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In the early 1850s the "Romanian Question" was being featured in European newspapers and was being discussed particularly by Romanians in exile and by French writers and scholars. The Romanian lands of Moldavia and Walachia (Wallachia) were ruled nominally by the Ottoman sultan in Turkey and had been Russian protectorates since 1829. Attempts in 1848 to establish independence had been crushed, but the Crimean War (1853-1856) provided new hope for Romanian nationalists. At the Paris Peace Conference, which ended the Crimean War, Russia lost its protectorate status regarding Moldavia and Walachia, and the conference compelled the Ottoman Empire to grant Moldavia and Walachia autonomy, which was to be guaranteed by the conferring Europeans states.
In 1857, assemblies in both Moldavia and Walachia voted to unite the two regions. Austria and Turkey were opposed to the unification while Britain and other countries accepted it. On January 24, 1859, the unification took place. An aristocrat who had fought for independence in 1848, Alexander Cuza, was chosen by the assemblies as the ruler of the United Principalities of Romania. And the unification was formalized in 1861.
For ages Italy had been divided politically, and since 1494 it had been a battleground for Europe's great powers. In the southern half of Italy was the Kingdom of Naples-Sicily, ruled by the amiable and intelligent but uncultivated and cynical Bourbon king, Ferdinand II. Just north of Naples-Sicily were Rome and the Papal States, ruled by Pope Pius IX, who depended on French and Austrian soldiers to maintain his position over his territories, and he believed that to fulfill the Church's spiritual mission the papacy needed to continue that rule. In the far north of Italy, in Venetia (including the city of Venice) and Lombardy (including the city of Milan), Austria ruled. And in the far northwest was Piedmont, a part of the Kingdom of Sardinia, a liberal constitutional monarchy, and a haven for Italian nationalists who had been involved in 1848-49 upheavals.
Like Walachia and Moldavia, Italy was impacted by the Crimean War. In that war, Sardinia-Piedmont fought with France against the Russians. And the ruler of France, Emperor Napoleon III (President Louis-Napoleon until 1853) believed in nationhood for Italians as well as for the French. In the wake of the Crimean War, Napoleon supported Piedmont-Sardinia against an opponent of Italian nationalism: Austria. The premier of Sardinia-Piedmont, Camillo Benso de Cavour, goaded Austria into a war, which France joined, Napoleon hoping to enhance France's position as a European power by helping to liberate those Italians ruled by Austria.
Austria's army had suffered from inferior leadership, from lack of preparation and training and from insufficient transport, with soldiers arriving for battle sick, exhausted and hungry. Italians and Hungarians in Austria's army deserted in large numbers, and in June, 1859, France and Piedmont-Sardinia defeated the Austrians at Solferino (near the town of Mantua in eastern Lombardy), the Austrian side losing 14,000 killed and wounded and more than 8,000 missing or taken as prisoners. France and Sardinia-Piedmont lost 15,000 killed and wounded and lost more than 2,000 as missing or as prisoners. Napoleon III recoiled from the bloodshed and deserted Piedmont-Sardinia, and to Piedmont's premier, Cavour, the cause of Italian unity appeared lost. But the war had given hope to urban masses down the Italian peninsula, who rose up against foreign rule, these Italians going into the streets, chanting "foreigners out of Italy," and chanting for "Victor Emmanuel," the king of Piedmont-Sardinia, whom they wanted as their king.
In July 1859 a compromise peace was established at the Conference of Villafranca. France acquired Savoy and Nice. Austria gave Lombardy to France, which then gave it to Piedmont-Sardinia. Then came a pro-democracy uprising across Sicily. A thousand nationalist volunteers led by Giuseppe Garibaldi arrived in Sicily on May 11, 1860, and in three months he and his volunteers were in control of the whole of Sicily. Then Garibaldi and his men moved into the southern half of the Italian peninsula, and, in early September, Garibaldi and his army triumphantly entered Naples. Plebiscites in the former kingdom of Naples-Sicily and in the papal states overwhelmingly favored these regions becoming a part of a united Italy. The new kingdom of Italy was proclaimed on March 17, 1861. Italy had become a parliamentary monarchy under king Victor Emmanuel II. Its capital was Turin, in Piedmont. That portion of the papal states outside of Latium were now a part of Italy, while Rome and Latium remained under papal control, and Venetia remained under Austrian rule.
In the 1850s, Prussia and some smaller independent states in Germany were rapidly industrializing and growing in population. Rails crisscrossed Germany, and Germany was the hub of rail traffic on the European continent, taking trade away from British merchant ships. Germany was changing from what the British had thought of as a land of tinkering clockmakers and forests. It was becoming more urban and middleclass. It was on a course that by the end of the century would have it as the third power in manufacturing output in the world, with a 13.2 percent share, behind the Untied States with a 23.6 percent share, Britain with an 18.5 percent share, and almost twice that of France, which would have a 6.8 percent share.[note]
Austria had been isolated diplomatically during its war against France and Sardinia-Piedmont. It wanted to revive its partnership with Prussia's monarchy against liberalism and nationalism, and it wished to lure Prussia into helping in reversing the settlement at Villafranca and regaining Lombardy - Austria's monarch, Franz Joseph, wanting to keep his family's empire as great as it had been when he had inherited it.
Prussia was the largest of the German states, a constitutional monarchy and mostly Protestant. During a domestic crisis in 1862, a member of Prussia's landed aristocracy, Otto von Bismarck, took the office of minister-president. Representing the king, Bismarck, declared that his government would rule without parliamentary consideration. He was concerned with Prussia's position regarding neighboring German states and Austria's influence in the Confederation of German States.
The Confederation of German States consisted of 39 states, 35 of which were monarchies and 4 of which were free city-states. The confederation was a security arrangement for mutual defense, with representatives at a parliament at Frankfurt - one of the free city-states.
There was also a customs union among the German states, the Zollverein (pronounced tsôl´ferin´), a union that facilitated trade and helped bring economic progress to Germany. The Zollverein was a source of tension between Prussia and Austria, with Prussia opposed to admitting Austria to the Zollverein and several German states insisting upon including Austria.
Bismarck was less opposed to nationalism than were the Austrians representing Emperor Franz Joseph. Bismarck favored expanding Prussian influence with Germany's smaller states and removing Austria's influence within the Confederation of German States, especially in northern Germany. He believed that Germany was too small for both Prussia and Austria., and he was not opposed to using German nationalism in the expansion of Prussia's power. Prussia's liberals had been nationalistic, but Bismarck, although a landed aristocrat, believed that German nationalism was compatible with his brand of conservatism. Bismarck was looking forward to stealing the nationalist issue from the liberals, who represented merchants and the middleclass and dominated the lower house of Prussia's parliament - a powerless debating society called the Reichstag. The liberals were speaking against militarism and war, and Bismarck countered that "the great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and resolutions ... but by blood and iron." The liberals responded by denouncing Bismarck for believing that "might makes right."
The question of war came in 1863 following the death of King Frederick of Denmark. Christian of Glucksburg ascended the Danish throne, gave the duchy of Holstein (largely German in population and a member of the Confederation of German States) its independence. But he annexed the duchy of Schleswig, a duchy with a mixed German and Danish population. The annexation violated the 1852 Treaty of London. A rival claim to rule both Schleswig and Holstein was put forward by the Duke of Augustenburg. The German Confederation's parliament in Frankfurt supported the duke's claim for both duchies, and Prussia and Austria went to war against Denmark.
That war ended successfully in 1864 for Prussia and Austria, the Treaty of Vienna making Austria the administrator of Holstein and Prussia the administrator of Schleswig. Austria continued to support the Duke of Augustenburg's claim for the two duchies, but Bismarck wanted control over both duchies and both to be economically integrated with Prussia. He wanted the military and naval forces of the two duchies under Prussian command and the canal that was to be built between the North Sea and Baltic Sea - the Kiel Canal - to be Prussian territory.
Austria feared that it would lose the respect of the smaller states within the Confederation of German States. Prussia sent troops into Holstein. Austria could either accept German domination of Holstein or start a war. It asked the parliament in Frankfurt to mobilize the confederation's forces, and on June 14, 1866, parliament agreed. Within the confederation, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Baden, and Wüerttemburg sided with Austria against Prussia. And Prussia declared the Confederation of German States dissolved.
Austria had a secret treaty with France, Austria agreeing to cede Venetia to Italy in exchange for France's neutrality and for compensations in its favor in Germany. Bismarck was afraid of provoking a coalition against Prussia, as had been formed against Prussia's Frederick the Great in the latter half of the 1700s, but Bismarck had gained the gratitude of Tsar Alexander II by supporting his repression of the Polish uprising in 1863. To the French Bismarck made vague promises of more territory along the Rhine. And Bismarck believed that the recent war against Denmark showed that it was unlikely that Britain and Russia would intervene in a war between Prussia and Austria.
The war lasted seven weeks, Prussia's railroads and good organization enabling it to get its troops to battle quickly. Italy sent troops against the Austrian troops in Venetia, and Austria's troops stopped the advance. In early July, 1866, Prussia defeated Austria decisively at the village of Sadowa, in northeastern Bohemia, also known as the Battle of Königgrätz. Bismarck wanted victory before outsiders, especially the French, intervened, and he made peace with Austria. His terms were considered by some, including Prussia's king, Wilhelm I, and some Prussian military officers, to be too generous. But rather than wishing to punish Austria, Bismarck was being pragmatic. He wanted a future ally in Austria, and he wanted Austria to survive as a healthy state, able to control the peoples of its empire. He did not want to absorb Austria's Catholic Germans - which would have made the Catholics in Germany more numerous than the Protestants. Austria did not have to pay Prussia reparations and Austria lost no territory, except Venetia, which it ceded to France. And, following a plebiscite in Venetia, France allowed Italy to annex Venetia.
In the settlement of 1867, the mostly Catholic states in southern Germany, which had sided with Austria, were reluctant to unite with Prussia because of traditional differences in politics and religion, and they were to remain independent, but they were to form military alliances with Prussia. What had been the Confederation of German States was no more, and other former members, including Mecklenburg, Hanover and the Grand Duchy of Oldenburg, united with Prussia, as did the free cities Hamburg, Lübeck, Bremen and Frankfurt. And Prussia absorbed Schleswig and Holstein.
A new constitution and federal parliament was created for Germany, carefully designed by Bismarck to maintain the power of the crown, the army and the nobility. The Bundesrat formed the upper house and represented the princes of various states, and the Reichstag, elected by direct manhood suffrage, formed the lower and representing others. The chancellor was to be appointed by the king. Parliament could not dismiss the chancellor nor withhold money from the government, and the king became president of the federation.
Prussia's middleclass politicians, meanwhile, were swayed by Bismarck's success. They were delighted that Bismarck was willing to cooperate with them and were partaking in a swing toward conservatism and respect for the authoritarianism of Bismarck and the German monarchy.
Hungarians had been refusing to participate in their own subjugation in the wake of the Austrian and Russian defeat of the Hungarians in 1849. And the subjugation of the Hungarians had been a financial liability for Austria. Then in 1866-67, with the defeat of Austria by Prussia, a weakened Austria was ready to compromise with the Hungarians - in other words, the Magyars. In 1867, Franz Joseph and a Magyar delegation signed the "Ausgleich," or Compromise, which divided Austria's empire in two, creating Austria-Hungary. The Magyars were given power within Hungary to make rules regarding other ethnicities as they saw fit - ethnicities such as Croats, Serbs, Slovaks and Romanians. "You take care of your Slavs and we'll take care of ours," was the sentiment of those accepting the empire's division, with Austria having not only Germans but Czechs, the Poles of Galacia and most Slovenes. Austria and Hungary were now to have the same monarch - Franz Joseph - and Austria and Hungary were to have common ministries for finance, foreign affairs and war, the Magyars agreeing to leave defense and foreign policy to Franz Joseph's government and agreeing to pay their share of the empire's budget. Austria and Hungary had their own prime minister and parliament, and every ten years a tariff and trade agreement was to be negotiated, in addition to an agreement on the amount of money each was to contribute to the empire's treasury.
Within the empire the Poles remained both anti-Russian and anti-German. Within the Austrian half of the empire the Czechs were largely in sympathy with their fellow Slavs, the Russians. And Germans in Austria identified more with Germans in general, and they were hostile toward Czechs who were challenging the dominant use of the German language in the courts, bureaucracy and schools.
The extension of Prussian power with its victory against Austria in 1866 appeared ominous to Napoleon III. Bismarck, on the other hand, was interested in a showdown against French power. He wanted to complete the unification of Germany and calculated that a war against France would arouse a nationalistic fervor in the independent states of southern Germany that would swing these states toward favoring unification with Prussia.
France was opposed to a relative of the king of Prussia, Wilhelm von Hohenzollern (Wilhelm I) becoming king of Spain. Bismarck managed to make the French feel insulted, and on July 19, 1870, wishing to teach Prussia a lesson, France declared war. Napoleon III appeared to be the aggressor. Austria would not join France against Prussia. Britain, Russia and Italy remained neutral. And believing that France was the aggressor, the south Germans sided with their fellow Germans to the north, as Bismarck had hoped.
France entered the war believing it was militarily superior to Prussia, but at least in organization and preparedness it was the Prussians who were superior. On August 4, Prussia's military crossed the border into French territory - Alsace. On September 1 the Germans defeated the French decisively at Sedan (11 kilometers from what today is the Belgian border, capturing Napoleon III and 100,000 of his troops. By September 19 a siege of Paris began. There political unrest resulted in Napoleon III being deposed, and there famine continued for months, with the Parisians refusing to consider defeat.
The Germans were in occupation of Versailles, just outside Paris, and there, on January 28, 1871, the French signed an armistice with Germany. In May, the Treaty of Frankfurt was signed, officially ending the war. The independent German states - Bavaria, et cetera - had supported their fellow Germans against the French, and they agreed to unification with Prussia. France accepted Bismarck's harsh terms - a $1,000,000,000 indemnity to be paid by France to Germany within three years. And France ceded most of Alsace and a large part of Lorraine to Germany.
Bismarck had attracted support for the war among Germans by promising that he would return German rule to Alsace and Lorraine, which had been taken by France during the conquests of Napoleon I. And in Alsace and Lorraine the Germans gained coal mines, ire ore deposits and Germany gained some military advantages: higher ground, a shorter western border and a greater distance from its western border to its heartland. But the annexation was not popular among the people in Alsace and Lorraine.
Germans had been uncertain about who would win the war, and the German victory was greeted with relief and exultation and pride. The Franco-Prussian war would be a source of pride to Germans into the twentieth century, including a German Austrian born in 1889 named Adolf Hitler. In this new age of social Darwinism some Germans thought of Germans as the fittest of peoples. And for some Germans, Bismarck's success enhanced their respect for the authoritarianism of his government, as opposed to his liberal critics who championed real parliamentary government.
On September 4 1870, two days after the capture of Emperor Napoleon III at Sedan, the French proclaimed an end to France's Second Empire and the creation of a republic - the Third French Republic.
On March 3, one month after the signing of the armistice with Germany, and seventy days before the official end to the war, German troops marched into a Paris with empty streets and shuttered windows. The people of Paris were angry, and the people's army - the National Guard - prepared for conflict. The Parisians elected a municipal council - the Paris Commune - consisting of some moderate republicans, some followers of Proudhon and Blanqui and members of Marx's First International workingmen's association. The Paris Commune wanted to govern Paris without interference from the move conservative people outside of Paris. At Versailles the President of the new French republic wanted to disarm Paris. This was Louis Adolphe Thiers, a former critic of Napoleon III, an historian and a liberal whose views paralleled the upper bourgeoisie.
The Paris Commune proclaimed the separation of church and state and the nationalization of Church property. On April 8 1871 it removed all representations of religion from the schools of Paris. On April 11, French troops sent by Thiers began another siege of Paris. Fighting continued into May, and after the official end to the war with Prussia on May 10 the Paris Commune refused to intensify. Troops broke through and entered Paris on May 21, and for eight days they overwhelmed Communard resistance. As many as 30,000 Communards and innocent Parisians were summarily executed, and many others were imprisoned and deported. It was another disappointment for revolutionaries, including Marx and Engels. Hostility to revolution helped elect to France's National Assembly those closer to the Church and in favor of restoring the monarchy, and in 1873 a monarchist majority forced Thiers to resign. The monarchists weakened themselves through internal division. In 1879 moderate Republicans won enough support in France's parliament to frustrate monarchist aims, and the Third French Republic was to survive until 1940.
With the fall of Napoleon III in September 1870, the Pope lost the protection of French troops for his territory of Rome and Latium. On September 20, 1870, troops sent by Italy entered Rome. Pope Pius IX refused to accept Italy's occupation of the city, and he withdrew to his palace at the Vatican and declared himself a prisoner. Italy annexed Rome on January 18, 1871, and King Victor Emmanuel saw the unification of Italy complete. Addressing Italy's parliament he said:
The work to which we consecrated our life is accomplished. After long trials of expiation Italy is restored to herself and to Rome.
On May 13, Italy issued its Law of Guarantees, which left papacy with the Vatican and other palaces. On May 15, Pope Pius IX responded with an encyclical, stating:
When We were defeated by Our enemies in accordance with the mysterious design of God, We observed the severely bitter fortunes of Our City and the downfall of the civil rule of the Apostolic See in the face of military invasion ...
We are suffering to be established and to thrive to the ruin of all authority and order. May God unite all rulers in agreement of mind and will. By removing all discord, claiming the disturbance of rebellions, and rejecting the ruinous counsels of the sects, may these rulers join in a common effort to have the rights of the Holy See restored. Then tranquility will once again be restored to civil society. [note]
In August 1875 in Herzegovina (Hercegovina) an attempt was made to collect taxes from farming people who had been suffering from poor harvests - collections made with force and brutality. A man struck back in rage at a tax collector. The police came. The man's neighbors sided with him. A police force came and attacked the entire village. News of this event inspired resistance through Herzegovina and neighboring Bosnia among people who wanted tax relief, and they wanted relief from other grievances: an end to the feudalist obligation of laboring for local lords and an end to the abuse of their women during the women's obligatory labor in the households of the lords. The revolt spread to Bulgaria, also under Turkish rule. In Russia, mass opinion arose in support their fellow Orthodox Christians and goaded Russia’s tsar, Alexander II, into going to war against the Ottoman Turks. Romania, autonomous but not yet officially independent of Turkish rule, joined the Russians, and the Russian and Romanian armies pushed toward Constantinople, with the Russians hoping that they could recapture Constantinople for Christianity.
British liberals and conservatives debated the war in the Balkans, the liberals outraged by atrocities committed by the Turks against the Bulgarians. Britain's conservative prime minister, Benjamin Disraeli, who considered himself an expert on the Balkans, opined that the southern (yugo) Slavs were unworthy of self-government. He saw Russian troops moving southward as a threat to Britain's ships passing through the Eastern Mediterranean and the Suez Canal. The British threatened Russia with war and Disraeli sent warships into the Black Sea, warning Russia that Britain would not tolerate Russia taking Constantinople. Crowds in Britain loved Disraeli's boldness, and British hostility toward the Russians was reborn. In the streets, British people chanted their support, and a verse arose: "We don't want to fight, but by Jingo if we do, we've got the ships, we've got the men, and got the money too." The term jingoism was born.
In March 1878 the Russians and Turks signed an agreement - The Treaty of San Stephano. Britain and Habsburg Austria disliked the treaty - Austria because they believed that it encouraged Slav nationalism. Germany's Otto von Bismarck invited representatives of the European powers to a conference in Berlin - the Berlin Congress - which began on June 13. The Turks were invited but ignored, with Bismarck playing the role among the European powers as the "honest broker." On July 13, the European powers signed an agreement that divided territory among themselves that had belonged to the Turkish (Ottoman) Empire. Britain acquired Cyprus, which it was to use as a military base to defend its sea route. France was given permission to expand in Morocco. Romania acquired recognition of its complete independence from Turkish rule. Bulgaria gained autonomy within the Turkish empire - and was displeased. Greece was given territory at the expense of the Turks. Serbia won full independence from the Turks. And Austria-Hungary was recognized as having control over Bosnia and Herzegovina.
During Russia's war with the Turks it had mollified Habsburg Austria (Austria-Hungary) by giving Austria permission to invade Bosnia and Herzegovina. It was taking months of bloody fighting for the Austrians to conquer the two provinces. The monarch of Austria-Hungary, Franz Joseph was pleased by gains that compensated for his loss of territory in Italy, but for the sake of appearances he chose to leave Bosnia and Herzegovina nominally a part of the Ottoman Empire. The Orthodox Serbs looked upon Bosnia and Herzegovina as part of a greater Serbia. Its invasion by Roman Catholic Austria-Hungary angered the Serbs. A conflict was in place that would spark the Great War in 1914.
Following the unification of Germany, Bismarck tried to allay fears among other European powers by claiming that Germany was a "satiated" power with no appetite for additional territory. Germany, he said, had no quarrel or claims against anyone and desired only self-defense and peace. But the British remained disturbed, Prime Minister, Benjamin Disraeli seeing Europe's balance of power as having been destroyed.
Interested in peace among Europe's powers, in 1879 Bismarck joined Germany with Austria-Hungary in a defensive alliance. He maintained friendly relations with Russia, and he pushed Austria into a diplomatic partnership with Russia, recreating in 1881 the Three Emperor's Alliance while hoping that Russia and Austria-Hungary would manage their rivalry in the Balkans. France was competing with Britain for empire and remained isolated diplomatically. Italy was at odds with France and in 1882 joined the alliance between Germany and Austria-Hungary, creating the Triple Alliance.
Bismarck tried to improve Germany's relations with Britain. In 1887, Britain, wishing to restrain the French, made an agreement with Italy for maintaining the status quo in the Eastern Mediterranean, an agreement that Austria-Hungary also joined. And in 1887 Bismarck concluded another treaty with Russia - the Reinsurance Treaty. This promised Germany's neutrality should Austria-Hungary attack Russia, and it promised Germany's support for Russian aims and interests in Bulgaria and for Russia's concerns regarding the straits between the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea.
In 1888, Wilhelm I died. His son the Crown Prince was dying of throat cancer and ruled for only ninety days as Friederich III. Friederich's rule was followed by that of his 29-year-old son, Wilhelm II. Bismarck had become too influential for Wilhelm II and he forced Bismarck to resign.
Wilhelm refused to renew Bismarck's Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. He believed his own personal relationship and blood ties with the Russian Royal family, would be sufficient to ensure further genial diplomatic ties between the two countries. The Russians had their own way of looking at their security. In 1892 the Russians signed a defensive alliance with France - a surprise to some because tsarist Russia was a conservative power and France was traditionally leftist and a republic. Russia, however, had been receiving loans from France, and for France it was an opportunity to overcome its diplomatic isolation. Moreover, Russia was on the opposite side of Germany, each country in the best position to aid the other against German aggression.
Wilhelm II was the son of a liberal English mother and the grandson of Queen Victoria, for whom he remained fond. Often he was to visit his relatives in Britain. But Wilhelm distanced himself from the liberalism of his mother and he joined the nationalist patriotism and support for grandeur. It German interests abroad were to be protected without the good will of the British navy, Germany needed a great navy of its own, and Wilhelm supported the creation of such a navy - a new great navy that the British were to see as a threat to its security. A naval arms race was in the making.
Recommended Books
Bismarck, by Edgar Feuchtwanger, Routledge Historical Biographies, 2002.
The Nineteenth Century: Europe, 1789-1914, edited by T C W Banning, Oxford University Press, 2000.
The Franco-Prussian War: The German Invasion of France, by Michael Howard, 2001.
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