In Our Time - Bismarck

Episode Date: March 22, 2007

Melvyn Bragg and guests discuss the original Iron Chancellor, Otto Von Bismarck. One of Europe's leading statesmen in the 19th Century he is credited with unifying Germany under the military might of his home state of Prussia. An enthusiastic expansionist, Bismarck undertook a war against Denmark that has become a by-word for incomprehensible conflict. The British Prime Minister, Lord Palmerston, said: “The Schleswig-Holstein question is so complicated, only three men in Europe have ever understood it. One was Prince Albert, who is dead. The second was a German professor who became mad. I am the third and I have forgotten all about it.”After vanquishing Austria and France, Bismark led the new industrialising Germany, managing to remain in power for a further two decades. Bismarck said: “The art of statesmanship is to steer a course on the stream of time” and he founded one of Europe's first welfare states but he was also known for his ruthless tactics, ignoring democratic institutions, dabbling in dirty politics, leaking to the press and bribing journalists. Was the unification of Germany a carefully planned campaign or a series of unpredictable events that Bismarck made the most of? Did his encouragement of militaristic nationalism bear fruit in Nazi Germany, and what is his legacy today in contemporary Germany?With Richard J Evans, Professor of Modern History at the University of Cambridge; Christopher Clark, Reader in Modern European History at the University of Cambridge; and Katharine Lerman, Senior Lecturer in Modern European History at London Metropolitan University

This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK. Thanks for downloading the In Our Time podcast. For more details about In Our Time and for our terms of use, please go to BBC.co.com.uk, forward slash radio four. I hope you enjoy the programme. Hello, today we'll be discussing the Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, one of Europe's leading states in the 19th century, and credited with the unification of Germany.

He was a Prussian Juncker, an aristocrat. He took his home state and made it indomitable among the... other state in the German Confederation. The conflict that marked a beginning of its expansionist aim was over Schleswig Holstein, a conflict that has gone down in history is a byword for incomprehensible wars. The British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston said, the Schleswig Holstein question is so complicated that only three men in Europe have ever understood it. Warners-Prince Albert, who is dead, the second was a German professor who became mad, I am the third and I've forgotten all about it. Whatever the causes of this conflict, it was just the beginning of Bismarck benefiting from regional

power struggles. After vanquishing, Austria and France, he led the new industrialised Germany and managed to reign in power for a further two decades. He introduced universal suffrage for men for tactical reasons. He founded one of Europe's first welfare states, but he was also known for his ruthless tactics, ignoring democratic institutions if they blocked his will, and he was never afraid to dabble in dirty politics, leaking to the press and bribing journalists. So was the unification of Germany a carefully planned campaign or a series of unpredictable events that Bismarck made the most of?

it is encouragement of nationalism bear fruit much later in Nazi Germany and what is his legacy. Joining me to discuss this, Richard Evans, Professor of Modern History at Cambridge University, Christopher Clark, reader in modern European history also at Cambridge, and Catherine Lerman, Senior Lecturer

in Modern European History at London Metropolitan University. Richard Evans, can you give us an overview of how the area we now know as Germany was organised just before the middle of the 19th century? Yes, well, I don't think organized is really quite the word. It goes back to the Holy Roman Empire founded by

Charlemagne in the early Middle Ages, the famous thousand-year Reich, which Hitler later sought to emulate. And that was abolished by Napoleon in 1806. And in 1815, after the Battle of Waterloo, the victorious allies couldn't think of anything better to do than kind of put it back together again, but without the emperors. And they called it the German Confederation, slinned it down. Much the same boundaries, 39 states, which were independent states. They had a kind of diet or meeting place, rather like the Council of Ministers in the EU. But essentially, it had very few central powers. And the German Confederation was not a nation state. It included substantial national minorities. It included a chunk of the Habsburg monarchy in German-speaking Austria and the Czech lands.

it excluded quite large parts of Prussia and the German-speaking areas outside it. It was a very, insofar as it had any kind of central power, it was quite repressive. Famously, the Austrian Chancellor Metternich used such institutions as there were in the German Confederation to try and dampen down free speech and generally keep a lid on the liberal nationalist aspirations which were looming up after the French Revolution. From what you said, in the turn in which you said it, I gather you think it's a bit of a hot-podge and B designed to quash, to suppress the revolutionary ideas that had bubbled up in France and so on.

Yes, everyone in government in Europe after 1815 was terrified of a resurgence of the French revolution. At the same time, there were middle-class intellectuals and professionals growing a number all the time who believed in the ideas of 1789 that there should be, a nation state that the people of every nation, every culture, every language should have their own state, and that the people should be sovereign. So there should be parliamentary institutions and governments responsible to parliament. Of course, all over the German Confederation in these 39 states, there are a kind of colourful mixture, but almost none of them has that. They're all autocracies or authoritarian states of one kind and another. So we're used now to thinking of nationalism as kind of right-wing

force. But in the 19th century, it's very important to remember it was a left-wing force. First half of the 19th century, liberals saw getting rid of the Confederation, having a unified German nation state as a quickest way to abolish all these reactionary small states and have a state ruled by Parliament and responsible to the people. And that drove through until 1848 at the time of revolutions. Can you outline what happened there and what were the two or three main consequences? Yeah, well, it's the hungry 40s, of course. It's agricultural depression, starving people. At the same time, industry, traditional workshops and handicrafts on the continent of being undercut by British industrialisation. So there's a huge economic crisis.

And on top of that, there's a financial crisis in government so that the Prussian and various other governments are forced to call some kind of representative assembly initially a rather traditional sort to vote in new taxes. And this boiling, popular discontal, intent plus middle class liberal aspirations creates a revolution first in France and then it spreads across the continents. And a big factor here is that people actually remembered 1789 and they thought the same kinds of things were going to happen. So there's a panic in the existing states and governments. Prussians simply in the end pull out of Berlin. They allow ministry, a liberal ministry to be appointed. And the liberals in Germany have national elections. They say,

set up a national parliament at Frankfurt and they try to unify the country. In a sense, one could say, in crude summary, a sort of conservative loss of nerve, but not necessarily, would you agree with him? Yes, exactly. But Chris Clark not necessarily loss of position, because that's where we can say,

Bismarck comes on the scene. How and why did it come on the scene then? What was opportune for him? Well, I think that's absolutely right. 1848 is an absolutely crucial, formative moment in Bismarck's life. in a sense it makes Bismarck the politician, or at least establishes several of his most fundamental priorities.

1848 is, in the first instance, of course, a terrible body blow for the traditional monarchical order in Prussia. The king is effectively a prisoner of his people in Berlin and the capital city. So this is a terrible blow to the monarchical order, and for Bismarck, who is absolutely dyed-in-the-wall monarchist, it's a profound shock. He describes this in his memoirs. He tells of how he went to,

out and summoned his peasants to a kind of informal quasi-parliament on his estate. He told them what had happened in Berlin, and their first instinct was to say, let's all arm ourselves, let's march to Berlin, let's free the king. Cathy Lohmann, I've skated over the surface of Bismarck's background. Can you tell us more about his family background and how it informed him and how he began his political career? Well, he was born into the Prussian agrarian nobility east of the River Elba. His father was a typical Juncker.

His mother was of non-noble birth, and she made the educational choices for her two sons. Otto was the younger son, and sent him off very early to boarding school at the age of six, which he never forgave her for. He resented women who had the dominant influence in a marriage. He was a physically impressive man. He was a giant at that time, was a six-foot-four, as I read. Yes, he was six-foot-four. It seemed like Gulliver.

Developed a very powerful build. And he compelled notice as well. I mean, he really used his appearance throughout his political career to impress and to make an impact. Can you tell us the first big... He's called in, isn't he, Bismarck? He's called in to solve a crisis.

The crisis about getting taxes to pay for the army. Can you briefly describe what the crisis was and what Bismarck did to solve it? Because that's, in a sense, on the home stage, his breakthrough. Yes. I mean, Bismarck's career really thrived as a result of crises. I mean, the 1848 revolution was his first big crisis, and he thrived in conflict and in crisis. The second one came in 1862, which obviously led to his appointment, and this was a crisis over the army reform.

The new king, Vinham I first, was keen to see the reform of the Prussian army. He wanted to expand it and lengthen the time of service in the army. and at this time, of course, the Parliament, since 1848, had a liberal majority that was opposed to the army reform. And the Parliament wouldn't let the King get the taxes he want to keep the army he wanted, and then he called him Bismarck to sort it out. So what did Bismarck do to sort it out? Well, Bismarck pledged really to achieve the army reform,

irrespective of the attitude of the Parliament. He was prepared to rule unconstitutionally through the 1860s, collect the necessary taxes, even though they'd been struck from the budget. And he really wanted to cast himself in the role of being a vassal of his law, and that he would achieve the army reform unmodified. So he ruled unconstitutionally, which was very dangerous. He got the taxes without going through a pardon.

He just went and raised them, so he had enough money. Still an extraordinary bold thing. He was kind of justified because of this war in Schleser v. Kohlstein. We haven't got four days to explain why it happened. in 1864, but because it was such a victory for Prussia, it seems to me, you tell me that I'm wrong and everything, that this justified his policies because people cheered, they won a war,

and he was on the move then, wasn't he? Yes, there's a few things to say about Beersmark. One is that he was somebody who wanted to do his own thing. There's a famous letter of 1838 where he says, I hate being civil servants, because civil servants are like musicians in an orchestra. They all have to play together to a conductor. I want to make my own music, he said. And all the way through, he can only really kind of rule temperamentally.

He has this relationship with the king of Prussia and presents himself as a royal servant. But actually he also says in private, I wind the king up like a clock every morning. And Villan I first was the simple soldier type. He wasn't too bright. He knew as he wanted, and he wanted monarchical power, and he wanted the old institutions of Prussia kept.

And in many ways Bismarck shared his views. But what Bismarck wanted to do that the king never really, I think, quite understood, was to preserve the old Prussia by using modern methods. As he said, you can't alter it. You have to ride the wave of history. You have to steer a course on the stream of time. Or one more poetic way he put it once

was that you have to listen for the rustle of God's cloak as he crosses the stage of world history and sees the hem as he passes. So he's always saying you can't really force events. You have to wait on events, wait for things to happen, and then steer them the way you want. The way he wanted was really as far as possible

to preserve the old Prussian institutions. And that brought him into conflict with a lot of old conservatives who didn't really understand what he was doing. This victory of Schlesjevitt Holstein, let's call it a victory. Prussia and Austria divided these two states, one battle against Denmark.

Why was it such a boost for Bismarck? Well, the key issue in contention during the constitutional crisis was precisely the, military funding, the size of the army, the length of military service. And one has to remember that this is the Prussian army was an army which had not seen real warfare against a proper enemy since 1815. So the Danish war makes a huge difference because Bismarck is now crowned with success,

so is the army. It's quite impossible now for the liberals to say it wasn't worthwhile to fund a military expansion. The success proves that Bismarck was right or seems to prove that Bismarck was right and they were wrong. They went against Schleswig Holstein with Austria, Cathy, and Laman. But very soon enough, there's a couple of years afterwards. Bismarck engineers a war against Austria and against quite a lot of odds wins what he pressure would think is a famous victory. Can you give us your interpretation of that? Yes, I mean, the Schleswig Holstein question is obviously very, very important for Bismarck's

pursuit of his aims. I mean, he works with Austria to rest these two Dutches away from the Danish crown and he's always prepared to work with Austria if it furtheres his aims. Therefore, uses the Schleswig Holstein question to lure Austria in a way into his trap. He knows that he can pick a quarrel at any time with Austria over Schleswig Holstein. He obviously wants to annex the Duchess of Schleswig and Holstein. But there are various reform plans in the 1860s about the Confederation. And he provokes this war with Austria. Sorry. but we have to move on to that war with Austria. And can you tell us how he provokes it?

Austria, in the end, decides to pass the issue of the Duchess over to the German Confederation. And Bismarck says basically that the German Confederation is not appropriate for this. And then is able to use the German Confederation as a way of... A way of taking on Austria. A way of taking on Austria. As Cathy implies, this seems to be a sort of strategy that he has. is he's turning on Austria and he's got that worked out

one and I'm trying to get at the fact is he taking things as they pop up oh he's a good chance to have an Austriolus or is this a grand plan because he's given so much credit for the grand design people like Israelia admire him and all sort of people saying

look at this man the way he organises this out he knocks them off he knocks them off he gets the thing across the and so what the Austrian thing is that pre-plan It's six and one half dozen in the other moment I mean it's the we have not on television so we haven't got a

map, but if you can think of a kind of map of Northern Europe, in 8 to 15, part of the territorial arrangement was that Prussia got a large chunk of the Rhineland, which is very important in long term because that's where industry happened, it's the Ruhr and all the rest of it. But it was separated from the rest of Prussia by the Kingdom of Hanover and other bits. And one of Bismarck's aims is to strengthen Prussia by somehow taking over Hanover and unifying Prussia, making it into a single large state. And so Bismarck was provoking this war. with Austria over really the picked quarrels of the joint administration

of these two provinces and North Germany in order to take over Hanover, which he did, shocking conservatives by chucking out the legitimate monarch and incorporating into Prussia as a province. So that consolidated Prussia. And then what happened, of course, is that the nationalists get fantastically excited by this. I think this is the first step towards German unification.

And Bisnoy realized you can't stop it. He already says in 1986, South Germany will join him with North Germany. Germany. It's only a matter of time. Could be weeks, could be years, could be decades, but it's going to happen. And he just sort of waits there to see how things happen after

1866. And it's very clear to him he's not going to be able to stop it. So he has to kind of steer it in a way that's going to preserve Prussian institutions. So he does ask for it. Chris Clark. But there's a clear division after which is it's still a clear division between the northern and the southern states. He's partly or maybe

massively religious than North's Protestant, the Southern's a Roman Catholic. and they have different histories, the South looks to the South, and so on. And he's interested in bringing them on board. Can you tell us, again, was this, tell us about that. Yeah, well, as Richard says, I mean, Bismarck is already encompassing in his political thought,

the possibility of an integration of the southern states, but if you place yourself in the position of 1867 of a contemporary, it's impossible to imagine how this will be achieved. The three southern states, the three major southern German states, Barden, Wurttemberg and Bavaria, had all, during the war with Austria, had all sided with Austria, not with Prussia.

They mobilized their armies against Prussia, not for Prussia. So they'd been beaten in a war already? They had effectively been beaten. I mean, because they were so timid in their handling of their troops, there was no actual direct military encounter, but they were mobilized against Prussia. So the Prussian-Austrian war,

we should really be calling it the Prussian-German war. It's a war between Prussia and most of the rest of Germany, including, of course, Hanover, which is annexed and a next. So it's very difficult to imagine how these southern states will be integrated because feelings are riding very high against Prussia. As you said yourself, the Catholic opinion in the south is very important. Catholics look to Austria for leadership of German unification.

If this is to take place, then it ought to be, in their view, led by the Habsburg, the Catholic Habsburg dynasty, not by this horrible Protestant juggernaut in Berlin. And there's a lot of clerical agitation against Prussia during the years 1867-68. But is he trying to get in the mind of this man, because I've read quite as much as I could about him before this programme, I mean, is he really thick, because it's fascinating,

if he's thick sitting there with these massive cigars and his massive meals, six boiled eggs buttered for tea every day and that's something, thinking this through, it's one thing, and it's really fascinating. If what comes up is what comes next, it's another thing. It's interesting, but not quite as impressive. Can I just turn to Cathy for a moment here?

Chris has talked about, Chris Andrews, you've talked about the southern states in Germany, the Catholic states and so on, they'd be on the side of Austria. If he wants to take them over, he goes to war with France now, which is a bold and daring thing to be military. Is he doing this in order to bring the southern states on his side? Because if France comes in to, let us call it Germany, they're going to have to come up through the Catholic states. The Catholic states are going to have to make their minds up in a very big way, who side are you want. Is that what's going on? Well... How did he set off the war with France?

Can we talk about the EMS telegram? Because it brings in all his sort of luscious, corrupt, rather attractive qualities. Well, yes, the EMS dispatch is obviously very famous for triggering off the Franco-Prussian war. That arose from the Hohenzollern candidacy to the vacant Spanish throne. There were ideas to place on the Spanish throne, a Hohensolen prince. The Hohen Solens were the ruling house of Prussia. And the idea was to place a Catholic, a Hohen Solon on the throne of Spain.

This was obviously very worrying to France. Bismarck really was keen to let this issue develop. He saw that it had a lot of potential to cause friction with France and that it might be useful to him in the longer term to help bring the South German states into Union with the North. And then we come to the EMS telegram, Richard. Can you just briefly tell us what that is? When the French ambassador said to the king who was on holiday,

the spa town in the black forest of Bad Hems, can build on the first, will you please guarantee that you will never again support a German candidate for this German candidate for the throne of Spain? The king was outraged. According to one report, he said, kiss my ass, which is a fairly typical... Did they say that in the 19th century,

at watering places? Well, there's a German version of it, which is even rude. I don't really want to hear it. You're talking about high-plodes. But, and so the king, then a telegram, sent a telegram to Bismarck saying that this is what happened. Bismarer altered the telegram. He changed the wording to make it look much ruder as a telegram as a response than it actually was. And this then was, of course, leaked.

He leaked. And the French were outraged. And what Bismar wanted was the French to declare war. He engineered it, but he did not want to be seen to the aggressor. Napoleon III wanted to make a big figure. He'd already backed his own unification. And so he declared war on this pretext. But he also, I think, the back of it, knew that a unified Germany

under Prussian leadership would be a serious threat to France in the longer term, as indeed it was. So he provoked France, and it was part of his tradition of leaking, bribing journalists, getting into writing. So France had to come. It's still remarkable that this Prussian army is sort of ossified for the goodness knows how many years after took them on still in theory a very massive force of French

but they crushed them very quickly the debacle wasn't it Zola's Zola wrote about that Absolutely I mean the really fascinating thing about the French crisis The crisis that leads to the war is Is its hybrid character On the one hand it's a completely traditional crisis It happens because a throne has fallen vacant in Spain I mean this is a crisis of a succession

Of the kind that started wars in the 18th century So in that sense this is an old old regime crisis. On the other hand, Bismarck exploits this quintessentially modern phenomenon of mass nationalism through press leaks and so on. So it's that capacity to operate a combined politics, combining traditional and modern methods, which

I think is so distinctive about Bismarck's statecraft. At this time Cathy Lohman, when he defeats France, he's had three major military victories in five or six years. He's riding, the liberals are still there, though there's a core of liberals against him, but basically he's the hero

of the time, isn't he? Can you give us some insight into what his position was then, how he was regarded in 1771, 872. Oh, well, he becomes the founder of the Reich, the Reich's Grunder, and has enormous prestige, obviously, from his achievements. I mean, he himself had achieved far more than he ever imagined was possible,

and his stature, as I say, is completely different after 1871. He's delivered very tangible successes to the monarchy and seems to be really, a position of supreme power within the new German Empire. He's got a formidable reputation as a result of his foreign policy successes. And of course now he's got the southern states inside the Federation Richard, hasn't it? So he's where he's got the thing together.

And now he actually says, as it were, turns in on himself rather than going out. I mean, that's what I've noticed, I'll remark. He turns in on the new, you can call it European Empire that he's created. Let's call it the German Empire. He doesn't sort of go out anymore. Now, was that because of what was turning up, or was that because he decided he had to consolidate this and make it much more in his image?

It's because he was very much aware of the element of fragility and chance in creating the empire, something his successes were not aware of. He saw it all as inevitable, but he knew what a close run thing it was, as Chris Clark said. And so his aim from 1871 until he left office 19 years later was to consolidate the empire, inside and outside.

And inside, this is another federation, all German states, including the present day one in our own time, apart from the Nazi era and the Communist East German, have been federal states, which have left a lot of power to the individual constituent bits like Bavaria or Saxony or Hamburg or whatever. And this to remain true. There wasn't really even a government of the German Empire that Bismarck had to occupy various offices, including crucially ministered president of Prussia in order to bring all the threads. together. He wanted to consolidate it internally by forcing

what he regarded as the enemies of the Reich or people who oppose the foundation or who opposed the threat to the existing order. He wants to try and suppress them. So crucially the Catholics who he thought were South German Ode Religious. He seemed to have a sort of venom against the Catholics, didn't have a personal venom. Yeah, yes, absolutely. Described, and he got the liberals on board there. He was constantly trying to get the liberals to betray their liberal principles. And this is a classic

example where they agree to force state control over Catholic church appointments, for example, reduce civil liberties of Catholics and so on. And then there's the working class. And again, he tries to suppress the working class movement bans the socialist from 1878 to 1890.

In his domestic policy, Chris Clark, he was trying to bring the mass of people and he goes back to what you said about rallying the peasants on his estate and thinking and finding they all wanted to go and save the king. He thought that the mass of people were naturally, on his side, naturally monarchists and deep conservatives.

And was that the reasoning behind his introduction of universal male suffrage and introductory form of the welfare state? Absolutely. I mean, this goes back to those formative experiences of 1848, and it's also part of his attempt to outflank the liberals by bringing in an even broader constituency than the liberals can command into politics, a constituency which he hopes will be conservative. Of course, he gets that totally wrong. In fact, Germany's Reichstag becomes one of the most diverse and sort of multicolored legislatures in Europe,

and it's got a huge socialist vote. Incidentally, his campaign against the Catholics is also an utter failure. Bismarck wants to drive the Catholics out of politics. He does exactly the opposite. He consolidates the Catholic camp. He leads to the formation of a powerful Catholic party, the centre party, and he deepens the confessional division in German politics and German society. Sorry, Richard, you're about to say something.

Yeah, and that's something I don't really agree with. I think his campaign against the Catholic. was a success in the sense that this Catholic Centre Party then was desperate to show that it was loyal to the Reich, loyal to the loyal to Germany. And at the ultimate end of that, of course, is in 1933 when the Catholic's center party is still a very large party and it caves into the Nazi seizure of power because it essentially doesn't want to be seen as being disloyal. I think it did succeed in browbeating the Catholics in an important sense. Can you briefly tell us, Cathy, how his career ended? He was there for 28 years. Yes, I mean, the basis of his power throughout his chancellorship

was really the support of the monarchy. I mean, he had done an enormous amount to bolster the power of the Prussian military monarchy through the wars of unification. And he depended very much on Wilhelm I, First, support. Hanging over Bismarth throughout his years in power was the question of the succession. And obviously in 1888, Vilhund I first dies and you get a new monarch coming to power

who wanted to rule personally and was very keen to oust Bismarck and seize the reins himself. So he reclaimed a monarchical role for himself and Bismarck was finished then. And Bismarck's, yeah, the institutional base of his power really crumbles from 1888, didn't we? Chris Clark and then, how would you sum up his legacy?

He went then back to the States and it was a most boisterous and raucous, expelled person. Yes, Bismarck had what one could describe was a very unquiet retirement. He went into a permanent sulk, basically, until his death in 1898. He continued to use his press networks

to pelt the government with an acid reign of criticism. He legitimated in that way, ironically enough, he legitimated dissent because he became a rallying figure for anti-governmental oppositional groups. As for his legacy, I suppose his most important legacy

is the German empire itself, the empire which he created, and which in a sense only he could ever manage, an empire with numerous, very serious flaws, of which I think the greatest was the failure to resolve the issue of the relationship between civilian and military power. Have you got a last line for us, Richard? Yeah. He famously said in 1862, the great questions of the day will not be solved by parliamentary majorities and votes. That was a mistake of 1848, he said, but by blood and iron.

And it's the image after 1890 that he himself began to cultivate and then became very powerful in the 1920s, great leader doing everything by force. and that I think convinces a lot of people that that's what Germany needs. Thank you very much, Richard Evans, Chris Clark, Cathy Lerman. Next week, the History of Anesthetics, thanks for listening. We hope you've enjoyed this Radio 4 podcast. You can find hundreds of other programmes about history, science and philosophy at BBC.com.com.com.com.