Germany 1818–1848
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Germany 1818–1848 In the person of Louis XVIII the dynasty returnedtoFrance which had governed the country since the 16th century.Through the peace of Paris of May1814the great powers confirmed the territorial extension the monarchyhad possessed at its fall in 1792.The Kinghimself emphasized the uninterrupted existenceof the monarchysince Saint-Louis, and Jacques-Claude Beugnot equated the impo- sition of the Charte constitutionnelle with the bestowal of privileges by the French Kingsofthe Middle Ages. As to the restoration in Germanythe contemporaries could scarcelyhavefound adequate parallels in history and onlyinasmall num- ber of cases was there aquestion of reinstatement of dynasties. There had been no revolution and if monarchies had disappeared, it wasdue to the influenceof Napoleon and was carried through by wayofinternational treaties and Imperial legislation. The imposition of constitutions since 1814served to consolidatemo- narchies which in many cases had greatlyexpanded at the Napoleonic period. To the majorityofthe citizens of Baden, for example, Grand Duke Charles Frederick was anew monarch. The sameistrue for agreat manycitizens of Bavaria and Württembergand their rulers. The inhabitants of the formerecclesiastical terri- tories on the Rhine were, in one blow,transformed into subjects of the protestant house of Hohenzollern. In the German states restoration aimed less at areturn to the past than at the consolidation of divine right monarchyinthe present.Not- withstanding the undeniable attemptsatceremonial and ideological revival of historical memories the policy of restoration sought in the first place to meet the requirements of the future. After the fall of Napoleon, Europe was in need of political stability and of securitiesagainst acontinuation of war and revolu- tion. Apolicy of restoration in this sense waspursued not onlybyancient dynas- ties, but in new monarchies and undernew dynasties as well. Germanyresembled France in that the ageofNapoleon was followed by an eraofmonarchical constitutionalism. Whereas during the earlymodern period France had developed into acentralized monarchywith the royal court at its summit,the German Empire at the outbreak of the French Revolution was frag- mented into agreat number of single territories.¹ On the European stagethe Ger- man Emperor’sstanding wasbased exclusivelyonthe power he derivedfrom the lands of his crown. Within the Empire itself his influencewas limited. At the hands of Napoleon between 1801 and 1806 the territorial fragmentation of the Empire was reduced to approximatelyforty units, bothbythe secularization of Ingo Knecht, Der Reichsdeputationshauptschlußvom 25. Februar 1803.Rechtmäßigkeit, Rechts- wirksamkeit und verfassungsgeschichtliche Bedeutung (Berlin: Duncker &Humblot, 2007), 29. DOI 10.1515/9783110524536-003, © 2020 Sellin Volker, published by De Gruyter. This work is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License. Germany 1818 – 1848 45 the ecclesiastical and by the mediatizationofmanysmall and medium-sized sec- ular estates. The ecclesiastical estates,the knighthoods and almostthe totality of the numerous Imperial cities, not mentioning agreat number of principalities and counties,wereannexed by their more powerful neighbours. This far-reach- ing transformation of Germanyhad originated from the cession in 1801 of the left bank of the Rhine to France through the peace treaty of Lunéville. Under article seven of this treaty the Empire was obliged to indemnify those hereditary princes on the right bank of the Rhine whose territories had been located in part or as a whole to the left of the Rhine. In preparation of the indemnification process the Imperial Diet of Regensburgformed a Reichsdeputation,acommittee composed of plenipotentiaries of several Imperial estates.The committee basedits deliber- ations on acomprehensive outline which France and Russia had agreed upon beforehand. On 25 February 1803 the committee voted adraught resolution for the Diet.This draughtresolution (Reichsdeputationshauptschluß)was adopted by the Diet as afundamental lawofthe Empire (Reichsgrundgesetz)on24 March.² The territorial shifts provided for by the lawwent far beyond the neces- sities of indemnifying.The secular territorieslocated west of the Rhine the ces- sion of which to France entitled to indemnities, comprised 463square miles. The ecclesiastical territories east of the Rhine which weresubjecttosecularization with onlyone exception, comprised as many as 1.131 square miles.³ Even if onlyecclesiastical territories had been usedfor indemnification, the greater part of them could have been preserved. The mediatization of the 41 imperial cit- ies east of the Rhine, as prescribed by paragraph 27 of the Reichs- deputationshauptschluß, could well have been left undone. This shows that the principle of indemnification was onlyapretext for ageneral restructuring of Central Europe. Similarly, the arbitrary annexation of the Imperial knights’ ter- ritories by theirneighbors in the following yearsand the mediatization of numer- ous principalities and counties by the peace treatyofPreßburgof1805 and the Actofthe Confederation of the Rhine (Rheinbundakte)of1806 exclusively sprang from the political interests of the French Empire and the expansionist tendencies of manyGermanprinces.Inthe course of the territorial reorganization of Germa- ny agreat manyofthem not onlywereaccorded considerable territorial accre- tions but also an upgrading of ranks. In Southern Germanythe Elector of Bavaria and the Duke of Württembergwerepromoted to the rank of Kingsand the Mar- graveofBaden was made aGrand Duke. In the course of these developments the Ibid., 50,109;the textin: Ernst Rudolf Huber,ed., Dokumente zurdeutschen Verfassungsge- schichte,vol. 1, 3rd ed. (Stuttgart: Kohlhammer,1978), 1–28. Knecht, Reichsdeputationshauptschluß,190. 46 Germany 1818 – 1848 German princesbecame partisans of Napoleon because it was to him that they owed the unprecedented growth of power and status. Napoleon alone could guarantee their new dignities and the permanentpossession of their territorial acquisitions in the face of the great powers.The Empire itself succumbed in this process. On 6August 1806 Emperor Francis II deposed the Imperial crown and thereby formallydissolvedthe Empire, after he had alreadyin1804,contrary to Imperial law, arbitrarilyadopted the dignityofEmperor of Austria.For two years he had simultaneouslypossessed twoImperial crowns – the ancientGer- man and the new Austrian one. By the dissolution of the Empire the former Im- perial estates wereturned into sovereign states. After the fall of Napoleon in April 1814the German Empire wasnot restored. The German princes clungtotheir onlyrecentlyacquired sovereignty and re- fused to renouncetheir territorial acquisitions.Inthe interest of their external security and of the general peace in Europe the German states werebound to- gether in the GermanConfederation (Deutscher Bund). Between the congress of Vienna and the outbreak of the revolution of 1848 in all German states with the exception of Austria and Prussia constitutions wereimposed. OnlyinWürt- tembergthe constitution of 1819 was the resultofaconvention between King and diet.Nevertheless, here as well, the Kingclaimedunlimited sovereignty for the crown. Accordingto§4ofthe constitution of Württembergthe King “united in himself full public power” and “exercised it in accordance with the constitu- tion.”⁴ Prussia and Austria receivedconstitutions onlyinthe revolution of 1848 and 1849. The Austrian emperor Francis Joseph, however,repealed the constitu- tion he had imposed under the pressureofrevolution, as earlyas1851. As in France in 1814constitutions wereimposed in Germanywith aview to consolidating divine right monarchy. But the circumstances were different.The German states had never before possessed modernrepresentative constitutions and unlike the Bourbons of France no German dynasty had been deposed in a revolution. Nevertheless,inthe German states as well the imposition of consti- tutionswas acompromise between monarch and subject.Inthe course of the territorial restructuringofGermanyand the far-reaching reforms of the Napo- leonic period many ancient rights had been violated and almostall those insti- tutionshad disappeared upon which in the HolyRoman Empire security and lib- erty of the subjects had depended. The intermediate powers which to Montesquieu had been the safe-guards of liberty in amonarchyhad largely been abolished. By the recent reformsthe German princes had gained adegree Verfassungsurkunde für das Königreich Württembergvom 25.September 1819,in: Huber, Do- kumente,vol. 1, 188. Germany 1818 – 1848 47 of power without precedent,all the more so since with the Imperial Privy Council (Reichshofrat), the Imperial Chamber Court (Reichskammergericht), and the Em- peror himself all thoseinstitutions had disappeared to which in the Ancien Ré- gime citizensand estatescould appeal against theirsuperiors. The most vehe- ment criticism of the despotism of the member princes of the Confederation of the Rhine was pronounced by Karl Freiherr vomStein who in 1812 had entered the service of Tsar Alexander.Hedemanded that after the banishment of Napo- leon in the German statesberestored astate of thingswhich granted to the sin- gle citizen “the safety of his person and his property.”⁵ The guarantors weretobe the territorial estates (Landstände). Stein demanded that in the course of the re- organization of Germanyestates should be introduced