The German Empire Read online

  This book traces the rise and fall of the German Empire from its inception after the Franco-Prussian war of 1870 to its demise, in defeat and revolution, in 1918. Otto von Bismarck, its creator, put an end to the age-old European role of Germany by excluding the vast and unwieldy Habsburg lands. But even so the new German nation-state was, almost inevitably, a dramatic challenge to the established balance of power. “Europe has lost a mistress and won a master” was a complaint heard around London after France’s defeat. Benjamin Disraeli, later the Earl of Beaconsfield, pointed out in the House of Commons in 1871 that this war—referring to the recent Franco-German war—was “a German revolution,” and “a greater political event than the French revolution of last century. I don’t say a greater, or as great a social event. What its social consequences may be, is in the future . . . there is not a diplomatic tradition which has not been swept away . . . What has really come to pass? The balance of power has been entirely destroyed.” There was an ominous tone of warning in his analysis, and it was heeded by the contemporary generation of German leaders, especially by Bismarck— whose epithet of the “Iron” Chancellor disguised his heroic pessimism—and by his successor Count Caprivi. But by the end of the century the European stage had been superseded by a global one. The United States and Japan had become world powers in their own right and markets, resources, battle-fleets and sea-lanes had become vital components of national power and identity in Europe, Germany being no exception. And there was no longer Bismarck to sound the alarm.

  Why did the Empire end in war? Was this, to put it into ancient Greek terms, nemesis following hubris? Were the inevitable stresses of transforming an agricultural society into an industrial one uncontainable? Or was Germany caught in its geography, its politicians blind to the troubling fact that the country was too big for the old balance of power to continue but too small to impose a new equilibrium? Was German militarism any worse than French chauvinism, Russian expansionism or British jingoism and imperialism? Perhaps Germany’s sudden rise after centuries of defeat and suffering overtaxed the historical and strategic imagination of its power elites whose outlook and sensitivity to danger were essentially continental rather than global in reach. It was the industrialist Walther Rathenau who said, not long before the outbreak of World War I, that the Germans knew their map but were ignorant of the globe.

  Within the lifetime of one generation Germany was able to become the foremost industrial and trading power in Europe. Bismarck’s revolution from above unleashed vast energies through the nation state, not entirely unlike events in France eighty years before. Industrial performance was second to none and was accompanied by the birth of the welfare state and democratic institutions and aspirations; of a socialist subculture and an ambitious liberal bourgeoisie unsure of itself but driven by nervous energy and creative unrest. At the turn of the century the language of the sciences was, in many parts of the world, German. A vast number of Nobel prizes went to German scholars, many of them Jews. German big business and banks were probably organized more efficiently than most competitors except for the United States. German universities became the model for many establishments of higher education from Turkey to North America. If the French Impressionists dominated the art world in the nineteenth century, after the turn of the century German art movements became equally important. In literature it was probably the Germany of Gerhard Hauptmann, Thomas Mann or Theodor Mommsen, all of them Nobel Prize winners, that most sensitively expressed the drama and contradictions of industrial society. A letter which appeared in The Times in August 1914 under the heading “Scholars’ Protest Against War” summed up a widely held view: “We regard Germany as a nation leading the way in the arts and sciences, and we have all learnt and are learning from German scholars.”

  However, ultimately, as has often been said, perhaps the Kaiser’s rule was too authoritarian and out of touch to allow Germany to evolve into a more open society with more liberal politics. Perhaps World War I, in all its patent absurdity, was an inevitable result of Europe’s reckless power play, with Germany at the center. It was a grave not only for millions of young men and their dreams but also for the liberal institutions that had nurtured the genius of nineteenth-century Europe. Alas, that genius was of the self-destructive kind. The war, for all its brutality, did bring with it the chance of female liberation and democratic transformation, but it turned out also to contain the seeds of totalitarian dictatorship.

  PROLOGUE:

  IMPERIAL BIRTHDAY

  The vast Palace of Versailles had not seen a gathering of such splendor for over fifty years. There were a few solemn elderly gentlemen in tailcoats, but the remainder of the throng were officers in victorious mood—uniformed, decorated, their left hands on their sword hilts, plumed helmets in their right. This was the flower of the German ruling aristocracy, with some senators from the three remaining Free Cities in northern Germany and a handful of Reichstag members, assembled to witness the proclamation of the last European empire on January 18, 1871.

  Those versed in Roman history among the crowd could not fail to recall the brutal tag, Exercitus facit imperatorem— “the army makes the emperor.” Versailles was, indeed, the camp of the German allies, united as never before by their victory over Napoleon III of France. The Galerie des Glaces where they stood might have been a hospital ward full of Prussian wounded a few weeks ago, and the war might be continuing against the republic that had succeeded the second Napoleonic Empire, but peace was on the way. It was bound to be bitter for France, losing Alsace and Lorraine and paying reparations of 5 billion gold francs to a part of Europe long regarded as her diplomatic playing field or chosen battleground. But it was also to be bitter for Germany: Bismarck soon learned that “France is impossible”—there could be no European system with a revengeful France; nor could there be one without it.

  A vengeful France had gone to war in July 1870, much against the better judgment of Napoleon III, in order to stop Prussia, already dominant in Germany, from overawing Europe as well. “Revenge for Sadowa” had been the somewhat bizarre battle cry of the French press, Sadowa or Königgrätz being the place of the decisive Prussian victory over the Austrians in 1866. France had not participated in that war and had itself defeated Austria in 1859 in Italy, but parliament and the press in Paris regarded European hegemony as a French birthright since the days of François I. Unless Napoleon prevented Germany’s seizure of this inheritance, he knew he would lose his throne. Surrounded at Sedan a few weeks later, together with most of his army, he lost it anyway.

  It was a far-fetched idea, in the true meaning of that phrase, to proclaim the German Emperor at such a distance from home. It seemed also to add insult to injury, to use a building synonymous with the glory of France. But to have used Berlin would have exposed the apparently equal alliance for what it was, a Prussian military monarchy, and would have reminded Germans that the King of Prussia had, not long ago, been only one among the “seven pillars of the empire,” the electors of the Emperor. Frankfurt was too much associated with the medieval Empire, as the Emperors’ coronations had taken place in its Gothic cathedral. It was also associated with the troubling events of 1848, the “mad year” when all the thrones throughout German lands were shaking at the threat of the people’s sovereignty, when civil war raged in Berlin, Baden, Austria, Saxony and the Palatinate, and the new Emperor, then merely a Prussian Prince, had been forced to find a diplomatic pretext to travel in England. Moreover, Frankfurt, once the “Holy Roman Empire’s bullion vault,” had lost its status as a Free City only four years before, as punishment for siding with Austria in the brief military encounter of 1866. No one had forgotten how the rich cousins in the south had derided sandy Brandenburg, Prussia’s power center, as “the Holy Roman Empire’s pounce box”—the latter a device for sprinkling sand on a letter so as to dry the ink. Compared to the embarrassments waiting at home, Versailles seemed an almost rational choice. The actual day, January 18, had been chosen as the 170th annivers
ary of the self-styled coronation, defying the Holy Roman Emperor’s prerogative, of Elector Frederick III as Frederick I “King in Prussia,” in 1701.

  Otto von Bismarck, Prussian Prime Minister and now German Chancellor, left nothing to chance, either in the conduct of politics or in the stage management of the ceremony. A formal coronation of King William of Prussia as German Emperor was out of the question. There was no imperial crown—and to the end of Germany’s days as an empire there would never be one, except as an artist’s impression on coins, flags, post-boxes and the like; neither was there anyone able or willing to put one on the King’s head. A bishop? He himself was “supreme bishop” over all the Protestants throughout his lands. The precedent of Napoleon Bonaparte in 1804 was too overwhelming to allow him to crown himself. Besides, King William hated the whole business, which had been imposed on him by Bismarck. Educated to hold his Habsburg cousins in deep respect and to look with disdain on the mushroom growth of the two French Napoleonic empires, he had a deep aversion to seeing a similar title invented for himself. He used to call it a mere Charaktermajor, referring to the rank conferred on officers who actually retired as captains. When Bismarck greeted him on the morning of the 18th, rather like Mephisto to his Faustus, the old King observed, sadly, “Today we are carrying the old Prussia to its grave.” Bismarck could have replied that, after the recent strong injection of democracy into the body politic, after the alliance made with the moneyed classes and the advances made to the proletariat, old Prussia was doomed anyway. Had His Majesty forgotten 1848, or that only a few years ago he had been locked in a bitter struggle with his own parliament? It was certainly not of Bismarck’s choosing that he was now riding the wild horses of modern nationalism.

  As instructed by Bismarck, the Grand Duke of Baden stepped forward to cry “Long Live Emperor William,” swords were drawn—quite dangerous given the crowd— and the Emperor was installed. One person conspicuous by his absence was King Ludwig of Bavaria, second only to the new Emperor in power and precedence. Ludwig’s reputation for mental instability and homosexuality meant that Bismarck was quite happy that he had not taken the trouble to come to Versailles. Ludwig had in any case already performed the one vital task that Bismarck required of him—to send a letter, drafted of course by Bismarck, to the King of Prussia, asking him to become Emperor. Bismarck knew that one of Ludwig’s more expensive passions was palace building, something much appreciated by today’s tourists as they view Herrenchiemsee, Hohenschwanstein, and Linderhof, but not by the Bavarian parliament and treasury at the time. The reward Bismarck proffered for Ludwig’s letter was 5 million thaler, in cash if desired. The money was procured from secret funds derived from the wealth of the deposed King of Hanover, who, like the King of Bavaria, had been unwise enough to back Austria against Prussia in 1866. Bismarck’s lavish bribe meant that the palaces continued to rise among the Bavarian lakes and mountains, and Ludwig could continue to underwrite the expensive ideas of his favorite composer, Richard Wagner. It was not until after World War I, when the empire that these payments had facilitated was no more, that this transaction was revealed.

  The German “Reich,” or empire, put on the map of Europe by the kingdom of Prussia, was the very antithesis to the pre-modern, supra-national empire of the past millennium. The old empire had been a republic under a ruler elected during the last 500 years of its existence almost invariably from the house of Habsburg. The English or French translation of “empire,” especially after the brutal rise and hellish fall of the “third Reich,” is misleading with its implications of aggression. The medieval Reich was a conglomerate of spiritual and temporal powers: of princes, bishops, free cities like Hamburg or Frankfurt, and various other autonomous components. Its legitimacy derived from its claim to be a continuation of the Roman Empire. It was not a precursor of the modern dynastic state let alone the nation-state of the nineteenth century. The Lutheran translation of the pater noster mentions the Reich twice, meaning God’s kingdom. But the vastness of the term corresponded to the looseness of its organization and the undetermined nature of where it began and where it ended. Worse still, after Napoleon the Holy Roman Empire was no more and the term emperor was no longer associated with the largely impotent and ceremonial authority of the Habsburgs but with his military usurpation of revolutionary power. Therefore, resurrecting the title with its controversial history was inevitably a gamble, putting the new Germany into the ambit of two traditions mutually incompatible and open to dangerous interpretation.

  The emperor’s title and the name of empire promised the Germans much more than Bismarck, returning after 1871 to his conservative beginnings, was willing to allow, let alone deliver. He had fought, and won, the war of 1866 against Austria—the first victory of the future German Empire—precisely in order to cut Germany down to a more acceptable size. The Germany confirmed through the victory over imperial France in 1870 was to be, once the era of war was over, a pillar of stability, and all of Bismarck’s subsequent policy was directed to that one great goal. The Germany Bismarck designed and put on the map was a greater Prussia in the guise of the German nation-state, much rather than an expanding empire. But given the dynamism of the industrial age and the rise of the middle classes and the proletariat, Germany could not, as Bismarck would have wished, remain an island of tranquility and social equilibrium in a sea of world-wide imperialism and the German empire finally lived up to its mistaken name. The ceremony at Versailles in the icy mirrored gallery of the Sun King, had given a deceptive seal of finality to an ongoing and unstoppable revolution which in turn was part of a world-wide change. In this vast transformation Germany was to be an ever more important player. But the post-Bismarck German establishment was inexperienced and unable to accept the fact that, in order to survive, they must be the guardians and not the challengers of the balance of power.

  1

  GERMAN ANGST, GERMAN HOPE

  There had always been a notion that the tribes between the North Sea and the Alps shared not only their geographic space, but also their language and basic concepts of law. However, the lands forming the ancient Reich, the Holy Roman Empire from the Middle Ages to the era of the French Revolution and Napoleon were never clearly defined. Until the Peace of Westphalia in 1648, concluding the Thirty Years War, they had even extended to the Swiss cantons and the Dutch provinces. Before the age of the nation state a number of foreign rulers, such as the King of Sweden who controlled the coastal lands of the Baltic, or the King of Denmark who held the territories of Schleswig and Holstein, possessed rights and lands in Germany and ruled over German-speaking populations. The German-speaking lands of central Europe were not a nation-state in the making, unlike early modern Britain or France, Spain or Sweden, which were hammered together by a powerful dynasty like the Tudors or the Bourbons, long before the nation-state made its appearance in modern Europe. The Holy Roman Empire, “das Reich,” was rather a loose confederation of regional powers, among them dynastic states, ecclesiastic republics, free cities and many small rulers owing allegiance only to the emperor in far-away Vienna, a conglomerate rather than a centralized powerhouse. The sum total of the power that the constituent princely territories, free cities, bishoprics and minor fiefdoms represented always exceeded the emperor’s control. As the seventeenth-century jurist Samuel von Pufendorf put it, the Reich was monstro simile: it defied any classic definition of political science; neither Roman nor Holy nor an Empire, it was said. But the tradition of the empire was a powerful spiritual and cultural cement, and it also served the interests of the individual German rulers as much as those of the foreign powers. The French king, Cardinal Richelieu, could more easily part with a fat province than the freedom of the German princes to form alliances with foreign powers against the emperor in Vienna. The ancient Reich, while it lasted, was unable to organize attack, but was strong in defense. It kept old bonds of loyalty, oversaw the coinage and constituted a system of equilibrium within the emerging European balance of power.


  For most Germans, history, as far as memory would take them, was a horrendous sequence of disasters in which the German lands had seemed to play the role of chessboard in peace and battlefield in war. In recent memory, there had never been a period to which Germans could look back as their “Golden Eeuw,” like the Dutch, or their “Grand Siècle,” like the French. The unspeakable horrors of the Thirty Years War remained part of the common heritage of the Germans, in terms like the “Swedish drink”—referring to a horrible torture used to make people talk. When peace finally came in 1648, two out of three inhabitants of the German lands were dead, victims of robbers and soldiers—professions that had often merged into each other—of hunger and the plague. The country was a desert, villages had been razed, the wealth of the great cities squandered, the pride of the burghers broken for generations to come: a deep melancholy pervaded a land shrouded in angst. From this came not only the Hobbesian notion of the strong state, but also the deep spirituality audible in the music of Dietrich Buxtehude from Lübeck, Georg Philipp Telemann from Hamburg and that towering figure Johann Sebastian Bach from Leipzig. After 1700 the War of the Spanish Succession added more scars to Germany, most of them less romantic than the ruined palace of Heidelberg, blown up by the retreating French. In the mid-eighteenth century, war came back to Germany. What the Spanish, French and British experienced as naval and colonial warfare for the control of India, the Caribbean and Canada—the Austrian Succession Wars 1740–8 and the Seven Years War 1756– 63—were remembered by the Germans as houses in flame, the currency turned into dirty copper, hunger, bankruptcy and no work, young men herded into armies before they were left to die on the battlefields between the Rhine and the Oder.