"power" to the cabinets of Europe. An insurrection which had broken out at Vienna (October 6, 1868) had been put down by the strong arm; and an attempt of the same kind at Berlin, a few days later, had met the same fate. Supported by the military, who burned to wipe out the ignominy of their apparent discomfiture in the "glorious days" of March, Frederick William gradually recovered from the trepidation into which he had been thrown, smiled at his own fears, resumed his early faith in divine right, and quietly inaugurated a period of reaction by placing the " antediluvian" Herr Manteuffel at the head of his Cabinet. It must not be imagined, however, that Prussia had gained nothing by the bitter experiences of 1848. The high-sounding promises made by Frederick William, as above detailed, could not be utterly ignored. The National Assembly, which met as a constituent body on the 22d May, was, at any rate, an improvement on the old Vereinigte Landtag, and, if it did little else, it aided the formation of political parties, and allowed a few men of ability to make their mark for future service. Its want of practical wisdom, however, and, more than all, the defection of popular support, were fatal to it; and on the 5th of December Frederick William felt himself strong enough, after disbanding the National Guard, and proclaiming the state of siege at Berlin, to dissolve it altogether, and to promulgate on the same day a new Constitution, not as an emanation from the popular representatives, but as a grant from the crown. This Constitution, which was formally accepted, with certain modifications, in the reactionary sense, by the first parliament elected under it, really contained, in a more or less developed state, all the elements of modern political liberty. It established an Upper House, only half of the seats in which are hereditary, while one third of the members represent merit. The Lower House is elected by universal suffrage. Every Prussian of twenty-four years of age, not receiving public alms, is an elector; but the person he contributes to elect is not himself a deputy: he is only one of the direct electors of the deputy.* The Ministers are responsible, and all royal ordi This system, called in Europe election "by two degrees," resembles the method by which the American President is chosen. Its direct effect, under ordinary cir nances require a ministerial counter-signature. The legislative power resides equally in the crown and the two Houses, each of which shares with the government the right of originating as well as of amending laws. Financial questions, however, are the specialty of the Commons, and by the Lords the Annual Budget can only be either accepted or rejected en bloc. In theory, as we see, this Constitution contains everything that the liberal party had sighed for; and a remarkably able political writer does not hesitate to pronounce it "more than worth the blood which had been shed and the property which had been wasted." * But a constitution which has no popular basis is simply a dead letter, a form of words without any vital signification in them. Neither gradually built up, like the English, nor even logically evolved from a certain phase of political development, like the French Charte, the Prussian Constitution represents nothing but the artificial combination of a set of abstract theories elaborated in a statesman's closet. To the liberal party its royal origin rendered it utterly distasteful; and the masses looked upon the whole affair with absolute indifference. But the liberal party was already falling into the background. In the new Chamber the reactionists had a decided majority; and so complete did their supremacy shortly become, so skilfully did they profit by the middle-class terror of socialism, and the lassitude which had succeeded to the feverish excitement of 1848, that for eight long years this ardently desired representative system remained a mere name. Like certain phenomena of crystallization, the revolutionary period of 1848 profoundly modified the internal structure of Prussia, while leaving its outward appearance almost unchanged; and the effects of the same period upon the external relations of the country were of a similar kind. When Frederick William declined the imperial crown, he did not abandon the idea of achieving the hegemony of Prussia; but he hoped to achieve it without the aid of the revolution, and without a rupture with Austria. The counsels of this latter power were, however, guided cumstances, is to diminish the popular interest in the elective act, and, as a consequence, in political matters generally. In 1867 only thirty per cent of the registered electors came to the polls. * Mr. Grant Duff, "Studies in European Politics," Edinburgh, 1866. A very good book, vivacious and yet solid. at the time by a man who, if not a statesman, in the proper sense of the word, possessed the decision and audacity which at critical moments are often better than statesmanship, and in which Frederick William was signally deficient. Prince Schwarzenberg easily penetrated the Prussian king's designs, and defeated them in detail. "Pour démolir la Prusse," he sagaciously remarked, " il faut l'avilir"; and this saying gives the key to his policy. Prussia's first idea was to reconstitute German unity on a monarchical basis; and with this view she concluded with Saxony and Hanover the "League of the Three Kings," the declared object of which was to watch over the internal and external security of Germany. Austria defeated this move by intervening herself and suggesting, as an alternative plan, an imperial commission (to replace the actual central power), composed of two Prussian and two Austrian members. By similar tactics she baffled Prussia's next manœuvre, which was the convocation of a new German parliament at Erfurt, a town within her own frontiers. This parliament actually assembled (20th March, 1850), and was opened by General Radowitz, one of Prussia's purest statesmen, with eloquent words of hope and fraternity. But faith was wanting. The assembly had no self-reliance, and would venture on nothing without a sign from Berlin. In little more than a month it was adjourned, never to meet again; and meanwhile Austria made her counter-move by convoking the "Plenum" of the old Diet at Frankfort, "not immediately to restore the Federal Constitution, but to take counsel and decide, through this sole authorized organ, as to what was further to be done." Prussia protested, but in vain. The Plenum actually met, under Austria's presidency, on the 10th of May, and the hated Diet was virtually resuscitated.* Inspired by Radowitz, Prussia now tried a bolder game. The Elbe Duchies, Schleswig and Holstein, attached to the crown of Denmark, were, the latter wholly German and comprised in the Germanic Confederation, the former half German and half Danish, with an administration distinct from that of the rest of the monarchy. This somewhat anomalous state of things was sought to be terminated by the new king, Frederick * Menzel, Geschichte, etc., 13tes Buch. VII., through means of a more liberal constitution, which was to supersede the separate administrations of the Duchies, and virtually to incorporate them with the pure Danish provinces. Against this the Duchies protested at once, with a counterdemand of incorporation with the Germanic Confederation, and, backed by German intrigue, they established a provisional government, and made ready for armed resistance. But these Duchies, placed between the Elbe and the Sound, were of vast importance to the Zollverein, and their annexation to the Confederation was almost an indispensable condition to the creation of a German fleet, which was one of the favorite dreams of the unitarian party. An interest of this kind was intelligible to all, and German sympathy for the Schleswig-Holsteiners was general and intense. Here was apparently a golden opportunity for the king of Prussia to recover his popularity with the unitarians. The army was full of zeal for the same cause, and the Diet took it up as a national question. On the 4th of April Frederick William was formally invited, in the name of the Confederation, to assume the management of this Danish affair, and before the end of the month General Wrangel had entered Holstein and taken Danewirk by storm. Meanwhile another incident had awakened Germany's warmest sympathies. Electoral Hesse had long been "the most typically misgoverned of German countries"; but in the revolutionary movements of 1848 the Elector had been compelled to accept the Baden four points and grant a constitution. Now, however, he was naturally anxious to restore things to the comfortable autocratic status quo, and selected the financial question Hesse finances being in a particularly entangled state, which rendered public supervision highly objectionable — as the pretext for a rupture with his parliament, which, after an obstinate struggle, he abruptly dissolved. The next elections sent up another, which proved equally indocile; and this time, not contented with dissolving the Chambers, the irritated prince declared the country in a state of siege. The whole population, however, administration, army, and all, were on the opposition side, and the Elector, forced to fly, appealed to Frankfort and Vienna, and openly proclaimed his recog * Grant Duff, nition of the Austrian Plenum as the restored Diet, with original powers. Electoral Hesse, however, had adhered to the "League of the Three Kings," and had sent representatives to the Erfurt Parliament. Prussia, then, must either abandon her klein-deutsch project altogether and recognize the Plenum, or she must oppose by force the Diet's intervention in Hesse. Frederick William chose the latter alternative, made General Radowitz his Foreign Secretary, and massed a Prussian army corps in Westphalia. But Schwarzenberg was up to the emergency. Without a moment's hesitation he collected an opposing army on the Hessian border, and sent Prussia an ultimatum. A sanguinary conflict seemed inevitable. But Russia, then flown with insolence by her facile restoration of the tottering house of Hapsburg, intervened at the eleventh hour, and sent Prussia word that her opposition to federal execution in Electoral Hesse would be considered at St. Petersburg a casus belli! To the stupefaction of Europe and the humiliation of Germany, Prussia gave way, recalled her troops, and dismissed Radowitz. The Convention of Olmütz (29th November, 1850) was the result, by which Frederick William agreed "to oppose no obstacle to the action of the troops called in by the Elector, and to invite his Royal Highness to permit a Prussian battalion to remain with these troops at Cassel for the maintenance of order." Moreover, "Austria and Prussia, in concert with their allies, were to send commissioners into Holstein to require the suspension of hostilities, the withdrawal of the troops beyond the Eider, and the reduction of the army to one third of its actual force." This Convention of Olmütz is a memorable date in recent Prussian history. "It is engraved in the national heart as a souvenir of disgraceful pusillanimity and ridiculous impotence."* With the fall of Radowitz the whole fabric of Prussian hegemony went down, and the German dream of unity seemed more illusory than ever. Austria, triumphant, took up again the gross-deutsch idea, as a mere matter, however, of individual supremacy, and demanded admission into the Confederacy, with all her heterogeneous peoples. The humil *Revue des deux Mondes, November 1, 1867 ("L'Allemagne depuis la guerre de 1866"), par E. de Laveleye. |