse-​Kassel into the fold and had formed the Prussian-​Hessian Customs Union. Once that happened, the continued expansion of the Prussian effort was mostly assured, as was the gradual demise of the Bavaria-​Württemberg Customs League. Of course, the Zollverein was an initiative of Berlin’s in order to streamline its own trade relations with other states; there is no evidence to suggest that it was ever begun as a potential political instrument of unification, but rather only as an economic tool. This does not mean that it could not be repurposed as such, nor that liberal-​ nationalists did not seize on this potential.44 A measure of how promising the Zollverein

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was, and how favourably the nationalists looked upon it as an enabling institution, can be found in the identities of those who became its proponents. Friedrich List, now a United States citizen and travelling in the north of Germany, argued that the Zollverein was ‘in the greatest degree dictated by public sentiment’ –​that is, that the union was governed by the concerns of the nation, rather than the state bureaucracy that had spawned it.45 Heinrich von Gagern, the Darmstadt politician who would later come to the greatest prominence during the 1848 revolutions and the Frankfurt Parliament that followed, was similarly impressed. To him, the Zollverein was an expression of the ‘steadfast and tireless’ will of the German people to unify; to that end, the Zollverein was no less than ‘one of the greatest and most beneficial events to have occurred in Germany’s recent history’.46 The most surprising of all the Zollverein’s allies, however, was August von Wangenheim. The years between Wangenheim’s dismissal from the Württemberg seat in the Frankfurt diet had not been especially kind to him. The occasion of this dismissal had, in fact, been his refusal to ratify the Verona Circular, a statement of intent that denounced European revolutionary movements and reaffirmed the powers’ commitment to respond to radicals with reactionary force.47 Though the Circular specifically referenced affairs then occurring in Spain rather than in Germany, Wangenheim opposed it on the grounds that its terms could easily be applied to the continuing problem of the Burschenschaften; given his trenchant opposition to the Karlsbad Decrees, he was never going to agree to this potential back-​door approach to attacking them. In this instance, though, Wangenheim had miscalculated. The Verona Circular had been a joint initiative of Austria, Prussia and Russia. By not adding his support to the statement, he raised the ire of Vienna and Berlin  –​nothing new  –​ but also that of St Petersburg. Wilhelm had not had much of an alternative beyond recalling Wangenheim to Stuttgart, his relatively short but eventful career as a state diplomat now over.48 Wangenheim’s star might have fallen in officialdom, but he was still a powerful figurehead of south German regionalism. His antipathy towards the great powers, of which Prussia was one, had been proved time and time again. The feeling was mutual. ‘Baron von Wangenheim [ . . . ] seemed quite excellently suited’ to representing the ‘youthful titillation of being liberal’, according to the sneering reminiscences of the Prussian consular secretary in Frankfurt, Heinrich Christian Gustaf von Kombst; we can be assured that Kombst did not intend this as a compliment.49 By 1831, however, Wangenheim had seen enough of the successes of the Zollverein to believe that it could be a vehicle of unity. In that case, he argued, it was imperative that Württemberg, Bavaria and Baden negotiate to join the union. ‘These three states will [. . . ] join in a relationship with Prussia’, he explained to the privy councillor, August von Hartmann, in 1831. Once this had been done, the economic bloc would enjoy so many advantages in terms of customs and trade that ‘[this] will require the other German states to follow suit. Once unity for Germany has been forged in terms of tolls and customs, the unity of politics will have the power to exert itself.’50 Two years later, as the Landtag debated whether or not to join the Zollverein, Wangenheim was contacted by the representative for Cannstatt, the liberal Wilhelm Zais. Zais assumed that Wangenheim would publicly support his motion to denounce membership and instead pursue further

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FIGURE 3  The university city of Tübingen, the traditional centre of Württemberg liberalism, in 1835. Wikimedia Commons.

regional efforts that did not involve the leadership of Prussia. Perhaps to his surprise, Wangenheim instead rebuked Zais. Württemberg’s entrance into the Zollverein, he told the younger man, was all but inevitable and, more than that, was desirable. The move would level the economic playing field. When that was achieved, German political nationalism could pursue its course, whatever that course may be.51

Dashing nationalist hopes For all this, though, Prussia also frustrated Württemberg nationalists. There were two major reasons for this. In the first instance, though it made many of the right noises politically, Prussia never quite divested itself of its reputation as one of the more repressive powers. This, of course, clashed with the liberalising programme of most nationalists, who saw the nation as an integral step in the loosening of authoritarianism and the broadening of rights. The government’s support of the Karlsbad Decrees and the Verona Circular certainly put Wangenheim offside and, though he was not representative of all nationalists, he was a leading figure in the debate at a regional level. Suspicions, too, must have been raised by Prussia’s more underhanded methods of engaging in national affairs. During the Congress of Vienna, Hardenberg’s press liaison, Varnhagen, provided significant support for

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Joseph Görres and his Rheinische Merkur newspaper, which published numerous articles castigating the southern states, particularly Bavaria. The Merkur framed these criticisms in nationalist terms; Bavaria, Württemberg and others, by having allied themselves with Napoleon, had betrayed not merely their own citizenry but that of all of Germany. But Görres was useful to Varnhagen only as long as he served a purpose. Once it became clear that the former Rheinbund states would (more or less) survive the process of the Congress, Görres became less an instrument of Prussian German policy and more an annoyance. Support from the Prussian state quickly dried up, and Hardenberg soon ordered publication and distribution of the Merkur to be banned within Prussia’s borders.52 Other incidents demonstrated that Prussia’s dedication to liberal-​ nationalism, if ever it could have been considered an enthusiastic proponent of the idea, was variable. By the beginning of the 1820s, the culture of reformism and liberalism that had surrounded Hardenberg, Stein and the Humboldts had diminished. In 1819 Wilhelm von Humboldt had withdrawn from public life in protest of what he saw as the rise of reactionary values; Hardenberg, by this stage, was an ailing, mostly deaf and pliant old man, and in any case he died in 1822. In 1824 his successor, a staunchly conservative former general named Count Friedrich von Wylich und Lottum, issued an edict forbidding Prussian students from studying at Württemberg’s University of Tübingen. This was an unprecedented move, as Tübingen had long been considered one of the most respected higher education institutions, particularly in the faculties of law and theology. But Lottum, and with him much of the Prussian conservative elite, had grown alarmed at the radical tendencies of many of Tübingen’s most prominent lecturers and administrators. This tradition, of course, included Prussia’s arch-​nemesis in the diet, August von Wangenheim, but also Friedrich List, Karl von Eschenmeyer and others. The edict could only be construed as an assault on Württemberg’s public commitment to engaging in the liberal-​nationalist discourse.53 Any hope that the advent of the Zollverein might soften Berlin’s stance on the German Question was also quashed. In 1843, a minor scandal erupted between Berlin and Stuttgart. The subject of this scandal –​the Württemberg poet Georg Herwegh –​ was an unlikely cause to be championed by Württemberg officialdom. A popular but rebellious public figure, he had escaped military service in his home state after he had insulted a superior officer and been charged with insubordination. After this, he followed a pattern pioneered by his fellow countryman and poet, Schiller; he toured Germany, writing increasingly overt appeals to nationalist sentiments. By the time he arrived in Prussia in 1843 he was one of the most visible and controversial figures of the movement. It is surprising, given his radical pedigree, that Herwegh was granted an audience by the Prussian king (now Friedrich Wilhelm IV). However, Herwegh’s republican arguments were deemed so ‘obnoxious’, according to the British record of the incident, that Friedrich Wilhelm ordered Herwegh exiled. The response from Wilhelm was equally surprising. Issuing a pardon to Herwegh for his previous infringements while in army service, the Württemberg king made it known that such harsh treatment of one of his subjects, whatever his politics, was unacceptable, especially in light of the fact that the Württemberg government had ‘taken every opportunity of shewing [sic] [. . . ] respect and partiality for the King of Prussia’.54

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Time and again, Prussia seemed unwilling to embrace liberal nationalism. Furthermore, even though it gained significant capital within the cause for its progressive moves in the fields of German defence and customs, this capital seemed to be squandered at every turn by policies designed to rein in nationalism, rather than support it.

The third way Increasingly, then, Württemberg nationalists came to similar conclusions to those already embraced by King Wilhelm and his state ministry. For all that Greater Germany or Lesser Germany might have been considered ideal solutions to the German Question, given the fact that the necessary guiding lights of these models –​ Austria and Prussia –​were unwilling to engage with them at the best of times, and openly hostile to them at worst, there had to be another way. The imperative to find a solution was not just based on idealism. As previously noted, the changing nature of the Europe in which Württemberg found itself after the Napoleonic Wars precluded any realistic hope among even the most assured state chauvinists that the kingdom could remain wholly independent. The Hungerzeit had spoken eloquently to the need for economic interdependence. Moreover, the advent of the Zollverein was a two-​edged sword. No economist could argue that the intricate protectionism engendered in the tangle of tolls and duties was beneficial in any way to German trade. But as Prussia’s economic initiative gained traction during the late 1820s, Württemberg found that it was entering a financial crisis. Stripped of the competitive advantage they had enjoyed when tariffs for the export of Rhenish wines to the Danubian states had been prohibitive, the vineyards of the Rems and Neckar valleys suffered a severe downturn in sales.55 Beer brewers, who had never made up a significant proportion of the market in any case, lost even more headway as southern brewing centralized in Bavaria. Simplified customs also turned Germany into an attractive market for industrialized textile manufacturers from abroad, particularly Manchester. Württemberg’s traditional textile artisans, who still used handlooms, simply could not compete with the cheap, mass-​produced goods now flooding in from Britain. In terms of luxury goods, the beautiful fine-​bone china of the Ludwigsburg Porcelain Manufactory now faced direct competition from companies in, among others, Nymphenburg, Potsdam, Frankenthal, Berlin and, most famous of all, Meissen.56 In every major export sector, then, Württemberg was totally unprepared for a new age of economic interconnectivity. This was precisely the outcome that Weckherlin had tried desperately to avoid after the Hungerzeit. Then, the finance minister had come up against the vested agricultural interests of the Stände. Even if he had not, though, Württemberg faced an uphill battle if it wished to modernize. The star of the story of industrialization, from Britain to Prussia to the United States, was coal. Coal furnaces fired steam boilers, which were then used to drive machinery. It was a significant disadvantage, then, that Württemberg had no natural coal deposits. Mechanized looms, such as those found in Manchester, were all but impossible for Württemberg; some factories in Heidenheim and Sulz

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resorted to installing waterwheels in the Brenz and Neckar, hoping to harness the power of the rivers’ natural current, but this was hardly a commensurate alternative.57 The lack of coal also explains Württemberg’s reluctance to embrace the steam railway as a new form of transportation. Bavaria’s first locomotive, the Adler, had made its first journey on the line between Nuremberg and Fürth in 1835, and by the early 1840s most of the German states –​great powers and Mittelstaaten alike –​had accepted the train as a mode of transport that would revolutionize trade and military strategy. It was only in 1842 that the Landtag approved the formation of a state rail commission, but even then the political opinion of railways was that they would be an economic imposition rather than an advantage. At the same time that other German states were networking their railways in order to facilitate more efficient trade, the Landtag wrung its collective hands over how to power and heat trains. Should coal be imported at a tremendous cost from the Saar and Ruhr regions? Or would the Royal Württemberg State Railway (K.W.St.E.) resort to using timber? In that case, since timber burned less efficiently, significant quantities would be required, and the Stände worried that the demand would outstrip supply, causing timber prices to skyrocket and thus generate a fuel crisis.58 It was not until October 1845 –​some ten years after Adler’s first journey –​ that the first line of the K.W.St.E. opened, amid great public fanfare, between Cannstatt and Untertürkeim, on the outskirts of Stuttgart. The popular imagination was fired by this new innovation, and a folk song, Auf der Schwäb’shen Eisbahne, soon became one of the most sung among children and public house patrons alike. In spite of the grand claims of the lyrics, including the celebration of the great speed and extensive potential of the new network, the truth was somewhat less impressive: the Cannstatt-​ Untertürkheim line was no longer than four kilometres, and in the time that the authorities had spent dithering, Bavaria and Baden had (somewhat improbably) put aside their usual differences in order to negotiate a rail-​based trade deal that bypassed Württemberg entirely.59 The new era of the Zollverein, then, presented some severe challenges for Württemberg’s autonomy, and it was obvious that these were effectively impossible to overcome. But there was some reason to believe that regional cooperation might represent not only a realistic alternative to Austrian or Prussian hegemony, but indeed a desirable one. One example of this was the coordination between the states at the time of the 1831 war scare. It will be recalled that, at the height of that crisis, which further damaged Württemberg public and state opinion of Metternich’s intentions, Prussia’s government had indicated that it was willing to defend the southern states in the event of war. But the initiative had not originated in Berlin. At the first sign of trouble, and in a remarkable parallel with his father’s actions in 1805, Wilhelm had considered opening Württemberg’s borders to the French, allowing them free passage through Württemberg in return for a guarantee of the state’s neutrality. Thankfully, this went no further than the planning phase; there is no doubt that Metternich would not have taken kindly to Stuttgart facilitating the transit of the French army into Austria proper, whatever Wilhelm’s protestations of impartiality. But Wilhelm’s half-​baked idea was followed by a more considered position. This proposal came from the west. The Badenese statesman, Karl Christian von Berckheim, had no more desire to become entangled in a war than Wilhelm did, and in March 1831 he proposed a

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‘Treaty of Neutrality’ between Bavaria, Württemberg, Hesse-​Darmstadt and Baden, ‘in conjunction with Switzerland’, which, he hoped, would dissuade both the Austrians and the French from any aggression against Baden or the other signatories.60 Berckheim had, in fact, taken his cues from Wilhelm; the origin of his treaty proposal was a telegram from the Badenese consul to Stuttgart, Albert Friedrich, who reported on Wilhelm’s machinations while suggesting that Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria might benefit from presenting a united front in the present emergency.61 These moves were also supported in principle by the Bavarian foreign minister, Joseph Ludwig von Armansperg, whose initiative was also responsible for bringing the Prussians into the fold. Promising as these overtures were, they did not entirely dispel the problems facing Third German aspirations. Indeed, a crucial element in the defensive negotiations of 1831 was that, if southern Germany wished to form some sort of bloc, it required some form of external patron that would guarantee its sovereignty. Berckheim thought that this could be achieved by tying the alliance to the neutrality of Switzerland –​a curious idea, given that a south German alliance with Switzerland would presumably abrogate the latter’s neutrality. Armansperg, meanwhile, saw Prussia as the white knight of south Germany’s hopes. Yet this defeated the purpose of the Third German model in the first place, as it would tie Württemberg, Bavaria and Baden into a dependent relationship with one of the great powers –​precisely the arrangement the model was supposed to avoid. In short, these first, abortive steps towards south German unity demonstrated that there were some significant weaknesses in the idea. Yet, conversely, it seemed to many to be the only viable option. A unification of the German nation was vital for numerous practical and idealistic reasons; far be it from having ‘the evident tendency [ . . . ] to obey without hesitation the dictates of Austria & Prussia’, as one French official complained to Henry Wellesley, Württembergers  –​both within the state apparatus and outside it  –​were determined to avoid doing so.62 In the aftermath of the 1831 negotiations, public sentiment in favour of this only gathered pace. The publisher Philipp Jakob Siebenpfeiffer wrote blistering rebukes of ‘the vicissitudes of the lords in Frankfurt, following the tune of the Viennese and Berlin hurdy-​gurdy’. Like many of his contemporaries, Siebenpfeiffer saw the German Confederation as a sham, a means by which the great powers could ‘drown out the hero’ of German nationalism. For Siebenpfeiffer, the solution to this was to unify the ‘constitutional states’ of the south.63 Other southern publicists, such as the Hesse-​Darmstadt activist Wilhelm Schulz and the Bavarian newspaper proprietor Johann Georg August Wirth, similarly saw the ‘true Germany’ as being the ‘untainted’ lands of the south. In order for the nationalist agenda to be furthered, they argued, Third Germany must be brought into existence.64 This sentiment seemed well placed after some minor diplomatic successes, such as the formation of a Southwest German Police Union by Württemberg, Bavaria, Hesse-​ Darmstadt, Baden and Nassau, in 1832.65 Developments like these were promising, but in reality they merely diverted attention from the very real flaws of the Third German model. The years between the end of the Napoleonic Wars in 1815 and the continent-​ wide outbreak of revolution in 1848 demonstrate some quite remarkable paradoxes.

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For one, the state apparatus and the citizenry of Württemberg seem to have agreed that the foundation of a unified German nation-​state was vital. This imperative was constructed differently depending on the interests of each group  –​ranging from financial dependence, defensive competency and the (admittedly vague) formulation of liberal rights. But at a fundamental level, people like King Wilhelm, August von Wangenheim, Friedrich List and Georg Herwegh were in basic agreement. Moreover, though there was some enthusiasm for Austrian or Prussian national leadership, in the main liberal nationalists were disappointed by what they saw as the selfish and destructive self-​interest of the two great powers. Thus, by the 1840s, the dominant model of unity was that of a bloc made up of southern or Mittelstaaten. The enthusiasm for this, however, hid severe shortcomings that would only become more prominent once the nationalists had opportunities to put their ideas into action. Those opportunities would come sooner rather than later; 1848 would bring a wave of unprecedented liberal and nationalist sentiment that would not only test the foundations of the ideology, but also threaten the existence of Württemberg’s state institutions themselves.

4

The Years of Prophecy and Change, 1848–​1849

The challenges of the immediate post-​Napoleonic years seemed to lead to an inexorable and unavoidable moment of crisis and rupture. Certainly, it was impossible that the situation in Germany could continue in the way it had in these formative years of the German Confederation. While the status quo in the great powers struggled to keep a lid on the radical liberal-​nationalist movements, in the smaller powers, such as Württemberg, state and public opinion were willing to give those same movements a voice. This arrangement invited some sort of reckoning. So, too, did the region’s propensity for importing rebellion. Germany was remarkably susceptible to outside influences. The French Revolution had been a clear example of this. More recently, during July 1830, the uprising in Paris against the unpopular monarchy of Charles X encouraged similar (albeit not as successful) events in Vienna, Dresden and elsewhere. The government of Württemberg was generally popular, and the king was for the most part loved and respected by his subjects. But Württemberg was no less open to the disruptive influence of liberal-​nationalist revolutionaries than anywhere else in Germany.

Warning signs before 1848 The first half of the nineteenth century was an uncomfortable time for reformists within and outside governments. In many cases, the desires of liberals and nationalists outstripped either the capacity or the will of the status quo to accommodate them. In the case of Prussia, the liberal reforms of Stein, Hardenberg and the Humboldts barely survived the Napoleonic Wars, and the backlash of the reactionary powers-​that-​be within the army and the Junkers landed gentry undid much of the good works achieved during the hardest years. Prussian liberalism did not necessarily die with Hardenberg, but its efficacy was severely undermined when the populist imperative of the existential emergency no longer existed. In Austria’s case, liberalism never took hold, and the hopeful signs towards the end of the wars were largely the wishful thinking of nationalists who hoped that victory might usher in a new German renaissance. Metternich was far too canny for this.

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FIGURE 4  King Wilhelm of Württemberg depicted as the commander of the Württemberg army by Joseph Karl Stieler in 1822. Wikimedia Commons.

In even the most liberal states, however, there was still agitation. Württemberg’s western neighbour, Baden, was a particularly extreme example. The Badenese constitution of 1819 was roughly on par with the Ludwigsburg Constitution in terms of the rights and representation afforded the people, and Grand Duke Leopold was at least as permissive as his Württemberg counterpart. Nonetheless, Baden was regularly

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stricken with sectarian and political violence. The Jewish populations of Heidelberg, Mannheim, Karlsruhe, Bühl and Rastatt had been the target of popular violence in 1819. Residents of Tauberbischofsheim rioted in 1832. Those of the picturesque and distinguished university city of Heidelberg did so in 1838, and the jewellers of Pforzheim followed suit in 1839, in protest against new state regulations governing working hours.1 On the face of it, Württemberg was significantly more peaceful. No similar riots had taken place under Wilhelm’s reign before the 1840s. Moreover, Wilhelm was genuinely loved by his people. This was not only due to his commitment to constitutional rule and his tolerance of liberalism, but also because of the royal family’s conspicuous works on behalf of the public. Throughout the 1830s and 1840s, for instance, Wilhelm personally involved himself in a string of charitable projects, including a widows’ fund, the Augustenpflege children’s hospital, and the founding of several public parks. It was Wilhelm’s initiative that led to the building of Schillerhöhe in Marbach, and it was through Wilhelm’s support that the Schillerfeste were held in Stuttgart.2 This was coupled with an improvement in the material wellbeing of Württemberg citizens. Healthcare improved dramatically as a result of government regulations, improved sanitary conditions, and the opening of several state-​run hospitals, such as the aforementioned Augustenpflege or the Katharinenhospital. Conditions had so improved that fatal incidences of smallpox, which had peaked at an average of 32,000 per annum in the last decade of the eighteenth century, and 22,000 per annum in the first decade of the nineteenth century, averaged just 1,000 per annum during the first fifteen years of Wilhelm’s reign. This was an admirable achievement, and certainly one that, to at least some extent, can be attributed to the royal family’s patronage of the state health system.3 It is fair to say that Wilhelm took his responsibilities towards his subjects seriously. They responded in kind. On 28 September 1841, the king celebrated his 25-​year jubilee. The celebrations became a major public spectacle. The Schwäbische Kronik, a popular weekly newspaper, reported that the festivities culminated in a pageant in the Schloßplatz, in the forecourt of the New Palace. Here, thousands of schoolchildren, professors, university students, soldiers, militiamen, merchants and ‘believers of all denominations, not differentiated, not sorted by rank’ came together to celebrate ‘in brotherly unity’.4 All in all, more than 10,000 people from all over the kingdom ventured to Stuttgart to take part in the jubilee, swelling the population of the capital by 25 per cent.5 Across the state, regional celebrations dominated the day, and the Kronik’s journalists estimated that some 200,000 Württembergers celebrated their king’s anniversary on the throne. If so, this accounted for one in every eight Württemberg citizens. The Schloßplatz pageant culminated in the unveiling of a new monument, a wooden column in the Roman style, which would henceforth take pride of place in the square. This Siegessäule (Victory Column) commemorated Württemberg’s role in the Befreiungskriege. The square was lined with students, many hundreds of whom wore black shirts and red caps with golden tassels  –​reminders of the pan-​German nature of the Befreiungskriege, and hearkening to the German volunteer corps raised throughout the region. Even the grand unveiling of the column was not intended to be

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the last word in celebrating Wilhelm’s leadership; it remained as a ‘place-​holder’ until the final, granite Jubiläumssäule (Jubilee Column) was completed in time for Wilhelm’s 60th birthday in 1846. This column was to be adorned with four bronze reliefs depicting important scenes from the king’s life. One was the acclamation he received in the chamber of the Landtag on the day of the jubilee. But the other three came from his military service and showed three victories of the Württembergers against the French: the battles of Brienne, Sens and Fère-​Champenoise. This was also not the last time that Stuttgarters would turn out in large numbers to celebrate the Württemberg dynasty. In 1846, Wilhelm’s eldest son, Crown Prince Karl, married Grand Duchess Olga, the second daughter of the Russian Tsar Nicholas I. When the couple returned to Stuttgart on 26 September, two months after their wedding, the streets of the capital were lined with uncounted thousands of onlookers and well-​wishers.6 The picture was not entirely one of sweetness, light and total contentment, though. In spite of more than a quarter century of Wilhelmine rule, many of the systemic problems of the Württemberg state remained. This became tragically clear between 1846 and 1847, when an unexpectedly poor year for trade combined with lower than average crop yields, resulting in food shortages. These were significantly less severe than during the Hungerzeit, but the fact that the state was experiencing the same problem that it had three decades earlier caused major discontent. In spite of attempts by the authorities to maintain order, riots erupted in Ulm and Stuttgart. In the capital, Wilhelm himself appeared among the crowds in an effort to calm them, but he was met by a hail of rocks and insults, and was lucky to escape injury.7 In Ulm, two people were killed, while the soldiers who were called to the streets to disperse the crowds ‘suffered severe contusions from Stones, the only Weapon which the Mob could command’, according to the British chargé d’affaires in Stuttgart, Augustus Loftus. Loftus continued by reporting an unprecedented outpouring of popular ‘anger and discontent’ against ‘that Sovereign who had always been regarded with adoration by His People’.8 The demonstrations were short-​lived and, by the standards of the endemic protests in other states, they had been very mild in character. What they did show, however, was that there was frustration felt at a core public level that, in some real terms, the postwar years had not led to measurable progress or a betterment of living standards.9 Politically, the state also found itself under attack. A  perhaps unintended consequence of the liberal rights enshrined in the Ludwigsburg Constitution was that the government was open to criticism from the very liberals the constitution enabled. To some of these liberals, these rights did not go far enough. The relatively mild liberals of the 1830s, such as Paul Pfizer, were joined in the 1840s by a rather more adventurous breed. Franz Gustav Kühne, a republican publicist, took a strong disliking to the bronze reliefs on the Jubiläumssäule, which he thought demonstrated all that was ‘miserable’ and ‘tasteless’ about the customs of Württemberg political life.10 Friedrich Römer, another unabashed republican from Geislingen, was elected to the chamber in 1845, in spite of  –​or maybe because of  –​his open criticism of King Wilhelm and his governance. In the same election, Robert von Mohl came to prominence, as he also entered the Landtag as a liberal-​socialist who had campaigned on a programme of constitutional reform. In later years, Mohl would continue his attacks on the institution of the Ludwigsburg Constitution, arguing that it was

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‘a product of its time’ that denied the people ‘the right to govern themselves’.11 To some degree, Mohl was quite correct. Though the constitution was by far the most permissive in continental Europe, it also had a number of restrictions. Only tax-​ paying men over twenty-​five years old could vote for their local representatives. Not only did this mean that the suffrage was restricted to directly electing just seventy of the ninety-​three members of the Second Chamber (and none from the First), the suffrage itself was deceptively limited. Such restrictions permitted only 13 to 14 per cent of the total Württemberg population the right to vote. When the constitution was adopted, this equalled approximately 200,000 people out of a population of roughly 1.5 million.12 Moreover, anyone eligible to vote was also eligible to stand for election. This often led to lopsided and bizarre electoral statistics. In the first elections of 1819, the village of Ehingen, in the district of Esslingen, had almost exactly the number of people vote as that stood for the office for which they were voting. In the contentious 1831 elections that brought Pfizer and the Hochwächter editors into the Landtag, the town of Heidenheim, with a population of around 1,500, returned a total of 204 ballots. Of these 204 voters, 197 were standing for the position of Heidenheim’s local representative to the Landtag.13 This meant that a candidate could be elected with a ‘majority’, having received just three votes. Mohl, bringing these problems to the public’s attention, was well within his constitutional rights to do so, but this did not mean that the state appreciated him doing so; as a consequence of his activism, he was stripped of his professorship at Tübingen and transferred to the commensurate but rather less prestigious or powerful position at the University of Ulm.14 The circumstances surrounding Robert von Mohl indicate a state apparatus becoming increasingly troubled by the very rights that it championed. This may have been due to the resurgence of the more radical liberals in the elections. Pfizer was a regular fixture in the Landtag, but during the 1830s the liberals had been on decline. Liberal candidates often did not stand for election and, when they did, they were not elected. However, as frustrations grew as a result of the unresolved German Question, and also because of inherent weaknesses within the state, the 1840s saw their revival as a political force; Römer and Mohl’s more overt anti-​Establishment credentials also show the type of liberalism that was becoming increasingly popular. In a retrospective report collated in 1851, the ministry of the interior insisted that the 1840s was a decade of stability that was interrupted by external rather than internal circumstances. The state had an ‘enviable standing in public relations’, and ‘[t]‌here was no talk of a republican movement’. These conclusions were entirely false. It was true that the population in general was ‘loyal to the royal house and in particular the regent, who expressed his love [of his people] in the highest order through just and well-​meaning governance’, but the popularity of Römer-​esque liberalism demonstrated that something was indeed amiss in the public’s satisfaction.15

The advent of revolution To some degree, Wilhelm was more attentive to the looming threat of revolution than his own Ministry of the Interior. It was he, after all, who had been pelted with stones in Stuttgart during the harvest crisis of 1846 to 1847. Initially, however, he also subscribed

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to the notion that the impetus for it lay outside his state’s boundaries. In a broad sense, he was right to see discontent as a national phenomenon. In 1846, in conversation with Sir Alexander Malet, he insisted that the problem was self-​propagating. Nationalists would become bolder and more disruptive as long as Germany took no steps towards unity; conversely, the disunity of the ‘38 morsels’ of the German states would make it impossible to put together a coherent policy that could blunt the threat they posed.16 In November 1847, he wrote to the Austrian general and governor of Italy, Count Joseph Radetzky von Radetz, once again expressing these concerns. Germany, he argued, was experiencing ‘persistently restless sentiments’ that grew stronger with each reactionary measure enacted by Austria or Prussia’s representatives in the Frankfurt diet. The only solution to the problem was essentially to give the nationalists what they wanted: ‘I believe that there is no reason for significant concern, providing the [German] governments remain united.’17 The trouble with this, of course, was that the governments were not united at all, except by the paper fantasy of confederal membership. This did not stop Wilhelm from considering unity the most viable option and, to this end, he defaulted to a position of appealing to Germany’s strongest states. Not only did he approach Vienna –​admittedly through the circuitous intermediary Radetzky –​but also Berlin, suggesting to a string of Prussian diplomats that the time was ripe for a political rapprochement between the two great powers, and a defensive treaty binding all the Zollverein states together.18 Even if they had ever had a chance of succeeding (which they did not), Wilhelm’s eleventh-​hour initiatives came much too late. In February 1848 the first fires of rebellion ignited in Paris. These uprisings were the result of local frustrations directed against the Orléans monarchy of Louis Philippe, but the social roots of these issues –​food shortages, limited popular representation in politics and difficult economic conditions  –​closely resembled those causing public dissatisfaction in the German states, including Württemberg.19 Therefore, the February Revolution in Paris had the potential to spark similar acts in Stuttgart, even if it was, in fact, the case that Wilhelm was significantly more well-​liked by his subjects than Louis Philippe was by his. Indeed it did so. By 2 March, spontaneous demonstrations erupted throughout Württemberg. These demonstrations often took the form of public assemblies whose main objective, in the tradition of the liberalism of Robert von Mohl, was to demand extended freedoms and political rights. A rally in Tübingen gathered over 1,000 signatures on a petition addressed to the Landtag, demanding a wider electoral franchise. This might not have been unexpected, considering Tübingen’s large student population and its tradition of liberal radicalism, but on the same day another rally, independent of the Tübingen demonstration, took place in Stuttgart. Its demands followed the same pattern but were even more explicit; these activists presented an ultimatum to King Wilhelm directly, calling for the abolition of the Landtag and the formation of a ‘Citizens’ Council’ to replace the bicameral legislature. Over the following fortnight, popular protests taking all manner of forms  –​public assemblies, riots, marches, petitions and speeches  –​ spread throughout the state. A survey of these disturbances shows the widespread spirit of liberal discontent, previously unnoticed or only vaguely understood by the authorities, that had simmered under the surface of Württemberg civil society.

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Political demonstrations were to be expected in Tübingen, and maybe even in Stuttgart given its role as the seat of state policy, but protests also took place in the old imperial cities of Ulm, Rottweil and Reutlingen, the textile-​manufacturing centre of Heidenheim, as well as Calw, the home of the state banking and trading-​ house industry.20 The sheer breadth of revolutionary sentiment might have come as a surprise to Wilhelm and his ministers, but they were not unprepared. One of the benefits of Wilhelm’s early identification of the danger of pan-​ German rebellion was that, when the wave finally broke in March, he was not wrong-​footed for long. Within a week of the first disturbances in Tübingen and Stuttgart, and of his own volition, Wilhelm turned to Friedrich Römer, the arch-​republican and trenchant critic of the monarchy. On 9 March, Römer officially became the minister of justice; in reality, Römer’s appointment effectively suborned the state ministry to his control. As a result, Römer was in a position to form a government by calling upon a cadre of liberals and democrats; his ‘March Ministry’ (Märzministerium) represented an unprecedented shift to the left in Württemberg officialdom.21 A month later, upon the formation of the National Assembly at St Paul’s Cathedral in Frankfurt, Römer called statewide elections for representatives to the national parliament.

Liberal emergencies and consolidations Wilhelm’s appointment of Römer, at first glance, appears to be reckless and ill-​ advised. Römer, certainly, was a popular but potentially dangerous anti-​monarchist for the king to put at the head of the state ministry. In doing so, however, Wilhelm was effectively harnessing the movement for his own ends. Römer’s appointment was an olive branch to those, such as the protestors of 2 March, who otherwise felt that the state was not doing enough to push a liberal agenda. At the same time, Römer was no longer a voice of opposition on the outer. Instead, he was the new face of the very apparatus he had criticized. Wilhelm had effectively opened the floodgates while the tide of rebellion was barely more than a trickle. Far from being a reckless gamble, Wilhelm’s actions earned him some admiration. The view from the British consulate was particularly positive; as Alexander Malet reported to Palmerston in London, the promised concessions of the Crown will be legally carried out under the guarantee of a responsible Ministry, and the readiness which The King has shewn [sic] in granting the popular demands [ . . . ] will not fail to create the best impressions both of His Majesty’s good intentions and of His continuing to maintain the high character for circumspection and prudence which His Majesty has hitherto so richly deserved.22

A measure of the success of these ‘good intentions’ can be seen in the contrast between Württemberg’s experience of the revolution and the experiences of other states. In Austria, the erstwhile and seemingly eternal Clemens von Metternich found

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himself the subject of the population’s ire, and after only two days of rebellion his ministry fell. The emperor, Ferdinand, fearing his own fate, fled to Innsbruck. When the revolutionary fervour seemed to enter a lull, he returned to Vienna, only to once again flee, this time to Olmütz, in October, when the citizenry took to the barricades again. In Prussia, Berliners responded to the news of Metternich’s downfall by taking to the streets themselves; now that their Viennese counterparts had been able to depose an arch-​reactionary, perhaps this was the time for them, too, to grasp for a liberal overhaul of the state bureaucracy. Violence in Berlin was not as pronounced as in Vienna, and certainly the government was not overthrown in the same way as Metternich’s was. Nonetheless, the demonstrations were enough to convince Friedrich Wilhelm IV to replace his reactionary cabinet with a government under the moderate liberal and Cologne banker, Ludolf Camphausen, by the end of March.23 Once again, the most extreme example was Baden. As violent protests broke out throughout Germany, the prominent Badenese liberal Karl Mathy responded with undisguised glee. ‘I live [ . . . ] not among men, but among angels’, he wrote ecstatically, ‘and I  sleep in a fairy temple’.24 His fellow Landtag deputy, Gustav von Struve, took his activism much further. By April, he had raised an army of several thousand in the Badenese hinterland, and he announced his intention to topple the state government in Karlsruhe. This was the opening gambit in a plan to bring about a national republic ‘following the example of the North American free states’. This, he predicted, would constitute the ‘final victory of Christianity’.25 Baden’s descent into open insurrection was a matter of grave concern for Wilhelm, just as it was for other German leaders. Indeed, in an unprecedented display of cooperation in the midst of crisis, various German governments pledged to send troops to Baden to stop Struve and restore order; it is a demonstration of the stability of the Württemberg state, even after the formation of the liberal government, that Württemberg was selected as the staging point for this joint operation. Unsurprisingly, given the chaos of these strange days, careful planning soon turned to farce. The Oberrheinische Zeitung, a local Badenese newspaper, carried the sensational story in its 7 April issue that Württemberg troops had crossed the border and were marching on Karlsruhe. This caused no small degree of panic in Baden, as well as confusion in the Württemberg consulate in Karlsruhe, as the envoy Karl August von Wächter scrambled to reassure the state government that the story was wrong (while, at the same time, attempting to confirm from Stuttgart that this was the case). Wächter was correct and, in fact, no invasion was forthcoming, as negotiations between the states broke down. As late as July, Stuttgart and Munich were still discussing whether they could present a joint southern response to the threat posed by Struve; this was made moot in September, when a force of mostly Prussian soldiers arrived from Frankfurt, and Struve’s rebellion was over.26 The Badenese example tells us much about the state of affairs, both nationally and on a state level, in the first half of 1848. Principally, the most obvious lesson was that pan-​German cooperation was a slippery business. As early as March, nearly every German government was in agreement that the Struve insurrection posed an existential threat not just to Grand Duke Leopold’s leadership but to the security of Germany. They also agreed that military action was the only recourse available. Yet, in

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spite of this common cause and clear agreement, coordination proved impossible. It was exceedingly fortunate for Leopold that Struve’s rebels were not more numerous or better organized, because the promised movements designed to safeguard his dynasty were not forthcoming. The other point worth noting was more important in the long term. Baden became symbolic of the liberal-​nationalist cause, but it was never representative of liberal nationalists as a whole. This was amply demonstrated by even the most radical of Württemberg’s liberals, who responded with alarm to events in the west. Römer, indeed, agreed to the proposed military police actions. In the Württemberg Landtag, the Ludwigsburg deputy David Friedrich Strauß, another prominent liberal theorist as well as being a professor of theology at Tübingen, castigated Struve and activists of his type. Beyond likely objecting to Struve’s claims that his actions were a victory for the Christian cause, Strauß argued that a constitutional monarchy (albeit with federal reform) was the best possible outcome for the nation, and that Struve’s actions endangered the order and wellbeing of Baden and the German national movement as a whole.27 Though Strauß’s model of a national monarchy was at odds with the hopes of those such as Römer, who wanted to strip away dynastic privilege in favour of a national republic, all of the newly empowered Württemberg liberals were in broad agreement that events in Baden were dangerous, damaging and not at all ideal. On the whole, Römer and his Märzministerium were able to successfully distance themselves from the sort of violent liberalism practiced by Struve and celebrated by Mathy. Their caution no doubt contributed to their popularity among the voting public. When Römer called elections for representatives to the National Assembly then being formed in Frankfurt, his liberal-​nationalist cadre found significant electoral approval. This may have been predictable; what was not, however, was the degree to which this approval was expressed. Römer himself, running for the seat of Göppingen, secured 96 per cent of the vote, as did Paul Pfizer in Tübingen.28 In some instances, there may have been some confusion as to what the election was actually for; in Göppingen, for instance, twenty-​six voters scribbled King Wilhelm’s name on the ballot paper, possibly because they assumed they were in fact voting in a referendum concerning the future of the monarchy.29 Even so, Römer and company rode a wave of public acclaim to their new roles in Frankfurt. Their task: to create a nation.

The National Assembly: Once as tragedy, twice as farce History has not been kind to the National Assembly, otherwise known as the Frankfurt Parliament. Conceived with the best of intentions, it became a mess of inconsistent and incompatible ideological and pragmatic considerations. As nationalists descended on Frankfurt, they likely assumed that this was to be their finest hour but, as we have already seen, conceptions of the nation varied on so many levels that it was inevitable that the parliament would fragment into factions. By November, the Württemberg consul in Frankfurt, Baron Karl von Sternenfels, was able to identify no fewer than nine distinct and opposing factions within the Assembly. Nor was there even agreement between delegates from the same states. Sternenfels reported that Württembergers

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could be found in each of the factions.30 Römer and Pfizer, the two leading figures of the Württemberg liberals, did not see eye-​to-​eye; nor did Mohl or Strauß. These disagreements followed, too, into the arena of state politics. Römer was relatively successful here; most of the prominent liberals in the Märzministerium agreed that the Ludwigsburg Constitution required some sort of amendment, and to that end Römer was able to push a number of relaxed electoral and property laws through the Landtag. But besides these relatively limited objectives, the lack of consensus harmed Römer’s chief goal of leading a government of reform. At its heart, the liberal-​national experiment in the Württemberg Landtag reflected in a microcosm the problems in the National Assembly. If the liberal nationalists had jointly agreed on one conception of Germany, soon after arriving in Frankfurt, they might have been successful. The governments in all of the German states were in periods of upheaval. Revolutionary fervour in Vienna and Berlin demonstrated that reaction was in retreat. Prussia, in particular, looked like it might finally embrace nationalism in a less cynical way than it had during the wars. Camphausen immediately set about sketching a constitution that would limit the monarchical power of the Hohenzollerns, and he drafted in his brother Otto, also a liberal-​minded banker, to help him. Friedrich Wilhelm IV had even bowed to public opinion in many respects, appearing to support the national movement. Most famously, he appeared among the crowds in Berlin, wearing a black-​red-​gold sash and proclaiming himself, first and foremost, a German.31 These were surely promising signs, especially for Lesser Germans such as Pfizer. But the key was to strike while the proverbial iron was hot, and if the nationalists could be trusted to show common cause in anything, it was prevarication. The National Assembly did not even convene until May; by the end of April, the most favourable conditions in Prussia had run their course.32 Perhaps it is not reasonable to blame this missed opportunity on the Frankfurt delegates –​it takes time to convene a parliament, after all, and especially during the upheaval of region-​wide rebellion –​but in every regard the Assembly soon showed that its sense of timing was farcical. By October, after much debate and backroom deals between the factions, the Assembly committed to a national model that would include all German states, including Austria. This was a political victory for the Greater Germanists, and it naturally followed that Frankfurt would approach Vienna to offer the Habsburg monarchy the leadership of all of Germany. Leaving aside all practical considerations, including the fact that the mechanisms of unification had only been agreed to in principle, and a plan to initiate the practical unification of laws and standards had not yet been formulated, this decision was disastrous, because the Frankfurt delegates had totally misread the political situation in Austria. With the possible exception of Baden and its ever-​present rebels, no German country had experienced more violence and upheaval during 1848 than the Austrians. Revolts were not limited to Vienna, but took place in nearly every provincial capital. Italy was once again a flashpoint, and Radetzky faced innumerable insurrections. These were generally localized in character, and in many ways more closely resembled the guerrilla operations of Hofer in the Tyrol in 1809, rather than the genuine nationalist fervour found in 1848 in Germany.33 Further to the north, Austrian authorities found themselves facing threats on nearly all sides. In mid-​ March, Hungarian liberals

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converged in Pest and Buda to demand political reforms that would give Magyars equal political, social and economic rights. Though these discussions were initially peaceful, violence was not long in coming. In June, a Czech rebel assassinated Princess Eleonora Windischgrätz, the wife of the Austrian military governor of Prague.34 In September, the new head of the Austrian armies in Hungary, Franz Philipp von Lamberg, was brutally murdered, sparking a bloody series of reprisals and skirmishes that lasted for more than a year.35 The next month, Emperor Ferdinand once again fled Vienna, both because of renewed revolutionary fervour there, and also because the army, ordered to march on the Hungarian radicals, refused to do so. None of these events had anything to do with the National Assembly in Frankfurt. But the Viennese unrest had been a trigger, an inspiration for various dissenting groups throughout the Austrian Empire. In practice, this meant that Austria’s 1848 was a long, drawn-​out, bloody affair. It also meant that Austrian officialdom, when it regained the upper hand, was inclined to react decisively, to quell any further possibility of unrest. Into this mess of violence and reprisal stepped the National Assembly. Having decided on its course of action, the parliament sent a delegation made up of the activist Robert Blum and the publicist Julius Fröbel to Vienna. They arrived in Vienna on 17 October, at the height of the chaos. With the emperor in his own protective custody in Olmütz, authority in Vienna (such as it was) rested with a rump parliament made up of the liberal agitators who had caused Ferdinand to fear for his safety.36 Because of this, Blum declared his support (and thus the support of the National Assembly) for the rump parliament. This decision proved fatal, as forces loyal to Ferdinand were determined to redress the balance. The army was reorganized and ordered to march on Vienna. There could be no doubt as to the character of this army, nor the fact that vengeance was very much the order of the day. The new minister-​president who issued the order, Felix zu Schwarzenberg, was not just a member of the noble status quo, but he was also the brother of Eleonora Windischgrätz, who had been killed by the rebels in Prague. Moreover, the army he ordered to Vienna was commanded by none other than Schwarzenberg’s brother-​in-​law and Eleonora’s widower, General Alfred zu Windischgrätz.37 Against disorganized rebels, Windischgrätz’s well-​drilled army had no difficulties restoring authority. Among those arrested in the immediate police sweeps were Blum and Fröbel, who were charged with inciting rebellion. Tried by a military court, Blum was found guilty, and shot by a firing squad on 9 November.38 The National Assembly’s offer of a German crown died with him. By any measure, the Assembly’s first initiative was a disaster. The authorities to which it had offered leadership had been dismantled and replaced by reactionaries violently opposed to the liberal-​nationalist agenda, one of its delegates was executed, and his actions had implicated the Assembly as a whole in activities designed to dismantle a sovereign government. This was effectively the death knell for any legitimacy the Frankfurt Parliament had ever claimed. This was demonstrated by its next act. The Austrian response had been forthright; in desperation, the liberal nationalists turned to the obvious alternative. But they found no salvation in Berlin either. The brief moment of liberal ascendency had passed; Camphausen’s promising administration only lasted until the end of June, after which a succession of minister-​presidents, each more firmly rooted in the Establishment than the

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last, took to shaping Prussian policy. By the time the Frankfurt Parliament sent a delegation to Berlin, led by Eduard von Simson, in April 1849, the central seat of government was occupied by the former general, Count Friedrich Wilhelm von Brandenburg. The king’s resolve had also hardened in the year since he had appeared to endorse the national project. When Simson’s retinue offered Friedrich Wilhelm IV the same title that they had wanted to offer Emperor Ferdinand, he berated this ‘man-​donkey-​dog-​pig-​and-​cat delegation’ for offering him ‘something that can [not] be given’. With that, Friedrich Wilhelm refused the National Assembly’s latest offer of the ‘invented crown of dirt and clay’.39 Behind the Frankfurt liberal-​nationalist experiment had been some of the finest and most forward-​thinking political minds in Germany. But ambition, idealism and cleverness could not generate power from nothing, and when the Hohenzollern dynasty refused to hitch itself to the St. Paul’s representatives, it effectively doomed the National Assembly. The most diehard Frankfurt delegates accepted an invitation from Römer to reconvene in Stuttgart, and the first sitting of this so-​called Rump Parliament took place on 6 June 1849. But the retreat of the radicals to Württemberg was clearly the last gasp of the desperate and even Römer soon became disillusioned with the entire process. The remaining parliamentarians were among the most belligerent, and they quickly issued a call for the creation of an ‘imperial regency’ and a popular imperial army to defend the parliament.40 Unsurprisingly, these decrees did nothing to endear the Rump Parliament to the resurgent counterrevolutionary governments in other German states. Faced with the growing displeasure of his German compatriots –​ particularly the Prussian government under the foreign policy of the staunchly reactionary Joseph von Radowitz  –​not even Römer could permit the continuation of the very assembly he had saved from dissolution. On 17 June, not two weeks after the Rump Parliament first convened, Römer issued the assembly with an ultimatum. It was, he wrote, his ‘painful duty’ to inform them that ‘the Württemberg government is in a position [in which] the imperial regency [ . . . ] can no longer be tolerated’.41 Thus, with little fanfare, the liberal-​nationalist project that began with such promise and public excitement drew its final, ignominious breath.

The end of a noble experiment It was a testament to Württemberg’s institutional liberalism that the ultra-​radical representatives from the Frankfurt Parliament, whose politics were so rebellious that many were charged in their home states with high treason, were accorded not just refuge, but also the ability to convene a new assembly in Stuttgart. King Wilhelm, furthermore, was keen for democratic reform of the German Confederation and, though he had on occasion used his monarchical prerogative, he could hardly be considered an authoritarian leader in the same absolutist sense as his Prussian or Austrian counterparts. Yet the Rump Parliament had abused his hospitality. Under the circumstances, Wilhelm (and indeed, Römer) could do little else but forcibly break up the assembly.

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The end of the National Assembly also spelled the end for Friedrich Römer and his Märzministerium. They had come to power on Wilhelm’s perception of a liberal-​ nationalist surge, and they had tied their fortunes to the Frankfurt Parliament. Now, the Märzministerium was a lame-​duck government. In the August Landtag elections, the selfsame liberal-​democrats who had performed so well in the ballots the year earlier suffered humiliating defeats. As the Württembergische Zeitung reported, the public no longer wanted to see ‘a republican at the lectern’.42 In October 1849, Römer was replaced as head of government by the more orthodox Tübingen liberal Johannes von Schlayer, who himself was replaced just months later by a close ally of the king, Joseph Franz Peter von Linden. With the fall of the Märzministerium, the brief, public-​driven unification process in Württemberg also came to a close. King Wilhelm had appointed Römer as head of government because he felt Römer could act as a bridge between the state and what the public expected from national and state politics. Public approval of Römer and his liberal-​nationalist colleagues, such as Pfizer, was initially extremely high, as shown by their near-​unanimous elections to the National Assembly. But the fate of the Märzministerium had been indelibly linked to the fate of the Frankfurt national project. When this failed, so too did the government in Stuttgart. Not until December 1870, when the national unification was a fait accompli, would the Württemberg electorate be as actively engaged in the state policy regarding the German Question as it was between 1848 and 1849. However, this does not mean that unification politics were removed from the state agenda. Over the course of the next several years, in fact, the creation of Germany would preoccupy the New Palace. From now on, though, the issue would fall within the confidential purview of the state, rather than the public. Thus, while federation was still a popular option, from the fall of Römer until the foundation of the German Empire itself the active process entered into by the Württemberg crown would mostly be kept out of the public eye.

5

Counterrevolution, Reaction and Reappraisals, 1850–​1859

It is tempting to see the 1848 revolutions as the end of the liberal-​nationalist experiment in Germany and Württemberg. Frankfurt had been an abject failure, largely as a result of the hubris of the delegates. Shifts back towards political reaction became the order of the day. The two great powers, in spite of the paroxysms of liberalism that had shaken them to their cores in 1848, had by 1849 restored and consolidated their conservative credentials. Metternich had gone, and it may have no longer been ‘his councils that direct us’, to use Wilhelm’s words, but his successor, Schwarzenberg, was not far out of step with his infamous predecessor. Prussia’s Camphausen ministry had lasted little more than eighty days; after that, the traditional values of the state had recovered swiftly, and for the rest of the year and much of that which followed, Prussian troops were engaged in a number of police actions in the German interior, tasked with rooting out the forces of revolution. In Württemberg, the fate of the Römer administration was tied to that of the National Assembly; when that failed, Römer’s days were numbered, and indeed the immediate response to the fall of his ministry was a shift back to the right, exemplified by Linden’s appointment as state minister. With some justification, it might seem to an outside observer as though 1848 had never happened. This, however, would be to grossly misread the circumstances. While the revolutionaries of 1848 did not succeed in their objectives, the two years of revolt and upheaval had left an indelible impact on national and state affairs. The German Question had been present as a point of discussion in Württemberg politics for decades, but never before had it been so prominent; indeed, in 1848 and 1849 it was the major issue facing the body politic, not just in Württemberg but in nearly every other state. Far from being the death of the national project, the fragmentation of the National Assembly in 1849 was arguably a necessary step in furthering that same project.

The state of the nation after the National Assembly There is a measure of irony that the conservative reaction against liberal nation­ alism necessitated the reactionaries to embrace the same aspects of unity and interconnectedness that the liberals themselves promoted. From late 1849, smaller

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states began gravitating towards Prussia on the notion that only Prussia could offer the security needed by the resurgent but still unstable state governments. Prussia, for its part, seemed far more willing under the leadership of Brandenburg to embroil itself in the affairs of these smaller states than it ever had before. Prussian troops intervened against Struve and other rebel bands in Baden, and they also interceded on behalf of the Saxon monarchy during the Dresden Uprising of May 1849. The Hanoverian government had been similarly assisted by Prussian force of arms. One of the reasons for this more adventurous policy was the nature of the state government that had taken the place of the liberal. Brandenburg was no liberal, but he was a Prussian chauvinist. More importantly, his foreign minister, Joseph von Radowitz, was one of a new breed of emerging Prussian statesmen. Though he similarly viewed liberalism as a threat to the traditional social power structures of the state, Radowitz did not subscribe to the belief that nationalism and liberalism were intrinsically related. Instead, he saw national political unity in much the same way the instigators of the Zollverein had viewed unified customs tariffs: a means of furthering Prussian state interests. Radowitz, then, was one of the first statesmen within the Prussian political elite who supported the concept of Lesser Germany, and he advocated that Prussia should take a leading role in national affairs. In other ways, Prussia’s emergence and engagement in Germany was largely self-​ propagating. Its self-​appointed policing role played in Baden, Saxony and Hanover broadly appealed to a number of nationalist proponents, who saw Prussia as acting in the security interests of the nation. At the same time as it was doing this, Austria was withdrawing further into its shell. This was entirely understandable  –​Austria’s experience during the revolutions was disruptive and traumatic and, much like Prussia after the Napoleonic Wars, it needed time to lick its wounds –​but this also meant that, at least temporarily, the German powers carried on with an Austria-​sized gap in the political arena.1 This power vacuum presented Prussia with a unique opportunity to extend its influence within the heartland. Prussia’s new policy trajectory was something quite different. With only minor exceptions  –​most notably, the abortive defensive treaty of 1831  –​Berlin had been almost totally unwilling to involve itself in German politics before 1848. Now, though, the experience of the revolutionary years had redefined Prussia’s German policy; under Radowitz and Brandenburg, Prussia was committing itself to a position of national leadership it found unconscionable just a few short years earlier. The degree to which the picture had changed became even more apparent in early 1850. Throughout 1848 and 1849 the German Confederation as a pseudo-​political agent had fallen by the wayside and, for all intents and purposes, the Confederation had ceased to exist. Now, Friedrich Wilhelm IV and his ministers proposed a complete overhaul of the confederal system. Their proposed organization –​named the Erfurt Union, after the city in Prussian Saxony in which the first conference of representatives took place  –​represented a fundamental shift in how Germany was to be governed. Based on an ‘Alliance of Three Kings’ (Dreikönigbündnis) that Radowitz had established with the kings of Saxony and Hanover in May 1849, the Union ultimately attracted some twenty-​six German states. Its principal attraction was security against internal

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insurrection; it was no coincidence that two of the three kings of the foundational alliance had benefitted from Prussian police actions.2 As it stood, the Erfurt Union was a direct challenge to the reestablishment of the German Confederation; implicit in its very formation was a promise of effective unification. The Frankfurt diet would be dissolved, and the confederal acts would be strengthened. Moreover, rather than having a president of the diet with little if any power, the Erfurt Union would suborn policy-​making to Berlin. This, Friedrich Wilhelm hoped, would be a proper regional federation under Prussian guidance. Given that this was, to all intents and purposes, what Friedrich Wilhelm was offered in April 1849, we must imagine that Eduard von Simson and his ‘man-​donkey-​dog-​pig-​ and-​cat delegation’ would have been aggrieved by the king’s abrupt volte-​face.3 The notable absentee in the Erfurt Union’s proposed membership was Austria. This had little to do with Austria’s self-​imposed post-​revolutionary isolationism, and much more to do with Prussia’s unwillingness to engage Vienna on any level. But it was Prussia, ironically, that forced Schwarzenberg to turn his attention back to Germany. Metternich had conceived of the German Confederation as a means of influencing the German states without being tied to them in a dangerous cycle of interdependence. Brandenburg’s initiative at Erfurt now threatened to strip Austria of this status, while also creating a large, united nation-​state to the north, dominated by a sometimes-​hostile power.4 This was not part of Schwarzenberg’s programme, and he was determined to head off the Prussian initiatives.

The Hesse-​Kassel emergency In short order, Schwarzenberg was presented with the occasion to intervene. In Autumn 1850, a major constitutional crisis erupted in the small state of Hesse-​Kassel. While, in most states, liberal agitation had effectively ceased in 1849, in Hesse-​Kassel the unpopularity of the hereditary ruler, Elector Friedrich Wilhelm I, prolonged the revolution. Friedrich Wilhelm was deposed by the liberal-​nationalist deputies of the local Landtag, who then set about drafting a democratic constitution without the influence of the dynasty. While the events in Kassel were of major importance to the state itself, its regional impact was by rights quite minor. Hesse-​Kassel was one of the smaller Kleinstaaten, with fewer than a million citizens and no great economic significance. Furthermore, the upheaval in the state apparatus was unlikely to invite similar events elsewhere, as it was rooted in particular circumstances unique to Hesse-​ Kassel, the elector and the Landtag. Given this, Kassel became an unlikely flashpoint that had important ramifications for the next decades of German development. This was for three reasons. First, and perhaps surprisingly, the Prussian government responded to the democratic revolution in Hesse-​Kassel by supporting the Landtag, rather than the elector. This support was not ideological but pragmatic. Friedrich Wilhelm I  was an unpopular figure not only in domestic Hessian affairs but also in the German political arena. By contrast, the liberals in the Hessian Landtag were generally popular with the

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locals, and Prussian support of their initiatives might well open the state to Prussian influence. This was also strategically important to Berlin, since Hesse-​Kassel sat as a buffer between the Prussian heartland and its western Rhenish territories, and two Prussian army thoroughfares ran through Hessian territory.5 Friendly relations, then, was not something to which Prussia was averse. Prussia, therefore, had committed to supporting Hesse-​ Kassel’s liberals and democrats. But Schwarzenberg’s view was quite the opposite. At a basic level he opposed the Kassel Landtag on ideological grounds. Pragmatically, however, he saw Prussia’s commitment as the last straw in a series of moves that had already established a dangerous precedent. While Schwarzenberg had no intention of interfering in Germany any more than Metternich had, the issue of the Erfurt Union had already poisoned the well of Austro-​Prussian relations. Berlin’s meddling in Kassel was the last straw. The other element that turned Kassel into a powder keg was the attitude of the Mittelstaaten. It was true that some of them were well-​disposed towards, or even indebted to Prussia. But others were not. Unlike Saxony, Baden or Hanover, Württemberg and Bavaria had not required foreign intervention to assist in safeguarding their governments during the revolutions.6 Karlsruhe might have understood a perceived Prussian imperative to intervene outside the Prussian zone of interest; Stuttgart did not. Moreover, while the Prussian government could point to its actions during the revolutions as being in the interests of the states in which it intervened, or even in the interests of the nation, that rationale sounded hollow when applied to Hesse-​Kassel. In this instance, liberals had removed the head of state and thereby destabilized the entire country’s bureaucratic apparatus. This was precisely the sort of action that the police actions in Baden had been tasked with avoiding, but in Kassel Prussia seemed to have changed sides. Brandenburg was not a liberal, Friedrich Wilhelm had turned his back on liberal nationalism, and Prussia’s credentials were staunchly reactionary since Camphausen had left office two years earlier. Why, then, would Prussia be actively endorsing a liberal revolution? The only likely answer was that it was doing so for its own benefit, and the presence of its strategic roadways only seemed to confirm this. These circumstances more or less compelled Austria to act, and the Mittelstaaten provided Schwarzenberg with helpful proxies. In early October the Austrian emperor, now Franz Joseph rather than the flighty and ineffectual Ferdinand, hosted a small conference in Bregenz, on the shores of Lake Constance. There were only two invitees:  one was King Maximilian II of Bavaria and the other King Wilhelm of Württemberg. In effect, this meeting between emperor and kings had two objectives. In the immediate period, the Austrians hoped to come up with a response to the Hesse-​Kassel emergency that would reinstate the elector and depose the liberals. The long-​term objective was more ambitious. The Bregenz conference was nothing short of an attempt to consolidate the German Confederation (which had reconvened under Austrian leadership in September), and thereby undermine the Erfurt Union before it had a chance to take seed.7 So, at least, was the Austrian programme. But the decision was hardly a straightforward one. There was no guarantee that Maximilian or Wilhelm would agree with the Austrian interpretation of events. Schwarzenberg’s arguments were suspiciously Metternichian, which hardly put the new Austrian regime in good stead

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with the cynical and cautious Wilhelm. Moreover, while Kassel’s liberals might have been supported by Prussia only due to self-​interest, their political aspirations were far more in tune with Wilhelm’s own leanings. Indeed, only two months earlier, Wilhelm himself had written an editorial for the semi-​official state newspaper, the Staats-​ Anzeiger, in which he argued that Germany’s future lay in liberalization rather than conservatism or reaction. To the Württemberg king, the Confederal Acts had outlived their usefulness and, unless they were rewritten to enshrine the sort of values that had been championed (albeit unsuccessfully) by the National Assembly, then Germany would be prone to violent acts of revolution and rebellion.8 Hesse-​Kassel was a prime example of this phenomenon. Even if Wilhelm and Ludwig were inclined to follow Franz Joseph’s lead, the legality of any of the proposals was questionable. When the Confederation was reconvened in September, Prussian representatives were not invited to Frankfurt. This was a clear breach of no less than three statutes in the Confederal Acts, and therefore made the most recent sitting of the Frankfurt diet unconstitutional. Finally, Article XI of the Acts explicitly forbade member states from using force against one another. In 1848 and 1849, this was not an issue, as the diet had been dissolved and its authority no longer applied. In 1850, however, any military act initiated through agreement at Bregenz would be, by definition, illegal, and neither Bavaria nor Württemberg could be compelled in the name of the Confederation to do anything whatsoever. These complications were masked by the bonhomie in which the negotiations were conducted. For all the legal complexities, for all the reluctance of the Mittelstaaten to suborn themselves to Austria and for all the historical animosity between these powers, Hesse-​ Kassel was a burning issue whose resolution was of geopolitical importance; tied up as it was in the struggle between the German Confederation and the Erfurt Union  –​or rather, traditional Austrian guidance or radical Prussian leadership –​its fate could have determined the destiny of Germany. In this instance, while Franz Joseph and Schwarzenberg were pursuing a familiar and unpopular policy, at least it was a predictable and well-​trod path. Friedrich Wilhelm IV and Brandenburg seemed to have gone off-​script. Moreover, if Stuttgart and Munich were to commit to the Austrian plan to reinstate the elector, then Stuttgart and Munich would have a direct influence on the unfolding events. In other words, while Austria was using the southern states to do its dirty work, in doing so it was not imposing itself unilaterally on the rest of Germany, as Prussia seemed to be. The major actors in the affairs of one of the Mittelstaaten would be fellow Mittelstaaten. It was therefore inevitable that Wilhelm accepted Franz Joseph’s plan, declaring in a toast to the Austrian emperor that ‘an old soldier does not make many words, but follows the call of the emperor, wherever that may take him’. Franz Joseph acknowledged the good faith of his Württemberg ally, remarking that Austria took great pride in ‘going before the enemy with such brave comrades’.9 In fact, the very point of Franz Joseph’s plan was that Austria would not have to ‘go before the enemy’ at all; the fighting, if any eventuated, would be conducted by Austria’s ‘brave comrades’ but not by Austria itself. Wilhelm’s toast was made up of stirring words, but Württemberg’s army took to the field unenthusiastically, and only then because the specific circumstances were favourable. In the event, Wilhelm’s gamble was a good one. Brandenburg was not an

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old man but his health was fragile. On his way back from diplomatic negotiations with Tsar Nicholas I in Warsaw, he went into a sudden decline, and died on 6 November. With him died much of the Prussian zeal for the Hessian adventure, as well as for the Erfurt Union. Two days later, the Bavarians and Württembergers marched across Hesse-​Kassel’s southern border and stumbled upon Prussian troops at Bronzell, five kilometres south of the city of Fulda. Both sides briefly traded shots, resulting in one casualty: a horse.10 Even this farcical ‘battle’ was enough for the new Prussian minister-​ president, Otto von Manteuffel, who had always been in favour of negotiating with the Austrians rather than antagonizing them, and Berlin immediately sued for peace.11 While the elector was reinstated in Kassel, Vienna turned its attention to Prussia’s terms. The resultant Punctation of Olmütz, signed on 29 November 1850, forced Prussia to formally renounce any independent German policy, in favour of deferring to a legitimized, reinstated German Confederation.12

The resurgence of Third Germany and the rise of ethnic nationalism The first rally of the post-​revolutionary years had been played, and the advantage seemed to be Austria’s. Any Prussian aspirations ended with the failure of the defence of the Hesse-​Kassel liberals. Manteuffel was more cautious than Brandenburg had been, and it is probably to his credit that he did not risk pushing the Austrians any further than his predecessor already had done. The agreement at Olmütz was a humiliation from which Prussia would take a significant amount of time to recover, but it also avoided a conflict for which Prussia was not prepared. To this end, Manteuffel might have gained the opprobrium of some of his colleagues, but at least one member of the Prussian Landtag –​a junior representative by the name of Otto von Bismarck –​agreed that Olmütz made the best of a bad situation.13 Berlin might have suffered from red faces and chagrin, but it lived to fight another day. Like Manteuffel, Wilhelm had also taken what he saw as his best option in a set of bad ones. But Olmütz was actually significantly worse for the nominally victorious Württembergers than it was for the vanquished Prussians. Prussian actions had piqued Wilhelm’s suspicions, but the agreement had muted Prussia as a major check and balance of Austrian interests in the Confederation. Olmütz was a validation of Schwarzenberg’s return to the status quo and the primacy of the 1815 confederal statutes, which prior to the Hesse-​Kassel emergency Wilhelm had wanted liberalized. The fact that Austria’s coordination of the response to Prussia in Hesse-​ Kassel was unsupportable by those same statutes demonstrated the toothlessness of the Confederation itself. No matter how illegal its actions, Austria was not about to be censured. Nor was it willing to follow even the minor concessions it had agreed to at Olmütz. In 1851, Schwarzenberg jettisoned the constitutional reforms he and Franz Joseph had promised only a year earlier.14 Once again, Austria’s insistence on constitutionalism in the German heartland did not extend to its own political environment. In reimposing the Confederation on Germany, Austria was effectively demonstrating that it was above it.

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All this made for a compelling reason to revisit Third Germany as a concept of nationhood. We will recall that many of the early Third Germanists emphasized the unique constitutional heritage of many of the Mittel-​ and Kleinstaaten, as opposed to that of the great powers. From 1850, the attitudes of the great powers seemed to compel even Württemberg officialdom to return to this focus of publicity with renewed enthusiasm. The state-​run Staats-​Anzeiger, for instance, ran a series of regular articles from 1850 and lasting well into the 1860s, declaring the constitutionalism of the kingdom to be far ahead of its fellow German states. The paper insisted that the ‘healthy political life’ of Württemberg parliamentarianism was the result of Wilhelm’s ‘prudence and wisdom’. Constitutional heritages, it was implied, were to be found only in Württemberg and the other Mittelstaaten, such as Baden and Hesse-​Darmstadt, and not in the great powers of Austria and Prussia, which generally acted only in their own interests.15 Nor was Wilhelm the only head of state to once more reconsider a Third German approach to the German Question. The 1848 experience had not merely resulted in bringing Prussia out of its shell. The Kingdom of Bavaria had also remained relatively quiet between the Congress of Vienna and the Frankfurt Parliament, but its own experience of the uprisings (which included the abdication of Ludwig, to be replaced by his son, Maximilian II) brought about a similar imperative to engage in national matters. More so than Württemberg, Bavaria had the ability to influence matters. Four times as large as Württemberg, and five times larger than Saxony or Baden, Bavaria was the largest of all the Mittelstaaten, and certainly the most powerful of the states that would be involved in a Third German project. It is for this reason that it has been referred to as ‘a state between great powers and Mittelstaaten’.16 In some ways, Bavaria was also the standard-​bearer of German conservatism; the state ties to the Catholic Church were among the strongest in Europe, and there was an undercurrent of monastic morality throughout Bavarian society. But this veneer hid a surprising vein of contrarianism. During the Napoleonic Wars, for instance, Bavaria had not only adopted the Code Napoléon but exceeded its requirements. The 1805 legal code had, in particular, stripped the state of the ability to prosecute so-​called moral crimes, including sexual offences that had come under the umbrella of ‘sodomy’. Peculiarly, then, this staunchly Catholic state was the first in Europe to legalize homosexuality. The year 1848 had reawakened this spirit of Bavarian ambition, and channelled it into German politics. Even after most of the major agitations of the revolutions had died down, Bavarian public opinion still seemed to favour a national unification as the solution to many of the problems that plagued the region. But, like Wilhelm in Württemberg, Bavarians had also tired of the power games played by the great powers. ‘Not Austria, not Prussia  –​Germany is the solution!’ proclaimed the Neue Münchner Zeitung on 3 January 1849, breaking with its previously ambiguous stand on the German Question.17 This public view was reflected in the politics of the day. Maximilian II was relatively young and quite adventurous, and his minister-​president, Baron Karl Ludwig von der Pfordten, was among the most capable and progressive state ministers in all of Germany. He was also deeply suspicious of both Prussia and Austria, and dismayed by the events at Olmütz. To him, as to Wilhelm, Austria had disgraced itself at the bargaining table, and in the process shown itself to be against the

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best interests of Germany. ‘The hegemony of Germany is decided’, he claimed boldly, ‘and Austria has lost’.18 But the initiative was not with Berlin, either. Instead, both of the great powers were threats to unity, and Pfordten saw his duty as being ‘to thwart any evisceration of Germany’, as he explained to Maximilian. The reformed German Confederation was little different from the Erfurt Union, insofar that it ‘only benefits one of the two great powers [and] endangers the independence of Bavaria’.19 Pfordten identified the autonomy of Munich with the good of the nation as he pictured it; this nation would not result from the stewardship of Austria or Prussia. In this regard, he was a good partner in German politics for Wilhelm to have. In the coming years, the relationship between the two would become increasingly important. The new official enthusiasm in Munich for finding a national alternative to Prussian or Austrian hegemony coincided with a shift in the discourse surrounding Third Germany and its desirability. Where previously it had been the constitutional behaviours of the Mittelstaaten that made them ideal partners, now these behaviours were joined by the issue of German ‘purity’. The concept of an ‘unblemished’ Germany was not new; indeed, Friedrich Ludwig Linder’s Manuskript aus Süd-​deutschland had referred to the Mittelstaaten as ‘purely German states’ as early as the 1820s. But this purity had been based on institutional heritage. Now, the determining indicator began to shift towards a model based upon ethnicity. At the heart of the reappraisal of German nationality was Austria. Previously, only certain Austrian territories –​the German ‘core’ of the Empire –​had been included in the German Confederation; even then, these lands included Bohemia, Carniola, Trieste and Istria. This meant that, though Austria contributed some 11.2 million people to the total population of the Confederation, barely half of those –​5.62 million –​were Germans, with another 5.24 million Slavs and some 350,000 Italians.20 At Olmütz and the subsequent Dresden Conference of 1851, Schwarzenberg proposed to include the entire Austrian Empire. This alarmed Manteuffel, who scored one of his very few victories in negotiations by convincing Schwarzenberg to back down; the Prussian minister-​president feared that, by including the rest of Austria’s population as members of the Confederation, Vienna could then demand a greater say in the management of German affairs. Schwarzenberg’s plans to turn the Confederation into a ‘Seventy-​ Million-​Empire’ seemed to Manteuffel to be another grab for power.21 The Austrian proposal was alarming elsewhere, too, and not just because it might have signified a new attempt to aggrandize Austria at the expense of the other states. If Schwarzenberg were to get his way, the population of the Confederation would expand by about 20  million, with most coming from Galicia, Dalmatia, Hungary and the Bukovina; Austro-​Germans were the clear minority here, and this would mean bringing into the German Confederation another ten million Slavs, five million Magyars and one million Rumanians. Adding to this were the subject populations of Prussia’s eastern provinces; here, territorial claims in Posen and Masuria meant that some two million of Prussia’s seventeen million subjects were ethnically Polish, Czech or Ruthenian.22 The concerns raised by this were not entirely based in racialism, though there was certainly an element of it present. But suspicion was also aroused by the role played by non-​Germans during 1848. Austria’s violent turn against the liberal nationalists was, to a great degree, presaged on the events occurring outside of Austria proper.

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Italian irredentists, Czech rebels and Hungarian nationalists all escalated the situation until, finally, the act that restored Habsburg authority in Vienna was carried out by an army hardened by brutal experiences in the provinces. Polish nationalists in Posen had been troublesome for Prussia for a number of years and, while they themselves had remained largely quiet since the 1830s, in Russian Poland the situation had been quite different. German fears of Polish nationalist agitation reached their height after unification; between 1885 and 1886 some 32,000 ethnic Poles would be deported from Prussia on suspicion of stoking anti-​German sentiment. The groundwork for the concerns that led to this expulsion, however, had already been laid by 1850.23 Against this backdrop, the Mittelstaaten were comparatively uncomplicated. True, there were small émigré populations of French, Swiss, Russians and Italians dotted throughout the German heartland, but in no great numbers. Not even Saxony’s historic association with the Duchy of Warsaw had resulted in any major population shift.24 The only major diaspora were Jewish Germans; even then, their status as citizens varied from place to place. In many states, Germans of Jewish descent had undergone full emancipation and integration. In others, such as Hamburg, Jews made up a significant proportion of the leading citizens of the city without having a corresponding entitlement to vote or sit on the Senate. In Württemberg, Jews were entitled to citizenship and as a result of Römer’s electoral reforms were entitled to vote, but the latter privilege was revoked in 1849, only to be reinstated in 1861.25 In Bavaria, where emancipation had briefly been an inflammatory political issue, the Jewish population numbered perhaps 60,000, mostly centred around Munich and other major trading nexuses. This meant that Bavarian Jews accounted for less than 2 per cent of the kingdom’s population as a whole.26 It was, therefore, with some justification that the Mittelstaaten could refer to themselves as ‘purely German states’. But it was undoubtedly both the practical and the ideological foundations that encouraged the Mittelstaaten to once again begin to work closer together. No one was more proactive in this regard than Wilhelm and his government. Between 1852 and 1863, he hosted the Hanoverian royal couple; on many other occasions, he was visited by Maximilian II. In return, the Bavarians accorded the Württemberg consul in Munich several privileges. In 1851, Ambassador Ferdinand Christoph von Degenfeld-​Schomburg was invited to the royal gala and audience with the king on New Year’s Day, even though the event was otherwise an exclusively Bavarian affair.27

Repositioning Württemberg in European geopolitics In many ways, 1850 had begun a new phase in the course of German nationalism. Württemberg, aggrieved by the events in Hesse-​Kassel, now adopted a similar logic to that of Pfordten in Bavaria. Wilhelm, in this way, appeared to take to heart Pfordten’s dictum that the role of the state was to avoid any action that might benefit either of the great powers at the expense of Germany. At times, Wilhelm’s adherence to this bordered on mischief. In May 1851, London’s Great Exhibition was to include representation from the Zollverein states. However, the Württemberg delegate, Ferdinand von Steinbeis, disappointed by the emphasis on Prussia, took it upon himself to erect a makeshift

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banner emblazoned with the word ‘Wurtemberg [sic]’ over the whole exhibit. Then, he coordinated with his Saxon counterpart to demand their own separate displays. The resulting performance did little to enhance the Zollverein’s reputation; the Illustrated London News reported that the exhibit did not show economic unity but rather ‘one muddy political stream’. More than a few observers in Germany were embarrassed by the farce. The Württemberg government, however, was not only unapologetic, but in fact credited Steinbeis for the ‘success’ of the display.28 The controversy of the Great Exhibition was one of Wilhelm’s early attempts to clearly disassociate his state from the interests of the great powers. Over the course of the decade, his efforts to do so, and to foster closer relations both with his Mittelstaaten partners and with foreign powers, picked up speed. In order to do this, Wilhelm resorted to the time-​honoured tradition of dynastic diplomacy. Crown Prince Karl’s marriage to Grand Duchess Olga in 1846 renewed the House of Württemberg’s ties to the Romanovs, and this was very much in Wilhelm’s mind when he engineered the pairing. As tradition dictated, Karl was given symbolic command of a regiment of the Russian army as a wedding present; this, Wilhelm saw as ‘a powerful support’ for Württemberg’s political course.29 In 1853 he presented his son and daughter-​in-​ law with a new princely residence, the Villa Berg. This was a palatial stately home, perched above the exclusive northeastern quarter of Stuttgart and lavishly furnished in a decadent, neo-​renaissance style. However, though Villa Berg was to act as Karl and Olga’s home until such a time as Karl succeeded his father, Wilhelm used the residence as a drawcard for foreign dignitaries. One of the first houseguests there was Louis-​Napoleon, the prince imperial and heir to the French throne. In September 1857, Wilhelm hosted both Napoleon III and Tsar Alexander II. The emperors were guests of honour at the Cannstatt Folk Festival; in the evening, they were entertained at an official function at Villa Berg.30 Before this, Wilhelm had invited Olga’s mother, the widowed Empress Alexandra, to take advantage of Württemberg’s many spa resorts. Ostensibly, this was an act of kindness towards Olga, who suffered from acute homesickness. In reality, Wilhelm was eager to maintain the good graces of the Russian royal family. The invitation was graciously accepted, and Alexandra visited Wildbad for many weeks on three occasions, in 1856, 1857 and 1860.31 Beyond his efforts to bring his eldest son’s marriage to diplomatic fruition, Wilhelm also attempted to cultivate bonds by marriage elsewhere. His youngest daughter, Princess Auguste, married Prince Hermann of Saxe-​Weimar in 1851. The groom had close ties to the Dutch nobility, although admittedly Wilhelm had some misgivings about the pairing. In 1851 Wilhelm also took an active role in rescuing the failing marriage of his daughter Sophie to the king of Holland.32 Wilhelm’s diplomatic initiatives seemed to escalate in a near-​frenzy. A  revolving door of Bavarian, Hanoverian, Russian, French and Dutch royal visitors (among others) typified the socio-​diplomatic calendar of the king, his family and his ministers through the course of the 1850s. Certainly, Wilhelm’s initiatives were frenetic and far more urgent than ever before. For this, there are two clear reasons. The first concerned the practical considerations of Third Germany. Increasingly, Wilhelm returned to the problem of patronage. As early as 1831 the Mittelstaaten had grappled with a serious problem: if they attempted to form their own federative bloc or pursue their own policy,

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would the great powers allow them to do so? Back then, Berckheim and Armansperg had both suggested that the way forward was to forge an alliance with another power, which would then guarantee Third Germany’s geopolitical autonomy. Their proposed solutions –​Switzerland and Prussia –​were problematic then and were still problematic twenty years later. Wilhelm’s own efforts to curry favour with France and Russia in particular had variable results, but these were still to be seen. Third Germany was the reason for Wilhelm’s actions, but his own mortality was the imperative. As the decade wore on, the Württemberg king seemed more and more to fall victim to age-​induced concerns. At the same time, he was all too aware that the political situation might only get worse after his death. As was often the case during his reign, he turned to civil politicians as the answer. One of them in particular stood out. Baron Friedrich Karl Gottlob Varnbüler von und zu Hemmingen (known as Karl von Varnbüler) stands as a giant of Württemberg politics in the late pre-​unification era. His career demonstrates the intricacies of politics as defined through personal and professional relationships. The latest in a dynasty of career politicians, Varnbüler had read law at Tübingen before continuing his studies in Berlin. In 1835 he married Henriette von Süßkind, the youngest daughter of Johann Gottlieb von Süßkind, the scion of an old Württemberg family that had relocated to Augsburg and been ennobled by the Bavarian monarchy in 1821. Varnbüler’s marriage into the powerful Süßkind family was not his only connection to the movers and shakers of nineteenth-​century Germany. While in Berlin, he made the acquaintance of the writer, muse and social reform advocate Bettine von Arnim,33 and sometime before 1842 he also became friends with Bettine’s confidant and pen friend, Crown Prince Karl of Württemberg.34 In 1845 he entered the Landtag in the First Chamber, as the holder of his family’s hereditary title as the Baron of Hemmingen. Here he was regarded as a rising star, and the editor of the Neues Tagblatt newspaper praised him for ‘a humility and a degree of contemporary learning that one would expect in Washington and Stockholm, in Brussels as in Paris’.35 He remained in the First Chamber throughout the revolution, but stood down in 1849 when he inherited a mechanized factory in Vienna upon the death of his father-​in-​law. He was successful and popular with the workers; nonetheless, within a few years he had returned to Stuttgart.36 Varnbüler’s unparalleled experience both inside and outside the political machinery of the state, his valuable connections and his modern, progressive and fiscally responsible outlook must have appealed to Wilhelm, who sensed in him a kindred spirit. Though Varnbüler was not a minister, and sat on a handful of relatively unimportant committees, in June 1855 he was invited to an audience with the king. By any reckoning, this meeting was quite extraordinary. Varnbüler’s notes of the conversation capture much of Wilhelm’s disappointment, directed against his own son. Karl had obtained a reputation as an indiscreet playboy during his youth; at some point he had contracted gonorrhoea, an embarrassing fact known at least by most of the major state political actors of the next several decades, while rumours circulated in public about the crown prince’s sexual health. His son’s indiscretions were a focus of Wilhelm’s anger, and he complained to Varnbüler about his son’s lack of decency, as well as an undisclosed ‘terrible vice’ (which Varnbüler took to be habitual masturbation).37 But Wilhelm’s complaints were about far more than Karl’s desires. ‘My son is very silly

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and weak’, he told Varnbüler. ‘[H]‌e is incredibly vain and conceited. If even he wanted to keep himself busy, he cannot even do that anymore.’38 This was not the first time Wilhelm had complained about his son’s ‘unemployment’ and his unreadiness to rule. Nor was he the only one; Eveline von Massenbach, Olga’s lady-​in-​waiting, similarly considered both the prince and the princess to be unprepared and unsuited for the duties that would be expected of them.39 We can only speculate as to Wilhelm’s intentions when he planned his meeting with Varnbüler, but several points are suggestive. It is very likely that Wilhelm expected that Varnbüler would eventually rise to high office in government. His political pedigree was spotless; indeed, his father, Karl Eberhard Friedrich von Varnbüler, had served as minister of finance from 1827 until his death in 1832, while other Varnbülers had occupied important state positions as a matter of course. Perhaps Wilhelm assumed that Varnbüler’s existing friendship with Karl would allow him to extend an influence over the wayward prince. Or, perhaps, he believed that Karl, upon succeeding him to the throne, would appoint Varnbüler as state minister. Regardless, it is clear that Wilhelm expected Varnbüler to make use of the information presented to him  –​ presumably after Wilhelm had died, since Wilhelm did not raise Varnbüler to the state ministry during his lifetime. The 1855 meeting between king and baron, then, is another example of Wilhelm preparing the political environment for an era in which he would not longer be actively involved. He seems to have been insistent upon retaining influence over Württemberg state affairs, even after his own death.

The Second Italian War of Independence: Third Germany’s best hope Wilhelm still had years of life left in him, though, and if he was planning for Third Germany to come to fruition after his passing, he did not discount the possibility that he might still live to see it. To this end, he devoted his quite considerable skills of diplomacy to the problems at hand. Chief among them, once again, was Italy, and on this issue Wilhelm played an active part in engineering what was very nearly a geopolitical coup that would have changed the entire destiny of Germany and Europe. The nineteenth century after Napoleon was in general an era untroubled by major wars. Europe did not descend into general conflict again until July 1914. But there were smaller wars in this time; of these, the Crimean War (1854–​1856) was certainly the most brutal, accounting for approximately 750,000 military deaths across wide fronts. It is for this reason that the historian Orlando Figes has termed Crimea ‘the first “total war” ’ and ‘the earliest example of a truly modern war’.40 Given this, it is startling that, the year after the end of the war, Alexander II and Napoleon III were joint guests at Villa Berg. Russia and France had been on opposing sides during the war, and they had suffered the heaviest casualties of all the combatants (about 500,000 and 100,000 respectively). The fighting had been bloody and costly, yet here were the two foes meeting cordially in Stuttgart. The Stuttgart visit, however, was not simply a diplomatic pleasantry; instead, the two emperors arrived in Württemberg

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at the behest of Wilhelm, in order to engage in high-​level negotiations concerning the new demarcation of the European balance of power. The meeting –​known as the Zweikaisertreffen, or ‘Two Emperors’ Conference’  –​was in all aspects a success. On the ever-​present question of Italian independence, Alexander took the unambiguous line that Russia had no vested interests in the region, and that Napoleon was free to follow whichever course (diplomatic or otherwise) he saw fit. In doing so, Alexander had removed one of the last obstacles against French intervention in Austrian Italy. More than that, since Wilhelm had hosted the conference, he was not only aware of the nature of the discussions, but also the outcome. Essentially, from that moment in the Württemberg capital in 1857, Wilhelm had facilitated the guarantee that would finally allow France to go to war with Austria, which it had been threatening to do for more than a quarter-​century.41 What Wilhelm had achieved was far more than simply the maintenance of good relations with both Paris and St. Petersburg, although that was by no means incidental; Napoleon III’s note of thanks to Wilhelm after the conclusion of the Zweikaisertreffen demonstrates the gratitude of the French, which can have done nothing to damage Württemberg’s diplomatic standing in Europe. The principal rationale behind Württemberg’s involvement, however, was rather more cunning. The German Confederation rested on a precarious balance that was predicated on both great powers keeping each other in check, without one gaining the upper hand over the other. This system meant that Austria and Prussia maintained a perpetual war of nerves, in which it was in both their interests to use the smaller states as instruments of their German policies, but also in their interests to act together so as to block any attempt by the Mittelstaaten to grow in power or stature.42 Thus, any attempts by Wilhelm or Pfordten to forge a Third German alliance would almost certainly have failed, as long as the attention of Austria and Prussia remained on Germany. It was for this reason that, when Pfordten approached Wilhelm in 1858 seeking support for a confederal reform bill that would marginalize the powers of Prussia and Austria in the diet, Wilhelm demurred. Change, he said, would come, but it would be gradual; all Pfordten might achieve by proposing these alterations would be to antagonize Berlin and Vienna and thus undermine any prospects of furthering a Third German agenda.43 His ulterior motive for rebuffing Munich’s advances may well have been that he knew a better opportunity would not be long in coming. Napoleon III had come away from Stuttgart in September 1857 with carte blanche from Russia to challenge Austria in Italy. Were this to occur, it would present just the opportunity that Third Germanists would have dreamt of, tying one of the two great powers in a war with another major European power; under these circumstances, Prussia was hardly likely to intervene either. When the moment did come, it took Vienna almost completely by surprise. In April 1859, Austria grew increasingly agitated at the provocative military manoeuvres of the Sardinian army; to its shock, the declaration of war that followed was matched by a French undertaking to enter the conflict on Sardinia’s behalf.44 Yet the measure to which Württemberg took an active role in engineering the circumstances of this military intervention can be seen in the fact that, while Austrian officialdom was totally wrong-​footed by events, in Württemberg the public and press were very much aware of what was happening. On 12 January 1859, for instance, Karl von Varnbüler’s

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youngest daughter Hildegard, an avid diarist, wrote in her journal that ‘presently much is being politicized here, for Austria and France threaten to go to war over Sardinia’.45 Nor were the rumours limited to the private, rarefied atmosphere of high social circles. In February, Franz Hopf, a former pastor and the Landtag representative for Vaihingen, wrote a series of articles for the Beobachter newspaper. These advocated a unified south German policy of armed neutrality, with conditional support for Austria if (and only if) the French resorted to an attack on the Austrian homeland.46 War was still months away (apparently unbeknownst to the powers-​that-​be in Austria), yet here was a popular Württemberg newspaper meditating on what the state’s response should be when (rather than if) Austria and France came to blows. Hopf ’s articles also showed that the liberal-​nationalist movement still held some sway in the Landtag, and there was certainly some feeling of renewed pan-​German optimism as Austria drifted towards war. At around the same time, the Landtag deputy Julius Hölder, representing Besigheim, presented a proposal to ‘immediately assemble the National State and a representation of the people’. Given Austria’s wandering attention, and Prussia’s ambivalence, Hölder’s plea for ‘representation’ could only have come from those states immediately in a position to offer such representation –​that is, the Mittelstaaten. Naturally, the jurisdiction of the Stuttgart Landtag extended only as far as the Württemberg borders, and the chamber had no authority to impose anything on other regions of Germany. However, the fact that the question was being debated in the chamber is significant, as is the result of the ballot. Though Hölder’s resolution was soundly beaten (twenty-​four for, sixty-​seven against), it still invoked a positive reaction from more than a quarter of the assembled representatives.47 As war broke out, Hildegard von Varnbüler triumphantly wrote: ‘And so there is war! Probably all of Europe will burn now. God give us unity and victory!’ In the circumstances, there can be little doubt that the ‘unity’ and ‘victory’ she longed for was not that of France and Sardinia, nor of Austria, but of the regionalist, Third German movement.48 Though Hölder’s motion was defeated in the Landtag, the Württemberg government might still have decided to press on with a southern federal project regardless. There was, certainly, a degree of Third German optimism within Wilhelm’s ministers. Perhaps this was the moment that a south German Bund could break free from Austria’s shackles. But such a development required decisiveness and coordinated political action between willing would-​be member states. Here, the enthusiasm began to dissipate, and Wilhelm and his compatriots began to worry that the Zweikaisertreffen did not, in fact, give the assurances they thought it had. Carl Hugo von Spitzemberg, the Württemberg ambassador to Paris, sent his ministry a confirmation of the neutrality of both Great Britain and Prussia, as reported through the medium of the 3 May edition of the Paris daily newspaper, Le Moniteur. Spitzemberg’s attention was drawn to the paper’s insistence that there was no agreement between Paris and St. Petersburg. However, the report went on, ‘[i]‌n a time when all of Europe [is embroiled in] military or naval armaments on a large scale the Emperor must provide for contingency measures.’49 To Spitzemberg –​and likely, to Wilhelm –​the passage was vague and concerning. What contingencies had Napoleon planned? Perhaps the French army intended to march into south Germany and attack Austria from the north, as it had planned back in the 1830s. If that was the case, what would be the best countermeasure? To form

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Third Germany and declare neutrality? Or to side with Austria and use Vienna as a protective force? Or was Napoleon’s ‘contingency measure’, in fact, a more binding alliance with Russia than merely the free hand Napoleon had been offered? Certainly, the latter was the subject of rumours. As Hildegard von Varnbüler had noted on 27 April, a Franco-​Russian alliance, which would leave Germany surrounded, ‘would be very bad for us!’50 The results of that would be unpredictable. Perhaps the two powers would decide, having beaten Austria, to invade Germany proper. But under what circumstances would Württemberg answer the call to arms? Both conservatives and democrats couched themselves in a truce of nebulous terms over the issue: Württemberg would act in defence in the case of an ‘attack of a foreign power upon Germany’, but now that too became a difficult point to agree on, since the definition of Germany was not only still undecided, but was in fact more contentious than ever before. An attack on Württemberg itself would necessitate a call to arms, but how far beyond the border did this responsibility extend? To Baden? To Hamburg, far to the north at the mouth of the Elbe? To Prussia or Austria (or Prussia and Austria)? What would cause such an intervention? As the war progressed, and in spite of the guarantees he had received from Württemberg, Napoleon III became increasingly certain that the German states would band together and strike towards Paris as a supporting action on Austria’s behalf.51 But Hopf, and a number of the deputies in the Landtag, would have countenanced such a move only if France attacked Austria, while others were interested only if the hypothetical French move threatened Württemberg proper. Austria’s frequent adventures in its far-​flung territories complicated the matter even further. Hopf insisted that only Austria’s German core was subject to the southern states’ defensive guarantee, which meant that any French engagements in Italy would not compel them to intervene. This did not even take into account the question which states Hopf meant when he spoke of a southern German defensive alliance. Significantly, though Württemberg may have expected the hostilities between the Austrians and the French, the other Third German states had not benefitted from Wilhelm’s inside information. If, in fact, war gave Third Germany its clearest opportunity to take advantage of the inattention of the German great powers, then it required clear coordination between the potential member states. None was forthcoming. Wilhelm had learned from his early years on the throne that rash actions and words could have unintended, negative consequences. On the other hand, his cautious planning on the eve of the 1848 revolutions had proved a masterstroke. Perhaps taking the lesson too far, Wilhelm’s reign throughout the 1850s was careful to the point of vacillation. His abundance of caution in 1858 was prudent, and it was likely correct to suggest that Pfordten’s proposed measures in the diet would have been both unsuccessful and counterproductive. By April 1859, however, this same caution was a liability. Gradual change became stagnation. Immediate action was vital, and Stuttgart simply was not willing to undertake it. If the war had been a long, drawn-​out process, Wilhelm might have had the time to change the political course of his state. But here, too, he was frustrated. Austria’s armies, supposedly the most impressive in Europe, performed extremely poorly in the Italian theatre. Austrian soldiers proved themselves totally inept with their new Lorenz rifles. They lacked the morale, the training and the leadership to resist concerted

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French bayonet charges. The instructional tactical manuals distributed among units were far too complex to convert into practice. Since most officers were German while the rank-​and-​file soldiers were not, order on the battlefield soon dissolved, as Slovenes or Hungarians could not comprehend even the most basic commands issued by their officers because they simply did not understand the language.52 The French were hardly any better. From Genoa, at the height of the war, Napoleon III complained of the error of sending French troops into Italy ‘before having stocked up any supplies there. This is the opposite of what we should have done’.53 At Solferino and Magenta, the pivotal battles of the campaigns, both sides took heavy casualties and, while both battles were nominally French victories, in reality they were mostly inconclusive. For all the fervour with which Vienna and Paris declared war on one another, the Second Italian War of Independence degenerated into a quagmire of little benefit to either side. Austria was neither willing nor able to hold on to its rebellious Italian territories indefinitely. Ceding them to the Italian nationalists very quickly proved the lesser of two evils. For his part, Napoleon was keen to beat the Austrians on the battlefield. To the disappointment of Third Germanists, the French were not willing to risk anything more widespread than a limited Italian campaign. Paris would not upset the balance of power in Europe by driving the Austrians back towards the Danube. This was especially true since Napoleon was as uncertain about the German Confederation’s obligations to Austria as the Confederation’s member states were themselves. Napoleon fought a limited war with limited aims, and Austria was able to retreat from the field with a tremendous blow to prestige but little significant damage to its political position in Germany. This was clearly not the crushing blow to a German superpower that Third Germany needed in order to exist. By the time the two exhausted powers sued for peace in Villafranca, just three months after the outbreak of the war, the opportunity to alter Germany’s destiny had slipped from south Germany’s grasp. Writing an urgent telegram to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the diplomat Karl August von Wächter could hardly keep the bitter disappointment out of his terse, curt message. Addressing the telegram to the attention of Wilhelm himself, Wächter reported:  ‘La paix est signée.’54

The beginning of the end? The year 1859 did not just bring to an end a decade of intrigues. In some regards, even more so than the failure of the revolutions a decade earlier, the Treaty of Villafranca seemed to herald the collapse of the Third German dream. Italy gave the southern powers the very opportunity they needed to break away from Austria’s oversight –​an opportunity they had built towards for a good ten years. But their inability to do so was predicated upon three major failings. The first was the nature of the Italian war. Dramatic it was, but in the scheme even of the limited wars of the nineteenth century it was a relatively minor affair, the horrors of Magenta and Solferino notwithstanding. It had no capacity to cripple Austria, nor to tie it up for the time necessary. That necessary time was lengthened by the bias for inaction displayed by the Württemberg

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government. Though it had done much to create the circumstances in which the opportunity existed, when the occasion arrived Wilhelm seemed incapacitated. Nor was there any other power ready to take the lead; the lack of communication and coordination between the Mittelstaaten meant that, while even the reading public in Württemberg were well informed of the impending war between Paris and Vienna, the responsible authorities in Munich, Karlsruhe, Darmstadt and elsewhere were mostly in the dark. Indeed, at some points the actions of the other Mittelstaaten evoked annoyance or anger from the Württemberg authorities. Prince Alexander of Hesse-​ Darmstadt, the third son of the Grand Duke of Hesse, was a ranking officer in the Austrian staff, and he was among the delegates at the peace conference in Villafranca; this, the Württemberg ambassador to Austria, Adolf von Ow, saw as a betrayal of German interests.55 In any event, without clear direction from a government that appears to have been too cautious, and with little understanding of the practicalities of forming a new German federation, Württemberg’s competent willingness to do so soon collapsed. In any event, the opportunity that the war presented was merely an illusion.56 In any other regard, however, nationalism remained a burning issue, and indeed the 1850s seemed to confirm that some sort of political unification was a near certainty. In almost every issue that had arisen since 1848 (and even beforehand), the solutions mooted or enacted involved some form of cooperation between the states. Unity invited a sense of security and stability. Where these solutions differed was on the matter of the balance of power in the relationship between the states. In the years following the disappointment of 1859, Germany’s course to unification –​as perhaps we have some justification to call it now, so inexorable the drive towards it seems in hindsight –​was punctuated by yet more conflicts, including the first of the so-​called wars of German unification. In the process, though the next six years would appear in some respects to be years of political stagnation, in many respects they would create the testing environment for the last and most ambitious and audacious experiments that would ultimately result in national unity.

6

Six Years of Autumn, 1860–​1866

When the terms of peace were signed at Villafranca, ending the Second Italian War of Independence, it must have seemed as though an era had come to a close. Austria had reasserted itself in Germany, and Prussia had taken a back seat. Third Germany’s great chance had gone begging. Anyone believing that Germany would now fall into a pattern of consolidation and stagnation, however, would have been very wrong. The events of the preceding decades had shown significant instability within the structure of the German Confederation. Time and again –​in Frankfurt in 1848, in Hesse-​Kassel in 1850, at the conference table at Olmütz and Dresden and during the Italian war in 1859  –​the Mittelstaaten found their needs and aspirations were not met by the purposefully weak and ineffectual institutions of the Confederation. If Austria wished to abandon Metternich and Schwarzenberg’s course of subverting the nationalist cause, its window to foster a Greater German bonhomie among the Mittelstaaten and smaller states was alarmingly narrow. The year 1848 had shown that Vienna was not immune to revolutionary pressures, and the Hessian constitutional crisis had only soured the relationship with the southern states further. That these south German governments seriously considered a final split with Vienna while Austria struggled with France over Italy was more significant than the fact that these efforts came to naught. Austria’s position in Germany was a difficult one by 1859, but the other unification concepts were in no better shape. Prussia’s engagement with Germany prior to 1848 was notable in its near-​incoherence. Its more concerted efforts, between 1848 and 1850, had not ended well, and even if Berlin maintained its nationalist ambitions afterwards, Olmütz had blunted its thrust. Thus, at the very moment in which German unification looked to be the only solution to political, economic, military and social problems afflicting the whole region in general, the forces that could have affected this seemed to be in decline. In the first half of the 1860s, a vast array of conferences, popular agitation and political negotiations would result in the heads of government attempting once and for all to resolve the German Question. In 1866, one profound moment of rupture would change the course of these developments irrevocably. The groundwork for the unification of Germany, which would occur at the beginning of the following decade,

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was laid here, between 1860 and 1866; once more, the Mittelstaaten, and particularly Württemberg, played central roles.

Sovereignty and reality The failure of the 1859 opportunity came at a difficult time for Württemberg. The palpable disappointment can only be understood in the context of the state’s increasingly dire circumstances. Problems, particularly in the fields of state economics and defence, became more and more pressing to solve but less resolvable under the state’s own competence. Economically, Württemberg entered the 1860s in a better position than might have been expected, given its lack of financial strength in the first half of the century. Steam power, which the Landtag had been reluctant to embrace, was fast becoming a mainstay of Württemberg industry. The K.W.St.E.  finally began to hit its stride, albeit slowly; by 1855, the short Cannstatt-​Untertürkheim branch line had been complemented by lines joining Heilbronn, Stuttgart, Ulm and Friedrichshafen, before continuing on to Lindau in Bavaria. In the process, the railways offered much faster and more efficient methods of transporting goods than the traditional horses, carts or barges. Steam power plants in all industries became almost ubiquitous. By 1868, the Heidenheim textile factories used some twenty-​nine steam engines generating 324 horsepower in total. This placed Heidenheim third on the list of mechanized districts in the kingdom; Stuttgart already had fifty-​three machines generating 521 horsepower in 1861, and Heilbronn maintained thirty-​one machines for a combined output of 486 horsepower at the same time.1 In all, by 1868 there were some 494 stationary steam engines generating power in Württemberg factories, 355 having been manufactured in Württemberg.2 Given the state’s previous intractability on matters of industrial power production, the statistics suggest a revolutionary improvement in Württemberg’s material and financial prospects. With modernization came mechanization. The ‘culture of appearances’ that had accompanied the capitalist boom and rise of consumerism in countries such as Britain, France and the United States had not bypassed Württemberg. Demands for clothing, dyes and textiles drove a manufacturing boom, particularly in Heidenheim.3 This coincided with the development of inexpensive new looms, both mechanized and hand-​operated. In the early 1850s, the Schwarz loom, which allowed for two tracks of thread as opposed to the usual single thread, was offered for sale at less than half the price of its predecessors. Soon after, it was adapted for mass production by the entrepreneur Gottlieb Meebold, who lowered the price to just 15 fl (as opposed to 55 fl for the already economical Schwarz loom).4 The impact on the industry was staggering. At the beginning of the 1850s Württemberg’s textile industry consisted of about 300 mechanized looms, of which 40 per cent were located in Heidenheim. By 1852, thanks to the new Schwarz-​Meebold designs, Württemberg employed some 673 mechanical looms, 220 of which were used by the Heidenheim textile factories alone.5 By 1861, of Heidenheim’s population of about 4,000, some 1,711 people worked in twenty-​seven firms either producing textile goods or directly involved in the industry.6

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Heidenheim was just one example of Württemberg’s sudden economic growth. The textile production capacity of the state was boosted by the mechanisation of even the cottage industries, which in turn caused them to grow; gradually, expanded public textile companies replaced small, inefficient hand-​weaving and cloth-​making artisans. In part, this resulted from government policy stipulating total freedom of commercial competition. This laissez-​faire attitude towards Württemberg’s key industries meant that the traditional artisan and journeyman workshops (the so-​called Einzelmannbetriebe, or single-​man-​enterprises) were forced by competition to modernize and expand or else risk economic extinction.7 In other industries, too, Württemberg began to benefit from the free-​trade policies of the Zollverein. Lower import duties on raw materials meant that metal works and machine factories were not only possible but thriving. The Esslingen Machine Factory had been founded in 1846 but struggled to make any initial impact on the Württemberg economy. By 1861, however, it employed nearly 1,000 Württembergers and was the most important manufacturer of steam locomotives in southern Germany; of the K.W.St.E.’s 79 locomotives running on the network in 1868, fifty-​five of them –​some 70 per cent –​had been built in Esslingen.8 In terms of the number of industrial workers, the factory was only beaten by the state iron works in Wasseralfingen, which employed some 1,200.9 Yet the figures masked underlying problems. While Heidenheim had grown in importance to the textile industry, this was largely the result of private capital and investment. Its position at the centre of Württemberg’s economic recovery was not reflected in government policy. Coal remained in short supply, which forced industrialists to look elsewhere for fuel. Heinrich Voelter, a paper manufacturer who also acted as the representative for Heidenheim between 1856 and 1862, argued during a sitting in 1857 that costs could be saved by using peat instead of coal as a fuel source. But Voelter wanted the government to enact price controls so as to keep peat affordable. The Landtag did not agree with Voelter’s motion, and it was left to the factory owners themselves to form a cartel to cooperate to drive prices downwards.10 Economic cabalism among the industrialists, however, was not enough to keep prices manageable. In 1861, Moriz Mohl, an economist and Landtag deputy as well as being the brother of the liberal-​socialist Robert von Mohl, reported to parliament that the yearly coal needs of the Heidenheim factories already exceeded 60,000 kilograms even though peat was in widespread usage. Moreover, increasing costs in peat and timber meant that, even at a heavy mark-​up, in the near future demand for coal would balloon to over 100 tonnes.11 As a result of these problems of fuel supply, the seemingly impressive improvement in Württemberg’s steam power output was, by comparison to other German states, embarrassingly minor. Württemberg factories were generally unimpressive. In Prussia’s main industrial centre, Essen, the Krupp Steel Works alone operated no fewer than 136 steam engines, generating 3,160 horsepower. This corresponded to well over twice as much power as that generated in Stuttgart, Heilbronn and Heidenheim combined.12 Heidenheim was ambitiously called ‘the Swabian Manchester’ by the citizens of the state, but in fact it was quickly falling behind, and there seemed no way to improve the situation. Moriz Mohl’s report to the Landtag had recommended that the government absorb the cost of importing the 100,000 kilograms that he expected would be required

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for the Heidenheim factories, but he also insisted that a rail line had to be built connecting Heidenheim to the rest of Württemberg. This was an eloquent example of the lack of planning on the part of Württemberg’s authorities as to the extent and nature of the rail network. By the early 1860s, the Landtag had begun to embrace rail with a new vigour, but the enthusiasm was applied haphazardly. Arthur Mülberger noted that ‘there were those in the Chamber who would have liked nothing more than to have built a track to the moon’. But Württemberg’s future lay not on the moon but in Germany, and here it continued to lag behind.13 Thus, while branch lines sprang up all over the state, the economically vital district of Heidenheim was not connected by rail at all and relied entirely on unpaved roads and river traffic along the Brenz for transporting goods. If the economic situation was deteriorating, Württemberg’s ability to stand as a military power in its own right was also crumbling. The rearmament project that had interested Wilhelm in the 1820s had, by the mid-​1850s, become a necessity. The small-​ arms and artillery pieces that the army had traditionally relied upon were the same smooth-​bore muskets and brass cannons that dated back to the Napoleonic Wars. But other states, too, had focused on modernization, and the Ministry of War was desperate to keep pace. The Prussian order for the Dreyse Zündnadelgewehr in 1839 furnished the Prussian army with an infantry rifle that demonstrated a prodigious rate of fire some five times faster than its contemporaries. But the benefits were not immediately apparent. Prussia gained a fearsome reputation for its Badenese police actions in 1848 and 1849, but there were also some harsh critics. Friedrich Engels seemed to take mischievous glee from the fact that the rebels, who were little more than ‘amateur soldiers’ armed only with a ragtag collection of hunting weapons and ancient muskets, and imbued with ‘comic opera efforts [ . . . ] and drunken carnival spirits’, caused the well-​drilled Prussian army some considerable headaches.14 At least one Prussian general, Karl Wilhelm von Willisen, thought that the 1849 actions showed the Dreyse to be too unreliable; its breech-​loading action had the propensity to be fragile in field conditions, and it was a comparatively complex weapon compared to the more conventional muzzleloaders.15 Engels felt that the Dreyse was too complicated for ‘ill-​ trained militia’ to operate effectively, arguing that, far from being a useful weapon, it demonstrated the incompetence of the average soldier.16 The Prussians continued doggedly with the Dreyse in their arsenal, but its less than stellar baptism of fire convinced many that the order of 300,000 was a tremendous error. At around the same time, the French began developing a new weapon system, collectively known as the Minié. The Minié was a muzzleloader with a rifled barrel, and its ammunition consisted not of lead balls but expanding, shaped bullets. This meant that existing muskets could be adapted to a Minié standard, while the Dreyse required specialized equipment and production. This made the Minié perfect for states such as Württemberg, whose armaments industry was in its infancy. Even the French took advantage of their new system’s adaptability; most of the weapons equipping the French army during the Crimean War were Napoleonic-​era muskets retrofitted with rifling.17 The Minié also seemed to have even more advantages. For one, in spite of their simplicity, they were remarkably accurate. The British adapted the Minié for their

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famous infantry rifle, the Lee Enfield, which entered service in time for the Crimean War. At Inkerman in 1854, Enfield-​armed infantrymen, facing a surprise Russian attack involving massed artillery, nonetheless came away victorious, having inflicted nearly 15,000 casualties.18 Inkerman encouraged Helmuth von Moltke, then a staff officer in the Prussian army, to write a service journal article entitled ‘On the Influence of Improved Weapons on Combat’ –​a name that should give some indication as to Moltke’s impression of the Enfields. One wonders if it galled the Prussian officer to report that the Minié ‘simply could not miss’.19 Julius Schön, a captain in the Saxon army, was similarly impressed; the Minié was a ‘precision weapon’ that had the extraordinary ability to ‘force [the bullet] to follow its flight path’.20 In the hands of an expert marksman, the standard Austrian version of the Minié, the Lorenz rifle, could outrange a Zündnadelgewehr by almost 300 feet, giving it an effective range of about 900 metres.21 Even more worryingly for the Prussians, a number of military experts were convinced that the Dreyse’s most obvious advantage  –​its rate of fire  –​was in fact a serious drawback. During a test of a Dreyse, the Württemberg Ministry of War determined that the superior rate of fire would just encourage overeager soldiers to fire off all their ammunition while well outside effective firing range. This would leave them defenceless and at the mercy of their Minié-​armed opponents, who could pick them off at range before closing in and making short work of them with the bayonet.22 Under the circumstances, it was natural that the ministry decided to place an order with the Austrians for the Lorenz rifle, which many observers (even some Prussians) considered to be superior to the Dreyse equivalent. The choice of a Minié as the new method of arming the Württemberg infantry would not be tested for years, and when it was it would be shown that the experts who had lauded the superiority of the Lorenz were, in fact, quite wrong. Nevertheless, at least Stuttgart was willing to place an order for modernized weaponry for its foot soldiers. The same could not be said for the artillery. On paper, the Württemberg army could call upon an artillery corps significantly larger than it had had during the Befreiungskriege. In 1817, Württemberg had possessed only eighteen guns. By 1840 that number had expanded threefold, divided into three batteries of horse-​drawn artillery and four foot artillery batteries.23 But all of these were muzzle-​loaded smoothbore bronze or iron cannons. By contrast, the new guns being developed by Krupp in Prussia, made of strong but lightweight crucible steel and equipped with rifled barrels, were superior in range and service life to anything then employed in Europe.24 Even if the Württemberg army had been armed with the most formidable and advanced weapons then available, it still suffered from a serious problem of logistics. The state’s misuse of the railway as a tool of economics and trade has already been noted. But its mismanagement of modern transportation as instruments of war was even more astounding. In every other state, the railway was conceived in tandem, as a means of commerce as well as a means of mobilization. One contemporary commentator noted that ‘in war, as our strategists teach us, [the railways] is the last word’.25 Indeed, it offered unprecedented abilities to mobilize a large number of troops quickly and efficiently. As early as September 1839 the Prussians experimented with trains, transporting soldiers of the Prussian Guard between Potsdam and Berlin during exercises.26 In 1844 the Saxon army included in its war plans the deployment of ‘a brigade of 4,800 men [who]

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could be transported via rail with the use of just 12 locomotives and 120 carriages’. The main line between Dresden and Leipzig was built partially to accommodate this.27 The Badenese, meanwhile, took a novel approach to their rail system, employing a unique broad-​gauge track rather than the standard found in every other state. This was a calculated strategy; in the event of invasion or some other emergency requiring a military response, the Badenese had the ability to shuttle their troops rapidly along any point of their network, which ran from Strasbourg to Karlsruhe, Mannheim and on to Basel. Any invader would have to disembark at the Badenese border, and either march the rest of the way, or else capture and use Badenese rail transport.28 The use of rail for military purposes differed from state to state, but the common ground was that rail was used for military purposes. Not so in Württemberg; even though the Landtag was slow to recognize the economic advantages of the railway, it conceived of it only as an economic instrument. At one point, the K.W.St.E. considered building the same broad gauge used by Baden as a security measure, but this was opposed by ‘businessmen and industrialists who preferred the concrete advantages of standard gauge to security against a possible future invasion’.29 The fact that these ‘concrete advantages’ were not embraced in any measure until well into the second half of the century, and that the ‘businessmen and industrialists’ otherwise had difficulty holding sway in Württemberg political life, is hardly relevant here. The salient point is that Württemberg’s railways were wholly unsuited and unprepared for their potential employment as logistical providers for the army. Taken together, these facts demonstrate that Württemberg was, in a very real sense, approaching an even greater period of crisis, in which the resolution of the national question was the only answer.

Renewed regionalist agitations: The Würzburg Conferences, 1859–​1861 How undermined was Third Germany after Villafranca? In many ways it must have seemed like the Mittelstaaten would never have such a clear opportunity again. Certainly, the tone of Wächter’s reports to Stuttgart on the occasion of the peace treaty reflected a dejection and a disappointment. If anything, however, this failure only motivated other Mittelstaaten to begin taking an initiative in the German Question, since one of the major reasons for what had happened was Württemberg’s overabundance of caution. The times called for more positive action. In November 1859, four months after the Second Italian War of Independence ran its course, Bavaria hosted a conference of the Mittelstaaten in the picturesque, medieval Lower Franconian town of Würzburg. This conference was intended as a means for the Mittelstaaten to form a cohesive policy of approaching confederal reform; to this end, the conference followed a similar programme as that suggested by Pfordten in 1858.30 The conference soon ran into difficulties along the same lines of disagreement that previous Mittelstaat initiatives had –​notably, Bavaria and Baden still could not agree on the status of the Palatinate. Nevertheless, the leaders of these states were not dissuaded from pursuing further reforms through the auspices of a

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common Mittelstaaten alliance. Consequently, another conference, again to be held in Würzburg, was arranged for July 1860. This was to be a meeting of the responsible military authorities of each state. There were, in fact, legitimate reasons unrelated to the Third German project that would have compelled the Mittelstaaten to hold a military conference. While Wilhelm and the Prussians had never been able to reform the military forces of the German Confederation as a genuinely federal organization, there were provisions in the Confederal Acts for the armies of each state to coordinate in a series of confederal corps (Bundeskorps) in times of emergency. Broadly speaking, these were unitary bodies:  VIII Corps, for example, was comprised of contingents from Württemberg, Baden and Hesse-​Darmstadt. The headquarters of VIII Corps was located in Stuttgart, and overall command rotated between representatives from the states. In 1859, the burden of command (such as it was) fell on Prince Friedrich, Wilhelm’s first cousin.31 The Bundeskorps were a compromise of sorts. As regional bodies they encouraged close cooperation between the Mittelstaaten. But the various contingents did not train together, and the confederal army only mobilized due to imperative and convenience rather than standing as a matter of course. This meant that coordination was often haphazard at best. During the Crimean War, for example, both VII and VIII Corps (the former being composed entirely of the Bavarian army) conducted readiness exercises, partially as a result of vague fears that the war between Britain, France and Russia might escalate and expand. By any measure, these exercises were an unmitigated disaster. The mobilization of the various armies was slow, piecemeal and chaotic. Stuttgart headquarters found itself out of contact with its own forces for a significant period of time; when it finally did regain some authority, the inescapable conclusion was that VIII Corps was in no way prepared to defend the southern states. The coordination with the Bavarians of VII Corps, a vital plank in southern defensive planning, was wholly non-​existent. Practicality demanded that something be done about the coordination of the Bundeskorps. To that end, the Würzburg Conference might have been a deeply pragmatic response to an existing problem. Two points indicate that there were ulterior motives. The first is the timing. Würzburg was not convened immediately after the farcical 1854 practice mobilization, but half a decade later. Even more telling was the provenance of the conference. The initiative came from the Saxon minister-​ president, Count Ferdinand von Beust, who initially invited the Württemberg war minister, Lieutenant General Moriz von Miller, to meet with his Saxon counterpart, Adolf Bernhard von Rabenhorst. Saxon involvement was particularly significant; in the first case, Saxon forces were not part of VII or VIII Corps, and did not figure prominently in the confederal strategies for the defence of the south. Beust’s invitation could only be interpreted as a private initiative made on Dresden’s own cognizance. If that was the case, then the fact that Saxony was actively engaging in the German Question by approaching Württemberg suggested an opportunity that had not existed beforehand; prior to 1860, Saxony had remained quite absent from the Mittelstaaten intrigues and Third German planning. Evidently, the arrival of the Beust telegram in Stuttgart caused significant excitement in government circles. The day after it arrived, Miller was already preparing for departure. But if Beust had expected that the

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initiative would remain with Dresden and Stuttgart, he had not reckoned on the other Mittelstaaten; Miller and Rabenhorst were joined by their compatriots from Bavaria, Hanover, Baden, Hesse-​Darmstadt and Hesse-​Kassel.32 The agenda of the conference, too, demonstrates that it was far less a post-​mortem of past failings and more a proactive expression of Mittelstaat ambition. Proceedings opened on 30 July and concluded on 6 August and in that time the delegates arguably did more to further the cause of Third Germany than anyone else had in all the decades since the Congress of Vienna. Most significantly, they returned to the principles that Wilhelm had initially proposed in 1815. These states had some degree of common heritage owing to their political and geographical circumstances  –​not to mention, the growing sense of ‘pure’ German ethnicity. It was natural (and, to Wilhelm’s mind, well overdue) that they should unite in military terms. The proposed reform to the confederal army did not include any contingent from or influence exerted by either Prussia or Austria. Effectively, if these reforms were enacted, the entire military apparatus of the German Confederation would be turned into a Third German military bloc, independent of the great powers, formalized in a way that the Bundeskorps never had been, and under a unified command. Almost by accident, and almost on the spur of the moment, the Mittelstaaten had resolved to reform themselves, and thus enter into a Third German coalition, using the template of the confederal army corps as a pattern to follow. This consciously placed the Mittelstaaten in opposition to the influence of the great powers. Moreover, if the resolutions of the conference were enacted, the expanded military power of the Mittelstaaten would permit them to avoid a similar situation to what Bavaria and Württemberg faced in 1850, when both were forced against their will to intervene in Hesse-​Kassel. A Third German military bloc would also create the framework for a political body, which would permit the Mittelstaaten to respond to changing scenarios with greater vigour and rapidity. As such, the hesitance of 1859 could be avoided, if an opportunity similar to the Second Italian War of Independence presented itself again. Simply put, the Würzburg Conferences, while not initially intended as such, were beginning to lay the groundwork for the formation of a Third German nation-​state. As the plans gained momentum, the representatives proposed to meet again, and in May 1861 they reconvened in Würzburg, although this time Baden was absent. Here, however, the states ran into practical, rather than theoretical problems. These generally resolved themselves as the same sorts of petty dynastic disputes that had often plagued the Third German project. By 1861 Württemberg and Bavaria were once again flexing their muscles, not to mention their regionalist credentials. This perhaps owed something to the provenance of Saxony’s involvement in the first place; yes, the second Würzburg Conference was a qualified success made possible only by the initiatives of Beust and Rabenhorst, but Saxony was a Johnny-​come-​lately to Third German nationalism, and neither Maximilian nor Wilhelm was willing to give up their claims to leadership of the new bloc. If pride was guiding their hands, however, it was potentially very dangerous for the future of the project. Sir John Ralph Milbanke, the British minister plenipotentiary to Munich, warned that Bavarian or Württemberg intransigence could lead to ‘the jeaulousies [sic] of 1859 [being] revived’.33 Even more than this, he felt that the practical considerations made Munich and Stuttgart’s position foolish. This, after

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all, was supposed to be a military alliance; if Bavaria and Württemberg took the lead, ‘the only two likely Candidates for [the command of the Mittelstaaten army] are the King of Wurtemberg [sic], who is 80 years of age, and Prince Charles of Bavaria, whose health would scarcely, I should think, permit him to risk the fatigues of active service in the field’.34 Not only was Milbanke uneasy at the developments at the third iteration of the Würzburg Conference, but Baden’s lack of involvement also suggested that Karlsruhe was becoming uneasy at the prospect of its old sparring partner, Munich, gaining the ascendency in the proposed bloc. Others feared that a shadowy hand was guiding Mittelstaaten policy. While Milbanke saw ambition and incompetence behind Bavaria and Württemberg posturing, his colleague Sir Joseph Crowe in Leipzig ascribed more sinister motives to the conference as a whole. The conference, he noted, coincided with the Hesse-​Darmstadt foreign minister, Baron Reinhard von Dalwigk zu Lichtenfels, visiting Paris. Dalwigk had left for the French capital in April; by May he had yet to return. Crowe assumed that Dalwigk had gone to coordinate affairs with Napoleon III, and in his mind Würzburg was nothing less than an attempt to recreate the Confederation of the Rhine under French guidance. (In fact, Dalwigk’s visit to Paris was unrelated to his duties as a minister in the Darmstadt government.)35 Even if Crowe had been correct, neither Whitehall nor anyone else had anything to fear. On the same day that these fears were relayed to Odo Russell at the Foreign Office, another telegram arrived from Milbanke. ‘Nothing [ . . . ] worth relating has transpired [at the conference]’, he wrote. ‘[I]‌ndications, that [the conference deliberations] are already beginning to lose some of the importance with which they were at first invested, are by no means wanting.’36 When proceedings were adjourned, once more Third Germany had stalled. Though 1861 was yet another disappointment for regional nationalists, there was still reason for optimism. Saxony’s renewed interest in Third Germany coincided with a broader public awareness of it. We have already seen that the Württemberg public became more vocal during the period of the Italian war but in other states, too, 1859 had been seen as an opportunity in more places than simply the halls of power. On 22 June 1859 the Wiesbaden daily Rhein-​Lahn-​Zeitung encapsulated much of the sentiment coursing through the Mittelstaaten when it published an editorial on the circumstances of the war. ‘We don’t need a Confederal Council of War’, the correspondent argued, ‘[for] the war protocols of the German Confederation are completely useless for all but a lame, pretend war’. Instead, victory, safety and stability could be achieved through a simple appeal to German unity. ‘How quickly all misconceptions and misunderstandings would disappear, like mists before the dawn’, the editorial continued with some poetic flourish, ‘if only we now sat, North and South together, in one single, German parliament!’37 The problem with this, though, was that an understanding between the states seemed harder and harder to come by; even while German national unification seemed to take on an even more pressing imperative, the states continued to fall back on their own particular interests, jealously guarding that which they held and coveting that which they could gain. George Gordon, the British consul in Karlsruhe, watched the national developments with some interest, much as his colleagues in the other German capitals did. His estimation of the German capacity to unify was significantly more

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pessimistic. In an 1862 telegram to his foreign secretary, Gordon predicted that ‘the thorough and distinctive German local feeling’ of particularism would always trump any pan-​German project, just as it had done in Würzburg in 1861. ‘The appearance of some first rate leading mind and talent in Germany might possibly effect the unity of his country’, the minister concluded, ‘but such a man is still a Desideratum in the Fatherland’.38 For all their best intentions, then, the Mittelstaaten leaders tended to resort to type. At this juncture, Gordon’s desideratum simply did not seem to hold any sway.

The necessity of Germany It was at this juncture that Württemberg German policy seemed to lose cohesion. This might be put down to King Wilhelm himself. At 80 he was no longer a young man. His reign had, by the time of the second Würzburg Conference, spanned nearly four and a half decades. In that time, he had time and again risked censure by extending liberal franchises and encouraging his citizens and government to engage actively in the German Question. His own public engagement was not reluctant, and he even contributed articles and editorials in the state media. He had been cautious in the 1850s but adventurous at other times, as when he had placed the state bureaucracy in the hands of Friedrich Römer. Consistently his policy had been to avoid either of the great powers gaining an upper hand in German affairs and thereby suborning the Mittelstaaten to their whims. But he had only ever been partially successful in this regard, as the Hesse-​Kassel emergency demonstrated. Now, in his twilight years, the erstwhile king seemed to suffer a crisis of idealistic resolve. His antipathy towards the great powers had always been strongest in its expression against Austria; it was Austria that was most often in a position to affect German affairs, Austrian reaction was often the cause of major social and political discontent in the Confederation and it was Austria –​not Prussia –​that seemed to threaten to drag the Confederation into conflicts as a matter of course. Austrian adventurism in the Balkans and eastern Europe antagonized the Russians and the Ottoman Empire, and the nature of its policies in Italy and southwestern Europe had led to conflict with France on several occasions.39 At the beginning of 1860, Wilhelm’s personal brand of diplomacy took an unexpected turn. For reasons that are unclear, the king became convinced that the French were planning an attack on German territory bordering the Rhine. This fear came in spite of personal guarantees from Napoleon III that the French had no interest in annexing German soil.40 If Wilhelm were correct, this would be an intolerable threat to pan-​German security, but to whom could he turn? Not to Franz Joseph and the Austrians, who had withdrawn after their inglorious losses in Italy. Nor could he turn to Third Germany and his fellow Mittelstaaten leaders; though the debacle of the 1861 Würzburg Conference was still a year away, the Mittelstaaten had only agreed in broad principle to interstate cooperation, and in any case the mobilizations of the 1850s demonstrated that VII and VIII Corps, at least, were woefully inadequate. Wilhelm’s one recourse, then, was to turn to Prussia. This he did through official channels; the state minister, Karl Eugen von Hügel, met with the Prussian ambassador, Gustav von

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der Schulenburg, to discuss the means by which Prussia could intervene militarily in the southwest. Wilhelm’s approach to the Prussians was an unprecedented volte-​face. Though his government had negotiated with the Prussians for protection three decades earlier under similar circumstances, at least then Stuttgart had acted in conjunction with its Mittelstaaten neighbours. This was not the case now, and the suddenness of the appeal rankled many in Wilhelm’s own government. In particular, Hügel himself, who had extended Wilhelm’s suggestion to Schulenburg in the first place, now disavowed any association with it, while Miller, the minister of war, decried what he saw as an unnecessary, unwelcome and unpatriotic dilution of Württemberg’s military sovereignty. But it was the response of Württemberg’s neighbours that was most telling. The Saxon minister-​president, Beust, reacted angrily, insisting that Württemberg had no right to unilaterally change its policy to one so friendly to Prussia. The new minister-​ president in Munich, Karl von Schrenck, was similarly unimpressed, and both he and Beust saw the German policies of the south German states as being collaborative.41 It was therefore unconscionable that the Württemberg crown was willing to act independently of a concerted south German (or Third German) initiative. Within a month, Third Germany was once more on the cards. Wilhelm’s Prussian initiative caused concern both amongst the anointed leaders of the Mittelstaaten as well as their subjects; after all, what if France was planning something? Spurred on by this, Duke Bernhard of Saxe-​Meiningen presented his proposal for a comprehensive Third German programme. Bernhard’s Germany involved the formation of a central authority, made up of Austria, Prussia and representatives of Bavaria, Saxony, Württemberg and Hanover. This body would regulate Germany’s foreign policy and military affairs, while a parliament, based on the existing diet, would debate policy. Militarily, the various corps of the confederal army would be reorganized, such that Prussia and Austria would maintain their own armies, and those of the Mittelstaaten and smaller states would be unified into a new Third German army.42 Beust greeted Bernhard’s proposal with some enthusiasm. Even Wilhelm, perhaps reeling from the criticism of his Prussian rapprochement, initially found the plan appealing; somewhat surprisingly, Vienna did not immediately oppose the suggested reforms either.43 Once more, however, this new Third German model collapsed under the weight of its own illogic. In spite of Wilhelm’s positive response to Bernhard’s ideas for reform, it became apparent to him that the driving force behind them was, in fact, Saxony’s Beust. It concerned the Württemberg king that Saxony was manoeuvring into a position of pre-​eminence; after all, previous attempts to do so by Bavaria and Württemberg itself had been key to the failures of previous Third German initiatives. This had been one of the greatest problems of the Mittelstaaten-​based German nation-​state: how could several nominally equal (or roughly equal) states enter into a coalition that would benefit them all and not permit the ‘lesser’ of them to be suborned to the ‘greater’? This was the objection that the Mittelstaaten raised to Austrian or Prussian leadership, but what was there to stop Bavaria or Saxony, in particular, from acting as the de facto Austria in a smaller confederation? And, if such a problem could be avoided, how would such a coalition be governed? The Bernhard-​Beust plan in fact added to the conundrum, with Beust insisting that all German states (except Austria and Prussia)

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should belong to a Third German bloc in a reconstituted confederal authority. With these smaller, weaker states included, any sense of statist equality was essentially impossible. Wilhelm’s suspicion of Saxony’s intentions was probably well founded, but the proposal did little but rehash existing conceptual difficulties. In any case, the immediate stimulus for the renewed interest in Third Germany, being the fear of a new French war, was soon extinguished when, in July, Napoleon III travelled to Baden-​Baden to meet with the Prussian king and the other German heads of state. Yet again, as the threat receded into the distance, so too did the enthusiasm for the Third German project.44

Competing models: The Nationalverein and pro-​Prussian sympathies In the years preceding the 1848 revolutions, newsmen and liberal commentators such as Siebenpfeiffer, Wirth and Schulz had all extolled the virtues of Third Germany and the Mittelstaaten bloc. Given the political realities of those times, it is surprising that this was seen as a workable model of unification. By the 1860s, the Third Germanists should have had no excuses. Their initiatives had always started promisingly, but the myriad irreconcilable difficulties they faced had doomed every attempt. Even the very form of Third Germany was unclear. Lindner’s Manuskript aus Süd-​Deutschland of 1821 had proposed that every German state barring Austria and Prussia should become members of the new German power. In Siebenpfeiffer’s era, the unquestioned members of this bloc were Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden, with Hesse-​Darmstadt a likely partner. Conversely, the plans put forward by Duke Bernhard and championed by Beust mentioned neither Baden nor Hesse-​Darmstadt, but did include Saxony and Hanover, neither of which had been particularly active during the debates of the last several decades. In none of these models could the proponents answer the most fundamental questions of the existence of a competing third German power between Austria and Prussia. What would be the distribution of power? Would there be a head of state? If so, would the head of state be chosen by democratic or semi-​democratic election, and if that were the case, what would the electoral franchise constitute? Presumably, the dynasties would remain; the House of Württemberg would still head the Kingdom of Württemberg, just as the House of Wittelsbach would preside over Kingdom of Bavaria, and the House of Zähringen over the Grand Duchy of Baden. But what role would these houses play in governance? Would the constituent states of Third Germany be permitted to enact their own policies according to their individual state interests? Would legislation be controlled by a central power? Or, as Bernhard had suggested, would Third Germany be stripped of foreign and war policy, which would then be administered by negotiation and agreement between Third Germany, Prussia and Austria? There were, quite simply, too many questions, both unanswered and unable to be answered. Yet even after the failure of the Bernhard-​Beust proposition, Third Germany continued to gather supporters. The explanation lies not in Third Germany’s merits,

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but in what it was not: it was not to be dominated by either Austria or Prussia, both ethnically and politically ‘suspect’ states mistrusted by most (if not all) the Mittelstaaten. Perhaps as a result of Third Germany’s continuing shortfalls, yet recognizing as Wilhelm did the inevitability of Germany, Württemberg liberal-​nationalists began to return to the dualist model of unification. In particular, and largely following the personal opinions of the king, the sentiments of the politically active were better disposed towards Prussia than Austria. The emergence of the Nationalverein (National Union), a party-​ type organization devoted to fostering a Prussian-​ led German solution, stands as eloquent evidence to the fact. The Nationalverein appeared in the latter 1850s as a genuine Germany-​wide movement that supported rapid, liberal unification under Prussian leadership. For all its Prussian sympathies, however, it was not an initiative of the Prussian government or ministries. Indeed, the British believed it to be a ‘Republican Unitarian association for Germany’, and republicanism was certainly not on Berlin’s official agenda.45 Moreover, only two of the Nationalverein’s leading members were Prussian parliamentarians: Hans Victor von Unruh and Moritz Veit. Neither of them held any official position in the Prussian power structure, and both had been relegated to their state’s political wilderness after the failures of 1848 and 1849.46 Of the other leaders of the Nationalverein, all were citizens of the Mittel-​ or Kleinstaaten. Roughly half were career politicians, the most prominent being the Hanoverian liberal nationalist Bennigsen and the Württemberger August Reyscher, who represented Stuttgart in the Landtag. They were joined by deputies from Munich, Weimar, Wiesbaden and elsewhere. The other half were, if not ‘ordinary’ citizens, certainly men more representative of the various electorates of Germany, rather than the elite status quo: notaries, lawyers, economists, publishers.47 To begin with, the Nationalverein struggled to make headway in Württemberg. This was mostly due to the fact that its first conferences were held in the northern German states, and therefore left the indelible impression that it represented Prussian or northern interests, at the expense of the south. This was a belief that its leading members soon attempted to remedy. An ‘Assembly of patriotic men’ was organized in Esslingen in February 1861, and some 600 people attended in support of the Nationalverein. The assembly was supposed to double as a membership drive; at the time, including Reyscher, the Württemberg branch had just 260 members. After Esslingen, this grew to 400 –​an encouraging growth of more than 50 per cent. Following this, Reyscher requested that there be another assembly organized somewhere in the south, to cement the Nationalverein and its national political program in the southern consciousness. If this did not happen, he warned Bennigsen, ‘our objective [of national unity] will once again fall asleep here or will take on another form’.48 Bennigsen agreed, and more Nationalverein rallies followed in the southern states in the coming years. By 1864, the Württemberg branch had a membership of 600 people. This made the Nationalverein one of the largest popular political organisations in the state. It also suggested that Wilhelm’s Prussian initiative of 1860 was perhaps not as far out of step with the popular sentiment than might be supposed; indeed, while Württemberg traditionally followed its own regionalist path, the growing popularity of the Nationalverein insisted that more people were willing publicly to embrace or at least consider a Lesser German solution to the German Question.

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But the distribution of the membership was uneven. As the host town of many of the southern rallies, Esslingen accounted for 237 of the Verein’s members by 1864. By comparison, Stuttgart had only 62 members from a population of almost 30,000. In Tübingen, the traditional home of Württemberg liberal radicalism and Third German sentiment, just 23 residents had signed up to Bennigsen and Reyscher’s program.49 What was truly remarkable about the Nationalverein, however, was not its membership base, but the fact that it was a clear breach of the Karlsbad Decrees. Yet it was not forcibly disbanded, as those decrees prescribed. The organization had been at the centre of discussion at the Fifteenth Confederal Police Conference, held in Stuttgart between 6 and 8 August 1860. Admittedly, at this early date there had been no southern Nationalverein conference, the Esslingen gathering being a year in the future; even so, it is significant that the police delegates decided not to censure the organization. This decision was supported most notably by the Prussian delegation, whose government opposed the republican undertones of the organization but had no objection to its amicable policies. This apparently unlawful position was justified by the arguments of both the Badenese police minister, Carl Burger, and his Württemberg counterpart Emil Majer. Burger and Majer insisted that the Nationalverein was no great threat to state governments or the maintenance of peace and order. On the other hand, suppressing the movement might ‘martyrize’ its leaders. Thus, applying the dictates of the Karlsbad Decrees to this situation was, to them, wholly unnecessary and even counterproductive.50 Württemberg’s adherence to the Metternichian suppression of nationalist presses and groups had always been patchy and reluctant at best. But rarely had the state government been willing to overtly challenge such a foundational principle of the German Confederation. The timing is perhaps significant; Wilhelm’s political rapprochement with Berlin might have encouraged his minister to support (or, at least, not reject) the rights and aspirations of a group friendly to Prussian interests. It is also likely that Stuttgart’s rejection of confederal law was a reflection of the growing discontent with the inadequacies of the Confederation as a legislative body. Whatever the true meaning of Majer’s support of the Nationalverein at the police conference, it was in keeping with Württemberg’s softening attitude towards Prussia and its rank frustration with the German state of affairs. The position was also a challenge to Austria’s longstanding hold on German policy. Unsurprisingly, Austria protested the decision to leave the Nationalverein intact. How could it not? If successful, the Nationalverein would call for unity of Germany under Prussia, with Austria isolated from Germany. This conflicted with the Austrian policy of maintaining a German status quo and, in particular, maintaining its own guidance over a loose (but not united) Germany. The Nationalverein was hardly the only national organization that appeared in Württemberg in the 1860s. Nor was it even the largest or most influential. In 1862, the Reformverein, which was sympathetic to Austrian stewardship and promoted unitarian reform through the existing German Confederation, was founded in Stuttgart. Surprisingly, two of its founding fathers were Moriz Mohl, who had heretofore embraced regional particularism, and Julius Fröbel, who had barely escaped Vienna with his life in 1848. Within a month of its foundation, the Reformverein had some 900

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members in Württemberg alone –​more than double those of the Nationalverein in the corresponding period.51 But the Reformverein was never intended to be an analogue of the Nationalverein, a Greater German foil to its Lesser German aspirations. First, while it might have been popular in Württemberg, the Reformverein was significantly more limited in its scope. Chapters operated in Württemberg and Bavaria but nowhere else, and virtually the whole membership of the organization came from these two states. Second, it did not enjoy any support of the Austrian government, official or otherwise. By contrast, though it played no active role in the Nationalverein’s activities, the Prussian government was quite happy to let Bennigsen, Reyscher and their colleagues play a free hand. In any case, while many of the Nationalverein’s leading members were true believers, the same could not be said of Mohl and Fröbel. Their support was conditional rather than devotional; they were reacting to the perceived failure of the Third German experiment, not out of a genuine conviction in the goodness of Austrian federal power.52 Within this microcosm of competing nationalist organizations, Württemberg seemed to set a new political course. True, the Reformverein was more popular among the citizens, and in any event the membership of both groups was fewer than 1,000: hardly overwhelming in a state of more than one and a half million. But, while the government all but ignored the Reformverein, it did not do so in the case of the Nationalverein. Indeed, it risked Austrian anger by supporting (in an admittedly indirect fashion) the Nationalverein’s agenda. In the most unlikely of fashions, then, here was another instance of Württemberg officialdom shifting its attention towards a potentially kleindeutsch solution to the German Question.

The end of Wilhelmine Württemberg? In the midst of these political and social contortions was a compelling story of personal drama. Wilhelm of Württemberg was a tireless, assiduous, conscientious king. We have seen the effects of his crisis of resolve at the beginning of the decade, but he had reacted to this by throwing himself into affairs. By Autumn 1863, however, Wilhelm grew more and more lethargic. He sequestered himself away in his palaces, with little contact with his family or the outside world. He received few guests, although he kept himself occupied with matters of state through the attendance of his few aides. Aside from his servants, he had two regular visitors. One was his personal physician, suggesting that, in his advanced years, his health was in decline. Another was his confidante and mistress, the Bavarian actress Amalie von Stubenrauch, with whom he had maintained a relationship for over forty years.53 In spite of his failing health, Wilhelm still attempted to influence and direct policy, and he continued to contribute to public discourse. However, where he had previously been incisive in his criticisms, now his opinions were more confused and less cohesive. In the Staats-​Anzeiger of 24 January 1864, Wilhelm complained of the ‘embarrassing’ state of affairs in Germany, and insisted that Prussia and Austria must come to an agreement to allow the German Confederation not only to reform, but thereby to flourish.54 In comparison to his sentiments earlier in the decade, this seemed to suggest

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that he was leaning towards the Mohl-​Fröbel model of confederal reform that he had consistently dismissed out of hand. Less than a month later, he roused himself to attend a two-​day conference of Mittelstaaten leaders in Stuttgart, to discuss the response of the German Confederation to the Austro-​Prussian invasion of the Danish territories of Schleswig and Holstein, in the far north of Germany. During this conference, Wilhelm insisted that no Württemberg troops would be sent north to assist either side, and the best result would be the integration of the two provinces into Prussia.55 Wilhelm’s opinion had once more shifted to the idea of greater Prussian involvement in Germany, which seems at odds with his call in January for equality between the German great powers. Whether his wits were failing him is unclear, but it is more likely that he was simply rolling with public sentiment, leaning to whichever side he believed the weight of opinion was favouring, a tactic he had followed with great success throughout his reign. His political nous continued to gain him admirers. The new Prussian minister-​ president, Otto von Bismarck, praised him as ‘the clever old gentleman’, while on 1 March 1864, the Silesian town of Lübin, where the Württemberg king had been born in 1781, made him an honorary citizen. But the ‘clever old gentleman’ had by now exhausted his seemingly endless energy. On 23 June 1864 he visited the stud at Weil, on the banks of the Neckar. In a melancholy mood, he told his host, Count Taubenheim, that it pained him to know that he would be forced to leave a country so beautiful.56 Two days later, Wilhelm passed away, at the age of eighty-​two, at the Rosenstein Palace in Cannstatt. He was interred at the mausoleum he had commissioned as the tomb for his wife Catharina, on the hill known as the Württemberg, after which his family and state had derived their names. Wilhelm’s death robbed Württemberg of arguably the most astute and able monarch in Germany. His successor, Karl, lacked the same moral certainty and political acumen of his father, and he was immediately unwilling (or unable) to assume the dominant south German mantle that Wilhelm had held on and off for almost half a century. Karl was uncomfortable with the pomp and circumstance that came with the role of king. Conversely, he did not convey the discreet and dignified figure that Wilhelm had for so many years, and he had next to no experience of governance and diplomacy, in spite of the many functions he had nominally hosted at his residence, Villa Berg. Given his lack of political substance, it is perhaps to Karl’s credit that his first act as king was a decree on 1 July, to increase the powers of his ministers, allowing them to effectively run the country more in the modern constitutional-​democratic sense, rather than relying on monarchical direction. The change in the Württemberg monarchy was not the only significant political change that would affect the state, though it is, perhaps, one of the great enabling moments of that state’s history. Wilhelm had been a strong king who allowed his ministers some leeway, and operated within the bounds of the constitution. Karl was weaker, less able, and consequently the vacuum at the head of the state would have to be filled by a more astute state minister than the steady but subordinate Hügel, the ineffectual Linden or the well-​meaning but unsuccessful Römer. On 21 September 1864, in arguably the most important decision of his regency, Karl appointed the 55-​ year-​old Karl von Varnbüler as his foreign minister, a post that doubled as the de facto

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position of state minister. In doing so, he fulfilled the destiny that Wilhelm had set into motion in 1855, when he had insisted on his private and frank meeting with the then-​ junior Landtag representative. In many ways and in spite of his impressive and wide-​ranging experience, Varnbüler was still a product of his time and class, and there are clear parallels with Wilhelm in this regard. His experience running a factory in Vienna had led some to consider him a Greater Germanist first and foremost, and many contemporaries referred to him as an Ultraösterreichischer –​ an ‘Ultra-​Austrian’.57 But Varnbüler had conducted his own form of dynastic diplomacy, too. He had married his third daughter Sophie to the Prussian officer Nikolaus von Below in 1862. His second daughter, the diarist Hildegard, married her father’s close friend, the Württemberg ambassador to St Petersburg Baron Karl von Spitzemberg, in 1864. Through Spitzemberg, Varnbüler had been introduced to Bismarck in 1859, while Bismarck was serving as a junior diplomat; after Bismarck was elevated to the role of minister-​president in 1862, Varnbüler and Hildegard visited him and his wife Johanna at their residence at Wilhelmstraße 76 in Berlin. Hildegard noted that the atmosphere at the Bismarcks’ was ‘natural and refined’, and that her father was comfortable enough in the presence of Bismarck to entertain long and ‘deeply involved’ discussions on matters of politics.58 It was only natural, it seemed, that when Hildegard married Ambassador von Spitzemberg, the Spitzembergs and the Bismarcks would become neighbours on Wilhelmstraße. Bismarck’s ascent to the apex of the Prussian political hierarchy altered much of the course of German nationalism. It is going too far to suggest that Bismarck had a plan for Germany from the outset. It is true, though, that for the first time in several decades, Prussia had a minister-​president who had a clear idea of Prussia’s position within Germany. Like his southern counterparts, Bismarck was a state particularist first and foremost. The German Question was still open as far as he was concerned, but never in question was his commitment to following a political course that (he believed) would benefit Prussia. A key plank of this was the belief that Austria and Prussia could not coexist in the same political body. As competing great powers, one would eventually triumph over the other. Bismarck was determined for that victor to be Prussia, but he was also aware that the moment for this to occur had to be carefully selected and prepared for. This served as the foundation for his political philosophy of Realpolitik. The basis of this policy had been made clear as early as 1850, when Bismarck had made a speech to the Prussian Landtag defending Manteuffel’s decision to sue for peace in the Hesse-​Kassel affair, in which he declared that ‘the honour of Prussia does not in my view consist of playing Don Quixote to every offended parliamentary bigwig in Germany who thinks his constitution is in jeopardy’.59 The idea matured over the course of the next decade. Its fundamental aim was to prepare the groundwork not for a Prussian takeover of Germany, but certainly for the removal of the competing Austrian influence. It was Bismarck’s goal to make sure that, when this happened, he would not send his state tilting at windmills, but rather embarking it on a campaign in which victory would, as a result of his political manoeuvring, be all but assured.60 Already, Bismarck had made his position clear by persuading King Wilhelm of Prussia not to attend the Austrian-​convened Diet of Princes in August 1863  –​yet

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another attempt by Vienna to force the Mittelstaaten to fall into the line of Austrian policy without affecting a national unification. Not even Franz Joseph’s telegraphic appeal to his ‘truest friend’ Wilhelm could sway the Prussian course.61 Berlin’s response, nominally composed by the king but most likely the work of Bismarck himself, admonished the Habsburg emperor. ‘I cannot convince myself that [your] chosen path will meet the aim [of peaceful German unity]’, answered Wilhelm, ‘nor that this attempt has any greater or even the same chances of success as previous attempts’.62 Under Bismarck, Prussia began to create some form of cohesive German policy that would invariably put it at odds with Austria. It was this very German policy that led Bismarck to war against Denmark in 1864 (albeit in conjunction with Austria) over control of the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein, and it was this war and policy that prompted Württemberg’s King Wilhelm, in one of the last political acts of his life, to endorse the Prussian annexation of these territories. With Wilhelm dead, and his son an inferior political actor, the man now occupying the top office in Württemberg’s political spectrum also happened to be a close personal friend of the Prussian leader.

The Varnbüler ministry and the changing face of Germany Despite their friendship, Varnbüler was no puppet or lackey of Bismarck. Upon taking office, Varnbüler was not unfriendly towards Austria. He had recently published a pamphlet, reprinted through the popular Schwäbischer Merkur newspaper, which argued eloquently and passionately for the rights of all Germans, including Austrians, to one central, united German homeland.63 Varnbüler insisted that the political unification of Germany would manifest itself as the outgrowth of a spiritual, cultural, social and mercantile unification of the peoples of Germany. ‘The national sense of a people’, he wrote, ‘rests upon the intimate bonds of their bourgeois lives’.64 While still only a deputy in the Landtag, Varnbüler was a vocal opponent of what he saw as Prussia’s imperious political manoeuvres. In February 1863, for instance, Prussia had proposed a trade agreement between the Zollverein and France, a measure that Varnbüler decried as the ‘price of peace [through which] Prussia wishes to benefit at the cost of the national honour and national wellbeing of France, and to once and for all crush Austria’. Varnbüler accused Prussia of ‘perfidy’ that ‘endangers the Zollverein’.65 Years later, Varnbüler insisted that the intention of ‘the leading men in the Zollverein’ (here meaning the Prussians) was to neuter the ‘progressively growing movement [in south and central Germany] for Austria to join the Customs Union’.66 Once he held the reins of government, Varnbüler’s criticism of Prussia intensified. On 5 December 1864, Württemberg recommended before the confederal diet that Prussia should not be permitted formally to annex Holstein as a result of the Danish War.67 This, however, placed Varnbüler at odds with his exchange of correspondence with Bismarck in August. Over the course of a handful of letters, Varnbüler had recommended to Bismarck that Prussia occupy and annex Denmark’s overseas colonies –​specifically the Faroe Islands. In this instance, Prussia had demurred.68 What was Varnbüler’s game? Certainly, his early German policies seem so haphazard as to have been nearly random. As a deputy he had bitterly opposed what he saw as

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Prussia’s attempts to isolate Austria from the rest of Germany. Then, he had attempted to convince his friend, Bismarck, to annex Danish territories in the Baltic and North Sea, to no avail. Immediately thereafter, his cabinet issued a rebuke to the Prussians for overstepping their bounds in Holstein. Yet there was method to Varnbüler’s madness. More and more, political discourse, not just in Württemberg but in every state of Germany, focused on the unification of the German people. Varnbüler himself had published his pamphlet, in which he insisted that a united Germany was the inalienable right of the German people. Concluding that a nation should and would exist, however, was different from determining the course, shape and nature of that unity. Varnbüler, as experienced as he was in German affairs, was all too aware of the pervasive fear that, whatever form Germany took, it would benefit only the most powerful member, be that Austria, Prussia or, in the case of Third Germany, Bavaria. Varnbüler was also aware that Württemberg, the archetypal Mittelstaat, would not be the guiding light of Germany. It could, however, influence the development of Germany according to whichever German model it supported. Varnbüler’s policy, therefore, was to play for time, never openly declaring his allegiances, attempting to manoeuvre Württemberg into a favourable position politically, economically and militarily. Therefore, Varnbüler was following a pattern of diplomacy defined by King Wilhelm and August von Wangenheim as early as 1815. Wangenheim had opposed both Austria and Prussia out of principle. Wilhelm opposed whichever power he felt, in the circumstances, posed the greatest threat to the good of Württemberg or Germany as a whole. Varnbüler, however, recognizing that Germany was on the road to unification, opposed whichever state he felt was in the ascendency, with the aim of ensuring that no single German power would dominate whatever German model prevailed. With this in mind, Varnbüler was correct to oppose Prussia’s treaty with France because he feared such a move would concentrate too much power in Berlin’s hands. On the other hand, his support for Prussian annexations of Danish territories was born of a then-​common but spurious assessment of the Danish War, namely that it was Austria that had demonstrated its overwhelming dominance. After all, Prussia had fought with difficulty against the supposedly inferior Danes, suffering significant casualties and fighting a number of indecisive skirmishes. By contrast, the Austrians had carried the day in many spectacular battles involving death-​defying bayonet charges.69 Once it became apparent to Stuttgart that Prussia had gained some measure of the initiative, Varnbüler reversed the government’s course again, cautioning Berlin against the annexation of the ex-​Danish provinces. Varnbüler’s flexibility extended to Third Germany as well. With Austria and Prussia cooperating for once, Varnbüler drifted with the Zeitgeist of nationalist sentiments, hoping that Prussia and Austria could, in fact, coexist and lead Germany in a cooperative fashion. Accordingly, he appeared before the Landtag. ‘At present, I hold a unification of the smaller German states or of a selection thereof as a counterpoint against one or both of the German great powers as neither necessary nor advisable’, he told the parliament.70 Given his past pleas for a common German cause including both great powers, Varnbüler was not acting out of character, but the address reflected the optimism of the Chamber that, perhaps, the elusive pan-​German state could be created after all.71 The same sentiment appeared to spread to even the most vocal of

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Third Germany’s supporters in the Landtag. Ludwig August Österlen, a senior and respected member of the Second Chamber who had consistently advocated a southern national bloc, also addressed the Chamber, telling his (likely incredulous) colleagues that he was ‘in no way an implacable supporter of the Trias’. The idea of a Mittelstaaten conglomerate, Österlen claimed, was only a ‘sad necessity’ in case agreement between the great powers had been impossible. Now, however, that did not seem to be the case.72 The early architects of Third Germany had indeed come up with the plan based on the idea that Austria and Prussia could not cooperate, and would always use the Mittel-​ and Kleinstaaten as proxies in a war of nerves between great powers. But the Danish War, conducted by both great powers in the name of Germany, seemed to confirm Österlen’s contention that the ‘sad necessity’ of this contingency was no more. However, the confidence in a solution to the German Question that would satisfy Prussia, Austria and the constituent states of the German Confederation was misplaced, and in spite of his words Varnbüler had not yet turned his back on Third Germany. Characteristically, Varnbüler had watered down the impact of his own statement to the Landtag, insofar that he explained that he saw no need for Third Germany ‘at present’. This gave him an escape, should circumstances change. As it turned out, circumstances changed very quickly indeed.

Fighting for the heart of Germany The peace following the Schleswig-​Holstein affair and the Danish War was a chimera. Bismarck had taken Prussia to war against Denmark, in a coalition with Austria, because the circumstances of the time suited him to do so, not because it represented a long-​ term Austro-​Prussian policy of détente and rapprochement. The Denmark campaign had allowed Bismarck’s army to test their newest weaponry and tactics in a theatre that posed little risk. In spite of one or two failures, the Prussian army had actually performed extremely well. At Sandberg, for example, Dreyse-​armed Prussians had inflicted casualties on the Danes that were 500 per cent greater than those the Danes had inflicted on them. Near Lundby, a company of Prussian infantrymen were subjected to a surprise attack on an open moor by two Danish companies. In spite of having little cover, the Prussians not only repelled the Danes, but in doing so killed eighty-​eight of them. Prussian losses amounted to three infantrymen. These actions alone demonstrated the overwhelming abilities of well-​trained Prussian soldiers armed with the Zündnadelgewehr. In particular, the fact that the rifle was loaded through the breech rather than the muzzle meant that infantrymen could reload while lying prone, while soldiers armed with muzzleloaders had to stand. This meant that, even caught on open ground as they were at Lundby, Prussian soldiers could lie on the ground, only presenting a small target profile, while reloading and firing at men who were forced to remain in the open. Even the Austrians seemed impressed by this, and Lundby was described as an ‘awesome result’.73 By contrast, it had become clear to the Prussian General Staff, and particularly Helmuth von Moltke, now the head of the General Staff, that the Austrian army insisted on following outdated, near-​suicidal tactics that, if exploited by a better organized and drilled army than that possessed by the Danes, might prove fatal. Moreover, the Schleswig-​Holstein

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affair had underscored deep divisions in the Austrian Empire’s political structure, with state debt skyrocketing and the Hungarians questioning the role of the Empire in the German Confederation itself.74 So, having been suspected of an attempt to remove Austrian influence from Germany by way of the Franco-​Prussian trade agreement in 1863, Bismarck had since used his tentative alliance with the Austrians in Denmark in order to test their mettle. As a committed Realpolitiker, he could hardly pass up an opportunity to rid Prussia of its major rival, as Austria had proved to be for decades. Now, this opportunity presented itself. By Summer 1865 the optimism that had accompanied the successful joint venture in Schleswig and Holstein had evaporated. Bismarck had taken note of Austria’s internal political dissent and resolved to exploit it, thereby weakening Austria’s position in the Elbe duchies. At the Gastein conference, which was supposed to facilitate a joint Austro-​Prussian agreement on administering the two provinces, Bismarck cleverly forced the Austrians into a corner. Austria was given the rights to administer Holstein, but agreed to Prussian administration of Schleswig. Both would be admitted into the Zollverein; as we have seen, this was effectively a tool of Prussian economic policy. Vienna guaranteed the creation of a permanent transport corridor connecting Schleswig and Prussia, which by necessity would run through Austrian Holstein. It also sold the rights to the Elbe city of Lauenburg to Prussia for a sum of 2.5 million Thaler.75 In the short term, Vienna hoped that this injection of funds would help it out of a series of government deficits, and the offer of millions of Thaler was impossible to pass up. Indeed, the Danish War had all but bankrupted the Austrian treasury, and relief by internal means was not forthcoming. Even so, the Lauenburg deal was an ill-​advised move, since Lauenburg acted as a riverside border station between Prussia and Holstein. While the negotiations were conducted in an apparently cordial fashion, there was no masking the result as anything other than a humiliation for Vienna and a diplomatic victory for Berlin.76 Early into 1866, the Prussians and the Austrians once again squabbled over the administration of the provinces. As early as 1 January, some southern newspapers were reporting the possibility of a Franco-​ Austrian alliance to balance Prussia’s ascendency, a matter that evidently caused Varnbüler significant concern.77 In fact, the rush of information, misinformation, opinion and propaganda was overwhelming for the Württemberg government. It was also not immediately clear what precisely was at stake in the latest round of Austro-​Prussian conflict. On 31 March, for example, the Austrian ambassador to Berlin, Count Alajos Károlyi von Nagykárolyi, sent a confidential note (dutifully reported in the various south German papers) to Bismarck, categorically denying that Austria would behave with hostility against Prussia. Károlyi insisted that this would be unthinkable because it would constitute ‘a contradiction of the provisions of Article 11 of the Confederal Acts, which forbids members of the [German] Confederation from pursuing a dispute [with another member] through force’.78 Károlyi’s note was neither convincing nor reassuring, especially when the press still believed Vienna and Paris to be negotiating with one another. At the same time, the two most important popular Württemberg newspapers, the Schwäbischer Merkur and the Beobachter, demanded that Varnbüler declare the state’s neutrality, having presumably recognized that war, regardless Károlyi’s denials, was imminent.79

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Varnbüler, however, rebuffed the advice of the pressmen. He, too, had decided that war was unavoidable. To George Gordon, he remarked in late March that ‘the present peaceful aspect of affairs is only temporary and [ . . . ] war must and will eventually break out between Austria and Prussia’. Correctly reading Bismarck’s manoeuvres at Gastein and earlier, Varnbüler warned Gordon that Prussia would ultimately attempt to force Austria out of its northern foothold in Holstein and then press southwards to the line of the River Main.80 To Varnbüler, the danger of this in relation to the rest of the German states was clear enough. In typical fashion, he reasoned that it was therefore in the best interests of the Confederation, as well as Württemberg itself, if the Schleswig-​Holstein problem was resolved in Austria’s favour, rather than permitting Prussia further gains in the north. As always, there was a caveat. Varnbüler noted that at that moment an agreement with Austria was favourable, but that this could change.81 What Varnbüler evidently did not realize was that Gastein had made his hoped-​for solution impossible; Austria was in no position, financially, militarily or politically, to defend its claim to Holstein, and it certainly could not extend that claim to Prussian-​ controlled Schleswig. Nonetheless, Varnbüler’s constant guiding principle was to see the dominant power as the danger to German wellbeing, and in this case that dominant power was Prussia. Events soon after only bolstered this position. In early May, he was visited by Alexandre de Geiger, a Bavarian-​born deputy in the French Corps législatif, who revealed to him ‘in the strictest confidence’ that Bismarck was planning to annex Hanover and Saxony, ‘reimburse the Catholic Saxon dynasty with territory on the Rhine, and so create a security buffer between Prussia and France’.82 Geiger’s implication was that this ‘buffer’ would be carved out at the expense of the other Mittelstaaten. Even more alarmingly, Varnbüler soon learned that the Bavarians, with Pfordten by now back in office, had concluded that Bismarck was secretly being backed by the French. On 10 June, with war increasingly likely, Varnbüler wrote to Wächter in Paris. ‘The point Pfordten makes, albeit cautiously’, he reported, ‘concerns the motivations of Emperor Napoleon. He [Pfordten] is using the same sources as we are, but quizzes them more directly, and he always sees France on the side of Prussia’.83 That settled matters. In March, Varnbüler had reassured Gordon that, even if war came, he did not believe the southern states would be threatened by it. But if Prussia was allied with France, as Pfordten was convinced it was, then this introduced a new dimension to the simmering conflict. French involvement would turn what Varnbüler hoped would have been a localized conflict into a major war. Prussian victory would undoubtedly introduce a renewed French encroachment into Germany, and if Geiger’s intelligence was correct, then it was entirely possible that Bismarck, governed by his Realpolitik, would bargain away the sovereignty of his friend’s state to secure the support of Napoleon III. Given these circumstances, Varnbüler had little choice. The siding of Württemberg with Austria was not just an option but a necessity.

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The Unification of Germany, 1866–​1871

The years preceding 1866 were tempestuous for Württemberg and Germany. Decades of political continuity, with King Wilhelm controlling the levers of state policy, were over, and his son Karl was hardly a suitable replacement for this astute giant of regional politics. In the State Ministry, the ascension of Karl von Varnbüler at least gave Württemberg a civic leader with a similar worldview as its deceased monarch, and Varnbüler quickly took the reins in place of the inexperienced Karl. In this way, the transition from the Wilhelmine era into the Carolingian era proceeded smoother than one might have expected. But Varnbüler faced a German situation far more complex than in previous years. Time and again, Third German initiatives had failed but the concept refused to die; Austrian or Prussian initiatives that seemed to promise the cooperative and beneficial unification of Germany raised hopes but invariably disappointed their Mittelstaat exponents. The origins in the Austro-​Prussian War lay in Bismarck’s Realpolitik. Austria’s competition with Prussia had often resulted in dangerous and damaging circumstances, and Bismarck was determined to remove the menace posed by the Habsburgs once and for all. This was the rationale for a war with limited objectives; Berlin had no interest in invading and annexing the rest of Germany. Yet Bismarck was not the only Realpolitiker in German affairs. Varnbüler sided Württemberg with Austria for the entirely rational reason of wishing to avoid overwhelming Prussian hegemony. This meant that he did not slavishly follow an Austrian line, but characteristically played his own hand.

State and national decisions for war It is a common assumption that the south German states were naturally aligned with Austria, not Prussia. Walter Bußmann argues that ‘the public opinion, above all in south Germany, positioned itself fervently for Austria and against Prussia’.1 Similarly, Gordon A.  Craig claims that ‘the sympathies of most of the larger German states  –​ and particularly Saxony, Electoral Hesse, Hannover, Bavaria, Württemberg, and Baden –​were on Austria’s side’.2 Yet in Württemberg the attitude towards Austria was

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ambivalent at the best of times. Possibly the Württembergers of 1866 feared that the Prussians might invade, taking Germany by force. Yet this seems unreasonable as well. For one, Varnbüler correctly recognized that the Prussian army would advance only to the Main.3 Varnbüler had received warnings of Bismarck’s intentions through French and Bavarian channels, but in his own estimation the Prussians would not do well in a war against Austria. In this, Varnbüler and his military advisors made a serious error of judgement that was replicated elsewhere. Even the Austrian observers who had described the Prussian victory at Lundby as ‘awesome’ soon forgot it, in favour of the visually impressive Austrian bayonet charges. The memory of the Prussian campaign revolved around its many setbacks, mostly the result of the inadequate planning of the senile commander of the army, Count Friedrich Heinrich Ernst von Wrangel. The Prussian army overcame Danish fortifications at Oeversee with Austrian help; at Düppel, the Prussians managed by themselves, but only after losing over 1,000 men against barely adequate defences, and at Missunde Prussia’s claim to victory was hardly a decisive one. In reality, the Prussians used the Danish War to learn invaluable lessons, but this was not readily apparent to outside observers at the time. The general consensus in 1866 was that if Prussia went to war with Austria, then Prussia would lose.4 This view was shared by Varnbüler’s opposite number in Bavaria, Karl Ludwig von der Pfordten, who insisted that a Prussian war against Austria would be ‘hopeless’.5 Nor was he the first (or last) to express this view. At the beginning of the year, Baden’s Karlsruher Zeitung pointed out that ‘for Austria the situation has the peculiar advantage that his back is exposed to Italy, and therefore covered, and thus he maintains a free hand in the event of any bold enterprise of Prussia, which one can only believe is most likely from the side of Count Bismarck’.6 Even after the war began, and Prussia marched successfully through Hanover, Saxony and into Bohemia, the expected outcome was still an Austrian victory. ‘[T]‌he odds are against the Prussians’, Friedrich Engels wrote in the Manchester Guardian on 30 June. ‘[I]f they refuse to be beaten in the first great battle by the superior leadership, organisation, tactical formation, and morale of the Austrians, and last, not least, by their own commanders, then they must certainly be of a different mettle from that of which a peace army of 50  years’ standing may be expected to be.’7 At the same time, public opinion was more disposed to peace than war. This was reflected in the editorials of the local presses. The Beobachter and the Merkur were not at all impressed by the march towards conflict. In mid-​April, Nassau’s position of ‘armed neutrality’ was applauded by Bavaria’s Bayerische Zeitung.8 The same paper advocated a similar position, both for Saxony and for Bavaria itself, two months later.9 In Baden, the 7 May edition of the Karlsruher Zeitung, sent to Varnbüler via his consul in Karlsruhe, Oskar von Soden, contained a prescient and cutting editorial, in which the proprietors urged the southern states not to go to war on behalf of the Confederation:  ‘At the first cannon shot between Austria and Prussia, there is no German Confederation, and no German Confederal Army Corps any longer.’10 The press, reflecting southern public opinion, saw the possibility of war as being disastrous for Württemberg, its neighbours and all of Germany. So, if public opinion in Württemberg and in the other Mittelstaaten favoured neutrality over belligerence, if there was no impending concern that Austria would lose

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the war, and if considerations of the German Confederation were effectively irrelevant, why did Varnbüler take Württemberg to war? There were, in fact, numerous reasons for doing so. First, there was the matter of practicality. If Austria and Prussia came to blows, Württemberg, Bavaria, Hanover and Saxony would all be directly in the middle of the two warring powers. The Mittelstaaten were the ‘disputed acre’ that both Prussia and Austria had been trying to plough for nearly fifty years. Caught between the ‘eternal Great’ and the ‘eternal Lesser’, as Wangenheim had reflected in 1833, the Mittelstaaten were at ‘the power of null’, without any ability to grow in strength while caught between regional superpowers.11 There was no reason to suspect that the Austrians would perform poorly in a war with Prussia. Logic and the evidence of the Danish War dictated that the Prussians, whatever their motivation and drive, and however well-​drilled their army, were no match for the larger and (supposedly) tried and tested Austrian army. Thus, if Württemberg did not ally with Austria, and the Austrians succeeded in smashing the Prussian army, what then? Would Austria seek crippling retribution against the ‘cowardly’ neutral powers? Could Austria, in their manoeuvres to draw the Prussian army into battle, move their corps, regiments and battalions into Swabian territory as a strategic measure? If so, what would neutrality achieve? Württemberg and Bavaria, in particular, stood to lose the most from the Austro-​ Prussian War, as their territories stretched as an uncomfortable buffer between the two belligerents. Varnbüler had reasonable justification to believe that, even if Stuttgart declared neutrality, Württemberg would soon be overrun by the Austrian troops who could mass along the southern border. There was even precedent for this, as it had occurred in 1805, in the same circumstances that led to King Friedrich agreeing to his alliance with Napoleon. The threat also existed in the north and west. Varnbüler had made it clear to Pfordten as early as December 1864 that ‘I will not agree to any confederal decision whose consequence is a war against Prussia.’12 Now, though, Pfordten was convinced that Bismarck’s ambitious foreign policy had French backing. Though Württemberg’s diplomatic relations with France were generally positive, the memories of the Napoleonic Wars remained, and with them a suspicion of French intentions. Certainly, Varnbüler could not doubt that Bismarck might have made a deal with Napoleon III; if the Prussian minister-​president felt that he would gain an advantage from such a relationship, then Realpolitik practically demanded that the deal be made. If Prussia and France were allied, this was reason enough for Varnbüler to feel compelled to resist them. Yet not even this fully explains Württemberg’s siding with Austria. At the end of May, the British ambassador to the German Confederation, Sir Alexander Malet, addressed a letter to the diet. In it, he proposed a solution to the pending crisis. The powers of Europe, he said, were concerned by the hostility between Austria and Prussia. Therefore, a conference was to be convened in Paris. Representatives of Britain, France and Russia would hopefully be joined by plenipotentiaries from all of the German states. Malet added that ‘the negociations [sic] will have all the better prospect of success if they are not disturbed by the clash of arms and by the susceptibilities arising out of points of military honour.’13 Perhaps surprisingly, the most vociferous opposition to Malet’s invitation came from the Württemberg representative to the diet, the former state minister Joseph von

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Linden. The conflict between Austria and Prussia was a constitutional matter, and as a result it was a ‘purely internal affair, which according to Article VI of the Confederal Acts is only to be handled by Germany’.14 This effectively negated the very point of the proposed conference and, though Linden subsequently suggested that Pfordten could represent the Confederation in Paris, this was little more than window-​dressing for the fact that the conference had been rejected outright. Malet’s reproachful response on 14 June reflected ‘the disappointment of the expectations which Europe might have entertained of a successful issue of the Conference’.15 Württemberg’s aggressive reply to the abortive Paris peace initiative suggests a state set on war, not a state desperate to avoid it. Indeed, every apparent attempt of the Mittelstaaten to mediate the brewing conflict came too late or was tainted by contrarian movements. Stuttgart’s suggestion of Pfordten as emissary to the Paris conference, while denying the conference the oversight to address the immediate and pressing issues, is one such example. Another is the proposal offered by Bavaria, just two days before war was declared, to replace both Prussian and Austrian troops at confederal fortresses with a joint Mittelstaat contingent. As Prussia rightly pointed out, such a supposedly peaceful movement could hardly be taken seriously, given that Bavaria and many of the other smaller states had by now begun mobilizing. The peacemaking efforts, therefore, were entirely disingenuous. However, this is not to say that the authorities in Stuttgart threw themselves wholeheartedly into the cause of making war. Instead, the Württemberg war effort was ineffectual and lethargic, and this lethargy was not by accident but by design.

Württemberg at war On 16 June 1866, two Prussian armies, West Army and Elbe Army, crossed the frontiers of Hesse-​Kassel, Nassau, Hanover and Saxony. The invasions were hardly a surprise, since the threat of war had hung over Germany for at least several months and, as we have seen, neither Varnbüler nor his fellow southern leaders were oblivious to it.16 In the opening days and weeks, though, the Württemberg contingent of VIII Corps –​and indeed, most of the corps as a whole –​displayed a singular lack of urgency. The first problem was one of command. Prince Friedrich had previously commanded the corps, but traditionally the role was supposed to rotate between states. Baden’s preferred choice was the son of Grand Duke Friedrich, Prince Wilhelm. Given that the vast majority of the corps’ manpower came from either Württemberg or Baden, it seemed reasonable for the corps commander to be a Württemberger or a Badener. However, the Austrians had other ideas and pushed for Prince Alexander of Hesse-​Darmstadt to be appointed. Alexander had served with the Austrians for many years, and had last gained attention due to his advisory role at Villafranca. This made him politically reliable and loyal to Vienna. For this very reason he was wholly unsuitable for the command of VIII Corps, which (regardless the alliance of the southern states to Austria) was supposed to be a military force concerned with the interests of the southern states, not Austria. Immediately, the conflict between what Alexander was expected to accomplish and what the contingents under him

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wished to accomplish caused problems. For one thing, Alexander was himself not enthusiastic about the task before him. After the war, Alexander would attempt to defend his command of VIII Corps by publishing his campaign journal. In spite of his aim in writing the work, Alexander admitted that he had only taken command ‘with very little hope and only with the greatest reluctance’.17 This remarkable lack of confidence on behalf of the corps commander cannot have made the best impression on his subordinates, but in any event they too approached his appointment with disrespect bordering on intransigence. None of his brigade commanders would follow his orders until he renounced his oath of loyalty to the Austrian throne.18 This did not happen until 17 June, the day after Prussia began its advance in the north. Even then the Württembergers were reluctant to take any initiative. The Württemberg army, after all, made up the lion’s share of the 35,000-​strong VIII Corps –​its contingent suborned to Alexander supposedly numbered 15,500 men –​so its mobilization and readiness was arguably Alexander’s most pressing need.19 Some Württembergers, at least, saw the need for immediate action. By mid-​morning of the first day of the war, an army observer sent a telegram to the ministry of foreign affairs in Stuttgart, urgently requesting that an infantry brigade be sent to Frankfurt immediately.20 The request was prescient, given that the Prussian West Army was bearing down on the seat of the confederal diet with some 30,000 men. In response, the next day one brigade of 5,000 soldiers left Stuttgart bound for Frankfurt.21 While this was, perhaps, an impressively rapid response to the sudden emergency, subsequent deployments were glacial. The second contingent of 5,000 men would not be ready to leave its home barracks in Stuttgart for another eleven days, while the remaining infantry brigade only mobilized on 5 July, too late to have any bearing on the course of the war whatsoever.22 Outside the infantry, mobilization was even slower, or else did not happen at all. On 18 June, two of the Ludwigsburg garrison’s three artillery battalions were still at Ludwigsburg. Just one battalion, comprising 426 men, 324 horses and 8 field guns, had been deployed. Even then, it was sent to Schweinfurt, in northern Bavaria, to support VII Corps in case the Prussian army now attacking Saxony pushed into Upper Franconia. Worse, the artillery support division had for some reason been sent to Geislingen, approximately seventy kilometres southeast of Ludwigsburg, and nowhere near the most likely battlegrounds. Of Ludwigsburg’s six cavalry units, numbering some 340 horses, only one had been deployed: No.4 Regiment, comprising fifty horses, which had also been sent to Schweinfurt.23 Ten days later, just one other unit had been deployed:  one artillery foot battery, of 228 men, 169 horses and 8 guns, had been redeployed to Bietigheim, a small town just south of the Badenese capital, Karlsruhe.24 This reticence was neither accidental nor unique. Alexander had been rushed into command, and consequently had been unable to appoint his own officers (though, in fact, it is unlikely he would have been permitted to, since his assumption of command was already unpopular among the states from whence his forces came). Alexander was not particularly impressed with his staff: ‘the generals hardly knew one another, and none of them [ . . . ] had ever conducted serious manoeuvres before’, he complained in his postwar reminiscences. ‘[F]‌rom the Chief of the General-​Staff right down to the last lieutenant were all imposed upon me, and I only encountered their names for the

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first time when they took up their posts.’ The logistical problems facing VIII Corps, though identified many years earlier, were unresolved and remained considerable. As Alexander explained, the men under his command were, in fact, answerable to numerous lower-​level commanders from different states and governed by the regulations and systems imposed by their own armies rather than through a cohesive policy at corps level. Against well-​prepared Prussians, this army was always going to struggle. Yet it was not just the logistical problems of VIII Corps that hampered its efficacy. With uncharacteristic reluctance, Alexander would lay some of the blame for the corps’ lamentable performance in the field (or, more accurately, its lack of performance) on ‘different [ . . . ] political aims’.25 For all that this may have sounded like an unsuccessful general making his excuses, Alexander was right to be suspicious. The chief of staff, General Fidel von Baur, was responsible for the practical administration of VIII Corps. He was also a Württemberg officer, politically answerable to Stuttgart. In this role, he was able to follow Varnbüler’s instructions to delay the mobilization of the Württemberg contingent and, indeed, the entire corps for as long as possible. Baden also vacillated and delayed. Yet Württemberg’s delay was significantly more damaging, as its forces made up the bulk of Alexander’s corps. Independently of VIII Corps, the Bavarians also dithered under the guidance of Varnbüler’s friend and ally, Pfordten. Having begun mobilizing in April, by May they had just 10,000 men ready to fight.26 The south German corps promised much but they delivered little. The beleaguered Hanoverians in the north discovered this to their cost. Hanover had also thrown its lot in with Austria and had been invaded on day one by the Prussian Elbe Army. The Hanoverian army was substantial in its own right, with an effective strength of 19,000 men, but it was no match for the 40,000 Prussians swarming over the border. Consequently, the Hanoverians retreated rapidly to the southern university city of Göttingen, expecting that either the Bavarians or the combined south German VIII Corps would march north to join them in a counterattack.27 The reinforcements never came. The hapless Hanoverians continued their orderly but increasingly desperate retreat southwards, hemmed in by the enemy to the north and the hilly, heavily forested terrain to the south. On 26 June, aware that Hanover’s army was in danger of total annihilation, the French foreign minister, Éduard Drouyn de Lhuys, called upon the Bavarian ambassador to Paris, August von Wendland. Drouyn was furious; to him, it was ‘incomprehensible how Bavaria had left the poor Hanoverians so helpless’, especially when ‘the greatest mass of troops of the Bavarian Army stands in Franconia, and in such cases one must surely take risks’. In response, Wendland was sober and clinical. There was no point sending the army north, he said, because ‘it was much too late’.28 The next day, the Hanoverians engaged a smaller Prussian advance force mostly made up of Landwehr reserves and emerged victorious. But the victory had come at a cost of some 2,000 Hanoverian soldiers. Consequently, the remainder of the army surrendered the very next day.29 Hanover lasted two weeks. Saxony, on the other hand, lasted just two days before it was occupied, and the Saxon Corps retreated into Bohemia to join the Austrians. Hesse-​Kassel and Nassau, meanwhile, did not resist at all. In Kassel, the occupying forces received a generally pleasant reception, while Nassau’s Landtag, debating

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itself into circles about whether the preferred outcome of the war was a Prussian or an Austrian victory, amused itself with patents for ‘a method for the odourless evacuation of outhouses’ as the Prussians approached.30 In none of these instances did any Württemberg troops intervene. Nor did they react when the Prussian First Army, briefly held in reserve to defend against an Austrian attack against East Prussia that never came, invaded Bohemia on 19 June. The Württemberg leadership seemed to believe that the Austrians could at least hold their own, and that the confederal corps were not actually required. Even after Hanover, Hesse-​Kassel, Nassau and Saxony had fallen, and the First Army began its march towards the Jičín plateau in central Bohemia, Baur continued mobilization only at the most leisurely pace, abetted and guided by Varnbüler and the war minister, Oskar von Hardegg.

Revival and opportunity: Third German regionalism in 1866 Varnbüler’s intention was to keep Württemberg forces clear of any action whatsoever. He assumed that a war between Austria and Prussia would be a protracted conflict. Austria had the numerical advantage over Prussia, but it was unlikely that any of the engagements (at least, in the early part of the war) would prove so decisive that they would break the back of any one of the armies and this, coupled with the slow nature of nineteenth-​century warfare, would preclude a speedy victory and an end to the war. Nor was it likely that either power would sue for peace. The indications were that 1866 would be the ultimate battle between Austria and Prussia for German supremacy, that it would last at least for several months, and that both major powers would be preoccupied with each other. This was the perfect opportunity for the rise of a southern German federation, and the circumstances had been handed to Third Germanists by the two great powers themselves. The aspirations of the Third Germanists had been killed off in 1859 by several degrees of uncertainty. The southern states, particularly Württemberg, had dithered, and though they had recognized the opportunity afforded them by the war in Italy, the limited French objectives had scotched that opportunity before it could be exploited. The war simply had not lasted long enough, it was too limited in scope, and no one could be sure of the reaction of the other European powers. On the other hand, the circumstances of 1866 were much more favourable. Moreover, Württemberg’s leader in 1859, King Wilhelm, had been astute and clever but also old. His sense of political adventure and his desire for a regional bloc were overruled by an abundance of caution. The state minister in 1866, Varnbüler, was cut from much the same cloth in terms of his ideas of Germany, but he was significantly younger and more willing to take chances. Varnbüler’s close relationship with Pfordten in particular meant that he was not playing a lone hand. Instead, he was acting in conjunction with his southern neighbours towards the same objective. The nature of the conflict complicated matters in some ways. The rejection of neutrality as a realizable goal required the Mittelstaaten to ally with one of the great powers, and under the circumstances that could only be Austria. But direct confrontation with the Prussians had to be avoided if at all possible. The Badenese

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Karlsruher Zeitung, reflecting the planning in the southern halls of power, editorialized on the dangers a month before the war broke out. As long as an Austro-​Prussian conflict was limited to Saxony and Bohemia, the paper claimed, there would be little danger to the other Mittelstaaten. However, ‘as soon as the first shots are fired in Darmstadt, Mainz or Rhenish Baden, that is a different thing altogether, and the French guards in Chalons would soon find the smell of powder smoke wafting past their noses’. On the other hand, if the war did not escalate, Baden would be able to ‘follow the natural development of things’ with ‘a certain calm’, even though such a war would almost certainly result in ‘the destruction of the Confederation’.31 Alexander Malet, the British envoy, had predicted as much even before the war had begun. The southern states, he felt, were bound only by ‘individual fears’ to ‘the destines of the [Austrian] Empire’. If war came, he informed the Foreign Office, Austria would go to war backed by ‘lukewarm friends’ who would provide, at best, ‘half reluctant aid’.32 In these circumstances, the dissolution of the Confederation would not be considered a disaster. Rather, it would be something that would lead to a ‘natural development’ of German national consciousness, such that the southern German states would cooperate more closely with one another.33 Indeed, it appeared that the only foreseeable danger was if Prussia was compelled to fight further west than Saxony, which could lead to France entering the war. The solution was to avoid contact with Prussian forces from West Army, which is precisely what VIII Corps did. Without the bulk of his force, Alexander could not hope to mount a reasonable defence of Frankfurt when the Prussians came, and VIII Corps would surely be forced to retreat without doing battle. Even before the military did its best to avoid firing a shot, the diplomats were weaving their own complex webs. In this regard, their initiatives were curiously not aimed at peace, but rather hammering out a postwar settlement that would favour the Third German states. These efforts even predated the outbreak of the conflict whose aftermath they were trying to shape. In Paris, Wächter discussed the very issue with the French head of the diplomatic mission to Stuttgart, Auguste Denys de Damrémont, as early as April. Damrémont, like Malet, was well placed to recognize the sometimes clandestine manoeuvres and objectives of the Mittelstaaten. Malet’s diplomatic career had by now spanned more than forty years, and beyond his early postings in Russia, France, Portugal, Sardinia and the Netherlands, his German postings had begun in Vienna, taking him to Stuttgart and Karlsruhe, before he was finally named Britain’s representative to the confederal diet in 1852. Damrémont, younger than his British counterpart, had three major postings under his belt, all of them in the German interior:  Darmstadt between 1853 and 1857, Hanover from 1857 to 1860, and Stuttgart between 1861 and 1867.34 Also like Malet, Damrémont seems to have built close relationships with the various officials of the states to which he was assigned. Damrémont felt free to discuss sensitive issues with Württemberg diplomats and vice-​ versa; such was clearly the case when Wächter met with him to discuss the general state of affairs in Germany. What is striking from this meeting is that the French diplomat was not only aware of the near-​constant Third German negotiations that had taken place for many years, but he was also supportive of them. On 15 April, Wächter reported to Varnbüler that ‘the idea of the third group of states, to which the minister returned time and again, agreed

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with him a great deal’. Damrémont, however, did sound a note of caution, warning Wächter that Württemberg would have to ‘count on Bavaria’, because only with Bavaria’s support would ‘the united state [ . . . ] be afforded the power to hold in check not just Prussia, but Austria as well’.35 For once, though, Bavaria was a dependable ally. At the top of the state hierarchies, Varnbüler and Pfordten respected each other, politically and personally. They discussed German affairs frankly, and Pfordten was more than willing to share his analysis of international relations with his Württemberg counterpart. Pfordten had also been a long-​time supporter of the Third German initiative. This was a momentous development because, for the first time, Württemberg, Bavaria and Baden were cooperating on a cohesive German policy. Their aim was to avoid provoking Prussia, while nominally supporting Austria, while propagating the war so that it would last long enough for them to take full opportunity of the disorder. To this end, the war ministry in Stuttgart followed a series of otherwise bizarre priorities. For instance, it delayed issuing a requisition order for horses until July. In the last days of June, however, the ministry drafted an ‘Appeal to the Women and Girls’, requesting that communities weave and donate to the war effort armbands of black, red and gold, to be circulated to the troops of VIII Corps. Official and unofficial sources alike trumpeted the use of the nationalist colours for the confederal troops, but this masked the fact that the second contingent of Württemberg infantry was only just deploying from its Stuttgart barracks, neither the artillery nor cavalry were in a position to assist Alexander’s slowly assembling forces in Frankfurt and the supply organization for the artillery was spread across the countryside hundreds of miles from where it was needed.36 These movements –​or the lack thereof –​could be interpreted only as the army avoiding contact with the main enemy, while the political leadership waited for the Prussians and the Austrians to wear each other down. Yet the Prussians were considerably stronger than Varnbüler believed. The army had spent the better part of the fifteen years since the humiliation at the negotiating table at Olmütz preparing to return the favour on the battlefield. Rearmament had continued apace, and troops were now well equipped with the Dreyse needle-​gun and supported by the latest in Krupp artillery. Command and control had also undergone important changes. The General Staff was led by Helmuth von Moltke, a brilliant strategist and tactician. All of this meant that, by the time Moltke ordered the First and Second Army into Bohemia, the main Prussian force moved with astonishing and unprecedented speed. The Prussians met and defeated smaller units of the Austrian army on each consecutive day between 25 and 28 June.37 Still, there was no inkling among the Mittelstaaten that this advance would continue unchecked. On 28 June, Varnbüler’s daughter Hildegard noted in her diary that, according to a telegram from Stuttgart, the Austrians had halted the Prussian advance both at Náchod and Münchengrätz. Here was evidence of Austria’s great military prowess: ‘prisoners, dead and wounded litter the battlefield’, and the Austrians had managed to capture twenty guns. The victory was so decisive that the Prussians had apparently ‘requested a ceasefire, which they did not receive’. The newspapers ran the story with ever-​increasing dramatic depictions of the thrilling battle. Only two days later would it be realized that the reports were entirely false.38 In fact, it was Prussia that had beaten the Austrians convincingly at both Náchod and Münchengrätz.

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The day before this about-​face, the Prussians had also won a major victory at Jičín, inflicting over 5,000 casualties on the Austrians and the Saxon Corps supporting them and taking Austrian casualties to that point in the war somewhere towards the region of 20,000, with 15,000 prisoners taken. By contrast, the Prussian losses had been negligible.39 ‘The [Austrian] Army of the North has suffered a complete disaster’, Mensdorff wrote in confidence to the ambassador to France, Metternich’s son Richard, on 2 July. The only hope Mensdorff could muster for the army was that ‘at least they’ve had two days of rest’.40 Perhaps this rest was necessary; indeed, the Austrian army was exhausted even without engaging in battle. Forced marches from the eastern provinces had left the bulk of the army without sleep, and inadequate supply chains meant that food and drink were chronically lacking. Twenty-five thousand troops went unfed on 23 June due to the gridlock along the marching routes, as the supply wagons could not reach the men. By the next day, most of the infantry required repairs to their boots, the leather of which had been worn out from nine days of ceaseless marching over difficult terrain, yet the army’s supplies lacked the spare material necessary to provide the troops adequate footwear.41 Nonetheless, the army continued marching, at times engaging the Prussians in piecemeal battles, until finally the bulk of it arrived at the high ground near Königgrätz, in Bohemia. Here, at the advance defensive positions, the Austrian army would make its stand. On 3 July, the Prussian army pounced on the Austrian defences outside Königgrätz –​ an area poorly chosen by the Austrian commander, Ludwig von Benedek, as it offered little protection in the face of modern weaponry. ‘Army Command must never have seen this terrain’, one officer complained in an 1867 report on the battle.42 Over the course of the morning, the combined Austro-​Saxon forces of some 240,000 men defended their positions against a force numbering only 135,000; even when Prussian reinforcements arrived in the afternoon, they were only 110,000 strong, giving the Prussians a very slight total numerical advantage. But Benedek’s entire disposition had been defensive, and he had allowed his army to sit and be bombarded by Moltke’s armies. As a result, Benedek’s defence of Königgrätz was a disaster. The army had lost one-​tenth of its men –​24,000 –​killed or wounded, while 20,000 were taken prisoner, and some 200 artillery pieces were destroyed or captured. Against this, the Prussians had lost just 9,000 men. Worse, the Austrians had been totally demoralized and any fighting spirit was gone.43 When night fell and signalled an end to the carnage, there could be no doubt that Austria had lost not just the battle, but also the war. In spite of Mensdorff ’s pessimism on 2 July, and the generally poor condition of the army, Königgrätz still came almost as a complete surprise, both to the Austrians and to Mittelstaat observers. Hildegard von Spitzemberg was so overcome by the news that she could not bring herself to write in her diary until several days later; when she did so, she wrote that she would ‘like forever to forget’ the events of Königgrätz. The news had apparently been such a shock to Prince Wilhelm of Baden that he decided to withdraw his troops from Alexander’s corps and was only precluded from doing so when some of his men threatened to mutiny and throw him from his window.44 Varnbüler and his erstwhile ally, Pfordten, had not expected that the Austrian war effort would collapse as completely as it did on 3 July; nor did the Viennese leadership. ‘The intelligence was

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so unexpected’, the British envoy, John Bloomfield, wrote to the foreign secretary, Lord Clarendon, after the news of the defeat filtered through to the Austrian centre, ‘and the defeat so complete, that it has caused general consternation and dismay’. The defeat was so crushing, so decisive and so devastating that the rumblings of public uprisings began to ripple through Vienna; though they did not result in revolution, Bloomfield noted that, had they done so, ‘there are hardly sufficient Troops in their garrison to maintain order’. The rest had been sent to the front, only to be destroyed by Moltke’s precision manoeuvres and overwhelming force.45 There was no way that Austria could possibly continue its war effort. Königgrätz was a watershed moment. From the moment that Prussian troops engaged Benedek’s troops, Austria ceased to be the great power it had once been. What was left of its Army of the North limped from the battlefield incapable of taking any further part in hostilities. Officially, the war would drag on until the signing of the ceasefire in Nikolsburg on 26 July, and in time Prussia would fight several more battles. However, these were minor in character and scope. Bismarck’s objective was not to absorb or destroy Austria, nor indeed Germany. Prince Alexander, having never quite mustered the full strength of VIII Corps for the defence of Frankfurt, was asked by the diet on 11 July to remove his soldiers from the city, which was subsequently declared open to the Prussians.46 The day before this, a small force of Prussians attempted to capture a Bavarian rail yard at Bad Kissingen, and was kept at bay by a disciplined garrison of Bavarian soldiers, who were eventually forced to withdraw. Simultaneously, the Bavarians successfully defended the small town of Hammelburg, a short distance southwest of Kissingen.47 The Hesse-​Darmstadt contingent of VIII Corps valiantly but unsuccessfully engaged the bivouacked Prussian troops at Frohnhoffen on 13 July. The next day, a mixed force from VIII Corps put up a farcical defence of Aschaffenburg, prompting the Prussian General von Falckenstein to report to his king that ‘the lands north of the Main [River] lie at the feet of Your Majesty’.48 What is remarkable about these skirmishes is their insignificance. In contrast to the irresistible advances of Prussian forces in Bohemia, West Army remained measured in its actions. Kissingen, Hammelburg and Aschaffenburg were objectives only because of their status as railway hubs. Depriving the Bavarians of these hubs limited their ability to shunt their nominally large army into more dangerous offensive positions –​ assuming, of course, that the Bavarians wanted to do so. Falckenstein therefore fought a holding action along an east–​west line, containing the south German forces rather than destroying them. It was certainly within the powers of the Prussian leadership to sweep their powerful and victorious armies into Stuttgart, Munich and Karlsruhe, especially after the defeat of the Austrian army at Königgrätz had released the Prussian forces there for other duties. Bismarck, however, took no further action against the southern states, but for one or two minor skirmishes to hold their respective armies in place. This lack of action suggests an objective other than conquest. So, too, does Bismarck’s involvement in ceasefire negotiations. On 5 July, Bismarck was informed by telegram that France would be willing to act as mediator in peace talks.49 The suggestion came to the Prussians via Foreign Minister Drouyn, a champion of the rights of the southern German states who had castigated Wendland for Bavaria not coming to the assistance of the Hanoverians at Langensalza. Drouyn had also spoken

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with Wendland about the importance to south Germany that Bavaria be represented at the conference. Here was an implicit French endorsement of the southern states in general, and Bavaria in particular. This was not an aberration; as we have seen, a similar suggestion had been made to Wächter months before by Damrémont. This time, it cannot have escaped the notice of either Goltz or Bismarck.50 Regardless, the French had not before threatened to intervene in Germany if the sovereignty of the southern states was breached, nor did it imply any threat at this point. The option was still available for the Prussians to ignore Drouyn’s olive branch and take the rest of Germany by force. Instead, Bismarck accepted.

The belated rise and fall of Third Germany Varnbüler and Pfordten had planned and fought their 1866 campaigns on the assumption that a long, protracted war would benefit plans for an independent, regional federation. Instead, though the Austro-​Prussian War lasted only a matter of weeks, the immediate consequences for southern Germany appeared to be that very federation, thanks to French diplomatic intervention. In a telegram to the Bavarian King Ludwig II, Wendland outlined Drouyn’s proposals for lasting German peace. In particular, Drouyn insisted that Prussia guarantee the integrity of Austria (with the exception of Venetia, which was to be ceded to the French, who would then give the region to Italy). On Vienna’s part, Austria was to be excluded from German affairs. The new political boundaries, however, were more immediately pertinent. According to the French delegation, Prussia, having legitimately occupied many of the northern states by military necessity, could form a union of these states, under Prussian leadership, down to the Main River. Beyond that, however, would be a ‘union of southern Germany under Bavaria, [with] a completely independent international position to that of the north’.51 Given the traditional interpretation of the Austro-​Prussian War as a Prussian push to dominate all Germany, it would have been inconceivable for Prussia to accept these terms if it indeed wished to incorporate the southern states. Goltz and Bismarck, however, seem to have been amenable to the French proposal. ‘We must use a certain degree of tact’, Goltz wrote, to avoid the dismemberment of Germany into two completely separate but similar parts, reawakening memories of the Rhenish Confederation. Also, for the time being we must avoid any remark that contains a renunciation of the idea of German unity, for if peace were not to last, we would possibly be forced to appeal to the latter and enact its full implementation.52

For Goltz the primary concern was to maintain cordial relations between Prussia and south Germany. Unification, however, was not the aim. Rather, it was an option, possibly to be used if Prussia (or Germany as a whole) found itself in danger of war. Thus, even though Napoleon III’s government ‘places significant worth on the right of south Germany, as an independent group of states, to be able to forge its own alliances and fight its own wars, in which north Germany would not be involved’, Goltz did not

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find anything incompatible with Prussia’s own aims and aspirations. In fact, Prussia’s one objection was not to the creation of this southern federation. Rather, Bismarck and Goltz sought assurances that Austria would not attempt to absorb the southern states. Having been assured by Napoleon III that ‘the emperor himself does not wish for such a combination’, Goltz was happy to accept the Südbund as a fait accompli.53 In any event, the Prussian government’s annexations in the north resulted in the convening of a new political union, since the German Confederation was now defunct. This new North German Confederation extended only as far as the Main. However, Bismarck indicated that, if they so wished, any of the autonomous south German states could seek membership in the new union at a later point, and in the meantime could enjoy a ‘free understanding’ with the north.54 Encouraged by Paris, the southern states found themselves, for all intents and purposes, united under Bavarian stewardship. This arrangement was not without its benefits. Varnbüler noted to Pfordten during negotiations with the North German Confederation in Berlin in August that the Prussian leadership was unlikely to ‘mistreat Bavaria and consequently repel the south’.55 As the most powerful of the southern Mittelstaaten, Bavaria held a military, political and economic weight that Württemberg or Baden could not match, and that weight allowed the southern states to escape severe punishment for their roles in the war. Naturally, there were reparations to pay, but these were relatively mild. Stuttgart was billed for an indemnity of some eight million Gulden, and required to withdraw its occupation forces from the junior Hohenzollern principalities to the south, which it had bloodlessly invaded for defensive reasons in the early stages of the war.56 These hardly placed the southern states at any significant disadvantage. Buoyed by the leniency of the peace terms, and encouraged by the French and Prussian acceptance of their regionalist bloc, the governments in Munich, Stuttgart and Karlsruhe moved quickly to formalize the arrangement. In mid-​August 1866, a constitution for the new union, tentatively called the Federation of the United States of South Germany, was drafted in Augsburg, indicating that the respective representatives of these governments made some progress towards codifying a set of federative laws.57 These laws reflected a developing unitarian south German political identity. The members of this Südbund were not the only ones to acknowledge this changing identity. Indeed, the North German Confederation officially saw south Germany as a single confederation of states, with which it coexisted. The constitution of the North German Confederation explicitly noted that the Confederation would follow a unified and consistent policy with regard to ‘the south German states’ –​not Württemberg, Bavaria and Baden separately, but as a consolidated political union.58 However, the Third Germany that resulted from the 1866 war was also quite different from that envisaged in the 1820s, in 1859 or in the early 1860s. Both Saxony and a northern province of Hesse-​Darmstadt, though not officially annexed, were compelled to become part of the North German Confederation. This precluded their involvement in the proposed Federation. Domestically, the Südbund also faced stiff opposition from both the press and the public who, being for the most part unaware of the prewar manoeuvring of the southern governments, were understandably confused and frustrated by the events that followed. Hildegard von Spitzemberg, living in Berlin and therefore not in direct contact with her father at this crucial time, was livid that

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‘peace has been achieved at our expense’. She acknowledged that Bismarck had dealt with Württemberg fairly, and admitted that her husband Hugo believed that the peace was on good terms. However, she also believed that Austria, in making the peace at Nikolsburg, had cut the southern states adrift to fend for themselves at the mercy of the whims and caprices of the victorious Prussians.59 Hers was a significantly more moderate reaction than the norm. Elsewhere, the Württemberg population raged at what was seen as a humiliating defeat perpetrated by cowardly and incompetent leaders, who had in turn bartered away Württemberg’s sovereignty. Even before the peace was signed, whispers of conspiracy pervaded public sentiment. Many simply could not understand how the Austrians, with the support of Württemberg and its neighbours, had managed to lose. ‘All appears to be confusion, depression, disappointment and especially great and doubtless well grounded dissatisfaction’, George Gordon wrote to London on 18 July. Among the most damaging rumours circulating in Stuttgart, he reported, was that ‘the inactivity of the 8th Federal Corps and especially the damaging inefficiency of the 7th, or Bavarian Corps’ was the result of ‘treacherous conduct’. As it happened, these rumours were essentially correct. Unaware of the Third German rationale behind this ‘inactivity’, though, the Württemberg public reacted with ‘discontent and discouragement’.60 At the time that Gordon was writing to Whitehall, the Württembergers limited their ire to the other southern states. Anger was directed at Prince Alexander, who evidently had not acquitted himself well as VIII Corps commander; Prince Wilhelm, the commander of the Badenese contingent; and Pfordten, whose ‘doubtful Policy’ was seen to be the cause of the Bavarian corps’ apparent paralysis. The gravest criticism directed against the Württemberg contingent, by comparison, was that its movements had been shrouded in ‘inexplicable secrecy’.61 After the war, these sentiments only intensified, and suspicion now fell on Varnbüler and his ministers. There were calls for an inquiry into the conduct of the Württemberg army, but the resulting report, a handwritten document of 143 pages compiled by the Quartermaster General, contained nothing regarding the political subtext behind Stuttgart’s involvement in the 1866 campaigns. Its conclusions were uncomplimentary: Württemberg’s mobilization had been unconscionably slow, its deployment inept and its contribution to the war effort negligible. The report stopped short of accusing the government of deliberate wrongdoing.62 The press was not quite so cautious. The Beobachter in particular accused the government of betraying the Habsburg monarchy. Its fury was directed towards the war minister, Hardegg (‘the hero, [ . . . ] who lost his head but found an Order of Merit’), as well as Varnbüler himself (‘a compromised and opportunistic man’).63 And where had this opportunism led? Apparently, not to economic prosperity. The spread of the North German Confederation to the Main in fact placed the Südbund at a significant demographic and economic disadvantage. With just the three core states, plus the essentially insignificant southern tip of Hesse-​Darmstadt, the Federation would have no more than 9 million people, a far cry from the 28 million of the North German Confederation.64 The North German Confederation also enjoyed something approaching a monopoly on modern commercial transport. Northern states had been much faster to connect their cities and industrial centres to sprawling rail networks,

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an advantage lacking in the south. More to the point, Prussia’s occupation of Frankfurt placed in its possession Germany’s southernmost inland port. Coupled with other river ports such as Bremen and Magdeburg, as well as the deep-​water harbours of Kiel, Lübeck and particularly Hamburg, the North German Confederation now controlled all of Germany’s maritime trade. Rapidly a pronounced economic disparity between north and south became evident to all but the most blind observers. As early as August 1866 a deputation in Munich presented a petition to the Landtag, arguing that Bavaria negotiate membership of the North German Confederation. Among other arguments, the petition claimed that the North German Confederation would necessitate a reorganization of the Zollverein that would most benefit the northern states. Since Bavaria could not afford to leave the Zollverein, its best interests would be served in tying itself to the north.65 The petition failed, but its key assumptions were not far wrong. The North German Confederation soon proved to be a robust economic powerhouse. Private enterprise and heavy industry made up the lion’s share of its prosperity. Throughout 1866, 1867 and 1868 Berlin attempted diplomatically to head off any attempt by Austria and France to create their own ‘Catholic economic league’ that might rival the Zollverein. This was all very well and good politically, but northern industrialists insisted that it should not impinge on their ability to invest and take part in Austria’s massive rail reforms that followed in the aftermath of its defeat in the Austro-​Prussian War.66 This extraordinary confidence of industry was only matched by the ambitions of the political leadership. Trade treaties were established between the North German Confederation and far-​flung countries throughout the world:  Spain, the Philippines, Cuba, Puerto Rico, Japan, Tonga, Mexico, El Salvador.67 It is a measure of the north’s economic and political might that its trade aspirations extended so far, when previously German states were largely content to trade amongst one another or their immediate neighbours. Similarly, state debt was all but non-​existent. By 1871, when it was dissolved, the North German Confederation had amassed a debt of 220 million Gulden, but this was repaid in full by the very next year.68 All this amounted to a financial and commercial dominance that the south German states could not match. In February 1868, a Prussian memorandum to Bismarck stated that ‘it must by now be clear to [the south German governments] that every salutary reform undertaken in the areas of the North German Confederation provide for the subjects of the latter an economic superiority over those undertaken for the benefit of the subjects of the South German states’.69 The north’s advantages –​or, rather, the south’s disadvantages –​could not be ameliorated by reforms or policy changes. By its very nature, the North German Confederation held all the economic cards. Certainly, the economic and political backwardness of the south was clear to the southern governments as well as the newspapers, with their ever more critical and, sometimes, hysterical editorials. The ever-​ present Julius Fröbel, former National Assembly representative and founder of the Reformverein, was now the editor and proprietor of a regional south German newspaper, the Süddeutsche Presse. In the first issue, Fröbel claimed that ‘the formation of a south German federation has not succeeded, and has –​so far as a truly federative design is concerned –​even less chance of succeeding in the future’.70 To Fröbel, the Third German experiment was doomed

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to fail because Württemberg and Baden had been marginalized by Bavaria, ‘whose political importance has been increased by the failure of the south German federal plans’.71 Bavaria was the most powerful of the southern states; this had, after all, been the reason that Drouyn had approached Wendland, and not Wächter, in June 1866. Fröbel argued that Stuttgart and Karlsruhe had merely traded domination by Berlin for domination by Munich. The proposed constitution suggested that Bavaria, with six out of a total of fifteen seats in the (still hypothetical) southern parliament, carried more political clout than the other members –​not a majority, to be sure, but not far from one. If anything, however, Bavaria seems to have become convinced that administering a Third German bloc was far too difficult a task for Munich to manage. Such is reflected in the Bavarian leadership. Pfordten, who had been so enthusiastic in pursuit of a Südbund agreement, resigned in December 1866. In his place stepped Prince Chlodwig von Hohenlohe, a moderate liberal-​nationalist. Hohenlohe was personable and clever, but he was also more averse to risk than his predecessor, and far less ambitious. Where Pfordten had negotiated through Wendland for Bavaria to take the reins in south Germany, Hohenlohe was content to allow his opposite numbers in Stuttgart and Karlsruhe to follow their own paths. Thus, while the relationship between Württemberg and Bavaria strengthened following the war, this was not, as Fröbel feared, at the expense of Stuttgart’s autonomy. Even if Hohenlohe did have aspirations to lead the Südbund, events quickly demonstrated south Germany’s shortcomings. French rumblings over the territory of Luxembourg, nestled on the westernmost Prussian border and within an uncomfortably close proximity to the Bavarian Palatinate, compelled both Hohenlohe and Varnbüler to reassess their military policies. On 15 May 1867 Varnbüler wired Hohenlohe to suggest that Württemberg and Bavaria should formalize a military defence treaty for the ‘protection of the many powers of the South German States’. By the very next day, that treaty had become a reality, and immediately thereafter, Varnbüler contacted Spitzemberg in Berlin to sound out the possibility of Prussian acceptance.72 Baden’s panicked response to fears of yet another French war was even more radical. Not only did Karlsruhe urgently request that their army be ‘Prussianized’  –​that is, the command, training and supply structures reformed along Prussian lines, with Berlin’s assistance –​but the grand duchy also considered leaving the southern bloc to join the North German Confederation.73 As with many of the Franco-​German war scares of the nineteenth century, the Luxembourg crisis soon passed, but its consequences were considerable. Fröbel clarified the problem: ‘The recent danger of war between Germany and France, which, thank God, seems to have fortunately run its course, has uncovered for all to see our need for help, and has vividly demonstrated the concerns of an unclear and unfinished relationship between the southern states and the north.’74 The threat was that a war with France would immediately endanger not just Baden, Württemberg and Bavaria, but indeed all of Germany. It was clear to Fröbel, and indeed to Varnbüler and the Badenese and Bavarian governments, that none of the south German states, nor even the southern states standing united, could negate that threat. In any practical sense the south German project had failed by May 1867. Domestic opposition to the supposed predominance of Bavaria in the proposed Federation

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of United States of South German States bears some responsibility for this. More practically, the Südbund was an economic minnow in comparison to its much larger and more richly endowed northern neighbour. Nor could it project the same degree of might and power that the North German Confederation could. Whether they stood on their own or together in a bloc, the Mittelstaaten did not have the military force or geopolitical presence to secure their own existence without the help of a protective patron. In the case of the Luxembourg crisis, that patron was Bismarck and the North German Confederation. The next logical step, given the inevitable failure of the southern experiment, would have been for Württemberg and its neighbours to dissolve their Federation before it had actually been formed, and to join the North German Confederation. This possibility had been mooted early on by the Bavarians, who had recognized their state’s weakness. The Prussians were certainly not averse to turning their northern alliance into a more general German bloc. A pamphlet written by the Hanoverian diplomat Georg Münster von Derneburg in 1868 put the problem into clear perspective, while at the same time repeating the position Bismarck had taken in 1866: the Federation of the United States of South Germany offered little or nothing to its constituents, Derneburg claimed, and the only objections the south German governments could have to a closer relationship with the north were either based in religion (since the south was largely Catholic, and the north mostly Protestant) or else a hope to create a south German republic similar to that of Switzerland. The people who believed that these were achievable goals were ‘dreamers, sleepwalkers’.75 If southern Germany did not wish to become ‘the prey of foreigners’, Derneburg concluded, its only option was to approach and join the North German Confederation of its own free will.76 But Prussia had been an unknown for decades, and to many its intentions were still inscrutable. Third Germany had often been the preferred hypothetical model for German nationhood among the southern Mittelstaaten. It is also true that, at this crucial juncture, Württemberg was gripped by human survival instinct on a state scale. Its hard-​won sovereignty was jealously guarded by its political masters, its citizens and its newsmen. As a result, for the next four years the illusion of the Südbund regularly interchanged with the equally spurious illusion of independence, but this illusion was continually undermined by the growing closeness of the southern states to Prussia. It has been suggested that the influence of Prussia on the would-​be Südbund in the latter years of the 1860s was an encroachment dictated by Berlin, and much has been made of the so-​called Schutz-​und Trutzbündnis, a military agreement between Bavaria (on behalf of the Südbund) and Prussia of 22 August 1866. To many observers, contemporary or otherwise, this agreement was nothing short of bargaining away the independence of movement of the southern states, tying them into ‘eternal offensive-​defensive treaties’ that placed the Mittelstaaten well within Prussia’s sphere of influence and made their nominal independence all but moot.77 When the alliance was made public in April 1867, a significant proportion of the southern press and populations were outraged. But once more, we should be cautious not to ascribe too much significance to this development. The supposedly explosive Schutz-​und Trutzbündnis represented no significant departure from the state of affairs that had existed between the constituent members of the

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German Confederation prior to 1866. Moreover, the treaty itself was a measured and intelligent reaction from the southern governments, given their own lack of military power and their ever-​present fear of foreign aggression. Just how pervasive this fear was can be seen in the various communiques between the diplomats and government figures. As early as 10 May 1867, even before Hohenlohe and Varnbüler sent telegrams to one another over the Luxembourg crisis, the Bavarian minister-​ president was discussing the possibilities of a Prussian-​Austrian-​Bavarian triad to defend against the seemingly inevitable aggression of France.78 By December, Württemberg’s ambassador in Vienna sent a series of alarming telegrams to Stuttgart, warning of possible Russian designs on Germany.79 At the same time, Varnbüler’s agents had delivered him a report indicating that Austria, bankrupted by the war and its own economic stagnation, would spend the next indefinite period of time focusing on stabilizing its internal affairs. As a result, Austria would be in no position at all to come to the aid of the southern states against France or Russia, even if Franz Joseph wished to and even if the peace treaty that had ended the Austro-​Prussian War had permitted Austrian intervention.80 It was therefore natural, predictable and arguably vital that the southern states gravitated closer to Prussia, for the circumstances that had almost accidentally delivered the Südbund its very chance of existence had also left it weak and in an unfavourable economic and political position. With Baden independently investigating the option of joining the North German Confederation, it was left to Hohenlohe to clarify the Bavarian and Württemberg position. Both the southern governments, he insisted publicly, were committed to fostering a strong and binding relationship with the North German Confederation.81

The end of South German independence and the rise of the French threat This is not to say that a Württemberg-​Prussian rapprochement was initially a popular move. Far from it; the initial public reaction to Prussian approaches to Stuttgart (or vice-​ versa) was one of resentment, fear and hostility. The Württemberg Volkspartei (People’s Party), which traditionally favoured Austria, organized a petition calling on King Karl and Varnbüler to reject the defence treaty and any attempts to reform the army based on the Prussian model. Its efforts garnered some 150,000 signatures, a considerable number that was nearly the equivalent of the entirety of the state’s electoral suffrage. In January 1868 another petition, organized by the Volkspartei deputy Karl Mayer, collected 27,000 signatures in just a fortnight.82 Perhaps even more devastatingly, the Württemberg elections to the Prussian-​convened Customs Parliament of 1868, which resurrected the Zollverein and acted as a bridge between north and south, returned no victories for pro-​Prussian candidates. On the contrary, it was the Volkspartei that made the most gains, and many of its leading members had been advocating Württemberg’s withdrawal from the Zollverein since the beginning of 1867.83 These events, however, should not be taken as a blanket rejection of Prussia, but rather as the response of a confused and fearful public. The Volkspartei petition was

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not a rally of support for an Austrian-​led model of Germany, but a protest against what was seen as a capitulation by an incompetent government to Berlin. In the gloomy afterglow of defeat, it was to be expected that the Württembergers reacted badly to anything pro-​Prussian, especially when the policies were to be enacted by the government of the ‘compromised and opportunistic’ state minister. Similarly, the Customs Parliament elections were little more than a curious anomaly. In the domestic elections to the Landtag of the same year, delegates from the Deutsche Partei (often referred to as the ‘Prussia Party’ by its detractors) enjoyed more favourable results, though the Volkspartei still had a clear majority; by the time the votes were counted, the Volkspartei claimed twenty-​three seats, compared to fourteen for the Deutsche Partei.84 In spite of its defeat at the polls, the pro-​Prussian Deutsche Partei still had a strong showing –​far stronger than the elections for the Customs Parliament just two and a half months earlier would have suggested. By and large, it was the politically inclined Catholics who resisted what they saw as the encroachment of Protestant Prussian politics, and particularly the politics of the anti-​Catholic Bismarck.85 But Bismarck was resisted by Catholics even within his own state. Bills put before the Prussian Landtag by the minister-​president were routinely voted against by the Catholics of the Centre Party. Nonetheless, though Württemberg had a large Catholic population, they remained the minority.86 In any event, this Catholic resistance was hardly uniform in scope. Bavaria was the state with the largest Catholic population of all, but Hohenlohe, himself a devout Catholic, was not uniformly hostile to Prussian intentions.87 The sum total of these experiences was a certain sense of inevitability. The Federation of the United States of South Germany was little more than an optimistic fiction, and there was a striking contrast between the editorial desires of the more firebrand press outlets and the actions of the informed political apparatus of the southern states. Baden’s Karlsruher Zeitung decried the possibility of closer relations between south and north as ‘nothing more than the continuation of the circumstances already created by the extant treaties of alliance with Prussia, which are unsustainable in the long run’.88 Precisely why the treaties with Prussia were unsustainable was not discussed, but given the paper’s overt promotion of Badenese and south German particularism, it is safe to assume that the editors simply dismissed Prussian approaches out of hand.89 Württemberg’s Beobachter followed suit, with the dual motivations that it was anti-​Prussian but also anti-​Varnbüler. In its editorial in March 1868, it implored the Volkspartei to fight to ‘prolong the Südbund [because] the Südbund is for us not simply a guarantee of individual independence from Prussia, but it is also a guarantee of a reunification of Austria and Prussia, into a single Germany that contains them both’.90 This reunification of the great powers was by this stage a political impossibility, one that even the Karlsruher Zeitung had dismissed as ‘questionable’; the Beobachter’s increasingly desperate calls to halt the ‘eternal separation of German Austria from Prussianized Germany’ were the last gasps of Württemberg-​based Greater Germanism. While some sectors of the press and the political parties remained friendly to Vienna, in the southern halls of power, pro-​Austrian sentiment had all but disappeared. This was best exemplified by Hohenlohe’s speech to the Bavarian Landtag in October

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1867. ‘We do not want any constitutional relationship of the southern states under the leadership of Austria’, he declared. But the speech had more revelations. Bavaria, he insisted, would not enter the North German Confederation alone. It would, however, consider doing so in conjunction with its southern neighbours, because autonomous action in this regard could only be damaging to the national cause. ‘We do not want a south German federal state’, he continued. ‘Gentlemen, I do not speak for a unification of Bavaria with the North German Confederation, I  speak for a unification of the south German states [with the north.] The national border, which is drawn between us and the North German Confederation, must surround all of the south. Only in this form is [unification] tolerable and achievable.’ Hohenlohe left his parliament in little doubt of the course of action to follow. ‘There remains no other path available to the State Government’, he said, ‘but to work towards the reunification of Germany, with recognisance of the existing circumstances’.91 Coupled with his earlier insistence that south and north Germany would work closely together, Hohenlohe’s speech was effectively a declaration that Bavaria was now willing to guide the Federation states towards a unification with the North German Confederation. Hohenlohe’s appeal for all the south German states to work towards the common good of unification found a receptive audience in the New Palace in Stuttgart, and profound alarm in Paris. A  rumour that King Karl had sent a letter ‘replete with protestations of fidelity and commitment to the Prussian government’ had several Parisian periodicals scrambling to assure readers that such a letter did not exist, and that the Württemberg government, which had in the past been amicable towards France, would never consider cooperating with Prussia more than was strictly necessary. Writing in La France, however, the noted jurist Paul Pradier-​Fodéré was forced to admit that ‘certainly Baron de Vambüler [sic] [ . . . ], in [his] speeches, has not ceased to proclaim his government’s fealty [to Prussia]’.92 By December, the French press as a whole had decided that south Germany had betrayed its Parisian allies. ‘The Duchy of Baden is Prussian, the Grand Duchy of Hesse is Prussian, and Bavaria, continuing its rapprochement with Prussia while turning its back on France, has advised its young king to find a woman in St. Petersburg, via Berlin’, La Gazette de France complained (and which Wächter obediently reported to Varnbüler). ‘Württemberg is not to be outdone by its neighbours, in a rivalry that must bring joy to Mr. Bismarck.’93 To the French, deeply concerned by the possibility of a rising German power that would rival their own European position, the southern states were duplicitously falling over themselves in their attempts to please the Prussian puppet-​master, Bismarck. Even this is not altogether fair. By the late 1860s, all other options for German unification had run their course. The Beobachter’s ridiculous appeals to the Volkspartei aside, hardly anyone in Germany or even Austria saw Austrian involvement in Germany as a realistic possibility. Third Germany was untenable even before it had become a reality. The Südbund was too weak economically, politically and militarily to survive without a patron, and with widespread fears of French (and, occasionally, Russian) designs on Germany, that patron could only be the North German Confederation itself. By 1868 Stuttgart had committed itself to a course that could only result in unification under the guidance and leadership of Berlin.

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Endgame In spite of the inevitability of unification, Württemberg held on to its independence for some years after the question became moot. This was not so much due to a desire to maintain that independence. The North German Confederation was as new a geopolitical body as the abortive Südbund, and the homogenization of north German economic, social and agricultural policies was a key priority for its parliament. Consequently, in the years between 1867 and 1870 a raft of policies were introduced to bring Hanover, Hamburg, Mecklenburg and the other north German states into line with Prussia. These included, but were not limited to, measures aimed at coordinating charitable housing, creating a system of weights and measures, and combatting cattle plague.94 While these bureaucratic reforms took root in the north, similar preparations were gradually enacted in the south. South German consulates in foreign cities, which had heretofore been operated independently as consulates of Württemberg, Bavaria or Baden, slowly began to merge. By January 1869, two pan-​German consulates had opened in the United States, while Württemberg maintained some eight further consular offices in conjunction with one or more of its neighbours.95 Stuttgart had made it abundantly clear that it wished to cooperate intimately with the North German Confederation for the foreseeable future as early as July 1867, when it had ratified a treaty tying its economic future to that of the reconstituted Zollverein.96 The next year, Varnbüler indicated to Prussia’s envoys that Württemberg and its south German companions were keen to further collaborate with Prussia on military matters and foreign affairs.97 ‘The great preoccupation of southern Germany’, the French paper La France scoffed, ‘is to send all their kings and grand dukes to Berlin [where they] stand single-​file to show reverence to King Wilhelm’.98 Thus, the efforts to closely integrate Württemberg, Bavaria and Baden with the North German Confederation were already well underway by the time a series of domestic outrages in France sparked yet another war scare in 1870. Wächter’s reports of growing discontent in the French army noticeably increased the frequency of the state minister’s negotiations with Bismarck. Varnbüler could not help but fear the increasing number of dispatches reaching him from Paris: public appeals to ‘our brothers in the army’ to resist the emperor, an address to ‘the radicals and the army’ calling for military insurrection, and, most chillingly, an editorial in the periodical La Marseillaise, issuing the old cry of the Revolution: liberté, egalité, fraternité, ou la mort!99 Württemberg’s siding with the North German Confederation was not a question of keeping the state in Prussia’s good offices, but was, to Varnbüler, a national duty.100 By 1870, even before the Ems Despatch escalated the sabre-​rattling between Berlin and Paris, and well before the first actions of the Franco-​Prussian War, Stuttgart had acknowledged that the nation of Germany existed in everything but a binding legal sense. This unification, according to contemporary sources as distinct from one another as the British Foreign Office and the popular American news media, had effectively been completed before war broke out between Germany and France.101 That reality was clearly indicated by the words and deeds of the Württemberg state minister.

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These acts may have been in the realm of high politics. But Württemberg politics rarely diverged from the public will. The decision to join in united Germany had already been made by December 1870; nevertheless, it was this, and the public enthusiasm for it, that became a decisive issue in the Landtag election campaigns of that month. The Deutsche Partei demonstrated how important the German Question was by topping its pamphlets and advertisements with the simple question:  ‘Are you in favour of joining the North German Confederation?’ The reaction from the Württemberg voting public was a resounding yes. When the ballots were counted, the Deutsche Partei suddenly found itself in the majority. Meanwhile, the Volkspartei, in spite of the best efforts of its newspaper benefactor, the Beobachter, saw its parliamentary majority shrink to a definite minority; Volkspartei and political Greater Germanists in the Landtag now found themselves with just seventeen seats.102 One month later, on 18 January 1871, King Wilhelm of Prussia was crowned German emperor in a ceremony in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles  –​a coronation that met with the conspicuous approval not just of the power brokers in Stuttgart, but also the Württemberg population as a whole.

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Remembering and Forgetting Württemberg, 1871–​1914

On 19 November 1870 Otto Elben, the editor-​in-​chief of the Schwäbischer Merkur, picked up his pen and wrote a letter. That letter was addressed to Eduard Lasker, a prominent liberal nationalist in the Prussian Landtag, and a political opponent of Bismarck. Elben, whose paper had always championed constitutional liberalism, was similarly no friend of the reactionary conservatism that he felt Bismarck represented. But Elben’s tone could not have been more ecstatic. With war raging in France, Elben told Lasker:  ‘I am writing this to you as a happy German [ . . . ] We are Germans, entering a federation of our brothers.’1 Elben’s sudden enthusiasm for Prussia’s solution to the German Question was matched by those around him. Hildegard von Spitzemberg’s diary, which had for so long reflected her trenchant defence of the particularist rights of her native state, now rejoiced:  ‘Oh! Childhood dreams, are you really going to be fulfilled now?’2 In September, as news filtered through to Stuttgart of the great Prussian victory at Sedan in which Napoleon III was captured as a prisoner of war, Hildegard’s father was so overcome with excitement that he rushed to address the crowds gathered in the Schloßplatz, proclaiming the Sedan victory as a national German glory.3 The change that had overcome these observers was remarkable. Any lingering doubts about the Bismarckian Germany that was being formed under Prussian aegis was swept away in the euphoria of victory, both of the German armies over the French and of the German idea over centuries of dynastic differences and discord. That the Germany that emerged in the course of 1870 and 1871 did not actually resemble any of the dominant models did not come into the equation. Over the course of the next four decades, however, Germany would continue to invent and reinvent itself. This would necessitate Württembergers to redefine their place in the nation and their conception of self. This era came to a close with the advent of the First World War in 1914; prior to this, the flux in which national and state identity existed demonstrated that the declaration of Bismarck’s empire in the Hall of Mirrors in January 1871 did not, in fact, entirely settle the German Question.

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FIGURE 5  King Karl. Much less politically astute than his father, it was Karl who presided over Württemberg’s entrance into the united Germany. Wikimedia Commons.

From Sedan to Versailles While the Crimean War was the bloodiest of the limited nineteenth-​century wars, the Franco-​Prussian War had the most significant consequences. It led to the dismantling of the French Second Empire and the end of the spectre of Bonapartist power in Europe. It presaged the birth of the German Empire. It also led to the annexation of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine by the new Germany; this would become a festering sore blighting French national pride, and contributed to the tensions that eventually led to war in 1914. Most of these could trace their immediate origin to the Battle of Sedan on 1 September 1870; though the war would last another several months, it was here that Napoleon III was taken prisoner, for all intents and purposes fatally undermining the French state. Sedan also provides us with some insight into the thought processes within the southern states at this time. Varnbüler’s appearance before the crowds in the centre of Stuttgart was politically ill-​advised –​he had not yet informed Karl of the news of victory before he had made it public –​and for this reason he was summarily dismissed from his post by the king. The sober state minister had apparently given in to his own

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excitement, and it had overcome his better judgement. This was perhaps indication enough as to the mood within the Württemberg halls of power, but Varnbüler followed his dismissal with a letter to Bismarck. In this, the supposed ‘ultra-​Austrian’ politician expressed his profoundest admiration for the Prussian minister-​president and his achievements. Varnbüler acknowledged that the seeds of the ‘rich fruits of Germany’s greatness’ had been planted as a result of the agreements between the southern states and Prussia in 1866. It was his regret that ‘the will of my king has made it impossible for me to work more openly towards the formation of Germany’, though he praised Bismarck for his tireless efforts in this regard.4 Varnbüler had never been one for pandering to authority –​the act that provoked his dismissal demonstrated this –​and there is no reason to believe that the sentiments he expressed in his letter were not genuine. In nearly every way, the victory at Sedan was as much a watershed moment for state and nation as Königgrätz had been in 1866. Varnbüler’s departure from the state ministry left the way clear for the justice minister, Hermann von Mittnacht, to rise to power. Mittnacht’s own political pedigree once more demonstrates the peculiarities of the situation, and how much political positioning was dependent on circumstance. Mittnacht was a member of the particularist Landespartei, though he enjoyed the support of the Deutsche Partei in the Landtag. Just as Varnbüler was variously considered a Greater Germanist, a Lesser Germanist and a particularist, so it was with Mittnacht, and the Deutsche Partei, which had been nicknamed the ‘Prussia Party’ by its detractors, was soon thought to lean more towards Austria. Mittnacht himself was probably intended by Karl to be an insurance policy of sorts. Karl feared that unification would lead to the irrevocable dissolution of his state. As a Württemberg chauvinist first and foremost, the new state minister was an energetic and experienced political actor who would resist this potential mediatization at every turn –​and probably in a more astute and effective way than the inexperienced Karl. Mittnacht would become a fixture of Württemberg politics, remaining in office as state minister until 1900. It was largely through his guidance that the Deutsche Partei effectively became the governing party. In the coming years, the victory at Sedan would become the German Empire’s de facto national holiday. It was not endorsed by the imperial government; nevertheless, Sedan Day (celebrated, curiously, on 2 September) quickly became a rallying point for German nationalism. ‘He who is a German celebrates Sedan Day’, declared the Beobachter in 1872; Sedan thus became the foundational event, the mythic heroic moment of rupture that finally forged the German nation.5 In the fervour of the victory, the southern states were swept with renewed enthusiasm for Prussian leadership. At the same time, however, the royal couple in Stuttgart remained cautious. Their reluctance to embrace the inevitability of unification during the heady days of the Franco-​Prussian War and after has sometimes been interpreted as opposition. Alon Confino’s excellent monograph on Württemberg’s struggle to reconcile Sedan Day with existing state traditions, The Nation as a Local Metaphor, includes a quite extraordinary account of Karl castigating Württemberg liberals for ‘renouncing their own fatherland’ in their enthusiasm for the nation.6 Hans Philippi has Karl and Olga ‘fleeing’ Stuttgart for Friedrichshafen on 21 June 1871, when the Württemberg contingent returned from the war and paraded triumphantly through the capital. This account, however,

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is disputed by both Paul Sauer and Detlef Jena, both of whom place the royal couple at the parade, and Karl leading the troops on horseback. Jena suggests that Olga was accompanied in the royal carriage by her niece, Grand Duchess Vera Constantinovna, who had been raised by Karl and Olga since 1863; it was Vera’s unrestrained delight on the occasion, Jena argues, that convinced Olga to formally adopt Vera as her own daughter. Given the clear evidence that Karl and Olga were, in fact, deeply involved in the celebrations  –​which doubled both as a state commemoration for the safe return of Württemberg’s victorious soldiers as well as a nationalist display on behalf of the nation they had helped to create –​it is interesting that Philippi places them 150 kilometres away, on Lake Constance, as this would be a firm indicator of their hostility to the foundation of the Empire.7 Certainly, Karl remained to some degree critical of the unification process, and engaged in heated conversations with the Prussian consul in Stuttgart, Baron Ivan von Magnus. Yet at the heart of these arguments was not an anti-​unification attitude, and by no means one hostile to German nationalism. Indeed, but for Karl’s ill-​advised questioning of the patriotism and loyalty of Württemberg liberals, his attitude reflected a justified confusion. After decades of struggling towards the creation of Germany, nationalists seemed now to have achieved that goal. But the mechanics of national unity, which had always been the Achilles heel of every prospective model of that unity, were still hazy and unclear. Many of the discussions between 1866 and 1870 had revolved around extending the borders and competence of the North German Confederation to encompass the southern states and, though the southern and northern states undertook innumerable negotiations in that time, there was still the lingering suspicion that Prussia might have, in fact, engineered a quiet annexation. A number of historians have supported this view in retrospect. Gordon A. Craig, one of the most respected voices of imperial German historiography, tended towards the view that German unification was fundamentally an act of expansionary imperialism on the part of Prussia (or, more accurately, the Machiavellian Bismarck). This was broadly endorsed (maybe unexpectedly) by a number of Marxist historians between 1945 and 1989, who saw the method of German unification as a form of ‘social imperialism’ and ‘revolution from above’ enforced by the cultural and economic elites of Prussia against a newly exploitable economic underclass. Following similar lines, Sebastian Conrad suggests that unification was a necessary precursor to globalized economic expansionism, which Prussia had desired for some time. As a result, the southern states were the first frontier of German commercial imperialism.8 There are two significant flaws to these arguments. The first is to suggest that there was a longstanding Prussian plan whose ultimate goal was German conquest. This gives far too much credit to Bismarck who, while undoubtedly an extraordinarily gifted statesman, was neither monolithic nor omnipotent. Indeed, Bismarck faced firm opposition from a number of quarters during the course of the ‘wars of German unification’. Not the least of these was the army itself, which champed at the bit to show its prowess and press its advantages; during 1866, and again in 1871, Bismarck had to fight hard to put the brakes on Moltke and Roon’s more conquering desires. As Craig himself noted, ‘it was not Bismarck’s way to believe in inevitability’ and, as we have by now seen, the route that unification took

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was so circuitous that it could hardly have been predicted, let alone planned. When Varnbüler wrote of the foundation that Bismarck had laid in 1866, his admiration was not for a conspiracy led by the minister-​president, but rather for an opportunity created and seized by him.9 The second flaw returns once more to a central theme of this work. Even if we were willing to accept this theory of ‘domestic imperialism’, what is ignored in this narrative is the will of the Mittelstaaten. In this, the example of Württemberg is instructive. Varnbüler’s announcement of the Sedan victory was met with jubilation, as were the returning Württemberg troops and, for many years, the Sedan Day commemorations of the decisive battle.10 The citizens had good reason to celebrate; at nearly every level of society, at least since 1815, Württembergers had been engaged in the German Question and, having never found a satisfactory answer to it, they had now been presented with an apparently workable solution. Elben’s newfound identity as a ‘happy German’ was not a minority opinion at the dawn of the new German age.

From Versailles to Berlin Let us return to the immediate fears of the king of Württemberg and his wife because these, too, are instructive in explaining the nature of the German Empire (and, indeed, in explaining the nature of the states within that empire). Karl appointed Mittnacht as Varnbüler’s successor precisely because Mittnacht was a dependable Württemberger and a trusty man to have in the king’s corner, as he would defend Württemberg’s state identity to the last. In a sense, it was now the Württemberg monarchy defending the ‘old good law’ that the poet Ludwig Uhland, some fifty-​five years earlier, had attempted to protect from the monarchy. Irony aside, Karl’s caution, though prudent, was unnecessary. The states began formalizing and standardizing their currencies in 1872, so that the southern Gulden would be phased out and replaced by the Goldmark. But Goldmark coins were issued on a state basis, through the local treasuries and mints. As a result, Württemberg coinage was still stamped with Karl’s profile, rather than Emperor Wilhelm’s. The same was true of postage stamps. The K.W.St.E., like many of the state-​run services, remained in local hands. School curricula were handled by the Württemberg ministry of education, not a federal equivalent. Even federal taxes, when they were introduced, were only applied through state intermediaries; the Württemberg taxman was still collecting dues, even if they were ultimately sent to Berlin. Finally, though the army became part of the new federal military, it retained local command through Württemberg’s autonomous ministry of war.11 Even those who had been staunch proponents of the need to unify, now found themselves hearkening in some ways for a particularism that this form of the German federative state did allow. Julius Hölder, now spending most of his time in Berlin between Reichstag sittings, sought out the company of other Württembergers in the national capital, and hosted evening parties in which the dinner menu was invariably comprised of traditional Swabian fare, such as Spätzle or Maultaschen. Far from the unification of Germany dissolving particularist identities, the form that Germany took permitted citizens to remember and expound their roots;

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Hölder, it seems, could be a good German and a good Württemberger, without one being subsumed by the other.12 The ‘empire’ that had been born in 1871 bore little resemblance to the overbearing, authoritarian and, above all, hegemonic Prussian nation-​state that opponents of Lesser Germany had feared beforehand. In some ways, in fact, it followed Novalis’s dictum of a monarchy atop a republic, the emperor being at the head of a college of princes and essentially elected to his position.13 This did not, however, preclude a preponderance of Prussian guidance. Prussia maintained the majority of voting rights in the new empire and, much like the Habsburgs in the old Holy Roman Empire, the leadership of a Hohenzollern was never in question. The same could also be said of the civil leadership of the federative state bureaucracy. When the united German nation-​state came into being, it was natural that Prussia’s minister-​president, Bismarck, would become its chancellor. He continued in this position, all but unchallenged, until 1890, when he was dismissed by Emperor Wilhelm II.14 These political realities did lead to some notes of discord between the member states. In particular, from 1871 Bismarck launched a campaign designed to isolate politically active German Catholics. This campaign, known as the Kulturkampf, was chiefly based in East Prussia, and followed from Bismarck’s fear of revolutionary sentiment among the overwhelmingly Catholic Polish inhabitants of Posen. Regardless of its targeted nature, Kulturkampf soon spilled over into the rest of Germany; by 1880 it had run its course, and was one of Bismarck’s few unambiguous policy failures. One of the states in which Bismarck’s anti-​Catholicism failed to take root was Württemberg. Catholics had always been a minority, but relations between local Catholics and local Protestants were traditionally placid, lacking most of the periodic instances of violence and ill will that cropped up in other states. Württemberg was, as more than one observer noted, an ‘oasis of peace’ compared to the sectarian weaknesses elsewhere; Karl, though himself Protestant, occasionally went to Catholic sermons, and his state minister, Mittnacht, was himself a confirmed Catholic.15 This also had unique consequences. Unlike in most other states, where the beleaguered political Catholics felt the need to band together in a movement opposing Kulturkampf, in Württemberg this form of organization was slow, reluctant and half-​hearted, mostly because it was considered unnecessary. In other areas, too, Württemberg state behaviour clashed with Bismarckian federal policy –​or, at least, the mores instilled in a Prussian-​led nation-​state. We will recall King Karl’s lack of sexual discretion, the infamous ‘terrible vice’ to which Wilhelm referred in his 1855 meeting with Varnbüler. There is no doubt that Karl had same-​ sex desires and that he took a number of lovers; while this was by no means unheard of in royal circles, his lack of secrecy rankled. For many years he was rumoured to be involved in a relationship with his adjutant, Baron Wilhelm von Spitzemberg, Hildegard von Spitzemberg’s brother-​in-​law, and certainly the two enjoyed, at the very least, a very close friendship. Spitzemberg’s star began to fall at the beginning of the 1880s, however, when Karl made the acquaintance of a handsome American, Richard Jackson. Again, the relationship between the king and Jackson was ambiguous. Certainly, he became a favourite at court as well as the king’s personal reader, and he took to adding the aristocratic ‘von’ before his surname. Karl also made him a privy councillor, a move which raised eyebrows among courtiers but did little more. It was

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assumed at the time that Jackson and Vera, Karl and Olga’s adoptive daughter, were conducting a romantic affair; at the same time, it was also believed that Karl himself was romantically involved with the American. But Karl’s sexual proclivities, real or imagined, became a source of his popularity among his subjects, who considered him to be in many ways ‘Bohemian’. This, however, altered after Karl met another American, Charles Woodcock. Woodcock, a pastor from New York City, had arrived in Stuttgart in 1883, along with his companion, Donald Hendry. Here, ‘companion’ may be considered a euphemism, though the relationship between Woodcock and Hendry has never been wholly explained. The relationship between Karl and Woodcock, however, could hardly have been more explicit. Quickly the pair became inseparable, Woodcock often appearing in public in royal regalia. He was also accorded the greatest favours at court, and by 1888 Karl was manoeuvring to have Woodcock elevated to a peerage, as the Baron von Savage. Doubts may have existed about Jackson and the king, but Woodcock was another matter. The French national paper Le Figaro, latching on to the story with the glee that only a sexual scandal can evince, published a report heavy with innuendo. ‘Because he is playing from his youth, for some time [the king] has had fun . . . playing piano with the young Americans’, the anonymous correspondent wrote, referring to the longstanding open secret of Karl’s youthful homosexual liaisons. The implication of sex, though never made explicit, hung over the growing scandal. Why else, the correspondent wondered, would Karl favour Woodcock and Hendry, when Karl was a distinguished, 65-​year-​old monarch, while these ‘two young men of twenty years’ were ‘very thin, very swarthy and, to be frank, very ugly’.16 In Stuttgart, too, public and political opinion had shifted against Woodcock, not least because his back-​ room manoeuvrings had concentrated in his hands a significant amount of power; indeed, at about the same time that Karl was attempting to raise Woodcock to his baronage, Woodcock was controlling, proofing and editing all correspondence to and from the king.17 The Woodcock affair was a uniquely Württemberg issue, a matter of private sexual politics played out on the public stage. Its resolution, however, demonstrated the changing balance of politics. For decades, and in spite of his father’s worries, Karl’s sexual desires had been of little consequence; widely known in high society, his homosexuality was the subject of rumour and gossip but not censure. By 1888, the king’s love life had ceased to be what his subjects saw as an affectionate eccentricity. Mittnacht, writing to Bismarck for guidance, referred to Karl’s ‘sickness’, though this may have had less to do with Mittnacht’s own opinion of same-​sex desires and more to do with Karl’s taste in men. Indeed, the amount of power wielded by this American alarmed the state minister; Queen Olga, whose love for Karl had never waned regardless his string of lovers, took the unprecedented step of not accompanying him on his winter retreat to Nice around Christmas.18 Their objections to Woodcock were not based in homophobia but in practical concerns. Berlin, however, was not so accommodating. Bismarck and Mittnacht entered into significant correspondence, debating how to remove Woodcock from the Württemberg political scene. Bismarck was spurred on by the new Kaiser, Emperor Wilhelm II. Wilhelm was very much aware of Karl’s sexual habits and objected on the grounds of morality and decency; these actions, Wilhelm felt,

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were unchristian, not to mention illegal under the sodomy clauses of the German Empire’s legal statutes. As a result, Wilhelm began to seek a means by which Karl could be removed from the Württemberg throne.19 In the event, Wilhelm would be thwarted by Karl’s mortality; he died on 6 October 1891 in Stuttgart. Nevertheless, the pressure from the federal powers-​that-​be undoubtedly contributed to the end of the Woodcock affair at the beginning of 1889 (though it is also true that Karl began a new relationship with the theatre director Wilhelm George soon afterwards).

From Berlin to the world The case of Charles Woodcock, Baron von Savage, gives us some insight into the changing importance of the local authorities in an evolving German federal structure. This also coincided with the rise to power of Wilhelm II, the third and last Kaiser of Germany, whose personal ambitions for power were throwbacks to the era of absolutism. Unlike his grandfather, Wilhelm I, the new emperor did not trust the civil authorities, and certainly not the erstwhile chancellor, Bismarck. In 1890, he dismissed Bismarck from office, and thereafter pursued an increasingly bellicose path of foreign policy, the ultimate destination of which was the July Crisis of 1914. Such was the state of foreign affairs. Domestically, however, Wilhelm’s era was rather more complex. The state that he inherited was entering a period of reform and liberalization. The anti-​socialist and anti-​Catholic laws of the Bismarck years had lapsed, and under Wilhelm II the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) would become the largest left-​wing party in European parliamentary politics. What was developing at a grass-​roots level when the Kaiser took the reins was a dynamic and burgeoning proto-​democracy. It is here, paradoxically, that the last stone of ideal liberal nationalism was laid. The petty dynastic squabbles that had been lamented by Goethe, Schiller, Wieland and others became increasingly irrelevant. Karl’s successor nephew, also named Wilhelm II, can hardly be considered a king of the same sort as his uncle or his great-​ uncle; today, the official statue commemorating his reign and life depicts a bourgeois man walking his two dogs. The Württemberg army, though theoretically distinct from the Prussian army, standardized on Prussian equipment, adopted Prussian procedures and imported Prussian officers, bringing it into step with the rest of the German states. It is, perhaps, the bitterest of ironies that the homogenization of Württemberg within the German nation-​state was finally achieved at the very time that that state faced an existential crisis to which it would ultimately succumb. When, in July 1914, the ministry of war in Berlin issued mobilization orders, putting into practice a train of events that would result in German troops crossing into Belgium and sparking the Great War, it was natural and expected that the soldiers of the Württemberg corps followed Berlin’s lead. It was in 1871 that the nation-​state was proclaimed. By 1914, it had been achieved in deed as well as word. By 1918, it had collapsed, and Germany once again began the arduous process of reinventing itself.

Conclusion

How should we understand the unification of Germany? With the benefit of hindsight, the historian can very nearly flirt with ‘inevitability’. Indeed, in one sense the narrative of unification is a simple one: forces, broadly termed ‘liberal-​nationalist’, agitated for national unity for decades. Through the course of the nineteenth century these forces gathered momentum, while those opposed to Germany fell by the wayside. In a series of wars in the 1860s, Prussia emerged as the standard-​bearer of the nation and, by 1870, the autonomy of the southern states –​the last holdouts to the founding of the nation-​state –​was neither viable nor desirous. All roads, it seemed, led inexorably to Versailles. This discourse is neat and uncomplicated. It is also not entirely wrong. But neither is it entirely right. Germany was not just an expression of political will; indeed, political Germany followed in the wake of popular (or, in Schiller’s words, ‘academic’) Germany. Those who pressed for unity were, first, literary figures, who reflected and in turn reinforced public sentiment. This engagement with the Zeitgeist would, with some exceptions, evade politicians for some years. When they did embrace nationalism, these politicians often had other considerations as well. Württemberg is one example of this:  development of a national spirit occurred at the same time as the state was following other roads of modernization. Questions of industrialization, economic diversification, liberalization of the political process, among others, were tied to the position that Württemberg took in the German Question. Pan-​German nationalism in Württemberg did not simply revolve around what Württembergers wanted Germany to be, but what Württembergers wanted Württemberg to be within that Germany. Throughout the preceding pages, we have analyzed the role that Württemberg played in German unification, and the role German unification played in Württemberg. But what is the significance? We should not lose sight of the fact that this work focuses not on the origins of the unification itself, but rather on Württemberg’s development and agency during the events of the unification. Nevertheless, by looking at the mechanics of the German Empire’s foundation, we can also determine the implications for Württemberg. The prevailing trends and orthodoxy of German historiography have already been identified; if there is a popular explanation for the formation of

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Germany in 1871, it is that Prussia used its military strength and the threat of force to coerce the other German states into subjugation. The leadership of the Mittel-​ and Kleinstaaten was irrelevant to the question, since no state –​not Bavaria, not Saxony, not Württemberg –​had the political strength to resist. As for the public attitude, while it is possible (or even likely) that many Germans supported some form of unification, their will was also largely irrelevant. This was, as Taylor tells us, conquest rather than unity. Gordon A.  Craig, in a rather more nuanced account, comes to similar conclusions. ‘One could’, he writes, without insuperable difficulty, compose a reasonably plausible argument to the effect that the German Empire of 1871 was the creation of the German people, or, at least, that the Reich would never have come into being if it had not been for the persistent and growing popular desire for unification [ . . . ] Yet Bismarck was little interested in their actual historical role in the process of unification when he stage-​ managed the proclamation of the Reich at Versailles [ . . . ] There was, in short, to be no nonsense about popular sovereignty.1

This story, as popular as it is, presumes far too much to be taken seriously. At a basic level, it suggests that popular sentiment gave way to Bismarckian authoritarianism. But Craig is correct the first time to state that unification was a ‘persistent desire’ that never seemed to wane. Time and again, it caused shifts in government policy. It encouraged engagement in national affairs. Bismarck’s iron grip on the chancellorship was strengthened and assured by his ability to accede in this case to a broad-​based public will. In this sense, national unification was not an artificial construct but rather an organic, twisting vine that spun itself through the German hinterland. Bismarck was not the architect or originator of nationalism. Instead, he was its gardener, nurturing it and permitting it, at last, to grow. Nor was the unification an end in itself. The process would continue for many, many decades; it is scarcely credible to suggest that there was no popular sovereignty in the German Empire when, in fact, the Empire was established with overwhelming popular support. In any case, the growing enfranchisement of the German population was a gradual process that was only really hitting its stride at the same time that the Empire faced its terminal crisis in 1914. Other implications of this argument  –​admittedly owing more to Taylor than to Craig –​are similarly flawed. It suggests that the smaller states were entirely impotent (they were not), that Prussia was bent only on conquest within the German hinterland (it was not), that German unification could not be achieved by largely peaceful means (it was) and that Prussian conquest was the only means by which German unification could be achieved (it was not). Bismarck and Moltke were not Machiavellian schemers whose chief aim was to sweep through Germany. If they were, and if it was, they would not have stopped at the Main in 1866, when the southern states were ripe for the picking. And, while the Prussia of the 1860s had at its command overwhelming force, it never threatened Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg, for the simple fact that it never had to. The decision-​makers in Munich, Karlsruhe and Stuttgart may have toyed with other options between 1866 and 1871, but in the end they all chose to follow Berlin’s

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lead, and while it may be true that circumstances had made this the only reasonable option left available to them, ‘prudence’ and ‘duress’ are two entirely different things. A key failing of the existing narrative is its reliance on 1866 as the one significant moment of rupture. Yet, as we have seen, the concept of German unification had been popular well before Prussia settled its grievances with Austria. Indeed, those who had originally agitated for unification in the region, as early as the days of the Napoleonic Wars, were from neither Prussia nor Austria, but instead hailed from the smaller states. Of these states, one of the most prominent was Württemberg, by dint of the state’s complex relationship with its population and territories. In the immediate aftermath of the wars, Württemberg found itself with a significantly larger population, made up of new subjects whose ties to Stuttgart were weak at best, given their previous affiliations with now-​defunct states and imperial enclaves. As a result of this, the nature of Württemberg identity was confused and, due to the reign of an unpopular and authoritarian king, many agitated for a wider, supranational identity, to which all Germans could belong. Upon the death of King Friedrich, and the ascension to the throne of his son Wilhelm, the relationship between subject peoples and the crown quickly stabilized. While Friedrich had been a despot –​or, in the words of Baron vom Stein, a ‘tyrant or sultan’ –​Wilhelm was a more reform-​minded and constitutionally inclined monarch, who rapidly gained the trust and loyalty of his people. However, this merely increased the drive for unification with the other German states. Wilhelm and his ministers were keenly aware of Württemberg’s deficiencies, particularly in the fields of modern, mechanized industry. Their attempts to modernize the country initially failed due to the inertia of the Württemberg Stände, whose interests lay in the continued emphasis on agriculture, rather than mechanization. Furthermore, since Württemberg lacked the resources vital to industrialization –​particularly coal, but also base metals –​even if the Stände had approved a massive expenditure on state-​driven economic reform, it is unlikely that Württemberg could have achieved much by itself. This placed Württemberg at both a financial and military disadvantage compared to neighbouring countries, since these competitors could outstrip Württemberg’s output of commercial goods, could invest in rapid, modern means of transport (such as steam railways) and could manufacture armaments (such as the Dreyse needle-​gun) at a vastly superior pace. Wilhelm’s response was to look further afield, to cooperate with neighbouring states in order to safeguard his borders and trade on friendly terms to narrow the financial gap. In essence, Wilhelm saw foreign investment and collaboration as the only rational way forward. These efforts achieved mixed results. Württemberg’s championing of a regional customs union solidified its relationship with Bavaria, the largest of the Mittelstaaten; this relationship would prove fruitful in later years. But the union itself was a failure, due to the conflicting, particularist interests of the Mittelstaaten and the inability to come to mutually beneficial agreements. In the military sphere, Württemberg began its own, slow rearmament, but had to rely on a series of negotiated treaties with other, larger powers. This did not sit well with Wilhelm, who did not trust his counterparts (particularly in Vienna or Paris) to recognize and respect Württemberg’s sovereignty in the event of war.

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These attempts at cooperation continued for much of the first half of the nineteenth century, with varying degrees of success. However, the growth of a nascent, popular liberal-​ nationalist revolutionary sentiment, particularly in the southern states, fundamentally changed the course of Württemberg’s German policy. Even before revolts spontaneously broke out in the German interior in March 1848, Wilhelm had already noted the rise of more radical popular nationalism, and had warned his fellow monarchs, as well as the Austrian general Radetzky, that Germany’s salvation from violence and bloodshed lay in unification. Wilhelm’s solution seems to have gone well beyond the boundaries of the policy of cooperation that he had previously followed; here, he was suggesting close, even federal collaboration between the states. When this did not happen, as he predicted, revolutions broke out in all of the major German centres, including Vienna, Berlin and Dresden. But it was Stuttgart’s willingness to adapt to the popular mood and the ability of Wilhelm to countenance the founding of a government led by a republican liberal, Friedrich Römer, which spared the Württemberg capital from the same unrest that struck other states. The revolutionary years, and the abortive experiment of the National Assembly, were fatal to the liberal-​nationalist character of German unification, but not to the cause of German unity itself. In Württemberg, the unification project took on a new urgency, especially after Württemberg troops were forced by Austria (against the will of the king) to intervene in the Hesse-​Kassel emergency. Increasingly in concert with Bavaria, Württemberg strove to unite the Mittelstaaten, arguing once more that the German great powers could not be trusted to act in the best interests of all the German states. This, however, was no longer to be accomplished through merely cooperative measures, as had been largely the intention of the pre-​1848 years. Instead, what was being championed by the Württemberg crown was a binding, intimate Bund, a logical progression of Wilhelm’s early realization that Württemberg could no longer be expected to stand alone, coupled with the experience of the revolutions. In a series of diplomatic manoeuvres, Stuttgart attempted to position itself and its fellow southern states, so as to take advantage of the confusion among the German great powers, and so assert themselves. This initiative was frequently frustrated, though, by disagreements between these potentially constituent states, as well as the short duration of any Austrian or Prussian distractions. After Wilhelm died, the opportunity again presented itself, in the form of the Austro-​Prussian War, and this time, through a combination of decisive Bavarian-​Württemberg leadership and Prussia’s unwillingness to extend its will further than the Main, the Südbund finally stood on the cusp of creation. The very idea of the Bund, however, had been built on a pragmatic foundation of economic and military survival, and in the post-​1866 realities, Stuttgart and Munich quickly discovered that their long-​awaited federation was no longer viable in either sense. Consequently, through its own initiative, Württemberg approached the Prussian-​led North German Confederation, with the aim of joining it. In January 1871, this was accomplished. Nothing in this suggests that Württemberg was a state that did not control its own fate. On the contrary, Württemberg was often the originator of many of the mooted unification projects throughout the nineteenth century. The state never bargained away its independence because, in the minds of its leaders, the wellbeing of the state

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was assured by its partnership with its neighbours. It was Württemberg’s king who enacted a constitution that subverted Austria’s attempts to muzzle German liberal-​ nationalism. It was Württemberg, in conjunction with Bavaria, that made the first efforts to form a pan-​German customs league. In the early 1820s, King Wilhelm tried to band the southern German states together in order to protect them from Austria’s particularist interests; he would take an active role in other attempts to do the same in 1830 and 1831, and in 1847 he took the initiative in trying to convince the other states that German unity would neuter the revolts that were beginning to foment. After the revolutions, once it became apparent that Austria was once more ill-​disposed towards German unity, it was Württemberg that facilitated the meeting between the French and Russian emperors that would eventually lead to France going to war with Austria. When Austria and Prussia went to war in 1866, Württemberg actively undermined the Austrian war effort in the hope that the wearing down of the two German great powers would result in the emergence of a federation of south German states, with Württemberg playing an important role in its governance. Finally, when the resulting Federation of the United States of South Germany proved to be unviable, Stuttgart opened negotiations with Berlin, and when it sided with Prussia as the latter looked to be approaching war with France, it did so cognisant of the consequences. In 1870 and 1871, Württemberg was not forced to become a component of ‘Greater Prussia’. It chose, willingly and with full agency, to become a constituent state of Germany. This was not a powerless state at the tender mercies of its strong neighbours. Finally, we have seen much of the personality-​driven elements of this history. Indeed, it is tempting to define Württemberg’s role in German unification in terms of three phases. The first phase, personified by Friedrich, was dominated by delusions of parochial independence. The second –​the Wilhelmine era –​emphasized cooperation between the states. The third, overseen by Karl von Varnbüler, ushered in the unification. However, this does little justice to the truly public nature of Württemberg’s pan-​Germanism. Throughout the nineteenth century, a large number of Swabian political figures, journalists and diarists, all engaged with the idea of unity. As we should expect, not all of these diverse figures agreed on the correct approach to this. Their very involvement, though, shaped the public discourse, and to a great degree the direction of the crown’s German policy. It is here, too, that we see the unprecedented dynamism of Württemberg’s role in the German drive to unification, for the public engagement of ordinary Württembergers influenced not only their own government and the affairs of their own country, but also those of other states. It is no coincidence that many of the most influential representatives to the Frankfurt Parliament were from Württemberg, nor that Bismarck, long hailed as the architect of unification, held both Wilhelm and State Minister von Varnbüler in the highest esteem. The Kingdom of Württemberg is not an analogue for the entire non-​Prussian, non-​Austrian German experience. The state faced similar problems and issues as other states of similar geographical and population size, but its circumstances were unique in many regards. Thus, what occurred in Württemberg between 1815 and 1871 should not be conflated with what occurred in Baden, or Bavaria or Saxony, during the same time. What Württemberg’s experience does demonstrate, though, is that the southern states (or, indeed, any of the German states beyond Prussia

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or Austria) may have played a far more active role in the unification of Germany than has previously been allowed. The lesson of this work goes well beyond the recognition of Württemberg’s role; it is a timely reminder that our current historiographical model is flawed and exclusionary and requires revision to free it from the Borussian school that defines Germany only in terms of Prussia. Time and again, Württemberg sought to shape Germany and shape its position within whichever Germany would come into being. From all walks of Württemberg political and private life, this unification was a time for celebration, an endgame that was the natural conclusion of the circumstances that had come before it. In this endgame, Württemberg had not played the decisive move. But it had done much to manoeuvre all the pieces into the winning positions. The proclamation in Versailles was nothing more than a formality. Far from Germany being forged reluctantly, through impromptu negotiations as late as November and December 1870, the formation of the German Empire had been completed in all but formal regulations and statutes as early as 1867 and 1868.2 The brief interruption of the Franco-​Prussian War had been nothing but an impetus to come to an agreement as quickly as possible. The southern states provided troops far more willingly to the German war against France than they did to the Austrian war against Prussia precisely because this was perceived as a national war of defence. As always, while the groundwork for national unification had been laid by the political machinations of each state government, it was fear of the French –​in this case, both a fear of their offensive desires and a fear that they might once more descend into rebellion –​that spurred Stuttgart, Munich, Karlsruhe and Berlin to put the finishing touches to their somewhat ad hoc national masterpiece. In the final analysis, the unification of Germany did not follow any of the paths that Württemberg nationalists expected. Nor should we presume that it would have. But by 1870, unification of any sort was a desirable outcome, either as the end goal itself or as a foundation for continued reform; in the event, the latter was the case. Far from being disappointed, Württembergers would likely have agreed with Goethe: ‘Uniting is a greater art and a greater merit. An artist in unification [ . . . ] would be welcomed the world over.’3 In this case, a great many of these unifying artists were Württembergers, and it was in Württemberg that they and their masterpiece were welcomed.

Notes Introduction 1 Of particular note here are Heinrich von Treitschke, Deutsche Geschichte im neunzehnten. Jahrhundert, 2 Vols. (Leipzig: A Kröner, 1934), and Heinrich von Sybel, The Founding of the German Empire by William I, Based Chiefly Upon Prussian State Documents, 5 Vols. (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1890–​1898). See also Heinrich von Treitschke, Historische und Politische Aufsätze, 3 Vols. (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1886–​1897. 2 A. J. P. Taylor, The Course of German History: A Survey of the Development of German History since 1815 (London: Routledge, 2008). 3 Hans-​Ulrich Wehler, Das Deutsche Kaiserreich 1871–​1918 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1994); Fritz Fischer, Griff nach der Weltmacht: Die Kriegszielpolitik des kaiserlichen Deutschland 1914/​1918 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1962); Fritz Fischer, War of Illusions: German Policies from 1911 to 1914 (New York: Norton, 1975); Daniel Jonah Goldhagen, Hitler’s Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust (New York: Knopf, 1996); Heinrich August Winkler, Der lange Weg nach Westen, Vol.1: Deutsche Geschichte vom Ende des Alten Reiches bis zum Untergang der Weimarer Republik (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2000), 1; Heinrich August Winkler, The Age of Catastrophe: A History of the West, 1914–​1945 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2015), passim. 4 Though himself a believer in German history’s unique peculiarities, Jürgen Kocka’s essays on the Sonderweg and Historikerstreit (Historians’ Squabble) debates are masterful syntheses, as well as excellent synopses of the various historians involved and their positions. In particular, see Jürgen Kocka, ‘German History before Hitler: The Debate about the German Sonderweg’, Journal of Contemporary History 23, no.1 (January 1988), 3–​16. 5 David Blackbourn, The Long Nineteenth Century: A History of Germany, 1780–​1918 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), passim. 6 James J. Sheehan, German History 1770–​1866 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989); Abigail Green, Fatherlands: State-​building and Nationhood in Nineteenth-​Century Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2001). 7 Such works are far too numerous to list with any degree of comprehensiveness. However, special note must be made of Lothar Gall’s Der Liberalismus als regierende Partei (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1968), which comprehensively details the internal liberal political development of the Grand Duchy of Baden; Nicholas Martin Hope’s contentious but ambitious The Alternative to German Unification: The Anti-​Prussian Party: Frankfurt, Nassau, and the Two Hessen, 1859–​1867 (Wiesbaden: F. Steiner, 1973), which (unconvincingly) paints the aforementioned states as bastions of particularist, as well as German, ‘freedom’ from Prussia through Greater German sentiments; and Theodore S. Hamerow, though focusing on social class structure, rather than state apparatus, as the medium of unification, admirably approaches

162

8

9 10

11

12 13

14

15 16

Notes the issue in The Social Foundations of German Unification, 1858–​1871, 2 Vols. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1969–​1972). Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1800–​1866: Bürgerwelt und starker Staat (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1998); Thomas Nipperdey, Deutsche Geschichte 1866–​1918, Vol.1: Arbeitswelt und Bürgergeist and Vol.2: Machtstaat vor der Demokratie (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1998). Dieter Langewiesche, Liberalismus und Demokratie in Württemberg zwischen Revolution und Reichsgründung (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1974). Hans-​Werner Hahn, Wirtschaftliche Integration im 19. Jahrhundert: Die hessischen Staaten und der Deutsche Zollverein (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1982); Manfred Hanisch, Für Fürst und Vaterland. Legitimätsstiftung in Bayern zwischen Revolution 1848 und deutscher Einheit (Munich: Oldenbourg, 1991). Brendan Simms, Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy 1453 to the Present (London: Allen Lane, 2013). Similar themes were explored in the same author’s earlier work, The Struggle for Mastery in Germany, 1779–​1850 (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 1998). Abigail Green, ‘The Federal Alternative? A New View of Modern German History’, The Historical Journal 46, no.1 (March 2003), 187. In recent years, Taylor has fallen out of favour in the teaching of German history –​ hardly a surprise, given his polemical style and the dated nature of The Course of German History. Be this as it may, it is difficult to think of any other work that has had as much of an influence on German studies. Taylorite history might well be on the wane, but it would be a mistake to discount it completely. These two provinces, the Grand Duchy of Hesse (Großherzogtum Hessen) and the Electorate of Hesse (Kurfürstentum Hessen, often shortened to Kurhessen), follow the curve of the Rhine to the north of Baden. In order to avoid confusion, they are most commonly referred to in this text by their colloquial names: Hesse-​Darmstadt for the grand duchy, and Hesse-​Kassel for the electorate. Darmstadt and Kassel were the capitals of their respective states. Alon Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor: Württemberg, Imperial Germany, and National Memory, 1871–​1918 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1997), 77. Ralf Dahrendorf, Society and Democracy in Germany (London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1968), 26.

1  States and the Nation in the Late Eighteenth and Early Nineteenth Centuries 1 Friedrich Schiller, Die Räuber. Ein Schauspiel von fünf Akten, Act I Scene II (Frankfurt/​Main: 1787), 32; Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Faust: A Tragedy, Part I, in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Selected Works (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2000), 797; see also Hagen Schulze, ‘The Revolution of the European Order and the Rise of German Nationalism’ , in Nation-​Building in Central Europe, ed. Hagen Schulze (Leamington Spa: Berg, 1987), 5. 2 Friedrich Karl von Moser, Von dem deutschen National-​Geist (Munich: Franz Varrentrapp, 1765), 10. 3 Ibid., 6.

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4 Ibid., 5. 5 Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London: Verso, 2006), 19–​22. 6 Wolfgang Burgdorf, ‘ “Reichsnationalismus” gegen “Territorialnationalismus” ’, in Föderative Nation: Deutschlandkonzepte von der Reformation bis zum Ersten Weltkrieg, ed. Dieter Langewiesche and Georg Schmidt (Munich: R. Oldenbourg Verlag, 2000), 158–​159. 7 E. J. Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2004), 50–​79. 8 Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany 1648–​1840 (New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1967), 391; Gerhard Menk, Die Hohe Schule Herborn in ihrer Frühzeit, 1584–​1660: Ein Beitrag zum Hochschulwesen des deutschen Kalvinismus im Zeitalter der Gegenreformation (Wiesbaden: Historische Kommission für Nassau, 1981), passim; Paul L. Nyhus, ‘The Franciscans in South Germany, 1400–​1530: Reform and Revolution’, Transactions of the American Philosophical Society 65, no.8 (1975), passim. 9 Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany, 391; James J. Sheehan, German History 1770–​1866, 184–​186. 10 John Breuilly, Nationalism and the State (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 1982), 341; Jonathan Steinberg, Bismarck: A Life (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 332–​335. 11 Ernst Moritz Arndt, ‘Des Deutschen Vaterland’ (1814), in Gedichte, ed. Robert Geerds (Leipzig: Reclam, 1913), 55–​56. 12 Wilhelm Kühlmann, ‘Sprachgesellschaften und nationale Utopien’, in Föderative Nation, 245. 13 Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1988), 27. 14 Ingo Reiffenstein, ‘Deutsch in Österreich vom 18. bis ins 20. Jahrhundert: Das problematische Verhältnis von Sprache und Nation’, in Föderative Nation, 293–​305. 15 Jacob Grimm and Wilhelm Grimm, Kinder-​und Hausmärchen, Vol.3 (Göttingen: Dieterische Buchhandlung, 1843), 185–​188. 16 The preeminent discussion of the role of ethnicity in nation-​building and nationalism remains Anthony D. Smith, The Ethnic Origins of Nations. See also Ethnicity, ed. John Hutchinson and Anthony D. Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996). 17 W. O. Henderson, The Zollverein (London: Frank Cass, 1984), 21–​22. 18 Karl Weidner, Die Anfänge einer staatlichen Wirtschaftspolitik in Württemberg (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1931), 16. 19 Robert A. Kann, A History of the Habsburg Empire 1526–​1918 (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1974), 54. 20 Philip Wilhelm von Hörnigk, Oesterreich über Alles, wenn es nur will (Nuremberg: 1684), passim. 21 James J. Sheehan, German History 1770–​1866, 16; Joachim Whaley, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, Vol.2: The Peace of Westphalia to the Dissolution of the Reich 1648–​1806 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2013), 417. 22 Karl Otmar von Aretin, Das alte Reich, Vol.3: Das Reich und der österreichisch-​ preussische Dualismus (1745–​1806) (Stuttgart: Klett Cotta, 1997), 539. 23 Joachim Whaley, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, Vol.2, 362. 24 Robert A. Kann, A History of the Habsburg Empire, 181–​183; Joachim Whaley, Germany and the Holy Roman Empire, Vol.2, 544–​545; H. M. Scott, ‘Reform in the Habsburg Monarchy 1740–​1790’, in Enlightened Absolutism: Reform and Reformers in Later Eighteenth-​Century Europe, ed. H. M. Scott (Houndsmill: Macmillan, 1990), 145–​187.

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25 Geoffrey Wawro, The Franco-​Prussian War: The German Conquest of France in 1870–​ 1871 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008), 1. 26 Voltaire to Nicolas Claude Theriot, Chêne-​Bourg, 26 October 1757, in Voltaire’s Correspondence, ed. Theodor Bestermann, Vol.32 (Geneva: Institut et Musée Voltaire, 1958), 135. 27 C. A. Macartney, The Habsburg and Hohenzollern Dynasties in the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries (New York: Harper & Row, 1970), 211–​212. 28 Friedrich II. Hohenzollern, ‘Idées sur les projets politiques à former au sujet de la mort de l’empereur’, in Politische Correspondenzen Friedrichs des Großen, ed. Johann Gustav Droysen, Max W. Duncker and Heinrich von Sybel, Vol.1 (Berlin: A. Duncker, 1879), 90–​91. 29 Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia 1600–​1947 (London: Penguin, 2007), 217. 30 Marcel Beck and Heinrich Büttner, Die Bistümer Würzburg und Bamberg in ihrer wissenschaftlichen Bedeutung für die Geschichte des deutschen Osten (Berlin: Weidmannsche Verlagsbuchhandlung, 1937), passim. 31 Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany, 30–​31; Richard J. Evans, Death in Hamburg: Society and Politics in the Cholera Years 1830–​1910 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1987), 1. 32 Charles Ingrao, ‘The Smaller German States’, in Enlightened Absolutism, 225–​226. 33 Harm-​Hinrich Brandt, ‘The Revolution of 1848 and the Problem of Central European Nationalities’, in Nation-​Building in Central Europe, 108–​109. 34 Otto Borst, Geschichte Baden-​Württembergs: Ein Lesebuch (Stuttgart: Konrad Theiss, 2004), 137. 35 Peter H. Wilson, The Thirty Years War: Europe’s Tragedy (Cambridge, MA: Belknap Press, 2009), 784, 789. 36 Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom, 284–​286. 37 Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, ‘Sie, und nicht wir’ (1790), in Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock, Oden, Vol.2 (Leipzig: 1798), 142. 38 Friedrich Hölderlin, ‘An die Freiheit’ (1792), in Sämtliche Gedichte, ed. Detlev Lüders, Vol.1 (Bad Homburg: Athenäum Verlag, 1970), 118. 39 Friedrich Schlegel, Fragment 216, Athenäum (1798), in Kritische Friedrich-​Schlegel-​ Ausgabe, ed. Ernst Behler, Vol.2 (Munich, Paderborn and Vienna: Schöningh, 1967), 198. 40 Peter McPhee, Liberty or Death: The French Revolution (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2016), 102–​103, 235; T. C. W. Blanning, The French Revolution in Germany: Occupation and Resistance in the Rhineland 1792–​1802 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1986), 256. 41 Walter Grab, Demokratische Strömungen in Hamburg und Schleswig-​Holstein zur Zeit der ersten französischen Republik (Hamburg: Hans Christians Verlag, 1966), 101–​102. 42 Cloots went further, arguing that the fruits of the Revolution should be universal and, moreover, lead to the founding of a world state that would make national identities irrelevant. It may have been better for him if his arguments had fallen on deaf ears. By 1792 he had made an enemy of Maximilian Robespierre, who engineered his expulsion from the Jacobin Club in December 1793. Cloots’s former identity as a Prussian baron tainted him with the whiff of counterrevolution, just as his association with the Girondin ranged him against Robespierre, who was associated with the rival ‘Mountain’ faction of the Jacobin Club. On 24 March 1794, Cloots was publicly beheaded in Paris. Peter McPhee, Liberty or Death, 235–​236, 250.

Notes

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43 Jonathan Sperber, ‘The Atlantic Revolutions in the German Lands, 1776–​1849’ , in The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History, ed. Helmut Walser Smith (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2011), 150–​151. 44 T. C. W. Blanning, The French Revolution in Germany, v, 255–​316. 45 T. C. W. Blanning, Reform and Revolution in Mainz 1743–​1803 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1974), 311; Christoph Martin Wieland, ‘Über deutschen Patriotismus. Betrachtungen, Fragen und Zweifel’ (1793), in C.M. Wielands sämmtliche Werke, Vol.31 (Leipzig: Verlag von Georg Joachim Göschen, 1840), 252. 46 Friedrich Meinecke, Cosmopolitanism and the National State (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1970), 30. 47 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe to Johann Peter Eckermann, 4 January 1824, in Johann Peter Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe in den letzten Jahren seines Lebens, Vol.3: 1822–​1832 (Leipzig: Philipp Reclam, 1900), 33; see also Gustav Seibt, Mit einer Art von Wut: Goethe in der Revolution (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2014), passim. 48 Peter-​André Alt, Friedrich Schiller (Munich: C. H. Beck, 2004), 32. 49 Friedrich Schiller to Christian Gottfried Körner, Rudolstadt, 15 April 1790, in Schillers Briefwechsel mit Körner von 1784 bis zum Tode Schillers, Vol.1 (Leipzig: Verlag von Veit & Comp., 1859), 184. 50 Adam Zamoyski, Rites of Peace: The Fall of Napoleon and the Congress of Vienna (New York: HarperCollins, 2007), 6. 51 David Gates, The Napoleonic Wars 1803–​1815 (London: Arnold, 1997), 19. 52 Paul Sauer, Der schwäbische Zar: Friedrich, Württembergs erster König (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-​Anstalt, 1984), 214–​217. 53 Ibid., 218–​220. 54 Erwin Hölzle, ‘Das Napoleonische Staatssystem in Deutschland’, Historische Zeitschrift 148, no.2 (1933), 280. 55 Katherine Aaslestad and Karen Hagemann, ‘1806 and its Aftermath: Revisiting the Period of the Napoleonic Wars in German Central European Historiography’, Central European History 39, no.4 (December 2006), 549. 56 Paul Sauer, Der schwäbische Zar, 220. 57 Hans A. Schmitt, ‘Germany without Prussia: A Closer Look at the Confederation of the Rhine’, German Studies Review 6, no.1 (February 1983), 20. 58 Kurpfalzbaierische Staats-​Zeitung von München, No.CCLIX, 2 November 1805. 59 Leighton S. James, Witnessing the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in German Central Europe (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2013), 38; John R. Elting, Swords around a Throne: Napoleon’s Grande Armée (New York: Da Capo, 1997), 387; Hans-​Joachim Harder, Militärgeschichtliches Handbuch Baden-​Württembergs (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1987), 62. 60 Hans Kohn, ‘Arndt and the Character of German Nationalism’, The American Historical Review 54, no.4 (July 1949), 789. 61 Heinrich von Kleist, ‘Katechismus der Deutschen’ (1809), in Werke und Briefe in vier Bänden, ed. Siegfried Seller, Vol.3 (Berlin: Aufbau, 1978), 391. 62 Maria Agatha Zimmermann, Tagebuch, 17 November 1813, in Ute Planert, ‘From Collaboration to Resistance: Politics, Experience, and Memory of the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars in Southern Germany’, Central European History 39, no.4 (December 2006), 688. 63 Michael Döberl, Bayern und die deutsche Erhebung wider Napoleon I. (Munich: Verlag der Königlich Bayerischen Akademie der Wissenschaft, 1907), 403.

166

Notes

64 Among others, Ute Planert has suggested that the concept of the Befreiungskriege is misleading, since the objective of going to war was not, in fact, to provide an emancipatory moment, but rather was ‘aimed at the restoration of the status quo ante’. For this reason, many German historians have taken to using the term ‘Anti-​ Napoleonic Wars’. At the same time, Planert points out that German nationalists did use the idea of the ‘Wars of Liberation’ as a post facto device of German identity-​ building. It is for this reason, since the current work is focused primarily on the forging of communal identities, that the term Befreiungskriege will continue to be used here. See Ute Planert, ‘International Conflict: War and the Making of Modern Germany, 1740–​1815’, in The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History, 91–​118. 65 Paul Sauer, Der schwäbische Zar, 221. 66 Jürgen Hagel, Stuttgart im Spiegel alter Karten und Pläne (Stuttgart: Katalog der Ausstellung des Hauptstaatsarchivs Stuttgart, 1984), 43. 67 Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany, 371–​372. 68 Johann Gottfried Pahl, Denkwürdigkeiten zur Geschichte von Schwaben während der beyden Feldzüge von 1799 und 1800 (Nördlingen: Karl Gottlob Beck, 1802), 139. 69 Johann Friedrich Cotta to Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, 16 November 1808, in Monika Neugebauer-​Wölk, Revolution und Constitution. Die Brüder Cotta: Eine biographische Studie zum Zeitalter der Französischen Revolution und des Vormärz (Berlin: Siedler, 1989), 347. 70 Ute Planert, ‘From Collaboration to Resistance’, 685–​686. 71 Enno E. Kraehe, Metternich’s German Policy, Vol.1: The Contest with Napoleon, 1799–​ 1814 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1963), 232. 72 Paul Sauer, Der schwäbische Zar, 313. 73 Ute Planert, ‘From Collaboration to Resistance’, 690–​691; Paul Sauer, Der schwäbische Zar, 401. 74 Paul Sauer, Der schwäbische Zar, 415.

2  Independence and Early South German Particularism 1 Karen Hagemann, Revisiting Prussia’s Wars against Napoleon: History, Culture and Memory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2015), 34–​35. 2 Andrew Roberts, Napoleon the Great (London: Penguin, 2015), 662–​663. 3 Paul W. Schroeder, ‘An Unnatural “Natural Alliance”: Castlereagh, Metternich, and Aberdeen in 1813’, The International History Review 10, no.4 (November 1988), 525. 4 Ibid., 525. 5 Brian E. Vick, The Congress of Vienna: Power and Politics after Napoleon (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2014), 107. 6 Ibid., passim. 7 Maria Nesselrode to Hélène Gourief, Stuttgart, 14 January 1814, in Lettres et papiers du chancelier comte de Nesselrode, 1760–​1850, Vol.5: 1813–​1818, ed. A. de Nesselrode (Paris: A. Lahure, n.d.), 153–​154. 8 Jean de Bourgoing, Vom Wiener Kongreß (Vienna: Herald, 1964), 372. 9 Thomas Stamm-​Kuhlmann, König in Preußens große Zeit: Friedrich Wilhelm III., der Melancholiker auf dem Thron (Berlin: Siedler, 1992), 318; Walter M. Simon, ‘Prince Hardenberg’, The Review of Politics 18, no.1 (January 1956), 92; Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom, 334–​337.

Notes

167

10 It is to be noted that Beethoven, originally an enthusiastic supporter of Napoleon, had set the opera in Spain. Originally, this setting allowed for a critique of the ancien régime, as it was Napoleon’s forces that swept into Spain to sweep away Madrid’s old monarchical despotism. By 1814 he had revised both his political opinions and the plot of the opera. Now, Fidelio could be seen as an allegory of the Coalition’s ‘liberation’ of Spain from despotic French forces. 11 See, for example, the protocols of the sitting of 16 June 1815, reproduced in Verhandlungen in der Versammlung der Landstände des Königreichs Württemberg im Jahre 1815–​1819, Vol.8 (Stuttgart: Cottas Erben, 1815), 77–​91; Hartwig Brandt, ‘Adel und Konstitutionalismus. Stationen eines Konflikts’, in Adel und Bürgertum in Deutschland 1770–​1848, ed. Elisabeth Fehrenbach (Munich: R. Oldenbourg, 1994), 76–​77. 12 Ludwig Uhland, Sechs vaterländische Gedichte (Stuttgart: 1816), especially ‘Würtemberg’, 6–​7. 13 Karl August von Wangenheim, Die Idee der Staatsverfassung in ihrer Anwendung auf Wirtembergs alte Landesverfassung und den Entwurf zu deren Erneuerung (Frankfurt/​ Main: Bernard Körner, 1815), 15. 14 Ibid., 68. 15 Ibid., 21. 16 Ibid., 27–​30. 17 Ibid., vii. 18 James D. Post, The Last Subsistence Crisis in the Western World (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1977), passim. 19 Dieter Langewiesche, Liberalismus und Demokratie, 27; Walter Grube, Der Stuttgarter Landtag 1457–​1957. Von den Landständen zum demokratischen Parlament (Stuttgart: Ernst Klett, 1957), 510; Hans Medick, ‘The So-​Called “Laichingen Hunger Chronicle” ’, History Workshop Journal 40 (Autumn 1995), 212. 20 Wilhelm I. Württemberg, ‘I. Edikt, mehrfache Änderungen im Abgabenwesen betreffend‘, Stuttgart, 18 November 1817, Königlich Württembergische Staats-​und Regierungsblatt, 1817; Walter Grube, Der Stuttgarter Landtag, 511. 21 Gert Kollmer-​von Oheimb-​Loup, Innovation und Zollverein. Die Reaktion württembergischer Textilindustrieller auf den Deutschen Zollverein 1834–​1874 (St. Katharinen: Scripta Mercaturae Verlag, 1996), 6–​7. 22 Loyd E. Lee, ‘Liberal Constitutionalism as Administrative Reform: The Baden Constitution of 1818’, Central European History 8, no.2 (June 1975), 92. 23 Paul Sauer, Baden-​Württemberg: Bundesland mit parlamentarischen Traditionen (Stuttgart: Landtag des Bundeslands Baden-​Württemberg, 1982), 23, 54. 24 Karl Julius Weber, Reise durch das Königreich Württemberg (Stuttgart: J. F. Steinkopf Verlag, 1978), 144. 25 Friedrich I. Württemberg to Heinrich Karl Friedrich Levin von Wintzingerode, Ludwigsburg, 10 May 1815, in Albert Pfister, Aus dem Lager der Verbündeten 1814 und 1815 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-​Anstalt, 1897), 340. 26 Friedrich List, ‘Reutlinger Petition’ (1821), in Friedrich Lists gesammelte Schriften, ed. Ludwig Häusser, Vol.1 (Stuttgart and Tübingen: J. G. Cotta’sche Verlag, 1850), 75. 27 Gert Kollmer-​von Oheimb-​Loup, Innovation und Zollverein, 6–​7. 28 Despite its name, the Viennese Declaration was actually ratified in Darmstadt, rather than Vienna. The discussions that led to the Darmstadt conference, however, began in late 1819 in Vienna, hence the appellation ‘Viennese’. W. O. Henderson, The Zollverein, 58. 29 Ibid., 59–​61. 30 James J. Sheehan, German History 1770–​1866, 407.

168

Notes

31 Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum Stein to Count Ernst Friedrich Herbert zu Münster, 1 December 1812, in John R. Seeley, Life and Times of Stein, or, Germany and Prussia in the Napoleonic Age, Vol.3 (Cambridge: University Press, 1878), 17. 32 James J. Sheehan, German History 1770–​1866, 407. See also Ernst Rudolf Huber, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 1781, Vol.1: Reform und Restauration 1789 bis 1830 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1957), 730–​731. 33 British Envoys to Germany 1816–​1866, ed. Sabine Freitag and Peter Wende, Vol.1: 1816–​1829 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2000), 349. 34 Karl August von Wangenheim, Die Idee der Staatsverfassung, 4. 35 Brook Taylor to Castlereagh, No.42, Stuttgart, 22 November 1817, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 316. 36 George H. Rose to the Foreign Office, contained in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 88–​116. 37 Karl Wilhelm Heinrich du Bos du Thil to Foreign Ministry (Hesse-​Darmstadt), No.99, Vienna, 27 March 1820. Hes.StAD.G1/​147/​7. 38 Walter Grube, Der Stuttgarter Landtag, 501. 39 Friedrich Ludwig Lindner, Manuskript aus Süd-​Deutschland (London: James Griphi, 1821), 227–​228. 40 Ibid., 236. 41 Ibid., 256–​257. 42 British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 334. 43 Friedrich Ludwig Lindner, Ueber die gegenwärtige Lage von Europa (Frankfurt/​Main and Leipzig: Friedrich Ludwig Lindner, 1821), 17–​18. 44 Peter Burg, Die Deutsche Trias in Idee und Wirklichkeit: vom Alten Reich zum Deutschen Zollverein (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner. 1989), 180–​181. 45 Ibid., 180. 46 Hamilton Hamilton to Castlereagh, No.5, Stuttgart, 27 April 1822, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 335. 47 Hamilton to Castlereagh, No.5, Stuttgart, 27 April 1822, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 335. 48 Manfred Hettling, Reform ohne Revolution: Bürgertum, Bürokratie und kommunale Selbstverwaltung in Württemberg von 1800 bis 1850 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1990), 103–​104. 49 Hamilton to Castlereagh, No.5, Stuttgart, 27 April 1822, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 335; J. Shield Nicholson, ‘Memoir’, in Friedrich List, The National System of Political Economy, ed. Sampson S. Lloyd (London: Longmans, Green, 1909), xxxvii–​xxxviii; Rolland Ray Lutz, ‘The German Revolutionary Student Movement, 1819–​1833’, Central European History 4, no.3 (September 1971), 231; Louis L. Snyder, Roots of German Nationalism (Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1978), 7–​9. 50 W. O. Henderson, The Zollverein, 60–​61. 51 Ludwig Kirsch, Die Zoll-​und Reichssteuerverwaltungen im Großherzogthum Baden (Karlsruhe: Braun, 1885), 39. 52 Peter Burg, Die deutsche Trias in Idee und Wirklichkeit, 317–​318.

3  Models of German Unification, 1815–​1848 1 Hans-​Ulrich Wehler, ‘Der deutsche Nationalismus bis 1871’, in Scheidewege der deutschen Geschichte: Von der Reformation bis zur Wende 1517–​1989, ed. Hans-​Ulrich Wehler (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1995), 121.

Notes

169

2 Jakob Walter, Diary of a Napoleonic Foot Soldier (New York: Penguin, 1993), 105–​111. 3 ‘Ueber die teutschen Gesellschaften‘, Allemannia 1, no.1 (January 1815), 277. 4 Friedrich Schiller, ‘Das deutsche Reich’ (1797), in Johann Wolfgang von Goethe and Friedrich Schiller, Goethe-​Schillers Xenien. Aus dem Schillerschen ‘Musen-​Almanach für das Jahr 1797’ und dem ‘Xenien-​Manuscript’, ed. Adolf Stern (Leipzig: Philipp Reclam, 1871), 14. 5 Johann Peter Eckermann, Gespräche mit Goethe, Vol.3, 215. See also Franz Leander Fillafer and Jürgen Osterhammel, ‘Cosmopolitanism and the German Enlightenment’, in The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History, 119–​143. 6 Rogers Brubaker, Citizenship and Nationhood in France and Germany (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1992), 53; Max Weber, Economy and Society (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1978), 697. 7 Loyd E. Lee, ‘Liberal Constitutionalism as Administrative Reform’, 92. 8 Novalis, Glauben und Liebe, Fragment 22 (1798), in Novalis Werke, ed. Gerhard Schulz (Munich: C. H. Beck, 1981), 359. 9 Hans Kohn, ‘Romanticism and the Rise of German Nationalism’, The Review of Politics 12, no.4 (October 1950), 450. 10 Several historians, most notably Friedrich Meinecke, have attempted to distinguish between these varying forms of identity-​making. Meinecke viewed the distinctions between ‘people’ (Volk) and nation as being artificial and indefensible, preferring instead to draw a line between the ‘cultural nation’ (cosmopolitanism) and the ‘political nation’ (nationalism). However, this work contends that cosmopolitanism and nationalism are, in essence, integral elements of the same phenomenon, as both define a clear, ‘exceptional’ national identity. That Novalis and Goethe, among others, could not see their way clear to defining the borders of a German nation-​state hardly disqualified them as German proto-​nationalists, since they nevertheless focused on distinguishing the Germans from other peoples, while also championing the necessity of this German identity. For Meinecke’s arguments, see Friedrich Meinecke, Cosmopolitanism and the National State, passim; the insufficiency of previous definitions is discussed particularly on 12–​13. 11 Ernst Rudolf Huber, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 1789, Vol.1, 14. 12 Hallische Jahrbücher für deutsche Wissenschaft und Kunst, No.138, 10 June 1839. Originally, it was expected that the Schiller memorial would become the centrepiece of Schillerhöhe. Much to the disappointment of the Marbach authorities, the state had, in fact, earmarked it for the capital instead. 13 Edward Cromwell Disbrowe to Palmerston, No.8, Stuttgart, 15 February 1832. FO 82/​ 26; Hans-​Ulrich Wehler, Deutsche Gesellschaftsgeschichte, Vol.2: Von der Reformära bis zur industriellen und politischen ‘Deutschen Doppelrevolution’, 1815–​1845/​49 (Munich: Verlag C. H. Beck, 1989), 361–​362. 14 Mohl was also Crown Prince Karl’s personal tutor during his semester-​long period of study at Tübingen. 15 There were, however, limits to the state’s patience. The 1831 Landtag, which featured Pfizer as well as the Hochwächter editors, was dissolved by Wilhelm, citing its inability to get anything done. In 1845, Mohl, who frequently attacked the provisions of the Ludwigsburg Constitution, was removed from his professorship in Tübingen, though he was subsequently appointed to an equivalent (but rather less prestigious) chair at the University of Ulm. Donald G. Rohr, The Origins of Social Liberalism in Germany (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1963), 121. 16 James R. Sofka, ‘Metternich’s Theory of European Order: A Political Agenda for “Perpetual Peace” ’, The Review of Politics 60, no.1 (Winter 1998), 115.

170

Notes

17 Charles W. Stewart to Castlereagh, No.51, Vienna, 23 June 1816, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 458–​459. 18 Hartwig Brandt, Parlamentarismus in Württemberg, 1819–​1870: Anatomie eines deutschen Landtags (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1987), 31. 19 Paul Sauer, Reformer auf dem Königsthron: Wilhelm I. von Württemberg (Stuttgart. Deutsche Verlags-​Anstalt. 1997), 180–​182. 20 Stewart to Castlereagh, No.1, Vienna, 1 October 1819, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 490. 21 Taylor to Castlereagh, No.24, Stuttgart, 25 October 1819, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 326. 22 Taylor to Castlereagh, No.27, Stuttgart, 21 November 1819, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 327–​328; Peter Viereck, ‘New Views on Metternich’, The Review of Politics 13, no.2 (April 1951), 212. 23 Sudhir Hazareesingh, ‘Napoleonic Memory in Nineteenth-​Century France: The Making of a Liberal Legend’, MLN 120, no.4 (September 2005), 747–​773; see also the same author’s The Legend of Napoleon (London: Granta, 2014), passim. 24 Brendan Simms, Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 214. 25 Heinrich von Treitschke, History of Germany in the 19th Century, Vol.2: The Germanic Confederation (London: G. Allen & Unwin, 1916), 212. 26 Charles Maurice de Talleyrand-​Périgord, Memoirs of the Prince de Talleyrand, Vol.2 (London: Griffith Farran Okeden and Welsh, 1891), 149. 27 Württemberg Consulate in Paris to Wilhelm I. Württemberg, No.2, 23 February 1819. See also, Le Moniteur Universel, No.5a, 21 February 1819; Württemberg Consulate in Paris to Wilhelm I. Württemberg, Le Corps du génie ort compore d’un état major general, des trois regiments l’une compagnie d’ouvrier, et l’un escadrille du train du génie and Dernier Tarif pour les Réparations d’armée, 23 February 1819. HStAS.E70a Bü.537; Württemberg Consulate in Paris to Wilhelm I. Württemberg, État complet de l’infanterie de la ligue française/​Organisation de l’artillerie du la Garde Royale, No.2, 23 February 1819. HStAS.E70a Bü.537; Heinrich A. Eckert, Das deutsche Bundesheer (Munich: 1835), 16. 28 Friedrich Ludwig Lindner, Manuskript aus Süd-​Deutschland, 215. 29 George Shee to Palmerston, No.29, Stuttgart, 9 October 1840. FO 82/​36. 30 Pamela Pilbeam, ‘The Growth of Liberalism and the Crisis of Bourbon Restoration, 1827–​1830’, The Historical Journal 25, no.2 (June 1982), 351–​366. 31 George Shee to Palmerston, No.29, Stuttgart, 9 October 1840. FO 82/​36. 32 Brendan Simms, Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 193–​194; Alan J. Reinerman, ‘Metternich, the Powers, and the 1831 Italian Crisis’, Central European History 10, no.3 (September 1977), 206–​211. 33 Edward Cromwell Disbrowe to Palmerston, No.13, Stuttgart, 24 March 1831. FO 82/​25. 34 Heinrich von Treitschke, History of Germany in the 19th Century, Vol.2, 164–​166; Gebhard Leberecht von Blücher to Friedrich August Wettin, Liège, 6 May 1815, in Ibid., 702–​703. 35 Carl von Clausewitz, ‘Agitation’, in Historical and Political Writings, ed. Peter Paret and Daniel Moran (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1992), 368. 36 Thomas Stamm-​Kuhlmann, König in Preußens große Zeit, 318; Andreas Dorpalen, ‘The German Struggle against Napoleon: The East German View’, The Journal of Modern History 41, no.4 (December 1969), 500; Walter M. Simon, ‘Prince Hardenberg’, 92. 37 Heinrich von Treitschke, History of Germany in the 19th Century, Vol.2, 445–​446.

Notes

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38 Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom, 394. 39 Dennis E. Showalter, Railroads and Rifles: Soldiers, Technology and the Unification of Germany (St. Petersburg, FL: Hailer, 1975), 78–​80. 40 Württemberg Consulate in Berlin, Disposition zur Manöver den 14. September 1821, Berlin, 14 September 1821. HStAS.E14 Bü.824. 41 Dennis E. Showalter, Railroads and Rifles, 79–​80, 99; Sigurd Rabe, Das Zündnadelgewehr greift ein (Leipzig: Lühe, 1938), 18; Friedrich Meinecke, Das Leben des Generalfeldmarschalls Hermann von Boyen, Vol.2 (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1899), 527–​528. 42 Johann Georg August von Hartmann to Holz, Stuttgart, 13 August 1830. HStAS. E75 Bü.172; Wilhelm I. Württemberg, ‘Betrachtungen über die politisch-​militärische Stellung von Süddeutschland‘, November 1830. HStAS.E9 Bü.25; Robert D. Billinger, Jr., ‘The War Scare of 1831 and Prussian-​South German Plans for the End of Austrian Dominance in Germany’, Central European History 9, no.3 (September 1976), 214–​215. 43 Wilhelm Roscher, Zur Gründungsgeschichte des Zollvereins (Berlin: Stilke & van Muyden, 1870), 5. 44 Hans-​Werner Hahn, Geschichte des Deutschen Zollverein (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1984), 5 and passim. 45 Friedrich List, Die politisch-​ökonomische Nationaleinheit der Deutschen. Aufsätze aus dem Zollvereinsblatt und andere Schriften der Spätzeit, ed. Friedrich Lenz and Erwin Wiskemann (Berlin: R. Hobbing, 1931), 167. 46 Heinrich von Gagern, Deutscher Liberalismus im Vormärz: Briefe und Reden, 1815–​1848, ed. Paul Wentzcke and Wolfgang Klötzer (Göttingen: Musterschmidt, 1959), 137. 47 Friedrich Wilhelm Schubert, Handbuch der allgemeinen Staatskunden von Europa, Vol.1 Part 3: Die Reiche Spanien und Portugal (Königsberg: Gebrüder Bornträger, 1836), 127. 48 Henry Watkin Williams Wynn to George Canning, No.4, Stuttgart, 3 June 1823, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 349; Wynn to Canning, No.6, Stuttgart, 9 June 1823, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 350; Wynn to Canning, No.11, Baden, 17 July 1823, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 351. 49 Heinrich Christian Gustaf von Kombst, Der deutsche Bundestag gegen Ende des Jahres 1832. Eine politische Skizze (Strasbourg: G. L. Schuler, 1836), 22. 50 Karl August von Wangenheim to Johann Georg August von Hartmann, Coburg, 23 June 1831, in Karl Viktor von Riecke, ‘Zur Vorgeschichte des Deutschen Zollvereins. Auszüge aus Briefen des Freiherrn K.A. v. Wangenheim’, WVLG 2 (1879), 110. 51 Peter Burg, Die deutsche Trias in Idee und Wirklichkeit, 349; Wangenheim to Hartmann, Coburg, 30 August 1833, in Karl Viktor von Riecke, ‘Zur Vorgeschichte des Deutschen Zollvereins‘, 111. 52 Brian E. Vick, The Congress of Vienna, 107–​108. 53 Henry Wynn to Canning, No.22, Stuttgart, 18 June 1824, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.1, 357. 54 Henry Wellesley to Aberdeen, No.3, Stuttgart, 5 January 1843. FO 82/​42. 55 Carl Frisch, ‘Vortrag von Oberfinanzrat Fritz im Oberfinanzkollegium über die Selbstadministration von Weinzehnten und Weingefällen bei der Kameralverwaltung‘, Stuttgart, 15 May 1820. HStAS.E221 No.2626. 56 C. L. K., ‘German Art of the Eighteenth Century’, Germanic Museum Bulletin 1, no.2 (March 1936), 10.

172

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57 Otto Borst, Geschichte Baden-​Württembergs, 275. 58 Klaus Megerle, Württemberg im Industrialisierungsprozeß Deutschlands: Ein Beitrag zur regionalen Differenzierung der Industrialisierung (Stuttgart: Klett-​ Cotta, 1982), 165–​166; Arthur Mülberger, Die Eisenbahnreform in Württemberg (Tübingen: Laupp’schen Buchhandlung, 1896), 3. 59 Allan Mitchell, The Great Train Race: Railways and the Franco-​German Rivalry 1815–​ 1914 (New York: Berghahn, 2000), 46; Willi A. Boelcke, ‘Wege und Probleme des industriellen Wachstums im Königreich Württemberg’, ZWLG 32 (1973), 450. 60 Karl Christian von Berckheim to Leopold Zähringen, Karlsruhe, 6 March 1831. GlaB 46/​7153. See also Peter Burg, Die Deutsche Trias in Idee und Wirklichkeit, 243. 61 Albert Friedrich to Leopold Zähringen, Stuttgart, 15 February 1831. GlaB 48/​2748. See also Peter Burg, Die Deutsche Trias in Idee und Wirklichkeit, 244. For the reactions of the Badenese, and the counter-​offer of Metternich, see Friedrich Landolin Karl von Blittersdorf to the Badenese Foreign Ministry, Frankfurt, 2 April 1831. GlaB 48/​1463, and Clemens von Metternich to Ferdinand August Spiegel zum Desenberg, 21 April 1831, in Gesandtschaftsberichte aus München, ed. Anton Chroust, Vol.2: Die Berichte der österreichischen Gesandten (Darmstadt, 2001), 316. 62 Henry Wellesley to Palmerston, No.58, Stuttgart, 3 September 1834, in British Envoys to Germany, 1816–​1866, Vol.2: 1830–​1847, ed. Markus Mösslang, Sabine Freitag and Peter Wende (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002), 370. 63 Die Bote aus Westen, 19 February 1832; Allgemeine Zeitung, 8 November 1831. 64 Wilhelm Friedrich Schulz, Deutschlands Einheit durch Nationalrepräsentation (Stuttgart: Schweizerbart, 1832), passim; Das liberale Deutschland, 3 August 1831. 65 Ironically, this union, which seemed to confirm the possibility of regionalist south German cooperation, was first mooted by Hesse-​Darmstadt as a reactionary measure after the ‘catastrophe’ of the nationalist Hambach Festival in the Rhenish Palatinate. Similar to south Germany’s efforts to create a customs union, this organization would later form the template of a confederal police force whose seat would be Prussia. Wolfram Siemann, ‘Deutschlands Ruhe, Sicherheit und Ordnung’: Die Anfänge der politischen Polizei 1806–​1866 (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1985), 87–​115.

4  The Years of Prophecy and Change, 1848–​1849 1 Otto Borst, Geschichte Baden-​Württembergs, 200–​201. 2 Paul Sauer, ‘Stuttgart um 1840’, in Württemberg um 1840. Beiträge zum 150jährigen Bestehen des Württembergischen Geschichts-​und Altertumsvereins, ed. Hans-​Martin Maurer (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer Verlag, 1994), 108–​109. 3 Richard J. Evans, Death in Hamburg, 220. 4 Schwäbische Kronik, 3 October 1841. 5 Albrecht Ernst, ‘Symbol der Eintracht: Die Jubiläumssäule in Stuttgart’, Württembergischer Geschicht-​und Altertumsverein e.V. Rundbrief, no.12 (October 2012), 1–​2. 6 Julius Hartmann, Chronik der Stadt Stuttgart: 600 Jahre nach der ersten denkwürdigen Nennung der Stadt (1286) (Stuttgart: Greiner & Pfeiffer, 1886), 247. 7 Augustus Loftus to Palmerston, no.6, Stuttgart, 5 May 1847, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.2, 403. 8 Ibid., 403.

Notes

173

9 James J. Sheehan, German History 1770–​1866, 633. 10 F. Gustav Kühne, ‘Skizzen aus Schwaben’, Europa. Chronik der gebildeten Welt, no.28, 12 July 1849, 11. 11 Robert von Mohl, ‘Die Geschichte der württembergischen Verfassung von 1819’, Zeitschrift für die gesamte Staatswissenschaft 6, no.1 (1850), 47, 51. 12 Hartwig Brandt, Parlamentarismus in Württemberg, 52; Gustav Schmoller, ‘Die Resultate der pro 3. Dezember 1861 aufgenommenen Gewerbestatistik’, in Württembergische Jahrbücher für vaterländische Geschichte, Geographie, Statistik und Topographie (Stuttgart: Verlag von Karl Aue, 1862), 283. 13 ‘Die Wahl zur Ständeversammlung im Jahr 1819 (Oberamt Esslingen)’, StadtAE. I/​2 Bü.3; Hartwig Brandt, Parlamentarismus in Württemberg, 59. 14 Donald G. Rohr, The Origins of Social Liberalism in Germany, 121. 15 Württemberg Ministry of the Interior, ‘Wochenbericht’, Stuttgart, 24 November 1851, in Der Polizeiverein deutscher Staaten: Eine Dokumentation zur Überwachung der Öffentlichkeit nach der Revolution von 1848/​49, ed. Wolfram Siemann (Tübingen: Max Niemeyer Verlag, 1983), 210. 16 Alexander Malet to Palmerston, Stuttgart, 16 October 1846, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.2, 398–​399. 17 Theodor Mästle, ‘Württemberg und die Großmächte vom Wiener Kongreß bis zum Tode König Wilhelms I. (1815–​1864)’ (Tübingen: PhD diss., 1951), 100. 18 Heinrich Ritter von Srbik, Deutsche Einheit: Idee und Wirklichkeit vom Heiligen Reich bis Königgrätz, Vol.1 (Munich: 1935), 308. 19 Geoffrey Ellis, ‘The Revolution of 1848–​1849 in France’, in The Revolutions in Europe 1848–​1849: From Reform to Reaction, ed. R. J. W. Evans and Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 32–​33; Mike Rapport, 1848: Year of Revolution (London: Little, Brown, 2008), 193. 20 See, for instance, the string of reports in the Schwäbische Kronik, no.62–​78, 3–​19 March 1848. 21 There were some exceptions to this. Paul Friedrich von Maucler, whom Römer replaced, remained president of the privy council. Wilhelm also retained the services of Count Joseph Ignaz von Beroldingen, who had been foreign minister since 1823, and General Johann Georg Sontheim, the minister of war, who was also the bastard son of Duke Karl Eugen (and thus Wilhelm’s first cousin once removed). In spite of their survival in the new government, none of them would retain these positions by the end of the year. Alexander Malet to Palmerston, No.16, Stuttgart, 10 March 1848, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.3: 1848–​1850, ed. Markus Mösslang, Torsten Riotte and Hagen Schulze (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006), 311. 22 Alexander Malet to Palmerston, No.16, Stuttgart, 10 March 1848, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.3, 311. 23 Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom, 471–​475; R. J. W. Evans, ‘1848–​1849 in the Habsburg Monarchy’, in The Revolutions in Europe 1848–​1849, 194–​195. 24 Mathy was dismissed in 1834, and lived in Switzerland (the perpetual refuge for German liberal exiles) until 1840. Upon returning to Baden, he was elected to the Second Chamber, and took a leading role in Badenese activities at the National Assembly. This seems to have rehabilitated his political career, and he played leading roles in successive Badenese governments over the next two decades. Gustav Freytag, Karl Mathy: Geschichte seines Lebens (Leipzig: S. Hirzel, 1870), 263; British Envoys to Germany, Vol.III, 482.

174

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25 Der Beobachter, No.39, 10 April 1848. 26 Oberrheinische Zeitung, No.98, 7 April 1848. HStAS.E50/​01 Bü.765; Karl August von Wächter to Karl Ludwig Friedrich Roser, Karlsruhe, 8 April 1848. HStAS.E50/​ 01 Bü.765; Ralph C. Canevali, ‘The “False French Alarm”: Revolutionary Panic in Baden, 1848’, Central European History 18, no.2 (June 1985), 139; August von Rüpplin to Karl Ludwig Friedrich Roser, Stuttgart, 24 July 1848. HStAS.E50/​01 Bü.765; C. E. Barrett-​Lennard, Bismarck’s Pen: The Life of Heinrich Abeken (London: George Allen & Company, 1911), 118–​119. 27 Schwäbische Kronik, No.109, 19 April 1848. 28 To be fair, Römer had no official opponent. Franz Raberg, Biographisches Handbuch der württembergischen Landtagsabgeordneten 1815–​1933 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 2001), 734–​735. 29 Bernhard Mann, Die Württemberger und die deutsche Nationalversammlung 1848/​49 (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1975), 399–​409. 30 Karl von Sternenfels, ‘Die württembergischen Abgeordneten in den Fraktionen der Nationalversammlung (Oktober 1848)’, Frankfurt/​Main, 1 November 1848. HStAS. E50/​01 Bü.54. 31 Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom, 476–​479. 32 Ibid., 488–​489. 33 The word quarantotto (meaning forty-​eight) soon entered the Italian vernacular, as an adjective to describe something chaotic but frivolous. For a good overview of Italy’s revolutions, see Denis Mack Smith, ‘The Revolutions of 1848–​1849 in Italy’, in The Revolutions in Europe 1848–​1849, 55–​81, and Christopher Duggan, The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796 (London: Allen Lane, 2007), 169–​180. An excellent case study that focuses on the Venetian patriot Daniele Manin is Paul Ginsborg, Daniele Manin and the Venetian Revolution of 1848–​49 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1979); this work demonstrates the localized nature of even the most influential of the revolutionary movements. For an examination of the Italian ‘national’ movement led by Giuseppe Garibaldi, see Alfonso Scirocco, Garibaldi: Citizen of the World (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 2007), 138–​181. 34 Arthur Charles Magenis to Palmerston, No.19, Vienna, 15 June 1848, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.3, 410–​411. 35 R. J. W. Evans, ‘1848–​1849 in the Habsburg Monarchy’, in The Revolutions in Europe 1848–​1849, 187; Mike Rapport, 1848: Year of Revolution, 66–​69, 305. As a Hungarian, Lamberg is referred to in Rapport’s account by his Hungarian name, Ferenc, but in Austrian service he went by a ‘Germanized’ name. For the effect on other Hungarians in Austrian service, see Alan Sked, The Survival of the Habsburg Empire: Radetzky, the Imperial Army and the Class War, 1848 (London: Longman, 1979), 74–​80. 36 John Ponsonby to Palmerston, No.378, Vienna, 18 October 1848, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.3, 419–​421. 37 R. J. W. Evans, ‘1848–​1849 in the Habsburg Monarchy’, in The Revolutions in Europe 1848–​1849, 196. 38 Fröbel escaped the same fate, although he, too, was found guilty in a military court. This was because he had previously written a pamphlet defending Austria’s sovereignty even in the face of the German Question. As a result, he was pardoned, but exiled. Mike Rapport, 1848: Year of Revolution, 287–​288. 39 Walter Bußmann, Zwischen Preußen und Deutschland. Friedrich Wilhelm IV.: eine Biographie (Berlin: Siedler, 1990), 289.

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40 Manfred Görtemaker, Deutschland im 19. Jahrhundert: Entwicklungslinien (Bonn: Leske Verlag + Budrich, 1983), 119. 41 Ibid., 120. 42 Württembergische Zeitung, No.30, 12 August 1849.

5  Counterrevolution, Reaction and Reappraisals, 1850–​1859 1 Heinrich Ritter von Srbik, Deutsche Einheit: Idee und Wirklichkeit vom Heiligen Reich bis Königgrätz, Vol.2 (Munich: 1935), 22–​24. 2 Mark Hewitson, Nationalism in Germany, 1848–​1866: Revolutionary Nation (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2010), 67–​68. 3 Brendan Simms, Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 217. 4 Geoffrey Wawro, The Austro-​Prussian War: Austria’s War with Prussia and Italy in 1866 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007), 37–​38. 5 A. J. P. Taylor curiously implies that Prussia entered Hesse-​Kassel on behalf of Elector Friedrich Wilhelm. In reality, the opposite was the case. A. J. P. Taylor, The Course of German History, 100; Ralph Flenley, Modern German History (London: J. M. Dent, 1959), 196; H. A. L. Fisher, A History of Europe (London: Edward Arnold, 1949), 928. 6 Bavaria’s 1848 was more disruptive than Württemberg’s, though. Unrest in Munich led King Ludwig to sign a new constitution into law that stripped him of many of his powers. The final straw came when more riots and public disapproval erupted after he attempted to engineer Bavarian citizenship for his mistress, the Irish actress Lola Montez. Embarrassed and humiliated, Ludwig abdicated, passing the crown to his son Maximilian. Bruce Seymour, Lola Montez: A Life (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1996), 217–​224. 7 Paul Sauer, Reformer auf dem Königsthron, 508. 8 Staats-​Anzeiger für Württemberg, 18 August 1850. 9 Karl Johannes Grauer, Wilhelm I., König von Württemberg: Ein Bild seines Lebens und seiner Zeit (Stuttgart: Schwabenverlag, 1960), 300. 10 Paul Sauer, Reformer auf dem Königsthron, 508; Henry Wellesley to Palmerston, No.395, Frankfurt/​Main, 14 November 1850, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.3, 98. 11 Manteuffel believed that Prussia had been provoked into intervening in Hesse-​ Kassel, so as to be discredited. This opinion was shared by the British minister at the confederal diet, Baron Cowley, who believed that ‘the Prussian Government fell into the snare, if it is fair to call it that’. Henry Wellesley to Palmerston, No.395, Frankfurt/​ Main, 14 November 1850, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.3, 98. 12 Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Das Ringen um den nationalen Staat: Die Gründung und der innere Ausbau des Deutschen Reiches unter Otto von Bismarck 1850–​1890 (Berlin: Propyläen Verlag, 1993), 77. 13 Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany, Vol.I: The Period of Unification, 1815–​1871 (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990), 71–​74. 14 Alan Palmer, Twilight of the Habsburgs: The Life and Times of Emperor Francis Joseph (New York: Atlantic Monthly Press, 1994), 58–​62. 15 Staats-​Anzeiger für Württemberg, No.167, 14 July 1850; Staats-​Anzeiger für Württemberg, No.40–​41, 15–​16 February 1850; Staats-​Anzeiger für Württemberg, No.296, 14 December 1861. 16 Manfred Hanisch, Für Fürst und Vaterland, 12, 152.

176

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17 Neue Münchner Zeitung, No.2, 3 January 1849. 18 Heinrich Ritter von Srbik, Deutsche Einheit, Vol.2, 89. 19 Karl Ludwig von der Pfordten to Maximilian II Wittelsbach, 2 March 1852, cited in Manfred Hanisch, Für Fürst und Vaterland, 152–​153. 20 Statistics here are taken from estimates calculated in 1843. Kann suggests, however, that these statistics may have been manipulated so as to give the Germans greater numerical representation in Austria. If this is so, it is possible that the German majority in Austria’s confederal territories, however slim, may in fact have been a minority. Robert A. Kann, A History of the Habsburg Empire, 606. 21 Matthias Schulz, ‘A Balancing Act: Domestic Pressures and International Systemic Constraints in the Foreign Policies of the Great Powers, 1848–​1851’, German History 21, no.3 (July 2003), 337–​338. 22 Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Das Ringen um den nationalen Staat, 55–​56. 23 Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom, 410–​411; Helmut Walser Smith, ‘Authoritarian State, Dynamic Society, Failed Imperialist Power, 1878–​1914’, in The Oxford Handbook of Modern German History, 310; Matthew P. Fitzpatrick, Purging the Empire: Mass Expulsions in Germany, 1871–​1914 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2015), 93. 24 Caitlin E. Murdock, ‘Tourist Landscapes and Regional Identities in Saxony, 1878–​ 1938’, Central European History 40, no.4 (December 2007), 600; D. B. Horn, ‘Saxony in the War of the Austrian Succession’, The English Historical Review 44, no.173 (January 1929), 33; Józef Andrzej Gierowski, ‘Centralisation and Autonomy in the Polish-​Saxon Union’, Harvard Ukrainian Studies 3/​4 (1979/​1980), 271–​284. 25 Nikolaus Back, Revolution in Württemberg 1848/​49. Schwaben im politischen Aufbruch (Karlsruhe: Der Kleine Buch Verlag, 2014), 177. 26 Ian Kershaw, Popular Opinion and Political Dissent in the Third Reich: Bavaria, 1933–​ 1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2002), 229. 27 Aufwartung am Neujahrs-​Tage 1851, Munich. HStAS.E50/​05 Bü.162. 28 Abigail Green, ‘Representing Germany? The Zollverein at the World Exhibitions, 1851–​1862’, The Journal of Modern History 75, no.4 (December 2003), 847–​848. 29 Detlef Jena, Königin Olga von Württemberg: Glück und Leid einer russischen Großfürstin (Regensburg: Friedrich Pustet, 2009), 204. 30 Paul Sauer, Reformer auf dem Königsthron, 547–​549. 31 Ibid., 515. 32 Ibid., 516. 33 Bettine von Arnim is better known as ‘Bettina’, the name which appeared on most of her works. She was christened as Bettina Brentano. However, she personally preferred the construction ‘Bettine’, and signed her correspondence as such; this preferred form is reflected here. 34 Karl Württemberg to Bettine von Arnim, Stuttgart, 30 August 1842, in Lieber Kronprinz! Liebe Freundin! Briefwechsel zwischen Bettine von Arnim und Karl von Württemberg, ed. Ulrike Landfester and Friderike Loos (Heidelberg: Manutius, 1998), 61–​64. 35 Neues Tagblatt für Stuttgart und Umgegend, No.156, 10 July 1845. HStAS.P10 Bü.849. 36 Fritz Hellwag, Varnbüler und die deutsche Frage 1864–​1866 (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1934), 3. 37 It is more likely that Wilhelm was referring to Karl’s same-​sex desires, rather than his masturbatory habits. 38 Detlef Jena, Königin Olga, 205.

Notes

177

39 Paul Sauer, Reformer auf dem Königsthron, 515; Peter Hoffmann, Die diplomatische Beziehungen zwischen Württemberg und Bayern im Krimkrieg und bis zum Beginn der italienischen Krise 1853–​1858 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1963), 9; Eveline von Massenbach, Das Tagebuch der Baronin Eveline von Massenbach, Hofdame der Königin Olga von Württemberg (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer, 1987), 113. Wilhelm, who had initially approved of Olga, told Varnbüler that he thought of her as ‘clever, as these women mostly are’. 40 Orlando Figes, Crimea: The Last Crusade (London: Penguin, 2011), xix. 41 Paul Sauer, Reformer auf dem Königsthron, 549–​550. 42 Manfred Hanisch, Für Fürst und Vaterland, 152. 43 Paul Sauer, Reformer auf dem Königsthron, 551. 44 Stephen van Evera, ‘Offense, Defense, and the Causes of War’, International Security 22, no.4 (Spring 1988), 28. 45 Hildegard von Spitzemberg, 12 January 1859, in Das Tagebuch der Baronin Spitzemberg 1859–​1914 (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1961), 41. 46 Der Beobachter, No.30–​32, 6–​9 February 1859. 47 Dieter Langewiesche, Liberalismus und Demokratie in Württemberg, 286. 48 Hildegard von Spitzemberg 29 April 1859, in Tagebuch, 42. 49 Le Moniteur, 3 May 1859. HStAS.E50/​01 Bü.875. 50 In the same journal entry, the young countess reported that the Royal Navy had put to sea and was heading for the Mediterranean to enter the war, presumably on the French side. This, of course, was nothing more than a spurious rumour. Hildegard von Spitzemberg, 27 April 1859, in Tagebuch, 41. 51 Arnold Blumberg, ‘Russian Policy and the Franco-​Austrian War of 1859’, The Journal of Modern History 26, no.2 (June 1954), 150. 52 Geoffrey Wawro, The Austro-​Prussian War, 11–​12. 53 Michael Howard, The Franco-​Prussian War: The German Invasion of France, 1870–​ 1871 (London: Routledge, 2008), 17. 54 Karl August von Wächter to Karl Eugen von Hügel, No.1466, Paris, 12 July 1859. HStAS.E50/​01 Bü.875. 55 Adolf von Ow to Hügel, Vienna, 12 July 1859. HStAS.E50/​01 Bü.875. 56 Dieter Langewiesche, Liberalismus und Demokratie in Württemberg, 288–​289.

6  Six Years of Autumn, 1860–​1866 1 Reiner Flik, Die Textilindustrie in Calw und Heidenheim 1750–​1870 (Stuttgart: Franz Steiner, 1990), 39–​41. 2 Gert Kollmer-​von Oheimb-​Loup, Innovation und Zollverein, 281. 3 Hans Medick, Weben und Überleben in Laichingen 1650–​1900: Lokalgeschichte als Allgemeine Geschichte (Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1997), 380. 4 Reiner Flik, Die Textilindustrie in Calw und Heidenheim, 177–​178. 5 Ibid., 182–​183. 6 Ibid., 377. 7 Gert Kollmer-​von Oheimb-​Loup, Innovation und Zollverein, 168–​193. See also Gerlinde Runge, Die Volkspartei in Württemberg von 1864 bis 1871. Die Erben der 48er Revolution im Kampf gegen die preussischkleindeutsche Lösung der nationalen Frage (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1970), 6.

178

Notes

8 Gert Kollmer-​von Oheimb-​Loup, Innovation und Zollverein, 281. 9 Gerlinde Runge, Die Volkspartei in Württemberg, 7. 10 Albrecht Koberstädt, ‘Energieprobleme im Oberamt Heidenheim. Ein Beitrag zur Wirtschafts-​und Sozialgeschichte der Region Ostalb’ (Schwäbisch Hall: PhD diss., 1980), passim; Reiner Flik, Die Textilindustrie in Calw und Heidenheim, 40–​41. 11 Uwe Siedentop, Die Brenztalbahn (Heidenheim: Uwe Siedentop, 1984), 108–​115. 12 Preussische Statistik, Vol.8 (Berlin: Preussisches Königliches Statistisches Landesamt, 1865), 131. 13 Allan Mitchell, The Great Train Race, 46; Arthur Mülberger, Die Eisenbahnreform in Württemberg, 16. 14 Martin Kitchen, ‘Friedrich Engels’ Theory of War’, Military Affairs 41, no.3 (October 1977), 120; Dennis E. Showalter, Railroads and Rifles, 165. 15 Dennis E. Showalter, Railroads and Rifles, 94. 16 Martin Kitchen, ‘Friedrich Engels’ Theory of War’, 120. 17 The French would also take advantage of this well into the 1850s; most of their infantry in the Crimean War was armed not with new rifles, but old muskets equipped with expanding Minié bullets. Dennis E. Showalter, Railroads and Rifles, 99. 18 Geoffrey Wawro, ‘An ‘Army of Pigs’: The Technical, Social, and Political Bases of Austrian Shock Tactics, 1859–​1866’, The Journal of Military History 59, no.3 (July 1995), 411. 19 Karl Folliot-​Crenneville, Die österreichische Nordarmee und ihr Führer in Jahre 1866 (Vienna: Wilhelm Braumüller, 1906), 33; Helmuth von Moltke, ‘De l’influence des armes perfectionées sur le combat’, Militär-​Wochenblatt, 8 July 1865. 20 Julius Schön, Das gezogene Infanterie-​Gewehr: Kurze Darstellung der Waffensysteme der Neuzeit und ihrer Anwendung in den Armeen Europas (Dresden: C. Höckner, 1854), 39. 21 Dennis E. Showalter, Railroads and Rifles, 94. 22 Albert Pfister, Deutsche Zwietracht, Erinnerungen aus meiner Leutnantszeit (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta, 1902), 36–​37. 23 In peacetime, one battery of foot artillery was kept in reserve, rather than in active service. Karl Pfaff, Geschichte des Militärwesens in Württemberg (Stuttgart: Schweizenbart, 1842), 135. 24 Morton Borden, ‘Friedrich Engels on Rifled Cannon’, Part 1, Military Affairs 21, no.2 (Summer 1957), 75–​76; Morton Borden, ‘Friedrich Engels on Rifled Cannon’, Part 2, Military Affairs 21, no.4 (Winter 1957), 194; Kraft Karl August Eduard Friedrich zu Hohenloe-​Ingelfingen, Auszeichnungen aus meinen Leben, Vol.1 (Berlin: 1897), 120–​121. 25 Arthur Mülberger, Die Eisenbahnreform in Württemberg, 90–​91. 26 Dennis E. Showalter, Railroads and Rifles, 27. 27 Karl Eduard Pönitz, Die Eisenbahnen und ihre Benutzung aus militärischen Operazionslinien (Adorf: Verlags-​Bureau, 1853), 42–​48; Klaus-​Jürgen Bremm, Von der Chaussee zur Schiene: Militärstrategie und Eisenbahnen in Preussen von 1833 bis zum Feldzug von 1866 (Munich: Oldenbourg Wissenschaftsverlag, 2005), 137. 28 Abigail Green, Fatherlands, 233; Allan Mitchell, The Great Train Race, 47; Dennis E. Showalter, Railroads and Rifles, 33. 29 Captain Karl Eduard Pönitz, the Saxon soldier and military writer, and great proponent of the railways, also suggested eloquently and forcefully in his monograph Die Vertheidigung von Süddeutschland that the states such as Württemberg and Hesse-​Darmstadt would in fact benefit from the advantages of collective security that

Notes

179

would arise from a standardized German network. In practice, this was not the case, particularly for Württemberg; instead, for many years the Württemberg network was all but isolated from the rest of Germany by dint of Bavaria’s desire to circumvent the kingdom’s lines for reasons of commerce. Even on the eve of the Reichsgründung in 1871, Württemberg was essentially on its own. Dennis E. Showalter, Railroads and Rifles, 34; Karl Eduard Pönitz, Die Vertheidigung von Süddeutschland gegen die Franzosen, mit Zuziehung der Eisenbahnen, unter Berücksichtigung der verschiedenen Spurweiten (Tübingen: J. G. Cotta, 1844), passim. 30 See Paul Sauer, Reformer auf dem Königsthron, 551. 31 Hildegard von Spitzemberg, 14 April 1859, in Tagebuch, 41. 32 Ferdinand von Beust to Hügel, No.57, Dresden, 19 July 1860. HStAS.E50/​01 Bü.877. 33 John Ralph Milbanke to John Russell, No.63, Munich, 28 May 1861, in British Envoys to Germany 1816–​1866, Vol.4: 1851–​1866, ed. Markus Mösslang, Chris Manias and Torsten Riotte (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 427. 34 Ibid., 426. 35 George John Robert Gordon to Russell, No.65, Stuttgart, 28 May 1861, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.4, 365–​369. 36 Milbanke to Russell, No.63, Munich, 28 May 1861, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.4, 426. 37 Rhein-​Lahn-​Zeitung, No.94, 22 June 1859. Emphasis in original. 38 Gordon to Russell, No.21, Karlsruhe, 16 February 1862, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.4, 371–​375. Emphasis in original. 39 On this note, he butted heads more than once with his Bavarian counterparts, who saw Prussia as the greater of the two evils. Manfred Hanisch, Für Fürst und Vaterland, 153. 40 Paul Sauer, Reformer auf dem Königsthron, 557–​558. 41 Ibid., 558. 42 Ibid., 559. 43 Walther Peter Fuchs, Die deutschen Mittelstaaten und die Bundesreform 1853–​1860 (Berlin: Ebering, 1934), 177–​180. 44 Heinrich Ritter von Srbik, Deutsche Einheit: Idee und Wirklichkeit vom Heiligen Reich bis Königgrätz, Vol.3 (Munich: 1935), 314. 45 Gordon to Russell, No.127, Stuttgart, 30 August 1860. FO 82/​95. 46 Unruh maintained some ties to the Prussian government through the auspices of the liberal historian and parliamentarian Maximilian Duncker, but the relationship was often strained due to Unruh’s republican sentiments. Andreas Biefang, Politisches Bürgertum in Deutschland 1857–​1868. Nationale Organisationen und Eliten (Düsseldorf: Droste, 1994), 70. 47 Constitutionelle Zeitung, No.165, 14 June 1859. HStAS.E50/​01 Bü.877. 48 Gerlinde Runge, Die Volkspartei in Württemberg, 16. 49 Ibid., 23. 50 Burger and Majer were not the only ones to argue that the Nationalverein was an irrelevance. The British also took a dim view of it. Gordon argued that south German governments would resist the Nationalverein if it became a genuine political force, because its platform ‘would only be a very short and easy step towards a Borussification of Germany and it is most natural therefore, that it should be looked upon with great apprehension [ . . . ] by the Sovereigns, Governments, and even by a considerable part, perhaps the majority of the populations of the numerous petty German States, whose independence, nay whose very existence, (I speak of the Dynasties) is thus directly

180

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menaced’. But this would not eventuate, he assured Russell, because ‘it is all talk and nothing else; no action of any sort anywhere follows from it’. Gordon to Russell, No.17, Stuttgart, 11 February 1862, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.4, 369; Gordon to Russell, No.21, Karlsruhe, 16 February 1862, in in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.4, 371; Wolfram Siemann, Deutschlands Ruhe, Sicherheit und Ordnung, 300–​301. 51 Gerlinde Runge, Die Volkspartei in Württemberg, 23–​24. 52 Willy Real, Der Deutsche Reformverein. Großdeutsche Stimmen und Kräfte zwischen Villafranca und Königgrätz (Lübeck: Matthiesen, 1966), passim. 53 Paul Sauer, Reformer auf dem Königsthron, 570–​571. 54 Staats-​Anzeiger für Württemberg, 24 January 1864. 55 Paul Sauer, Reformer auf dem Königsthron, 570. 56 Hans Gerber, ‘König Wilhelm I. von Württemberg als Bauherr und Regent –​Zum 150. Todestag des Hofbaumeisters Giovanni Salucci’, Schwäbische Heimat 46, no.3 (1995), 242. 57 Fritz Hellwag, Varnbüler und die deutsche Frage, 4. 58 Hildegard von Spitzemberg, Tagebuch, 49–​50. 59 Jonathan Steinberg, Bismarck: A Life, 108. 60 The term Realpolitik has no satisfactory English equivalent, though at times it has been described as ‘realism’. At the heart of Realpolitik is a sense of rational and ruthless diplomacy, and a means of measuring the potential success of a certain course of action against its risks. Realpolitik was conceived as a method of undertaking politics entirely through logic and reason, rather than having any emotive objectives; it is for this reason that Bismarck rejected the notion that a state with a political system based on and influenced by religion could engage in Realpolitik since, to him, faith and self-​ interest were incompatible, yet the state must be guided by the latter for its own good. This often meant that Bismarck could pursue foreign policy objectives well beyond the limits thought prudent by other politicians, and his course of action was not always predictable (except in hindsight). For a good discussion of the origins, meaning and limits of Realpolitik, see Jonathan Steinberg, Bismarck: A Life, 130–​133, 169–​170. 61 Franz Joseph Habsburg to Wilhelm I. Hohenzollern, Vienna, 6 August 1863, in Dokumente der Deutschen Politik und Geschichte von 1848 bis zur Gegenwart: Ein Quellenwerk für die politische Bildung und staatsbürgerliche Erziehung, ed. Johannes Hohlfeld, Vol.1 (Amsterdam: Swets & Zeitlinger, 1973), 131. 62 Wilhelm I. Hohenzollern to Franz Joseph Habsburg, Gastein, 7 August 1863, in Dokumente der Deutschen Politik und Geschichte, 132. 63 Friedrich Karl Gottlob Varnbüler von und zu Hemmingen, Ueber die Frage eines deutschen Heimathrechtes (Stuttgart: Verlag von Aug. Schaber, 1864), passim. HStAS. E40/​16 Bü.66. 64 Ibid., 31. 65 Karlsruher Anzeiger, No.43, 20 February 1863. HStAS.P10 Bü.849. 66 Friedrich Karl Gottlob Varnbüler von und zu Hemmingen, Address to the 32nd Sitting of the German Reichstag, 28 April 1877. HStAS.P10 Bü.849. 67 Hartwig Brandt, Parlamentarismus in Württemberg, 736. 68 Otto von Bismarck to Varnbüler, Gastein, 16 August 1864. HStAS.P10 Bü.731. 69 This was, in actual fact, not the case. The Austrians had largely carried battles only by sheer weight of numbers. Geoffrey Wawro, ‘An “Army of Pigs” ’, 425–​428. 70 Verhandlungen der Württembergischen Kammer der Abgeordneten auf dem Landtag, Ltg. 1862/​65, Kammer der Abgeordneten, 83. Sitzung, 5.1.65.

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71 Folkert Nanninga, ‘Zur “deutschen” Politik des württembergischen Außenministers von Varnbüler in den Jahren 1864 bis 1870’, ZWLG 32 (1973), 114. 72 Hartwig Brandt, Parlamentarismus in Württemberg, 737. 73 ‘Die Schiessübungen der k. preussischen Infanterie’, Österreichische Militärische Zeitschrift 3 (1865), 19–​20. 74 Brendan Simms, Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 232–​233. 75 Lothar Gall, Bismarck, Vol.1 (London: Allen & Unwin, 1986), 272–​273. 76 Austria had little choice but to accept Prussian demands at Gastein. In a confidential dispatch to London, the British ambassador to Vienna explained that Austria’s financial position was by now precarious: ‘The Army was in its usual good condition, but the Finances required the greatest watching, there were no available funds, the Treasury was empty and all the energies of the Government must be directed to place in order the Revenues and Resources of the Empire.’ Thus, even though ‘the Emperor of Austria may feel himself injured by the late proceedings of the Prussian Government’, Vienna simply could not afford to ‘involve the Empire in incalculable expense at a moment too when She finds great difficulty in raising money for any purpose whatever’. Because of this, the Austrian foreign minister, Count Alexander von Mensdorff-​Pouilly, was obliged to ‘make every concession to Prussia that was compatible with [Austria’s] honour’; in this case, Austria’s honour was best served by avoiding war. John Arthur Douglas Bloomfield to Russell, No.163, Vienna, 9 August 1865, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.4, 509–​510. 77 The response of the sympathetic Karlsruher Zeitung of Baden to this was a favourable but meek editorial, pointing out that ‘a formal alliance could take the form either of an offensive or a defensive alliance. [ . . . But] Austria does not want to attack another state, nor does it have a reason to expect an attack on its territory in the near future’. Varnbüler, having received this report in a diplomatic pouch from his representative in Karlsruhe, liberally underlined the most unlikely of justifications in pencil. Karlsruher Zeitung, 1 January 1866. HStAS.E70f No.164. 78 Karlsruher Zeitung, 3 April 1866. HStAS.E70f No.164. 79 Schwäbischer Merkur, 1 April 1866; Der Beobachter, No.76, 4 April 1866. 80 Gordon to Clarendon, No.21, Stuttgart, 28 March 1866, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.4, 390. 81 Folkert Nanninga, ‘Zur “deutschen” Politik des württembetgischen Außenministers von Varnbüler’, 120. 82 Heinrich von Poschinger, Fürst Bismarck und die Parlamentarier, Vol.3 (Breslau: E. Trewendt, 1892), 272. 83 Varnbüler to Wächter, Stuttgart, 10 June 1866, in Die Rheinpolitik Kaiser Napoleons III. von 1863 bis 1870 und der Ursprung des Krieges von 1870/​71, ed. Hermann Oncken, Vol.1: 1863 bis Juli 1866 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-​Anstalt, 1926), 258.

7  The Unification of Germany, 1866–​1871 1 Walter Bußmann, Das Zeitalter Bismarcks (Frankfurt/​Main: Akademische Verlagsgesellschaft Athenaion, 1968), 48. 2 Gordon A. Craig, The Battle of Königgrätz: Prussia’s Victory over Austria, 1866 (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003), 29.

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3 Gordon to Clarendon, No.21, Stuttgart, 28 March 1866, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.4, 390. 4 Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom, 526–​529; Geoffrey Wawro, ‘An “Army of Pigs” ’, 424–​425; Dennis E. Showalter, ‘Diplomacy and the Military in France and Prussia, 1870’, Central European History 4, no.4 (December 1971), 350. 5 Varnbüler to Wächter, Stuttgart, 10 June 1866, in Die Rheinpolitik Kaiser Napoleons III., Vol.1, 258. 6 It had presumably never occurred to the Badenese journalists that Italy might take advantage of Austria’s moment of weakness; in the event, it did so to dramatic effect. Karlsruher Zeitung, 1 January 1866. HStAS.E70f Bü.164. 7 ‘Notes on the War, No.1’, Manchester Guardian, 30 June 1866. 8 Bayerische Zeitung, No.103, 14 April 1866. 9 Bayerische Zeitung, No.155, 6 June 1866. 10 Karlsruher Zeitung, 7 May 1866. HStAS.E70f Bü.164; Oskar von Soden to Varnbüler, Karlsruhe, 7 May 1866. HStAS.E70f Bü.164. 11 Karl August von Wangenheim, Die Wahl des Freiherrn von Wangenheim, K. Würtembergischen Staatsministers ausser Dienst, zum Abgeordneten in die Würtembergische Ständeversammlung (Tübingen: Heinrich Laupp, 1832), ii. 12 ‘Report of 4.2.1865’, Stuttgart, 4 February 1865, in Quellen zur deutschen Politik Österreichs 1859–​1866, ed. Heinrich Ritter von Srbik, Vol.4: März 1864 bis August 1865 (Oldenburg: Stalling, 1937), 548. 13 Malet to Alois Kübeck von Kübau, President High Diet, Frankfurt/​Main, 27 May 1866. HStAS.E65 Bü.106. 14 Joseph Franz Peter von Linden, Address to Bundestag, 1 June 1866. HStAS.E65 Bü.106. 15 Malet to Kübeck, Frankfurt/​Main, 14 June 1866. HStAS.E65 Bü.106. 16 See, for example, Hildegard von Spitzemberg’s diary entries from January to June 1866, underscored in almost every instance by the ominous build-​up to war. Hildegard von Spitzemberg, Tagebuch, 66–​67. 17 Alexander Hesse, Feldzugs-​Journal des Oberbefehlshabers des 8ten. deutschen Bundes-​ Armee-​Corps im Feldzuge des Jahres 1866 in Westdeutschland (Darmstadt and Leipzig: Eduard Zernin, 1867), 39. 18 Geoffrey Wawro, The Austro-​Prussian War, 74. 19 Alexander Hesse, Feldzugs-​Journal, 40. 20 Colonel Wagner to Ministry of Foreign Affairs, No.638, 16 June 1866. HStAS.E271c Bü.803. 21 Hildegard von Spitzemberg, Tagebuch, 67. 22 Geoffrey Wawro, The Austro-​Prussian War, 74. 23 Garnison Ludwigsburg, Dislokation der Truppen am 18. Juni 1866. HStAS.E271c Bü.805. 24 Garnison Ludwigsburg, Dislokation der Truppen am 28. Juni 1866. HStAS.E271c Bü.805. 25 Alexander, Feldzugs-​Journal, 40–​41. 26 Geoffrey Wawro calculates the potential strength of the Bavarian Army at 100,000 men. In 1867, Wolfgang Menzel suggested that the figure was closer to 80,000. Menzel also claimed that, by the time the war ended, Bavaria had called up some 65,000 men for service, though whether they had actually reported for duty and been assigned and armed is extremely unlikely. In any event, what is certain is that the vast bulk of the Bavarian Army never saw action. Geoffrey Wawro, The Austro-​Prussian War, 74;

Notes

27 28 29 30 31

32 33 34 35 36

37

38 39

183

Wolfgang Menzel, Der Deutsche Krieg im Jahr 1866, in seinen Ursachen, seinem Verlauf und seinen nächsten Folgen, Vol.2 (Stuttgart: Adolph Krabbe, 1867), 6. G. B. Malleson, The Refounding of the German Empire, 1848–​1871 (London: Seeley, 1904), 125. August von Wendland to Karl Ludwig von der Pfordten, Paris, 1 July 1866, in Die Rheinpolitik Kaiser Napoleons III., Vol.1, 288. Hans A. Schmitt, ‘Prussia’s Last Fling: The Annexation of Hanover, Hesse, Frankfurt, and Nassau, June 15 –​October 8, 1866’, Central European History 8, no.4 (December 1975), 322–​323. Ibid., 323–​327. Interestingly, the author of this editorial seems to believe that Saxony would be an acceptable casualty of the war, once more demonstrating the fluid and inconsistent nature of the Third German membership. Karlsruher Zeitung, 7 May 1866; Soden to Varnbüler, Karlsruhe, 7 May 1866. HStAS.E70f Bü.164. Malet to Clarendon, No.60, Frankfurt, 5 May 1866, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.4, 85. Karlsruher Zeitung, 7 May 1866. HStAS.E70f Bü.164. Tobias C. Bringmann, Handbuch der Diplomatie 1815–​1953: Auswärtige Missionschefs in Deutschland und deutsche Missionschefs im Ausland von Metternich bis Adenauer (Munich: K. G. Saur, 2001), 184–​189; British Envoys in Germany, Vol.4, 538. Wächter to Varnbüler, Paris, 15 April 1866, in Die Rheinpolitik Kaiser Napoleons III., Vol.1, 136. Not even the Appeal to the Women and Girls was a success. The ministry first issued the call for armbands on 25 June, and a ministry memorandum indicates that ‘approximately 20,000’ would be required. By 5 July, even though the Neues Tagblatt had since rerun the advertisement twice (at cost of 4 fl 20 kr, but provided free of charge to the Ministry of War), only approximately 3,500 had been promised. Of these, the greatest contributors appear to have been the Countess von Taube of Stuttgart, who organized 880, the town of Isny, which donated some 840, and a Mrs. Böttigheimer of Friedrichstraße, Stuttgart, who offered the ministry 500 armbands at a charge of 7.5 kr apiece. Therefore, in spite of Hildegard von Spitzemberg’s enthusiastic claim that ‘the entire VIII. Army Corps wears the German colours’, there were in actual fact not enough armbands even to account for Württemberg’s first infantry contingent, which had been sent to Frankfurt on 17 June. Württemberg Ministry of War, ‘Aufruf an die Frauen und Jungfrauen’, Stuttgart, 25 June 1866; Württemberg Ministry of War to Lieutenant-​General Fidel von Baur, Stuttgart, 25 June 1866; F. Böttigheimer to Württemberg Ministry of War, Stuttgart, 30 June 1866; Isny Council to Württemberg Ministry of War, Isny, 4 July 1866; Countess von Taube to Württemberg Ministry of War, Stuttgart, 5 July 1866; Receipt from Neues Tagblatt to Württemberg Ministry of War, 12 July 1866. HStAS.E271c Bü.848. Hildegard von Spitzemberg, Tagebuch, 68. Between these days, the Prussians and the Austrians met at Podol, Náchod, Skalitz and Münchengrätz. The Austrians managed to beat a small Prussian force at Trautenau on 27 June, but lost almost 5,000 men in the process. Geoffrey Wawro, The Austro-​ Prussian War, 128–​180. Hildegard von Spitzemberg, Tagebuch, 68. Bismarck to Johanna von Bismarck, Jitschin, 2 July 1866, in Fürst Bismarcks Briefe an seine Braut und Gattin, ed. Herbert von Bismarck (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung, 1900), 571.

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40 Alexander von Mensdorff-​Pouilly to Richard von Metternich, Vienna, 2 July 1866 (2.30pm), in Die Rheinpolitik Kaiser Napoleons III., Vol.1, 297; Mensdorff to Richard von Metternich, Vienna, 2 July 1866 (9.50 pm), in Die Rheinpolitik Kaiser Napoleons III., Vol.1, 298. 41 Geoffrey Wawro, The Austro-​Prussian War, 124–​127. 42 Ibid., 208–​210. 43 Ibid., 274. 44 Hildegard von Spitzemberg, 8 July 1866, in Tagebuch, 69. 45 Bloomfield to Clarendon, No.411, Vienna, 5 July 1866, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.4, 513–​515. 46 Margaret Sterne, ‘The End of the Free City of Frankfort’, Journal of Modern History 30, no.3 (September 1958), 207. 47 Dennis E. Showalter, Railroads and Rifles, 138. 48 Heinrich Friedjung, Der Kampf um die Vorherrschaft in Deutschland, Vol.2 (Stuttgart: J. G. Cotta’sche Buchhandlung, 1917), 451. 49 Robert von der Goltz to Bismarck, Paris, 5 July 1866, in Die Rheinpolitik Kaiser Napoleons III., Vol.1, 304. 50 Wendland to Ludwig II. Wittelsbach, Paris, 9 July 1866, in ibid., 325. 51 Wendland to Ludwig II. Wittelsbach, Paris, 14 July 1866, in ibid., 350. 52 Goltz to Bismarck, Paris, 14 July 1866, in ibid., 353. 53 Ibid., 353. 54 Prussia only formally annexed Schleswig, Holstein, Hesse-​Kassel, Frankfurt and Hanover. However, twenty-​two other states joined the North German Confederation, either of their own free will or through the influence of Berlin. Brendan Simms, Europe: The Struggle for Supremacy, 234. 55 Pfordten to Ludwig II. Wittelsbach, Berlin, 13 August 1866, in Die Rheinpolitik Kaiser Napoleons III. von 1863 bis 1870 und der Ursprung des Krieges von 1870/​71, ed. Hermann Oncken, 2.Bd.: Juli 1866 bis Juli 1868 (Stuttgart: Deutsche Verlags-​Anstalt, 1926), 67. 56 Wolfgang Menzel, Der Deutsche Krieg, 69; Robert von Blumenthal to Bismarck, Sigmaringen, 14 August 1866. GStAPK III. HA I, Nr.4439; Blumenthal to Bismarck, Sigmaringen, 29 October 1866. GStAPK III. HA I, Nr.4439; Hildegard von Spitzemberg, 19 August 1866, in Tagebuch, 72. 57 Joseph Franz Peter von Linden to Varnbüler, Augsburg, 11 August 1866. HStAS.E40/​ 72 Bü.443; Verfassung des Bundes der vereinigten Staaten Süddeutschlands. HStAS.E40/​ 72 Bü.443. 58 Großherzoglich Mecklenburg-​Strelischer Offizieller Anzeiger für Gesetzgebung und Staatsverwaltung, No.10, 28 June 1867. PAdAA IAAb 88/​R641 Nr.11584. 59 Hilegard von Spitzemberg, 19 August 1866, in Tagebuch, 72. 60 Gordon to Edward Henry Stanley, No.8, Stuttgart, 18 July 1866, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.4, 391. 61 Ibid., 391. 62 Eduard von Kallee, ‘Ueber den Anteil des württembergischen Truppenkorps, der 1ten. Division des 8ten. Bundesarmeekorps, von dem Kriege gegen Preußen, besonders die Führung betreffend.’ HStAS.E271c Bü.916. For the multiple petitions from the public and press that led to this report, see HStAS.E271c Bü.915. 63 Der Beobachter, No.66, 20 March 1867. HStAS.E70f Bü.164. 64 Wendland to Ludwig II. Wittelsbach, Paris, 14 July 1866, in Die Rheinpolitik Kaiser Napoleons III., Vol.1, 350.

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65 Henry Francis Howard to Stanley, No.65, Munich, 21 August 1866, in British Envoys to Germany, Vol.4, 445–​446. 66 Wilhelm Treue, Wirtschafts-​und Technikgeschichte Preußens (Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, 1984), 487. 67 Ibid., 487. 68 This is especially astonishing, given that much of this debt was raised through the fighting of the Franco-​Prussian War of 1870 to 1871. Moreover, even though, by this stage, Germany had been united, the North German Confederation’s debt was paid without being subsidized by the southern states in any way. Adolph Wagner, ‘The National Debt of the German Empire’, The North American Review 174, no.547 (June 1902), 845–​846. 69 Gustav Dietrich and Alexander von Sybel to Bismarck, Berlin, 28 February 1868. BArch.R/​1401/​1524. 70 Julius Fröbel, ‘Circular’, 1 October 1867. HStAS.E40/​72 Bü.442. 71 Ibid. 72 Varnbüler to Chlodwig von Hohenlohe, Stuttgart, 15 May 1867. HStAS.E40/​72 Bü.442. Varnbüler to Karl Hugo von Spitzemberg, Stuttgart, 16 May 1867. HStAS.E40/​ 72 Bü.442. 73 Spitzemberg to Varnbüler, Berlin, 13 May 1867. HStAS.E40/​72 Bü.442. Spitzemberg to Varnbüler, Berlin, 18 May 1867. HStAS.E40/​72 Bü.442. 74 Julius Fröbel, ‘Circular’, 1 October 1867. HStAS.E40/​72 Bü.442. 75 Georg Herbert Münster von Derneburg, Der norddeutsche Bund und dessen Übergang zu einem deutschen Reiche (Leipzig: Brockhaus, 1868), 43. 76 Ibid., 39–​40. 77 Paul W. Schroeder contends that the Bündnis ended the military autonomy of the southern states. However, from a purely political standpoint, the states themselves retained their sovereignty. Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom, 547; Paul W. Schroeder, ‘The Lost Intermediaries: The Impact of 1870 on the European System’, The International History Review 6, no.1 (February 1984), 19; Abigail Green, Fatherlands, 59. 78 Max Pergler von Perglas to Hohenlohe, Paris, 10 May 1867, in Die Rheinpolitik Kaiser Napoleons III., Vol.2, 387–​389. 79 The reason for this concern is unclear, but may be a reflection of the uncertainty and unrest in the political circles of St. Petersburg at the time. Thumb von Neuburg to Varnbüler, Vienna, 20 December 1867. HStAS.E40/​72 Bü.442; W. Bruce Lincoln, ‘Reform and Reaction in Russia: A. V. Golovnin’s Critique of the 1860s’, Cahiers du Monde russe et soviétique 16, no.2 (April–​June 1975), 172. 80 Ow to Varnbüler, Vienna, 22 May 1867. HStAS.E40/​72 Bü.442. 81 Norddeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung, 17 October 1867. HStAS.E40/​72 Bü.442. 82 Der Beobachter, No.25, 31 January 1868. 83 The argument to withdraw from the Zollverein was not shared by all the Volkspartei members, however. Even for those who strongly believed that the Zollverein offered Württemberg no advantages, such as Moriz Mohl and Carl Deffner, the caveat was always that Württemberg should not act unilaterally. That is to say, Württemberg should withdraw from the Zollverein if (and only if) other states (particularly Bavaria and Baden) also withdrew. Abigail Green, Fatherlands, 59; Gerlinde Runge, Die Volkspartei in Württemberg, 130–​140. 84 Gerlinde Runge, Die Volkspartei in Württemberg, 148.

186

Notes

85 As Runge points out, in many overwhelmingly Catholic electorates, the Deutsche Partei did not even field a candidate. Ibid., 148–​149. 86 Koppel S. Pinson, Modern Germany: Its History and Civilisation (New York: Macmillan, 1961), 140–​141. 87 William Carr, The Origins of the Wars of German Unification (London and New York: Longman, 1991), 164–​166. 88 Karlsruher Zeitung, 15 October 1867. PAdAA IAAb 92/​R662 Nr.11667. 89 The Karlsruher Zeitung had previously, in fact, been very publicly castigated by its chief rival, the Badische Landeszeitung, for its ‘tender and heartfelt sympathies for the Trias’. Badische Landeszeitung, 6 May 1866. HStAS.E70f Bü.164. 90 Der Beobachter, No.60, 12 March 1868. HStAS.E70f Bü.164. 91 Hohenlohe, Address to Abgeordnetenkammer, 8 October 1867, in Ludwig Hahn, Der Krieg Deutschlands, 230–​235. 92 La France, 14 July 1868. HStAS.E50/​12 Bü.143; Le Mémorial Diplomatique, No.29, 16 July 1868. HStAS.E50/​12 Bü.143. 93 La Gazette de France, 31 December 1868. HStAS.E50/​12 Bü.143. 94 See BArch.R101/​2904/​31776. 95 ‘German’ consulates could be found in Baltimore and St. Louis. Württemberg, Baden and Bavaria ran joint consulates in Lyon, Cincinnati, Louisville and Milwaukee, while Württemberg and Baden jointly had consulates in Ostende, Le Havre, Mulhouse and Geneva. Baden and the North German Confederation shared a single consul in Trieste, and Baden and Bavaria cooperated in Liverpool, Philadelphia and New Orleans. Karlsruher Zeitung, 15 January 1869. BArch.R1401/​1567. 96 Report of the United Representatives for Customs and Taxes and for Trade and Transport, Bundesrath Session No.12, BArch.R1401/​1567. 97 August Heinrich Hermann von Dönhoff to Bismarck, No.41, Stuttgart, 10 June 1868. PAdAA IAAb 92/​R663 Nr.11673. 98 La France, 30 April 1870. HStAS.E50/​12 Bü.147. 99 La Presse, 1 May 1870. HStAS.E50/​12 Bü.147; Le Peuple Français, 2 May 1870. HStAS. E50/​12 Bü.147; La Marseillaise, No.133, 2 May 1870. HStAS.E50/​12 Bü.147. 100 Geoffrey Wawro, The Franco-​Prussian War, 24; Eberhard Naujoks, ‘Württemberg im diplomatischen Kräftespiel der Reichsgrüngungszeit (1866/​70). Zur Problematik der deutschen Politik des Freiherrn von Varnbüler’, ZWLG 30 (1971), 234. 101 See, for example, Granville Leveson-​Gower to Albrecht von Bernsdorff, London, 21 October 1870. HStAS.E40/​18 Bü.409; C. A. Eggert, ‘The True Causes of the French-​ Prussian War’, Putnam’s Monthly Magazine of American Literature, Science and Art 16, no.34 (October 1870), 451. 102 Alon Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor, 21.

8  Remembering and Forgetting Württemberg, 1871–​1914 1 Otto Elben to Eduard Lasker, 19 November 1870, in Otto Elben, Lebenserinnerungen, 1823–​1899 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1931), 163–​164. 2 Hildegard von Spitzemberg, 5 December 1870, in Tagebuch, 114. 3 Abigail Green, Fatherlands, 298. 4 Varnbüler to Bismarck, Hemmingen, 7 September 1870, in Hildegard von Spitzemberg, Tagebuch, 105–​106.

Notes

187

5 Der Beobachter, 31 August 1872. 6 Alon Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor, 57. 7 Hans Philippi, Das Königreich Württemberg im Spiegel der preussischen Gesandtschaftsberichte 1871–​1914, Vol.65 (Stuttgart: W. Kohlhammer, 1972), 20; Paul Sauer, Württemberg im Kaiserreich: Bürgerliches Freiheitsstreben und mornarchischer Obrigkeitsstaat (Tübingen: Silberburg, 2011), 20; Detlef Jena, Königin Olga, 299–​300. 8 See, for example, Gordon A. Craig, The Politics of the Prussian Army 1640–​1945 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1970), 175; Gordon A. Craig, ‘The Jayne Lecture: German Unification in Historical Perspective’, Proceedings of the American Philosophical Society 135, no.1 (March 1991), 49–​60; Gordon A. Craig, Germany 1866–​1945 (New York: Oxford University Press, 1980), 15; an overview of East German historiography is provided in Andreas Dorpalen, ‘The Unification of Germany in East German Perspective’, The American Historical Review 73, no.4 (April 1968), 1069–​1083; Sebastian Conrad, Globalisation and the Nation in Imperial Germany (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010), 6–​7. 9 This is not the only issue about which Bismarck is accorded more credit (or blame) than is due. As Fitzpatrick points out, the historiographical discourse surrounding the German grasp for colonies in the mid-​1880s has largely dismissed it as a cynical case of ‘Bismarcks Kolonialpolitik’. This is in spite of the fact that Bismarck was initially a vociferous opponent of German colonial adventurism. Matthew P. Fitzpatrick, Liberal Imperialism in Germany: Expansionism and Nationalism, 1848–​1884 (New York: Berghahn, 2008), 2. For Bismarck’s attitude to colonialism, see Sebastian Conrad, German Colonialism: A Short History (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012), 21. 10 Alon Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor, 27–​30. 11 Ibid, 21; Gordon A. Craig, Germany 1866–​1945, 40–​42. 12 Alon Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor, 39. 13 Wolfgang J. Mommsen, Imperial Germany 1867–​1918: Politics, Culture and Society in an Authoritarian State (London: Hodder Arnold, 1997), 20–​40. 14 At one stage, Varnbüler was considered a possible replacement for Bismarck. Some commentators have suggested that the failure of his candidacy shows the degree to which the German federal state internalized the primacy of Prussia, and rejected the potential rise to power of a non-​Prussian in the role of chancellor. This reading ignores the fact that Bismarck’s successor was, in fact, the former Bavarian minister-​ president, Hohenlohe. Irmline Veit-​Brause, ‘Local and National Elites in the German Empire: The Case of the Württemberg Varnbülers’, German Politics & Society 19, no.3 (Fall 2001), 44–​45. 15 Karl Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte und Politik der deutschen Zentrumspartei, Vol.4 (Cologne: Bachem, 1928), 347; Alon Confino, The Nation as a Local Metaphor, 22; David Blackbourn, Class, Religion and Local Politics in Wilhelmine Germany: The Centre Party in Württemberg before 1914 (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1980), 75. 16 Le Figaro, 28 October 1888. 17 Detlef Jena, Königin Olga, 339. 18 Ibid., 339. 19 Paul Sauer, Württemberg im Kaiserreich, 133–​134.

188

Notes

Conclusion 1 Gordon A. Craig, Germany 1866–​1945, 44. 2 Reflective of the orthodox view of German unification, Geoffrey Wawro notes that negotiations in Versailles between Württemberg, Bavaria, Baden and Prussia in late 1870 were intensive and often heated. However, given the fact that these states had already tied their fortunes to a ‘national’ movement several years prior, these negotiations were not to determine the existence of Germany (which was, by now, a foregone conclusion), but rather the exact form that that Germany would take. Obviously, the amalgamation of these states into a national body did not restrict their governments’ desire to reach a deal that would be beneficial to each state. Geoffrey Wawro, The Franco-​Prussian War, 302. 3 Johann Wolfgang von Goethe, Elective Affinities (London: Penguin, 1986), 53–​54.

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Index Alsace-​Lorraine 148 Anderson, Benedict 11, 50 Armansperg, Joseph Ludwig von 69 Arndt, Ernst Moritz 12, 27, 52 Arnim, Bettine von 176 n.33 artillery 107, 129 Austria considered likely to win Austro-​Prussian War 126 decline in support for 143–4 defeated in Austro-​Prussian War 135 early signs of pan-​German nationalism promoted by 55–6 ethnic composition of 92–3 financial problems 123, 142 ineptitude of army 99–100, 134 internal political divisions 123 invades Württemberg (1805) 25 opposes pan-​Germanism 87 pushes for Karlsbad Decrees 43–4 reforms 16 rejects reformative measures 90 relations with Prussia 87 relations with smaller German states 17 revolts in 80–1 role within Holy Roman Empire 15–17 status as a great power 55 stewards German Confederation 56 strained relations with France 59–60 surprised by outbreak of Second Italian War of Independence 97 Austro-​Prussian War 125–36 Königgrätz, Battle of 134 Münchengrätz, Battle of 133 Náchod, Battle of 133 Baden considers entry into North German Confederation 142 considers withdrawing from VIII Corps 134

constitutionalism 72 cooperation with Mittelstaaten 42, 69 endemic emergencies in 72–3 insurrection in 78–9 integration of new territories 39 ‘Prussianizes’ army 140 squabbles with Bavaria 30–1, 47, 108 strategic rail plans 108 suspicion of Bavaria 111 Baur, General Fidel von 130 Bavaria abortive peace initiative of 128 allies with Austria over Hesse-​Kassel 88 centralization of brewing industry in 67 considers joining North German Confederation 139 cooperation with Mittelstaaten 42, 69 de facto leader of Third Germany 137 during 1848 revolutions 175 n.6 government infighting 47 industrialization in 68 opposition to British peace initiatives 127–8 portrayed as treacherous by Görres 35 regional importance 29, 91, 133 religious composition 12 squabbles with Baden 30–1, 47, 108 uncomfortable buffer between Austria and Prussia 127 Bavaria-​Württemberg Customs League 42, 63 Bismarck, Otto Eduard Leopold von, Minster-​President of Prussia (1862–​90) and Chancellor of Germany (1871–​90) diplomatically outmanoeuvres Austria 123, 181 n.76 distrustful of Catholicism 12, 152 as element of Sonderweg thesis 3 failure of Kulturkampf 152 and German nationalism 119

214

Index

importance in unification process 156 limits to power 150–1, 187 n.9 negotiates with south German states 135–6 opinion of Punctation of Olmütz 90 opinion of Wilhelm 118 portrayed as authoritarian 156 Realpolitik of 119, 180 n.60 urged to solve ‘Woodcock affair’ 153 Beethoven, Ludwig van 37, 167 n.10 Benedek, General Ludwig August von 134 Berckheim, Karl Christian von 68–9 Berlin 60 Beust, Friedrich Ferdinand von, Minister-​President of Saxony (1849–​66) 109, 113 Blackbourn, David 3–4 Blanning, T. C. W. 22 Blücher, Field Marshal Gebhard Leberecht von 61 Blum, Robert 81 Bonaparte, Napoleon I, Emperor of the French (1804–​14) 23, 24, 26–7 Bonaparte, (Louis-​)Napoleon III, Emperor of the French (1852–​70) captured at Sedan 147 meets with German heads of state in Baden-​Baden 114 negotiates with Alexander II in Stuttgart 96–7 objectives in Italy in 1859 100 Brandenburg, Friedrich Wilhelm von, Minister-​President of Prussia (1848–​50) 82, 86, 89–90 Bremen 139 Bronzell, Battle of 90 Bühl 73 Burschenschaften 43, 49

Confederal Army Corps (Bundeskorps) VII Corps (Bavaria) 109, 130, 135, 182 n.26 VIII Corps (Baden, Hesse-​Darmstadt, Württemberg) 109, 128–30, 132, 133, 135 Confederation of the Rhine (Rheinbund) 25, 27, 29 Congress of Vienna 30, 34–7 constitutionalism 37 cosmopolitanism 169 n.10 Cotta, Johann 29, 35, 37 Craig, Gordon A. 150, 156

Calw 19, 77 Camphausen, Ludolf, Minister-​President of Prussia (1848) 78, 80 Castlereagh, Lord Robert Stewart 34–5 Catholics 143 cavalry 129 Charlemagne 3 citizenship 93 Cloots, Anacharsis 21, 22, 164 n.42 collective security 85–6, 110

Federation of the United States of South Germany see Third Germany Fichte, Johann Gottlieb 21 First World War 3, 147, 154 Fischer, Fritz 3 Fürstenbund (League of Princes) 17 France alarmed by southern overtures to Prussia 144 alliance with Württemberg (1805) 24–5

Dalwigk zu Lichtenfels, Reinhard von 111 Damrémont, Auguste Denys de 132 Danish War 120–6 Düppel, Battle of 126 Lundby, Battle of 122, 126 Missunde, Battle of 126 Oeversee, Siege of 126 Sandberg, Battle of 122 Deutsche Partei 143, 146, 149 Disbrowe, Edward Cromwell 54 Dreikönigbündnis (Alliance of Three Kings) 86 Dresden 34, 108 Dreyse, Johann Nikolaus von see Zündnadelgewehr Drouyn de Lhuys, Éduard 130 Eckermann, Johann Peter 23 Elben, Otto 147 Erfurt Union 86 Erichson, George see Lindner, Friedrich Ludwig Eschenmeyer, Karl von 66 Esslingen am Neckar 115 ethnicity 92–3

Index collapse of Second Empire 148 as diplomatic ally of Württemberg 95 experiences July Revolution (1830) 59 fear of intervention in Austro-​Prussian War 132 ineptitude of army 100 occupation of Marbach during Thirty Years’ War 20 overthrows Orléans monarchy (1848) 76 recovery after Napoleonic Wars 58 rumoured to have allied with Austria 123 rumoured to have allied with Prussia 124 supports Third Germany 132–3, 135 upheaval in 145 war scares 140, 142, 160 see also Franco-​Prussian War; French Revolution. Franco-​Prussian War 148–50 Sedan, Battle of 148–9 Frankfurt am Main 41, 129, 135, 139 Frankfurt Parliament confusion in 79–80 dissolution 81–2 retires to Stuttgart as Rump Parliament 82 French Revolution German enthusiasm for 21–2 and Jacobinism in Germany 22 German skepticism of 22–3 outbreak of 21 Friedrich I, King of Württemberg (1797–​1816) character 20 death and legacy 38 defects to Sixth Coalition 30 manipulates Franco-​Württemberg alliance for personal gain 28 negotiations with Napoleon 24–5 opinion of 35 proposes ‘fundamental law’ (1815) 37 Friedrichshafen 104 Fröbel, Julius 81, 139–40, 174 n.38 Gagern, Heinrich von 64 Gastein 123 Gentz, Friedrich von 45

215

George, Wilhelm 154 German Confederation army of 109 confusion over obligations to Austria 98–100 criticism of 41 designed as a brake on pan-​German nationalism 56 dissolved in the event of war 126–7 Karlsbad Decrees 57 nature of 41 proposed national military reforms (1818) 62 reconvenes 88 Germany 10, 11 characterized as anti-​French 27 ethnic composition 13 liberal character of 52–3 popularity of unification 151 practical considerations of unification 145, 151 problem of ‘inevitability’ 155 globalization 150 Goethe, Johann Wolfgang von concept of Germany 51 criticism of Holy Roman Empire 9 Faust 9 and French Revolution 22–3 as protonationalist 10 Wilhelm Meisters Lehrjahre considered great work by Fichte 21 Goldhagen, Daniel Jonah 3 Görres, Joseph 35, 43, 66 Great Britain approves of Austrian reactionary politics 57 attempts to broker peace between Austria and Prussia 127–8 fears Third Germany guided by France 111 negotiations at Congress of Vienna 34 uneasy due to ‘liberal tendencies’ in Württemberg Landtag 54 views German unification as unlikely 111–12 Green, Abigail 4 Grimm, Jakob and Wilhelm (‘Brothers Grimm’) 13

216

Index

Habsburg (dynasty) Ferdinand, Emperor of Austria (1835–​48) 78, 81 Franz, Emperor of Austria (1804–​35) 55 Franz Joseph I, Emperor of Austria and King of Hungary (1848–​1916) 88 Joseph II, Holy Roman Emperor (1764–​90) 15–16 Maria Theresa, Grand Duchess of Austria (1740–​80) 15–16 Hamburg 139 Hamilton, Hamilton 46 Hanover 86, 124, 130 Hardegg, Lieutenant-​General Oskar von 131, 138 Hardenberg, Georg Philipp Friedrich von see Novalis Hardenberg, Karl August von, Minister-​President of Prussia (1809–​22) 35, 61, 66 Heidelberg 73 Heidenheim 19, 67–8, 75, 77, 104, 106 Heilbronn 104 Hendry, Donald 153 Herwegh, Georg 66 Hesse (dynasty) Alexander, Prince of Hesse-​Darmstadt 101, 128, 129–30, 138 Friedrich Wilhelm I, Elector of Hesse-​Kassel 87 Hesse-​Darmstadt 69, 162 n.14 Hesse-​Kassel 87–90, 130, 162 n.14, 175 n.5 Hitler, Adolf 3 Hobsbawm, Eric 12 Hofer, Andreas 51 Hohenlohe-​Schillingfürst, Chlodwig von 140, 144 Hohenzollern Friedrich II (‘Friedrich the Great’), King of Prussia (1740–​86) 16, 17, 60–1 Friedrich Wilhelm III, King of Prussia (1797–​1840) 61 Friedrich Wilhelm IV, King of Prussia (1840–​61) 66, 78, 80, 82 Wilhelm I, King of Prussia (1861–​88) and German Emperor (1871–​88) 120, 146 Wilhelm II, German Emperor (1888–​1918) 153–4

Hölder, Julius 98, 151 Hölderlin, Friedrich 21 Holy Roman Empire criticism of 9–11 collapse of 23 enthusiasm for 28 nature of 9, 14–15 Hopf, Franz 98 Hörnigk, Philip Wilhelm von 15 Humboldt, (Friedrich Wilhelm Heinrich) Alexander von 61 Humboldt, (Friedrich) Wilhelm (Christian Karl Ferdinand) von 36, 61 Hungary 81 imperialism 150 industrialization 67, 104–5, 139 infantry 129 Italy 59, 96, 99–100, 182 n.6 Jackson, Richard (von) 152–3 Jahn, Friedrich Ludwig 27 Jewish people 93 Karl, King of Württemberg (1864–​91) as Bismarck’s ‘puppet’ 144 considered unready for kingship 118 death 154 hosts diplomatic guests at Villa Berg 94 marries Olga 74 reputation of 95 responds to German unification 150, 151 sexuality 152–4, 176 n.37 Kiel 139 Kleist, Heinrich von 27 Klopstock, Friedrich Gottlieb 21 Kotzebue, August von 43 Laichingen 39 Landespartei 149 Leipzig 34, 108 Lerchenfeld, Maximilian von 47 liberal nationalism 2, 4, 36, 43, 115 absent in Württemberg policy during Napoleonic Wars 31 character of early unified Germany 147 character of uprising in Hesse-​Kassel 87 decline of 71, 83 divisions within 80

Index hopes French Revolution will inspire in Germany 29 importance of economics for 63–4 popular engagement in and popularity of 49–51, 70, 111, 149, 159 popular appeal in Württemberg Landtag 54 primacy of rights and liberties over geography 52 radicalization of 75 theory of 52, 155, 158, 169 n.10 Linden, Joseph Franz Peter von, State Minister of Württemberg (1850–​64) 83 Lindner, Friedrich Ludwig 44–6, 59 List, Friedrich 41–2, 46, 50, 64, 66 Liverpool, Robert Banks Jenkinson, Earl of 58 Loftus, Augustus 74 Lorenz rifle 99, 107 Lübeck 139 Ludwigsburg 51, 67, 129 Ludwigsburg Constitution 40, 56, 74–5 Lützow Free Corps 27 Luxembourg 140 Magdeburg 139 Mainz 22 Malet, Sir Alexander 76, 127–8, 132 Mannheim 73 Manteuffel, Otto Theodor von, Minister-​President of Prussia (1850–​58) 90 Marbach am Neckar 20 Märzministerium 79, 80, 83, 173 n.21 Massenbach, Eveline von 96 Mathy, Karl 78, 173 n.24 Metternich, Clemens Wenzel Nepomuk Lothar von, Foreign Minister and Chancellor of Austria (1809–​48) 44, 55, 56, 59, 77–8 Miller, Lieutenant-​General Moriz von 109 Minié rifle 106–​7 see also Lorenz rifle Mittnacht, Hermann Carl Friedrich von, State Minister of Württemberg (1870–​1900) 149, 151, 153 Mohl, Moriz 105 Mohl, Robert von 54, 74–5, 169 n.14

217

Moltke, Field Marshal Helmuth von 107, 122, 133 Montgelas, Maximilian von 25 Moser, Friedrich Karl von 10 Nassau 130–1 national identity 1, 12–13, 51 Nationalverein 115–116, 179 n.46, 179–180 n.50 needle-​gun see Zündnadelgewehr Nine Years’ War 20 Nipperdey, Thomas 4 North German Confederation 137, 139, 184 n.54, 185 n.68 Novalis, Georg Philipp Friedrich von Hardenberg 52 Olmütz, Punctation of 90 Ow, Adolf von 101 Pfizer, Paul 54, 75, 79 Pfordten, Karl Ludwig von der, Minister-​President of Bavaria (1849–​59; 1864–​66) convinced of Franco-​Prussian alliance 127 criticised for ‘doubtful policy’ 138 dismissed after Austro-​Prussian War 140 returns to office 124 suspicious of the motives of the great powers 91–2 Pforzheim 73 Prussia authoritarianism 65 ‘Borussian school of history’ 2, 150, 156–7 confederal authorities tolerate 116 draws up Schutz-​und Trutzbündnis with southern states 141–2 ethnic composition of 92 expands after Congress of Vienna 62 experiences upheavals in 1848 78 influence over Germany 65–7 intentions at Congress of Vienna 35 intervenes in Baden during insurrection 78, 106 intervenes in Hesse-​Kassel 175 n.11 invades German hinterland 128 invades Bohemia 131

218

Index

liberal-​nationalist credentials of 63–5, 115 militarism of 60–1 motives for and objectives in Austro-​ Prussian War 125, 135 positions itself as protector of southern states 69, 141–2 reactionary shift of 66 rearmament 62–3 reforms 61 relations with Austria 17 relations with Third Germany 136 rise to ‘great power’ status 17 as sponsor of German collective security 85–6 stronger in 1866 than suspected 126, 133 victories in Bohemia 133–4 withdraws into isolation after Napoleonic Wars 61–2 Prussian-​Hessian Customs Union 63 Rabenhorst, Adolf Bernhard von 109 Radetzky von Radetz, Joseph 76 Radowitz, Joseph von 82, 86 Rastatt 73 Rechberg und Rothenlöwen, Aloys von 47 Reformverein 116–17 republicanism 75 Reutlingen 77 revolution in 1830 59–60 in 1848 76–7, 80–1 fears of revolution in 1847 76 in Hesse-​Kassel 87 Römer, Friedrich (von) appointed as head of government by Wilhelm 77 approves military action against Struve in Baden 79 dismissed from office 83 dissolves Rump Parliament 82 elected to Landtag 54 electoral success of 79 ministry see Märzministerium Romanov (dynasty) Alexander I, tsar of Russia (1801–​25) 57 Alexander II, tsar of Russia (1855–​81) 96–7 Rottweil 77 Russia 57, 95

Sand, Carl Ludwig 43 Saxony army attempts to mutiny (1815) 61 conduct in Napoleonic Wars 34 cooperates with Prussia 86–7 interest in Third Germany 111 Prussian designs on 124 Prussian intervention in (1849) 86 status at Congress of Vienna 34–5 surrenders to Prussia 130 Schiller, Friedrich (von) commemoration and legacy of 53–4, 169 n.12 concept of Germany 51 criticism of Holy Roman Empire 9 Die Räuber 9 honoured by the French 23 opposition to French Revolution 23 republicanism 23 Wilhelm Tell 27, 53–4 Schrenck, Karl von 113 Schwarzburg-​Sondhausen 63 Schwarzenberg, Felix zu, Minister-​ President of Austria (1848–​52) 81 Second Italian War of Independence 99–100 Magenta, Battle of 100 Solferino, Battle of 100 Second World War 3 Sedan Day 149 Seven Years’ War 16 Sheehan, James J. 4 Simson, Eduard von 82 Sonderweg thesis 3, 155, 161 n.4 South German Customs Union 42, 47, 63 Southwest German Police Union 69, 172 n.65 Spitzemberg, Carl Hugo von 98 Spitzemberg, Hildegard von 98, 119, 134, 137–8, 147 Spitzemberg, Wilhelm Hugo von 152 Strauß, David Friedrich 79 Stein, Heinrich Friedrich Karl vom und zum 35, 43 Sternenfels, Karl von 79–80 Struve, Gustav (von) 78 Stuttgart 53, 73–4, 76, 104, 116 Switzerland 69 Sybel, Heinrich von 2

Index Talleyrand-​Périgord, Charles Maurice de 58 Tauberbischofsheim 73 taxation, customs and tariffs 15, 42, 63–4, 67 Taylor, A. J. P. 3, 156, 162 n.13, 175 n.5 Taylor, Brook 44 textiles 19, 67, 104–5 Third Germany Bavaria and Württemberg at core of 45 Bernhard-​Beust plan 113–14 changing character of 114 ‘conspiracy’ against great powers 131–3 constituent states negotiate to enter North German Confederation 141 constitutional heritage of 91 criticism of Bavarian and Württemberg ‘intransigence’ in 110–11 as defensive bloc 68, 109 disadvantages compared to North German Confederation 138–9, 144 as driver of German unification 158 ethnic composition of 92–3 failure of 140 forms after Austro-​Prussian War 136–7 indemnities after Austro-​Prussian War 137 mobilization of 128 neutrality of 126 opportunities 97 supported by French 132–3, 135 theory of 42 Thirty Years’ War 20 Treitschke, Heinrich von 2, 62 Tübingen 76, 116 Treaty of 19, 28, 36 University of 38, 66 Uhland, Ludwig 37 Ulm 74, 75, 77, 104 Varnbüler von und zu Hemmingen, Friedrich Gottlob Karl, State Minister of Württemberg (1864–​71) announces German victory at Sedan 147 appointed state minister by Karl 118–19 background of 95 criticism of 138 defines national duty 145

219

diplomacy of 121 dismissed by Karl 148–9 groomed for power 96 meets with Wilhelm (1855) 95–6 orders Baur to delay mobilization 130 potential successor to Bismarck 187 n.14 recommends Prussian annexations of Danish territory 120 regards Austro-​Prussian War as inevitable 124 relationship with Bismarck 119–20, 149 Varnbüler von und zu Hemmingen, Karl Eberhard Friedrich 96 Varnhagen von Ense, Karl 35, 65 Versailles 146 Vick, Brian E. 35 Voelter, Heinrich 105 Volkspartei 142, 143, 185 n.83 Voltaire 9 Wächter, Karl August von 78, 100, 132 Walter, Jakob 51 Wangenheim, Karl August von 66 criticizes Hesse-​Darmstadt 47 criticizes Prussia and Austria for ‘unmanliness’ 44 divisive character in the confederal diet 44 enthusiasm for Zollverein 64–5 opposes Karlsbad Decrees 44 recalled from diet 45, 64 ‘three principles’ of a constitutional state 38 Weber, Karl Julius 40 Weckherlin, Ferdinand Heinrich August von 39 Wehler, Hans-​Ulrich 50 Wellesley, Henry 69 Wellington, Arthur Wellesley, Duke of 58 Wendland, August von 130 Wettin, Friedrich August I, King of Saxony (1806–​27) 34 Wieland, Christoph Martin 22, 51 Wilhelm I, King of Württemberg (1816–​64) avoids revolution in 1848 77 celebrates twenty-​fifth jubilee 73–4 circumspection of 99

220

Index

commands Württemberg army against French 30 commitment to liberalism and constitutionalism 44, 169 n.15 considered as option to replace Friedrich 24 crowned king 38 death and legacy 118 declining health 117 defends constitutionalism 56–7 fears France 112 intervenes with Prussia on behalf of Herwegh 66 introduces constitutional reforms 40 meets with Franz Joseph and Maximilian II 88–9 mistrusts Austria 42 mistrusts Prussia 42 negotiates with Prussia 112–13 opinion of 35–6, 45 opinion of Karl 95–6 opinion of Metternich 59 opinion of Olga 177 n.39 orders survey of French army (1818) 58 as pan-​Germanist 43, 76 personal diplomacy of 93, 94–6, 97, 117–18 popularity among subjects 73–4 relationship with Amalie von Stubenrauch 117 seeks cooperation with fellow Mittelstaaten 42 skeptical about reconvened German Confederation 89 Windischgrätz, Alfred zu 81 Windischgrätz, Eleonora 81 wine 19, 67 Winkler, Heinrich August 3 Wintzingerode, Heinrich Karl Friedrich Levin von 57 Wittelsbach, Maximilian II, King of Bavaria (1848–​64) 88, 91 Woodcock (von Savage), Charles 153 Württemberg (state) absorption of ‘New-​Württemberg’ 28, 39–40 allies with Austria in Austro-​Prussian War 124 allies with Austria over Hesse-​Kassel 88

attempted financial reforms 39 attitude towards the great powers 125–6 benefits from alliance with France 25 as case study 2, 5 composition, pre-​1806 18 concerns of subordination to Bavaria 140–1 considers neutrality 68, 98, 123 constitutionalism 19, 118 and ‘constitutional patriotism’ 40 continued importance of regional identity after unification 151–2 criticism of war effort 137–8 diplomatic relations with Russia 57 discontent with French 30 economy 18–19, 67 enthusiasm for unification 146, 151 fears of France 58–60 food shortages 38–9, 74 homogenization with rest of Germany 154 industrialization in 104–6 initial enthusiasm for French Revolution 29 Landtag elections of 1868 143 losses during Napoleonic Wars 27 mistrusts Austria 60 mistrusts Prussia 62–3 and the ‘old good law’ 37 opposition to Prussian ties 142–3 place within Germany 155 political stability of 73 reacts to Karlsbad Decrees 57 rearmament 106–7 reforms to Landtag and electoral suffrage 40 relations with Third German states 112–13 Royal Württemberg State Railway 68, 104, 105–6, 107, 178–9 n.29 rumoured to have invaded Baden 78 suggests Third German treaty with Prussia 140 and ‘territorial patriotism’ 50 territories after Napoleonic Wars 34 uncomfortable buffer between Austria and Prussia 127–8 unrest in 74, 76–7 war scare over Russia 142, 185 n.79

Index Württemberg (dynasty) Friedrich (prince) 109 Olga née Nikolaevna, Queen of Württemberg (1864–​91) 74, 95, 153 Wilhelm II, King of Württemberg (1891–​1918) 154 Würzburg conferences 108–11 Zähringen, Leopold, Grand Duke of Baden (1830–​52) 57, 72 Zais, Wilhelm 64–5 Zeppelin, Ferdinand Ludwig von 30

221

Zollverein 67, 139 benefits of 105 exhibit at the London Great Exhibition 93–4 formation of 63 opinion of 64 patterned on South German Customs Union 47 proposed reforms 120 Zündnadelgewehr 62, 106, 122 Zweikaisertreffen 96–7