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caratula Unidad Didáctica 4ª Rev. Pol. B

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The revival of the movement for liberal reform and national unification at the end of the 1850s came to be known as the "new era." Its coming was heralded by scattered but distinct indications that the days of the reaction were numbered. In 1859 the defeat of Austria in the war against France and Piedmont had a profound effect on the German states. For one thing, the maintenance of the authoritarian regime in Vienna depended on respect for its military strength. Now that the Habsburg armies had shown themselves to be vulnerable, popular unrest in the empire began to increase. Since autocracy was no longer an effective principle of government, Francis Joseph decided to experiment with a parliamentary form of authority. On October 20, 1860, he promulgated a constitution (the October Diploma) for his domains, setting up a bicameral legislature with an electoral system favouring the bourgeoisie, and Austria ceased to be an absolutist state. The beginnings of political unification in Italy, moreover, aroused hope and envy north of the Alps. If the Italians could overcome the obstacles of conservatism and particularism, why not the Germans? National sentiment in Germany, dormant since the revolution, suddenly awoke. Patriotic organizations like the Nationalverein (National Union) and the Reformverein (Reform Union) initiated agitation for a new federal union, the former advocating Prussian and the latter Austrian leadership. Liberal writers and politicians began to advance plans for the reform of the German Confederation. Some of the states, detecting a shift in public opinion, decided to change their course accordingly. Here and there the conservative ministers of the reaction were retired or dismissed, and statesmen with more moderate views took their place.

The most significant portent of a new age in politics, however, appeared in Prussia. In 1857 Frederick William IV, crushed by memories of the mass insurrections and diplomatic defeats that he had been forced to endure, suffered a series of incapacitating strokes. A year later his brother became regent, and the government in Berlin immediately began altering the direction of its policy. Prince William, although a man of conservative inclination, had little sympathy with the mystical visions and pious dogmas prevailing at the court during the period of reaction. He dismissed Frederick William's cabinet, announced a program of cautious reform in Prussian as well as German affairs, and won a popular endorsement of his course in elections that gave the liberals control of the legislature. After a long period of discouragement, the advocates of civic reconstruction could once again look to the future with hope and expectation.

Yet there was an important difference between the political attitude of the liberals in 1858-59 and that of 1848-49. Some liberals came to feel during the new era that they had owed their defeat 10 years before to an excess of idealism and exuberance. The fatal mistake of the revolution, they reasoned, had been the assumption that enthusiasm and selflessness could be translated into power and substituted for statesmanship. Now a more calculating policy, one of Realpolitik, must be adopted. Not theory and rhetoric but negotiation and compromise would lead to the attainment of unity and freedom. The liberals therefore pursued at first a strategy of conciliation, anxious not to frighten the established order into blind resistance against all reform. In Prussia, for example, they waited patiently for the regent to move against the forces of disunity and oppression, confident that if they only gave him enough time he would obtain for them by royal authority what they could not seize through revolutionary violence. Yet it gradually became apparent that their hopes would not be realized. Prince William, who in 1861 became king in his own right, was a moderate conservative but a conservative nevertheless. As the advocates of reform grew increasingly restless, the more militant among them formed the Fortschrittspartei (Progressive Party), which sought to hasten the enactment of liberal legislation by exerting pressure on the government. The monarch, afraid that he was being pushed farther to the left than he wanted to go, became more adamant and uncompromising. Sooner or later a conflict between crown and parliament was bound to arise.

It came in connection with the question of army reform, although, if that issue had not developed, there would undoubtedly have been another. The king wanted to strengthen the armed forces by increasing the number of line regiments and decreasing the size of the popular militia. The necessary budget increase, under the constitution, required legislative approval. The legislature, reluctant to enhance the power of the conservative officer corps, demanded a modification of the plan. The king refused, convinced that the politicians were attempting to gain control of the army, which he considered subject only to royal authority. The legislature responded by withholding approval of the budget. A complete deadlock ensued. In the spring of 1862 the liberal ministers who had been appointed under the regency were dismissed, and a conservative cabinet took office. But the new leaders of the government were as unsuccessful as the old in resolving the crisis. William I (commonly known as Kaiser Wilhelm after becoming emperor in 1871) began to think about abdicating in favour of his son, who was believed to have political views close to those of the parliamentary opposition. He was persuaded, however, to consider first the possibility of naming a new ministry led by Otto von Bismarck, then Prussian ambassador to Paris. There was a momentous interview between the monarch and the envoy, as a result of which the former abandoned all thought of retirement and the latter became head of a cabinet pledged to continue the struggle against the legislature. The battle between crown and parliament, which the liberals had been on the point of winning, was now to be waged without regard for constitutional provisions concerning the budget. On September 23, 1862, the nation was startled by the news that a statesman with a reputation for unyielding conservatism had become the prime minister of Prussia. It meant that the established order, having successfully defended its interests against the forces of reform after 1815 and after 1848, was determined to fight to the bitter end against the new challenge to its predominance.

The constitutional conflict in the Hohenzollern kingdom continued for another four years. The legislature refused to approve the budget until its wishes concerning military reform had been met. Bismarck's government, after carrying out the controversial reorganization of the army, continued to collect taxes and disburse funds without regard for parliamentary authorization. The liberals condemned the prime minister as a violator of the constitution, while the prime minister denounced the liberals and maintained the government's right to act autonomously, since the constitution did not specify a procedure in the event that the legislature failed to approve a budget. Although the electorate remained on the side of the opposition, the cabinet declared that it would not be swayed by party politics or parliamentary majorities. The broad masses of the population, it maintained, were still loyal to the crown. And so the struggle went on without prospect of alleviation or resolution. There were even dark prophecies of a violent uprising against a regime that was so indifferent to its constitutional obligations. Yet in fact Bismarck was not blind to the need for a reconciliation between crown and bourgeoisie. Despite his reputation as a fire-eating legitimist, he had a supple mind and recognized that the political principles of Frederick the Great could not solve the problems facing William I. He hoped, therefore, for an eventual reconciliation between the government and the legislature, but a reconciliation in which the prerogative of the monarch and the influence of the nobility would remain undiminished.

What Bismarck sought in essence was an alteration in the form of government to create parliamentary institutions that would not undermine monarchical authority. The middle class wanted to end the domination of the traditional forces in society, he calculated, but it also wanted to achieve national unification in Germany. Here was the key to a solution of the constitutional conflict. Unity could be used to restrict freedom; nationalism could become the means of taming liberalism. Bismarck had concluded that the political integration of Germany was, in the long run, inevitable. If the established order did not effect it, the reformers, democrats, and revolutionaries would. Thus, it was in the interest of conservatism to take the task of centralization in hand, bring it to a successful conclusion, and create a new system of authority compatible with the preservation of royal and aristocratic dominance. Such a policy would make possible a compromise between crown and bourgeoisie by which the latter obtained the benefits of national consolidation while the former retained the advantages of political domination. The achievement of national unification by military means would have the further advantage of reconciling the bourgeoisie with a strong military. Through this strategy the prime minister hoped to end the constitutional conflict.

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Germany - The 1860s: the triumphs of Bismarck

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Germany - Germany - The 1860s: the triumphs of Bismarck: The revival of the movement for liberal reform and national unification at the end of the 1850s came to be known as the "new era." Its coming was heralded by scattered but distinct indications that the days of the reaction were numbered.

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Una popular frase apócrifa, atribuída a diversos políticos de la Guerra Fría, decía: "Me gusta tanto Alemania que prefiero que haya dos". Esa persona que nunca existió habría estado muy complacida a comienzos del siglo XIX, cuando había no una sino cientos de Alemanias: la abdicación del emperador Francisco II de Habsburgo-Lorena en 1806 puso fin oficialmente al Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico, que había mantenido como mínimo la ilusión de una unidad alemana a lo largo de casi ocho siglos y medio, y dejó el espacio germano dividido en más de 1800 territorios que iban desde grandes reinos hasta ciudades autónomas.

Las dos Alemanias: Austria y Prusia

El XIX fue el siglo del pensamiento romántico, bajo el influjo del cual diversas naciones aspiraron a convertirse en un único país. Alemania fue una de ellas, pero la cuestión era cómo: aunque compartieran una lengua y hasta cierto punto un bagaje cultural común, existían grandes diferencias entre ellas. Austria y Prusia, los dos estados germánicos más poderosos tras la desintegración del Sacro Imperio, y por ende los únicos en condiciones de liderar el camino hacia la unidad, eran muy diferentes y se convirtieron en rivales feroces.

Austria era un imperio plurinacional y conservador, cuyos súbditos eran en buena parte católicos; Prusia en cambio era un reino mayoritariamente protestante, burgués y algo más liberal, aunque igualmente autoritario. La élite prusiana abogaba por la creación de una Gran Alemania que uniera -bajo su liderazgo, naturalmente- todos los territorios de cultura germana; algo a lo que se oponía la corte austríaca, puesto que suponía renunciar a buena parte de sus territorios y terminar probablemente en un lugar secundario respecto a Prusia.

Austria y Prusia eran los dos estados germánicos más poderosos tras la desintegración del Sacro Imperio y se convirtieron en rivales feroces.

Prusia tenía buenos motivos para desear la unidad más que Austria: su industria y comercio podían beneficiarse enormemente de la exportación de productos y materias primeras. Un primer paso en ese sentido fue la creación en 1815 de la Confederación Germánica, formada por 39 estados incluyendo a Austria y a Prusia. Aunque sus miembros mantenían su independencia, el objetivo era avanzar hacia una unidad mercantil y política, pero la rivalidad austro-prusiana lo impidió y finalmente se disolvió en 1848.

Liberalismo y revolución

El año 1848 trajo una ola de revoluciones liberales en diversos países de Europa, en cada uno motivado por sus propios motivos, pero con dos denominadores comunes: el choque entre el Antiguo Régimen y las nuevas corrientes democráticas nacidas de la Revolución Francesa, y la lucha de poder entre las viejas élites artistocráticas y la burguesía industrial en ascenso.

En el caso de los estados alemanes la razón principal era el descontento, entre las clases populares y medias, con las viejas estructuras de poder autocráticas heredadas del Sacro Imperio, que les impedían el ascenso social. Las protestas fueron especialmente intensas en estados del oeste alemán, donde los revolucionarios aspiraban a establecer regímenes democráticos y obtuvieron algunas victorias, como la creación de parlamentos y el derecho al voto. Pero la heterogeneidad de sus miembros, que había sido al principio su gran fuerza, propició pronto su división y derrota.

Para saber más

Las revoluciones de 1848 coincidieron con un fortalecimiento de Prusia respecto a Austria, a la cual le había surgido una nueva preocupación: las tensiones en Lombardía y Véneto con el Reino de Cerdeña, que aspiraba a su vez a formar un estado italiano y encontró un aliado en Prusia, puesto que a ambos les interesaba debilitar al Imperio Austríaco en su propio beneficio. Esta situación transfirió a la monarquía prusiana todo el liderazgo de la unificación alemana, mientras la corona austríaca pugnaba por mantener unido su imperio multinacional.

"Hierro y sangre"

En enero de 1861, el príncipe Guillermo de Hohenzollern sucedió a su hermano como rey de Prusia después de tres años ocupando el cargo de regente. Guillermo I era un hombre conservador y criado en la disciplina militar, pero estaba abierto a ciertas reformas controladas para rebajar la tensión. Después de los episodios revolucionarios, Prusia se había dotado de un parlamento -el Landtag- de mayoría liberal, con el cual la monarquía mantenía un delicado equilibrio.

Para reafirmar su poder frente al Landtag, Guillermo propuso como primer ministro al general Otto von Bismarck, miembro de una aristocrática familia sajona. A diferencia del rey, que mantenía un perfil educado y correcto, Bismarck era un hombre abiertamiente autoritario, ferozmente antiliberal y luterano convencido, que creía ciegamente en el papel preminente de Prusia y en que la unidad alemana solo podía lograrse mediante las armas. Así queda reflejado en su famoso discurso ante el Landtag, pocos días después de tomar posesión del cargo, que ha pasado a la historia con el título no oficial de "Hierro y sangre":

" Alemania no busca el liberalismo de Prusia, sino su poder. Baviera, Wurttemberg, Baden pueden disfrutar del liberalismo, y nadie les asignará el papel de Prusia. Prusia tiene que unirse y concentrar su poder para el momento oportuno, que ya ha pasado de largo varias veces. [...] Las grandes cuestiones de la época no las decidirán ni los discursos ni los acuerdos por mayoría -ese fue el gran error en 1848 y en 1849-, sino el hierro y la sangre ".

Bismarck puso en práctica su discurso en los años siguientes: tres guerras -contra Dinamarca en 1864, contra Austria en 1866 y contra Francia en 1870- transfirieron a Prusia la autoridad sobre muchos territorios de habla alemana, debilitando al Imperio Austríaco y provocando la caída del Segundo Imperio Francés, sus grandes rivales. Austria se vio aún más debilitada por la pérdida, en favor de Italia, de la Lombardía en 1859 y del Véneto en 1866.

El Segundo Reich

El momento era propicio para consolidar el poder de Prusia y para cristalizar esa unificación a la que el romanticismo alemán aspiraba. Un primer paso fue la creación en 1867 de la Confederación Alemana del Norte, que sustituía a la antigua Confederación Germánica y, que al contrario que esta, podía funcionar como un verdadero estado, con un parlamento nacional -el Reichstag- con amplias competencias legislativas y un Consejo Federal formado por representantes de todos los estados constituyentes. Aunque legalmente era una confederación de estados iguales, otorgaba grandes poderes a la figura del canciller -el propio Bismarck, que pasaría a la historia como "el canciller de hierro"- y, por lo tanto, daba el liderazgo de facto a Prusia.

La aplastante victoria contra Napoleón III en la Guerra franco-prusiana de 1870 dio el impulso final. Bismarck, aprovechando el vigor que ese triunfo daba al nacionalismo alemán, pactó con los representantes de varios estados de la Confederación la concesión de mayores ventajas si accedían a completar la unificación formalmente y a proclamar al rey Guillermo como kaiser, Emperador de Alemania. En diciembre de ese año el Reichstag aprobó otorgar dicho título al monarca.

El escenario para la coronación no podía ser mejor: la Galería de los Espejos del Palacio de Versalles, la morada de los grandes reyes franceses en el apogeo de su poder. La fecha escogida tampoco fue casual: el 18 de enero de 1871, el mismo día en el que, en 1701, su antepasado Federico I había sido coronado rey de Prusia, iniciando la historia de la nación que ahora guiaba a la nueva Alemania. La Confederación desapareció para dar lugar al Segundo Imperio alemán, asumiendo que el Primero había sido el Sacro Imperio Romano Germánico, del que se consideraba heredero.

El nuevo imperio no nacía exento de problemas. El principal fue la llamada Kulturkampf ("lucha cultural"), una consecuencia de la unificación de territorios política y religiosamente diversos. Bismarck era de un anticatolicismo ferviente y partidario del centralismo, algo que chocaba con la población católica y con las aspiraciones de autonomía de los representantes de los distintos territorios. La posición del canciller se vio muy debilitada cuando el nieto del emperador, Guillermo II, tomó las tiendas del estado en 1888. El nuevo kaiser tenía unos proyectos para el país que diferían completamente de los de Bismarck, especialmente en política exterior, y finalmente le forzó a dimitir dos años después. El Segundo Reich aún perdudaría hasta 1918, cuando la derrota en la Primera Guerra Mundial forzó su transformación en la frágil República de Weimar.

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La unificación alemana y el nacimiento del Segundo Reich

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Bajo la influencia del pensamiento romántico, el siglo XIX vio el nacimiento de diversos estados que aspiraban a unir a sus respectivas naciones. Uno de estos fue Alemania, que de una miríada de pequeñas soberanías se convirtió en un poderoso imperio.

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The late 18th century saw the emergence throughout Europe of political movements dedicated to the pursuit of national unification on the basis of liberty. In Germany this development began relatively late. Political conditions in the Holy Roman Empire - known in Germany as the 'Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation' - were still entirely determined by the traditional structures of the authoritarian state that characterised the latter part of the age of absolutism. Although the Ancien Régime had been criticised from several quarters in the German territories, it took a long time for any recognisable signs to appear of developments that might seriously challenge the existing order.

Not until the Napoleonic conquests of the early 19th century was the old regime undermined and a comprehensive process of political modernisation set in motion. Reforms in the states of the French-occupied Confederation of the Rhine and a new awareness of the evident inferiority of the old order triggered reformist efforts in other German states, particularly in Prussia. At the same time, resistance against the French occupation contributed to the formation of a German nationalist movement, which not only sought the liberation of the French-occupied areas but also propagated demands for national unification and political self-determination.

New political order established at the Congress of Vienna

After the victory over Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna met from September 1814 to June 1815 to redraw the political map of Europe. The negotiations were largely characterised by attempts to bring about the restoration of the pre-revolutionary order. While the aim in terms of foreign policy was to restore the balance of power among the states of Europe, the domestic aim was to re-establish the monarchic principle, preferably without concessions to liberal and democratic ideology. Instead of the nation state to which many people aspired, the German princes created the German Confederation, comprising 37 principalities and four free cities. The only federal body was the Confederate Assembly in Frankfurt am Main, over which Austria presided and which was later rechristened Deutscher Bundestag, or German Federal Diet. Although the German Confederation had limited scope for constructive action because of the cumbersome nature of its institutional structures, it proved to be an effective instrument for the suppression of opposition activists over a lengthy period.

The beginnings of parliamentary life in Germany

The Federal Act - the document establishing the German Confederation - prescribed the adoption of constitutions in the individual states, but the application of the relevant clause left much to be desired. While a number of central and northern German states eventually adopted constitutions, Prussia and Austria rejected the introduction of constitutions for their sovereign territories until 1848. Only in the states of southern Germany were constitutions adopted from the outset; these established a form of representation based on the estates of the realm and granted limited civil liberties and participatory rights. The representative assemblies that were created in this context gave the opposition movement new opportunities to shape developments and marked the start of the growth of parliamentary democracy in Germany. These assemblies, known as Landtage, generally comprised two chambers. The first chamber contained representatives of the ruling houses and the high nobility as well as dignitaries from politics, the church and society appointed by the monarch. The seats in the second chamber were assigned to particular social groups on the basis of fixed quotas, and the members representing these groups were often elected indirectly by means of a stratified class system of franchise. Although laws and tax-raising measures were subject to the approval of the Landtage, these assemblies had little scope for constructive action. Accordingly, in spite of some liberal reforms, substantive changes were invariably thwarted by the monarchs' insistence on their right to act as sole representatives of the people.

Ferment and repression in the Vormärz period

Despite the restoration of the monarchic order, liberal and nationalist ideas were still being expounded, particularly among the bourgeoisie and at the universities. The Wartburg Festival of 18 October 1817, at which some 500 students gathered to voice their criticism of the status quo, was the first nationwide event held by the movement for national unification. The murder of a writer, August von Kotzebue, by Karl Ludwig Sand, a member of the liberal nationalist student fraternity known as the Burschenschaft, in Mannheim in 1819 heralded a phase of stricter surveillance and harsher repression. The Carlsbad Decrees, adopted in 1819 at the instigation of Austria's foreign minister, Klemens von Metternich, established a police-state regime of surveillance and repression, designed to keep a tight lid on any opposition activity. As part of the so-called 'demagogue prosecutions' by the Central Investigation Commission which was set up in Mainz, draconian sanctions were used to silence leading representatives of the opposition. This was a severe blow to the organisation and development of the nationalist and liberal movement. Broad sections of the bourgeoisie who sympathised with the movement withdrew resignedly into the private idyll of the supposedly apolitical Biedermeier lifestyle.

The opposition movement received fresh stimulus from the July Revolution in Paris and the Polish Uprising at the start of the 1830s. Demonstrations and disturbances occurred in many places as people protested against unfair economic conditions and political repression. In Brunswick, Saxony, the Electorate of Hesse and Hanover, the ruling dynasties were compelled to make concessions on constitutions and civil rights. On the initiative of the Press and Fatherland Association, more than 20,000 people gathered at Hambach Castle on 27 May 1832 for a major national rally to demand the creation of a democratic German nation state in a free Europe. This first major mass political demonstration in Germany, at which many participants carried flags in black, red and gold - the colours of the Burschenschaft, which were generally recognised as a symbol of German unity - gave the opposition movement a huge boost. After that, the call for constitutional change could no longer be silenced.

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Wilhelm Weege/Üb.: Raymond Kerr über WI 1

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German Bundestag - The German unification and freedom movement (1800 - 1848)

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The late 18th century saw the emergence throughout Europe of political movements dedicated to the pursuit of national unification on the basis of liberty. In Germany this development began relatively late. Political conditions in the Holy Roman Empire - known in Germany as the 'Holy Roman Empire ...