menu_book Chapter 4

Section 4 of From Metternich to Bismarck by Lionel Cecil Jain. This LibriVox recording is in the public domain, read by Pamela Nagami. Chapter 2. The Independence of Greece, Part 1. Meanwhile in Germany, Metternich had secured a more or less complete triumph of his ideas. At the Congress of Vienna, the restoration of the old Holy Roman Empire had been considered and rejected as impossible. The tradition upon which alone it had rested had been discredited

by the jibes of Voltaire and completely shattered by the French Revolution and the Napoleonic reconstruction of the German map. It could not revive at the bidding of the great powers, even if Prussia would have agreed to such increase of Habsburg prestige. On the other hand, the German states could not be left without any bond of union whatsoever. The existence of numerous enclaves and the consequent frequency of boundary disputes

supplied an ever-present casus belli. The divergence in strength between the various states afforded sufficient inducement for aggression to the stronger, sufficient motives for jealousy to the weaker, to render a condition of perpetual war at least not unthinkable. and in the background rose the vision of an aggressive France, who had always found, in the divisions of Germany, an occasion for her own advancement. The peace-seeking diplomatists

of Vienna saw that they could not hope for stability in Europe if this storm center remained uncalmed, and thus the Germanic Confederation was created. This body was to be the necessary superior power to prevent the reign of utter anarchy and to guard against French ambition, but it was so organized that its very constitution guaranteed that it should be incapable of fulfilling the first of the purposes which it was intended to serve. The presence of Austria

and Prussia, two great military states, mutually distrustful and with conflicting interests, was enough to prevent the Confederation from becoming efficient, the more so as part of the territories of each of these powers was outside the Germanic body. But inefficiency was further safeguarded. No attempt was made to decide whether the Confederation was to be a preliminary step towards the attainment of real unity, or rather to supply a means of postponing forever the ending

of that disunion which had subsisted since the great interregnum, and which the peace of Westphalia had recognized and perpetuated. Inasmuch as any real union would naturally be in some measure a concession to the spirit of nationality, and so at least tend to destroy the status quo as established by the Congress of Vienna, it was clear that it would incur the determined hostility of Metternich. He was indeed fully resolved that the Confederation should be purely nominal.

Austria, being a partially non-German state, had nothing at all to hope for from pan-Germanism, the essence of the movement towards unity. Rather, the sentiment was dangerous to her. Nor could she with safety attempt to exercise direct political influence in Germany. The history of the Fürstenbund had proved that any such attempt would be resisted by Prussia, and the lesson of the failure of Joseph II was not lost on his successors.

The Habsburgs were bound to rely on the rivalry between the smaller states, which invited their intervention, and on the jealousy with which the ever-growing power of the Hohenzollerns was regarded. But most of all, they placed their trust in the feeling of traditional loyalty to themselves as the recognized heirs of the medieval emperors, a feeling which twenty-five stressful years had not sufficed to eradicate.

The cordiality with which Francis II was received during his stately progress from Vienna to the Conference of Aix-la-Chapelle, inspired his chancellor with a lively hope that he had found the solution of the German problem. Himself welcomed as a new messiah and exalted into a moral force, Metternich trusted that a divided Germany would find in him, as the representative of his master, her guide in matters political and the perpetual arbiter of her destinies.

But if this dream were to come true, it was necessary that all supporters of the existing order should be banded together in its defense and decided in their attitude and policy. Infirmity of purpose on the part of governments would supply an opportunity for subjects to assert their will. And it was an undoubted fact that the subjects of many rulers, attracted by the ideal of nationality, were inclined to seek by the vague paths of liberalism

for a mysterious something called progress. Left alone, it was highly probable that peoples would fail to realize how sacrosanct were the treaties, or that stability and morality, liberalism, and revolution were interchangeable terms. It was therefore necessary that they should be guided from above by the powers, if the new ideas were to be combated with effect, if Prince Metternich were to remain a moral force in Germany, to save the world from anarchy and atheism,

from contempt for the Habsburgs and for God. And as it happened, certain accidental circumstances both deprived Metternich's policy of that sure foundation in legality, for which its authors side, and served to bring into the councils of the powers divisions of opinion on the matter of Germany. Article 13 of the Federal Constitution provided that there should be assemblies of estates, and as this article was no less sacred than any other clause of the sacred treaties,

the position of the Austrian Chancellor became ambiguous. His conduct opened to the charge of consistency when he censured those rulers who wished to perform the duty thus assigned to them. And many of the German princes had this wish. Conspicuous among them was the Grand Duke of Sachs of Weimar, who defied Vienna and was immoral enough to grant a liberal constitution to his subjects. His example was followed by some of the southern states, with the result

that Germany failed to present to the eyes of Metternich a pleasing spectacle of consistent absolutism. Nor was the Austrian government able to protest too loudly. Alexander I, not yet forgetful of the dramatic appeal of Stein and characteristically attracted by the glamour of an apparently lofty ideal, took the nascent liberalism of Germany under his protection and warmly approved the conduct of the reforming princes. Austria could not afford to incur the

hostility of the Tsar by attacking his protégés, especially when those protégés were merely carrying out a clause of the treaties which the alliance was pledged to maintain. And the dilemma of Metternich was rendered more acute by another fact. Had Prussia been in full sympathy with Austria, the combined persuasion of the two great states might have induced the other members of the Confederation to abstain from dangerous practices. But Frederick William III had vaguely

promised a constitution to his people, and his vacillating character led him to hesitate, either to break or to keep his word. Hardenberg was permitted to employ his dotage in constructing and reconstructing parliaments of ink and paper, while his master debated whether or no they should be allowed to become anything more. In these circumstances, Metternich was compelled to content himself with passive resistance. He urged continually on the court of Berlin,

more or less ingenuous plans for the technical keeping and actual breaking of the promises which it had made. At the same time, he instructed Count Buhl, the Austrian delegate and president of the Diet, to impede the completion of any business. He himself waited for a chance to play the part of St. George and strike down the dragon of liberalism. His opportunity came as a result of some rather futile exhibitions by a group of extreme liberals, the students of the

University of Jena. The Wattburg Festival was held by them in October 1817 to celebrate the Reformation and the Battle of Leipzig. It was marked by the burning of some reactionary books, a corporal's baton, and incidentally, of a pair of corsets. These actions were meant to display hatred of repression, militarism, and foreign influence. They were interpreted as dangerous as signs of increasing contempt for authority. Metternich pointed the moral, that students

should be carefully restrained, and the Wartburg exhibition and other similar displays assisted to cure Alexander of his sympathy for the German liberals. The influence of Austria, which had been steadily growing since the conference of Aix-la-Chapelle, was soon confirmed by an emphatic illustration of the danger of indecision. Kotzebue, a Russian privy counselor who had abandoned politics for poetry, incurred the

hostility of the reforming party by his reactionary writings. He was now assassinated by a mad theological student, and the deed, which was rashly applauded by some injudicious liberals, was followed by other attempts at murder. Metternich hailed these events with expressions of horror and feelings of secret delight. They gave him the chance for which he had waited. Everywhere his agents labored to discover, perhaps even to invent, proofs of a general

conspiracy against law and order, while the Court of Vienna insisted on the absolute necessity of precautionary measures. It was no longer alone in its advocacy of stern repression. Prussia had already postponed all internal change and had admonished the Grand Duke of Sachse Weimar. After the death of Katzebu, a conference between Frederick William and Metternich was held at Teplitz, and as a result, the Austrian policy was fully adopted by the Court of Berlin.

Common measures for the maintenance of good order were concerted, and the other members of the Confederation were invited to send representatives to a special diet at Carlsbad. Here, the two great powers found no difficulty in imposing their views on the minor states, and the Carlsbad Decrees, September 1819, were issued to regulate the police system of Germany. It was provided that universities should be supervised and all secret societies prohibited. Pamphlet literature was to

be strictly censored. Metternich urged the direct encouragement of the national taste for books literally and figuratively ponderous, in order to gratify in a harmless manner aspirants to literary fame. A central commission was established at Frankfurt to check revolutionary disturbance. The Court of Vienna desired to go further and specifically to limit the powers of local estates, but the other members of the Confederation, threatened with internal discontent,

declined to accept a policy which would infallibly have led to disorder and so afforded an excuse for Austrian intervention. When the conferences of Carlsbad were resumed at Vienna, the opposition of Prussia, Bavaria, and Württemberg compelled Mernich to agree to a compromise. The decrees were maintained, but their provisions were not extended, and though at a later date they were made permanent, the independence of the smaller states was at the same time guaranteed. On the

other hand, there was no further idea of the establishment of liberal institutions under the aegis of governments. The reforming movement in Germany became a force hostile to constituted authority and deprived of the sympathy of Russia by the folly of many students and the crime of one, it ceased greatly to concern the advocates of absolute rule. At the same time, the new friendship between Austria and Prussia confirmed the supremacy of the former in the Diet, and all

proposals for strengthening the Germanic Confederation were tacitly abandoned. If Metternich had not triumphed completely. He had nonetheless triumphed. The Conference of Vienna is the high watermark of his ascendancy in Europe. Almost immediately, the shadow of his approaching fall darkens his path, and the menacing specter of the eastern question looms large in the foreground of the political picture. Metternich had attempted in 1815 to secure a settlement of the affairs of the

Ottoman Empire, and by placing the dominions of the Sultan under the guarantee of the powers, to set up an effective barrier against the aggression of Russia. So vital, however, had been the differences which appeared between the Allies, that discretion was felt to be indeed the better part of valor. To save the concert of Europe, it was agreed to ignore a certain lack of harmony. But though the question was thus gently shelved, its pressing character was not the less

fully realized. The dissolution of the Ottoman Empire was regarded as being merely a question of time, and a scramble for the inheritance of the sick man was considered to be one of the most probable events. When it came, there would be an end of the Grand Alliance, and as a result of this, and of the additional circumstance that the issue of the scramble was felt to be extremely uncertain, even those who had but little ardent devotion to the ideal of a united Europe

labored anxiously to postpone as long as possible the inevitable crisis. As a matter of fact, their anxiety was to some extent needless, and the illness of the sick man, though real enough, was much exaggerated by his doctors. This exaggeration was partly due to the character of Mahmoud II, who was something of an enigma, and who was generally thought to be wholly incapable of doing anything to arrest the

decline and fall of his empire. He appeared to be at one time indolent and weak, and at another energetic and violent, and was constantly regarded as a typical oriental despot, by nature lazy and incompetent, but liable to flashes of truly barbaric anger. This portrait fell short of the truth. Mahmoud was rather a man of no ordinary talent. He pursued a clear and consistent policy, to the accomplishment of which he was altogether devoted.

But he was also well aware that it was most essential for him to act with caution, availing himself of such advantages as circumstances might from time to time afford him. Only in this way could he hope to meet and to overcome the difficulties which beset him. These difficulties were twofold in character. Externally, Russia was an ever-present danger.

Under the treaties of Kachuk-Kainarja and Bucharest, she laid claim to certain rights over the Christian subjects of the port, and she had also certain grievances arising from the non-fulfillment of the later treaty. Thus, if she desired to find a cause's belly, her search need not be either long nor arduous. Apart from anything else, the conduct of the sultans toward their non-Muhammadin subjects

was never so ideally just as to afford no excuse for complaint. Internally, the janizaries were so powerful that their nominal master was in effect their slave, and there was no other adequate military force. In the provinces, the Pashas rendered a very shadowy obedience to Constantinople, and there could be no strength in the administration of the empire until they had been coerced or persuaded into real loyalty. Centralization, in a word, was the paramount

necessity of Turkey, but Mahmoud, aiming at this, had to remember that it was only too probable that his own murder would mark the conclusion of his schemes. For centralization was the last thing which the Mohammedan population of the empire desired, and the obstinate localism of the Ottomans had always imposed a species of indeterminate limitation on the theoretical absolutism of the sultans. It had also driven them to rely largely on their Christian subjects,

whose interest it was to support the only power which either could or would secure them against unlimited oppression and probable massacre. Ever since 1453, the Greek patriarch had acted as a kind of viceroy over the raias, his co-religionists. The Orthodox Church was almost a department of state, and it rendered valuable service to the port by inculcating the general duty of obedience. The dragoman of the fleet was frequently a Christian, and the fanariats, Greeks holding

official positions, formed almost a distinct section of the community. End of Section 4.