September 3, 2025 • 25 mins
Join Dr. Lord in this captivating installment of the European Leaders series, where he delves into the lives and legacies of influential figures such as William IV, Sir Robert Peel, Cavour, Czar Nicholas, Louis Napoleon, Prince Bismarck, and William Ewart Gladstone. Discover the pivotal moments that shaped Europe through the stories of these remarkable leaders. (Summary by KHand)
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Section fourteen of begin Lights of History, Volume ten, European
Leaders by John Lord. This LibriVox recording is in the
public domain. Recording by Khand Prince Bismarck, Part one, eighteen
fifteen to eighteen ninety eight the German Empire. Before presenting Bismarck,
(00:23):
it will be necessary to glance at the work of
those great men who prepared the way not only for him,
but also for the soldier moltke men who raised Prussia
from the humiliation resulting from her conquest by Napoleon. That
humiliation was as complete as it was unexpected. It was
even greater than that of France. After the later Franco
(00:45):
Prussian War, Prussia was dismembered, Its provinces were seized by
the conqueror. Its population was reduced to less than four millions.
Its territory was occupied by one hundred and fifty thousand
French soldiers. The king himself was an exile and a
fugitive from his own capital. Every sort of indignity was
(01:06):
heaped on his prostrate subjects, who were compelled to pay
a war indemnity beyond their power. Trade and commerce were
cut off by Napoleon's continental system and universal poverty overspread
the country, always poor and now poorer than ever. Prussia
had no allies to rally to her sinking fortunes. She
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was completely isolated. Most of her fortresses were in the
hands of her enemies, and the magnificent army of which
she had been so proud since the days of Friederic
the Great, was dispersed at the Peace of Tilsit in
eighteen o seven. It looked as if the whole kingdom
was about to be absorbed in the Empire of Napoleon,
like Bavaria and the Rhine Provinces, and wiped out of
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the map of Europe like unfortunate Poland. But even this
did not complete the humiliation. Napoleon compelled the King of Prussia,
Friederic William the Third, to furnish him soldiers to fight
against Russia, as if Prussia were already incorporated with his
own empire and had lost her nationality. At that time,
France and Russia were in alliance, and Prussia had no
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course to adopt but submission or complete destruction. And yet
Prussia refused, in these evil days to join the Confederation
of the Rhine, which embraced all the German states. At
the south and west of Austria and Prussia. Napoleon, however,
was too much engrossed in his scheme of conquering Spain
to swallow up Prussia entirely, as he intended, after he
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should have subdued Spain. So after all, Prussia had before
her only the fortune of Ulysses in the Cave of
Polyphemus to be devoured. The last the escape of Prussia
was owing on the one hand, to the necessity for
Napoleon to withdraw his main army from Prussia in order
to fight in Spain, and secondly to the transcendent talents
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of a few patriots to whom the king, in his distress,
was forced to listen. The chief of these were Stein,
Hardenburg and Shamhorst. It was the work of Stein to
reorganize the internal administration of Prussia, including the financial department,
that of Hardenburg to conduct the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
and that of Sharnhorst to reorganize the military power. The
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two former were the nobles, the latter sprung from the
people a peasant's son, but they worked together in tolerable harmony,
considering the rival jealousies that at one time existed among
all the high officials with their innumerable prejudices. Baron von
Stein born in seventeen fifty seven of an old Imperial
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knightly family from the country near Nassau, was as a
youth well educated, and at the age of twenty three
entered the Prussian service under Friedrich the Great in the
mining department, where he gained rapid promotion. In seventeen eighty
six he visited England and made a careful study of
her institutions, which he profoundly admired. In seventeen eighty seven
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he became a sort of provincial governor, being director of
the War and Domain Chambers at Cleves and Ham. In
eighteen o four Stein became Minister of Trade, having charge
of excise, customs, manufactures and Trade. The whole financial administration
at this time, under King Friederic William the Third was
in a state of great confusion from an unnecessary number
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of officials who did not work harmoniously. There was too
much red tape. Stein brought order out of confusion, simplified
the administration, punished corruption, increased the national credit, then at
a very low ebb and re established the Bank of
Prussia on a basis that enabled it to assist the government,
but a larger field than that of finance was opened
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to Stein. In the War of eighteen o six, the
King entrusted him the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, not willingly,
but because he regarded him as the ablest man in
the kingdom. Stein declined to be foreign Minister unless he
was entirely unshackled, and the King was obliged to yield,
for the misfortunes of the country had now culminated in
(05:08):
the disastrous defeat at Friedland. The king, however, soon quarreled
with his minister, being jealous of his commanding abilities and
unused to dictation from any source. After a brief exile
at Nassau, the Peace of Tilsit having proved the sagacity
of his views, Stein returned to power as virtual dictator
of the kingdom with the approbation of Napoleon, but his
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dictatorship lasted only about a year when he was again discharged.
During that year eighteen o seven, Stein made his mark
in Prussian history without dwelling on details. He effected the
abolition of serfdom in Prussia, the trade inland, and municipal
reforms giving citizens self government in place of the despotism
of military bureaus. He made it his business to pay
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off the French war indemnity one hundred and fifty million francs,
a great sum for Prussia to raise when dismembered and
trodden in the dust under one hundred and fifty thousand
French soldiers, and to establish a new and improved administrative system.
But more than all, he attempted to rouse a moral,
religious and patriotic spirit in the nation and to inspire
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it anew with courage, self confidence, and self sacrifice. In
eighteen o eight, the ministry became warlike in spite of
its despair, the first glimpse of hope being the popular
rising in Spain. It was during the ministry of Stein,
and through his efforts, that the anti Napoleonic Revolution began.
The intense hostility of Stein to Napoleon and his commanding
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abilities led Napoleon in eighteen o eight imperatively to demand
from the King of Prussia the dismissal of his minister,
and Friederic William dared not resist. Stein did not retire, however,
until after the royal edict had emancipated the serfs of
Prussia and until that other great reform was made, by
which the nobles lost the monopoly of office and exception
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from taxation, while the same citizen class gained admission to
all posts, trades, and occupations. These great reforms were chiefly
to be traced to Stein, although Hardenberg and others like
Schoen and Nibhir had a hand in them. Stein also
opened the military profession to the citizen class, which before
was closed only nobles, being entrusted with command in the army.
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It is true that nobles still continued to form a
large majority of officers, even as peasants formed the bulk
of the army. But the removal of restrictions and the
abolition of serfdom tended to create patriotic sentiments among all classes,
on which the strength of armies in no small degree rests.
In the time of Friederic the Great, the army was
a mere machine. It was something more when the nation
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in eighteen eleven rallied to achieve its independence. Then was
born the idea of nationality that whatever obligations a Prussian
owed to the state Germany was greater than Prussia itself.
This idea was the central principle of Stein's political system,
leading ultimately to the unity of Germany. As finally affected
by Bismarck and Moltke. It became almost synonymous with that
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patriotism which sustains governments and thrones, the absence of which
was the great defect of the German states before the
times of Napoleon, when both princes and people lost sight
of the unity of the nation in the interests of
petty sovereignties. Stein was a man of prodigious energy, practical
good sense, and lofty character, but irascible, haughty, and contemptuous,
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and was far from being a favorite with the king
and court. His great idea was the unity and independence
of Germany. He thought more of German nationality than of
Prussian aggrandizement. It was his aim to make his countrymen
feel that they were Germans rather than Prussians, and that
it was only by a union of the various German
states that they could hope to shake off the French yoke.
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Galling and humiliating beyond description. When Stein was driven into
exile at the dictation of Napoleon, with the loss of
his private fortune, he was invited by the Emperor of
Russia to aid him with his counsels, and it can
be scarcely doubted that in the employ of Russia he
rendered his immense services to Germany, and had no little
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influence in shaping the movements of the allies and affecting
the ruin of the common despot. On this point, however,
I cannot dwell count. Afterward. Prince Hardenburg held to substantially
the same views and was more acceptable to the King
as minister than was the austere and haughty Stein. Although
his morals were loose and his abilities far inferior to
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those of the former, but his diplomatic talents were considerable,
and his manners were agreeable like those of Metternich, while
Stein treated kings and princes as ordinary men and dictated
to them the course which was necessary to pursue. It
was the work of Hardenburg to create a peasant proprietorship
of modern Prussia, but it was the previous work of
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Stein to establish free trade in land, which means the
removal of hindrances to the sale and purchase of land,
which still remains one of the abuses of England, the
ultimate effect of which was to remove caste in Land,
as well as caste in persons. The great educational movement
in the deepest depression of Prussian affairs was headed by
(10:13):
William Baron von Humboldt. When Prussia lay disarmed, dismembered, and impoverished,
the University of Berlin was founded, the government contributing one
hundred and fifty thousand thalers a year, and Humboldt, the
first Minister of Public Education, succeeded in inducing the most
eminent and learned men in Germany to become professors in
(10:33):
this new university. I look upon this educational movement in
the most gloomy period of German history as one of
the noblest achievements which any nation ever made in the
cause of science and literature. It took away the sting
of military ascendancy and raised men of genius to inequality
with nobles. And as the universities were the centers of
liberal sentiments and all liberalizing ideas, they must have exerted
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no small influence on the War of Liberation itself, as
well as on the cause of patriotism, which was the
foundation of the future greatness of Prussia. Students flocked from
all parts of Germany to hear lectures from accomplished and
patriotic professors who inculcated the love of fatherland. Germany, though
fallen into the hands of a military hero from defects
in the administration of governments and armies, was not disgraced
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when her professors in the university were the greatest scholars
of the world. They created a new empire, not of
the heir, as some one sneeringly remarked, but of mind,
which has gone on from conquering to conquer. For more
than fifty years, German universities have been the center of
European thought and scholastic culture. Pedantic, perhaps, but original and profound.
(11:44):
Before proceeding to the main subject, I have to speak
of one more great reform, which was the work of Scharnhorst.
This was that series of measures which determined the result
of the greatest military struggles of the nineteenth century and
raised Prussia to the front rank of military monarchies. It
was the Levy Almas, composed of the youth of the
nation without distinction of rank. Instead of an army made
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up of peasants and serfs and commanded by their feudal masters,
Scharnhorst introduced a compulsory system indeed, but it was not unequal.
Every man was made to feel that he had a
personal interest in defending his country, and there were no
exceptions made true. The old system of Friederic the Great
was that of conscription, but from this conscription large classes
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and whole districts were exempted, while the soldiers who fought
in the War of liberation were drawn from all classes alike.
Hence there was no unjust compulsion, which weakens patriotism and
entails innumerable miseries. It was impossible, in the utter exhaustion
of the national finances, to raise a sufficient number of
volunteers to meet the emergencies of the times. Therefore, if
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Napoleon was to be overthrown, it was absolutely necessary to
compel everybody to serve in the army for a limited period.
The nations all the necessity and made no resistance. Thus
patriotism lent her aid and became an overwhelming power. The
citizen soldier was no great burden to the government, since
it was bound to his support only for a limited period,
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long or short, as the exigency of the country demanded. Hence,
large armies were maintained at comparatively trifling expense. I need
not go into the details of a system which made
Prussia a nation of patriots as well as of soldiers,
and which made Scharnhorst a great national benefactor, sharing with
Stein the glory of a great deliverance. He did not
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live to see the complete triumph of his system, matured
by genius and patient study, but his work remained to
future generations and made Prussia invincible except to a coalition
of powerful enemies. All this was done under the eye
of Napoleon, and a dreamy middle class became an effective soldiery.
So too did the peasants, no longer subjected to corporal
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punishment and other humiliations. But a great thing it was
to restore dignity to a whole nation and kindle the
fires of patriotic ardor among poor and rich alike. To
the credit of the King, he saw the excellence of
the new system at once, adopted it and generously rewarded
its authors. Scharnhorst, the peasant's son, was made a noble
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and was retained in office until he died. Steyne, however,
whose overshadowing greatness created jealousy, remained simply a baron and
spent his last days in retirement, though not unhonored or
without influence, even when not occupying the great offices of state,
to which no man ever had a higher claim, the
king did not like him, and the king was still
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an absolute monarch. Friedrich William the Third was by no
means a great man, being jealous, timid, and vacillating. But
it was in his reign that Prussia laid the foundation
of her greatness as a military monarchy. It was not
the king who laid this foundation, but the great men
whom Providence raised up in the darkest hours of precious humiliation.
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He did one prudent thing, however, out of timidity, when
his ministers waged vigorous and offensive measures, he refused to
arm against Napoleon when Prussia lay at his mercy. This
turned out to be the salvation of Prussia. A weak
man's instincts proved to be wiser than the wisdom of
the wise. When Napoleon's doom was sealed by his disasters
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in Russia. Then, and not till then, did the Prussian
king unite with Russia and Austria to crush the unscrupulous despot.
The condition of Prussia then briefly stated when Napoleon was
sent to Saint Helena to meditate and die. Was this
a conquering army, of which Bluchet was one of its
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greatest generals, had been raised by the leves omase a conscription,
indeed not of peasants alone, obliged to serve for twenty years,
but of the whole nation for three years of active service.
And a series of administrative reforms had been introduced and
extended to every department of the state, by which greater
act and a more complete system were inaugurated. Favoritism abolished
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and the finances improved so as to support the government
and furnish the sinews of war, while alliances were made
with great powers who hitherto had been enemies or doubtful friends.
These alliances resulted in what is called the German Confederation
or bound, a strict union of all the various states
for defensive purposes and also to maintain a general system
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to suppress revolutionary and internal dissensions. Most of the German
states entered into this confederacy, at the head of which
was Austria. It was determined in June eighteen fifteen at
Vienna that the confederacy should be managed by a general
assembly called a Diet, the seat of which was located
at Frankfurt. In this Diet, the various independent states, thirty
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nine in number, had votes in proportion to their population,
and were bound to contribute troops of one soldier to
every hundred inhabitants, amounting to three hundred thousand, in all
of which Austria and Prussia and Bavaria furnished more than half.
This arrangement virtually gave to Austria and Prussia a preponderance
in the Diet, and as the states were impoverished by
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the late war and the people generally detested war, a
long piece of forty years with a short interval of
a year was secured to Germany, during which prosperity returned
and the population nearly doubled. The Germans turned their swords
into pruning hooks, and all kinds of industry were developed,
especially manufactures. The cities were adorned with magnificent works of art,
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and libraries, schools and universities covered the land. No nation
ever made a more signal progress in material prosperity than
did the German states during this period of forty years,
especially Prussia, which became in addition, intellectually the most cultivated
country in Europe, with twenty one thousand primary schools and
one thousand academies or gymnasia in which mathematics and the
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learned languages were taught by a common pushed scholars, to
say nothing of the universities, which drew students from all
Christian and civilized countries in both hemispheres. The rapid advance
in learning, however, especially in the universities and the gymnasia,
led to the discussion of innumerable subjects, including endless theories
of government and the rights of man, by which discontent
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was engendered and virtue was not advanced. Strange to say,
even crime increased. The universities became hot beds of political excitement, duels,
beer drinking, private quarrels, and infidel discussion, causing great alarm
to conservative governments and to peaceful citizens generally. At last,
the Diet began to interfere, for it claimed the general
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oversight of all internal affairs in the various states. An
army of three hundred thousand men which obeyed the dictation
of the Diet was not to be resisted, and as
this Diet was controlled by Austria, and Prussia, it became
every year more despotic and anti democratic. In consequence, the
press was gradually fettered, diversities were closely watched, and all
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revolutionary movements in cities were suppressed. Discontent and popular agitations,
as usual, went hand in hand. As early as eighteen eighteen,
the great reaction against all liberal sentiments in political matters
had fairly set in. The King of Prussia neglected and
finally refused to grant the constitutional government which he had
promised in the day of his adversity before the Battle
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of Waterloo, while Austria, guided by Metternich, stamped her iron
heel on everything which looked like intellectual or national independence.
This memorable reaction against all progress and government, not confined
to the German states, but extending to Europe generally, has
already been considered in previous chapters. It was the great
political feature in the history of Europe for ten years
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after the fall of Napoleon, particularly in Austria, where hatred
of all popular movements raged with exceeding bitterness, intensified by
the revolutions in Spain, Italy and Greece. The assassination of Katsubu,
the dramatic author by a political fanatic, for his supposed
complicity with the despotic schemes of the czar, kindled popular
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excitement into a blazing flame, but still more fiercely incited
the sovereigns of Germany to make every effort to suppress
even liberty of thought. During the period then when ultra
conservative principles animated, the united despots of the various German
states and the diet controlled by Benderdick, repressed all liberal movements.
Little advance was made in Prussia in the way of reforms,
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but a great advance was made in all questions of political,
economy and industrial matters. Free trade was established in the
most unlimited sense between all the states and providences of
the Confederation. All restraints were removed from the navigation of rivers.
New markets were opened in every direction for the productions
of industry. In eighteen thirty nine, the Zolvaryin or customs Union,
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was established, by which a uniform scale of duties was
imposed on northern Germany on all imports and exports. But
no political reform forms which the king had promised were effected.
During the life of Friedrich William the third Hardenberg, who
with Stein had inaugurated liberal movements had lost his influence,
although he was retained in power till he died. For
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the twenty years succeeding the Confederation of the German States
in eighteen twenty, constitutional freedom made little or no progress
in Germany. The only advance made in Prussia was in
eighteen twenty three, when the provincial estates or diets were established. These, however,
were the mere shadow of representative government, since the estates
were convoked at irregular intervals and had neither the power
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to initiate laws nor grant supplies. They can only express
their opinions concerning changes in the laws pertaining to persons
and property. On the seventh of June eighteen forty, Friedrich
Wilhelm the Third of Prussia died and was succeeded by
his son, Friedrich William the Fourth, a religious and patriotic
king who was compelled to make promises for some sort
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of constanceitutional liberty and to grant certain concessions, which, although
they did not mean much, gave general satisfaction. Among other things,
the freedom of the press was partially guaranteed with certain restrictions,
and the zolverine was extended to Brunswick and hesse Homburg. Meantime,
the government entered with zeal upon the construction of railways
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and the completion of the Cathedral of Cologne, which tended
to a more permanent union of the North German states.
We are not engaged here, said the new monarch, on
the inauguration of the completion of that proudest work of
medieval art with a construction of an ordinary edifice. It
is a work bespeaking the spirit of union and concord
which animates the whole of Germany and all its persuasions,
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that we are now constructing. This inauguration, amid immense popular enthusiasm,
was soon followed by the meeting of the Estates of
the whole Kingdom at Berlin, which for the first time
united the various provincial estates in a general diet, but
its functions were limited to questions involving a diminution of taxi.
No member was allowed to speak more than once on
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any question, and the representatives of the Commons were only
a third of the whole assembly. This naturally did not
satisfy the nation, and petitions flowed in for the abolition
of the censorship of the press and for the publicity
of debate. The King was not prepared to make these
concessions in full, but he abolished the censorship of the
press as to works extending to above twenty pages, and
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enjoying the censors of lesser pamphlets and journals, to exercise
gentleness and discretion, and not erase anything which did not
strike at the monarchy at length. In eighteen forty seven,
the desire was so universal for some form of representative
government that a royal edict convoked a general assembly of
the Estates of Prussia, arranged in four classes, the nobles,
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the equestrian order, the towns, and the rural districts. The
Diet consisted of six hundred and seventy members, of which
only eighty were nobles, and was empowered to discuss all
questions pertaining to legislation, but the initiative of all measures
was reserved to the crown. This National Diet assembled on
the twenty fourth of July and was opened by the
King in person with a noble speech remarkable for its
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elevation of tone. He convoked the Diet. The King said
to make himself acquainted with the wishes and wants of
his people, but not to change the constitution, which guaranteed
an absolute monarchy. The province of the Diet was consultative
rather than legislative. Political and military power as before remained
with the king. Still, an important step had been taken
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towards representative institutions. It was about this time, as a
member of the National Diet, that Otto Edward Leopold von
Bismarck appeared upon the political stage. It was a period
of great political excitement, not only in Prussia but throughout Europe,
and also of great material prosperity. Railways had been built,
the Zolverine had extended through North Germany. The universities were
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in their glory, and into everything fearless thinkers were casting
their thoughtful eyes. Thirty four years of peace had enriched
and united the German states. The great idea of the
day was political franchise. Everybody aspired to solve political problems
and wished to have a voice in deliberative assemblies. There
was also an unusual agitation of religious ideas. Rouge had
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attempted the complete emancipation of Germany from papal influences and
university professors through their influence on the side of rationalism
and popular liberty. On the whole, there was a general
tendency towards democratic ideas, which was opposed with great bitterness
by the conservative parties, made up of nobles and government officials.
End of Section fourteen.
Section fourteen of begin Lights of History, Volume ten, European
Leaders by John Lord. This LibriVox recording is in the
public domain. Recording by Khand Prince Bismarck, Part one, eighteen
fifteen to eighteen ninety eight the German Empire. Before presenting Bismarck,
(00:23):
it will be necessary to glance at the work of
those great men who prepared the way not only for him,
but also for the soldier moltke men who raised Prussia
from the humiliation resulting from her conquest by Napoleon. That
humiliation was as complete as it was unexpected. It was
even greater than that of France. After the later Franco
(00:45):
Prussian War, Prussia was dismembered, Its provinces were seized by
the conqueror. Its population was reduced to less than four millions.
Its territory was occupied by one hundred and fifty thousand
French soldiers. The king himself was an exile and a
fugitive from his own capital. Every sort of indignity was
(01:06):
heaped on his prostrate subjects, who were compelled to pay
a war indemnity beyond their power. Trade and commerce were
cut off by Napoleon's continental system and universal poverty overspread
the country, always poor and now poorer than ever. Prussia
had no allies to rally to her sinking fortunes. She
(01:26):
was completely isolated. Most of her fortresses were in the
hands of her enemies, and the magnificent army of which
she had been so proud since the days of Friederic
the Great, was dispersed at the Peace of Tilsit in
eighteen o seven. It looked as if the whole kingdom
was about to be absorbed in the Empire of Napoleon,
like Bavaria and the Rhine Provinces, and wiped out of
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the map of Europe like unfortunate Poland. But even this
did not complete the humiliation. Napoleon compelled the King of Prussia,
Friederic William the Third, to furnish him soldiers to fight
against Russia, as if Prussia were already incorporated with his
own empire and had lost her nationality. At that time,
France and Russia were in alliance, and Prussia had no
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course to adopt but submission or complete destruction. And yet
Prussia refused, in these evil days to join the Confederation
of the Rhine, which embraced all the German states. At
the south and west of Austria and Prussia. Napoleon, however,
was too much engrossed in his scheme of conquering Spain
to swallow up Prussia entirely, as he intended, after he
(02:34):
should have subdued Spain. So after all, Prussia had before
her only the fortune of Ulysses in the Cave of
Polyphemus to be devoured. The last the escape of Prussia
was owing on the one hand, to the necessity for
Napoleon to withdraw his main army from Prussia in order
to fight in Spain, and secondly to the transcendent talents
(02:57):
of a few patriots to whom the king, in his distress,
was forced to listen. The chief of these were Stein,
Hardenburg and Shamhorst. It was the work of Stein to
reorganize the internal administration of Prussia, including the financial department,
that of Hardenburg to conduct the Ministry of Foreign Affairs,
and that of Sharnhorst to reorganize the military power. The
(03:21):
two former were the nobles, the latter sprung from the
people a peasant's son, but they worked together in tolerable harmony,
considering the rival jealousies that at one time existed among
all the high officials with their innumerable prejudices. Baron von
Stein born in seventeen fifty seven of an old Imperial
(03:41):
knightly family from the country near Nassau, was as a
youth well educated, and at the age of twenty three
entered the Prussian service under Friedrich the Great in the
mining department, where he gained rapid promotion. In seventeen eighty
six he visited England and made a careful study of
her institutions, which he profoundly admired. In seventeen eighty seven
(04:03):
he became a sort of provincial governor, being director of
the War and Domain Chambers at Cleves and Ham. In
eighteen o four Stein became Minister of Trade, having charge
of excise, customs, manufactures and Trade. The whole financial administration
at this time, under King Friederic William the Third was
in a state of great confusion from an unnecessary number
(04:25):
of officials who did not work harmoniously. There was too
much red tape. Stein brought order out of confusion, simplified
the administration, punished corruption, increased the national credit, then at
a very low ebb and re established the Bank of
Prussia on a basis that enabled it to assist the government,
but a larger field than that of finance was opened
(04:47):
to Stein. In the War of eighteen o six, the
King entrusted him the portfolio of Foreign Affairs, not willingly,
but because he regarded him as the ablest man in
the kingdom. Stein declined to be foreign Minister unless he
was entirely unshackled, and the King was obliged to yield,
for the misfortunes of the country had now culminated in
(05:08):
the disastrous defeat at Friedland. The king, however, soon quarreled
with his minister, being jealous of his commanding abilities and
unused to dictation from any source. After a brief exile
at Nassau, the Peace of Tilsit having proved the sagacity
of his views, Stein returned to power as virtual dictator
of the kingdom with the approbation of Napoleon, but his
(05:31):
dictatorship lasted only about a year when he was again discharged.
During that year eighteen o seven, Stein made his mark
in Prussian history without dwelling on details. He effected the
abolition of serfdom in Prussia, the trade inland, and municipal
reforms giving citizens self government in place of the despotism
of military bureaus. He made it his business to pay
(05:54):
off the French war indemnity one hundred and fifty million francs,
a great sum for Prussia to raise when dismembered and
trodden in the dust under one hundred and fifty thousand
French soldiers, and to establish a new and improved administrative system.
But more than all, he attempted to rouse a moral,
religious and patriotic spirit in the nation and to inspire
(06:15):
it anew with courage, self confidence, and self sacrifice. In
eighteen o eight, the ministry became warlike in spite of
its despair, the first glimpse of hope being the popular
rising in Spain. It was during the ministry of Stein,
and through his efforts, that the anti Napoleonic Revolution began.
The intense hostility of Stein to Napoleon and his commanding
(06:36):
abilities led Napoleon in eighteen o eight imperatively to demand
from the King of Prussia the dismissal of his minister,
and Friederic William dared not resist. Stein did not retire, however,
until after the royal edict had emancipated the serfs of
Prussia and until that other great reform was made, by
which the nobles lost the monopoly of office and exception
(06:58):
from taxation, while the same citizen class gained admission to
all posts, trades, and occupations. These great reforms were chiefly
to be traced to Stein, although Hardenberg and others like
Schoen and Nibhir had a hand in them. Stein also
opened the military profession to the citizen class, which before
was closed only nobles, being entrusted with command in the army.
(07:21):
It is true that nobles still continued to form a
large majority of officers, even as peasants formed the bulk
of the army. But the removal of restrictions and the
abolition of serfdom tended to create patriotic sentiments among all classes,
on which the strength of armies in no small degree rests.
In the time of Friederic the Great, the army was
a mere machine. It was something more when the nation
(07:44):
in eighteen eleven rallied to achieve its independence. Then was
born the idea of nationality that whatever obligations a Prussian
owed to the state Germany was greater than Prussia itself.
This idea was the central principle of Stein's political system,
leading ultimately to the unity of Germany. As finally affected
by Bismarck and Moltke. It became almost synonymous with that
(08:07):
patriotism which sustains governments and thrones, the absence of which
was the great defect of the German states before the
times of Napoleon, when both princes and people lost sight
of the unity of the nation in the interests of
petty sovereignties. Stein was a man of prodigious energy, practical
good sense, and lofty character, but irascible, haughty, and contemptuous,
(08:30):
and was far from being a favorite with the king
and court. His great idea was the unity and independence
of Germany. He thought more of German nationality than of
Prussian aggrandizement. It was his aim to make his countrymen
feel that they were Germans rather than Prussians, and that
it was only by a union of the various German
states that they could hope to shake off the French yoke.
(08:51):
Galling and humiliating beyond description. When Stein was driven into
exile at the dictation of Napoleon, with the loss of
his private fortune, he was invited by the Emperor of
Russia to aid him with his counsels, and it can
be scarcely doubted that in the employ of Russia he
rendered his immense services to Germany, and had no little
(09:11):
influence in shaping the movements of the allies and affecting
the ruin of the common despot. On this point, however,
I cannot dwell count. Afterward. Prince Hardenburg held to substantially
the same views and was more acceptable to the King
as minister than was the austere and haughty Stein. Although
his morals were loose and his abilities far inferior to
(09:32):
those of the former, but his diplomatic talents were considerable,
and his manners were agreeable like those of Metternich, while
Stein treated kings and princes as ordinary men and dictated
to them the course which was necessary to pursue. It
was the work of Hardenburg to create a peasant proprietorship
of modern Prussia, but it was the previous work of
(09:52):
Stein to establish free trade in land, which means the
removal of hindrances to the sale and purchase of land,
which still remains one of the abuses of England, the
ultimate effect of which was to remove caste in Land,
as well as caste in persons. The great educational movement
in the deepest depression of Prussian affairs was headed by
(10:13):
William Baron von Humboldt. When Prussia lay disarmed, dismembered, and impoverished,
the University of Berlin was founded, the government contributing one
hundred and fifty thousand thalers a year, and Humboldt, the
first Minister of Public Education, succeeded in inducing the most
eminent and learned men in Germany to become professors in
(10:33):
this new university. I look upon this educational movement in
the most gloomy period of German history as one of
the noblest achievements which any nation ever made in the
cause of science and literature. It took away the sting
of military ascendancy and raised men of genius to inequality
with nobles. And as the universities were the centers of
liberal sentiments and all liberalizing ideas, they must have exerted
(10:57):
no small influence on the War of Liberation itself, as
well as on the cause of patriotism, which was the
foundation of the future greatness of Prussia. Students flocked from
all parts of Germany to hear lectures from accomplished and
patriotic professors who inculcated the love of fatherland. Germany, though
fallen into the hands of a military hero from defects
in the administration of governments and armies, was not disgraced
(11:20):
when her professors in the university were the greatest scholars
of the world. They created a new empire, not of
the heir, as some one sneeringly remarked, but of mind,
which has gone on from conquering to conquer. For more
than fifty years, German universities have been the center of
European thought and scholastic culture. Pedantic, perhaps, but original and profound.
(11:44):
Before proceeding to the main subject, I have to speak
of one more great reform, which was the work of Scharnhorst.
This was that series of measures which determined the result
of the greatest military struggles of the nineteenth century and
raised Prussia to the front rank of military monarchies. It
was the Levy Almas, composed of the youth of the
nation without distinction of rank. Instead of an army made
(12:08):
up of peasants and serfs and commanded by their feudal masters,
Scharnhorst introduced a compulsory system indeed, but it was not unequal.
Every man was made to feel that he had a
personal interest in defending his country, and there were no
exceptions made true. The old system of Friederic the Great
was that of conscription, but from this conscription large classes
(12:29):
and whole districts were exempted, while the soldiers who fought
in the War of liberation were drawn from all classes alike.
Hence there was no unjust compulsion, which weakens patriotism and
entails innumerable miseries. It was impossible, in the utter exhaustion
of the national finances, to raise a sufficient number of
volunteers to meet the emergencies of the times. Therefore, if
(12:52):
Napoleon was to be overthrown, it was absolutely necessary to
compel everybody to serve in the army for a limited period.
The nations all the necessity and made no resistance. Thus
patriotism lent her aid and became an overwhelming power. The
citizen soldier was no great burden to the government, since
it was bound to his support only for a limited period,
(13:13):
long or short, as the exigency of the country demanded. Hence,
large armies were maintained at comparatively trifling expense. I need
not go into the details of a system which made
Prussia a nation of patriots as well as of soldiers,
and which made Scharnhorst a great national benefactor, sharing with
Stein the glory of a great deliverance. He did not
(13:34):
live to see the complete triumph of his system, matured
by genius and patient study, but his work remained to
future generations and made Prussia invincible except to a coalition
of powerful enemies. All this was done under the eye
of Napoleon, and a dreamy middle class became an effective soldiery.
So too did the peasants, no longer subjected to corporal
(13:55):
punishment and other humiliations. But a great thing it was
to restore dignity to a whole nation and kindle the
fires of patriotic ardor among poor and rich alike. To
the credit of the King, he saw the excellence of
the new system at once, adopted it and generously rewarded
its authors. Scharnhorst, the peasant's son, was made a noble
(14:17):
and was retained in office until he died. Steyne, however,
whose overshadowing greatness created jealousy, remained simply a baron and
spent his last days in retirement, though not unhonored or
without influence, even when not occupying the great offices of state,
to which no man ever had a higher claim, the
king did not like him, and the king was still
(14:38):
an absolute monarch. Friedrich William the Third was by no
means a great man, being jealous, timid, and vacillating. But
it was in his reign that Prussia laid the foundation
of her greatness as a military monarchy. It was not
the king who laid this foundation, but the great men
whom Providence raised up in the darkest hours of precious humiliation.
(14:58):
He did one prudent thing, however, out of timidity, when
his ministers waged vigorous and offensive measures, he refused to
arm against Napoleon when Prussia lay at his mercy. This
turned out to be the salvation of Prussia. A weak
man's instincts proved to be wiser than the wisdom of
the wise. When Napoleon's doom was sealed by his disasters
(15:20):
in Russia. Then, and not till then, did the Prussian
king unite with Russia and Austria to crush the unscrupulous despot.
The condition of Prussia then briefly stated when Napoleon was
sent to Saint Helena to meditate and die. Was this
a conquering army, of which Bluchet was one of its
(15:40):
greatest generals, had been raised by the leves omase a conscription,
indeed not of peasants alone, obliged to serve for twenty years,
but of the whole nation for three years of active service.
And a series of administrative reforms had been introduced and
extended to every department of the state, by which greater
act and a more complete system were inaugurated. Favoritism abolished
(16:04):
and the finances improved so as to support the government
and furnish the sinews of war, while alliances were made
with great powers who hitherto had been enemies or doubtful friends.
These alliances resulted in what is called the German Confederation
or bound, a strict union of all the various states
for defensive purposes and also to maintain a general system
(16:27):
to suppress revolutionary and internal dissensions. Most of the German
states entered into this confederacy, at the head of which
was Austria. It was determined in June eighteen fifteen at
Vienna that the confederacy should be managed by a general
assembly called a Diet, the seat of which was located
at Frankfurt. In this Diet, the various independent states, thirty
(16:51):
nine in number, had votes in proportion to their population,
and were bound to contribute troops of one soldier to
every hundred inhabitants, amounting to three hundred thousand, in all
of which Austria and Prussia and Bavaria furnished more than half.
This arrangement virtually gave to Austria and Prussia a preponderance
in the Diet, and as the states were impoverished by
(17:13):
the late war and the people generally detested war, a
long piece of forty years with a short interval of
a year was secured to Germany, during which prosperity returned
and the population nearly doubled. The Germans turned their swords
into pruning hooks, and all kinds of industry were developed,
especially manufactures. The cities were adorned with magnificent works of art,
(17:34):
and libraries, schools and universities covered the land. No nation
ever made a more signal progress in material prosperity than
did the German states during this period of forty years,
especially Prussia, which became in addition, intellectually the most cultivated
country in Europe, with twenty one thousand primary schools and
one thousand academies or gymnasia in which mathematics and the
(17:58):
learned languages were taught by a common pushed scholars, to
say nothing of the universities, which drew students from all
Christian and civilized countries in both hemispheres. The rapid advance
in learning, however, especially in the universities and the gymnasia,
led to the discussion of innumerable subjects, including endless theories
of government and the rights of man, by which discontent
(18:20):
was engendered and virtue was not advanced. Strange to say,
even crime increased. The universities became hot beds of political excitement, duels,
beer drinking, private quarrels, and infidel discussion, causing great alarm
to conservative governments and to peaceful citizens generally. At last,
the Diet began to interfere, for it claimed the general
(18:41):
oversight of all internal affairs in the various states. An
army of three hundred thousand men which obeyed the dictation
of the Diet was not to be resisted, and as
this Diet was controlled by Austria, and Prussia, it became
every year more despotic and anti democratic. In consequence, the
press was gradually fettered, diversities were closely watched, and all
(19:02):
revolutionary movements in cities were suppressed. Discontent and popular agitations,
as usual, went hand in hand. As early as eighteen eighteen,
the great reaction against all liberal sentiments in political matters
had fairly set in. The King of Prussia neglected and
finally refused to grant the constitutional government which he had
promised in the day of his adversity before the Battle
(19:23):
of Waterloo, while Austria, guided by Metternich, stamped her iron
heel on everything which looked like intellectual or national independence.
This memorable reaction against all progress and government, not confined
to the German states, but extending to Europe generally, has
already been considered in previous chapters. It was the great
political feature in the history of Europe for ten years
(19:45):
after the fall of Napoleon, particularly in Austria, where hatred
of all popular movements raged with exceeding bitterness, intensified by
the revolutions in Spain, Italy and Greece. The assassination of Katsubu,
the dramatic author by a political fanatic, for his supposed
complicity with the despotic schemes of the czar, kindled popular
(20:07):
excitement into a blazing flame, but still more fiercely incited
the sovereigns of Germany to make every effort to suppress
even liberty of thought. During the period then when ultra
conservative principles animated, the united despots of the various German
states and the diet controlled by Benderdick, repressed all liberal movements.
Little advance was made in Prussia in the way of reforms,
(20:29):
but a great advance was made in all questions of political,
economy and industrial matters. Free trade was established in the
most unlimited sense between all the states and providences of
the Confederation. All restraints were removed from the navigation of rivers.
New markets were opened in every direction for the productions
of industry. In eighteen thirty nine, the Zolvaryin or customs Union,
(20:52):
was established, by which a uniform scale of duties was
imposed on northern Germany on all imports and exports. But
no political reform forms which the king had promised were effected.
During the life of Friedrich William the third Hardenberg, who
with Stein had inaugurated liberal movements had lost his influence,
although he was retained in power till he died. For
(21:15):
the twenty years succeeding the Confederation of the German States
in eighteen twenty, constitutional freedom made little or no progress
in Germany. The only advance made in Prussia was in
eighteen twenty three, when the provincial estates or diets were established. These, however,
were the mere shadow of representative government, since the estates
were convoked at irregular intervals and had neither the power
(21:39):
to initiate laws nor grant supplies. They can only express
their opinions concerning changes in the laws pertaining to persons
and property. On the seventh of June eighteen forty, Friedrich
Wilhelm the Third of Prussia died and was succeeded by
his son, Friedrich William the Fourth, a religious and patriotic
king who was compelled to make promises for some sort
(21:59):
of constanceitutional liberty and to grant certain concessions, which, although
they did not mean much, gave general satisfaction. Among other things,
the freedom of the press was partially guaranteed with certain restrictions,
and the zolverine was extended to Brunswick and hesse Homburg. Meantime,
the government entered with zeal upon the construction of railways
(22:20):
and the completion of the Cathedral of Cologne, which tended
to a more permanent union of the North German states.
We are not engaged here, said the new monarch, on
the inauguration of the completion of that proudest work of
medieval art with a construction of an ordinary edifice. It
is a work bespeaking the spirit of union and concord
which animates the whole of Germany and all its persuasions,
(22:42):
that we are now constructing. This inauguration, amid immense popular enthusiasm,
was soon followed by the meeting of the Estates of
the whole Kingdom at Berlin, which for the first time
united the various provincial estates in a general diet, but
its functions were limited to questions involving a diminution of taxi.
No member was allowed to speak more than once on
(23:03):
any question, and the representatives of the Commons were only
a third of the whole assembly. This naturally did not
satisfy the nation, and petitions flowed in for the abolition
of the censorship of the press and for the publicity
of debate. The King was not prepared to make these
concessions in full, but he abolished the censorship of the
press as to works extending to above twenty pages, and
(23:25):
enjoying the censors of lesser pamphlets and journals, to exercise
gentleness and discretion, and not erase anything which did not
strike at the monarchy at length. In eighteen forty seven,
the desire was so universal for some form of representative
government that a royal edict convoked a general assembly of
the Estates of Prussia, arranged in four classes, the nobles,
(23:47):
the equestrian order, the towns, and the rural districts. The
Diet consisted of six hundred and seventy members, of which
only eighty were nobles, and was empowered to discuss all
questions pertaining to legislation, but the initiative of all measures
was reserved to the crown. This National Diet assembled on
the twenty fourth of July and was opened by the
King in person with a noble speech remarkable for its
(24:09):
elevation of tone. He convoked the Diet. The King said
to make himself acquainted with the wishes and wants of
his people, but not to change the constitution, which guaranteed
an absolute monarchy. The province of the Diet was consultative
rather than legislative. Political and military power as before remained
with the king. Still, an important step had been taken
(24:31):
towards representative institutions. It was about this time, as a
member of the National Diet, that Otto Edward Leopold von
Bismarck appeared upon the political stage. It was a period
of great political excitement, not only in Prussia but throughout Europe,
and also of great material prosperity. Railways had been built,
the Zolverine had extended through North Germany. The universities were
(24:54):
in their glory, and into everything fearless thinkers were casting
their thoughtful eyes. Thirty four years of peace had enriched
and united the German states. The great idea of the
day was political franchise. Everybody aspired to solve political problems
and wished to have a voice in deliberative assemblies. There
was also an unusual agitation of religious ideas. Rouge had
(25:15):
attempted the complete emancipation of Germany from papal influences and
university professors through their influence on the side of rationalism
and popular liberty. On the whole, there was a general
tendency towards democratic ideas, which was opposed with great bitterness
by the conservative parties, made up of nobles and government officials.
End of Section fourteen.
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