Germany and Poland

Today’s installment concludes Consolidation of Germany,
our selection from Prince Bismarck by Charles Lowe.

If you have journeyed through all of the installments of this series, just one more to go and you will have completed a selection from the great works of six thousand words. Congratulations! For works benefiting from the latest research see the “More information” section at the bottom of these pages.

Previously in Consolidation of Germany.

Time: 1881-1890
Place: Germany

“In revising our tariff,” said Bismarck, “our own interest is the only thing that can guide us;” and this interest was more financial than protective. “Germany,” he added, “could no longer be expected to remain the dupe of an honest conviction. … In the field of political economy the abstract doctrines of science leave me perfectly cold, my only standard of judgment being experience.” In the opinion of Bismarck the doctrines of the Cobdenites were as dangerous to the German State as the theories of the Jesuits; and the ” Ultramaritimes ” — as the Eng lish free-traders now began to be called in Germany — were ranked in the same hostile category as the “Ultramontanes.” But, in deed, it was only with the help of the latter that he ultimately managed to triumph over the “Ultramaritimes”; for it was the Clericals who, inspired, among other things, by hopes of future requital in the field of the Kulturkampf, had proved his best allies in the work of storming the fortress of free trade and planting there the flag of protectionism.

Bismarck’s protective tariff formed the corner-stone of a complicated structure of financial reform which aimed at “enabling the empire to stand on its fiscal legs ” ; but in the further elaboration of this structure he was not so successful. For he repeatedly failed to realize his ideal of a tobacco and schnapps monopoly, as he also failed to establish biennial budgets, though he succeeded in changing the legislative period both in Prussia and the empire from three to five years. Those who imagine that the German Parliament is a comparatively powerless body which serves merely as a registering-machine to the will of the Government should bethink themselves of the numerous defeats which it inflicted upon the Chancellor during the “Economic Era” of his career. But even when balked in the Parliament of the empire, he sometimes managed to achieve his purpose in the Parliament of Prussia. In the latter Legislature he once said:

We must look about for means of making ourselves independent of obstruction in the Reichstag. In ordinary circumstances I should be no advocate of such a policy, but when the cause of the Fatherland is imperiled I will not hesitate to give the Emperor becoming advice. That minister would be a coward who did not risk his head to save his country in despite even of the will of a majority. I am not inclined to let the achievements of our army be destroyed by internal frictions, and I shall find means of obviating this.”

This was said in reference to his Polish policy (1886) which caused such a sensation; and for expelling thousands of Poles from Prussian Posen he was denounced as a “pitiless despot.” But he was no more of a “pitiless despot” than the President of the United States when he refuses the hospitality of that country to Chinese immigrants who would prove detrimental to the welfare of the native population. The multitudes of Poles whom Bismarck expelled from Posen were aliens (Russian and Austrian), who intrigued against the integrity of Prussia, and it is only flabby-minded statesmen who would tolerate such a danger in any state. But this expulsion policy had a complement in the shape of a scheme (the Prussian Parliament voted one hundred million marks to carry it out) for buying out (not expropriating) Polish landowners, and parceling their estates among German farmers who, beginning as leaseholders, would in time acquire the freehold of the soil.

This plan for Germanizing Prussian Poland was as bold an experiment as some of Bismarck’s other enterprises in the field of state socialism; for that is the only phrase that adequately describes the Chancellor’s colossal schemes for insuring the working-classes against old age, illness, accidents, and indigence — schemes to which he devoted most of his time and attention until they had acquired something like practical shape before the death of the old Emperor. “You have been the brave and faithful adviser,” wrote Kaiser Frederick to the Chancellor on ascending the throne, “who gave shape to the aims of my late father’s policy and secured their successful realization. I and my house are, and will remain, most grateful to you.”

William II professed himself to be equally conscious of the great things which Bismarck had done for Germany, above all with his economic measures. For his Majesty was not one of those who, while believing the Chancellor to be simply infallible in the field of foreign affairs, denied him the versatile genius which would have made him equally at home in the domain of domestic reform. To this category of doubters, however, belonged the Social- Democrats themselves, who, for reasons which they could never make wholly clear to the unprejudiced mind, had always scoffed at and opposed the Chancellor’s state-insurance and other schemes devised for their express benefit. Far from lessening the disaffection of the poorer classes, these remedial schemes had only seemed to increase it. Social- Democracy had become more exacting and disquieting than ever — so much so that, before William II had been two years on the throne, his Chancellor proposed resort to a still more repressive policy. But the Reichstag would not hear of such a thing, and, indeed, the Emperor himself was at heart against the idea. His Majesty had his own thoughts about the settlement of the social question, and to these thoughts he now gave expression in the rescripts which he issued (February, 1890) as to the meeting of an International Conference at Berlin to discuss the relations of employer and employed. Of these rescripts Bismarck afterward said:

The rescripts had long been a favorite idea with the Emperor. In principle I was opposed to them; but as the Emperor insisted on their being issued, I carried my point at last as to their particular wording, in order to tone them down. The wording of them was mine, and I had no help from any of my colleagues. It was I, too, who suggested the International Conference.”

This International Labor Conference met in due course. But it had not sat long when the attention of Europe was completely diverted from its academic debates by the startling and momentous news that Prince Bismarck had resigned all his offices, and was no longer Chancellor of the empire he had served with such splendid distinction for a period of twenty years.

This ends our series of passages on Consolidation of Germany by Charles Lowe from his book Prince Bismarck published in . This blog features short and lengthy pieces on all aspects of our shared past. Here are selections from the great historians who may be forgotten (and whose work have fallen into public domain) as well as links to the most up-to-date developments in the field of history and of course, original material from yours truly, Jack Le Moine. – A little bit of everything historical is here.

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