contined
there were 365 principalities.34 Brandenburg - Prussia gradually became the most dominant and powerful granting religious tolerance for all religions. The growth of this state, its efficient government and well disciplined army were the result of the successful diplomacy and leadership of four successive kings -- The Great Elector Frederick William (1640-1688), Frederick I (1688-1713), King Frederick William I (1713-1740), and Frederick the Great, "der alte Fritz" (1740-1786)
The eighteenth century was a continuation of the same problems which had now become so common to Central Europe. Religious intolerance persisted throughout. Some people wandered to German states, where they were welcome, or immigrated. Between 1756 and 1766, 200,000 German peasant men immigrated to North America and Russia. 36 Sweden attempted to expand bringing twenty years of warfare, largely in northern Germany, ending in 1721. The conflict between France and England over the Mississippi Valley drifted into war in 1756. Prussia was drawn into that Seven Years, War because of an alliance with Britain. Once again the marching armies plundered and destroyed parts of Germany; other districts were drained dry of men and money to support the troops and the fighting.
By the latter half of the eighteenth century it was common practice of the leaders of the German kingdoms of Bayreuth, Brunswick, Hesse-Kassel and Wurtemberg to raise revenues, often for personal use, by providing troops -- "mercenaries" for the stronger kingdoms and countries of Europe. Recruits were procured by conscription and frequently by kidnapping. Once trained, the troops were rented "for good if not excessive payment," the most lucrative fees from the Dutch and English who used the mercenary troops for their colonial wars.
Austria, ruled jointly by Maria Theresa and her son Joseph II who had succeeded his father as Emperor, had been growing in power. In an attempt to be the greatest power in Central Europe, Austria allied with France, Sweden, Spain and Russia to overpower Prussia. With only England to help, Prussia escaped the threat allowing Frederick the Great to "play imperial politics."
The French Revolution in 1789 and its aftermath made Germany a war theater once again and another twenty-five years of conflict began; once again the marching armies trooped through Germany and fought most of their battles there. Prussia and Austria each expected to expand their territories but the Allies began to quarrel and French troops continued victorious -- "Old Europe trembled and tottered and the Holy Roman Empire creaked on its hinges." By the time the Reign of Terror ended in France, the combatants were weary of war and anxious for peace. However, the Peace of Basel in 1795 merely set the stage for further conflict. Napoleon Bonaparte entered the theater in 1797.41 The lack of unity among the German states, the intrigue, the bribery and the selfishness of the leaders allowed Napoleon no limits to his principle of divide and conquer. Napoleon quickly redrew the boundaries of the German states; most notably giving the Westphalian bishoprics to Prussia and retaining the left bank of the Rhine for France.42 The Holy Roman Empire died at the hands of Napoleon in 1806 and was finally buried at the Congress of Vienna in 1815.~3 A way of life which had endured for centuries had ended.
The Great Revolution and Napoleon benefited Germany by clearing away the feudal system and antique rulerships and instilled the desire for intellectual independence and economic development. However, the masses were still suppressed, peace was still unobtained and an epoch of war unprecedented in violence had been imposed upon another generation of Central Europeans.
The old Europe could not possibly be restored at the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The principal figure of that gathering was Prince Mettemich from Austria who was determend to smother the growing signs of nationalism in the German states. A dynamic, forceful man, the fate of Europe was molded by his work and his personality. With Hardenburg and Humboldt from Prussia, Talleyrand from France, Castlereagh and Wellington from Britain, and Alexander I from Russia, a pattern was created for Europe which endured with few changes for about a century.
Politically the next thirty years were a time of repression and censorship. The emerging industrial revolution had greater impact socially and economically than any event ever before. A large middle class, free to participate in democracy, evolved. Members of the lower classes could achieve independence through hard work, good economic times, special talents or marriage. Transportation by rail required cooperation between states and countries. Population increased be-cause of medical advances, public sanitation and agricultural advances. However, all was not well. As factories produced more and more goods, handicraftsmen lost ground. Workdays were 12 to 18 hours. The financial system did not keep up with the money needs and management paid workers with goods which they could not sell or exchange for the value of their work. Women and children were employed at a far lower wage scale than the men they replaced. By 1840 laws were passed in most German states limiting working children to ten hours a day under age sixteen because factory employment had so debilitated the young male population too many were unfit for military service. Overpopulation encouraged more and more immigration.
By the 1840s, there was much unrest from the excesses of the industrial revolution throughout Central Europe. Minor riots had occurred from time to time in isolated cities of the German Confederation. Then the potato blight in 1845 and the failure of both grain and potato crops in 1846 brought starvation to countless cities from Ireland to Silesia. Hunger, disease and unemployment reached bottom the summer of 1847. Recovery had begun by the spring of 1848 but too late to prevent the short-lived Revolution of 1 848.4~ In March of 1848 riots began in Vienna, Austria, and spread sporadically to other major cities of Germany. Metternich was forced to resign. A new constitution was promised and the Frankfurt Parliament hammered one out oblivious to the real problems facing the masses. Taking ten months to prepare, the new constitution was doomed to failure for by the end of 1848 conservatism was reviving, a counter revolution had begun, and by July 1849, German parliamentarianism had ended, unable to meet the challenge. The old order was restored.
A flood of over 500,000 persons immigrated from Central Europe to America during the "Hungry Forties" and another one-half million by the end of the 1 8 50's. Their numbers rose and fell according to the economic conditions. Many also immigrated within the German Confederation; Prussia alone attracted many thousands more settlers than left. The poorest districts such as Bavaria, Wiirtemberg and Hesse-Darmstadt saw significant numbers leave. Their departure improved living conditions for those remaining. "Most forty-eighters were escaping poverty and famine, not the executioner or the jailer." The landless farmers and the unemployed crossed the Atlantic; the middle class burghers stayed home and defended their interests. Those who immigrated were hungry and tired, looking for a more secure refuge.
The foregoing political upheavals notwithstanding, the eighteen-fifties were a period of relative quiet. Frederick William of Prussia continued working toward a united Germany, making his last attempt in 1850. Inflation wiped out wage gains; charity, pauperism, vagrancy and sickness were prevalent. In spite of the drawbacks, no place in Europe was better.
The eighteen-fifties were basically peaceful for the German Confederation. A conflict broke out in Hesse-Kassel; troops were assembled but Prussia backed down when Russia threatened to get into the act. Austria was involved in the war following the proclaiming of Prince Louis Napoleon Bonaparte Emperor of France in 1852 and in the Crimean War (1854-56). In 1859 Austria and France engaged in two battles over the Austrian occupation of Lombardy in Italy. In Prussia the law made all able-bodied men subject to conscription for three years. However, the army could not handle all of the available recruits and adopted a policy of releasing the conscripts after two years until the army was modernized in the eighteen-sixties.
The next act in German history was directed by Otto Von Bismarck whose leadership steered the flow of German nationalism to its long overdue conclusion: unification of the German states. In 1862 King William I of Prussia appointed Bismarck Minister-President of Prussia. Through the power of the Prussian state, Bismarck accomplished the unification by 1871 and in the process shaped the course of German and European history for decades to come.
