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BUKEY, Evan Burr, 1940- THE GUELPH MOVEMENT IN IMPERIAL , 1866-1918.

The Ohio State University, Ph.D., 1969 H isto ry , modern

University Microfilms, Inc., Ann Arbor, Michigan

© Copyright by Evan Burr Bukey 1970

THIS DISSERTATION HAS BEEN MICROFILMED EXACTLY AS RECEIVED THE GUELPH MOVEMENT IN IMPERIAL GERMANY

1866-1918

DISSERTATION

Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University

By

Evan Burr Bukey, B. A ., M. A.

The Ohio State University 1969

Approved by

4/0 A d v iser Department of History PLEASE NOTE:

Not original copy. Some pages have very light type. Filmed as received.

University Microfilms PREFACE

Throughout the course of German h isto ry the c e n trifu ­ gal habits of particularism have often played as great a role as the centripetal force of nationalism. Even today a trav­ eler crossing the Austro-German frontier to the "Free State of ’1 realizes that regional differences remain a visi­ ble feature of German life. Historically, regional sentiment has been accentuated by common dialect, religion, or some­ times a sense of national identity. Thus, at various times in the p a st century p a r tic u la r is t movements have arisen in Catholic Bavaria and the , in Alsace-Lorraine, Northern Schleswig, and the Polish parts of . In Northwestern Germany there existed in the late nineteenth century a strong particularist party not fitting th is p a tte rn . This party - the Guelph movement - appeared soon after the Austro-Prussian war to protest the incorpora­ tion of in Prussia; it depended on dynasticism, resentment of Prussia, and tradition to gain support. In fact, by rallying landowners, urban workers, Protestant clerics and Roman Catholics around the deposed Guelph leaders formed a political coalition which exercised considerable influence in Hanover for half a century. The origins, appeal, manifestations, and effect of this movement are the subject of this dissertation. I sincerely thank all those who a 3sistod mo in the completion of my project: Irmgard Bokomeyer, Edgar 7/althor, H einrich Waldmann, Dr. Rudolf von Thadden, Georg Wilhelm von Brant, Gerhard Gerkins, G, M. W illis, Professor Richard 7/. Smith, Professor Harold J. Grimm, Virginia Beltz, A. R. M illett, James Schwartz; also the staffs of the Universit&ts Bibliothek - Gottingen, the Nieders&chsisches Staatsarchlv Hanover, and especially the Deutsches Zentralarchiv - Merseburg. A very special debt of thanks goes to II.R.H. Ernest Augustus, of Hanover, for permission to use his family archives in and to the Fulbright Kommission in Bad Godesberg for financial assistance during my stay in Germany. Finally, I should like to acknowledge the very great help and encouragement of Professor Georg Schnath, my adviser Professor Andreas Dorpalen, my parents, and above all, my wife Anita.

iii VITA

2if. April 19^0 . . . Born - Cincinnati, Ohio 1962 ...... B.A., Ohio Wesleyan University, Delaware, Ohio 1961|- . M.A., The Ohio State University, Columbus, Ohio 196ij.-66 ...... Teaching Assistant, Department of H istory, The Ohio State U niversity, Columbus, Ohio 1966-68 ...... Pulbright Graduate Fellow, Georg August Universit&t, Gottingen, Germany

1968-69 ...... Teaching Associate, Department of History, The Ohio State U niversity, Columbus, Ohio 1969 ...... Instructor, University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, Arkansas

FIELDS OF STUDY

Major Field: History ; Modern Germany. Professor Andreas Dorpalen Modern Britain. Professor Phillip Poirier History - 1789-1850. Professor Henry H. Simms European Geography. Professor S. Earl Brown

iv LIST OP FIGURES Figure Page

1. GROWTH OF THE GUELPH MONARCHY...... 38 2. ELECTORAL IN PRUSSIAN PROVINCE

I-IANOVER, 1 8 6 6 - 1 8 7 1 Ii).6 3. RELATIVE STRENGTH OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN

PRUSSIAN PROVINCE HANOVER, 1890-1918 . . . 2J4.8

\

V TABLE OP CONTENTS Pa('o PREFACE...... i i VITA ...... iv LIST OP FIGURES...... v Chapter I . THE GUELPH KINGDOM...... 1

I I . THE EXILE POLITICS OF , 1866-I 87 O . . 39 I I I . THE RISE OF THE GUELPH MOVEMENT IN HANOVER, 1866-1870 118

IV. THE GERMAN-HANOVERIAN PARTY, I8 7 I-I 8 9 O . . . llj.7 V. THE GUELPH , 1871-1913 ...... 181 VI. THE DECLINE OF THE GERMAN-HANOVERIAN PARTY, 1890-1918 211 V II. CONCLUSIONS...... 2i|_9 BIBLIOGRAPHY...... 2$^ I

THE GUELPH KINGDOM

The as it existed in 1Q66, was the fourth largest state of the . With a population of nearly two million people and an area of ll).,983 square miles it belonged to the so-called German mid­ dle states which had emerged from the Congress of in 1815. As such its fate was tied up with the larger and more important members of the Confederation. The rulers of Hanover were the Guelphs, a family which proudly claimed to be the oldest ancestral dynasty in Germany and which m aintained im portant fa m ilia l and p o l i t i ­ cal ties with nearly all major states of Europe. The Queen of England was a Guelph as were the members of the princely families of and Brunswick; dynastic relations also existed with the rulers of , Russia and Prussia. The destinies of Hanover and the Guelphs were thus inter­ twined. It was .this fact which gave the kingdom an inflated sense of importance and which was to determine its eventual f a t e . The Guelphs were originally of Swabian origin. Their oldest known forebear was We If who had lived in the eighth century and had been the father-in-law of Charlemagne's son - Louis the Pious. Although the Swabian line died out

1 in 1055, the dynasty continued on the distaff side and man­ aged to secure large tra c ts of te r r ito r y around L&neburg in northwest Germany. By the twelfth century all Saxony belonged to the Guelphs, and the head of the line, , had become the most powerful German prince of his era. The subsequent struggle between the houses of Guelph and for control of the medieval wrought- havoc in Europe fo r the next century. At the end of it.the Guelphs found themselves s till potent but confined to their hereditary estates in northern Germany. In I23j? these were consolidated into the of Brunswick-L\!ineburg. Throughout the coming centuries the Guelphs gradually recov­ ered their strength and expanded their holdings between the , , and . Unfortunately, constant partitions nullified the effectiveness of this aggrandizement and weakened the power of the dynasty. At one time, seven dif­ ferent houses existed simultaneously. By 1682, however, the branch of the family had managed to absorb most of the rival , and in that year the head of the line, Ernest Augustus, of Calenberg-Gttttingen, issued a patent of primogeniture and indivisibility. Ten years later, in return for promises of assistance against the Turks, he was awarded, as ruler of Hanover, the rank and title of Elector of the . An even more significant event occurred in 17l4» At that time, accord­ ing to the Act of Settlement of 1701, the Elector of Hanover, George Louie, also became King of Great Britain and Ire land. By becoming associated with England Hanover developed into a state with extra-German concerns. Its soldiers, for example, served not only throughout Europe but in India as well. Its trade interests became, dependent on those of Great Britain. In return for the export of grain, fodder and linen, for instance, it received the industrial manu- o factures of England. In short, Hanover’s with Great Britain put it in an unusual position: on the one hand the state had never been so prosperous or v/ell entrenched; on the other its dominant position in northwest Germany was a r t i f i c i a l and its t e r r ito r y coveted by i t s neighbors. Just how tenuous the Guelph position could be was revealed during the . In 180£ Prance suddenly occupied Hanover, and then gave it to Prussia to administer. The next year the Prussians were defeated at Jena. But Hanover did not regain its independence. Instead it now became p a rt of Prance’s s a t e l l i t e Kingdom of W estphalia. In 1810 the northern half of the one-time Electorate,

•*-More complete yet s till succinct accounts of these events can be found in; Ernst B&ttner, Geschichte Niedersachsens (Leipzig, 1931), I, pp. 1-7* George Schnath et. al., Geschichte des Landes Niedersachsen (W&rzburg, 1962), pp"^ 1-1^2. and Georg Schnath, Vom Sachsenstamm zum Lande Niedersachsen (, 1966 ), pp. 1-50. ^Schnath, Geschichte. p. including the city of Hanover and the coast, was

annexed to Prance i t s e l f .3 Many Hanoverians refused to accept the occupation of their country and joined the "King’s German Legion", an elite unit of the . This exile legion distinguished itself in Portugal and Spain dur­ ing the and became a source of pride for most Hanoverians A The , in l8lL}.-l5, not only recon­ stituted Hanover, but also elevated it to the status of a kingdom within the German Confederation. This had an inspiring effect on the state for it strengthened its sense of sovereignty. Backed by the military resources of the Confederation as well as the naval power of Great Britain, Hanover seemed to have attained a state of permanent secu­ rity. As a result it began to steer a more independent course in German affairs. It developed its own merchant

marine, for example, and later in 1831 ). refused to join the Prussian sponsored customs union or . It then combined with Oldenburg, Brunswick, and -Lippe to form its own tax union (Steuerverein) These Hanoverian attempts to create a "third force" in Germany sometimes assumed an a n ti-P ru ssian b en t. In order to stress its independence and, above all, to

3schnath, Vom Sachsenstamm, pp. 1+For more details see: Bttttner, op. cit., II, pp. 2 0 -2 2 . ^Schnath, Geschichte, p. 50. strengthen its economic Interests on the North Sea Coast the government would maintain a cool attitude toward or, during Confederation disputes at , side with . Austria. At home the press sometimes lampooned Prussian institutions and enjoyed contrasting the East Elbian Junkers with the more light hearted easy-going Austrians - who were f a r away and thus no th re a t to Hanover.^* A glance at the map, however, would have shown the Guelphs that such a stance was both shortsighted and danger­ ous. As part of the Vienna settlement Prussia had received large tracts of land in the Rhineland and . This meant that Hanover was almost completely surrounded by. Prussian territory. In the event of war the kingdom could be rapidly cut off from possible Austrian aid. But it was domestic events which most concerned Hanover during the first years of the Metternich era. In

1819 a new constitution replaced the existing feudalist order. It provided for two legislative chambers and a measure of parlimentary control of the budget. But this was not sufficient for the liberals of the kingdom. In the wake of the revolutions of I 83 O they were able to introduce a constitution which was more in tune with the spirit of

^Cf. Schnath, Vom Sachsenstamm, pp. $7-60, and Renate Duckstein, Die W elfen leg io n .d je P o litik des Kftnigs Georg von Hannover in den Jahren 18b6-ld70, im Zusammenhang mit der grossen europ&ischen Politik. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. (Gbttingen, 1923)» pp. 1-2. the times. It gave the middle class and peasantry represen­ tation in the parliament and strengthened the two chambers by giving them the right to initiate legislation and to con­ trol the actions of governmental ministers. In short, the Kingdom of Hanover now possessed a constitutional setup similar to that of Great B rita in .7 Such was the state of affairs when King William IV • died in 1 8 3 7 . According to B ritis h laws, Queen V icto ria, was the rightful heir of the Hanoverian throne. But accord­ ing to a statute enacted in 1836 a woman could become Queen of Hanover only if the entire Guelph male line were extinct. Since this was not the case, Victoria’s uncle, Ernest Augustus, , ascended the Lower Saxon throne. The personal union with Britain was thus dis­ solved.® The termination of this relationship was to have serious repercussions for Hanover. No longer could it depend on Britain to defend it; no longer could it afford to be hostile in its dealings with Prussia. In economic a f f a ir s i t found i t s e l f more dependent on the other German

^Schnath, Geschichte, p. $2.

®Ibid. The s ta tu te of I 836 thus abrogated the old Salic law. Presumably the act was passed to maintain the purity of the Guelph line. states and was forced to reconsider its refusal to join the Zollverein. In fact, it joined in 1851.9 The new king, Ernest Augustus (1837-1051) recognized the limitations of Hanoverian sovereignty. He thought it foolish to needle Prussia and throughout his reign called fo r a more cooperative po licy . In l8l|.9, fo r example, he greeted F rie d ric h W illiam IV 's scheme fo r German u n ity known as the Prussian Union and joined Saxony in supporting it. Perhaps his attitude could best be summed up by the advice he once gave his son: uYour heart may point to Austria, but follow your head and remain with Prussia.”-1-^ Ernest Augustus may have been enlightened in foreign affairs, but domestically he initiated a policy of repres­ sion which split his country and eventually accelerated its demise. Long known for his ultra-Tory views as a British peer, the new king found it particularly distasteful that

the crown lands, which had been given to the state in 1833 , were no longer his p roperty. Hence one of his f i r s t acts was to abrogate the constitution of 1833. This caused a tremendous furor not only in Hanover but also throughout all of Germany. Seven Gottingen professors appealed to the

9cf. Heinrich von Sybel, The Founding of the German Empire, II, New York, 1891. pp. 18 3 - I 8 I4.. and He Inrich von Srbik, Deutsche Einheit, III (, 19l}.2), p. 2I4.3 . lOAlfred von Waldersee, Denkwtirdigkeiten, I (Stuttgart, 1923), p. I4-O• Diet of the German Confederation to save the constitution but to no avail. They were then expelled from tho kingdom.

In l 8 ij.O Ernest Augustus Introduced a constitution which was more to his liking. This emasculated the parlia­ ment by abolishing ministerial responsibility, and it returned control of the crown lands to the king. In the revolutions of l 8 lp8 Ernest Augustus probably saved hi 3 crown by restoring the constitution of 1833. Once order had been restored, however, he dismissed his liberal advisers and set about withdrawing the concessions he had made. When he died in November I 8 £l, Hanover was on the verge of a con­ stitutional crisis. The new king, George V, thus came to power in a crit­ ical hour for his state. He was a man of considerable talent and ability, an individual who, during less tumultu­ ous times, might readily have solved his country’s problems. But he was destined to be the last . George was born in 1819 in Berlin where Ernest Augustus was then living in self-imposed exile from the British court. Due to his father's frequent absences he was reared by his strong-willed mother^ and deeply influ­ enced by his uncle, Prince Karl of Mecklenburg. Since

■^The best biography of Ernest Augustus is; G. M. W illis, Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland (London, 19S>ll), The German Edition Ernst August, Kfrnig von Hannover (Hanover, 1961), is more concerned.with his role as king of Hanover. ^Prederike of Mecklenburg. George stood so close to succession In both England and Hanover his mother and uncle painstakingly groomed him for the e v e n tu ality th a t someday he might become k in g .^3 Both seem to have taught him a mystical concept of kingship, telling him that as monarch he would be responsible for his actions to no one but God. Hence, as he matured, George developed a sense of obligation not only for the material needs of his future subjects but for their spiritual con­ cerns as well. 14

Under more normal circumstances such autocratic notions might have been, tempered by experience and the realities of nineteenth century life. Instead, they were only intensified by the fact that George was blind. He had been born with full eyesight but a childhood disease had cost him the vision of one eye at the age of three and a freak accident that of the other some eleven years later. His distressed father, moreover, had exposed George to a number of painful but fruitless operations.^ George’s physical handicap probably affected his personality and character. For one thing it seems to have

■^As Victoria, daughter of the Duke of Kent, was the only one standing between him and the throne this was a real possibility. ■^Wilhelm von H assell, Geschichte des K&nigreichs Hannover, I I (Leipzig, 1899)» pp. 179-1^1* ^Onno Klopp claims that had George been born blind, according to the Golden Bull of Charles, he never would have been permitted to rule. Onno Klopp, Kftnig Georg V. (Hanover, I 8 7 8 ), p. 17. 10 intensified his already strong sense of religious piety. He would begin each day kneeling in prayer and would often bless his subjects by giving the sign of the cross. He claimed frequent inspiration from the Holy Ghost and believed his house had been chosen for greatness. In 1857, for example, he declared to a group of African missionaries that the Guelph dynasty had received a divine mandate to civilize large parts of the world.^ George’s blindness may also have heightened his desire to succeed as a monarch. He sought to do everything him­ self: to legislate, to administer, to govern. No laws were passed or measures put into effect that had not first met his personal approval. But as George did not possess the knowledge of men that such an autocrat needs, he was easily bewitched by f l a t t e r e r s and sycophants. Hence he would reward those who praised him and become angry with his critics - particularly liberals and . On one occa­ sion the Postmaster General of the Kingdom pointed out that every time a postage stamp was cancelled it blurred his face, thus constituting a personal insult. George then ordered stamps to be cancelled only in the corners and, after a short time, his likeness was removed from the stamps altogether.^

•*-6 (Wilhelm?) Wippermann, " Georg V. Kfcnig von Hannover" Allgemeine Deutsche Biographie (Leipzig, 1878), p. 68^. . •^Hassell, op. c it., pp. 185-86. 11 As king, George was determined to expand his powers. In order to do this it was necessary to nullify the conces­ sions of 1814.8 • A simple abrogation of the constitution, however, was out of the question. Endowed with a scrupulous sense of honesty the king felt that such an action might be considered a violation of his oath to his people.^ Conse­ quently, he petitioned the Diet of the German Confederation to urge such a change and to restore the rights and privi­ leges of the crown and the n o b ility . On 12 A p ril 1855 the Diet approved this petition and called for a revision of the constitution.^ George now acted to fu lfill this mandate. He gave control of the upper chamber of parliament to the and increased their prerogatives in the local diets and assemblies. In short, the constitution of l 8 lj.O was reconstituted. The reintroduction of authoritarian rule in Hanover did not at first anger or antagonize many people in the kingdom. What proved intolerable was the appointment of a reactionary ministry under Count Georg von Kielmannsegg

(I80 I4.—1879) and Count Otto von Borries (1802-1883). For the next seven years this cabinet censored the press, per­ secuted leading critics of the regime, and created a veri­ table police state. Such was popular repugnance to this

^Sybel, op. cit., II, p. 198. ^ A . W. Ward, Germany 1815-1898 (Cambridge, 1917). I I , P. 12 government that even Wilhelm von Hassell, the most apolo­ g etic of Guelph h istorian s, has been forced to conclude: ” ...t h e conduct of the new government gave the lib era l oppo­ sitio n enough cause to ju stify its attacks and to undermine the popularity of the crown.”^® This opposition now found two eloquent spokesmen in Rudolf von Bennigsen (l82l|.-1902) and Johannes Miquel (1829-1901)* Both men were typical nineteenth-century middle-class liberals who sought the abolition of censorship, the introduction of ministerial responsibility, and other restraints on royal prerogative. In the years that foilloved, Bennigsen, in particular, gained renown for his spirited and well reasoned attacks on the government in the lower house of the Hanoverian parliament. These liberals did not just seek reform within their own country. They looked beyond its borders and called for the unity of the entire German nation. The main obstacle to unification, they felt, was the German Confederation, a body which supported and sus­ tained reactionary regimes in the various German states.^ In 18£9, therefore, Bennigsen and his followers took advantage of the national upsurge arising from the defeat of Austria in a war with and France and founded the

2°Hassell, op. cit., II, p. 310. 21por a good description of Hanoverian liberalism see; Karl Kurmeier, Die Entstehung der Mationalliberalen Fartei Hannovers. Unpublished doctoral dissertation. (Gottingen, 1923) pp. 1-lj.O. Also Hermann Oncken, Rudolf von Bennigsen: Ein deutscher liberaler Politiker (Stuttgart, t Deutscher Nationalverein. This society called for the con­ vocation of a national parliament, and many of its members looked toward Prussia for leadership.^ Although the Nationalverein played only a minor role in the events of the next several years, the Hanoverian government viewed it with great concern. Here was an organization which not only sought to erode the king's sovereignty through domestic reform, but also quite literally threatened Hanoverian inde­ pendence. Consequently, the members of the Nationalvereln were subjected to considerable harassment and persecution.^ Had the Guelph government been more moderate in its treat­ ment of the liberals, had it made a few concessions here and there, it might have kept the loyalty of all its subjects. Instead it alienated an important segment of the population and caused more Hanoverians, once their state had been annexed to Prussia, to feel no regret at the loss of their national independence. 2k

The middle class liberals were not the only group which became d isillu sio n e d w ith the Guelphs. Throughout

^^An excellent analysis of the role played by the Nationalverein in the struggle for unification can be found in: Lenore O'Boyle, "The German National Verein," Journal of Central European Affairs, XVI, If, pp. 333-352. 23por details on measures taken against the Nationalverein see: Kurmeier, op. c it., pp. 52-55*

^Bernhard Ehrenfeuchter, Politische Willensbildung in Niedersachsen zur Zeit des Kaiserreiches. l/npublished doctoral dissertation (Gbttingen, 1952), p. 36. the kingdom there were large numbers of day laborers (Hftuslinge) who had been displaced by the recent disappear­ ance of common lands. Many of them had moved to the c itie s to seek employment. But since Hanover was an agrarian state there was practically no opportunity for them to find work in industry. A few did manage to become masons, roofers, or builders, but even this was difficult as the ancient town guilds usually prevented them from entering the ranks of skilled artisans. In Hildesheim alone some 20,000 of these rural refugees lived without employment or hope of r e lie f. The Hanoverian government,' moreover, did nothing to allevi­ ate their lot. Instead it forbade any sort of assembly and had its ubiquitous police supervise the lives of these unfortunates. Just how dangerous these proletarians were to the status quo is difficult to say. The lack of political v organization certainly precluded any conventional threat. Nonetheless, their very existence presented a serious prob­ lem for the regime and added to the ranks of those discon­ tented with the rule of George V .^ Thus by 1866 an unsolved constitutional crisis coupled with a host of social problems had created a danger­ ous situ a tion in Hanover. At the root of much of the

^Ernst Pitz, "Deutschland und Hannover im Jahre 1866" Nieders&chsiches Jahrbuch flir Landesgeschichte, xxxvm uy66j, p. yy. : 2&0ne historian, Ernst Pitz, feels this social dilemma was the most parious problem facing Hanover in 1866. See; Ibid., p. 102. trouble lay the personality of the dogmatic Guelph monarch, a man who never realized that his romantic dreams ran counter to the currents of the day. George envisioned him­ self and his kingdom as a bulwark against change of any kind; he regarded those who disagreed as traitors.^7 Such an attitude only exacerbated the differences between himself and his critics; his ideas only spread dissension at a time when Hanover's very existence was being challenged from abroad. It has often been said that George failed to under­ stand the limitations of Hanoverian power, that he attached an inflated importance to his kingdom and thus helped to

accelerate its d e m i s e . ^8 This is not correct. Although dazzled by his own sovereignty, George knew that Hanover stood no chance in a war with Prussia, that the kingdom could be occupied, as Bismarck once stated, "on the first cannon shot."^9 ^he king hoped, however, to prevent such a war and to strengthen Hanover's freedom of action through a policy of close cooperation with Austria and the Diet of the German C onfederation. What he did not perceive was ju s t

^Hassell, op. cit., pp. 180 - 1 8 6 . ^®See, for example: Srbik, op. cit., Ill, pp. 103- 106. ^Bismarck to Karolyi 5 December 1862, Die Ausw&rtige Politik Preussens 1858-1871 (Oldenburg, 1932), p. 99* - l6 how far Prussia was prepared to go to revise the status quo in Germany.

Prusso-Hanoverian relations began to deteriorate 30on after 1852. Part of this was due to George's foreign policy, in the Confederation, part of it to a growing rivalry for control of the North Sea Coast. George felt that his king­ dom had a great destiny upon the sea, that Hanover should become Germany's leading maritime power. In order to achieve this, it was necessary to secure control of the North Sea coast or at least prevent another power from doing so. In 1853> however, neighboring Oldenburg sold Prussia a small piece of land in the Bay of Jahde for the of a naval base.31 George was quite under­ standably irritated. Not only did this upset his plans for maritime expansion, but it gave Prussia a new foothold on his flank. As one of his advisers put it: "That would be, with and , the third of the strong positions with which Prussia is seeking to surround us.”32 By la te 1865 Hanover had become involved in a b i tt e r quarrel that had broken out between Berlin and Vienna over

30srnst Pitz, while extremely critical of George V, argues, convincingly that the king's concept of Hanover's role in German affairs was neither naive nor unsound. See; Pitz, op. c it., pp. 103-106. 3lThe future . For more details see: Herman Lllbbing, Oldenburg is che Landesgeschichte (Oldenburg, 19f>8), P» 169 ®t. seq. 32sybel, op. cit.. Ill, p. 195. 17 Bismarck's recent war against . Should another war break out, it was clear that Prussia, in order to get at Austrian troops stationed in and to secure its

position in the north, would seek to send troop 3 through Hanoverian territory. This in turn could lead to Hanover's loss of independence. By late February 1866, moreover, the signs were unmistakable that Berlin had decided to acquire Schleswig-Holstein by force. At the Hanoverian court, opinion was divided as to the best course of action. Count Adolf von Platen-Hallermund, the Foreign Minister, urged neutrality. If that were unattainable, he pleaded in a rare moment of prescience, an alliance with Prussia should not be ruled out. The histor­ ian and intimate of the king, Onno Klopp ( 1822 - 1903 ),33 took the opposite point of view. He had no illusions about Hanover's ability to resist Prussia, but he was sure that if it came to a war, Austria would be the victor. This would force a reo rg an izatio n of Germany along grossdeutsch- federalist lines. In order to benefit best from this arrangement, he concluded, .lanover should seek a formal alliance with the Habsburgs

33An historian of Guelph and Habsburg affairs, Klopp was notorious for his anti-Prussian bias. 3Wiard Klopp and , Onno Klopp, Leben und Wirken (Munich, 1950), pp. 6l|.-70. 18 Exactly what George thought at this critical moment is unknown. 3$ Undoubtedly, he realized that strict neutral­ ity was Hanover's best chance of surviving unharmed, since it stood no chance in--a war with Prussia. But the king was also aware that a Prussian attack upon Austria would be much more than a challenge to the status quo; it would also mean a breach of the constitution of the German Confederation. As this constitution guaranteed George's sovereignty, the king might regard such an attack as a personal insult to his own honor and majesty. The question, therefore, remained what this proud monarch, who considered himself God's annointed, ought to do under such circumstances.36 For the present, however, he chose neutrality. Soon thereafter, George was enraged to learn that the Prussian representative at Frankfurt had proposed the crea­ tion of an all-German parliament with a lower house elected by universal manhood suffrage. Perhaps, the king felt that Berlin's real design was to subordinate him and his sacred

3^The Hanoverian state papers for this period were smuggled out of the kingdom shortly after its annexation to P russia in 1866. Traveling v ia London and T rie ste they eventually came to rest in Gmunden, Austria where they remained over a century. As they were the personal property of the Guelph family, only a handful of scholars were ever permitted to see them. In July 1968, Ernest Augustus, Prince of Hanover, released his family documents to the West German government. They have since been moved to Wolfen- bftttel, where they will soon be opened to general use. Scholars may then gain a better insight into George's think­ ing in the months before the Austro-Prussian War. 36See Ernst Pitz's interesting speculations on this subject in Pitz, op. cit., p. 9%. sovereignty to a strong central government. But whatever his reasoning, he abandoned his earlier policy of unarmed neutrality and called up all three-year reservists.37 Meanwhile, Vienna was courting George. In the event of war with Prussia, Hanover could provide a good shield for Austria by holding up Prussian troops and thus delay any Prussian thrust into Bohemia. Early in May, Prince Karl zu Solms, a general in the Austrian army, was dispatched to Hanover by Emperor Francis Joseph. Solms, who was a step­ brother of King George, offered him guarantees of security and the command of the tenth Federal Army Corps in return fo r a m ilita ry a llia n c e .3® in ad d itio n , he seems to have made certain promises of territory.^9 The king was reluctant to enter into an open military pact with Austria. He was very much aware of the dangers inherent in such a move and wanted to remain neutral as long as possible. Consequently, he refused the Habsburg offer. His foreign minister let it be known, however, that Hanover would obey any order of mobilization from the Diet in Frankfurt. b-o

37lbid. , p. 10i|_, Actually, Bismarck's purpose was an entirely different one, and there was no secret about th a t. 3%. Friedjung, The Struggle for Supremacy in Germany 1859-1Q66. (London, 1935), p. 165. 39schnath, Von Sachsenstamm, p. 60. ^-°See: Pitz, op. cit., p. 105, and Friedjung, op. oit., p. 2 0 7 . 20 In the meantime, Bismarck was closely following events in Hanover. As a youth he had studied two semesters at Gbttingen and later was even offered the post of Minister- President of the kingdom by George V. He had refused this offer because he felt he could not shed his "Prussianity like a cloak,but he knew nonetheless about political developments in Hanover through his experience as Prussian envoy to the Diet in Frankfurt. Now in 1866 he sought to take advantage of the internal disputes in the Guelph king­ dom by promising a revival of the Frankfurt constitution of

1814-9 and by suggesting the possibility of a liberal ministry in Berlin. In order to further woo the Hanoverian liberals, he invited Rudolf von Bennigsen and later Johannes Miquel to a series of talks on this subject. Although it is not known exactly what was discussed at these meetings,^ Bismarck seems to have convinced both men - either directly or indirectly - of the necessity of negotiating a Prusso- Hanoverian neutrality treaty. Neither Bennigsen or Miquel wanted to forfeit Hanoverian independence - as was later charged by George's followers. In fact, the subject does not even seem to have

^-•'-Stewart A. S te h lin , Bismarck and the Guelph Problem. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, (Yale, 1$6£), p. 25. ^Bennigsen, in his only recorded statement on the subject, claims the position of Hanover was not even men­ tioned. See: Oncken, op. cit., p. 172. ^-3cf. Ibid.. and Wilhelm Mommsen, Johannes Miquel, I (Stuttgart, 1928), p. 327. 21 been broached in their conversations with Bismarck. '.That they did want was to avoid war a t a l l c o sts. They feared a possible Austrian victory, a victory which might mean m ili­ tary occupation by Slavic troops as well as a return to complete political reaction. In Bismarck’s proposed treaty they saw the best guarantee of peace and the preservation of Hanoverian sovereignty. In the entourage of the king these proceedings were regarded as liberal perfidy. Everyone was convinced that reliance on the strength of the Confederation would deter

Prussia and help end the crisis. But on II 4. June news arrived that Berlin had mobilized against the Diet. The next morning Price Ysenburg, the Prussian envoy in Hanover, appeared with an ultimatum from Bismarck: George must either demobilize and accept a Prussian alliance or else consider himself at war with Prussia.^ George and his advisers decided to reject the u lti­ matum and to adhere to a policy of strict neutrality. But it was too late; when Foreign Minister Platen asked Ysenburg for a delay he was cut off in mid-sentence. Berlin, he was told, had already declared war on Hanover.

W-ibid. ^Mommsen, op. c it., pp. 327“33^|-« ^Pitz, op. cit., p. 108, Sybel, op. cit., p. 37 ©t. s e q .t and Oskar Meding, Memoiren zur Z eitgeschichte, (Leipzig, 1881), II, p. I 0 7 . 22 Meanwhile, the mayor of the city of Hanover and a delegation of the city council went to see the king. They were received at 1:30 am on the morning of 16 June - only one half hour after Platen’s visit to Ysenburg. This group, which was hardly pro-Prussian, begged George to reconsider his position and seek an understanding with Berlin - even if it meant a military alliance. The king replied that the conditions for neutrality were unacceptable and that as a Christian, monarch, and Guelph he could not do otherwise. He then left to join his army in Gftttingen. He was never to re tu rn . Just before his departure, George took several steps to safeguard his position as best he could. First he left his wife, Queen Marie, at as evidence of the 1^8 continued royal presence. Next he sent his finance minis­ te r, von Klenck, to London w ith the Hanoverian ro y a l treasure for deposit in the Bank of England: part of this fortune belonged to the king, part of it to the Hanoverian state. lj-9 At Gottingen, meanwhile, a force of some nineteen thousand men was assembled and prepared for action. George wanted to avoid bloodshed, if possible, and therefore

Meding, op« c it., pp. 107-109, Sybel, op. c it.. pp. 36-7, and Pitz, op. cit., p. 113.

^ 8 Meding, op. cit., n # p. 123 . ^This fortune consisted of some nineteen million in gold, silver, bank notes and stocks. See: Stehlin, op. c it., p. lj-5. 23 decided to advance toward the south to join up with the eighth Federal Army corps, i. e., the Bavarian Army. Because the Prussians had already occupied -, however, he was forced instead to move into Thuringia. There on 27 June, near the town of Langensalza, his army was attacked by a Prussian force under General von Flies. The Hanoverians seemed ill-prepared for such an encounter. Poorly equipped, cut off from a ll supplies, and badly led, they were no match for their opponents. Nonethe­ less, due to superior numbers they launched a counterattack and drove the enemy from the field , thus scoring what seemed to be an upset victory. But they were too exhausted to f o l ­ low up their success. The next day, when Prussian reinforce­ ments arrived, they found themselves surrounded. There was no choice but to surrender. Meanwhile, Prussian troops had entered the Guelph kingdom. They encountered practically no resistance and, within a few days, occupied the entire state. To their amazement they were warmly received by many of the people. Indeed some were even greeted as liberators. Part of this undoubtedly was due to the fact that many of the soldiers came from Westphalia, a neighboring province close to in custom and s p i r i t . ^ Part of i t was due to

^Sybel, op. c it., pp. 39-7&, Schnath, Vom Sachsenstamm, pp. bl-62, and The Annual Register 1866, (London, 1867), PP. 232-233. ^ S te h lin , op. c i t ., pp. I4.6 —lj.8 . widespread disillusionment with King George. On 19 June, Baron von Hardenberg, who had been appointed Prussian civil commissioner, reported to Bismarck that a large part of the population was embittered at the Guelphs for having started an unnecessary war.^ Pood prices, particularly those of potatoes, climbed as a resu lt, and many people - rig h tly or wrongly - blamed George. When the Prussians introduced a

modicum of price control, their popularity g r e w . ^ 3 Mean­ while, in East and in Lingen petitions began to appear, demanding immediate annexation to Berlin. 54

Not a l l Hanoverians were pleased by the Prussian occupation. The nobility and civil service realized imme­ diately that their future was in doubt, and some of the rural population remained suspicious. Yet at first even these groups were passive; the confusion and shock of what had happened was too great to consider any other course of action. 55

^Pitz, op. cit., p. 111).. Two days earlier Queen Marie had toured the royal capital and then had written her husband: "On George Street we climbed out £of the ca r - raige7«.*, spoke with the citizens, and had much to explain since nearly all of them had false ideas." Queen Marie to King George, 17 June 1866, in G. M. W illis (ed.) Hannovers Schicksaljahr i860 im Briefwechsel Kftnig Georgs V. m it der Kfenigin Marie (Hildesheim. 1966), p . . 2 .

£3pitz, op. cit., p. Il6.

5^-Moritz Busch, Das Uebergangs.jahr in Hannover (L e ip z ig , 1867 ), p. 8 3 . (These areas had belonged to Prussia in the.18th century.)

55ibid., pp. 85-86 and Comte de Reiset to Drouyn de Lhuys, 7 July 1866 in Les Origines Diplomatiques de la Guerre 1870-71. (Paris",~"19'15), X', pp775FF3'5*n 25 In the meantime, George met with hia advisor3 in Thuringia to consider his future course of action. Accord­

ing to the surrender terms of Langensalza he wa3 permitted to live anywhere he chose outside Hanover. Count Ingelheim, the Austrian envoy to Hanover, who was with the royal entourage, suggested the king go to Vienna to join Francis Joseph. From there the fight against the Prussians could be continued. George agreed. After resting a few days with his father-in-law in Saxe-Altenburg he journeyed to the Habsburg c a p it a l.^ I t has often been claimed that George might have saved the throne for his dynasty had he not gone to Vienna and had he abdicated in favor of his son.^? This is incor­ rect. By the time the king left Thuringia, Bismarck had already decided on the incorporation of Hanover into the Prussian monarchy.^® On the other hand, had George abdi­ catedhe might have won greater respect at home and made theassim ilation of Hanover more d iffic u lt fo r Berlin than

^Meding, pp. c i t ., II, p. 196. ^?See for example; G.F.F. Dammers, Erinnerungen und E rlebnisse, Hanover, 1890, pp. 151-152, and Graf Mlinster, Mein Anteil an den Ereignissen des Jahres 1866 in Hannover (Hanover, ltitod). #C f. Friederich Thimme, ’’Wilhelm I, Bismarck und der Ursprung des Annexionsgedankens", H istorische Zeitschrift, 8 9 (1902), p. ip38, and.Werner L effler, Ursachen und Anf&nge der Deutschhannoverschen (welfischen) Bewegungl (WismarJ 1932), pp. lti-2 i|.. 26 it was. Rudolf von Bennigsen, for example, who later approved the annexation, might not have done so in the face of an abdication.^9

The formal decision to annex Hanover was reached only after extended discussion between Bismarck and V/illiam I. Bismarck had entertained the thought as early as 1858, but the king was adamant that any extension of Prussian hegemony should never entail the dethroning of a German prince. William was a firm believer in legitimacy and was always horrified whenever one dynasty was deposed by a n o th e r.^ In this respect Bismarck was largely indifferent to the views of his master. He was more concerned with Hanover’s physiographic relationship to Prussia, and for this reason had been adamant in his ultimatum of 15 June. Once the war was won, he felt Berlin should heal the split in its territory by securing a transit corridor to the . For a while he met considerable opposition from V/illiam. But once it was learned that I II would not object to an alteratio n of the status quo the monarch changed his mind: he regarded this news from Napoleon as a sign of

^^Bennigsen had been wooed by Bismarck during July. Still, when he finally learned that the annexation was irrevocable, he broke down and wept. Oncken, op. c it., pp. 7^0-750. DUThe rise of the at the expense of other Italian kings, fo r example, caused William to call Victor Emmanuel II a 11 throne robber." Hans Philippi, Preussen und die braunschweigische Thronfolgefrage 1866- 1913 (Hildesheim, 1986), p p .5 - 6 • 27 French meddling and now felt full annexation necessary in

order to strengthen Prussian defenses in the west. Thu 3 was the fate of Hanover sealed.^-*- In Vienna, meanwhile, George received word of the Austrian defeat at Kttniggr&tz. He knew the war was lost and in a personal letter to King William proposed to negotiate a peace accepting Prussian hegemony in northern Germany. Bismarck f i r s t took this le tte r but, without opening it, handed it back on the grounds that William was in no posi­ tion to accept it. It was then returned to George.^ George was crushed by the return of his unopened le tte r. He regarded this as an insult and proof of the pending annexation. Hence, there remained but one course of action open, and that was to seek intervention from abroad. Of the various states from which he might expect help, George thought France the most likely prospect. Soon

k-*-Ibid. , pp. 8-10, Thimme, loc. c i t ., pp. ip 13 —^ 4-8 , Schnath, Vom Sachsenstamm, pp. 62—ip, and Otto Pflanze, Bismarck and the Development of Germany (Princeton, 1963), "1, P. 309. ZL o Onno Klopp, R&ckblick auf die preussische Annexion des K&nigreiches Hannover, (Munich, i 8 6 0 ), pp. 85-86. In his memoirs Bismarck defended his actions by claiming that the king’s letter was of a ’’political nature,” that the fate of Hanover had already been decided and that, in any case, it was incompatible with German unity. See: 0t>to von Bismarck, Gedanken und Brinnerungen (Stuttgart, 1898), P* 71. This defense seems very implausible. Since Bismarck had not even bothered to open George's letter, he could not have known what it said. More probably, he kept the letter from the Prussian king from fear that William might regret his decision and leave George on the throne. 28 after Langensalza he had thought of turning to Napoleon III but had been dissuaded by his foreign minis te r .^3 Now, how­

ever, he hastened to 3 end his step brother Prince Karl zu Solms to Paris. Solms did not reach the emperor u n til 23 September when he saw him at Biarritz. There, he presented the Guelph case. Napoleon listened sympathetically, but explained that there was nothing he could do. "Believe me, my prince," he said, "I am the first to show the results of that miserable war, but for the moment there is nothing to be done." He suggested that George emigrate to England. Even if he had wanted to help George, Napoleon prob­ ably could not have done so. Much of his army was committed in Algeria and Mexico, and he was hardly prepared to fight a European war. Besides, Hanover involved French security only indirectly, and the emperor thus had nothing to gain by aiding the Guelph k in g .^ Another state which George f e l t might take up his cause was Russia. He had always maintained excellent re la ­ tions with St. Petersburg and possessed the additional advantage of having a sister-in-law who had married Grand Duke Constantine, a brother of the tsar. It was known, moreover, that Tsar Alexander II was shocked by the events

^Meding, op. cit., p. 2 6 2 .

k^Ierzoglich is ch-Lftneburg is ch Hausarchiv, Gmunden, VIII, B, 17. Report of Prince Karl zu Solms, 8 October 1866. (Cited hereafter as Gmunden)

^Pflanze, op. cit., p. 3 1 0 . 29 of July 1866, and that his foreign m inister, Prince Gorchakov, was calling for a European Congress to discuss the changes in rL Germany. Accordingly, George ordered General Ernst v. d. Knesebeck, former Hanoverian m inister to Vienna, to proceed to St. Petersburg and discuss'the Guelph plight with the ts ar . While Knesebeck was s t i l l on his way, Prussian General Edwin Manteuffel had already arrived in the Russian capital. Sent by Bismarck to explain the position of his government, Manteuffel was forced instead to endure a lecture by Alexander, who was appalled at the deposition of entire . When Bismarck received Manteuffel’s report on the conversation, he addressed a sharp reply to the tsar. In it he threatened ”to unleash the full national strength of Germany and the bordering countries."^7 Since this warn­ ing clearly referred to the nationalistic desires of the Poles, Alexander backed down and decided to accept the fait accompli. ^ Soon afterwards Knesebeck met with the tsa r. Alexander treated him with great understanding and revealed to him everything that had passed between him and Manteuffel.

^ I b id ., p. 306, and W. E. Mosse, The European Powers 2Ij3_5-and the German :Question I 8 I18 , -I 8 7 I (Cambridge, 1958), pp.

67 , Pflanze, op. cit., p. 3 0 6 . ^®Mosse, op. c i t .. p. 2lf,8. 30 Both the tsar and Prince Gorchakov were forced to admit that Russia could not aid the Guelph cause. Nor could Alexandra, George's sister-in-law, do more than show her sympathy and receive Knesebeck clad in yellow and white, the colors of the Guelph dynasty.^9 Knesebeck was forced to return empty-handed to V ienna.^ In the meantime, George also sought to e n list the help of Great B ritain. Due to the long personal union of Hanover and England as well as to the close dynastic ties existing between the two royal houses it would seem that this was the power which would be most likely to aid the Guelphs. In point of fact George held little such hope.^ Relations between him and his cousin had never been very cordial. She disliked his autocratic ways and could never quite forget that his father had once tried to block her succession to proposing a Salic law for Britain. George, moreover, knew that London had l it t le in te rest in

dicing George to Queen Marie, 7 September1866, in Willis, HS, p. 127.

7^Stehlin, op. cit., pp. 63 —ij-, and Keyserling to Bismarck, 2lf August 1866, Die Ausw£rtige P olitik Preussens (Oldenburg, 193q), VIII, pp. ij.ti-9. A complete account of Knesebeck's mission is contained inj L. G. v.a. Knesebeck, "Die Sendung des hannoverschen Gesendeten E.v.d. Knesebeck 1866 nach Petersburg," Nieders&chsisches Jahrbuch f&p Landesgeschichte, 8 , 1939• "

^^For example, see; King George to Queen Marie, 28 August 1866, in W illis, HS, p. 112. 31 Continental affairs and was more concerned with domestic matters .7^ Nonetheless, he sent his cousin George, , to Windsor to consult with Victoria. This had l i t t l e effect. The queen told Cambridge that although she found the state of affairs in Germany "sad and distressing," there was little she personally could do. Instead she recommended the Hanoverians turn to her Prime Minister, Lord Derby.73 This too was of little comfort. Having only recently formed a government, Derby was pledged to the cause of domestic reform. He did not care about Continental affairs and knew that Britain could not effect any change except through armed intervention. To take such a step, he emphasized, was out of the question. Under these circumstances Victoria could not have done much more. Dynastic politics had long ceased to play a major role in British affairs, and the annexation of Hanover did not affect the island's security. Still, she

7^Meding, op. c i t . , II, pp. Zhg-Zhrf., and Ruth Kutsch, Queen Victoria und die deutsche Einigung (Berlin, 1938), pp. 103-I0l|.. 73Queen Victoria to the Duke of Cambridge, 8 July 1866, George Earle Buckle (ed.) The Letters of Queen Victoria 1862-1869 (New York, 1 9 2 6 J, p. 3!?7» 7^-The Earl of Derby to Queen Victoria, 31 July 1866, Ibid. , pp. 3 6 2 -3 6 3 . also The Annual Register 1866, p. 9 6 . In addition, Derby and his foreign secretary, Lord Stanley probably did not want a repeat performance of Palmersten's unfortunate attempt at intervention in Schleswig Holstein. 32 might have displayed a more sympathetic attitude than she did. As it was, she was pro-Prussian. Her eldest daughter was married to the Prussian crown prince, and through her she became convinced of B erlin's mission to unite a ll Germany. Not to recognize this fact, she wrote to her fo r­ eign secretary, Lord Stanley, would be to injure "the posi­ tion and influence of England."75 Hence, Victoria did not protest the annexation of I-Ianover and did nothing to aid George's cause u n til 1869.7^ Of the remaining European powers none wa3 in a posi­ tion to aid George: Austria and the other German states had been rendered impotent by the Prussian juggernaut. The posi­ tion of the Austrian government was particularly embarrassing. On the one hand it felt obliged as an ally to aid George and grant him asylum in Vienna; on the other i t was bound by the peace of Nikolsburg to recognize the new order in Germany and to refrain from any hostile acts against Prussia. Due to this dilemma, l it t le o ffic ia l contact existed between the Guelphs and the Habsburgs at f i r s t . Not u n til December was there an exchange of diplomatic notes, and, when this did

7^*Queen Victoria to Lord Stanley 7 August 1866 in Buckle, op. c i t ., p. 36i|.. that time she objected to Bismarck's sequestra­ tion of the Guelph royal fortune, feeling that i t was an undue persecution. See: Kutsch, op. cit., p. 109.

I 33 occur, George was warned not to antagonize Berlin through his a c tiv itie s in Vienna. In the meantime, one German prince, Grand Duke Peter "of Oldenburg, volunteered to help the blind king. Peter, who was married to one of Queen Marie's sisters, saved his Duchy in 1866 by accepting a Prussian alliance. He thus had a certain amount of influence in Berlin and journeyed there to see if anything could be done fo r the Guelph cause. In a series of conversations with court officials he gained the impression that Hanoverian autonomy might be saved if George abdicated in favor of his sonJ® Having been informed of these conditions by his wife, the monarch announced he would accept them. But he empha­ sized he would abdicate only if he received an absolute guarantee that it would save his dynasty. Accordingly, he sent his Minister of Education, Bodo von Hodenberg, to Berlin. On 15 August Hodenberg was received by the Prussian Minister-President. Bismarck told him that the annexation was irrevocable and that no further negotiations with either George or Foreign Minister von Platen could take place. When Hodenberg countered that this was ille g al, Bismarck said: "In this struggle the existence and holy interests

77ju.tta F&ger, Die Stellung der osterreichischen Regierung zur welfischen Agitation 1866-1870. , Unpublished doctoral dissertation. (Vienna, 19ij-2), pp. 17-23. 7®Q,ueen Marie to King George, 13 August 1866, Willis, HS, p. 93. 3l(- of Prussia are at stake; and when the existence of Prussia is involved I know no law."79 While George was making a last-ditch attempt to sa l­ vage his throne, a group of Hanoverian nobles under former

Minister Count Alexander von M&nchhausen (1813-18 9 6 ) also made its way to Berlin. There, on 17 August i t presented King William with an address stating: "It cannot be agree­ able to your Majesty to dethrone a Prince whose dynasty has been connected with the country for nearly a thousand years, and who equally wears his crown by the grace of God - to dethrone him simply because, taking a different view of the Federal law... he was ultimately forced to employ his army Oa against your Majesty’s troops . . . . " 0 William answered that he esteemed the Hanoverians for remaining loyal to their dynasty, but that i t was George, not he, who had violated Federal law. As a result, Prussian security had been threatened, thus making the incorporation of Hanover a "duty."®’*- Thqs, a ll attempts to save Hanoverian independence had failed . Bismarck and V/illiam were convinced that the Guelph kingdom would have to disappear; ho amount of plead­ ing from George or his followers could change their minds.

79quoted in Wilhelm Hopf, Die Deutsche Kris is des Jahres 1866 (Hanover, 1906), pp. I(.ll-[).llj^ ^Quoted in the Annual Register 1866, p. ■

®^rbid. Also cf. Busch, op. c i t ., pp. 6 I-6 3 . For George living in far off Vionna this was a bitter pill to swallow. While former comrades and a llie s returned to Munich or Dresden, he was forced to suffer the humiliation of exile and the disappearance of his ancient throne. And yet, what had he done wrong? Of what crimes was he guilty? Had he not remained loyal to the Confederation? Why for this act of loyalty must he endure such a cruel punishment? The answer of course was that Hanover straddled the . Its annexation was considered impera­ tive by Bismarck; no one in Germany could deny him his wish. Had George been able to find a major European power to take up his cause, things might have been different. Saxony, for example, was preserved by French i n t e r v e n t i o n . B u t not one country - with the exception of tiny Oldenburg - v/as prepared to offer the blind king anything more than sympa­ thy. As a result George was now faced with two choices. Either he accepted the annexation and lived comfortably but quietly in Vienna, or he continued his fig h t and worked to reverse the events of 1866. Due to his obduracy, to his sense of mission, indeed to the habits of an entire lifetime, George could not help but make the la tte r choice. Accordingly, on 23 September

®^Stev/art A. Stehlin suggests that Bismarck might not have been able to dominate the North German Confedera­ tion had Hanover been included as a member along with Saxony. In other words, either Saxon or Hanoverian inde­ pendence had to be sacrificed. See: Stehlin, op. c i t .. pp. 6 6 - 6 7 . he issued a protest to all the crowned heads of Europe. In it he recapitulated the events of the past summer, accused Prussia of unprovoked aggression, and protested the usurpa­ tion of his rights and privileges. As he termed it, the annexation was "an unworthy usurpation, a criminal and detestable theft, a flagrant violation of European treaties ... and of international lav/.... He asked for the sup­ port of a ll powers in his campaign against Berlin. Twelve days later George issued another proclamation to his subjects in Hanover. In this he declared the annexa­ tion null and void and called upon his subjects to ignore all laws passed by the Prussian administration. To do otherwise, he implied, would be tantamount to disloyalty.®^ The lines thus were drawn. Berlin had incorporated Hanover and deposed the Guelphs; but George refused to recognize the legality of this act and raised the banner of opposition. The former kingdom thus continued to be plagued by dissension: on the one side stood those Han­ overians who accepted the new order - either out of indif­ ference or out of a belief that it was necessary for national unity. On the other side stood those who refused

®^Text reprinted in Hopf, op. c i t ., pp. l|21-l)2l}.. ®^Text in Ibid., pp. 1^.30 —ij-33• 37 to recognize the annexation and who heeded George'a call for resistance. Out of their ranks was to grow that organi­ zation which came to be known as the Guelph movement. Ho Iste in

Ho 1 land

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GRCWTH OF THE GUELPH MONARCHY

Brunswick Stammlande

s Acquisitions 1247-1436 Acquisitions 1583-1565 I Acquisitions 1648

Acquisitions 1715-1815

Acquisitions 1815 w 03 II

THE EXILE POLITICS OP GEORGE V 1866-1870

Once George had decided to continue the struggle against Prussia he sought a more permanent base of opera­ tions. At first he had lived in General Knesebeck*s ^ small house in Vienna's inner city while his staff resided in the Hote1 de l'E u r o p e Although convenient in terms of proxi­ mity to the Austrian emperor, this arrangement hardly suited the needs of a royal court. Moreover, the king disliked the noise and grime of his surroundings and longed for the spacious quiet of Herrenhausen. Toward the end of August, therefore, he gladly accepted the invitation of his rela­ tive, Duke William of Brunswick, to move into the Duke's villa in the suburb of H i e t z i n g . 3 Here at Villa Braunschweig - as it was called - George managed to establish a pleasant pattern of life. He attended the theater and opera, listened to concerts, and enjoyed

^Knesebeck, i t w ill be recalled, was away on his unsuccessful mission to St. Petersburg.

^Schnabel and Klopp, op. c i t ., p. 8 3 . ^George to Marie, 28 August 1866, W illis, HS, pp. 111-116 and Klopp, Georg V. p. if.8 •

39 ko stro llin g through the parks and gardens of the c ity A His daughter Friederike, moreover, struck up a friendship v/ith Empress Elizabeth of Austria, thus giving George another line of access to the Habsburgs. Indeed, he as well as Friederike seem to have been frequent guests a t the Aside from the absence of his wife, the king's per­ sonal life can not have been very much different from v/hat i t was a t Hanover. A large number of servants and former advisers had made their way to Vienna and resumed their duties almost as if nothing had happened. Among these were the king's adjutants Kohirausch, Heimbruch, and Wedel, his legal adviser Professor Maxen, a number of army officers and diplomats, Onno Klopp, Foreign Minister Platen, and the for­ mer Hanoverian press chief, Oskar Meding. Of these, the latter two became the most trusted and important figures in L George's exile government. Count Adolf von Platen-Hallermund (l8lij--l889) came from one of the most in flu e n tia l families in Hanover, Wealthy and unmarried, he was a Hanoverian patrio t who seemed willing to sacrifice almost anything for his sover­ eign. Platen was not an untalented man, but his penchant for court intrigue distracted him from perceiving reality.

^)-In addition to Ibid. , also see; George to Marie 20 December 1866, W illis, HS, p. 200.

^Meding, op. c i t ., II, p. 3 2 8 .

^Ibid. , and Dammers, op. c i t .. pp. 166- 1 6 7 . Between 1861). and 1866, for example, ho refused to believe Prussia might be hostile to Iianovor because the Prussian king had once awarded him the Great Cross of the .7

George's other important aide, Oskar Meding, was not a native Hanoverian, but came from Kbnigsberg. His father had been a Prussian D istrict President, and Meding himself was trained for the Prussian c iv il service. During the 1850's he held various legal and administrative posts in Marienwerder, Paderborn, Minden, Liegnitz, and Potsdam. A staunch conservative, Meding abandoned the Prussian service in 18^9 with the advent of William I's seemingly liberal regency. He entered the more conservative Hanoverian civil service as a technical assistant to a District President. He became a favorite of the reactionary Minister-President Count Borries and soon rose to become George's press chief.® Under Meding's guidance Hanoverian books and newspapers were severely censored and a strong anti-Prussian campaign

?Me ding, op. cit., II, p. 29 I]-; Hassell, op. cit., pp. 312-315. ®Meding, op. c i t ., II, p. 292, Gmunden, VIII B55 (Aufzeichnungen des Geh. Archivraths Zimmermann ftber Mittheilungen des Herzogs von Cumberland ftber Meding.) Other technical data, based on the research of Heinrich Ltlicke of Clausthal-Zellerfeld, were graciously supplied by Professor Georg Schnath. k2 initiated in the press.9 perhaps for this reason ho soon came to George's more immediate attention and developed into a trusted adviser. Meding was knowledgeable in many subjects and as fluent in French as in German. He spoke and wrote with great force and exercised an almost hypnotic charm on the king. All who met him, in fact, agreed that the press chief possessed some sort of curious magnetism.^ But there also v/as something mysterious about Meding, something that sug­ gested the mind of a schemer below the surface of urbanity. Queen Marie, the Crown Prince, and the Historian Onno Klopp were among those who viev/ed the press chief with suspicion. Yet exactly what it was they found objectionable was never clear to them. The Crown Prince accused Meding of a pro­ clivity for exaggeration; Klopp thought him self-righte­ ous; and the queen considered him disloyal.-^ But whatever whatever the grounds for their suspicions, they could not

9phis rather obvious irony should not be considered too unusual; Bismarck's regime was branded revolutionary by nearly all conservatives throughout the German Confederation. For synopses of some of Meding's pamphlets see: Hans Rosenberg, Die Nationalpolitische Publizistik Deutschlands (Munich and Berlin, 1935), I, p. ij-bb, II, pp. bbb, 7tSb. ^Gmunden VIII B 53 (Berichte und Promemoria des Hofraths Klopp liber die Thatigkeit des Regierungsraths Meding.) pp. 8-10. ■'-•khnunden, VIII B 55- •^Gmunden, B 53, p. 15, and Marie to George, 3 July 1866, in Willis, HS, pp. 32-3. k3 convince George that he should exercise caution in his dependence on this adviser. In 1868, for example, the king wrote to Platen: "I consider Counselor Meding as a bastion indispensable to me and my post.” -*-3 Once Gedrge had moved into V illa Braunschweig Meding drew -up' a four-point plan for future action. According to this, the king should: 1)continue presenting protests to the European courts; 2) support and encourage resistance to the Prussian occupation of Hanover; 3) make m ilitary prepara­ tions for a future conflict; ij.) seek to tie his ideas of legitimacy to the more popular philosophy of democracy. Undoubtedly, George was shocked by this last suggestion, but he seems to have been convinced that his sovereignty would not be damaged by the introduction of universal manhood suffrage. This, emphasized Meding, would only serve as a gauge of popular opinion; it would in no way limit the powers of the king. In surveying their chances for success George and his advisers seem to have been optim istic. They were well aware of the fact that Bismarck's revolution had left Europe in a state of shock; they f e lt that Prance and Austria would not tolerate the new status in Germany forever.

•^George to Platen, 27 July 1868, Gmunden, VIII B 1|.0 (Correspondenz Seiner Majest&t des K&nigs mit dem Staats- Minister von Platen-Hallermund). l4lt is interesting to note just how much Meding's ideas on universal manhood suffrage paralleled those of Bismarck. Proof of this seemed forthcoming in November 1866 when Count Friedrich Beust, the former Saxon ministor-president and noted Prussophobe, was appointed foreign minister of the Habsburg Empire. Signs from Paris also seemed to indicate that Napoleon III would soon be moving against Berlin. The Guelph position, said Meding in a simile, was like that of a slo'op lying near a giant ocean-going steamer. Represent­ ing the course of events in Europe, this steamer would not v/ait on the Guelph sloop. It was the king’s task, there­ fore, to observe the steamer’s journey and catch up to it just at the right moment. Otherwise all would be lost.-^ George also possessed more tangible assets. One of these was money. The Guelphs had always been a wealthy dynasty. In addition to the nineteen million thalers which von Klenck had deposited in the Bank of England, George maintained other large accounts throughout Europe. One of these, which had been established by George III, was e s ti­ mated to bring him a minimum revenue of 120,000 thalers per annumn. In addition, he also had several million thalers in Vienna which he had brought with him from Hanover.^ All in a ll, the Guelph fortune must have been immense. Even

after the bulk (19 million thalers) was sequestered by

•^Meding, op. c it ., II, pp. 303-12. •^The Times (London) also reported the existence of an account established by Ernest Augustus valued at L 600,000. Stehlin, op. cit., p. 97* KS Bismarck in 1868 there was s t i l l money enough to finance the court at Iiietzing, an army of nearly a thousand men in Prance, and a major Viennese bank. A second more important asset in the king's view was the loyalty of the Hanoverian people. As has been noted, George was hardly the most popular of monarchs, but no one was less aware of this fact than the king himself. A great many letters addressed to him contained ponstant references to the love and devotion of his subjects. He was called well beloved and sorely missed, a figure who was the true father of his people (Landesvater).^ The king revelled in this adulation, and, as he received no information to the contrary, could hardly be expected to believe otherwise. To make matters worse, an event soon occurred which must have completely eliminated whatever doubts he may have had. In September 1866, a merchant named Carl Peter Sontag journeyed to Hietzing to seek Count Platen's approval for a unique project. This entailed drawing up another protest against P russia's annexation of Hanover which would be signed by the Hanoverian people themselves; it would then be sent 1 P to the major states of Europe. Platen readily gave his

ITpor example, see; Marie to George, 6 August 1866, in W illis, HS, pp. 87-88, Hattensauer to George, 29 July 1866, Gmunden, B23; Sir Charles Wyke to George, 2ij. February 1868, Gmunden, Correspondenz; Warrens Wochenschrift (Wien) 16 March 1868, Gmunden, VIII, B 26 iij'a n d Countess Bremer to George 22 October 1867, Gmunden, Correspondenz. ■^Gmunden, VIII, B 9 (Betr. die Geschichte der Adresse an die Grossm&chte Europas von 1866). l|-6 consent, and such a document was actually drafted .^9 j t v/as forwarded to Hanover, where, as was subsequently claimed, over half a million signatures ware obtained. After that, copies of the document were distributed to the crowned heads of Europe. In actual fact, this petition was probably signed by only 18,000 a d u lts ,^ t,ut; its very existence had two significant results: 1) it gave the Guelph cause a pro­ paganda advantage; 2) it reinforced George's belief in his own popularity.^ Nonethe less, it should not be implied that the king’s belief was entirely unfounded. Ever since the annexation, resistance to Prussian rule had been growing in Hanover.

^T ext in Hopf, op. c i t ., pp. l|29-l-|-30* careful examination of this petition at Gmunden (VIII B 10, i, ii, iii, iv) reveals the total number of adult signatures to be 18, l|-85, that of minors ij., 373; or a grand total of 22,858 genuine signatures. Nonetheless, Guelph propagandists have claimed the petition was signed by over five hundred thousand people, a figure which the document itself also claims. This can be explained in the following way: 1} The head of a family usually signed the petition by including his entire family. Sometimes this number would be as large as fifty , and would be counted as f if ty signatures. 2) In many cases the mayor or Vorsteher would sign for an entire town. In all cases, except one, it was reported that 100$ of the population - including children - agreed with the petition. 3) In totaling the complete number of signatures figures were often rounded off. The author wishes to thank his wife for the tedious work of determining the exact number of signatures. ^George to Marie, 13 November 1866, -Willis, PIS, p. 180. k-7 Rumours began to spread that taxes under the new order wou]d be very high, that farmers, for example, would have to pay two groschen for every chicken they owned. Peoplo also feared the compulsory service in the Prussian array to which they were now subjected. It was said that Prussia mishandled her recruits, that her soldiers wore suffering from hunger.^ Above all, people seemed to resent the idea of serving an extra one and one-half years in uniform. ^ These rumors soon circulated throughout the former kingdom and were played up by Gue'lph agitators such as the nobility and clergy.^ Berlin did not help the situation either. Bismarck knew that Iianover would have to be treated len ien tly in order to prevent the rise of particularism and to facilitate its integration into the Prussian state. Unfortunately, before the Minister-President could issue any specific directives on this matter he became ill and was forced to retire temporarily to Putbus, a small resort town, on the island of Rftgen. This left the affairs of state in the hands of less s k illf u l men such as the M inister of the Interior, Count Fritz Eulenburg, and the Finance Minister, Baron August von der Heydt.^ Neither of these individuals

^Busch, op. cit., p. 88. ^ T h e required term of service in the Prussian army was three years. In the Hanoverian army it had only been one and one-haIf years.

^Busch, op. c i t ., pp. 8 8 - 8 9 .

^ L e ffle r , op. c i t ., p. 9 6 . appreciated the wisdom of restraint, and both felt that any resistance to Prussian rule should be dealt with harshly. In November 1866, 113 Hanoverian nobles petitioned Berlin to preserve Hanoverian administrative and legal institutions as the best way of maintaining public order and quiet. This infuriated von der Heydt and Eulenburg. Despite pleas for moderation by Civil Commissioner von I-Iardenberg, a ll but two of the petitioners were dismissed from positions they held in the former kingdom . ^ This act only added to the growing disenchantment with Prussian rule; at the same time it increased George’s popularity with his former subjects. Besides money and the loyalty of the Hanoverian people, the king also could count on a small cadre of loyal military officers. Typical of these was a young cavalryman who was destined to play a significant role in George's later m ilitary effort against Prussia. Captain Adolf von During

(1832 - 1 9 0 5 ) had commanded a small detachment of troops in near the Dutch border. When he was forced to surrender the city to the Prussians he dressed his troops in civilian clothes and fled with them to Holland. Prom there they

^The nobility of course would be hurt by any major change in administration. Text in Hopf, op. cit., pp. y+3-Wi-. ^Deutsches Zentralarchiv, Abt. II, Merseburg, Rep. 90 a (Staatsministerium) D.I.b.lf,. Nr. 2. Spezial Akten betr. das Verfahren gegen hannoversche Beamte wegen Unterzeichnung der Ritterschaftserkl&rung. See particularly; I-Iardenberg to Eulenburg, 11 November 1866. and Promemoria by v.d.Heydt and Eulenburg, 2[j. November i 8 6 0 . (cited hereafter as DZA, Merseburg.) traveled via Prance to Frankfurt where they arrived in time to go into battle again. Tho end of the v/ar found them in the Federal fortress of . "'rom there they traveled to Hietzing, presented themselves to their king, and awaited further orders.28 Prom the ranks of the officers still loyal to King George a secret committee was organized under the leadership of a certain Baron von Holle. I t divided Hanover into forty districts and sent various officers and sergeants back in mufti to lay the groundwork for future military resistance. It established contact with the press and a large number of railroad and telegraph officials.2^ gy 1867 the secret committee succeeded in creating a well organized underground in Hanover which was in regular contact with Hietzing. Yet at the same time this secret committee was limited in its effectiveness. It distributed propaganda from Hietzing and controlled certain groups in the country­ side; but it would not take the next obvious step - i t would not arm the people. George himself would not permit this. He knew that any attempt to initiate an insurrection might have disastrous results for his subjects, that Prussia

28W illis, HS, p. 216.

2 ?Me ding, op. c it., II, pp. 380-381 and Duckstein, op. c i t ., pp. 38-39* document at Gmunden indicates that couriers left Hanover every Monday for Vienna. Gmunden, VIII B 7* 50 would be ruthless in suppressing a rev o lt.31 Moreover, such a step would bo revolutionary: it could lead to 3ansculott- ism or to other unforeseen social and political dangers. In short, like the Prussian king Frederick William III before him, George seems to have feared his people and thus was afraid to arm them.^ There can be l i t t l e doubt that George's refusal to incite rebellion or to arm his subjects seriously weakened whatever bargaining power he had. In negotiations with foreign powers he would have very little to offer in return for th eir help. Yet in surveying his chances for a restora­ tion George seems to have been hopeful. The general European situation appeared far from settled: the South German states were restless, and both Austria and France seemed to be maneuvering for a showdown. The king sought to take advantage of this; in order to carry out his program he was prepared to use every means available - diplomatic, journal­ istic, financial, and eventually military. The first of these was the most important, and it included direct negotia­ tions with Prussia as well as with other European nations.

3lGeorge to Marie, 18 May 1867, “i l l i s , HS, p. 166. 3^This could be the reason for George’s order that the secret committee should remain aloof from anti-Prussian groups in Hanover. See; Meding, op. c i t ., II, p. 38ip. 51 Negotiations with Prussla

The main concern in the reestablishment of contact with Berlin was the fate of the Guelph fortune. Although a large part of that fortune belonged to the king, an even larger amount was considered property of the Hanoverian state. In August 1866 the Prussian government published the exact amount of the money which Klenck had deposited in London and then ordered a special inventory of the various securities to be drawn up. Berlin warned the public against the purchase of these securities and announced that, for the present, no in terest would be paid on the bonds nor would they be redeemed .^ By publishing the exact amount of the Hanoverian funds deposited in the Bank of England, Prussia caused George con­ siderable embarrassment, for it cast him in the role of an embezzler bent on using state funds for his own ends. As the king was afraid of such an image,He decided to seek a financial settlement with Berlin, even though by implica­ tion he might have to accept the loss of his throne and country.

33preface to The Speeches of Count Bismarck in the Upper House and the Chamber of Deputies in the B ill for Sequestering the Property of the ex-King of Hanover (Berlin, I 8 6 9 ).

^Meding, op. c it., I l l , p. 12, and Gmunden VIII B 53. 52 In the meantime Bismarck reached the conclusion that the Guelph treasure could be of great help to him. He v/as extremely interested in securing the rapid integration of Hanover into the Prussian state and knew that such a task would be facilitated by a Guelph recognition of the newly established order. Furthermore, he felt that the principle of legitimacy could not be entirely ignored, and that by awarding George a large sum of money he would be following the principle of compensation as established by the Congress of Vienna. Therefore, he decided to offer the blind king the return of his fortune as quid pro quo for a _de facto recognition of the new order in Hanover.35 While Berlin and Hietzing were engaged in these deliberations the B ritish government offered its services as mediator between the two parties. Lord Augustus Loftus, British envoy in Berlin, called on William I and proposed the beginning of negotiations. William told him, however, that before such talks could get under way, George v/ould have to release a ll Hanoverian officers from their personal oath of loyalty to him.3^ This injected a new element into the situation. Aside from the obvious fact that George sought to keep his army legally bound to him, a certain number of Hanoverian

35stehlin, op. c i t ., pp. 7 8 - 7 9 . 3&Augustus Loftus, The Diplomatic Reminiscences of Lord Aup;ustus Loftus 1862 - 1 6 7 8 , (London, lti9ip), 17 llp2-'lJ|li. officers had appealed to tlioir sovereign to help them from being forced into the Prussian army. For those reasons the king had been reluctant to release his army from its loyalty oath.On the other hand, a larger number of officers faced an uncertain future if they remained bound to the Guelph monarch. Most of them knew no other way of life than the military and would have found it difficult to secure new employment. Moreover, when Prussia offered them a continued m ilitary career many began pressing George for release from their oath.38 While faced with this dilemma, Berlin took additional steps to put the king under pressure. On 13 December it declared all Hanoverian bonds null and void; seven days later it seized all royal palaces, forests, estates, and hunting preserves u n til such time as the Guelph fortune should be returned.39 This action forced George to move. On 2k December, he announced that a l l officers who requested i t would be released from their loyalty oath. This enabled those who wished to remain pledged to the king to do so, and permitted

37?/leding, op. c i t ., II, 3&0*

^^Busch, op. c i t ., pp. 123- 12J4.. 39Bismarck. The Speeches , p. 2., Stehlin, p. 79*, Onno Klopp, Das preussische Verfahren in der Verm&genssache des Kftnigs von Hannover (Vienna, I 8 6 9 ), pp. 2 7 -3 0 . (cited hereafter as' Klopp, Pr.V. ) 51-l­

ot hers to join the Prussian army.^ Several day3 later he

announced the return of his fortune from London and sent his former cabinet ministers Erxleben and Ludwig V/indhorst to

Berlin to negotiate a financial settlement.

Although these negotiations began in January, it v/as not until April that the Prussians presented their terms: in return for the recognition of the annexation Prussia would not object to George keeping the great bulk of the bonds and securities which had been sent to England as well as all of his movable private possessions. He would also be guaranteed an annual income of 700,000 thalers in compensa­ tion for the loss of his estates and property. But this plan also entailed a formal abdication and was, therefore, unacceptable to the Guelphs.

Throughout the summer negotiations dragged on v/ithout making substantial progress. To make matters worse, a

Hanoverian courier carrying documents revealing the existence of the Guelph underground in Hanover was arrested on 15 Hay in Frankfurt am Main. b3 Public opinion in Prussia was out­ raged and demanded harsh reprisals against George. Bismarck,

M^All in all, four fifths of the Hanoverian officer corps took advantage of Berlin’s offer. Others retired or went into the armies of Mecklenburg, Brunswick or Saxony. Only a handful remained pledged to the House o f Guelph. Busch, op. c i t ., p. 121).., Meding, op. c i t ., II, pp. 386-388.

^KIopp, Pr. V. , p. 30.

^Ibid., pp. 35-37.

^3see below; p. 72. 55 however, believed that a rich contented would cause less trouble than a loan hungry onoJ^ By immediate compensation, he felt, he might thwart any attempt by George to regain his throne. Accordingly, he dropped his insistence on a de jure recognition of the annexation - which would be tantamount to formal abdication - and on 29 September 1867 signed a treaty with George’s representatives Erxleben and 7/indhorst. The terms of this treaty were generous; the royal palace at Herrenhausen and the domainal estate at Calenberg remained Guelph property - although under Prussian adminis­ tration. All other castles, gardens, and lands were turned over to Berlin. In return George v/as to receive a compensa­ tion of eleven million thalers invested in Prussian 1 \.jgfo securities and five million more in mutually agreed upon bonds. The king was to receive the in terest of these funds in bi-annual installments and permitted to keep certain other investments in Britain. In addition, movable posses­ sions (furniture, carriages, paintings, etc.) were to remain Guelph property. Finally, the king was to hand over to Prussia the fortune which had been sent to England.^ All in a ll, this settlement seems to have been s a tis ­ factory to both sides. Bismarck f e l t that since the Guelph castles, forests, and domainal lands were placed in Prussian

W-KLeffler, op. c i t ., p. I4.7 • ^ T e x t in Klopp, Pr.V ., pp. 50-55• hands George had actually recognized the now order in Hanover. With such an instrument of legality Berlin now possessed a tremendous asset in administering the new pro­ vince. Furthermore, by providing George with enough money to live a life of luxury, he also thought the king would be less inclined to seek a restoration.^ The Guelphs too were pleased by the settlem ent. They regarded i t as a solemn agreement between two sovereigns over George’s fortune. As there was nothing in i t about an abdication it could not be regarded as a state treaty.^-7 Privately, George is supposed to have thanked God that his enemies were so fatuous as to give him so much money ■Meanwhile, in Prussia a number of voices began to be raised against the treaty. Johannes Miquel, fo r example, termed it unnecessary: as George had lost his sovereignty he should be deprived of all Hanoverian property. Bismarck, however, defended the settlem ent. In a series of debates in the he argued that if the blind king had been thrown into prison, Guelph resistance to Prussian rule would be strong. By leaving him with a comfortable income Prussia would be spared an unnecessary nuisance. Whatever the

^ S te h lin , op. c i t ., pp. 8 2 - 8 3 . ^Klopp, Pr. V., p. 6i{.. ^-®This is probably true. In March 186?, George had written to the Duke of Cambridge that his main object was to "get as much money as possible out of the hands of the crazy Prussian robber band," George V to. Duke of Cambridge, 22 March 1867 , Gmunden, Correspondenz. 57 merits of this argument, the Landtag seemed convinced. On 18 February 1868 the treaty became law and the matter seemed settled.^-9

In dealing with Berlin, C-eorge seem 3 to have made little attempt to rouse legitimist anti-Bismarck elements at the Prussian court. To be sure, he once wrote Frederick

William IV’s widow to protest the annexation, and in 1867 he implored William I not to force Queen Ivlarie f^om Hanover. But other than that there were no further endeavors.-^® Had George been more persisten t he might have met v/ith some success, for it appears that Crown Prince Frederick William was sympathetic to his plight. Just how far Frederick was prepared to go to help George of course is uncertain. But in 1870 he did indicate to the Duke of Saxe- Altenberg a desire for a rapprochement with the House of Guelph - despite what Bismarck thought of the matter! At the same time, he emphasized, the in itia tiv e must come from Hietzing. George’s answer to this suggestion was typical of the utopian world in which he lived. As far as he v/as concerned his sacred rights had been violated and it was up to Berlin to make the f i r s t move. As his spokesman, Queen Marie put it; uIn our situation it is impossible /for us/ ^0 make

^Bismarck, The Speeches pp. 36 —1+.8. 50philippi, op. cit., pp. 23-25. 58 the first move. If the Crown Prince is really serious, it is up to him to take the initiative.”51 Guelph diplomatic contact with Berlin was maintained on a personal level. As the Hanoverian mission had ceased to exist in that city with the outbreak of the Seven Weeks War, it could not have been otherwise. This was not true, however, of other foreign capitals. Although most Hanoverian missions and consulates closed th eir doors soon after the war, George managed to keep those in London and Paris open. By maintaining these missions abroad, he hoped to enhance his chances of securing aid. In addition, he also sent special envoys and roving ambassadors throughout Europe to plead the Guelph cause. One of the first of these was a bizzare Englishman, the Reverend Hermann Douglas. Douglas had appeared at Hietzing toward the end of 1866. and offered his aid to the king. He was born in East Prussia but had emigrated to Britain at an early age and became a pastor in Wakefield near London. Despite his lack of credentials he was able to convince George that he repre­ sented a large segment of British public opinion. The English people, Douglas claimed, had been outraged by the recent loss of Hanoverian independence; therefore he had come to Hietzing to offer his services. What he now proposed was to journey to Paris and St. Petersburg in order to

giibia.. pp. 191-192. Also see; (Victoria) The Empress Frederick, A Memoir (New York, I91 I4.), pp. RR0-2cdl. convince Napoleon III and Alexander II to join Ita ly in a coalition against Prussia.-^ George was deeply moved by this homely cleric and agreed to his proposal. Perhaps this was in keeping with the air of unreality that was descending on Hietzing. Douglas le ft Vienna and arrived in Paris at the end of

January 186 7 . He was received by the emperor and talked with him for over an hour. Napoleon, however, again empha­ sized that there was nothing he could do and advised George to emigrate to England. There, as a British peer, he might exercise more control over his destiny than he did at the present time.£3 Douglas was now advised by Prince Richard Metternich, the Austrian ambassador to France, to try his hand at St. Petersburg. He returned to Hietzing, talked with George, and went on to the Russian capital. There he was received by the tsar who termed the Prussian annexation uiniquitous." The Grand Duchess Alexandra appeared and in lugubrious tones

^Meding, op. cit., Ill, pp. 52-60, and Willis, HS, (Anhang XI) pp. 232-233. ” £3Dc>uglas to George V, 2 February 1867, Gmunden, VIII B 21. In his memoirs (III, p. 59) Meding claims he consid­ ered Douglas a crackpot and advised George against the scheme. Actually, Meding seems to have been the pastor’s most zealous supporter. See: George to Marie, 2)4. January 1867, W illis, HS, p. 232. ^Douglas also seems to have been somewhat of a stalking horse for the Austrian foreign office. See: Meding, III, pp. 61-62.

^Douglas to George V, 17 April 8 I 6 7 , Gmunden, VIII, B 2 1 . 6o lamented the fate of her brother-in-law. S till, once a ll was said and done, the Romanov court could offer nothing more than sympathy. Prince Gorchakov, however, bluntly told Douglas that the blind king had no choice but to abdicate. With this disheartening message in mind the English parson filed a discouraged report to Hietzing and returned to Wakefield and obscurity. Despite Napoleon I l l 's refusal to help George, the Guelph court s t i l l believed its best chance of securing foreign aid lay in Paris. This was not entirely illogical. Napoleon III realized that the p o litic a l center of gravity in Europe was shifting from Paris to Berlin. He had been promised compensation from Bismarck but had received none. Nov/, in order to cover up his anxiety and embarrassment, and ward off mounting internal criticism, he sought a diplomatic triumph. Such an opportunity seemed to present itself in the of Luxenbourg which belonged to Holland. As King William III of the Netherlands feared the proximity of Prussian power he was easily inveigled by Napoleon to

^Douglas to Platen 10 April 1867 , Gmunden VIII B 21 Although Meding (III, p. 95>*) feels that Douglas might have been sent by Lord Clarendon to probe Guelph resilience, his bizzare mission seems to have been typical of his strange personality. In later years he gained some local notoriety by boarding English and asking passengers: "Are you saved? Are you saved?1’ Personal information supplied by Geoffrey Malden Willis. (Mr. Willis, the author of several works cited in this work, was the archivist at Gmunden for many years.) 6i cede this area to France.^7 Just as Paris was preparing to announce this success, Bismarck refused to approve the arrangement or to withdraw the Prussian garrison stationed in .This precipitated a c risis which v/aa to

simmer throughout the spring of 1 8 6 7 . George's envoy in Paris, Ernst Iiattensauer, kept the king well informed on these developments. It seemed gener­ ally agreed that, sooner or later, France and Prussia would go to war; i t was hoped that in this conflict George would stand on the side of the French emperor. In October, 1866, the blind king had decided to send his press chief Oskar Meding to Paris in order to effect an alliance. Besides certain powers of persuasion Meding also possessed the unique advantage that his wife-was a direct descendant of Jerome Bonaparte of Westphalia. This made her a niece of Princess Mathilde, the emperor's first cousin . ^ Just at that time, however, negotiations were opened with Prussia on the Guelph 6 0 fortune, and Meding's departure was delayed indefinitely.

£7pflanze, op. c i t ., p. 3 7 7 , and P h i l i p Guedalla, The Second Empire, (New York, 1 9 2 3 ), pp. 3 8 8 -3 6 9 . 58He did so in order to arouse German national senti­ ment in support of the North German constitution and to con­ vince South German leaders of the necessity of recently negotiated alliances between their states and Prussia.

^9»Berichte.. .Klopp,” p. 1 7 . Gmunden, VIII B 53.

^Meding, op. cit., p. 3 5 * 62

Toward the end of January, 1867 - just a 3 Douglas' mission was getting under way - one Ernst Hollander appeared at Hietzing. As a resident of Parish he claimed intimate knowledge of the workings of Napoleon’s government and implied that war with Prussia was imminent. In order to take advantage of this situation, he suggested the king should found a great newspaper in Paris which would woo public opinion to the Guelph cause. He volunteered to direct the project for the "modest” sum of five million francs’. Meding, in particular, was quite impressed by this suggestion. He told George that Napoleon himself probably stood behind Hollander and urged immediate acceptance.^3 He also suggested that additional funds be provided to influ­ ence other newspapers and journals . 6 ^- The king acquiesced and on 6 February signed a contract which provided one and one-half million francs for expenses - not five million, as Hollander had requested, and a salary of fifty thousand francs per annum.H o l l a n d e r returned to Paris where the f i r s t issue of La Situation, as the newspaper was called, was scheduled to appear on 1 July 1 8 6 7 . ^

^■4?he Na11 ona 1 2eitung (2 June 1867 ) reported he originally came "from . Gmunden, VIII B 66 (Betr. das Journal "La Situation.")

62Gmunden, VIII B 53, pp. 30-33. 63ibid. ^Meding, op. cit., Ill, p. 102. ^Gmunden, VIII B 53. 6 &Meding, op. c i t ., I l l , p. 109. In the meantime the c risis over Luxembourg had deepened; this seemed to indicate that the time to send Meding to Prance had arrived.^7 He was given a letter of introduction to the emperor and one to Princess Mathilde, and on 7 April he departed from Hietzing. Upon his arrival in Paris, he set out to establish contact with the French /.a government and to supervise Hollander’s a c tiv itie s . 00 Meding soon became quite excited about La Situation. He reported that Hollander had a knack for appealing to French readers,^9 that together they had selected an edi­ torial board which was ” la creme des ecrivains francais.1’^^ Among these was the novelist Alexander Dumas'^ who was to write a short novel for the first issue - La Terreur Prussienne a Francfort.?^ After its appearance Meding reported that the work had made a great impact on public

opinion and that it should be translated into G e r m a n . 73

2 A pril 1867 Hattensauer had w ritten Platen implying that a Franc o.-Prussian war was at hand. Gmunden, VIII B 2 3 . CO °°Meding was sent solely as a diplomatic agent. His supervision of Hollander as well as his own journalistic efforts seem to have been made on his own in itia tiv e . Gmunden, VIII B 53. ^Gmunden, VIII B lj-7 (Berichte des Regierungsrathes Meding in Paris) Meding to Platen 7 May 1867 .

7°Gmunden, VIII B 5 3 , p. 101.

7-^The elder. feeding, op. cit., Ill, p. 110.

73Qmunden, VIII B 5 3 , P« I0I4.. To read Meding’a memoirs or his dispatches, one gets the impression that La Situation was a tremendous success. 71*.

In actual fact it appears that the paper's circulation had less than one hundred subscribers.'^ Its costs were out of

proportion to its i n c o m e . 7^ To add to these difficulties, in July, 1867 Hollander fell i l l and within two months was dead. Meding tried to keep La Situation alive, but by February 1868 he had to admit defeat, and the paper ceased to exist. Other Guelph attempts to influence French public opinion were more subtle. Both Meding and Legationsrat Hattensauer placed anti-Prussian articles now and then in leading Parisian newspapers. These included La Presse, Le Monde, L’international, Le Figaro, Le Pays. Le Moniteur, and Le Constitutions!.78 jn addition, Meding wrote a small pamphlet, Les Guelfes en 1 8 6 7 . This sought to appeal to French honor by depicting the Prussians as robbers and the Guelphs as defenders of national liberty. I t branded the

7^4-Cf. Meding, op. cit., I l l, p. 110 and Gmunden, VIII, B lj.7. 7^Gmunden, VIII B 53, p. 105.

7&The costs of La Situation for 1867 i.e. for 6 ^- months of publication were lj. 9 5 , 59 ^ francs or one third of the allotted costs. See; Ibid., p. 125. 77in his memoirs Meding contends that i t was Hollander's death which spelled the end of the project. (Ill, p. 112.)

7QGmunden, VIII B 22, 31, 3 3 . 65 North Gorman Confederation a bastard state and urged the French to attack Prussia and thus fight a heinous wrong.79 Despite this spate of journalistic activity , Meding's main task was to influence the French government through diplomatic channels. He claimed great success in this endeavour and inundated Hietzing with reports of numerous meetings with high French o ffic ia ls. Yet much of what he wrote was probably spurious. Even before he reached Paris, for instance, he claimed meeting Napoleon's former foreign minister, the Duke of Gramont, on the . He alleged that Gramont was sympathetic to the Guelph cause and that although Luxembourg did not seem to be the right casus belli, France was nonetheless bent on war with Prussia.Upon arriving in the French capital, Meding wrote of additional meetings with Gramont as well as with the incumbent foreign m inister, the Marquis de Moustier, and General Fave (pre­ sumably the commandant of the 1'Ecole polytechnique.) According to Meding, these men all assured him of the imminence of war and of the necessity of a Hanoverian ft T alliance in that conflict.

79(Oskar Meding) Les Guelfes en 1867 (Paris, 1867).

®^Meding to Platen, 9 A pril 1867 , Gmunden, VIII B i.

^Meding to Platen, 2l\. April 1867 , Gmunden, VIII B i - 66 In his memoirs Meding carries this tale a bit further, lie describes a meeting with Moustier at the Q,uai d'Orsay in which the foreign minister conveyed Napoleon’s personal regards and explained his reasons for not answering George's letter introducing Meding. He asserted that the interna­ tional situation was too tense to reply personally, but that he still regarded him as the legitimate monarch of Hanover. Furthermore, in case of war Napoleon counted on George's help and hoped that the king could make a sizable contribu­ tion of men and material.®^ In actual fact none of this happened; nor indeed could i t have happened. In July 1868 another Guelph repre­ sentative, Count Paul Breda, secured an audience with Napoleon III. At this time he mentioned Meding's mission in Paris, but was astonished to learn that the emperor had never heard of the Hanoverian press chiefThis, of course, was only one man's word against that of another, but external evidence suggests that Napoleon was not lying. For one thing, to t e l l Meding that Napoleon was counting on George's support would have been inconsistent with the emperor's earlier remarks to the Reverend Douglas. Secondly, none of the documents in Les Origines Diplomatiques de la Guerre de 1870-71 for 1867 allude to Meding or to his

^^Meding, op. cit., I l l , pp. lj?l-15>6. ^Gmunden, VIII, B S>3, P* 137. For further details see below; p. 1 0 5 . mission.^ To be sure, not all French records 'were included in this collection. But one which is included reveals that in 1868 Moustier was surprised to learn of the Hanoverian presence in France.Finally, i t is now well knov/n that Napoleon did not seek to make the Luxembourg c risis a casus b e ll i . His infantry had not yet been equipped v/ith breech­ loaders; he had no allies; part of his army had not yet returned from Mexico. In short, he was in no position as

yet to fight P r u s s i a . Therefore, it is unlikely that Bonaparte conveyed to Meding the message the la tte r purports. If, in fact, Meding never did contact Gramont or Moustier, or indirectly Napoleon III, why did he go to such fantastic lengths to fabricate a tale of such meetings?' The answer seems to lie in a conflict over basic strategy v/ith George V. Apparently, Meding and Holle, the director of the Guelph underground in Hanover, envisioned a greater military effort than the king was willing to support. In their opinion not only should the foundations of organized

®^-There may have been some contact on the lower level. On 17 May I 867 the French envoy in Brunsv/ick, writing to Moustier, referred to several Hanoverian '’journalists" active in Paris. In the same'dispatch he also indicated that chances of an insurrection in Hanover were slim. He a t t r i ­ buted this to strong Prussian control and to the staid dis­ passionate character of the Hanoverian people. See: Dulcat to Moustier, 17 May 1867 , Les Origines Diplomatiques de la Guerre, XVII, pp. Il7-1).8.

^Moustier to Benedetti, 7 February 1868, in Ibid., XX, p. 3k$. ®6pflanze, op. c it., p. 381. 68 resistance be laid throughout the kingdom, but Hanoverian troops should also be sent abroad to be trained as an elite righting unit.®? They know, moreover, that many Hanoverians could still remember the King ' s German Legion, v/hich had fought with Wellington during the Napoleonic wars. By appeal­ ing to this tradition, they hoped to arouse a good deal of support for their own project.®® George, however, was opposed to this plan, i t w ill be recalled that he felt any attempt to build a Guelph legion or to ignite a revolution might have disastrous results for his subjects or lead to Jacobinism.®9 His foreign minister, moreover, emphasized that Guelph financial resources were simply inadequate to support such an undertaking.9^ None­ theless, during the excitement of the Luxembourg crisis the king may have wavered a bit in his thinking.91 All that was needed, therefore, was something to convince him that the moment to strike was at hand. It was at this point that Meding seized the initia­ tive. Large numbers of former Hanoverian soldiers were

®?For example, see; Meding to George, 2l|. A pril 1867 , 25 April I8 6 7 , Gmunden, VIII B ij-7 and B 53, PP» 81-86. ®®Duckstein, op. c it., p. I4.I.

®9Ge orge to Marie, 18 May 1867 , W illis, HS, p. 166. 90Gmunden, VIII B 53, p. 82. 9*At least his son Ernest Augustus considered this a strong p o ssibility. See: Gmunden, VIII B 5 5 * 69 assembled on. the Dutch border under the command of officers of the secret committee.92 Holle traveled from Hietzing to Paris to confer with Meding. There, after apparently being convinced that Napoleon stood behind the Guelph c a u s e , 93 he returned to Hanover to await further instructions. In Vienna, the king and Platen seemed to indicate they might lift their objections to a Guelph legion if French financial support could be secured. Meding replied that, although this was not at hand, it might be forthcoming once such an exile army had actually been organized.9^- Exactly what happened after this is unclear. On the night of 6 May a telegram was received by Hanoverian offi­ cers on the Dutch frontier. It indicated that the time was ripe, that the exodus should begin. Accordingly, 160 young men went over the border and began assembling in Arnheim. In the days that followed their ranks were swollen by even more volunteers. Later, when one of George's agents asked about the authorization for this move the officers replied that the king himself had given it. The telegram, however, had come from P a r i s . 95 In such a way the so-called Guelph legion was born. I t had not been authorized by George and, in fact, was

92 ibid.-

93Gmunden, VIII B f?3, p. 81).. 9^Ib id . 9% bid., and B 55* opposed by him. Meding had apparently taken the in itiativ e

in creating it. He had sent false reports from Pari 3 indi­ cating widespread support for the Guelph cause; he had col­ luded with Holle in amassing Hanoverian volunteers on 'the Dutch frontier; and at the final moment he had probably given the signal for departure. To make matters worse the Luxembourg c risis had passed by this time, as Meding must have known. If Meding believed that a Guelph legion would win his king widespread support abroad, he was mistaken. In actual fact, this body of troops was to cause a diplomatic incident with George’s Austrian hosts, irritate the French, and eventually cause Bismarck to sequester the Guelph fortune. Furthermore, the legion cost enormeous sums to maintain and eventually so depleted George’s finances that he was forced to abandon his active resistance to Prussia altogether.

The Guelph Legion

Once George learned about the exodus he dispatched his military aide, Captain Adolf von D&ring, to Arnheim. Rumors held that nearly six thousand men had gone over the border, but when D&ring arrived on 17 May, he reported the total number was less than two hundred. He wrote Holle to stop all further migration.This, however, was easier said than done. Holle had been arrested by the Prussian

96(?munden, VIII B 53, pp. 92-93* 71

authorities and, despite aspectacular e s c a p e , 97 never received the order. Within a month he made his way to Hietzing and somehow convinced George that the Guelph Legicn was in the king’s best interests. The project was then given official royal approval.9^ In the meantime, During went to the Hague. There he was advised that, in view of Prussia’s objections, the Dutch government could not tolerate the Guelph Legion on its soil. The Hanoverians would not be extradited, but they would have to leave the country within three weeks. The Guelphs had no choice; by 16 June a ll but a few of th eir condottiere le ft for .99

Throughout the summer of 1867 recruitment for the Guelph Legion continued in Hanover. Most of the volunteers seem to have been former soldiers or peasants who feared induction into the Prussian army.^® They were usually told that George’s return was imminent and that they could help pave the way for his restoration. Guelph agents assembled them a t ru ra l inns and smuggled them out of the country on

97steinmann to Eulenburg, 20 May 1867 , DZA, Merseburg. Rep. 77 (Innenministerium) T it. 3^4-3, Nr. li|-2, Bd. 1. (We Ifenagitation). 9®George seems to have fe lt - as Meding wanted him to - that the legion would pressure Napoleon into helping his cause. Gmunden, VIII B 53, P« 96.

99puckstein, op. ci t ., pp. lj. 8 -5 0 . •^ S teh lin , op. c i t ., p. I ll, and Leffler, op. c it., pp. lj.9-50. 72 railroad trains. They then proceeded to Basel either via Heidelberg or - if they had gone over the Dutch border - via Arnheim.-^l A number of Hanoverians made their way to London. There they were met by a certain Ernst Duve, who found them employment and who organized a sort of Hanoverian military club. Drills were held every Sunday-1-^ and the men supplied with uniforms. On 27 June 1867 - one year after the battle of Langensalza - Duve reported that 127 of these men stood ready for action within ten days notice. Most of the Hanoverian refugees assembled in Basel. There they were accepted as political refugees and told they were welcome as long as they engaged in productive work. This arrangement proved tolerable for a while, but because the legionaires were willing to work for lower wages than the Swiss., their presence irritated the local population. In view of this, Swiss authorities announced the Hanoverians would have to leave the country.

•^3-Kluhsmann to Oberpr&sident Hannover, 7 March 1868, von Roeder to Bismarck, 8 August 1867 , DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 324.3 , Nr. ll|2. 102]3uc^3 -te^nj pp. c i t ., pp. 14.3 —I4J4-.

■^^Nieders&chsisches staatsarchiv Hannover, Hann. ij .8 a-II, B Nr. I4.. During to /leding?7 20 May 1868; Nr. 1., Duve to Meding, 27 June I8 0 7 . (cited hereafter as N.St.H.) •^Jj-Duckstein, op. cit., pp. 52-5l±. ■^^Although Berlin exerted pressure on Bern, this decision seems to have been made by the Swiss for reasons of their own. Ibid., p. 73 In the meantime, Oskar Meding returned to Paris in order to obtain asylum for the Guelph Legion in Prance. In his memoirs he claims to have contacted a certain M. de St. Paul in the Interior Ministry, who assured him the Hanoverians would not only be welcomed but also financially supported. In view of Meding*s mendacity it is hard to determine if such a conversation actually took place. On the one hand, as has been shown, the Marquis de Moustier seemed ignorant of Guelph a ctiv ity and was genuinely surprised when the legion suddenly appeared in Alsace in January, 1868. On the other hand, a document in the Lower Saxon State Archives in Hanover indicates that contact had been established betveen Guelph representatives in Paris and at least some agencies

T A O of the French government - in this case the War Ministry. If St. Paul did encourage the move of the legion to France he seems to have kept it a secret from more important o fficials in the French government. In any event, the Hanoverians crossed over into France in early 1868. Unarmed, untrained and only some four hundred in number, they wore hardly a potent military force.109 But to the Prussians this was unknown at the time.

•^Meding, op. c it., Ill, pp. 226-28. 3-°7Supra., p. 68, n. 85. •'-®%.St.H., Hann. L8 a II, B. Nr ij.. Ministers de la Guerre to Captain During, 8 January 1868. 109Gmunden, VIII B 53, P. 76. General Konstantin von Voigts-Rhetz, the commander of the Tenth Prussian Army Corps in Hanover, reported to Bismarck that the Legion consisted of at least two thousand men.^® This apparently caused the Prussian government to intervene. Bismarck demanded verification from the Quai d'Orsay of rumors that Hanoverian soldiers were stationed in Prance. When this was confirmed the Chancellor termed i t provocative and insisted the Guelph Legion either be disbanded’ or rendered impotent. As this was but one of B erlin's anti-Guelph measures - measures which w ill be dis­ cussed in more detail later -•m it need not concern us here. Suffice i t to say that the French government felt it prudent to comply with Bismarck's wishes; it ordered the Hanoverians into the interior of the country. It followed this initial measure with an order to separate the officers from th eir men. Heedless to say this order severely limited the future m ilitary activity of the Guelph Legion. Although the men were divided according to projected units - with the cavalry stationed in Reims, the infantry in Vitry Epernay and

HOotto von Bismarck, Die Gesammelte Werke (Berlin, 1930), VII a, p. 2I4.8 . (cited hereafter as Bismarck GW).

m s e e below: pp. 8 1 - 1 0 0 . •*-^A succinct account of this can be found in Willard Allen Fletcher, The Mission of Vincent Benedetti to Berlin (The Hague, 19o5), PP* I99-20T. : * Chalons, and the a rtillo ry In Dormans^^3 _ the absence of officers led to a breakdown of organization and to a collapse of discipline. Pastor Ludwig Grote, a fanatical Guelph sup­

porter who ministered to the Legion in 1869 , reported that the men were leading utterly meaningless lives. In Rennes he found that they spent th e ir days in a drunken stupor, in Les Mans, that they constantly gambled, and in Laval that they either slept in brothels or in jail.*'-^- Perhaps Pastor Grote!s reports were somewhat exag­ gerated. Nonetheless, they reveal that the Guelph Legion had no military value whatsoever. Additional records cor­ roborate this judgment. They indicate the group never exceeded 8j2 members, that its officer corps consisted of only thirteen men under the command of Captain Adolf von During, and that of these, none had never held any com­ mand position above the rank of captain.Furthermore, the Legion cost George a tremendous amount of money - roughly 800,000 francs per annum. By late 1869, the

113These were of course only skeletal units. Appar­ ently the Legion had no horses or cannon. Duckstein, op. c it., p. 66. •’••^•Gmunden, VIII B 3k (Berichte des Pastors Grote) Grote to Platen, 28 July I 8 6 9 . ^Gmunden, VIII B 53, p. 217. ■j 1 Z . xxoSupra. , pp. -1 ^Gmunden, VIII B 53, p. 217, and N.St.A.H., Hann. i(.8 a II B. 1. 110Gmunden, VIII B 53, P. 222. sequestration of the Guelph fortune, the collapse of a financial venture in Vienna, and the bad publicity engen­ dered by the Legion caused George to abandon the project

altogether. By May I87 O the Guelph Legion had ceased to exis t. ■*••*•9 George seems to have recognized the liabilities of maintaining an exile army from the very beginning. Perhaps for this reason he never gave the project more than a modi- 120 cum of support. This did not mean, however, that he was prepared to renounce the use of force to regain his throne. What he seems to have counted on was a controlled uprising in Hanover. This would occur a t some point after war had broken out between Prussia and Prance; and it would receive complete support from Hietzing. George would issue a proc­ lamation to his people and send loyal officers into Hanover to organize an army of 20,000 men. In such a way the king hoped he could fight for a restoration without losing con­ trol of the situation in his former kingdom. That this was an unrealistic strategy need not be said, But George was not the man to be dissuaded, for he bought enough arms and equipment to o u tfit 20,000 men. By early 1870 he had obtained everything for this purpose from

op. cit., p. 75* Also see below:

^°Supra, pp. 6 8 -6 9 . •^•'■See the commentary by Priederich Thimme in Bismarck, GW, VI b, p. !j.0£. 77 the French firm of Cahen et Lyon. This included thousands of scarlet uniforms, caps, boots, revolvers, buttons, insignia, and some 20,000 Chassepot rifles, the most advanced infantry weapons of their time. Aside from 10,000 of these guns which were stored in London, most of the equipment was housed in a large warehouse in Paris. There it awaited the inevitable conflict.

Guelph Journalistic Activities

Besides using diplomatic and military means to secure his objectives, George also sponsored journalistic activi­ ties. In a sense.it was a tribute to his perseverance and resourcefulness that he did not confine his endeavours solely to the diplomatic or military sphere; yet as with his other efforts George did not give his journalistic pro­ jects enough support to make them truly effective. Count Platen, in particular, seems to have encouraged George to work through the press. He was sk ep tical of Meding's efforts in France and apparently felt that George's best chance of success lay in influencing the German press.Under his aegis - as well as that of Onno Klopp -

•^^Records of the purchase and delivery of these items and many more, including drums and musical instruments, can be found at N.St.A.H. Hann., 14-8 a II B 2&3. An inventory of items in the Paris magazine is located at Gmunden, VIII B Ij.0. ■^Platen to George, 27 June 1868, Gmunden, VIII B ij.0. a number of grossdeutsch anti-Prussian newspapers were sub­ sidized by Hietzing. Among these were the Sftchsl3che Zoitung in Dresden, the Demokratisches Wochenblatt in Leipzig, Das Vaterland in Munich, and the organ of George's supporters in Hanover, the Deutsche Volkszeitung. In Austria the Oesterreichischer Volksfreund and Warrens Woe he nsc hr if t received Guelph funds. The la tte r paper, in fact, became an official organ of the Hietzing court in 1868 and was edited personally by Onno Klopp.^^ Outside Germany and Austria, Guelph agents subsidized newspapers in

France-1-^ and England. A certain Captain W. J. Wyatt in London, for example, saw to it that anti-Prussian articles appeared in the Morning Post. The Broad Arrow, and John B ull. These a rtic le s, however, were rather innocuous; they bemoaned the loss of Hanoverian independence but said l it t le more. -^7

12ikJmunden, VIII B 26ii, 35. •*-25;K:arl Georg Faber, Die Nationalpolitische Publizistik Deutschlands von 1666 bis 1671 (Dhsseldorf, T95jT 7 i>p".' m - m . ------12^Supra., pp. 6l].-65. l27gee the collection of clippings at Gmunden, VIII B 26ii, and 6 7 . On 19 May 1868 Bismarck wrote to the Oberprasident of Hanover that at least fourteen newspapers in Germany were serving the Guelph cause. Among these were: Die Zukunft (Berlin), Hessische Volksbl&tter (Darmstadt), Hesslsche Volkszeitung (Kassel), Frankfurter Beobachter, Zwickauer Tagesblatt, Coburger Volksblatt, Mhnchener Volksblatt, Neue Badische Landeszeitung, Per ost-Preussishe kftrger und Bauernfreund, and Die Demokratische CorrespondeHz (Stuttgart). The factwas, however, th at none of these received Guelph funds. In fact, the only papers on 79 Less innocuous but certainly no more e ffe c tiv e than the subsidized press were Guelph pamphlets directed at the population in Hanover. Most of these, while b itte r ly a n ti- Prussian, were hardly incendiary in nature. They usually engaged in re-fighting the war of 1866, in denouncing Bismarck's ’’revolution from above,” or in branding the annexation a breach of honor and a monstrous theft. Some­ times they attacked the Prussian administration of Hanover; on other occasions they sniped at the philosophy of liberal­ ism. Some stressed the uniqueness of the Lower Saxon Stamm, others emphasized grossdeutsch ideals. None exhorted the Hanoverians to action against their Prussian opporessors. The most prolific author of Guelph polemics was Onno Klopp. His works usually sought to document P russia's h is ­ torical lust for expansion or what he considered its callous disregard of law and morality. was one of his favorite targets as were, of course, Bismarck and William I. Sometimes Klopp presented long ju rid ical

Bismarck's list actually connected to Hietzing were: the S£chsiche Zeitung (Leipzig), the Bulletin Internationale (Dresden), and the Deutsche Volkszeitung (Hanover). Cf7 Bismarck to Wernigerode, 19 May 1868, in Bismarck, GW, p. 3 8 9 , and Gmunden, VIII, B 23. 128-paber, op. c it., I pp. 220-238, (anon.) Antwort auf ”Zwei Jahre Hietzinger Politik,” Braunschweig, 186b, Heinrich Bwald, Lob des Kbnigs und des Volkes, Stuttgart, 1868, (anon.) Vom Standpunkte des Rechtes und der Bhre, Vienna, 1867, and (anon.) Ein patriotisches Wort an meine Landsleute, Vienna, 1866. discussions on the events of 1866 or on the sequestration of George's fortune; sometimes he advanced grossdeutsch federalist ideas. In one pamphlet, Gelbwelsse Lieder, he urged Hanoverians to remain loyal to George V;^9 in another, Wer ist der wahre Erbfeind Deutschlands?, he came very close to exhorting them to revolution. In this work he stated; When...the question is openly put to us; What is i t you desire? we shall answer just as openly; "War against the state of HohenzoHerns, - war against that terrib le principle, which has created that State, and which continues to animate it'.” 1-30 Such inflammatory language, however, was much more ---- the exception than the rule. Guelph pamphlets were usually dull and legalistic. They offered no concrete plan of action; they looked more to the past than to the future. They were, in short, unrealistic and ineffective. In this way they accurately reflected the utopian world of the Guelph court at Hietzing.

l29schnabel and Klopp, op. c it., pp. 101-107, and Paber, op. c it., I, pp. 220-23HT ■^^Onno Klopp, Who is the Real Enemy of Germany? (London, 1868), p. 53* (The author was unable to obtain a copy of the original German edition.) ■^•^How many of these pamphlets actually reached Hanover is difficult to say. Meding indicates that some were smuggled in by the secret committee. Prussian records at Merseburg, however, only rarely report the confiscation or even existence of such literature. Cf. Meding, op. cit., PP» 380-381, and DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 3^1-3> Nr. 142, Bd. 2, p. 18£. 81 Prussian Counter-Measures■

Although the Prussians were not aware of George’s stocks of arms and equipment in Pari3, they knew about p ractically every other form of Guelph activ ity . Bismarck wanted to prevent the rise of separatism, however and at first tended to ignore Guelph agitation. Only toward the end of 1 8 6 7 , when it became apparent that Hietzing would not cease its resistance, did the Prussians take serious counter-measures. These included forcing Queen Marie from her redoubt at Marienburg, arresting Guelph agents and sympathisers, exerting diplomatic pressure in Paris and Vienna, and sequestering George's royal fortune. George had le f t Queen Marie at Herrenhausen as a symbol of Guelph authority. She remained there only a few months, however, and toward the end of September she and her retinue moved to the Marienburg near Hildesheim. B u ilt on a bluff overlooking that city, this Gothic structure reminded one more of the wasteful excesses of a Bavarian Wittelsbach than the usual restraint of a north German prince. Nonetheless, its towers and pinnacles, as well as its romantic setting, served to surround the queen with an aura of mystery. When she appeared before local cfowds dressed in mourning and offered them refreshments, it was 82 obvious she was taking part in George's endeavors to regain his throne. ^ 2 The Prussian government at first ignored the queen. Bismarck emphasized that he saw no reason to bother her and issued orders that she be treated with the honor and respect due someone of her station. Toward the end of March IO 6 7 , however, Police Director Steinmann, head of the police force in Hanover, claimed that the Marienburg formed an important link between Hietzing and anti-Prussian groups in the new province. Bismarck was disturbed by this news and ordered the castle put under strict surveillance. In order to cut off communications with Hietzing Prussian gendarmes occupied the nearby telegraph and railroad stations at . After several weeks of close observation, they were unable, however, to report any unusual traffic or a c tiv ity .^33 In actual fact, the queen does not seem to have been involved in any subversive activity. She was essentially a non-political person, and her very presence in Hanover served the Guelph cause well enough without the burden of additional duties. As it was, the stra in of an isolated life at Marienburg brought h e r close to a nervous collapse,

•^cf. stehlin, op. c i t ., p. lipO and Arthur Bollert, "Aus Briefen von Franz Bollert, einem kommissarischen preussischen Amtmann im Lande Hannover." Nieders&chsisches Jahrbuch ffcr Landesgeschichte, XXI, (1914-9)7 pp. 167-188. •*-33Leffler, op. cit., pp. 52-53, and Steinmann to Hardenberg, 21 March ltl67, DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 3I4.3 , Nr. 1L(2, Bd. I. and she longed for the day of reunion with her husband and children. ^1-

Meanwhile, the reports about the formation of the Guelph Legion in Holland began pouring into Berlin. Bismarck suspected that the queen formed a link in the conspiracy and decided to expel her from the former kingdom. ^5 To do so, however, was a somewhat delicate matter. An arb itrary order of expulsion would not only arouse smouldering passions in Hanover, but would also represent a grave insult. Therefore, the Chancellor decided to ''annoy” her into leaving on her own accord. He did this by persuading William I to write a per­ sonal letter to Marie. In this the Prussian king bluntly told her that he could not tolerate Guelph agitation at Marienburg and th at she would have to change her place of residence. Should she not comply with these wishes, he threatened, her attendants would be replaced by ones of his c h o o s in g .7 A seriesof exchanges followed, and on 17 July Marie le ft Hanover for Hietzing.

^^•Countess Mary Bremer to George V, 9 April 1867 , Gmunden, Correspondenz. ^^Leffler, op. cit., p.

IS^This, at least, is what he told Count Mtinster. Countess Mary Bremer to George V, 23 April 1867 , Gmunden, Correspondenz. 137wiHiam to Marie, 2$ May 1867 , in Hopf, op. c i t ., pp. )|J|)|-J|1|X. (A complete series of documents relative to this incident are also reproduced in Hopf.) The expulsion of the Guelph quoen from Marienburg hardly represented a great victory for Bismarck. Neither Marie nor her presence represented a threat to the Prussian state. Even if this had been the case, Prussian police had the queen under such close surveillance that it would have been impossible for her to act. Moreover, when news of Bismarck’s heavy-handed actions reached the local populace, it aroused a new wave of anti-Prussian fee ling. -*-38 A second anti-Guelph measure taken by Bismarck was to arrest and confine Guelph agents and sympathisers. Throughout most of 1867 the chancellor moved with consider­ able caution and restraint in this respect. In fact, as late as February 1868, he wrote Minister of the Interior Eulenburg that harsh preventive measures would not only sow i l l w ill in Hanover, but would also be of no help to Prussia. ^9 Several weeks la te r Bismarck changed his mind. This was caused by the sudden move of the Guelph Legion to France, -^4-0 increased reports of subversive activity in

^®Leffler, op. cit., p. 5 5 * For a more complete account of Hanoverian reaction to Prussian rule and the growth of the so-called Guelph movement in that province sees Chapter I II. ■^^Bismarck to Eulenburg, 13 February 1868, DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3^4-3, Nr. 11\2. %0The tiny Guelph Legion in its e lf hardly gave Bismarck cause to worry. But its move from neutral Switzerland to Germany’s ’hereditary enemy’ put the Guelph problem in a different light. The Chancellor now feared he could expect renewed unrest in Hanover as well as some Hanover, and the celebration In Vienna of George's twenty- fifth wedding anniversary. As this latter incident, in particular, seems to have triggered the Chancellor's policy change i t is perhaps worthy of some mention. Late in January 1868 the merchant Carl Peter Sonntag, lii.1 who had e a rlie r sponsored the protest petitio n, organized a committee of Hanoverians to travel to Hietzing and pay • homage to George on his silv e r wedding anniversary. Several trains were chartered, and nearly two thousand persons made the trip . Although Bismarck had known about this plan in advance, he decided not to interfere in the hope of thus playing down the event's significance. Nonetheless, Prussian spies accompanied Sonntags' group and reported everything that happened. The celebration at Hietzing seems to have been a major event. Not only were the Hanoverians present but also lead­ ing members of Viennese society, including Emperor Francis Joseph and his family. Toward the middle of the evening the king appeared and, in a toast, thanked his subjects for their loyalty and pledged his own speedy return to power. embarrassing questions from his domestic opponents in the Landtag. For more information see below: pp. 7^-7£* Also see: Bismarck, GW, VI a, #10lj.3, p. 2 3 7 .

•^S u p r a . . p. l^-lj.6 . •^^Bismarck to Eulenburg, 13 February 1868, DZA, Merseburg. Rep. 77, T it. 3^1-3, Nr 1)^2, Bd. I and Leffler, op. c i t ., pp. 5>9 -d 1 * Considering George’s personality and the nature of the occasion there was nothing unusual in this statement. But George had naively assumed he had spoken to a private aud­ ience. Unfortunately a large group of newspaper reporters were also present, and the next day the king’s words appeared verbatim in all the major papers of Vienna. *^*3 When Bismarck read this statement he was enraged. Not only did it reveal George's continued hostility, but it also provided proof of Bismarck's previous failure to con­ c ilia te the Guelph monarch. The chancellor sincerely hoped that, given enough money and m aterial comforts, George would temper his anti-Prussian a c tiv itie s. Now with reports of the Guelph Legion's arrival in Prance coupled with news of George's infelicitous toast in Vienna Bismarck f e l t cheated and tricked. Moreover, as his financial settlement with George had evoked some sharp criticism in Prussia, the Chancellor knew that his conduct would now be subject to an embarrassing interpellation in the Landtag. There was only one way to counter this Guelph threat, he thought, and that was to adopt harsher measures. Accordingly, on 28

•^•■3 lb id., and (anon.) Die silberne Hochzeit des Kfenigspaares von Hannover am 18 Februar lbtob. Munich, 1868. No one seems to have been more shocked by this publicity than the Hanoverian royal family. The Crown Prince later reported that Meding had been responsible for admitting the reporters - without George's knowledge - and claimed the whole episode was part of Meding's plan to ruin .the king. Gmunden, VIII B 55* If Meding did admit the reporters it seems likely he did so to publicize the Guelph cause, not to ruin the king. 87 February a royal order went out from Berlin announcing the seizure of the Guelph fortune. -1-4-4 At the same time, the Prussian government initiated a series of trials to reveal the widespread extent of the Guelph conspiracy. Chief among the accused were seven

■*-44stehlin, op. c i t ., P. 134-j Leffler, op. c i t ., p. 6k, and Hans . Philippi, 11 Zur Gesc’nichte des We If enf onus ," NiedersEchs isches Jahrbuch f\ttr Landesgeschichte, 1959, PP» 194--195• In his biography of Bismarck Erich Eyck contends that the Chancellor's real reason for sequestering George's fortune was to obtain large funds for secret political purposes. As evidence he notes that George's conduct was neither unusual or novel and that Bismarck had long known of the existence of the Guelph Legion. Furthermore, once he seized the Guelph fortune Bismarck used its funds fo r purposes other than combatting George's activities. (Erich Eyck, Bismarck, Zurich, 194-3, II, PP* 374-378•) While much of this is true Eyck's ultimate judgment is incorrect. To be sure, George's hostility was hardly news to Bismarck, but the Chancellor really seems to have believed his gener­ ous treaty of compensation would temper George's anti- Prussian activities. In this sense the king's toast came as a surprise. (See: Bismarck, GW, VI a, #1044,. p. 240, and #1055, P* 25l.) In addition, King William and Finance Minister Heydt, who opposed the treaty in the f i r s t place, now put pressure on Bismarck to cut off George's financial support. (Leffler, op. cit., pp. 58-64.) As for the Guelph Legion - Bismarck certainly knew about its existence since May 1867 when the group was formed in Holland. He did not know, however, u n til March 1868 just how tiny the Legion was. Moreover, as we have seen, he was genuinely worried about repercussions the Legion's move to France would have in Germany. (See; fn. #14-0) Finally, while i t is cer­ tainly true that Bismarck misused the funds allotted him from the Guelph fortune, he did not do so u n til after the Franco-Prussian War, i.e., until after George ceased to be a problem for him. In fact, between i 860 and I 87 O Bismarck used the revenue from the Guelph fortune exactly as he said he would, viz, to combat Guelph agitation and to finance internal improvements in the province of Hanover. See; Philippi, "Zur Geschichte....", pp. 232-233. 88 officers of the Legion, Schlosahauptmann Alfred Wedel, and Foreign Minister Count Platen. All nine men were accused of high treason and tried jLn absentia before the Staats- gerichtshof in Berlin. The state's evidence consisted of several personal letters found on a Guelph courier arrested

in May 1867 at Frankfurt am Main. These letters were hardly incriminating. Nonetheless, the Hanoverian officers along with Wedel were sentenced to ten years penal servitude. Platen was tried somewhat later - in July. The main charge against him was that he had countersigned George's various protests to the European powers and to the Hanoverian people. The Foreign Minister was found guilty of working for the separation of a part of Prussia (Hanover) from the state and, therefore, sentenced to fifteen years in prison.^ Since Prussian authorities never apprehended any of these defendents it seems likely that they were tried pri­ marily as a deterrence to any would-be. p lo tte rs . Also by proving that a .link once existed between Hietzing and Marienburg - and thus by implication between Hietzing and anti-Prussian groups in Hanover - Bismarck could more easily gain support fo r even harsher measures against King George.

•^S u p ra., p. 3 6 . •*^-k/Onno Klop£7 Per Hochverathsprocess gegen den kbniglich hannoverschen Staats-Minister Grafen Adolf von Platen zu Hallermund. Munich, lbbti., and The Morning Post (London) 29,534- (1 December 1868). 89 The chancellor also proceeded against several Guelph supporters in Hanover. A restaurant owner named Grobmeier was arrested for sponsoring a celebration in honor of George’s birthday. Pie was deprived of his operating license and his establishment closed. Similarly, Dr. Ehrenreich Eichholz, editor of the pro-Guelph Deutsche Volkszeitung, was arrested for publishing anti-Prussian articles and his newspaper temporarily confiscated. These arrests and trials may have given Bismarck the ju stificatio n he needed to combat the Guelphs, but like the expulsion of Queen Marie they also had a detrimental effect. The Hanoverian people were incensed by the unfair proceed­ ings against Platen and by the persecution of rather harm­ less men like Grobmeier and Eichholz. As a resu lt many of _ them joined the newly founded German-Hanoverian Party, a p o litic a l party opposed to the Prussian rule of Hanover. The party itself was hardly significant in German national p o litics, but i t did cause Bismarck some headaches in Hanover. If the expulsion of Queen Marie and the arrest of George’s sympathizers caused Prussia some trouble, diplo­ matic pressure in Vienna and Paris produced more positive results. Ever since December 1866 Austrian foreign policy had been under the direction of Bismarck’s longtime foe,

^-7dza, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3ij-3, Nr. llp2, Bd. 2, pp. 5-26, and Leffler, op. c it.,.p. lOlj.. Count Friedrich Ferdinand Beust, the former Minister- President of Saxony. Many people believed that Beust was bent on revenge on Prussia and that he was working night and day to that end. In actual fact he was not so b ellig er­ ent. Beust knew that any war with Prussia would require a French alliance. At the same time such a conflict also required the support of the Hungarians - something that could be secured only over an eastern issue. As this was unlikely, Beust sought to avoid war altogether and hence devoted his energies to throttling powerful warhawks in the Hofburg, such as Archduke Albrecht, the victor of Custozza."^ Beust’s relationship with George's exile court was a delicate one. On the one hand, he was obliged to tre a t his former ally with the deference and honor due someone of his station; on the other, he had to see to it that George did hot engage in agitation harmful to his own pacifist policies. Above all, he had to make sure that the activities of the Hietzing court did not ‘arouse scorn in Berlin. Beust at f i r s t managed to do a ll these things. In December 1866 he warned Count Platen that Austria intended to adhere to the Peace of Prague and that it would not tolerate anti-Prussian machinations on its soil. At the same time he showered the blind king with honors and favorsj George appeared at

•^7Hans A. Schmitt, ”Count Beust and Germany 1866- 1870: Reconquest, Realignment or Resignation.” Central European History, I (March, 1 9 6 8 ), pp. 23-27. . ■ 91 dinners at the Hofburg; he was awarded medals; he was even given an Austrian Field Marshal as his aide.^® For a while this arrangement proved quite satisfactory. George was pleased by Beust1s flattery and apparently felt that the Ballhausplatz supported his policies, if only tacitly. At the same time, he avoided trouble with Beust by concentrating his diplomatic energies on securing aid from Napoleon III. ■^■9 George^ anniversary toast, however, upset this arrangement. Bismarck, it will be recalled, was furious. Besides revealing the failu re of his own policy of conciliation and arousing discontent in Hanover, the Chancellor feared George1s remarks would encourage revanchist elements at the Hofburg. He also discovered that Hanoverian Legionaires had been issued Austrian passports. Both incidents seemed more than sufficient cause for diplomatic intervention.^^ In a series of notes and telegrams to Baron von Werther, the Prussian envoy in Vienna, Bismarck warned that George^ machinations were intolerable. He demanded the Habsburg government supervise a ll Guelph agitation and that

•*^-®Gmunden, VIII B 12 and Fiiger, op. c i t ., p. 28. •^-^Qeorge seems to have known that A u stria^ impotence precluded her worth as an ally. Once Napoleon III agreed to support the Guelph cause, he fe lt, Vienna would easily be drawn into an anti-Prussian coalition. See; Fftger, op. cit.. pp. "^Bismarck to Bernstorff, 12 February and 13 February 1868, Bismarck, GW, VI a, pp. 251-253* 92 it pressure George to move to England. Should this not occur, he implied, Prussia might be justified in interven­ ing herself. Werther then delivered what amounted to an ultimatum to Beust. Beust was not long in responding to these demands. He too feared the warhawks at the Hofburg. not only because they might give Prussia cause for military intervention, but because they could easily sabatoge his own policies. He was also disturbed by the issuance of Austrian passports to the Guelph Legionaires, something that turned out to be a grave blunder on the part of the Viennese Director of Police. Consequently, he sent a memorandum to Platen demand­ ing the Guelphs cease their p o litic a l a c tiv itie s. He stated that these were harmful to Habsburg interests and violated all sense of propriety. He forwarded a copy of the memoran­ dum to Bismarck. Bismarck was pleased by th is. He read the note and instructed the Austrian m inister to Berlin, Count Wimpffen, to inform Beust of his satisfaction. Once the Guelph

l5lp\ig0r op. cit., p. 9^-, and Bismarck to Werther, llj. February, i 8 6 0 , Die Ausw&rtige P o litik Preussens, IX, pp. 699-700. -In his memoirs Beust 'testifies to the sharp­ ness of the Prussian demands. See;. Friedrich Ferdinand Count von Beust, Memoirs (London, 1 8 8 7 ), II, p. 6 7 .

•^Schmitt, loc. cit., p. 27, Beust, op. cit., p. 6 7 . F&ger, bp. c i t ., pp. 58-8l, Gmunden VIII B 55 and Beust to Platen, 13 March 1868, Gmunden VIII B 12. agitation ceased, ho wrote, he would consider the matter closed. -*-^3

Meanwhile, at Hietzing everyone realized that George would have to be more discreet in the future. Obviously, Beust did not care about the Guelphs; indeed he had no choice but to cooperate with Berlin. Platen sent a vague note of apology to the Ballhausplatz and with that, official con­ tact between the two governments ceased. This did not mean, however, that George gave up his p o litic a l a c tiv itie s; in fact he seems to have redoubled his efforts in France. Yet, the king ceased courting the Habsburgs. By late 1868 it appeared he had become a private gentlemen and was no longer head of an exile government. While he was exerting pressure on Vienna, Bismarck also turned his attention to France. The French government, it will be recalled, had felt it wise to cooperate with Bismarck and had evacuated the Guelph Legion from Alsace to the interior of the country. Once this was achieved, the

l£3Bismarck to Werther, lLp February 1868, Die Ausw&rtige P olitik Preussens IX, pp. 699-700, and Wimpffen to Beust 23 March 18b8 in Fhger, op. c i t ., p. 101. 3-^F\!iger, op. c i t .. pp. 101-108. Also see: Kttnnerwitz to Friesen, December 1868, Die Ausw&rtige P o litik Preussens. X, p. 328. 911- chancellor expressed satisfaction and settled back to await further developments. Bismarck did not actually believe that Napoleon would ever permit George’s legion to jeopardize Pranco-Prussian relations. As has been seen, he was not afraid of the legion itself, but of the repercussions its existence might have in Germany. Hence, he began to press Napoleon about his relationship to it. Early in June Count Goltz, the Prussian envoy in Paris, pointed out to the emperor that the legion still maintained its military character and that its very existence exacerbated anti-French feeling in Prussia. He conveyed Bismarck's insistence that the legion be dis­ solved and that certain of its sponsors - notably St. Paul in the Interior Ministry - be dismissed. Napoleon agreed with much of what Goltz had said. He appeared astonished to learn about St. Paul and suggested that Goltz consult with Moustier about reducing the military effectiveness of the legion. In addition, he agreed to cooperate with Berlin in distributing offers of amnesty to individual Hanoverians.

^ S e e ; Nos. 6I4J4.9 , 61+.66, 61j.7lf-, and 61j.8l in Les Origines Diplomatique de la Guerre 1870-71* (Paris, 1927), XX, Cf. Bismarck to Bernstorff, 12 February 1868 and Bismarck to Eicbmann, 15 February i 860 in Die Ausw£rtige P olitik Preussens, IX, pp. 6 8 7 , 702-203*

■^Goltz to William. 10 June 1868 in Die Ausw&rtige P o litik Preussens, X, pp. o5-69. Napoleon was particularly eager to avoid antagonizing Berlin because he had just received Count Beust's rejection of a proposed Franco- Austrian alliance. Duckstein, op. cit., p. 69* Goltz went to see Moustier but found him more evasive than the emperor. Moustier refused to permit the separation of the legionaires from their sergeants (as Bismarck now demanded) and explained that such an action might be inter­ preted as the persecution of legitimate political refugees. S till, he agreed that the existence of the Guelph Legion should not jeopardize relations with Berlin. As a result he consented to discuss the matter with the Minister of the Interio r. Bismarck seems to have accepted Napoleon’s reply without further ado. Perhaps he agreed with Goltz that it was not worth additional query, that Paris cared very little about the Guelph Legion.^® More probably, he hoped a new ploy would undercut the strength of the Hanoverian exiles. Through the Prussian legation in Paris he le t i t be known that Berlin would pay the travel fare and grant amnesty to

■^?Goltz to Bismarck, 10 June 1868, Die AuswRrtige P o litik Preussens, X, pp. 73-7• Exactly what the French government thought of the Guelph Legion is unclear. Moustier confided to Goltz that he once thought it would be of some military value to France but that he had since changed his mind. This may be true, for between 1868 and I8 7 O the Hanoverians received no financial support from Paris. Napoleon himself apparently never saw Meding and seems to have considered the legion an unwanted lia b ility . In addition to the correspondence cited here see: Duckstein, op. c it., p. 6 9 , and Gmunden, VIII B 53* ^^G oltz to Bismarck, 10 June 1868, Die AuswS.rtige Politik Preussens, X, p. 96 all legionaires seeking to return home.^9 Nearly three hundred men accepted the money hut did not show up to take a special train to Hanover. Nonetheless, Bismarck kept the

offer open, and toward the end of 1868 , a small trickle of

legionaires began to leave F r a n c e . Of a ll the Prussian measures taken against the Guelphsj none became so well known or so controversial as the sequestration of George’s fortune. As mentioned before, Bismarck regarded the treaty negotiated with Hietzing in

September 1867 as a de facto recognition of the new order in Hanover. He also hoped that the generous financial arrangements would weaken George’s interest in irredentist activities. As he put it; "A poor pretender is... more dangerous than a rich one; a rich one has never yet estab­ lished his pretensions. A poor one who... has nothing to lose, ventures more and therefore sometimes succeeds ,w Even before the Prussian Landtag ratified this treaty,

1^9Bismarck knew that many legionaires were tired and upset and wanted to go home. At least this is what his information told him. See; DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 3^4-3 A, Nr llj.2, Bd. I, pp. 251-260. l^^It seems incredibly naive that the Prussian govern­ ment should give the Hanoverians cash. But that is exactly what it did. Duckstein, op. c i t ., pp. 68-70. Also DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 90, D.I.b Nr. 5* Robert Nftll von der Nahmer reports this blunder cost the■Prussian.government 25,000 francs. Robert Nttll von der Nahmer, Bismarcks Reptilienfonds (Mainz, 1968), p. 37. Quoted in Bismarck, The Speeches of Count Bismarck > t > » ) pa 35* 97 however, voices were raised against i t . Johannes Miquel of the National Liberals, Ludwig Loewe, spokesman of the Pro­ gressive Party, and even Finance Minister von der Heydt all thought the settlement too generous. When news of the Guelph Legion and the Hietzng silver wedding anniversary became known, other people joined in the protest. Because of such popular pressure and because George had not behaved as Bismarck thought he should, the Chancellor decided to seize the Guelph fortune. An order to that effect was issued on 2 March 1868. It stated that all of George’s real estate, his sixteen million thalers in stocks and bonds, and a l l the revenue derived from them would be sequestered and held by the Prussian state until such time as it seemed justifiable to return it. At the same time, the government secured the right to take funds from this fortune and to use these against Guelph agitation. ^ 3 Foreign reaction to the seizure of the Guelph fortune was slig h t. Austria, France, and even B ritain remained indifferent. Bismarck was somewhat fearful that Russia might object, but Prince Reuss, the Prussian m inister to St. Petersburg, reported little concern there. He added

l6 2 Ibid. ^ 3 of. Ibid., Stehlin, op. c i t ., p. 9£, and Klopp, Das preussische Verfahren p. Il9* l i t t l e over a year later, however, Queen Victoria did inquire about the return of her counsin's fortune. 98 that even Grand Duchess Alexandra, George's sister-in-law, blamed the king for his own misfortune. In Prussia, public opinion generally approved the action. Not until nearly a year had passed, was there any debate on it in the Landtag. At that time Ludv/ig Windhorst, George's representative in the negotiations with Prussia and now the spokesman of the nascent German-Hanoverian Party, attacked the measure. He branded i t ille g a l and warned that if the Landtag approved it, it would be acting as "accuser, witness, evidence, judge, and legislator together." ^-86 Bismarck replied that there was a monstrous Guelph conspiracy afoot and that Berlin needed George’s fortune to pursue "these malicious reptiles even into their very holes to observe what they are d o i n g ."^7 The bill for sequestration was passed by a large majority. The confiscation of George's fortune thus gave birth to what became known as the "Reptile fund." For a short while this money was spent to suppress and control Guelph machinations, but later, as we shall see, it was put to entirely different uses. In fact, Bismarck came to regard

■^Stehlin, op. cit., p. 9 8 . •^i h j d . t pp. Q8-100. Text in Klopp, Das preussische Verfahren pp. I 6 0 -I 8 O

l67lbid., pp. 100- 1 0 2 . I

99 it as a sinking fund for the foreign office and stubbornly refused to return it to George or to his heirs. Interesting as the fate of this fund is, it need not concern us here. Rather, we should pose the question to what extent Prussia’s sequestration affected George's activities. The answer must be, l i t t l e or not at a ll. Writing to his cousin, the Duke of Cambridge, George revealed lit t le con­ cern for the confiscation. He claimed to have sufficient funds from his English stocks and other investments to live comfortably and still continue his activities. ^9 jn addi­ tion, he had kept two m illion thalers from the amount Klenck had taken to London in 1866 and would receive the interest from it for a period of two and one-half years. Hence, in the king’s opinion, the sequestration could not damage the Guelph cause before I8 7 O. In that year, incidentally, George did come to face financial difficulties. But, as we shall see, that was due more to the disastrous failure of a specu­ lative venture than to the sequestration of the Guelph fortune.-*-70

l 68 por more information on the Guelph fund see Chap­ ter IV. For a complete discussion of its use and larger political implications see: Stehlin, op. cit., pp. 300-353* Hans Philippi, nZur Geschichte . .. ,n ppV 190-25f|, and above ' a l l Nbll von der Nahmer, op. c i t . .. •*-^9George to the Duke of Cambridge, 20 March, 1868, 30 June 1868, Gmunden, Correspondenz. 170g-fcehlin, op. c i t . , pp. 93-97* Also see below: In a sense^this is debatable; had George had the Guelph fund, he might.not have been in financial difficulties. The point is, however, that never once did the king plan to use the fund to finance his court or his activities. 100 In summary, the effectiveness of Bismarck's anti- Guelph measures was mixed. The expulsion of Queen Marie had the advantage of removing a symbol of royal authority, but like the a rre st of harmless Guelph sympathizers, i t deepened anti-Prussian feelings in Hanover. Similarly, the sequestra­ tion of George's fortune called attention to what seemed to be a particularist menace; but, although Bismarck must have foreseen the price to be paid, it too irritated feelings in the former kingdom and later throughout all of Germany. Only his diplomatic pressure in Vienna and Paris could be termed truly effective; i t helped alienate Beust from Platen and destroyed what l it t le value the Guelph Legion may have had. S till, in the long run, most of the measures were unnecessary, for even under optimum conditions George was never in a position to threaten the power and strength of the North German German Confederation.

The Wiener Bank Episode

While Bismarck's diplomats and spies combated Guelph machinations George's position declined. This was the resu lt not so much of Prussian success as of the inevitable calumny and disputes that so often accompany exile movements. As early as February 1867 a bitter quarrel over a trivial in su lt led to a duel between the king's nephew Bernhard von Solms and George's aide de camp, Count Erhard Wedel. This cost Solms his life, and it contributed to the air of sus­ picion and fear that was already growing at Hietzing. Soon 101 after the arriv al of Queen Marie another quarrel developed between the followers of Meding on the one hand and those of Count Platen on the other. Both groups vied for control of Guelph foreign policy and both constantly catered to the king for his favors. Besides these disputes the king also proved vulnerable to outside sycophants and informers,

people who took advantage of him for their personal g a i n .-*-71 One such person may have been Ernst Holl&nder, the editor of La S ituation. His early demise conceivably saved George from financial ruin, but even so his venture cost at least 150,000 francs. **-72 Another such vulture was a certain Staatsrat Klindworth, an Austrian who claimed intimate con­ nections with the Ballhausplatz. He first appeared at Hietzing in November 1868 and suggested that George might make up for the loss of his sequestered fortune by investing his remaining money in a corporate bank. This would sell shares on the stock exchange and in the speculation that followed, earn generous profits.-*-73 The Guelph king was not particularly impressed by this proposal. Although a ll Vienna was engaged in a specu­ lative boom, ^-l- he was not interested in making money.

171Ge orge to Sir Charles Wyke, 3 March 1867 , Gmunden, Correspondenz, Meding, op. c i t ., I l l , p p . 326-330, and Gmunden, VIII B 53*

172Gmunden, VIII B 5 3 , P* 102.

•*-73j/[eding, op. c i t ., Ill, pp. 383-386. 17^1-por more details on this and its consequences see: A.J.P. Taylor, The Habsburg Monarchy 1809-1918 (London, 19lj-8), p . 1 5 0 . 102 Klindworth then told him that the Austrian government stood behind the project, and that it viewed it as a way to finance George’s anti-Prussian activities. He also claimed that Napoleon III knew' about the idea and that Lord Clarendon, the British Foreign Secretary, had given it his blessing. This aroused George's interest, for he now saw a way to improve his chances of securing foreign aid.^^ The Wiener Bank,' as i t was called, was thus chartered. George contributed 1,600,000 florins to start it off; shares

were offered for public sale at 200 florins each. For a while the bank seemed to prosper. By August the price of

the shares had climbed to 285 flo rin s, and i t was rumored the kind would soon realize a profit of over forty per cent. Then, early in September, Klindworth and Dr. Wippern, one of the bank's directors, came to see George at his summer home in Gmunden. The stock market had suddenly given signs of decline and they now sought collateral to keep the price of the bank shares at its present high level. George demurred and demanded an explanation. In the exchange that followed Klindworth and Wippern admitted they had used some of the kingrs investments to purchase shares of the Wiener Bank and thus force up the market price. George was furious; he refused their request and commissioned his son to investigate the bank's proce­ dures. In this inquiry Ernest Augustus learned that the

•L75jieding, op. c i t ., I l l , pp. 398-lj.OO. 103 three bank directors had withheld shares from public sale, that they had used large sums of George's money to finance

their own speculations, and that 15>,222 florins had simply disappeared from the bank's accounts. Additional investiga­ tions revealed a clear case of embezzlement. George tried to liquidate his investment, but it was too late. The bank failed; Klindworth fled to Paris; and the king suffered a loss of 1 , 6 0 0 ,0 0 0 florins.17^

The Treason of Oskar Meding

More than any other event since 1866 the collapse of the Wiener Bank was to have profound consequences fo r George and his exile government. It played a major role in forcing him to abandon the Guelph Legion; i t intensified the feud between Meding and Platen; and it eventually led Meding to betray the Guelph cause and embrace the banner of Prussia. As soon as i t became apparent what had happened, George and his advisers realized they would have to cut expenses immediately or face bankruptcy. The most pressing costs, moreover, - those of maintaining the Guelph Legion in Prance - now seemed the most wasteful and useless. Accordingly, a royal order of dissolution was sent to Me d ing.

■^This account is based on Gmunden, VIII B ij.1 (Bericht Seiner K&niglichen Hoheit des Kronpronzen an Seine Majest&t den Kttnig betreffend die Wiener Bank.) lO lj. The press chief balked at this order. He replied that the Legion was too important to abandon, that was with Prussia was inevitable, and that he had a scheme to cut costs and save the Legion at the same time. This entailed organizing the emigrants as military colonists and sending them to Algeria. There they could live at no cost until the clarion sounded to fight fo r a Guelph restoration. George was somewhat intrigued by this idea. He emphasized that he could not afford to maintain the Legion under present con­ ditions, but that Meding should consult with the French government and then come to Gmunden to present his views in person. Meding may have felt that his Algerian plan offered a practical way to salvage the Guelph Legion. After all, he had engineered the project in the first place, and he was in no mood to abandon i t now. Nevertheless, he seems also to have been controlled by baser motives - the fear of losing influence with the king and, above a ll, the fear of losing a lucrative source of income. For over a year suspicion of Meding and his activities had been growing at Hietzing. The Crown Prince and the historian Onno Klopp believed that the press chief might be a Prussian agent and were collecting evidence to support their contention. Curiously, their suspicion had been

^Gmunden, VIII B 5 3 , PP* 217-228, and Meding, op. c i t ., I l l , pp. 1j.50-Ij.53* sparked by a rather innocuous event. In December 1867 Count Paul Breda, a retired French diplomat and friend of the Bourbon pretender, Count Chambord, had visited Klopp in Vienna. The two had discussed the international situation and were about to part ways when Klopp casually mentioned the Meding mission. Breda remarked that a Roman Catholic might have more influence at the Imperial Court than a north German Protestant and, in another context, that one of his

closest friends, the Marquis de P i e n n e , ^ 8 was an intimate of Napoleon’s. Klopp then suggested Breda might be in te r­ ested in serving the Guelph cause as such a representative. Breda agreed, and after a series of conferences with the king was officially confirmed in this role on 23 June 1868. George was pleased by the appointment and stated that he now had two good horses to pull his wagon in Paris. -*-79 Breda journeyed to the French capital and, due to his connections, secured an audience with Napoleon. As mentioned earlier, he learned to his astonishment that the emperor had never heard of Meding. Further inquiry revealed that offi­ cials who did know the press chief had no idea what he was doing nor why George had employed him as his special envoy. They advised Breda to warn the blind monarch against Meding.

178i have not been able to identify Pienne.

•^Gmunden, VIII B 53, PP. 117-132 and B 31 (Klopp to ? 26 May 1893)• io 6 This Breda did, but when Platen gently tried to relay the' information to his sovereign, George refused to believe it.-*-®® Thus, a curious situation developed at Hietzing. One group which included Platen, the Crown Prince, and Klopp regarded Meding as a Prussian agent or a traitor, while another including the king regarded him as the Guelph’s most loyal agent. Exactly what Meding did do in these years is not clear. He seems to have been absorbed in the Guelph Legion; perhaps he considered himself a military expert for he took an avid interest in its organization and activities. -*-®-*- Nonetheless, this was not the main purpose of his mission: that had been to effect an alliance with Napoleon’s govern­ ment. And that was something Meding had not done or even tried to do. Indeed, all of his many reports to Hietzing and those sections of his memoirs that allude to such diplo­ matic contact must be regarded as untrue. One thing Meding had done was to live a luxurious life in one of P a ris’ most sumptuous d is tric ts . His apart­

ment cost over 1 1 ,0 0 0 francs per year and, by early 1870 , he had managed to incur a debt of 17,000 francs. As his

salary was j? ,0 0 0 thalers per annum ( 1 8 ,1 0 0 francs) he obviously lived far beyond his means. To make matters worse he also rented an expensive villa at Thun in

!®®Ibid., and George to Platen 27 July 1868, VIII B lj.0. ^l-See, for example, the various documents in N.St. A.H., Hann. ijB a II B l-£. 107 Switzerland.not known if Meding embezzled Guelph funds, but it is certain he had access to large sums of

George’s money. Between July 1868 and September I 8 6 9 , for instance, he secretly spent at least 3 0 0 ,0 0 0 francs from the accounts of La S ituation. And in December, 1869 he demanded 1 8 ,0 0 0 francs - almost the exact amount he owed his land­ lord - to "subsidize" a pro-Guelph newspaper. In short, Meding was a man with an insatiable greed for money, a taste for high living, and an inability to manage what funds he had. With an unlimited expense account, however, he could do practically as he pleased; he need only file regular reports of fictitious diplomatic contacts to Hietzing. Thus, when the order to dissolve the Legion reached him it could only mean the end of a luxurious career. Meding obviously knew that his star was waning. Many of his supporters had left the Guelph court or had fallen from royal grace. He probably also knew that his refusal to explain his expenditures from the funds of La Situation had aroused Count Platen and had cast him in disfavor at Hietzing. Finally, he felt that Count Breda - whose mission

^■^Meding to Maxen, 8 January 1881, Memorandum by Professor Maxen, 16 December I 8 7 O, Hattensauer to /Platen?7» 20 March I87 O, Gmunden, VIII B 50; also see? Dammers, op. c i t ., p. 202. Another document at Gmunden (Maxen to Platen, 2 February 1881, B 50) indicates that after 1867 Meding's salary was raised to 9,600 thalers per year.

' l 8 ikJmunden, VIII B 53, P« 2 3 8 . 108 should have been kept a secret from him - had probably dis­ covered the truth and reported this to George. At any rate, in late atitumn 1869 when Meding reported to Gmunden he was recedved with considerable coolness. George of course refused to believe the obvious and treated him with his usual warmth and interest. But he now expressed skepticism of the Algerian project, and ordered him and D\!u?ing to work out further details. Returning to Paris, Meding reported that the project would cost at least 800,000 francs, but claimed that i t had the f u ll backing of Count Armand, the cabinet chief of the Foreign Office, of Marshal MacMahon, and even of Napoleon I I I . ’'-88 Despite the optimistic tone of this dispatch, George was disturbed by the large costs involved. At the advice of his son, he decided to send a commission of m ilitary experts to Paris to investigate the practicality of moving the Legion to North Africa. This group included a number of former Hanoverian officers - Colonels G. F. Dammers and

l8^This, at least, can be extrapolated from his vicious attacks on Platen, Hattensauer, and Breda in various reports to Hietzing. Meding to George, 6 September I8 6 9 , Gmunden, VIII B I 4.7; Meding to Platen, 29 August 1869, B 50; "Meding gegen den vormaligen Ktinig von Hannover," 2L\. May I87 O, B 50, B 53, PP. 1?|J[.-155. - Meding never seems to have discovered the true nature of the Breda mission, but in true paranoic style deduced he was one of Platen’s agents sent to spy on him. Sees Meding, op. c i t ., pp. l 4.08 -ij.i5 . •^Gmunden, VIII B 53, PP« 230-2l|i|.. Meding, op. c i t .. I ll, pp. l4.5ij.-6 7 . 109 C.v.d. Decken, Major von Adelebsen, Rittm eister Schwarz - and former Minister of State Alexander von M\!inchhausen. -*-®7 They arrived in Paris at the end of January and proceeded to inspect the various units of Hanoverians stationed through­ out the countryside. At the same time, M&nchhausen met with some representatives of the French government’*-®® and, like Breda before him, discovered that no one had ever heard of Meding - let alone of the plan to transfer the Legion to Algeria. He was advised that this exile force should indeed be abandoned.-*-®9 At Hietzing, George and Platen issued at once an order of dissolution: all legionaires were given severance pay of lj.00 francs and commanded to cease their military activities.by 15 April. Meding refused to accept this decision, however, and formed a Comite de patronage which, in effect, sought to persuade legionaires to stay in France. When George discovered this, he dismissed his agent immedi­ ately from his Parisian p o s t . -*-90 Despite many warnings that the blind king might take such a step, Meding was appalled by his dismissal. He

-*-®7s u p r a . , p . 3ij.. iS^Exactly who is not recorded.

•L®9Dammers 1 op. cit., pp. 202-205. Gmunden, VIII B 5 5 and B 53, PP. 252-260. On 7 February Dammers gave the f i r s t indication that Meding may have swindled George out of large sums of money. B 53, PP* 260-62. to Platen, 6 March I 87 O, Gmunden, VIII B 52 and B 53, PP. 261^-73- 110 retreated to his residence at Thun and took with him the Great Seal of Hanover and a large number of important docu­ ments. Platen wrote him that once he returned these items he would be given generous severance pay and a yearly pen­ sion of 2500 francs. ^91 Meding retorted that this was insufficient and demanded at least 1600 francs per month . ^92 When Hietzing refused, he filed a suit against the king in a Berlin court and issued an ultimatum: either George pay the amount he demanded or he would be ’’forced to take the most ruthless of steps.”^93 At Hietzing, it was decided to let this impudent threat go unanswered. But Meding was not bluffing. Vi/hen he received no reply he boarded a train for Berlin and on 30 July 1870 arrived in the Prussian capital. He proceeded immediately to the Wilhelmstrasse and there, late in the evening, offered hisservices to Bismarck and the 'German nation.' In his memoirs he recounts that the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War had so stirred his patriotism and national spirit that he could not have done otherwise.^95 He also claims to have been concerned for the fate of the Hanoverians trapped in

■^Ipiaten to Meding, 28 April 1870, Gmunden VIII B 52. •*-92jfleding to Platen, 15 May I 87 O, in Ibid.

•^Meding to Finanzrath Kniep, 21 June I 87 O in Ib id . Meding may have filed his suit in Berlin in the hope of securing a settlement from the Guelph fund.

19 itemunden, VIII B 53, PP. 300-302.

^95>Meding, op. c i t .. I l l , pp. !(.95-502. I l l Prance and to have exacted a promise from Bismarck that they would be pardoned and not shot as traitors.^96 In actual fact, Meding was motivated by something other than patriotism . For his services, his knowledge, and, above a ll, his o fficial papers Bismarck paid a handsome

price - 5 ,0 0 0 thalers and an annual pension of 2 ,5 0 0 tha­ lers .197 The former press chief retired thereafter from public life and in the years that followed, took up a new career as the author of cheap but widely read p o litic a l novels. One of these, Urn Szepter und Kronen, dealt with the events of 1868 in Hanover. I t blamed Platen and Onno Klopp for Hanover's involvement in the Austro-Pj?ussian War and exalted Meding1s own role as that of a latter-day Cassandra. Yet in this fic tio n a l work as well as in his memoirs and other works Meding always treated George V with a marked degree of kindness and sympathy, blaming the monarch's ultimate fate on ”historical necessity.”-*-98 As an author Meding was enormously successful, and, true to form, he did

^ ib id . This part of Meding's story seems to be true. On the night of 30 July I 87 O Bismarck informed the Ministry of State that twelve officers and two hundred men of the Guelph Legion should not only be amnestied, but also receive annual pensions from the Guelph fund. DZA. Merseburg, Rep. 90, D. I. b. 1)., Nr. 5, I, P» 1&5*

■^Leffler, op. cit., p. Il6 .

198 Nt!>ll von der Nahmer, op. c i t ., p. 38, Th.Bentzon, "Un Roman Politique en Allemagne,1* Literature et Moeurs Etrangeres, pp. 113-156, Oskar Meding. Neunzig 3-n Glaube, Kampf und Sieg; ein Menschen und Heldenbild unseres deutscnen Kaisers. Stuttgart, ibd7, P« 5?» 112 not abandon his spendthrift ways. In 1881 he ran into seri­ ous financial troubles, ^99 ancj i n 1903 when he died, his daughters wrote the Duke of Cumberland (George's son) that their father had left them nothing.

The last Mission of Count Breda and the End of George's Active Resistance

Oskar Meding's betrayal was a blow from which George never recovered. I t spelled the end of his serious resto ra­ tion attempts and marked the end of the so-called Guelph agitation. All the same, the denouement wa 3 slow in coming, for the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War seemed to offer one last chance to secure French aid. At first, the developing crisis over the candidacy of Prince Leopold von Hohenzollern for the Spanish throne went almost unnoticed by Guelph diplomats. In the confusion and bitterness surrounding the treason of Meding this was per­ haps not unnatural. On 9 July I 8 7 O Count Platen had written George that the crisis hardly seemed a casus belli between France and Prussia and that Count Beust thought so little of it he had left on vacation.Several days later, how­ ever, Hietzing realized that the situation had grown more

■*-99Meding to Dr. Maxen, 8 January 1881, Gmunden, VIII B 52.

2 0 0Gmunden, VIII B

20-LPlaten to George, 9 July 1870 , Gmunden, VIII B 31- 113 serious and dispatched Count Breda to negotiate with the Quai-d* Orsay. In a series of conversations with the Duke of Gramont, who had recently been re-appointed Foreign Minister, Breda pressed for an alliance. He emphasized that George could provide troops and equipment and that the king would appeal to his subjects to rise in'revolt against their Prussian masters. Furthermore, he stressed that a Hanoverian corps attached to the French army would dissuade Bismarck from making the war a holy crusade against the hereditary enemy of the German nation. In return George asked only su fficient financial subsidies and a guarantee of Hanoverian indepen- aence. 208 Gramont remained evasive about providing subsidies, but did agree to accept the alliance and to use Hanoverian troops once the French army crossed the German border. Since financial aid was a sine qua non to the Guelphs,^^ these terms were unacceptable. Breda then urged George to

2O8rp0xt 0f proposed treaty at Gmunden, VIII B 31. ^®9greda to Platen, 27 July 1870, Gmunden VIII B 31* This seems to have been something of a victory fo r Breda since on 19 July Napoleon III had decided against the use of any foreign troops in his army. A number of Russian officers had volunteered to serve under the tricolour, but the French General Staff felt their presence would only com­ plicate an already confused situation. See: Gramont to La Valette, 19 July I 87 O and Gramont to Fleurry 21 July I 8 7 O in les Origines Diplomatiques de la Guerre, XXIX, pp. 97- 100"“15T." : 210piaten to George, 18 July I 87 O, Gmunden, VIII B 31* 1 3 4 come to Paris and negotiate w ith Napoleon himself. This might have had some effect, but Platen rejected the idea because he f e l t the French offers were too nebulous and the chances of securing financial aid too slim.^1-1- With that an impasse was reached, and negotiations between George and the French government came to an end. Due to confusion in Paris, the Quai d'Orsay's concern for more pressing matters, and the lightning progress of the Prussian army they were never resumed again. Perhaps this was just as well. Had George been able to conclude an agreement with Paris i t might have had dis­ astrous results. Hanoverian soldiers caught serving in Napoleon's ranks might have been shot as tra ito rs, and George himself would have been condemned as the enemy of the German nation. As it was, George's non-involvement in the war of

I87 O made Bismarck's subsequent charges of treason seem hollow; moreover, when the Chancellor later branded all

^H piaten to George, 22 July I 87 O, Gmunden, VIII B 31. Platen was correct in this belief. The Quai d'Orsay was sympathetic to the Guelph plight, but, as Gramont wrote his envoy in Vienna, i t simply lacked the money to finance George's project. Whether the French really believed George could raise an army in Hanover is unknown. Napoleon seems to have had in mind the creation of a Rhenish kingdom of roughly five million inhabitants in Western Germany. This would be given to George but undoubtedly lie within France's sphere of influence. See: Gramont to Cazaux, 20 July I 87 O, Les Origines Diplomatiques de la Guerre, XXIX, pp. 151-152. and Gasser to Ludwig II (of Bavaria) in Hermann Oncken, Die Rheinlandpolitik Kaiser Napoleon III« von 1863 bis 1870 und der Hrsprung des Krieges von 1870-71. HI* Stuttgart, 1926 , pp. 44b-l|49» - 1 1 5 PIP Guelphs "enemies of the Reich” he provoked a reaction of sympathy for the deposed monarch. This sympathy eventually helped pave the way for a reconciliation of the Houses of Guelph and Hohenzollern in 1913* On the other hand, George did not cease his h o stility to Bismarck or to the Prussian state. He still considered himself at war with Berlin and refused to listen to any sug­ gestions of compromise. In December, 1870, for instance, he received pleas from Grand Duke Peter of Oldenburg, Duke Ernest of Sachsen-Altenburg, and Grand Duke Alexander of Sachsen-Weimar-Eisenach, urging him to send his son to fight with the Saxon army in Prance and thus demonstrate that his hostility did not extend to the German nation as a whole. They emphasized that this action might compel Bismarck to seek a compromise with Hietzing, and that, above all, it would strengthen the Guelph right of inheritance to the . George rejected this suggestion out of hand. He stressed the inviolability of his sovereignty and asserted that he would never renounce his rights or abdicate in favor

^■^He did this in order to provide an excuse for keeping the Guelph Fund which he was using as a sinking fund in the Foreign Office. See; Chapter V. ^■^Because Duke William of Brunswick had never married, his Duchy was due to pass to the Guelphs on his death. For more details see: Chapter V.

i 116 of his s o n .^ ^ He behaved as if nothing had happened since June 1866. I t is interesting to speculate what might have hap­ pened had George heeded this suggestion. However, he simply was not the man to do so. Stubborn and unrealistic, he con­ tinued to view Prussia as an hereditary enemy. In his final years he spent most of his time at Gmunden near Salzburg. In 1873 he moved to Prance and there underwent a series of painful operations for a bone disease. After that he lived quietly in Paris, and there on 12 June 1878 he died. Twelve days later he was buried beside his ancestors in St. George's Chapel, Windsor, England.2-^ At f i r s t glance any study of George's exile govern­ ment seems largely a tale of futility. Infinitesimal and weak, the Hietzing regime stood little chance of reversing the events of 1866. Prom the beginning its activities were unrealistic and its strategy often unsound. George himself was given to all sorts of fantastic schemes and in the end fell victim to calumny and betrayal. Yet at the same time this rather dimunitive Hietzing regime proved remarkably persistent in its attempts at restoration. It sent diplomatic missions to the major capitals of Europe; i t sponsored agitation in Hanover; and

■^Phi lippi, Preussen und die braunschweigisch Thronfolgefrage, pp. 2 3 -2£.

2 1 ^Klopp, Georg V., pp. 83 -8 6 , Wippermann, loc. c i t ., p. 6 6 9 , and Schnath, "Georg V.”, p. 2l£. 117 i t even created an exile army in Prance. To Bismarck this exile government seemed dangerous enough to warrant close observation by professional spies. Considering the hopeless­ ness of George’s position after Koniggr&tz, his exile diplo­ macy thus stands as a testimony to his tenacity .^16 In a similar vein, the life of the unfortunate monarch had certain repercussions within Hanover. There i t became a legend to his supporters and even to some of those who had opposed him before 1866. In time his foibles and repressive ways were forgotten and his fate took on that of a martyr. This provided a focal point for those who continued to stand in opposition to the Prussian state. Prom their ranks the German-Hanoverian Party was formed - a strong p a rtic u la rist movement which was to becomo a source of irrita tio n to the Berlin government for many years to come.

^-*-^0n the other hand it is curious that George did not seek contact with anti-Prussian groups in Bavaria, for they would certainly have been his natural allies. Instead, the king closed his legation in Munich soon after the Seven Weeks War and apparently paid little attention to develop­ ments in that state. See: Gmunden, VI, 3.

i I l l

THE RISE OP THE GUELPH MOVEMENT IN HANOVER 1866-1870

On 7 November 1866, nearly a month a fte r the annexa­ tion of Hanover, a group of Hanoverian nobles and landowners met in the capital of their former kingdom. There they sought to draft a statement of policy regarding the new order and, if possible, to secure some measure of rapproche­ ment with the Prussian sta te . After a long and acrimonious debate, the delegates agreed on a declaration of principle: reluctantly they accepted the results of the past summer but urged Berlin to maintain as many Hanoverian political insti­ tutions as possible, in particular the Hanoverian parlia­ ment. This petition, it will be reballed, had the opposite effect: Fritz zu Eulenburg, the Prussian Minister of the ■ Interior, not only rejected it outright but also suspended 2 nearly all its signers from office. This was a mistake. The men involved may have used reproachful language in their declaration, but they did after all express a willingness to

^Heinrich Langwerth von Simmern, Aus Meinem Leben, Erlebtes und Gedachtes, (Berlin, 1898), II , pp. 1-5, Text In Hopf, op. c i t ., pp. 2Supra.. p. i}.8.

1 1 8 119 cooperate with Berlin. Eulenburg ignored thi 3 and, in so doing, drove the signers into opposition. The nobles and landowners proceeded to ra lly the recalcitran t followers of King George as well as other elements hostile to Prussia and to forge them into a p o litic a l force known as the Guelph movement. 3

The Guelph movement, contrary to the notions of Prussian leaders and officials, was not a movement organized and directed by George V. In fa c t, records a t the Herzoglich

Braunschweigisch-L\!ineburgische3 Hausarchiv in Gmunden indi­ cate that the king had l i t t l e in terest in i t and had prac­ tically no contact with its leaders.^- It was rather a simultaneous reaction by a large segment of the Hanoverian population to the ’Prussianization’ of its country; a loose political alignment of different men and ideologies based as much on hatred of Prussia as on loyalty to the House of Guelph. £

^Simmern, op. c i t ., pp. 5-12. ij.perhaps it would be more accurate to say that the dearth of records of Gmunden reveals George's aloofness from the Guelph movement. Two boxes of p o litic a l documents there (VIII C, 1-30) indicate almost no contact. This can be explained in the following way: 1 ) a political alighment, such as the Guelph movement, might contain the seeds of sansculottism so feared by the king; 2) some of the Guelph leaders in Hanover, such as the democrat Eichholz, were anathema to George; 3) the king depended more on his own diplomatic and military efforts to return to power than on a political party in his former kingdom. Sees Gmunden, VIII C 15 and George to Platen, 26 July 1870, B 31*

-’Leffler, op. c i t ., p. 6 . 1 2 0 The f i r s t signs of the development of such an opposi­ tion became evident in late January 1867 . At that time cam­ paigning was under way for elections to the constituent Reichstag of the North German Confederation. These elections were organized by Bismarck in order to obtain a popular sanc­ tion for his new political creation and profess his confi­ dence in the masses. 6" In Hanover i t was clear from the beginning that the chancellor intended to interpret the results as a judgement on the annexation.? The Hanoverian members of the Nationalverein realized this too. They had helped organize the National Liberal Party and were now campaigning on a platform stating that approval of the annexation - i.e., a National Liberal victory - would repre­ sent a step toward German unity and security.® The Guelph opposition was not as w ell organized as the National Liberal Party and was largely confined to those areas which had long belonged to the Hanoverian monarchy.^ Moreover, because i t was based almost en tirely on a negative program - resistance to Prussia - it was made up of various disparate elements. These included Hanoverian nobles, artisans, industrial workers, and even a few disaffected

®Pflanze, op. cit., p.

^Ehrenfeuchter, ' op. c i t . , p. I4.7 , and Busch, op. c i t . , p. 1 6 3 . ®Busch, op. c i t . , pp. li^l-itlj., and Kurmeier, op. c i t . , p . 138 . ^The reader is referred to Maps 1 and 2 on pp. 1 2 1 bourgeois democrats. Nonetheless, the leadership fell largely to the nobility and landed proprietors and hence the name Guelph - in reference to the royal family - was not entirely undeserved.-*-® The Hanoverian nobility quite naturally resented the Prussian rule. Its members regarded their eastern neighbors as parvenus and f e l t a strong sense of loyalty to George V. Many of them in fact accompanied their sovereign into exile. Broadly speaking, those who remained in Hanover represented a closed oligarchy: they controlled a number of important administrative positions in the former Guelph kingdom and guarded their power with the utmost tenacity. They thus represented an important segment of the Hanoverian resistance, but were by no means its guiding light. The re a l backbone of the Guelph movement was a power­ ful class of landed proprietors - the Ritterschaft. As free­ holders these Ritter had been granted the right to inherit property in the eighteenth century and subsequently developed into a group of prosperous independent landowners. Since Lower Saxony was comparatively small, their estates averaged only some 1^.0,000 Morgen, ^ but they enjoyed special

•*-®Ehrenfeuchter, op. c i t ., p. I 4.8 . •*--*-Pitz, op. c i t . . p. 153, Srbik, op. c i t ., I l l , p. 2ij.3, Busch, op. c i t ., pp. 10L|.-5, and Waldersee, op. c it., I, p. li|2.

•^a Morgen is somewhat smaller than an acre. In the average size of an estate was 150,000 Morgen. 1 2 2 privileges such as freedom from taxation. Some of these rights were abrogated during the nineteenth century, but in 1855 George V restored them in their entirety. This meant that the -Ritter became the king's most zealous supporters and feared the loss of Hanoverian independence perhaps more than any other group in the kingdom.^3 There were additional reasons for the landed proprie­ tors to become leaders of the Guelph opposition. To begin with they feared that incorporation in Prussia would not only mean an end to their special status, but could also spell economic disaster: when forced to .compete with East Elbian Junkers their small estates and limited resources would not prove equal to the task. Secondly, in the event of a National Liberal victory - even if Hanover should be given a large measure of autonomy - the R itter would most assuredly forfeit additional privileges. After all, the Hanoverian National Liberals v/ere the same men who had assailed their position in the years before 1866. Finally, as Hanover was primarily a rural state with over three quarters of the population engaged in agriculture, the Ritter were clearly among the most influential personalities

^ L e ffle r, op. c it., p. 75, Busch, op. c i t ., pp. 85, 105-108, Kurmeier, op. c i t ., p. 94» Schnath, Geschichte, pp. 50-56, and Theodore- S.' Hamerow, Restoration, Revolution, Reaction. Economics and P olitics in Germany 1815-1871 (Princeton, 190b), pp. lj.1 -IfiT. 123 of the kingdom. I t was only natural they would want to preserve their position of dominance.^ Another group which became part of the Guelph opposi­ tion was the Hanoverian civil service. Made up of a large number of nobles, this class was well known for its effi­ ciency and talent. Even the pro-Prussian historial Heinrich von Treitschke was forced to admit that no other German state of equivalent size had produced so many outstanding officials.^ After 1866 Treitschke even joined the National Liberal leader Johannes Miquel in urging that Hanover be allowed to retain its bureaucratic institutions. The c iv il service, however, looked on Berlin with disdain. Many of its members were still loyal, to the Guelphs; others had no desire to master the Prussian legal code. ..S till others feared that Prussian efficiency would eliminate the nepotism which had recently crept into the bureaucracy. The majority thus were deeply shocked by Eulenburg's rejection of the Hanoverian petition. They resented the order of 12 December 1866, suspending a large number of them, and feared it was but a prelude to a general dismissal of all Hanoverian officials.^

l^Busch, op. c it ., pp. 105-108 and Kurmeier, op. c it., p. 91}-. •^Heinrich von Treitschke, Deutsche Geschichte im Neunzehnten Jahrhundert (Leipzig 1696 ), III, p. 539* ^Heinrich Heffter, Die Deutsche Selbstverwaltung im 19. Jahrhundert, (Stuttgart, 195^1» P» l}-76.

•*-7Busch, op. c i t ., pp. IOI-IOI 4.. 1 2 lj. Hanover's Lutheran clergy also chafed under the annexation. Their orthodox Landeskirche considered the Prussian Union (of Lutheran and Reformed Churches) heretical and now feared an extension of its control to the new pro­ vince. This would mean forfeiture of a monopoly of state education as well as the loss of other rights and p riv ile g e s .^ Intense loyalty to George V also motivated the clergy. They appreciated the monarch's piety and his efforts on behalf of the church. In 1862, for instance, George had tried to introduce a more orthodox catechism in Hanover. This pro­ duced a b listering c risis with the liberals, and the measure was eventually defeated. In the process, however, the king

endeared himself to the conservative churchmen.^ Like the orthodox Lutherans, Hanover's Roman Catholics f e l t that they must join the Guelph party. They remembered the imprisonment of the archbishop of by Frederick William I I I ,^ and they feared that some of them might now

■^Moritz Busch reports that the Hanoverian Landeskirche had been preaching hatred of Prussia ever since the formation of the Union in 1817, Ibid., p. 8 7 . Also' see; Stehlin, op. cit., p. 2^ 1 . •*-9l,effler, op. c i t .. p. 93, and Heffter, op. c i t ., . pp. i|J25-2 6 .

^®In the late 1 8 3 0 's the problem of mixed'marriages in Prussia caused a bitter conflict between Berlin and the Vatican. When Clemens Droste zu Vischering, Archbishop of Cologne, obdurately refused to permit such unions in his diocese he was arrested (20 November 1837) and imprisoned at Minden fo r over two years. This heavy handed action precipitated a good deal of bitterness throughout all of Germany. For more details see the interesting but tenden­ tious book by Hans Joachim Schoeps, Preussen, Geschichte eines Staates (Berlin, 1966 ), pp. Ib2-ti3• 125 experience a sim ilar fa te . Moreover, like a l l Catholics in both North and South Germany, they regarded the exclusion of Austria from German affairs as an almost unbelievable catas­ trophe and they thought they might soon lose their identity in an overwhelmingly Protestant population. Finally, under George V, Hanoverian Catholics had experienced a marked degree of religious toleration and security. Their most eloquent spokesman, Ludwig Windhorst had twice served as the ' king*s Minister of Justice (1851-53, 1862-65), and in 1857 George personally supervised the re-establishm ent of the long defunct bishopric of Osnabriick. Hanoverian Catholics thus not only feared Prussia because of her lingering hostility, but also felt a deep and abiding loyalty to the House of Guelph.^-1- Besides groups like the nobility, the civil service and the Lutheran clergy, which had always supported George V, some of his former opponents also rallied to the Guelph cause. Among these were some merchants and disaffected liberals, a few intellectuals, and a large number of crafts­ men and workers. Generally speaking, most businessmen had been enthusiastic members of the Nationalverein. Having suffered under the old regime, they welcomed the annexation. Some living in the city of Hanover, however, held lucrative

^Kurmeier, op. cit*, P* 97, George C. Windell, The Catholics and German Unity (Minneapolis, 195^), PP» 3-8, and Wilhelm Spaehl, Ludwig Windhorst, Sjn Lebensbild (Osnabrttck, 1962), pp.

/ government contracts. They built streets or railways or were engaged in some business dealing with the Hanoverian court. Now their livelihood was threatened, and they joined the Guelph party. 22 Other members of the middle class, while still believing in the goals of the Nationalverein, were deeply disturbed by the events of the preceding summer. They regretted the loss of Hanoverian independence and felt uneasy about living in Bismarck’s Prussia. Typical of this group was Ehrenreich Eichholz (1807-1871), a charter member of the Nationa lverein and editor of the liberal Zeitung f\!ir Norddeutschland. Eichholz was so distraught by the removal of Austria from German affairs and the subsequent annexation of Hanover that he resigned his position with the Zeitung fttr Norddeutschland and assumed the editorship of the particularist Deutsche Volkszeitung, the former government newspaper. Under his aegis it now became the organ of the Guelph movement.23 Most Hanoverian university professors, attorneys, and other intellectuals welcomed the annexation. An important exception was Dr. (1803-1875), professor of theology and oriental languages at the University of Gottingen. Ewald had been one of the famous Gottingen Seven who protested the abrogation of the constitution of

^Busch, pp. c i t ., pp. 95-97• ^Kurmeier, op. c i t ., p. 95; Prilop, op. c i t ., p. 1 3 2 . 127 1833. After his dism issal by Ernest Augustus he had gone to

Tubingen, but in I8 I4.7 had returned to his alma mater where he became one of the greatest oriental scholars of his time. Nineteen years later he rejected the annexation of Hanover and supported George V. He wrote a pamphlet entitled Lob des Kbnigs und des Volkes in which he denounced B erlin as the center of" all evil. For this act he was subsequently arrested and tried for treason. 21+

Although Hanoverian craftsmen were not particularly loyal to George V, it was not surprising that they too joined the Guelph movement. Throughout Germany artisans and craftsmen feared the steady advance of Prussian power, for it brought in its wake the growth of industrialism. This undermined the conservative guilds and represented a serious threat to hundreds of thousands of people s t i l l try­ ing to make their living according to the rules of a pre­ c a p ita list society. Hanover, as an agrarian sta te , had been immune to such problems under the Guelphs; now, with annexa­ tion to the Hohenzollern monarchy, the threat of industri­ a liz a tio n seemed very rea l in d ee d .^ Interestingly, Hanoverian industrial workers, although not very numerous, were also pro-Guelph. Industry

2^-Hans Kohn, The Mind of Germany (New York, i 9 6 0 ), p. 179; Heinrich Ewald, Lob des Kftnigs und des Volkes (Stuttgart, 1868). ^For an excellent discussion on the effects of industrialization on the guilds in Germany see^ Hamerow, op. c i t ., pp. 21-37* 128 as such only existed in Hanover-Linden, and Osnabrllck, and to a much lesser extent in Hildesheim and Geestem\hnde; the to tal number of workers was le 3 s than Of\ forty thousand. Most of them were anti-Prussian. At Linden, for instance, the workers of the state’s largest iron foundry rejected their employer’s National Liberal pro­ paganda and winced at induction into the Prussian army; in the Harz, miners resented competition from Westphalian iron miners; and at Harburg, near Hamburg, the proletarians believed much of the anti-Prussian propaganda to which

Lassallean Socialists exposed them . 27 In years to come these proletarians would form an important part of the Hanoverian resistance.

The Guelph movement which emerged in January I 8 6 7 , thus consisted of disparate social and political elements. Some of its adherents had always been loyal followers of George V; others stood in opposition. Now they were bound together by common fear or hatred of Prussia: their campaign oratory warned against onerous taxes and extended military service under the new regime. However, there seems to have

^Kurmeier, op. pit., p. 9 6 .

27Ibid., pp. 9 6 , 163, P itz, op. c i t ., pp. 109-12, Ehrenfeuchter, op. c i t ., pp. 126-7, 2 6 7 , Busch, op. c i t ., pp. I5I6 -8 and Hans Prilop, Die Vorabstimmung in Hannover 1921]-, Untersuchungen zur Vorgeschichte und Geschichte der Deutsch-hannoverschen Parteiim preussisch-deutschen Kaiserreich und in der Weimarer , Unpublished doctoral dissertation, (Hamburg, 195^), P» 121. 129 been l i t t l e coordination between the various groups. In some areas Guelph speakers praised the idea of German u nifi­ cation on the basis of a loose federation; in other places they rejected it.^® The results of the elections to the constituent Reichstag, however, revealed that most Hanoverians approved or at least accepted the annexation. In.the northern part of the province, in particular, merchants, manufacturers and even farmers (whose produce differed from that of the rest of Hanover and were generally immune to competition from East Elbian Junkers) all joined in voting for National Liberal candidates. In other places a number of otherwise neutral Hanoverians cast their ballots for Bennigsen’s party out of fear that resistance to Prussia might see a continua­ tion of the war of 1866. All in a ll, nearly forty-nine per­ cent of the Hanoverian people voted for National Liberal candidates thus electing ten Reichstag delegates. As Hermann Oncken has put it: ”If one wants to speak of a plebiscite, then the Guelphs lost the first battle.On the other hand, this victory was won by a relatively close margin. The opposition polled of the votes and sent nine representatives to the Reichstag. This meant that the Guelphs were a force to be reckoned with in Hanover.

P O Ehrenfeuchter, op. c i t ., pp. I4.8 —9-

29oncken, Bennigsen, II, p. 2 9 . Also see; Busch, op. cit., pp. 1 3 0 The elections revealed that the Guelph party was strongest in those ru ral areas which had long been part of the Hanoverian monarchy. These included the former prin ci­ p alities of Lftneburg (electoral d istric ts iLp, 15 and l 6 ), Gottingen (12), Calenberg (9), and the Counties of Hoya,

Diepholz, and (5, 6 , and 7) Furthermore, the party dominated the city of Hanover ( 8 ), where it enjoyed working class support, and the former Duchy of Meppen- Lingen, (3) which was overwhelmingly Roman Catholic. The National Liberals, on the other hand, claimed support in cities or in areas which were only associated with Hanover for a relatively short period. These were East Friesland (1 and 2), Hildesheim (10), , , (11), -Zellerfeld (13) and (17, 18, 19). One dis­ trict, Osnabr\!ick (If), elected a National Liberal delegate, but due to a large Roman Catholic population, also contained many Guelph sympathizers.31 The Guelph delegates elected to the constituent Reichstag reflected the diverse nature of their movement. Five of them were conservative members of the Ritterschaft; former Finance Ministers von Hammerstein and von Erxleben,

3^The National Liberals carried the Seventh District by a fluke in I 8 6 7 . In the Reichstag elections of I 8 7 I the Guelphs obtained 72$ of the vote.

3^Busch, op. c it., pp. Ilf6-l63, Ehrenf euchter, op. c it., pp. 55-127, and G&nther Franz, Die Politischen Wahlen in Niedersachsen 1867-19^1-9» (-Horn, 1953), p p . n c r a o : ------a certain von Hammerstein from G&ttingen and his newphew von Hammerstein-Loxten from Hanover. The fifth , Alexander von Rttssing, had been president of the Austrian-oriented Grossdeutscher Reformverein, a sort of unsuccessful anti- Prussian counterpart of the Nationalverein. A sixth dele­ gate, former Minister of State Alexander von M&nchhausen, belonged to the nobility. He, however, was no conservative, having gained fame for his passionate denunciation of George’s autocratic meastires in the Upper Chamber of the Hanoverian Diet. So liberal were his speeches, in fact, that he had been barred from the court a t Herrenhausen. The la st three members of the Guelph delegation came from the middle class. These included the former Minister of Justice, Ludwig Windhorst, the editor of the Deutsche Volkszeitung, Ehrenreich Eichholz, and a Gottingen lawyer and Forty- Eighter named Zachariae.3^ As members of the constituent Reichstag these dele- . gates protested the annexation of Hanover and opposed the formation of the North German Confederation. On 11 March

I8 6 7 , M\knchhausen charged that the annexation was a viola­ tion of international law as well as of the capitulation terms of Langensalza. He denounced the Prussian administra­ tion of Hanover as a brutal dictatorship and demanded

1 2 Busch, op. c i t ., pp. 177-190• 132 rejection of Bismarck's proposed constitution.^ on other occasions the Guelphs objected to the highly centralized power of the new state and urged a return to the more fed- eralistic German Confederation. All in all, their contribu­

tions were negative; on 16 April 1 8 6 7 a l l but one of them voted against ratification of the constitution.3k-

In the early years of its existence the Guelph move­ ment was so loose and amorphous in organization that i t would not be quite accurate to call it a political party. Its members possessed different socio-economic interests and could rarely agree on a common purpose or goal. Some like Heinrich Langwerth von Simmern viewed the movement as the nucleus of a great pan-German Rechtspartei which eventu­ a lly would embrace the South German states and German Austria. I t would appeal to Prussia to abandon its ’'par­ ticularism ” and to join in the creation of a Central European Grassdeutsches Reich. Other members, lik e 'the landowner von Lenthe, advocated the formation of a small but well knit group which would defend the in terests of the R ittersch aft. S till others, such as the academician Heinrich Ewald, believed the movement should exist solely as a protest

^ Stenographische Berichte &ber die Verhandlungen des Reichstages des Rorddeutschen Bundes, 10. SitzungJ 11 March 1B57, pp. ilpl— UpLp. (cited hereafter as SBR)

^SBR, 13 March I8 6 7 , p* 185, 18 March 1 8 6 7 , P* 22 3 . Hammerstein-Loxten voted for the constitution for reasons unknown. Ehrenfeuchter, op. c it., p. 98. 133 against the annexation , ^ or as former Kultusminister Bodo von Hodenberg suggested, as a c le ric a l party to point up the evil of the Prussian " U n i o n . ”36 The conflict of opinion within the Hanoverian resist­ ance was personified by the group's most eloquent spokesman, Ludwig Windhorst. Windhorst was a conservative who felt an intense sense of loyalty to his sovereign. He had served as his representative in financial negotiations with Berlin, and later, after the sequestration of the king’s fortune, gained renown for his acrid parliamentary attacks on Bismarck. Throughout his long life Windhorst remained loyal to the . Shortly before his death he remarked that the epithet Guelph, regarded by so many as a term of deri­ sion, always had seemed a ’’ti t l e of honor” to him.3? Nevertheless, Windhorst did not join the Guelph Reichstag delegation. In fact, he preferred to distance himself from it and, for a while, to remain aloof from a ll political alignments. Unlike his particularist colleagues, he realized that Hanoverian independence was lost forever, and that in order to prevent the creation of a unitary Germany dominated by Prussia i t was necessary to participate fully in the constitutional life of the North German

35>Simmern, op. c i t ., pp.- 12-50.

36Dieter Brosius, ”Bodo von Hodenberg - Ein hannover- scher Konservativen nach 1866,” NiedersSchsisches Jahrbuch ffor Landesgeschichte, XXXVIII, - (1966), pp. 17lp-75« 3?Ed. H&sgen, Ludwig Windhorst (Cologne,1907), p. 13k Confederation. As the Guelphs had been reluctant to enter the campaign for Reichstag seats and now refused to p a rtic i­ pate in Prussian Landtag elections,38 they could hardly be expected to provide the broad base from which Windhorst hoped to operate. As a result the former Minister of Justice sought political allies who were less particularistic and more flexible. His search resulted first in the creation of the bundesstaatlich-konstitutionelle Fraktion and later in the formation of the great federalistic Catholic Center Party. Thus, the man who became known as the most articulate of Guelph politicians actually disassociated himself from the movement at an early date.39 The predominately negative nature of the early Guelph movement was also evident in its propaganda. This usually consisted of crude attacks on Prussia or on Prussian insti­ tutions. During the campaign for the constituent Reichstag one Guelph orator deplored a state in which ’’two million Polacks in Posen and Silesia count as German brothers because they are Prussian subjects, while nine million Franconians, ulj.0 Swabians, and Bavarians are considered foreigners. At

38Most Guelphs, a t f ir s t, wanted to refrain from voting in any election for fear of indicating approval of the new order. Only after a lengthy debate did Windhorst per­ suade them to participate in Reichstag elections. Never once before 1918 , however, did they run candidates for the Prussian Landtag. See: Simmern, op. c i t ., pp. [(.9-50. Franz, op. cit., p. 25, and Windell, op. cit., pp. 61-62. 39cf. Windell, op. c i t . , pp. 6l-62, 70-73, and Htlsgen, op. c it ., pp. 58-62. ^Busch, op. c i t ., p. llj.8 . 135 other times leaflets were distributed denouncing the "Spree Pirates” or inveighing against the in d ustrial of the Rhineland. Often the most brutal barbs were reserved for a long dead figure - Frederick the Great With the passage of time it became clear that such quixotic assaults might have some appeal in Hanover, but hardly offered a solution to the problems of the province. Moreover, in order to give its grievances a more effective voice the Guelph opposition realized that it would not only have to adopt a more positive program, but must also develop a working p o litic a l organization. On 30 March I 8 7 O, Count Mlinchhausen called a meeting of particularist leaders in the city of Einbeck. Here it was decided to establish a Hannoverscher Wahlverein, an organization which would select candidates for Reichstag elections and continue to articulate the Guelph protest throughout Hanover. The Wahlverein also provided the necessary nucleus around which an effective political party could be built. The result was the Deutsch- Hannoversche Partei (DHP), a party whose name was to become o fficially attached to the Guelph movement and which was to remain an important factor in Hanoverian politics until Hitler's rise to power in 1933*^

^See the small but very interesting collection of leaflets at Gmunden, VIII, C 1J?. ^Simmern, op. cit., pp. 51-55, and Prilop, op. cit., p . 126. . 1 3 6 The Prussian Government and the Guolph Movement IG6 6 -I8 7 I In retrospect, it does not seem surprising.that so many d issa tisfied groups joined the Guelph movement. The loss of Hanoverian independence was a harsh blow which shocked even many liberals like Rudolf von Bennigsen. Thus one could not expect more conservative Hanoverians to forget their royal dynasty overnight. Bismarck himself knew this and once remarked that had he been born in Lower Saxony instead of Brandenburg, he probably would have supported the Guelph cause.k-3 What does strik e the mind is that the Guelph movement proved so durable, that the resentment over the annexation did not disappear in a generation or tv/o, but that it survived well into the twentieth century. Part of the reason for this longevity lay in the socio­ economic interests of the DHP: conservative farmers, Lutheran prelates, artisans, and Catholics did indeed have good reason to fear the annexation, and - as we shall see - Prussia hardly encouraged them to change th eir minds. Secondly, Bismarck's shabby treatment of George V and his family infuriated many otherwise neutral Hanoverians. They came to view their king as a martyr and supported the DHP as a means of protest. Finally, in the years after 1866 Berlin, in its attempt to assimilate Hanover, made a series of blun­ ders - or at lea st gratuitous moves - which fostered resent­ ment and encouraged the growth of particularism. Indeed, it

^-3priiop, op. c i t ., p. 1 7 6 . 137 was the Prussian administration's tactlessness - as much as anything - which provided the necessary cement to hold the Guelph movement together. In administering Hanover, Prussia's main task was to assimilate the state without fostering the growth of partic­ ularism.^ Bismarck, in particular, recognized this and from the beginning felt the best way of accomplishing this would be to introduce a decentralized administration and to retain as many Hanoverian institutions as possible. Unfor­ tunately, the chancellor's frequent illnesses and his over­ riding concern with the constitution of the North German Confederation kept him from enacting such a program. By the time he turned to Hanoverian affairs in the summer of 1867 he found that a highly centralized Prussian administration had created just the sort of problems he dreaded. 14

During Bismarck's absence the Prussian administration was guided by the views of Minister of the Interior Count Fritz zu Eulenburg: it sought to introduce a centralized system of government, to employ as many Prussian bureaucrats as possible, and to use harsh disciplinary measures against

l^Leffler, op. cit., p. 3» and Pitz, loc. cit., p. 155. ^The best treatment of the Prussian administration of Hanover is in Stehlin, op. cit., pp. 231 et. seq. l^Heffter, op. c i t ., p. I(-77• 138 all Hanoverian dissidents. Prussian laws were introduced and existing institutions destroyed without regard to Hanoverian opinion: compulsory m ilitary service, heavier taxes, the Prussian legal code, and even a now type of court procedure were instituted almost overnight. The rapidity and callousness of the changes were enough to shock even the most sympathetic of observers, fo r betv/een 20 September 1866 and 1 October 1867 enough laws were passed to fill over 2l|.00 pages of legal textA® The Hanoverians not only reacted to the alacrity with which these measures were enacted, but also to many of the laws themselves. Particularly distasteful was the introduc­ tion of universal military training and the increased tax burden. The passage of time gave no signs of improvement.

On 27 June I 867 the supreme court at Celle was strippped of its power with the supreme court in Berlin assuming its jurisdiction. A week later the Prussian stamp tax went into effect and, on the same day, Finance Minister von der Heydt announced that extensive funds from the Hanoverian state properties would be transferred to the Prussian treasury in B erlin .^

^Stehlin, op. cit., p. 2£6, and Eulenburg to von der Heydt, 2I4. November ltibb, DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 90 a D.Ib.I).. Nr.2. ^-®Heffter, op. c it., p. 14-77* &nd Pitz, loc. c i t ., p. 1 4 7 . : ^ L e ffle r, op. c i t ., pp. 77-80, Stehlin, op. c i t ., p. 2$l±, and Heffter, op. cit., p. ij-77• 139 As this last measure wa3 enacted while chimerical Guelph agents were being sought near the Marionhurg and Queen Marie was being pressured to leave the castle, the simmering discontent in Hanover grew to the point of explo­ sion. Even liberals like Bennigsen and Miquel joined in the protest, and Bismarck became so concerned that he broke off his vacation and returned to Berlin. There he found Crown Prince Frederick equally distraught and fearful of losing all support in the province.^ Both men realized that con­ cessions to the Hanoverians would have to be made immediately. Thus between 29 July and 3 August 1867 a series of meetings took place in Berlin between Count ^ulenburg on the one side and representatives of the former Hanoverian Landtag on the other. This la tte r group consisted not only of National Liberals such as Bennigsen and Miquel but also of a number of Guelphs. Making common cause, these two groups complained about the centralism of the new regime, about the harshness of its measures, and, above all, about the transfer of the Hanoverian state funds to B e r lin .^ For once their pleas fell on receptive ears. Bismarck, in particular, sympathized with their plight and recommended the immediate creation of a Hanoverian Diet. This not only would assuage their grievances, but would also provide the

^°Leffler, op. c i t ., p. 80. ■^Heffter, op. cit., pp. I;-78-9. (These state funds - about 3If million thalers - consisted of revenue earned from the dissolution and sale of royal lands.) lLf.0 measure of self-government he had originally envisioned. It would go far in eliminating particularism and in winning support for the Prussian administration.^

A royal order of 22 August 1867 proclaimed a new constitution for Hanover. I t provided fo r a provincial Landtag, but one no longer dominated by the landed proprie­ tors. I t gave more representation to the middle class and returned control of district and county affair’s to Hanoverian officials. Finally, it left undisturbed the provincial estates, a body which dispensed credit in the countryside and which was s till dominated by the Ritberschaft.^3 AH in a ll, this constitution seems to have had the effect Bismarck desired. It pleased the National Liberals by giving them control of the provincial Diet; it appeased the Guelphs by leaving their representatives - i.e . the landed proprietors - in control of local and rural a ffa irs . Furthermore, in December, when the Hanoverian Landtag gained a measure of financial independence by the return of the disputed state funds, a great many skeptics were won over.^ Nonetheless, as Werner Leffler points out, the pro­ vincial constitution really came too late. Had it been

^Ibid., and Stehlin, op. cit., p. 258.

^ H e f f t e r , pp. c i t ., pp. lj.79-8°*

^hrhe control of the Hanoverian state funds was the subject of a bitter debate in the Prussian House of Repre­ sentatives. For a good description of this see; Stehlin, op. c i t ., pp. 2 6 6 -7 3 * i 4 i granted in a dramatic gesture immediately after the annexa­ tion, Bismarck might have eliminated the growth of particu­ larism altogether. But by September IQ6 7 the idea of Prusso-Hanoverian cooperation had lost its psychological attraction. The grant of constitutional government seemed a cynical gesture, not a genuine effort at reconciliation. Hence, i t might retard the growth of the Guelph movement - as indeed it did - but it could not destroy it altogether.-^ Bismarck perhaps knew this. Certainly he realized that the introduction of constitutional government in itself would not woo the Hanoverians away from the Guelph cause. More important would be the attitude and actions of the new provincial administration. His choice for Hanover's first Oberpr&sident, therefore, was not an "old Prussian", but rather a dynamic young Saxon, Count Otto zu Stolberg- Wernigerode. Barely thirty at the time of his appointment, Stolberg was an outsider to the Prussian bureaucracy. His appointment in fact was criticized by Eulenburg. Nonethe­ less, he was well qualified for the post, and because he maintained large estates in Hanover, he had a vested inter­ est in the province. One of his first official acts was to support Bennigsen's plea for the return of the former state funds to the Hanoverian Landtag. This won him tremendous popularity among the populace, and in the years that

^Leffler, op. cit., pp. 80-81. 21^2 followed, similar acts of moderation and understanding on his part managed to undo much of the damage wrought in the year of transition.^ Another method used by Bismarck in weaning the Hanoverians away from Guelph influence was to finance the construction of public works projects in the new province. Between 1868 and 1871 large sums were set aside from the Guelph fund for this end. Barracks were b u ilt in Celle and a- large sea-side resort constructed on the island of Norderney. In addition, Guelph funds were used to subsidize various churches throughout the province, to finance certain academic in stitu tes of the University of Gottingen, and even to maintain and improve the former Hoftheater in Hanover .$7 Yet, despite the wise use of these funds and the restraint of Count Stolberg the Prussian government continued to irritate many Hanoverians. The police remained outside the Oberpr£sident’s jurisdiction and often overreacted to Guelph activities. Sometimes they confiscated copies of the pro-Guelph Deutsche Volkszeitung; on other occasions they broke up meetings of George’s sympathizers. Once, acting under orders from General Voigts-Rhetz, they even arrested

■^Heffter, op. c i t ., pp. l4.8 O-l4.8 l. Leffler, op. c i t ., pp. 87 - 8 8 , and Stehlin, op. c it., pp. 2o0-262. Stolberg was one of the few Prussian officials to urge leniency for return­ ing members of the Guelph Legion. He also objected most strenuously to harsh police measures against harmless Guelph activ ity . See: DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3^4-3, Nr. 1+2, Bd. 2.

£7n\?>11 von der Nahmer, op. c i t ., pp. 72-7^, and Philippi, '.'Zur Geschichte... , pp. X97-198, 232. ll|-3 and imprisoned the former Hanoverian minister Count Kielmannsegg. Count Stolberg was particularly distraught that the police remained outside his control, for he knew that their actions limited his own credibility with the

Hanoverian p e o p l e . 58 Nevertheless, by the time of the outbreak of the

Franco-Prussian War in I 87 O it was clear that Stolberg had largely succeeded in winning the loyalty of the province. Indeed the outpouring of patriotic sentiment in Hanover was so great that thousands of George's former soldiers now flocked to the Prussian army. The lure of a united Germany was greater than particularist pride or resentment of the Prussian conqueror.^9 I t was at this time that Oskar Meding traveled to Berlin and claimed knowledge of an extensive Guelph conspir­ acy. According to him, not only were large amounts of war m aterial stockpiled in Hanover, but also numerous bands of Guelph agents prepared to cut Prussian telegraph wires and engage in other acts of sabatoge. Bismarck suspected that this information was somewhat exaggerated but resolved not to take any chances. He also feared that Guelph agents

5®Leffler, op. c i t ., pp. 98-105-

59stolberg to Eulenburg, 17 July 1870 , DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 3U-3, Nr. lj.2, Bd. 3- On 26 July I 87 O Count Platen reported to George V that opinion in Hanover was not favorable to the Guelph cause and that the populace had been "bitten by the German dog." Gmunden, VIII B 31- H 4 might support a possible French landing on Germany’s northern coast. Consequently, he ordered General Vogel von Falken- stein, commandor of the Hanoverian garrison, to proclaim martial law and to arrest a number of Guelph sympathisers. Falkenstein readily complied and took nearly tv/enty people into custody. Among them were Dr. Eichholz, editor of the Deutsche Volkszeitung, former Minister of State and head of the DHP Count Mtinchhausen, and the fan atical Pastor Grote, former chaplain to the Guelph Legion. They we re held in fortresses in K&nigsberg, Stettin and Magdeburg.^ In Hanover many people resented this la te s t violation of their rights. They f e lt th e ir loyalty impugned and some of th eir countrymen unnecessarily persecuted. The result was a new swing of sympathy to the Guelphs. In the Reichstag

elections of 1871 2 9 .6 per cent of the population cast their, ballots for the DHP, electing seven Guelph delegates to the German parliament Strictly speaking, this was hardly a victory for the

Guelph movement. Since 1867 , it had lost 15.6 per cent of the popular vote and could not claim to represent a majority of the province. Nor was it in any way a threat to the

6 °Leffler, op. c i t ., p. 116.

k-'-DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 7 7 , Tit. 3^-3, Nr. l±2, fid. 3, p. 213, and Prilop, op. c i t ., p. 106.

6^Franz, op. c it., p. 80 and Prilop, 02-i_c it., p. 187 . Also see: SBR (I8 7 0 ), 14, 3, P* 25, 5, P* 55. l kS Prussian administration. Yot at the same time the DIIP had emerged as an important p o litic a l party in Hanover. It dominated seven of its electoral d istric ts, indicating that nearly a third of the Hanoverian people still resented and disapproved the annexation. That they should do so in the heady atmosphere surrounding the victory over Prance and the •founding of the second Reich revealed that particularism v/as fa r from dead in the former C-uelph sta te .

/ ELECTORAL DISTRICTS PRUSSIAN PROVINCE HANOVER, 1866-1871 tl§l§SSl -areas of strongest Guelph support IV

THE GERMAN HANOVERIAN PARTY 1871-1890

The seven Guelph delegates who took their seats in the Reichstag on 21 March I8 7 I represented more than a nar­ row dynastic movement. Elected by nobles, landowners, Protestant clerics, Roman Catholics, artisans, peasants and workers they claimed the right to speak for a significant minority in the province of Hanover. Outside that province their influence was admittedly nil, yet until 1890 th eir party - the DHP - existed with the National Liberals as one of the two major p o litic a l parties in the former Guelph kingdom. Generally speaking, the DHP was a Christian-conserva­ tive party with agrarian interests. It rejected the idea of a national state and yearned to unite all in a loosely organized grossdeutsches Reich. In its fundamental beliefs the DHP was not unlike Ludwig von Gerlach's Prussian Conservative Party. Like the Prussian Conservatives the Guelphs lamented the events of 1866-71, denounced Bismarck, and longed for a return to the 'rule of law.' It was thus not unusual that in 1877 Ludwig von Gerlach himself was llj. 8 elected to the Reichstag from Osnabr\lck as a candidate of

the DHP. 1 Despite its conservative philosophy and relatively

wide appeal, the DHP remained very much a particulari 3 t party. Until its dissolution in 1933 it never veered from its basic goal of extricating Hanover from Prussia. Just how this was to be accomplished was never made clear, although party orators sometimes proclaimed that Hanoverian independence could be restored by a ''voluntary act of the German and the Hanoverian people."^ The DHP refused to become a national party and concerned itself primarily with Hanoverian affairs. When forced to examine problems affecting the entire Reich, it did so with an eye to the situation in Hanover and to the Guelph problem as a whole. As Stewart A. Stehlin has observed, the DHP v/as opposed to

all Bismarckian policies solely "as a matter of principle."3

Ideology Former Hanoverian Kultusminis ter Bodo von Hodenberg and DHP Reichstag deputy Heinrich Langwerth von Simmern were the most forceful molders of Guelph ideology. Of the two,

^ranz, op. cit., p. l 6 , and Stehlin, op. cit., p. l 6i}_. Gerlach died soon after the election. Also see: Hans Joachim Schoeps, Das Andere Preussen (Stuttgart, 1952), pp. 77-78, 3^0-1^. 2 They apparently felt the Bundesrat would take up their cause. Deutsche Volkszeitung, 8 December 1882, DZA, Rep. 77, Tit. 34-3 A, Nr.. 11}2, Bd.—£, p. 295.

3stehlin, op. c i t ., pp. 166- 16 7 . Hodenberg was clearly the more id ealistic and apo litical. Steeped in the mystical ideas of the Gerlachs and Frodorick William IV, he believed that Christianity should provide the basis of all political activity. Statesmen and politicians should be judged not by their a b ility or success but accord­ ing to their morality. Hence Bismarck and Prussia were to be condemned for having destroyed the Rechtsordnung in Germany, while the DHP (as the embodiment of Recht) was to lay the groundwork for a new rule of law and by righteous deeds compel Berlin to undo the events of 1866. As part of his moralistic philosophy Hodenberg also contended that the so-called fourth estate possessed certain rights which should be protected from exploitation. The DHP was obliged to guard these rights and, when feasible, to cooperate v/ith the proletarian leaders of the Social Democratic Party. It was thus as a result of such thinking - as well as of political expediency - that the DHP and the SPD eventually became political allies. Less p articu la ristic and somewhat more cosmopolitan than Hodenberg was Heinrich Langwerth von Simmern. As a deputy to the Reichstag between 1880 and 1890 , Simmern spoke for the grossdeutsch - federalist wing of the DHP. He was a founder of the greater German Reformverein of 1862 and

^-Brosius, "Bodo von Hodenberg,” pp. 159-181}-, and Prilop, op. c i t . , .pp. 135-139* For more on DHP-SPD coopera­ tion see below: Also see; "Denkschrift \iber die welfische Bewegung,” DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3^4-3 A, Nr. li|.2, ad. 150 throughout his life sought to join with other dissatisfied groups in Germany to form a national grossdoutsch party. He considered Prussian centralism a menace to the German char­ acter and proposed the immediate incorporation of German Austria in the Reich. He also proclaimed his colors as black, red and gold. Simmern felt he could achieve his ends only if the DHP remained an independent protest party aloof from con­ ventional political entanglements. Hence, he discouraged overt collaboration with the Center Party and denounced cooperation with the SPD. Not surprisingly, these strong opinions sometimes embroiled him in controversy with -more pragmatic Guelphs, and in the early l880's he nearly caused a schism in the ranks of the DHP.^ Despite their differences, both Hodenberg and Simmern shared beliefs common to a ll Guelphs. Both men, for example, contended that the Lower Saxon Stamm was superior to other peoples. Hence the members of the DHP were not only 'good Germans,' but - in their opinion - 'better Germans' than most of their countrymen. That Prussia should be the lead­ ing state in the Reich was particularly alarming because it

•^Simmern, op. c i t . , pp. 123-156, H. Langwerth von Simmern, Die Deutschhariri overs che Partei und die Braunsch- weigische Frage (Celle~j 18B5), pp. 1-53, and H. Langwerth von Simmern, Die Deutsch-Hannoversche Partei und das Rechtsprincip - (Hannover, 1882), pp. 1-31. Also: SBR, 1882-83, Sess. 2, Vol. IV, 6 April 1883, p. 2353. 151 had been polluted by Slavic elements.® This Guelph racism, incidentally, did not extend to the Jews. Throughout the nineteenth century the DHP attacked anti-Semitism as unjust and u nrealistic. In fact, as Hodenberg wrote in I 89 I4., the emergence of such a negative philosophy supplied additional evidence of the decline of Christianity.? Besides its conservative particularistic nature the DHP was also an agrarian party. It drew its greatest strength from ru ral areas and was genuinely concerned with the interests of Hanoverian farmers. It saw that these farmers, as producers of sugar beets and dairy products, saved money by importing grain and fodder from abroad and that they resented unfair competition from East Elbian land­ owners. Consequently, the DHP sought to protect Lower Saxon farmers from large grain tariffs as well as duties on fodder.® It often reminded its constituents of the better times they

had known before 1866 , and many farmers, remembering lower

®Cf. SBR, 1885-86, Sess. 2, Volume 8 6 , 16 January 1886, pp. Prilop, op. c i t ., p. 137*, and Sonntagsblatt des Hannoversch'en Wahlvereins, I 4 January 187 ^, DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 7 7 , T it. 3l^3A, Nr. 31f.2, Bd. 3, P* 23I4.. ^Brosius, ”Bodo von Hodenberg," p. 181. George V seems to have had several Jewish advisers. In addition, the DHP itself may have been partly Jewish financed. See; Deutsche Volkszeitung, 11 January 1881).. ®SBR, 188^-85, Sess. 1, 11 May 1885, p. 2722. Also: DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3^)-3A, Nr. ll|.2, Bd. I4., p. 2I4.O. 152 taxes under the old regime, gave the DI-TP their almost

unanimous s u p p o r t . 9

Leadership, Organization, Press, and Tactics The leadership of the DHP was entrusted almost exclu­ sively to the former Hanoverian nobility and Ritterschaft. In the first years of its existence the party did include several prominent members of the middle class, such as the editor of the Deutsche Volkszeibung, Ehrenreich Eichholz and the Gottingen professor Heinrich Ewald.^ Nonetheless, after Ewald’s death in 1875 the leadership of the DI-IP reverted more and more to the control of the landowning classes. I t is interesting to note that of forty-six Guelph delegates

elected to the Reichstag between 1867 and 1896 only nine were not members of the nobility or Ritterschaft. The main power of the DHP resided in a seven-man Directorate elected by members of the Hannoverscher Wahlver- ein. Together with a representative of the "standing com­ mittee" of the Wahlverein the Directorate established policy for the entire party. This policy consisted first and fore­ most of "educating" non-committed Hanoverian voters. Paid

^Prilop, op. cit., p. 15^- ^In fact, soon after its founding, several DHP mem­ bers wrote to George to protest the inclusion of too many liberals and democrats in the party. Gmunden, C 15, Georg Verein to Platen, 12 April I 87 O. ^ P rilo p , op. c i t ., p. 130. The few bourgeois mem­ bers joined the DHP after 1866 solely as a protest against the Prussian annexation. Other party goals never conformed to their interests. speakers and agents were sent through the province to explain the Guelph position and to denounce the National Liberals. Local electoral clubs were established v/hich, in turn, sought to influence voters in isolated regions such as the L&neburg Heath. In this way the Directorate succeeded in welding together the disparate groups of the DHP in a

common cause. So successful was it, in fact, that in 1872 Oberpr&sident Stolberg urged the dissolution of the Hannoverscher Wahlverein. ^ Another unifying tactic employed by the DHP was to sponsor regional festivals and social occasions. In romantic locations such as the ruins of Castle Hardenberg in Nttrten- Hardenberg, an assembly would be treated to ample supplies of beer and sandwiches and reminded of the former glories of the House of Guelph. High taxes would be assailed and emo­ tional speeches delivered against Berlin’s attempt to secularize primary education.^ The most popular of these festivals was the Langensalzafeiertag, an annual event held to commemorate the ’fallen heroes’ of Langensalza. Since Guelph mythology considered this battle a great Hanoverian

■^Stolberg to Eulenberg, 17 November 1 8 7 2 , Statut des Hannoverschen Wahlvereins, and Sonntagsblatt des Hannoverschen Wahlvereins, 3~January 1872, a l l at DZA, Merseburg, T it. 3^-3A, Nr. lq.2, Bd. 3, PP» 227-251. Writing in 1878 , Rudolf von Bennigsen also attested to the tight- knit organization of the DHP. Bennigsen to von Normann, 19 June 1878 , in Oncken, op. c i t ., II, pp. lljip-llj-5•

•^•3por more information see below: pp. l 6 0 - l6 l. victory, its celebration became the cause of unctuous perora­ tions in tribute to George V or to his son, the Duke of Cumberland. S t i l l another moans used to enhance the position of the DHP was its press. Apparently subsidized by the Guelph court at Gmunden, this included a daily newspaper and several weeklies. Of these publications the most important was the party organ, the Deutsche Volkszeitung. Pounded in 1866, the Deutsche Volkszeitung led a rather chequered and at times perilous career. Sometimes subject to confiscation for libel or lese-m ajeste, the newspaper survived to have a small daily circulation of 6,000 by the turn of the century.^ Another Guelph paper, the Neue Hannoversche Landeszeitung (Nienburg), tended to represent the c le ric a l wing of the party. A rticles from it, as well as from the Deutsche Volkszeitung, were often reprinted in cheap tabloids. ° In the opinion of the Prussian authorities the most effective instrument for spreading Guelph propaganda was not the DHP press' but an annual almanac, the Deutsch-Hannoverscher Volkskalender. Begun in 1873 by Pastor Grote, former chaplain of the Guelph Legion, the Volkskalender combined Guelph

^-DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 3if3A, Nr. li|2, Bd. I4., pp. 127, 131, and 285. Bd. 5, pp. I 6 I-I6I4., 199* •^"Bericht liber den Stand der welfischen Bewegung (1903)," DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3^4-3 A, Nr. li+.2, ad. 2. ^ Ib id . 155 propaganda with a large measure of factual information of vital interest to farmers. This made it an oxtremely attrac­ tive item in Hanover; by 1899, the Prussian Oberpr&sident estimated that over 50,000 copies existed in the province.^ Besides advertising their cause in Hanover, DHP lead­ ers tried to bring the Guelph protest before the entire German nation. This was attempted by several articulate spokesmen in the Reichstag and by the establishment of close working alliances with larger more in flu en tial parties. Like the Poles, Danes, and Alsatians the Guelphs entered the Reichstag primarily to secure a platform for their views. One of th eir leading spokesmen, Dr. ■ Heinrich Ewald, thought it in fact impossible for such a small party to influence parliamentary legislation at all. Hence, at every possible opportunity he tried to protest against the loss of Hanover­ ian independence. In the Reichstag he would brand Prussia atheistic, denounce the Prussian Evangelical Union or discuss the evils of Prussian historiography. Sometimes he offered perfunctory speeches on the issues of the day, but usually he discussed the Hanoverian question regardless of whether or not it pertained to the debate. Ewald*s devotion to the

• ^The Prussians surely realized that Hanoverian farm­ ers may have been primarily interested in the almanac*s factual information; nonetheless, the authorities feared the effects of the Guelph propaganda to which these farmers were assuredly exposed. DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. A, Nr. ll|2, Fasz. I (Geheim Akten). ■^Simmern, Aus Meinem Leben, II, p. 128. 1 5 6 Guelph cause probably seemed foolish to some, but as one of Germany's leading scholars, he carried a certain amount of weight when he spoke; hence his strategy should not be con­ sidered entirely u n s o u n d .^9

Another important Guelph leader, but one who worked behind the scenes in the Reichstag, was Dr. Ludwig August

Br&el (I8 I8 -I 8 9 6 ). A former Secretary General in the Hanoverian Kultusminis terium and chairman of the Hanoverian Landessynode, Brilel was naturally interested in religious questions. He was disturbed by Bismarck's attacks on the Roman and joined his friend Ludwig Windhorst in supporting the Center Party. Because he also feared that Bismarck might direct his attacks against orthodox Lutheran­ ism, Br\iiel encouraged his fellow DHP Reichstag deputies to join the Center Party as "guests." Hence, during the so- called Kulturkampf he was of invaluable aid to Windhorst both in formulating legislative thought and in mapping parliamen- pn tary strategy against the German government. u

^9por a sampling of Ewald's Reichstag speeches see; SBR, 1871, 15 Sitzung, 6 November I 8 7 I, p. l(+9; 1872, 6 Sitzung, 15 April 1872, pp. Lj.2, l[;.l, 8 May 1872 , p. 293, 13 July I 8 7 2 , p. 957; 1873, 5 Sitzung, 19 March 1873, P. 33, 23 April 1873, P. 273, 20 May 1873, p. 751+; I 87 I+, 9 Sitzung, 20 February 187 a, P* 158, 16 Sitzung, 12 March I 87 I+, p. 310, 10 April I07I+, pp. 707-703, 28 Sitzung, l 6 April I87 I+, pp. 708-712, 1+1 Sitzung, 25 A pril 187l+-» PP* 1126-1127. 2°cf. Prilop, op. c i t ., pp. 131-132, Stehlin, op. c i t ., p. 178, and Karl Bachem, Vorgeschichte, Geschichte, und Politik der deutschen Zentrumspartei (Kfcln, 1927), PP* ll+ 6- 1 5 7 Undoubtedly, the most famous of the Guelph leaders and the man who brought the DI-IP more renown than it other­ wise would have won was Ludwig Windhorst. As a former Hanoverian minister Windhorst remained loyal to George V after 1866. As we have seen, he represented his sovereign on more than one occasion in Berlin. Being more of a Catholic than a Guelph, however, Windhorst did not join the DHP. He preferred to concentrate his energies on the crea­ tion of a more flexible political coalition of Catholics, the re su lt of which was the Center P a r ty .^ The Center Party or Zentrum was in many ways not unlike the DHP: both groups opposed etatism, high taxes, and civil marriages; both sought the creation of a more decentralized Bundesstaat and the preservation of confes­ sional schools; both felt a concern to protect the interests of the workers. Because the Center Party was in a good posi­ tion to strengthen the power of local agencies and states - particularly in South Germany and the Rhineland - the DHP hoped that such a policy of decentralization might be of help to i t in Hanover. Thus, i t was not surprising that both parties should pool their forces in a close working allian ce. 22

^See Chapter III.

22In fact, had not the Guelphs been Protestants, the DHP might have disappeared altogether. Bachem, op. c i t ., p. llj£. Also see: Windell, op. c i t ., pp. 287-9^> 1 5 8 In the meantime, Chancellor Bismarck came to detest Windhorst and the Center Party. It enraged him that Catholics, Guelphs, and later Polos should unite to oppose the Reich government. He called the Zentrum hostile to the state and never ceased to remind the Reichstag of Windhorst's Guelph (i.e. "treasonable") background. So despicable did he find Windhorst, in fact, that he once made the now famous remark: "Hate is just as great an incentive to life as love. My life is preserved and made pleasant by two things - my wife and Windhorst. One exists for love, the other for hate."^3 Windhorst, for his part, was Bismarck's exact opposite. Small, plump, and dispassionate, he would s it with bowed head, his right hand hooked in his vest pocket listening to the Chancellor's tempestuous attacks on him and on the Zentrum. Then, with well reasoned, logical arguments he would assail Bismarck fo r his emotional outbursts and for his consistent mockery of the constitution. He would also throw the Chancellor off guard by attacking the formulation of a government b ill as well as its content - thus impugning its author's intelligence. In 1872 , for example, he commented on a bill to secularize primary education in the following way; "I have seen many legislative proposals through the

^Quoted in Kappel S. Pinson, Modern Germany (New York, 19624.), p. 190. Also see; Stehlin, op. cit., pp. 177- 178, and Wilhem Spael, Ludwig Windhorst (Osnabrbck, 19o2), pp. 56-89. 159 years,... but I have never seen a proposed bill which was so unclear, so defective in its conception or so deplorable in foundation as this one is."^l- Such remarks infuriated Bismarck and caused him to step up his attacks on the "thick-headed Guelph," as he called Windhorst. By questioning Windhorst's patriotism the ^chancellor probably hoped to gain the support of the Conser­ vatives in his drive against the Catholic Church, but in so doing he only made German Catholics more aware of th eir need for the Center Party. In addition, he gave the Guelph cause, and indirectly, the DHP more publicity than they would have received otherwise.^ Although it never elected enough Reichstag delegates PA to form a Fraktion ^0 and although it remained a particularist party, the DHP did not refrain from participating in national politics. As we have seen, it entered a cooperative agree­

ment with the Center Party in I 8 7 O and fo r the next decade behaved as if it were an integral part of the Catholic

^Quoted in Spael, op. cit., p. 8 6 .

^Stehlin, op. cit., p. 1 7 8 . 2 AA Fraktion is a parliamentary group consisting of at least fifte e n members of the same party. Depending on its relative strength, each Fraktion is alloted debate time and representation on standing committees. Theoretically, Reichstag deputies not belonging to Fraktionen could not initiate legislative proposals or even speak on the floor of parliament, unless accepted as "guests" by the Fraktion of another party..' i6 o coalition. Aside from the rather obvious influence of Windhorst and the hope of achieving decentralization, another reason for the DHP allying itself with the Zentrum lay in its fear of the Prussian Evangelical Union. The Hanoverian Landeskirche, as has been noted, was a bastion of orthodox . It regarded the Prussian Union as heretical and thus wanted to maintain its own independence. In 1869 Dr. Ludwig Brftel, an important leader of the DHP, had been elected chairman of the Hanoverian Landes synod. As a young man, Brliel had witnessed Frederick William Ill's attempt to unite the Protestant churches in Prussia by force. He now feared the same thing might happen in Hanover. Consequently, when Bismarck embarked on his anti-Catholic campaign, Brtiel, as we have seen, was more than willing to lend DHP support to the Zentrum . ^ During the Kulturkampf Guelph leaders often spoke out against Prussian attempts to introduce civil marriages and to secularize primary and secondary education. In both cases they genuinely feared the moral and religious implications of the proposed legislation; in 1 873 , for example, a flustered Ewald branded the idea of civil marriage heretical and scan­ dalous.^® This is not to say th at the DHP was not p o litic a lly motivated. In Berlin's attempt to secularize education, in

^ H e ffte r, op. c i t ., pp. Ij.85-86.

28 SBR, 1873, Sess. Vol. I, 23 A pril 1873, p. 2 7 3 . l6i particular, the party saw a dangerous throat to its position in the Hanoverian countryside. Were control of Hanoverian schools to pass into Prussian hands whole generations of Hanoverians would be reared either supporting Prussia or indifferent to the events of i 8 6 0 . S till, i t must be said that most Guelphs, as orthodox Lutherans, sincerely feared that Bismarck's anti-clericalism might destroy the basis of all traditional religion. Throughout the l870's the DHP limited its attention almost entirely to religious questions. It behaved as an integral part of the Zentrum and only rarely offered inde­ pendent opinions in the R e i c h s t a g .30 Toward the end of the decade, however, the party became concerned with other issues and slowly began to extricate itself from the Catholic embrace. This change was precipitated partly by the fear that the Guelphs might be submerged in the Zentrum, partly out of a natural Protestant reaction to Roman Catholicism, and partly because of Windhorst's increasing willingness after 1879 to cooperate with Berlin.3^

2 9 SBR, I87I1-, Sess. 1, Vol. 32 , 25 April l87i|-, p. 1126. Sonntagsblatt des Hannoverschen Wahlvereins, 10 January 187^, DZA, Merseburg Rep. 77, T it. 3^3 A, Nr. 142, Bd. 3, p. 232. 3^An exception was Ewald. As has been noted, he limited himself almost exclusively to protesting the annexa­ tion of Hanover. 31Cf. Simmern, Aus Meinem Leben, II, pp. 128-30, Bachem, op. c i t ., pp. lij.6-7, and Ehrenfeuchter, op. c i t ., pp. 90-2. Also Gerhard Stoltenberg, Per Deutsche Reichstag. 1871-1873 (D&sseldorf, 1925), P- 37- 162 One issue on which the Center Party and the DHP sav/ almost eye to eye, but one on which the Guelphs took a some­

what independent stand was that of Social Democracy. ;Vhorea 3 the Zentrum stood with the DIEP in opposing Bismarck's anti- Socialist legislation of 1878 and feared that any b ill used to suppress the SPD could also be directed against it, the Catholic party could not bring itself for religious reasons to cooperate with the Social Democrats.32 T!he DHP, on the other hand, did not shy away from working with the SPD. The main reason for its attitude lay in the aristocratic nature of the Guelph movement. As we have seen, most DHP leaders were nobles or landed proprietors; as such they hardly needed to fear competition from an urban working class party. Fur­ thermore, many of these nobles felt a genuine sense of obli­ gation to protect the rights and privileges of the working class.33 Consequently, the DHP found it expedient to cooperate with the SPD. In the Reichstag the DHP limited its support of the Socialists to denunciations of the anti-Socialist laws. Now and then a Guelph orator would offer a more positive remark

32pr iniarily because the SPD was as rabidly a n ti­ c le ric al as the National Liberals. See; Vernon L. Lidtke, The Outlawed Party; Social Democracy in Germany, I 878 -I 89 O (Princeton, 1966), p. 69.

33Supra; p.li$Also; SBR (1878 a), Sess. 1, Vol. I, p. 133, and Simmern, Aus Meinem Leben, II, pp. 135-7* Simmern, incidentally, was one of the few Guelph leaders to oppose cooperation with the SPD. Nevertheless, he opposed the anti- Socialist laws, as he admitted, solely as a matter of self protection. as, for example, Ewald did in I 87 I4. when ho warmly defended August Bebel and Wilhelm Lieblcnecht. (The two socialists had been imprisonod in Hubertusburg Castle after a rather unfair tr ia l.) Yet, on the whole, DHP-SPD cooperation in the German parliament was so restrained as to be almost non- extant.^4- Outside the Reichstag, however, it was closer. In the province of Hanover the two parties supported each other in the Sixth and Eighth electoral districts (Hoya and Hanover). There S ocialist voters admired the Guelphs for their condemnation of the an ti-S o cialist measures; u n til

1890 , when these measures expired, they fa ith fu lly cast their ballots for DHP candidates. Similarly, SPD support in Einbeck and enabled the DHP to carry these mar­

ginal district in some elections. Thus, until I 89 O SPD-DHP cooperation was a major factor in maintaining DHP strength in the province of Hanover . ^ One issue which received an orthodox response from the DHP was that of Bismarck's 'State .' In the autumn of 1881 the chancellor introduced a bill in the Reichstag which provided for a comprehensive program of Accident, Sickness, and invalid insurance. The DHP opposed

3l4-See, for example: SBR (1879), 1° S itz., Vol. I, p. 310 and (1883), 81 S itz., Vol. IV. p. 2352. 35Ehrenfeuchter, op. c i t ., pp. 51, 107, and 280-2. The Center Party, incidentally, eventually came to work with the SPD-both in parliament and elections; throughout most of the Bismarckian era, however, there was practically no cooperation. Lidtke, op. cit., p. 69 and Bachem, op. c i t ., I l l , p. 187. this as a matter of principle, arguing that such a program would not only create a complicated bureaucracy but would also increase the power of the Bismarckian state. In a similar vein the party opposed an attempt to nationalize railroads throughout the Reich. 36

The DHP stood unalterably opposed to B erlin's programs of m ilitary and colonial expansion. In 1886, for example, Simmern and a fellow DKP delegate argued cogently against a proposal to expand the army by i}.l,000 men. With an eye to Hanoverian resentment of compulsory m ilitary service Simmern branded the measure unnecessary and financially irresponsi­ ble. Decken, however, took a more international-minded and - as it turned out - somewhat prophetic view. He pointed to the widespread fear of Germany that existed throughout Europe and warned that any additional expansion of the armed forces could lead to disaster abroad.^7 Such Guelph aware­ ness of Germany's true position in Europe also manifested itself in the party's attitude toward colonial affairs. On the one hand the DHP saw expansion in Africa as a means to relieve diplomatic rivalry and tension in Europe; .on the other, it realized that this expansion irritated England,

3^Simmern, Aus Meinem Leben, I I ’, pp. 156, 257, and SBR (188L-85), 50. S itz ., I l l, I].' March 1885, p. 1809, (1888- 139T, Sess. 70 S itz., I l l, p. 1818.

•^SBR, (1886-87) Sess. ip, pp. 113, 389-390* Also: DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 39 -3A, Hr. 2l\2, Bd. 5, P* 13U-* l6 £ the one power Germany ought not to antagonize. Hence the party also opposed the colonial policies of the Reich govern­ ment. The parliamentary activities of the DHP, in sum, tended to reflect the party's anti-Prussian nature. In most instances legislation was considered in its relation to the Guelph problem: Bismarckian policies such as the seculariza­ tion of education, the persecution of the SPD and the expan­ sion of the Prussian army met with the solid opposition of the DHP. Yet this was not always the case. The party opposed agricultural tariffs, not because Bismarck supported them, but because such duties could prove harmful to Hanoverian farmers. Similarly, certain Guelph leaders - notably von der Decken - possessed a certain catholicity of thought which enabled them to rise above the jingoism of the day and to warn of the dangers of imperialism and m ilitarism . In this respect they represented one of the brighter facets of the Guelph movement.

Strength of the DHP in Hanover

In the two decades after 1870 the German Hanoverian Party received the support of roughly one-third of the

38simmern, Aus Meinem Leben, II, p. 2£0 and SBR, (I88 I4.-8 5 ), 10 January ltibjp, PP* 52l-% 22. 166 voters in H a n o v e r . 39 it was strongest in those areas once closely tied to the House of Guolph and exercised consider­ able influence in other rural areas by fulfilling the func­ tion of a conservative party. While the DIIP remained gener­ ally impotent in the towns and cities of the province,^ it received the warm endorsement of the small working class there until 1890 when Bismarck's anti-Socialist legislation was allowed to expire. In other more marginal districts the party often depended on the personality and religion of its candidates or the course of events to gain support. To argue that the DHP was entirely dependent on the recalcitrant followers of George V or even solely on the anti-Prussian elements of the province would be somewhat misleading. a. Areas of Strongest Support The three electoral d istric ts which gave the DHP their most constant and consistent support were Hoya-North Calen- berg (7), (15), and Gottingen (12). Although not contiguous, all three shared certain similarities: they were rural, orthodox Lutheran, and had long been part of the Guelph monarchy. Between 1870 and 1890 they usually were

39jn the Reichstag election of 1881 the DHP received its highest percentage of votes (3 8 . 8 $) and in I 887 its lowest (29*1%) Franz, op. P* 80. Throughout this discussion the reader is referred to Table 1 and Map 2, pp. ^-°The major exception was the of Hanover. 167 represented by the DHP in the Reichstag.^ Of the three, Hoya-North Calenberg was probably the most rural region in the entire province. In 1890, for example, only 15 per cent of its population lived in towns or c itie s. The Ifanovorian nobility was particularly powerful in the district v/hile the Lutheran Landeskirche exercised an almost hypnotic influence on its members. Rarely did a G-uelph candidate receive less than 62 per cent of the votes in Hoya-North Calenberg.^ In Uelzen (15) the DHP could count on even more votes, for it usually received a two-thirds electoral majority. Like Hoya-North Calenberg the district was rural, but, because of very poor sandy soil, remained sparsely settled . I t thus stood relativ ely isolated from the outside world and rarely bothered by Prussian officials. k-3 Electoral District 12 was not as rural as 7 or 15 since it contained the university city of Gottingen. The faculty and administrative personnel of that university were generally sympathetic to the National Liberals, but the sur­ rounding district remained a Guelph fief. A strong Catholic minority in the ancient town of Duderstadt, moreover, usually provided the necessary swing vote to ensure victory for the

D H P.^

^'■''Gftttingen elected a National Liberal delegate in 1887, but two years later the seat returned to the DHP.

^Ehrenfeuchter, op. c i t ., pp. 88 - 9 2 .

^3 Ibid., p. 7 7 . 4^-lbid., pp. 123-2 6 . 168 Two doctoral districts which the DliP usually domi­ nated but for somewhat different reasons, were 0 (Hanover) and I). (Osnabr&ck). In the city of Hanover, as we have noted, the party commanded a good deal of initial support from former court officials, civil servants, artisans and some workers. These groups a ll joined in protesting the annexation by electing Guelph leader Alexander von IJftnch- hausen to the North German Reichstag. Mftnchhausen held this seat until 1869 when he gave it up in favor of Dr. Heinrich Ewald. Throughout the 1870’s the city of Hanover experi­ enced a period of rapid industrial growth. As a result it became home to a large working class, a group which normally could be expected to support the nascent SPD. Because of the vicissitudes of Bismarck's anti-Socialist laws, however, the workers found i t expedient to support the DHP. Hence u n til 1881]. some of the most ardent Guelph agitators in the Eighth Electoral District were prominent urban workers - for example the carpenter Jork, a co-founder of the Allgemeine

Deutsche Arbeiter-Verein. In I 88 I4. the SPD won the primary elections in the district, and Hanover's Reichstag mandate passed into Socialist hands. The DHP showed no resentment, however, and u n til 1918 supported the SPD in all run-off Reichstag elections.^

^Ewald was succeeded on his death in 1 8 7 by Ludwig Br&el, Secretary General of the Hanoverian Lanaessynode.

^Ehrenfeuchter, op. cit., pp. 1 0 7 - 1 1 . 169 The fourth electoral d is tric t (Osnabrliick) was probably the most hotly contested constituency in the province. Its population was I4.8 per cent Roman Catholic and 92 per cent Protestant. The Catholics had been fervent supporters of George V; the Protestants, by and large, supported the National Liberals. Nonetheless, enough Protestants were conservative orthodox Lutherans to hold the balance of pov/er. As a result the DHP usually was victorious but only if it ran a Protestant candidate. In I 87 I4., for instance, Osnabrftck’s Protestants refused to accept the candidacy of a DrIP Roman Catholic and gave almost a ll of th eir votes to the National Liberals. Three years later the DHP avoided the mistake of running a Catholic and was able to represent Osnabr\!ick in the Reichstag until 1893 b. Areas of Contention and Mixed Support In three districts of the province the DHP stood at almost equal strength with the hated National Liberals. In the f i r s t years of the empire Bismarck's support of the National Liberals usually ensured their control of these marginal areas, but after the Chancellor turned against

Bennigsen's party in I 8 7 8 , power in the districts tended to revert to the DHP. Two of these electoral districts ( 1I4. and l 6 ) formed part of the ancient Guelph Stammland of Brunswick-Hlneburg.

Vflbid. , pp. 1 0 1 -1 0 5 . Also see; Pranz, op. cit., p . 19. 170 After 1866 they were so gerrymandered that the urban centers of Llineburg and Celle determined the outcome of the elections. This meant t h a t ,•although the DHP remained strong in the countryside, the National Liberals usually won the Reichstag elections. In 187 !)-, moreover, - that is, a t the height of the Kulturkampf - the DHP made the mistake of running a Roman Catholic as its candidate in Protestant Celle. Once the Kulturkampf was over and the Reich government withdrew its support from the National Liberal Party, the DHP began to gain strength. Well trained Guelph agitators spread propaganda in the countryside and among artisans and workers in Lftneburg and Celle. The result was a series of National

Liberal defeats, and u n til 1887 these districts belonged to the DHP A8 In the sixth E lectoral D istrict (Hoya-Syke) the popu­ lation was influenced by the liberal.press in neighboring Bremen. Thus, although the area was largely rural, its man­ date invariably went to the National Liberals. After the decline of that party in 1878 the DHP was able to muster enough strength to win the d is tr ic t's Reichstag seat. In this endeavour the party was aided by the large number of Social Democrats living on the outskirts of Bremen and by the forceful personality of Baron von Arnswaldt-Hardenbostel, a Guelph who sat in the Reichstag from 1881 to 1903*

^Ehrenfeuchter, op. a i t ., pp. 79”8&* 171 Tho Ninth Electoral District consistod of the former of Calenberg. This was an extremely fertile area, inhabited by grain growers, prosperous enough not to fear the competition of the East Elbian Junkers. Hence, they were not averse to supporting the National Liberal Party. The DHP was also influential in the d is tric t, and between

I87 O and 1890 control of Calenberg alternated from one party to the other. In 1878 many farmers resented National Liberal opposition to a proposed grain tariff and withdrew from that party. Many of them then joined the DHP, helping to main­ tain its strength well into the 1 8 8 0 ’s .b-9 c. Areas of Weakness or Impotence The DHP mustered little strength in Hanover’s remain­ ing electoral districts. In East Friesland (1 and 2), as we have seen, there never was much enthusiasm for the Guelph cause, and like Bremen-Verden (19, 18, and 17) the d is tric t remained solidly in the National Liberal camp. Ivleppen- Lingen (3) was overwhelmingly Roman Catholic and, in effect, could be considered Windhorst's personal fie f. Never once, in fact, did the DHP bother to run candidates there,

^ i b i d . , pp. 5l, 93-95, 1 1 1 -13 • Admittedly this was a contradiction, since the DHP also opposed grain tariffs. Perhaps the grain growers fe lt they stood more of a chance of influencing party policies in the DHP. Then again they may have joined the Guelphs merely to spite the National Liberals. 172 preferring to leave the entire district to the Zentrum.^ In the Harz (13) the loss of Hanoverian independence pro­ duced a certain measure of resentment, primarily because the district's iron industry v/as unable to compete with the cheaper ore of Westphalia. Nonetheless, the DHP could not capitalize on this resentment, and the Prussian govern­ ment moved swiftly to introduce subsidies. Perhaps for this reason the Free Conservatives gained a foothold in the Harz and came to represent it in the Reichstag for many years . ^ The three remaining districts in the province gave the DHP a modicum of support. These were Melle- (5), Hildesheim (10) and Einbeck (11). Although strongholds. of the National Liberal Party, these districts all contained minorities opposed to liberal ideology or to Prussian rule. Normally, the DHP was too weak in these d istric ts to stand much of a chance in electoral contests, but for a brief

period after 1878 the party did manage to score a few minor successes. Melle-Diepholz was an electoral district of mixed confessions. It contained a .large Catholic minority as well as orthodox and reformed Lutherans. Unlike the rest of the

S°ln return the Centre agreed to support the DHP in electoral districts containing sizable Catholic minorities, i.e., Gbttingen-Duderstadt, Hildesheim, and Osnabr&ck. See: Franz, op. c i t ., p. 1 7 . ^ I b id ., and Ehrenfeuchter, op. c it., pp. 126-129- Electoral District 13 was the only area of the province of Hanover in.which the Free Conservatives maintained any strength. 173 province, however, the d is tric t was not known for its

religious tolerance. Instead a strong anti-Catholic bia 3 existed among the region's farmers. For this reason the anti-clericalism of the National Liberals had wide appeal, and throughout the Kulturkampf the DHP met constant defeat.

In the wake of the liberal demise of 1878 , however, the DKP capitalized on the existing confusion and won the election of 1881. But the victory proved ephemeral and control of the district soon returned to the National Liberals. E lectoral D istr ict 11 was composed of a number of small cities such as ^inbeck and Northeim. It was a natural stronghold of liberalism. In the late 1880's, however, a strong Socialist movement developed among the district's workers. Together with the landed proprietors in the countryside the workers were able to pose a strong challenge to National Liberal hegemony; once, in'l8 8 lj., the two groups succeeded In electing a DHP candidate to the Reichstag.-^ In Hildesheim, the last district in our survey of the province, the DHP based its support almost solely on a strong Roman Catholic minority. Unlike electoral districts 5 and 11, Hildesheim had only been part of Hanover in the years after l 8 l£. Consequently, no strong Guelph tradition existed in the area and most people welcomed the annexation of 1866. The persecution of the Catholics during the Kulturkampf, however, outraged a number of moderate

^Ehrenfeuchter, op. c i t ., pp. 9 &-1 0 0 , 1 2 0 - 1 2 1 . 17lj- Lutherans, driving them into the ranks of the DIIP. Together with the Catholic minority they were able to take advantage of the misfortunes of the Rational Liberals, and in l8 8 l to elect a Guelph to the Reichstag. Throe years lator, however, the Rational Liberals recovered enough strength to recapture the district. In summary, the DHP drew its greatest strength from a conservative-rural electorate in areas once closely tied to the House of Guelph (e .g ., L\!ineburg-Uelzen, Hoya-Rorth Calenberg, and Gottingen). It also enjoyed the support of some landowners in other parts of the province who were not pro-Guelph by inclination but who felt the DHP served their interests better than the Rational Liberals. 51+ Bolstering this electorate were orthodox Lutheran clerics and Roman Catholics, both of whom resented the anti-clericalism of the Prussian state. Finally, the DHP enjoyed the loyalty over the years of working class elements in urban areas. As we have seen, this support stemmed initially from a fear of Prussian industrialism on the part of artisans and from a hatred of liberalism on the part of ind ustrial workers. During the seventies and eighties, as Hanover became industrialized,

53ib id ., pp. 1J4J4., 120 and Franz, op. c i t ., pp. 18 -2 0 .

'^This, for example, was the case in Melle-Diepholz. See; DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 31-1-3 A, Nr. ll}-2, Bd. 1^., pp. 9-13* the artisans dwindled in numbors, whilo the workers camo to predominate in the large cities. Normally, their ballots

should have gone to the Social Democrats, but since Bismarck1 anti-Socialist laws severely limited the activities of the SPD, Hanoverian workers voted instead for the DHP. This meant that the Guelph party continued to maintain its strength in the city of Hanover and to increase its support around Bremen. It also meant that once the a n ti-S o c ia list laws were repealed, the DHP could expect to lose the support of many voters.

Attitude of the Prussian Government The Prussian government viewed the German Hanoverian Party with suspicion. It considered the DHP part of a gen­ eral Guelph conspiracy and kept a close watch on its activi­ ties. Yet until 1890 the government did not actively perse­ cute the DHP or meddle in its affairs - at least not in Hanover. In the Reichstag, however, Bismarck relentlessly attacked the party as an "enemy of the Reich.'1 He denounced its members as traitors and rarely missed an opportunity to remind the parliament of George's subversive activities. Even as late as 1885 he assailed the DHP for its agitation

55some Prussian officials, such as General Alfred von Waldersee, at one time commander of the Tenth Army Corps in Hanover, advocated harsh action against the DHP. Such wishes were not adopted before 1890. Cf. Waldersee, Denkw\iirdigkeiten, II, p. 180, and DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77» T it 34-3 a7 Nr. 142, Bd 3, P- 2 6 0 , Bd. ip, pp. 1, 127. 176 and accused it of collusion with ultramontancs and Social Democrats . ^ Bismarck's hostility toward the DHP v/aa governed not by fear but by annoyance and contempt. He considered it outrageous that such a small clique of Hanoverians should continue to resist him after so many years and that it should refuse to acquiesce in the events of 1066.^ He resented the party's active cooperation with the SPD and Zentrum^® and was disturbed by what he f e l t might be the

DHP's international connections.^ yet the principal reason for his enmity had very little to do with the DHP itself; instead, Bismarck attacked the party in order to have a con­ venient excuse to keep George's sequestered treasure - the notorious Guelph fund. Bismarck, as has been noted, sequestered George's fortune in 1 8 6 8 for a variety of reasons, not the least of which was personal anger. The official justification of the measure was to control and suppress Guelph machinations, and

56see for example: SBR (l881j.-85), 98 S it z ., 11 Jiay 1885, p. 2 7 2 2 . £?Stehlin, op. cit., p. 195*

£®Bismarck to General von Pabrice, 6 September 1 8 7 8 , GW, VI C, p. 120. -^Although such connections ware most tenuous, the party did maintain close'relations with George's son, the Duke of Cumberland. The Duke was married to a Danish prin­ cess and closely related to members of the English and Russian reigning families. This in itself represented little danger for Bismarck, but the very idea that a political party had such affiliations often irritated him. See; Stehlin, op. c i t ., pp. 181^-186. 177 for several years thereafter the Prussian government did just that. With the conclusion of the Pranco-Prussian ’..'ar, how­ ever, George ceased to be a problem for Berlin, and popular pressure arose to return the king's fortune. This-Bismarck refused to do, pointing to the Zentrum-DHP alliance^0 and contending that the Guelphs were more dangerous than ever b efore. In reality, the Chancellor had grown accustomed to his unhindered access to the Guelph fund which he now was using for secret political purposes. He was reluctant to go before the Reichstag and ask approval for an official secret fund from the Reich treasury; consequently, he refused to return George's fortune. As the years went by, moreover, the Chancellor found himself increasingly dependent on this money (which he was using, among other things, to subsidize King Ludwig II of Bavaria)^1 and thus he was even more reluctant to give it up. In order to keep the fortune, however, there had to be a Guelph threat. Hence, Bismarck never missed an opportunity to denounce the DHP for its 'treasonable' activities or to brand its members 'enemies of the Reich.' In this way he could express his natural

^Bismarck seems to have genuinely believed Windhorst an untrustworthy Guelph agent. See: Bismarck, GW, VIII, pp. 262, 1(33. ^iThe reader is again reminded to consult the follow ­ ing works for more information on the Guelph fund: Nttll von der Nahmer, Bismarcks Reptilienfonds, and Philippi, "Zur Geschichte des Welfenfonds." 178 contempt for the Guelphs and, at the same timo, offer an excuse to keep the sequestered fortune. In short, i f the Guelph Party had not existed - to use the old cliche - Bismarck would have had to invent it . It is to his credit, as .Stewart A. Stehlin reminds us, that Bismarck did not view the Guelph problem as one- dim ensional.^ While he applied the whip to the DIIP in the Reichstag he offered the carrot in Hanover. There he actu ally ignored most Guelph demonstrations and in sisted that his earlier policy of moderation be continued. lie insisted that old Hanoverian institutions be maintained, and strongly resisted the entreaties of those who urged harsher measures for the province. ^ In I8 7 8 he even saw to it that the Imperial Court in Berlin went into three weeks of mourn­ ing on the death of George V. 61k The Chancellor felt the best way to combat the DHP was to win the loyalty of the Hanoverian people and that in order to do this he had to follow a policy of moderation and restraint. One specific way in which he exercized such

82stehlin, op. c i t ., p. 2 6 0 . 63sUch as General Alfred von Y/aldersee, commander of the Tenth Prussian Army Corps, Heinrich von Treitschke, the historian, and various Prussian officials in Hanover. Cf. Waldersee, Denkw&rdigkeiten, II, p. 180, Heinrich von Treitschke, ‘'Die., letzte Scholle welfischer Erde,u Preussische Jahrb\icher, XXXI (1873), pp. 61]1l-52, and DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3lk3 A, Hr. lq.2, Bd. 3, P« 260, Bd. Ip, p. 1. 61kStehlin, op. c i t . , p. 202. restraint was his treatment of the Hanoverian press. Y/hile extremely anxious to influence public opinion, Bismarck did not seek to suppress DHP newspapers. Instead, he subsidized pro-Prussian journals and saw to it that official Prussian papers such as the Staatsanzeiger, Kreuzzeltung, and Ha t i onalz e itung received wide provine 1 ' circulation. In addition, he also initiated a program of library construction throughout Hanover, housing large co llectio n s of h isto r ic a l and patriotic literature. So popular was this project, incidentally, that even the DHP gave it its blessing. ^ All in all, Bismarck’s conciliatory policies in Hanover seem to have been e ffe c tiv e . By 1890 the province of Hanover was well integrated into the Prussian state, and the DHP on the eve of a precipitous decline.

Conelusions During the early days of the Second Reich, the German Hanoverian Party led a rather parious existence. Branded ’hostile to the Reich' by Bismarck and treated with suspicion by other Prusso-Reich officials, it regarded harassment as a simple fact of life. In Hanover it seldom won even a plu­ rality of the votes and never once elected enough Reichstag deputies to form a Praktion. Furthermore, the party did not

^ 5 > D ie te r Brosius, "Welfenfonds und Presse im Dienste der preussischen P o litik in Hannover nach 1866,U Hieders&chsisches Jahrbuoh ffor Landesgeschichte, XXXVI d W , . p P.. ib 3-2o£. : : 1 8 0 coma remotely close to its main goal of romoving Hanover from Prussian control. Yet despite these lim itations, the DIJP proved a remarkably resilient party. Composed of widely disparate elements, it readily joined other splinter parties to form an anti-etatist front in the Reichstag. It demonstrated additional resourcefulness by entering a cooperative agree­ ment with the Zentrum, which gave DHP Reichstag deputies the /L privileges of membership in a Fraktion. In addition, it did not hesitate to work with the nascent Social Democratic Party. A ll in a ll the DHP probably could not have done much more to strengthen its position than it did. At the same time it did not fail to discharge its responsibilities to its constituents. Thus, although it protested the loss of Hanoverian independence and opposed- most Bismarckian legis­ lation as a matter of course, it also sought to protect farmers, Protestant clerics, Roman Catholics and urban workers from unfair competition or exploitation. And un til

1890 such a program had great appeal to a sizable minority of the Hanoverian people.

^^See* fn. 2 6 . V

THE GUELPH DYNASTY 1 8 7 1 -1 9 1 3

In the years after I8 7 I the Guelph court, at Gmunden stood isolated and cut o ff from the g litte r in g world of European diplomacy. Denied its throne and deprived of its fortune, the Hanoverian dynasty faced a bleak and unpromis­ ing future. To be sure, a visit from Francis Joseph or a conference with Ludwig Windhorst gave the royal family an occasional feeling of political influence, but most of its members surely knew the Guelph cause was as lost as that of the English Stuarts. This notwithstanding, several issues remained to be settled between the Guelph dynasty and Berlin. Chief among these was the final disposition of George*s sequestered fortune. According to the Royal Order of Sequestration this fortune was acknowledged as Guelph property. I t was to be held temporarily by the Prussian crown until the cessation of George*s p o litica l machinations, a t which time it would be returned to him.-*- As mentioned before, Bismarck d is­ covered that the Guelph fund could be used for his own

■*-Seej Hopf, op. cit., pp. ij.69-70*

1 8 1 1 8 2 p secret political purposes and refused to return it. Hence, even when George did abandon his anti-Prussian a c tiv itie s and retired to Gmunden, there seemed little chance of recov­ ering his lost fortune. After the Franco-Prussian War several attempts wore made to lift the sequester. One of the first was initiated by Q,ueen Victoria, who considered her cousin's punishment excessive. In 1873 she directed her envoy in Berlin, Lord Odo Russell, to speak to William I about the possibility of an accommodation with the House of Guelph. R ussell complied but learned from William that his hands were tied. According to the German Emperor the sequestration was an act of the Prussian Landtag and therefore could be lifte d only upon p e titio n from George V. In r e a lity , R ussell perceived that William had l i t t l e to do with the Guelph fund and that Bismarck had every intention of keeping the money to further his own policies. So hopeless did the British envoy consider the situ a tio n that he doubted if even a formal Guelph abdi­ cation or a recognition of the status quo in Germany would compel Bismarck to return the money.3 Meanwhile, a number of domestic voices began to demand a return of the Guelph fund. As early as 1872,

p Supra., Chapter II.

^See; Odo Russell to Granville, 23 April 1873, in Paul Knaplund (ed.) ’’Letters from the Berlin Embassy" Annual Report of the,American Historical Association.for the Year l^kz, II, Washington, l9I|4, PP» luO-lUl. ” George’s one-time Toe, Rudolf von Bennigsen, concluded that Berlin no longer had the right to retain the Guelph fortune and that its return would be politically prudent a3 v/oll as morally just. Moreover, in 1875, when the Elector of Hesse, whose fortune had also been sequestered, died, the Prussian government revoked the sequestration and returned the money to the Elector’s widow. This gave rise to speculation that the Guelph fund might be given back in a sim ilar way. In

1 8 7 6 Bennigsen, therefore, secured a unanimous resolution from the Hanoverian provincial diet calling for a return of the fund to George or to his heirs. Several months later this sentiment was echoed in the Prussian House of Representa­ tives by Eugen Richter. Richter, as leader of the Progres­ sive Party, was not concerned with the fate of King George, but he was disturbed by Bismarck’s callous use of the Guelph fund. When he asked the Chancellor to present a statement of accounts, Bismarck became so angry that he stormed out of the parliament in a rage.^ Unhappily for the Prusso-German government, Bennigsen and Richter were not the only German politicians to disapprove of Bismarck’s handling of George’s fortune. Johannes Miquel, one of the Chancellor’s staunchest supporters, considered the use of the fund for political ends incompatible with the wording of the Act of Sequestration. When his voice was

^l-Oncken, Bennigsen, II, p. 136 and P hilip pi, "Zur Geschichte des We If enl'onds ," pp. 199-203. 10)4- added to those of othor National Liberals as wo 11 as to those of the Progressives and Zen brum, it wa3 clear that a sizable segment of German public opinion desired either a return of the Guelph fund or a fin a l settlem ent betv/een Berlin and Gmunden. Moreover, such a settlem ent, i t was now widely f e l t , might be forced upon Bismarck with the death of the obstreperous George V.^ Another issue which remained to be settled betv/een Gmunden and Berlin was that of the succession in Brunswick. Brunswick, which straddled the former kingdom of Hanover, had long been ruled by a branch of the Guelph dynasty. It enjoyed a close association with Ilanover, and before 1866 most people assumed that the two states would eventually merge under one ruler. Such an assumption seemed more of a reality during the l8 6 0 's when it became clear that the bachelor Duke William of Brunswick (1831-188L) would never produce an heir to the throne. Upon William's death the throne v/ould thus pass to the nearest male relative, King George V of Hanover.6

In the year 1 8 6 6 , by accepting Bismarck's demand for an alliance, Duke William proved more prudent than his blind relative. He bowed to the Prussian hegemony but also -

5Ib id . L For a general history of Brunswick see; 0. von Heinemann, Geschichte von Braunschweig und Hannover (Bruns­ wick, 1884-92). For a discussion of the succession problem see the aiready cited; Hans Philippi, Preussen und die braunschv/eigische Thronfo Igefr age (Hildesheim, 1 9 6 6 )”. lQ$ probably to Bismarck’s annoyance - preserved Brunswick’s independence. He subsequently joined the North German Con­ federation and later the German Reich. These actions, in effect, put Brunswick under the protection of the German emperor, thus making i t theoretically d iffic u lt for Berlin legally to block a Guelph succession. Nonetheless, it was clear that Bismarck would never permit George V to sit on the throne of the Duchy. Hence, Duke William let i t be known that upon his death a regency should be established under the aegis of Grand Duke Peter of Oldenburg. In this way Brunswick could maintain control over its own affairs and probably save the throne for George's son, Crown Prince Ernest Augustus.? Just as Duke William hoped, these actions put Bismarck in a dilemma. Were the Chancellor to permit a Guelph suc­ cession in Brunswick, he would create a whole new set of problems. For one thing the Guelph prince - whether George V or Ernest Augustus - might attempt a restoration; for another the mere presence of such a ruler would encourage the DHP and probably add to the unrest in Hanover. Moreover, any such settlement would assuredly force the Chancellor to return the Guelph fund, something he was determined not to do. On the other hand, were Bismarck to prevent a succession

?A resolution to this effect was passed by the Bruns­ wick Landtag in 1873* See; Philippi, Preussen, pp. 31-37 and Philippi, "Bismarck und die braunschweigische Thronfolgefrage," pp. 261-70. 106 in Brunswick he would sow unrest among the member princes of the Bundesrat and possibly weaken the cement of the Reich itse lf.® The answer to Bismarck's dilemma was to find a middle way between these two poles. In his opinion, hov/ever, Duke William's proposed regency was an unacceptable solution. As long as George and his fam ily maintained their claim to the Hanoverian throne, any succession, even one delayed by a regency, was out of the question. So emphatic was the Chancellor that he informed Duke William that any Guelph attempt to seize the throne would resu lt in immediate m ili­ tary occupation and reduction of the Duchy to the status of a Reichsland.9 The lines were thus drawn. The Guelph dynasty main­ tained a legal right to its sequestered fortune and to the succession in Brunswick. Prussia, however, refused to let the dynasty exercise these rights until it renounced its claim to the Hanoverian throne. As long as George V lived, the chances of such a renunciation and settlement were nil.

O °Strange as it seems, Bismarck genuinely feared a Guelph putsch in Brunswick. This was one reason why he was so determined to incorporate the Duchy's army in the Prussian army. See: Otto Becker, Bjsmarcks Ringen um Deutschlanas Gestaltung (Heidelberg, 19.50 J, pp. Iptil-OB. ^That is as a federal district ruled directly from B erlin. P h ilip p i, Preussen, pp. 3^-36. 187 The question remained, howevor, what Berlin would do i f

Ernest Augustus should sook a rapprochomont on his fattier' 3 death. Fortunately, no one had long to wait; on 12 June

1 8 7 8 George V died in Paris.

The Advent of Ernest Augustus-I8 7 8 Ernest Augustus (181^5-1923) seemed a person consider­ ably different from his overweening father. Shy and retiring, he spent most of his time horseback riding or hunting in a remote mountain valley near Gmunden. The stu ffy atmosphere of the exile court disturbed him as did the constant circle of flatterers around his unfortunate father. He appeared free of illusions and had won, if not the admiration, at lea st the sympathy of the B ritish court and of the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick William. All in all, the Guelph prince seemed a young man genuinely bent on an accommodation with Berlin.^

Such, however, was not the case; on 11 July 1878 Ernest Augustus issued a blistering legal protest (Rechtsverwahrung) revealing his true nature which resembled very much that of his father. In this document the former Crown Prince denounced the loss of Hanoverian independence, announced his assumption of George’s prerogatives, and took

•^For biographical sketches of Ernest Augustus see: Johannes Rathe, Ernst August, Herzog von Cumberland, Herzog zu Braunschweig und Lfoneburg. Ein Brinnerungsblatt an seinen Heimgang (Hanover, 1923) and Paul Zimmerman, Ernst August, Herzog von Cumberland, (Hanover, 1929)• 1 8 8 for himself the title Duke of Cumberland. Technically speak­ ing, this protest, which had been painstakingly prepared by George's legal adviser Dr. Maxen, by the historian Onno IQopp, and by Ludwig Windhorst, was leg a lly and morally justified. Everything in it was correct. Diplomatically, however, it was a gargantuan blunder; it contained no offer of peace; it contained only a challenge to battle, H Bismarck could not have been more pleased. Ernest Augustus' tactlessn ess offered him renewed excuse to keep' the Guelph fund and to prevent a Guelph succession in Bruns­ wick. As he told a meeting of the Prussian state ministry, the Duke of Cumberland had put himself at the head of an anti-German c o a litio n and thus had to be as c lo se ly watched as George V12 .^ In London, meanwhile, Queen V ictoria was vexed by her relative's behavior. She considered his Patent a blunder and wrote the Duke of Cumberland that his relation to the Reich should have no connection to "the unfortunate events of 1866." This opinion was also shared by German Crown Prince Frederick W illiam.-*-3

1^-Text in Hopf, 1866, pp. 1^3-5k-• Later many people came to believe that on" his' deathbed George had made his son swear he would never renounce his claim to the Hanoverian throne. See; Joachim von K&renberg, The Kaiser (New York, 1 9 5 3 ), p . 2 6 5 . -

•^"Votum an das Preussische Staatsministerium betr, den W elfenfonds," 9 November I 078 , B ism a r c k , GW, 6 , C, p p . 123-25.

13philippi, Preussen, pp. 39-if-O. The Duko of Cumborland's subsequent conduct did not

m ollify the situ ation . In October IO78 ho suddenly revealed his engagement to Princess Thyra, the youngest daughter of King Christian IX of Denmark. For Berlin this was a step of considerable magnitude. Once such a marriage took place, Ernest Augustus would become the brother-in-law of the heirs to'" the B ritish and Russian thrones. ^1- He would" thus strengthen Guelph international connections and be in a better position to press his claims against Prussia. In addition, he might be able to arouse smouldering Danish resentment against Germany over the disposition of Northern Schleswig.^* By marrying Princess Thyra the Duke of Cumber­ land could become a connecting link between several foreign

*1 /L and domestic forces hostile to Bismarck. In retrospect it seems strange that Berlin considered Ernest Augustus as potentially dangerous. Despite his

^H-Thyra’s eldest sister Alexandra was married to the Prince of Wales, the future Edward VII; her other sister Marie to the Russian crown prince, the future Alexander III. Whether Ernest Augustus’ initial interest in Thyra was political or amorous is not known. He first asked for her hand in l87i|- but was refused by Christian IX, who feared antagonizing Bismarck. Thyra, however, was deeply in love with-the Guelph prince and in sisted on marrying him. The marriage turned out to be a happy one. See; Philippi, Preussen, p. 1+1. •^According to Article V of the Peace of Prague a plebiscite was to be held over the final disposition of Northern Schleswig. Such a plebiscite never took place. ■^Stehlin, op. c i t . , pp. 211-15. Also Bismarck, GW, VI, c, pp. 1 2 3 - 2 5 . 1 9 0 international connections he was nover in a position to 3tir up much trouble in Hanover or threaten the Reich. Yet the record shows that, beginning with hi3 engagement to Thyra, the Prussian government kept very clo3e watch on Cumberland'3 activities. Prussian agents, for example, followed him on his trip from Gmunden to Denmark, shadowed him in Copenhagen, and even attended his wedding.^7 In addition, Bismarck informed the Duke that any appearance on Prussian so il v/ould make him subject to Immediate arrest, banning him, in e ffe c t, from the Reich. As a resu lt Cumberland and his bride were forced to endure occasional harassment and to travel incog­ nito between Gmunden and Copenhagen.^® Ernest Augustus' unfortunate legal protest and his subsequent marriage to Princess Thyra produced one more unhappy result; in Brunswick Duke William gave up hope of preserving his throne for a future Guelph succession and con­ cluded that blocking Cumberland's succession might be the only way of preserving his duchy's independence. Therefore,

on l 6 February 1879 the Brunswick Landtag passed a new regency law. According to it, the government recognized the right of Prussia to establish a regency upon William's death and proposed as regent Prince Albert of Prussia, a son of

•*-?DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3^3 A, Nr. 1i\2, Bd. I)., p. 16. l 8 philippi, uBismarck, 11 p. 277* 191 Emperor l/illiam I . ^ 1'hus, in a fow months Ernest Augustus drove Duke William into the Prussian camp and ruined his ov/n chances of a rapprochement with Berlin. Little question now remained what would happen upon 'William's death.

The C risis of 188k Negotiations between Berlin and Gmunden stood at a virtual standstill. The hopes of a settlement raised by the advent of Ernest Augustus were shattered by the prince's own infelicity and by Bismarck's refusal to consider further dis­ cussions. Little remained, in fact, to negotiate until one of the two sides expressed a w illingness to compromise; and that was highly unlikely. In October l88lp, however, the aged Duke William of Brunswick fe ll fatally ill; it was clear the stage was being set for another clash betv/een the rival dynasties. Both Berlin and Gmunden had begun preparing fo r Duke William's death as early as 1879* Bismarck accepted the regency law of that year and expressed no intention of dis­ turbing Brunswick's independence. If, however, the Duke of Cumberland should attempt to seize the throne, the Chancellor was prepared to use military force and occupy the tiny state.As far as he was concerned, the Guelph problem was

•^pM lippi, "Bismarck," pp. 283-I|.. ^B itter to Eulenburg, 28 June 1879, DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 7 7 , Tit 3^1-3 A , Nr. 11±2, p. 96. Bismarck's decision to accept the regency law of 1879 should not be regarded as inconsistent with his refusal to accept a similar law in 1 9 2 a p o lit ic a l one, and no matter how valid Cumberland's claims might be, the Chancellor could not permit Srno3t Augustus to disturb the 'inner peace and safety of tho Reich.' There­ fore, when news fin a lly arrived on 10 October 188).|. that Duke William had died, Bismarck released a proclamation to the people of Brunswick. According to this the German Emperor guaranteed the integrity of the duchy but refused to commit himself to a Guelph succession. Instead the Bundesrat was to decide the issue; while it deliberated a special regency should administer the state.^ Since Prussia exercised a controlling influence on the Bundesrat, the upcoming deci­ sion seemed a foregone conclusion. ■ Meanwhile, in Gmunden, the Duke of Cumberland issued a Patent of Occupancy (B esitzergreifung) . In th is he assumed the title of Duke of Brunswick, claimed his right to that throne, and announced his intention to administer the duchy in accordance with the laws of the Reich. He sent a copy to all the kings and princes of the realm, to the free cities and to the German emperor.^ On the surface this Patent seemed to represent another example of Guelph obduracy, but underneath - at least in Cumberland's opinion - i t represented

1873* In "the earlier instance Peter of Oldenburg would have administered the duchy, thus keeping it out of Prussian hands. In the' latter case Brunswick would be administered by a Prussian prince.

^ T e x t i n Hopf, op. c i t ., pp. 5 5 2 -3 * ^ T ext in Ib id ., pp. 514-8-9* 193 an important concession: .for the first timo the House of Guelph recognized the _do .jure existence and sovereignty of the German Reich. It now remained to be seen i f Bismarck and the Bundesrat would recognize this concession and accept the document. Meanwhile, Berlin le t i t bo known that any attempt to support C.umerland would mean the enactment of

martial law in B r u n s w i c k . ^3 Bismarck's decision to refer’ the Brunsv/ick question to the Bundesrat represented an important constitutional development in the history of the Second Reich. For the

first time since I8 7 I a German diet was asked to rule on a matter of legitimacy, that is, on whether the legally con­ stituted representatives of the princes of the realm could exclude a fellow prince from his inheritance. This in turn presented a larger problem, viz, how far was the Berlin government prepared to go in recognizing the rights of the various German princes and states: was the Reich a truly federal organization or merely a greater Prussia? On 21 May 1885 the Prussian government presented its case to the Bundesrat. It stated simply that by refusing to abdicate his claim to the Hanoverian throne Ernest Augustus perpetuated Guelph h o s t ilit y to the Reich. Were he to accede to the throne in Brunswick, he would encourage the Guelph party in Hanover. Consequently, such a succession was "incompatible with the inner peace and safety of the

^3philippi, Preussen, p. 60. 191*. Reich. 11 In order to strengthen its case Berlin next released to the press a series of letters once written by George V to his agents in Paris. Prussia's statement to the Bundesrat was of course largely the work of Bismarck. As we have seen, the Chancel­ lor sought to prevent Ernest Augustus from securing his inheritance in order to keep the Guelph fund for him self.

Row in I8 8 J4.-85 he was guided by s till another motive: the long and b itte r Kulturkampf between B erlin and German Catholicism was drawing to a close. In late 188k Windhorst, the leader of the Zentrum, almost succeeded in securing the repeal of the hated Hay laws, the backbone of Bismarck’s anti-Catholic legislation. A total abrogation of these lav/s, in fact, was but a matter of tim e.^ Bismarck knew this of course and had been working with the Center for some time p £ already. 0 Nonetheless, his basic distrust remained and he feared becoming dependent on Windhorst’s party. Were he to sanction Cumberland's succession in. Brunswick, he reasoned, he would strengthen Windhorst^? and increase his own chances

2l4-Se e: Hopf, op. c i t . , pp. 560-3. I t is assumed this correspondence was obtained from Oskar Meding in I 87 O by Bismarck.

^They we re repealed in I8 8 7 . 26unlike the National Liberals the Centrists supported Bismarck’s tariff legislation and after 1879 his pro-Austrian anti-Prench foreign policy. ^Bismarck, it will be recalled, always believed Windhorst a dangerous Guelph agent. See Chapter IV; also see; Moritz Busch, Bismarck, Some Secret Pages of his History, II I, London, 1 8 9 8 , p. 91. • 195 of dependence on the Zen brum. Hence Ernest Augustus must be barred from the throne.^® Although the Bundesrat1s deliberations on the Bruns­ wick matter were of prime constitutional importance, the final decision was never in doubt. The representatives of Saxony and Bavaria suggested an amendment to protect the throne for Cumberland's infant son, but this was rejected. In the end only the representatives of Mecklenburg-Strelitz voted against the Prussian measure.^9 Qn 2 July 1805 the Bundesrat excluded Ernest Augustus from the Brunswick suc­ cession and recommended a Prussian regency. Five months later Prince Albert of Prussia v/as appointed regent. Once again the Guelph dynasty had met defeat.

The End of the Guelph Fund The Brunswick succession crisis demonstrated that the Duke of Cumberland could expect no settlement v/ith Berlin as long as Bismarck remained in power. The Duke placed some hope in Crown Prince Frederick William, but in 1888 Frederick's tragically short reign as Emperor shattered these aspirations. At Frederick's funeral, when the Prince

28n^ufzeichnung f\kr den Kronprinzen Friedrich Wilhelm,” 13 December 18814., in Bismarck, GW, VI, c, pp. 309- 10, Philippi, ’’Bismarck,” pp. 305-6, and Uusgen, Windhorst, pp. 266-67.

^Those of Oldenburg and Brunswick abstained.

3°Cf. Hopf, op. c i t ., pp. 56I4.-5 7 2 , and Philippi, Preussen, pp. 196 and Princess of vv'nles brought up the matter of a rapproche­ ment , the Chancellor bluntly replied that his conditions for a settlem ent were w ell known. As if to underline the point he subsequently sent a sharp warning to B ritish Prime Minis­ ter Salisbury not to become involved in Guelph affairs.^- Not unnaturally, the outcome of the Brunswick a ffa ir cast the Guelph court into the depths of" despair. In the

years since George's death in 1878 every attempt to reach a settlement with Berlin had foundered on the steps of the Reich Chancellory. Now for the first time since 1866, Cumberland’s advisers were seriou sly talking of abandoning further efforts and having him move to England. There, as a member of the , the Duke of Cumberland might at least have some political function. The Duke, however, refused to be convinced; obstinate and retiring, ^ he pre­ ferred to live at Gmunden where he could hunt, collect coins, and study family history.33

On 13 July 1 8 8 9 the Berliner Tageblatt published an article which was to alter profoundly relations between Gmunden and B erlin. In th is a r tic le , "Der YJelfenfonds und

33-Stehlin, op. cit., p. 226; Philippi, Preussen, pp. 81-83; N&ll von der Nahmer, op. cit., p. 212. ■^^Tsar Alexander III once called his brother-in-law. an ’’irresolute imbecile." Alfred von Kiderlein Y/Hchter to Holstein in Norman Rich and 1/1. H. Fischer (ed.) The Holstein Papers, III, Cambridge, 1961, p. 2 8 7 . 33ziramermann, op. c i t ., p. 33 and Schnabel, Klopp, pp. 2 0 7 - 2 1 0 . 197 Kaiser Friedrich,” the Tageblatt alleged that because the Guelph fund gave the Reich Chancellor too much power, the late Sniper or Frederick had intended to do away with i t and turn the money over to tho Prussian State Treasury. By the time of Bismarck's dism issal (in March 1890) the Guelph fund had become a*press sensation. At home and abroad nearly every major newspaper joined in attacking the Guelph fund and the fa lle n chancellor .3^- The major thrust of this attack was not against the existence of such a fund nor even against the way in which the Guelph dynasty had been handled. Rather it was directed against the uses to which the fund had been put by an uncontrolled and capricious Bismarck.35 In the Prussian Landtag, Ludwig Windhorst renewed his demand for an end to the Reptile fund. At the Wilhelmstrasse the scrupulous and correct new Chancellor was genuinely shocked and embar­ rassed to learn of the misuse of the Guelph fund. He imme­ diately ordered an end to its press subsidies and privately let i t be known he wanted the fund abolished.-^ Exactly how

3^-i-See, for example, The Times (London) 17 A pril 1890, p. 5- 35pbdlippi, "Zur Geschichte des WeIfenfonds,” pp. 219- BO. The most upsetting charge was that Bismarck had com­ pelled several ’’o ffic ia l” newspapers to print news handed to them by the government; in return they received subsidies from the Guelph fund. See; J. Alden Nichols, Germany after Bismarck, (Cambridge, 19$&), p. i|-5• 36uichols, op« cit., p. k$. 198 this should be accomplished remained something of a problem. Caprivi's advisers contended that the Guelph fund was c lo sely tied to the question of Brunswick and.that were Berlin to return the Manoverian fortune-, i t would have to permit Cum­ berland to accede to the throne in Brunswick. Since this was out of the question (unless of course Ernest Augustus renounced his claims in Hanover), the Duke of Cumberland should not "be given even a handerchief" from the Guelph fund.37

Meanwhile, at Gmunden, the Duke of Cumberland c lo sely watched events in Berlin. At first, through Duke Ernest of Sachsen-Altenburg and later through Baron Ernest von Hammerstein-Loxten, an influential Landesdirektor in Hanover, the Duke le t i t be known that he might be w illin g to compro­ mise with Berlin. On 17 October 1890, for example, Hammer- stein told Chancellor Caprivi that although Cumberland could never renounce his claim to the Hanoverian throne, he might be persuaded never again to make that claim in public. Caprivi, in turn, suggested that the Guelph fund might be returned if Ernest Augustus solemnly promised the Kaiser it would never be used 11 directly or indirectly" against the Prussian government

37The term was that of the Foreign Office official, Alfred von Kiderlein-W&chter. Philippi, "Zur Geschichte des vYelfenfonds," pp. 2 2 1 -2 2 . 38presumably, he meant subsidies for the DHP. 199 While these dolicate negotiations were under way, former Chancellor Bismarck sat ensconsed at his estate Friedrichsruh, nursing his grudges against Emperor William II. Partly out of frustration and partly out of rancor, the old was writing a series of articles in the Hamburger

Nachrichten against William II and the Caprivi r e g i m e .39 These reports covered a wide range of subjects, but they were not concerned with the peripheral issue of relations between Gmunden and Berlin. Early in March 1891, however, Bismarck published a vitriolic attack against his last State Secretary for the Interior, Heinrich von Btttticher, charging that Bfttticher had once saved his father-in-law 's banking business through a contribution from the Guelph fund. Heed­ less to say, public opinion was outraged by such a revela­ tion, and the influential Frankfurter Zeitung demanded an immediate end to the sequester of the Hanoverian fortune. Caprivi too repeated his private desire to get rid of the Guelph fund, but, as had happened once before, the rea liza ­ tion of his wish was blocked by his cabinet.^ Nevertheless, by the summer of 1891 it was clear that the return of the Reptile fund was but a matter of time.

39see; Nichols, op. cit., p. 103 and Eyck, Bismarck, III, pp. 608-9. ^A n exception was George V’s old adversary Finance Minister Johannes Miquel, who favored liquidation of the fund. See: Philippi, "Zur Geschichte des Welfenfonds," p. 22lj. and Nbll von der Nahmer, p. 213. 200

After all, Bismarck was no longer Chancellor, Ernest Augustus

had expressed a w illingness to compromise, and Caprivi him­

self was pushing for a settlem ent. Only the Kaiser had

failed to express his feelings on the subject, and before

long, he too insisted on a rapprochemont. Broadly speaking, William II had paid little attention to what might be called the Gtralph problem; "if anything, he seems to have considered the'whole thing humorous. In August 1891, however, his grandmother Queen Victoria v isited him aboard the imperial yacht Hohenzollern. There she told her impetuous grandson that on his deathbed George V had pleaded for the eventual return of his family fortune.

W illiam seemed unmoved by this information, but several

months later, on a visit to Hanover, the Kaiser sought out

Cumberland's agent, Baron von Hammerstein-Loxten. He

informed Hammerstein that Qberpr'&sident Rudolf von Bennigsen^

had repeatedly urged the liquidation of the Guelph fund and

asked that the money be given to the Hanoverian provincial

adm inistration. The Kaiser now asked Hammerstein his opinion

on the subject. The astonished Landesdirektor replied with

startling frankness that the money had been unjustly seques­

tered in the first place and should be returned to the Guelph family. Impressed by this candor, William II invited

Hammerstein to be his guest on a royal hunt. There he agreed

Ip-He was appointed Oberprds ident of Hanover in 1888. 201 to turn over the revenues from the Reptile fund to the Duke of Cumberland.^ Thus, impressed by tho wishes'of his grand­ mother, by the pressure of public opinion, and, in tho last analysis, by the forthright candor of Freiherr von Hammer­ stein, William II decided to right what he now considered a heinous wrong.in short, the Hanoverian royal fortune, which had been sequestered in a moment of anger by Bismarck, was now to be returned - or at least the revenues from it - in a moment of generosity by William II. Events now moved to a speedy conclusion. On Ip Janu­ ary 1892 the Prussian cabinet learned of the Kaiser’s deci­ sion to dissolve the Reptile fund. Caprivi next directed Finance Minister Miquel to prepare a b ill lifting the sequester for delivery to the Prussian Landtag. In the mean­ time, the Duke of Cumberland drafted a letter to William II promising never to sponsor any undertaking hostile to the Emperor or to the Reich. He did not, however, renounce his claims to the Hanoverian or Brunswick thrones.Nonethe­ less, the letter was accepted, and on 10 April 1892 the Prussian Landtag passed a resolution that u the condition of

■ ^ P h ilip p i, ”2ur Geschichte des We If enf onds, ” pp. 226-27 and Dieter Brosius, Rudolf von Bennigsen als. Oberpr&sident der Provinz Hannover: 1888-1897 (Hildesheim, 19bJp), .p. 6 3 . ^+■3shortly after the sequester was finally lifted, William II sent Hammerstein an autographed portrait with the inscription: "Recht muss doch Recht bleiben." Hopf, op. cit., p. I4.8 7 .- ^l-Text in Ib id ., pp. I(.97-8‘ 202 tho province of Hanover is now so well settled that special means for preventing agitations against Prussia are no longer necessary.’1^ On the same day the sequester of the Hanover­ ian royal fortune was lifted and the Hep tile fund dissolved.^ Ernest Augustus did not receive his father's fortune from Berlin _in toto. In fact, according to the Act of Revo­ cation he was to receive only the interest derived from the capital - in other words that money to which he was entitled by the Treaty of 29 September 1867 and which had formed the core of the Reptile fund.^ Nevertheless, without renounc­ ing his claim to the Hanoverian throne and without recogniz­ ing the status quo in Germany, the Duke of Cumberland regained the revenues from his father's fortune. To be sure, the question of Brunswick remained unsettled, but what had been perhaps the major source of irritation between Gmunden and Berlin was now removed. In the years that followed, it became clear that the liquidation of the Guelph fund marked a turning point in the history of the Guelph movement. The court at Gmunden, for

^Annual Regis ter 1892 (London, 1893), P* 223. ^Interestingly, the Reichstag subsequently estab­ lished a new Reptile fund of £00,000 marks from the Imperial treasury. The money was allocated to the Yvilhelmstrasse for 'secret political purposes.' See: SBR, 1890-92, VII, Ses. 1, I4. March 1 8 9 2 , pp. lj.£68-73 •

^The term 'Guelph/Reptile fund' never meant the entire Hanoverian royal fortune but only the interest derived from it. Berlin continued to hold on to the prin­ cipal, which, incidentally, disappeared in the inflation of 1923. 203

example, no longer served as a symbol of Injustice, and

although relations with Berlin remained cool, the Duke of

Cumberland occasionally met W illiam II at diplomatic and

social functions. In 1913, moreover, tho Duke’s son married

W illiam’s only daughter, ascended the throne in Brunswick

and thus ended the strife between the two dynasties. Exactly

how this was accomplished w ill nov/' be shown.

Brunswick and the Solution of the Guelph Problem

For nearly a decade after 1892 the Duke of Cumberland

lived quietly at C-munden. Sometime during this time, how­ ever, he decided to adopt the old Habsburg maxim, bella gerant a lii, tu, felix Austria, nube; on 23 March 1900 he announced the engagement of his daughter Marie Louise to

Prince Max of Baden, the future Reich Chancellor and possible heir to the Baden throne;^"® several years later he married his other daughter, Alexandra, to Grand Duke Frederick

Francis IV of M ecklenburg-Schwerin.^

In Berlin these attempts to play dynastic politics aroused the suspicions of W illiam II. The Kaiser did not care that Cumberland married his daughters to German princes, but he was disturbed not to receive' invitations to either event. His feelings were also hurt when he sent messages of condolence on the death of Cumberland’s sister Mary in 190^,

^They were married on 10 July 1900.

^-9phjLlippi, Preussen, pp. 109-111. 2 Ol[.

but received no acknowledgement. As V/illiam saw it, he had

made a generous attempt at reconciliation by returning the

revenues from tho Guelph fortuno, but had received nothing

in return from Gmunden. The fact that Ernest; Augustus also

went out of his way to avoid meeting the Kaiser whenever in

the same neighborhood also bothered W illiam and once caused

him to note in one of his famous marginals: ’’Thickheaded

Guelph ox.... As far as I am concerned, the difficult

Brunswick question is settled for all time."-’0

Meanwhile, in Brunswick all was not well. There,

public opinion had greeted the barring of the Guelph dynasty

in 1885 with indifference; the fact that the duchy's inde­

pendence had been preserved was more important to most people

than who sat on the throne. The subsequent regency of Prince

Albert of Prussia, however, changed this indifference to scorn. Unlike the late Duke William, Albert spent little

time in Brunswick and when there, displayed an arrogance which irritated even the most lowly and insignificant of citizens. By the turn of the century this had produced such discontent that a noisy Guelph movement had arisen. Since no Guelph party existed in Brunswick before 1885, i t w a s

obvious that Bismarck's policies had backfired and that

^°Ibid., pp. 119-20. In view of Cumberland's shyness and V/illiam's abrasive bombasticism it is easy to see why Ernest Augustus sought to avoid seeing the Kaiser. His sk ill in doing so, however, caused him to become known as the "Vanishing Prince." E. H. Benson, The Kaiser and English Relations (New York, 1936), p. 2 6 3 . 205

the Bundesrat decision of 1035 only encouraged Guelph agita­

tion rather than prevent it.^

Por Berlin this was particularly disturbing: -were it

to permit a Guelph succession in Brunswick - which many o ffi­

cials agreed was the only realistic solution^ _ the duchy

might become the focal point of DHP agitation in Hanover.

If, on the other hand, it permitted Albert's regency to con­

tinue, popular discontent might persist in feeding the fires

of Guelph particularism. In either case the cause of

national cohesion would be weakened and that of regionalism

s t r e n g t h e n e d .

On 13 September 1906 the'unpopular Prince Albert

died. For the first time since 1892 national attention was

again focused on the Guelph problem: would Berlin permit

Ernest Augustus to accede’ to the throne of Brunswick or would

it once again deny him his inheritance? Since Emperor

W illiam II was angry with The Duke of Cumberland and Chan­

cellor Bernhard von B\ilow was opposed to a Guelph succession,

the German public did not have to wait long to find out. On

28 February 1907 the Bundesrat announced the exclusion of

Siibid., pp. 95-8* Also see; "Hiatus," Die Zukunft, 82, 15 February 1913, P« 2 l 6 .

^For example Count Friedrich Pourtales, Deputy State Secretary for the Interior and future ambassador to St. Petersburg, and Count Konstantin von Stolberg-V/ernigerode, Hanoverian Oberpr£sident between 1897 and 1902. For more information on official attitudes toward the DH? see Chapter VI. 206

the Duke of Cumberland and his heirs and tho appointment of c'o Prince John Albert of Mecklenburg-bchworin as regent.

The Bundesrat decision was a mistake, not because it

had serious consequences, but because it made the German

government look foolish. In 1685 Bismarck's charge that a

Guelph succession would endanger the 'inner peace and safety

of the Reich' seemed plausible; after all, only fifteen years before George V had sought collusion with Napoleon III. But

in 1907 the idea of Ernest Augustus standing at the head of a reichsfeindlich plot was absurd. 5k- In fact, since the turn of the century the Duke of Cumberland had repeatedly sought to reaffirm his recognition of the Reich; he had married his two daughters to German princes, sent his son

George W illiam to study at Heidelberg, and in October 1906, went so far as to abdicate his right to Brunswick in favor of his youngest son Ernest A ugustus.^ Although none of these moves induced the Bundesrat to change its decision,

^A ctually, 'William II v/as not unalterably opposed to a Guelph succession in Brunswick. He was however extremely annoyed with the Duke of Cumberland for his disappearing acts and for his refusal to marry one of his daughters to the Prussian crown prince. Bftlow, on the other hand, felt a Guelph succession-m ight prove harmful to his own policies of nationalism and imperialism. See; Bernhard von B&low, Memoirs, (Boston, 1931), II, pp. 272-3. Also see ChaDter V I , P .

^Particularly when one considered that the DHP h a d just sustained a crushing defeat in the Reichstag elections of January 1907; the party saw only one deputy returned to the German parliam ent.

^W ithout, however, renouncing his claim to Hanover. 207

they all made Berlin's position less tenable. In June 1907,

moreover, the Duke's youngest son joined a Bavarian cavalry

regiment, thus indicating further the Guelph's desire for a

detente To the public the idea of a Guelph plot now

seemed even more absurd. Perhaps tho Socialist editor,

Franz Mehring, summed up the situation best: "Brunswick is

only a very tiny little state," he wrote, "but in its his­

tory the principle of legitim acy has taken the most fantas­

tic headers. Were there a modern Aristophanes, he could spin hilarious comedies about them."^7

Despite such an unpropitious beginning,.the regency

of Prince John Albert turned out to be a popular one.

Unlike his predecessor, the prince listened to the wishes of

Brunswick's people and undertook a number of projects designed to assuage their grievances. He saw to it that the duchy's flag once again flew over government buildings, that army officers were allowed to wear their old regimental uniforms,and that Brunswick itself became his own per­ manent residence. In addition, he ordered public prayers

^A s a Bavarian officer the Guelph prince swore allegiance to Bavaria, not the Reich. Conceivably, he might still be disloyal to the Reich. Such a possibility, how­ ever, was rather far-fetched.

-^Franz Mehring, "Vom legitim en Prinzip," Die Heue Z e i t , 2i|_, I I , ( 1 9 S e p t e m b e r 1 9 0 6 ) , p . 8i|_9-

■^Neither of these things had been permitted by Prussian Prince Albert. Since Brunswick's army had been absorbed into the Prussian army such uniforms probably were worn only at court or on special ceremonial occasions. See: Philippi, Preussen, p. l 6 l . 208

for the ruling family of tho duchy. Sinco that meant the

Guelph fam ily, the peoplo of Brunswick found themsolvos in

the curious position of publicly praying for a dynasty that

had been forbidden to rule.-^

In a ll of these activities John Albert had the

approval of William II. After years of wrestling with the

problem, the Kaiser was moving toward a compromise. He had been impressed by the Duke of Cumberland's renunciation of his claim to Brunswick and, despite the pleas of Chancellor

Billow, saw no longer any reason why the duchy could not fa ll to Cumberland's youngest son. By sanctioning public prayers for the Guelph dynasty and thus indirectly approving its right to rule in Brunswick, he hoped to compel Cumberland to take some additional initiative.

Things did not quite work out that way. On 20 May

1912 the Duke of Cumberland's eldest son, George W illiam, was killed in an automobile accident. William II took pity on the unfortunate Duke and, as a gesture of sympathy, dis­ patched two of his sons to Gmunden as pallbearers. Cumber­ land responded soon afterward by sending his twenty-five year old son Ernest Augustus to Potsdam. There on 2 June

1912 the young prince was receive.d by William II and his

£9philippi, Preussen, pp. l6l-5.

k®In 1910 the Kaiser's brother, Prince Henry of Prussia, told the Duke's Lord Chamberlain that W illiam II was not averse to compromise but that the first move had to come from Gmunden. Ibid., p. 167. 209

twenty year old daughter Victoria Louise. V/hat followed

was more than a declaration of gratitude. The Guelph heir

and the Iiohenzollern princess became infatuated v/ith each

other. Additional moetings followed, and on 10 February

1913 a radiant Kaiser announced the engagement of his only

daughter to Prince Ernest Augustus.

The marriage of Ernest Augustus to Victoria Louise

three months later signaled more than a reconciliation

between the houses of Guelph and Hohenzollern. Behind the

scenes Prussian officials labored feverishly to arrange the /L 1 Guelph prince's succession in Brunswick. At first,

Berlin insisted on a fu ll renunciation of all claims to

Hanover as a precondition for the succession. This the Duke

of Climber land and his son would not accept. However, as a

sign of good w ill the Duke invited twelve important leaders

of the DHP to Gmunden to explain that he had made his peace

with Prussia. To emphasize the point, he next published a

letter, which his son had written to Chancellor Theobold von

Bethmann Hollweg. In this document Prince Ernest Augustus

revealed that he had become a Prussian officer0^ and taken

an oath of loyalty to the Kaiser (as king of Prussia). The

6 ^In addition to Philippi's adequate discussion of these events, a much more detailed account can be found in Wilhelm Kartwieg, Urn Braunschweigs Thron 1912-13, (Brunswick, 1 9 6 il- ) .

6 ^This was one of the conditions in the marriage con­ t r a c t . 2 1 0 prince exp licitly recognized tho a tabus quo in Germany and solemnly swore to protect the Reich against all enemies.^3

Throughout the summer the German government debated whether or not to regard this letter as sufficient renuncia­ tion of all claims to Hanover. On the one side stood

Bethmann Kollweg, who felt it foolish and unwise to deny

Ernest Augustus his inheritance;0^- on the other was German

Crown Prince W illiam, who demanded fu ll abdication. Finally, in October Prince Ernest Augustus released another communique, promising to regard a ll oaths taken to William II as binding whether he succeeded to the throne of Brunswick or not. This broke the ice. On 27 October the Bundesrat lifted its ban and confirmed Ernest Augustus Duke of Brunswick-L\5ineburg.

One week later the new Duke and his wife made a triumphal entry into Brunswick and took up residence at the ducal palace.After an interval of forty-seven years, the fam ily of George V once again sat on a German throne.

63Text in Ibid., pp. 70-1. / J •For more inform ation on Bethmann1s attitude toward the Guelph problem see Chapter VI.

^Philippi, Preussen, pp. 173-182. VI

THE DECLINE OP TI-TE GERfilAN -HANO VERIAN PARTY 1 8 9 0 - 1 9 1 8

The German-Hanoverian Party captured 31 per cent of the Hanoverian vote in the electoral campaign of 1890.

Recovering six seats lost three years earlier in the Septennat election, the party once again was represented by eleven dele­ gates in the Reichstag. Only once before had it done so well in national elections^ and thus, after two decades, the DHP seemed as firm ly entrenched as ever. Yet the party's strength was elusive. The clerical-proletarian-agrarian alliance, which formed the backbone of the Guelph coalition, was begin­ ning to break up and the cohesive forces which held these groups together to disappear. By 1903 the DHP could claim only 20.5 per cent of the vote in Hanover, and nine years later, after the last election held in Imperial Germany, only 13.5 per cent. By the outbreak of '//orId War I the party had become what its detractors always claimed it to be - p a narrow dynastic movement with little popular support.

^Actually, the party received higher percentages in I 878 (35.8$) 1881 (38.8$) and 188L (37-3%)- But only in 1881 did it elect eleven Reichstag deputies. See; Franz, Die politischen Wahlen in Niedersachsen, Table 10a.

^Statistics from Ibid.

211 2 1 2

A multitude of reasons lay behind tho decline of the

DHP, reasons which w ill be discussed in detail later. It should be made clear at tho outset, however, that the decline of the party was largely inevitable. In fact, it is remark­ able that the Guelph coalition lasted as long as it did.

United primarily by hatred of Prussia, the party never could be more than a negative force: it offered no real alterna­ tives to the problems of the nineteenth century; it was anachronistic and woefully out of step with the times; it was regional and extremely limited In strength. Ey 1900 it was clear that the DHP simply had outlived its usefulness.

As such, it existed solely as a tiny vestigial remnant of a bygone age.

The most obvious reason for the decline of the Guelph party was the withdrawal of its member groups and the breakup of the old DHP coalition of workers, landed proprietors, and

Roman Catholics. Of these the most serious loss was probably that of the working cla ss.3 As mentioned before, a large number of Hanoverian workers supported the DHP during the years of Bismarck's anti-Socialist legislation. Beginning with the expiration of these laws in 1890 , the workers quite naturally began to vote for SPD candidates. In fact, the

3At least in Ehrnfeuchter's opinion. Ehrnefeuchter, o p . c i t . , p. 2 6 1 . 213 percentages of votes cast for the Socialists in Hanover climbed from 8 .1 per cent in 1887 , t o 20 per cent in 18 9 0 ,

t o 31*8 pex> c e n t i n 1912 J+

SPD-DIIP electoral cooperation did not come to an abrupt end, however, with the termination of Bismarck's anti-

Socialist laws. As a matter of fact, the two parties con­ tinued to support each other in district primaries and by- elections throughout the nineties and the first few years of the twentieth century. In 1898 , for example, Hanoverian

Oberpr&sident Konstantin von StoTberg-W ernigerode reported that two C-uelph nobles, Count von Mftnchhausen-Lauenau and

Count von Dannenberg-Hanover, shared a common platform w ith an SPD agitator in the Seventh Electoral D istrict. In that same district the editor of the SPD Volkswille also announced his support for the DH?.^ Several years later a new

0berpr£sident wrote that SPD support ensured the election of at least eight DHP candidates in recent primary e l e c t i o n s . ^

Yet,, despite the tenor of these reports, SPD-DHP relations cooled considerably after 1890. The DHP press, for instance,

^Franz, op. c i t ., Table 10a.

5nDenkschrift iVber den Stand der W elfischen Bestre- bungen in der Provinz Ilannover am Ende das Jahr I898 ," DZA , Merseburg, Rep. 77 , Tit. 3^-3 A, Nr. lLp2, Fasz. 1, W elfische Bewegung (Geheim-Akten), 1&99-1906.

^"Denkschrift \!iber d.en Stand der W elfischen Bewegung," DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 3^3 A, Nr. lip2, adh. 2, Politische Umtriebe in der Provinz Hannover und im Herzogtum Braunschweig 1899-1905* attacked the Social Democrats for disregarding tho Ten Com­

mandments or for advocating violent revolution.? After 1903

the SPD cam© out against the Guelphs for having reversed an p earlier stance in approving agricultural tariffs. The

.party accused the DHP of selling out to Prussian Junkers,

denounced its members 'as "bread taxers," and withdrew its

support. By 191 I4. SPD-DIiP collaboration ceased altogether.*^

Another' serious loss for the DHP was the withdrawal

of a number of landed proprietors from the party. This move

although unexpected at the time, was the result of a number

of changes in German agriculture. German farmers - particu­

larly in Prussia - had enjoyed a long period of prosperity

b e f o r e I 87 I. After unification, however, the introduction

of cheap American grain changed Germany from a grain export­

ing to a grain importing nation. This meant that many land­

owners east of the Elbe pressed for and secured agricultural

tariffs designed to protect their produce. In the west, how

ever, most farmers - including Hanoverians - were not grain

growers. Consequently, they were generally immune to flu c­

tuating grain prices and usually opposed agricultural

tariffs. But beginning in 1890, the importation of

7Ibid. Also see: Deutsche Volkszeitung, 15 January 1901, DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77., T it. 3^-3 A, Nr7 ll|-2, Bd. 8 , p . 180 .

®For more details .see below; pp. 215-16.

^Ehrenfeuchter, op. c i t ., pp. 307-H* During the era of the the DHP considered the SPD its greatest enemy. additional grain from Russia, the Introduction of efficient

farm machinery in the Reich, and the movement of agricultural

laborers from the countryside to the cities combined to

raise agricultural wages while simultaneously lowering the

price of domestic produce. The malaise which once affected

only grain prices now spread to other commodities, including

s u g a r . ^

In Hanover these developments had a particularly

telling effect. As producers of sugar beets many Hanoverian

farmers now questioned DID? resistance to agricultural tariffs.

They demanded an immediate change in their party’s position,

and when this was not forthcoming at once,H many of them gravitated to the newly founded Parmer's League (Bund der

Landwirte).

This Parmer’s League, which v/as to become one of

W ilhelmine Germany's most powerful pressure groups, demanded the end of all commercial treaties with Russia, the intro­ duction of a bim etallic currency, and above all, the enact­ ment of a high agricultural protective tariff. It supported candidates of its own choosing - usually members of the

lOpor an excellent introduction to the problems of German agriculture in the late nineteenth century see: Rebecca Tire 11, German Agrarian P olitics after Bismarck's Pall; the Formation' of the Farmer's League (Hew York, 19]? 1) pp. '19-33 • A newer more comprehensive work is; Kans- Jttrgen Puhle, Agrarische Interesssenpolitik und Breuss ischer Konservatismus im V/ilhe Iminischen Reich ( 1593-19lM » (Hanover, l'9 b b ) .

-^Actually, the party's position changed around the y e a r 1900 . 216 Conservative Party - and in Hanover began to cut deeply into the ranks of the hapless DHP. In the election of 1893, i‘°P example, the Conservatives captured nearly a ll those votes which normally went to Guelph candidates in the Eleventh and Thirteenth Electoral Districts. Five years later the League claimed the support of many of the province's upper and middle class farmers; by 1903 it even managed to secure the allegiance of some Hanoverian nobles. The DHP of course tried to fight back by branding members of the Farmer's League "bread taxers" (the same charge leveled later against the DHP by the SPD) and by eventually coming out for agri­ cultural tariffs itself. But these efforts were too little and came too late; by 1914 the DHP had forfeited much of its agrarian support.^

A third major loss in DHP strength was caused by the dissolution of the old GueIph-Zentrum alliance and by the withdrawal of Roman Catholic support in Hanover. As noted before, the DHP never felt particularly comfortable in its cooperation with the Center. In the 1880's it began to extricate itself from the Catholic embrace, and with the death of Windhorst in 1891 several DHP Reichstag deputies ceased working with the Center Party altogether. In 88 I I4.,

•^"Ehrenfeuchter, op. c i t ., pp. 292-301. DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3^-3 A, Nr.'lii2, Fasz I, p. 29, adh. 2, pp. 31-32, and Bd. 9, PP- 31-35- The rise of the Farmer's League did not hurt the DHP in any One district in particu­ lar, but in South Hanover the damage seems to have been g r e a t e s t . 2 1 7 for example, a ll but one of the eleven Guelph deputise were

associated with the Zentrum as "guests." By 1903 thi3 number

was reduced to four and after 1907 to only one.^r

Several reasons lay behind tho breakup of the DKP-

Center alliance. For one thing the DH? resented tho Center's

increasing willingness to cooperate with the Reich govern­

ment. As a result oT the growth of the SPD and the decline

of the National Liberal Party the Zentrum held the balance

of power between the right and the left in the Reichstag.

This meant that its support was vital for the passage of government legislation. After the death of Windhorst, more­

over, Center leader Ernst Lieber (1833-1902) a d v o c a t e d

cooperation with the government and in 1899 actually leant his party's support to an army bill. This sort of activity

irritated the DHP and caused many of its members to withdraw

their support from the Zentrum.^

Another reason for the dissolution of the DHP-Center alliance lay in the very nature of the Center Party itself.

That party claimed to be a confessional party and - officially at least - frowned upon non-Catholic membership. As long as

Windhorst remained alive, little more than lip service was paid to this definition of the party's role. In 1909,

■^Bachem, Zentrums pgrtei, VII, p. 382.

■^Cf. Dunlop Crothers, The German Elections of 1907 (New York, 1941) PP* 23 et. se q .; 0berpr£sident Wentzel to Bethmann-Hollweg, 2 M a r c h I9 O7, DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3i|3 A, Nr. ll)-2, Bd 12, p. 168 . 2X8

however, the Zentrum accepted a resolution by Reichstag

deputy Hermann Roeren that it become an exclusively Catholic

party. Quite naturally, this infuriated the Protestant

"guests"; in the election of 1912 the Guelphs severed their

ties with the Center once and for all.*^

It should not be implied from the above that the

Zentrum was entirely responsible for the collapse of its

alliance with the DKP. The DHP shared part of the blame.

In 1902, for instance, the Guelphs objected to Centrist attempts to repeal Bismarck's anti-Jesuit lav/s, a stance which sparked a bitter reaction from the Center. In Hilde- sheim and in Osnabr&ck Catholics withdrew their support from

the DKP and threw it to candidates from other parties. At first this had little effect, but in the election of 1907

the DKP lost 7 per cent of Its normal provincial vote. It secured only 2 per cent in Osnabrlick, a district ’which it had represented for many years, and in the province, as a whole, the party managed to elect only one Reichstag deputy.

Four years later Catholic-Guelph cooperation was restored in

Gottingen (12), but throughout the rest of the province the old alliance was severed forever.

•^Bachem, op. c i t ., VII, pp. 225-29.

■^As pious Lutherans most Guelphs did not want the Jesuits to return to Germany.

-^There were of course other reasons why the DKP suf­ fered such a crushing defeat in the elections of 1907• None­ theless, loss of Catholic support seems to have been a major one. Ehrenfeuchter, op. c i t . , pp. 306-13. 2 1 9

One of the main reasons, then, for the dee lino of the

DEP was the collapse of the Guelph coalition of workers,

landowners, and Roman Catholics. Another important cause of

this decline lay in the dism issal of Bismarck and the return

of the Guelph fund. With the removal of Bismarck in particu­

lar the DHP lost much of its raison d 'e t r e . For decades

Guelph orators had railed against the man who was prim arily

responsible for the loss of Hanoverian independence, who

persecuted George V, and who branded the DHP 11 reich sfein dlich.11

Now he was gone, replaced by scrupulous Leo von Caprivi.

Behind this new chancellor, moreover, stood a popular young

emperor - a man who traveled frequently in Hanover, who

expressed a desire for rapprochement with the House of

Guelph and v/ho returned the Guelph fund to the Duke of

Cumberlandi In 1898, when W illiam I I attended army maneu­

vers in Hanover, he was so enthusiastically received by the

normally staid populace, that Prussian authorities there were utterly amazed. -*-9 Even the DHP registered approval of

the vibrant young Kaiser.

With Bismarck out of power and W illiam II unsuitable P 1 as a target, the DHP lacked a whipping boy. Moreover, the

•^stolberg to M inister of the Interior, 29 March 1899, DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 3I4.3 A, Nr. lij.2, Fasz. I, p. 21.

^ I b i d .

^An exception was Rudolf von Bennigsen who was regu­ larly assailed as the gravedigger of Hanover." See: G. F. Konrich, Rudolf von Bennigsen, Ein Vortrag (Hanover, 1913)* 2 2 0 return of the revenues from the Guolph fund caused some members of the party - including several nobles - to regard the C-uelph problem as solved. In later years numbers of them deserted the DHP, leaving it in the hands of a fey/ recalcitrant diehards. In 1913 when Ernest Augustus's son married Victoria Louise, additional groups abandoned the op party, some even calling for its dissolution.

The new era ushered in by Bismarck's dism issal a ls o showed that the DHP's Ideological goals no longer appealed to the interests of the party's constituents. Tv/o decades of Prussian rule had brought not disaster but unparalleled success and prosperity. To talk of the 'good old days' of

Hanoverian independence sounded not only unrealistic but ridiculous as well; not even the most fanatical Guelph could believe times had been better under George V.^3 jn addition, by 1890 a new generation of Hanoverians had- grown to manhood.

This generation knew nothing of the world before 1866 . I t attended Prussian schools and served in the Prussian army.

Most of its members were imbued v/ith the Prusso-C-erman spirit. What little they knew of the DHP was hardly favor­ able; they regarded the party as foolish or even treasonable.

In short, by the turn of the century the DHP had simply

22pheden to Kammerherr, 21 M ay 1902, DZA, M erseburg, R e p . 77, T i t . 31+.3 A , N r . lJ+2, B d . 9, P - 216. Also Fasz. 5 , p. 9 6 . 23priiop, op. c i t ., p. 197* 2 2 1

outlived its usefulness: it was neither contemporary or

relevant to the Hanoverian scene. 21). Economic changes in Hanover also militated against . the DIIP. In 1866, the G- ue lph state had been almost entirely a rural area - a fact which helps to explain much of the DHP's initial appeal and part of its longevity. In the years after unification, however, the economic structure of the province changed markedly. Hanover's position on the North Sea coast gave it an important role in Germany's expan­ sion of trade and commerce. Canals and railroads were built throughout the province, and by 1900 Hanover had developed a thriving industry of its own.^ Industrialization also brought urbanization. In 1880 only three cities in Hanover

had a population of 2 0 , 0 0 0 *-or more people; twenty years later of\ the figure had risen to seven. With industrialization and urbanization came a relative decline in rural population:

in I 8 7 I 75*3 per cent of all Hanoverians lived in villages of less than 2,000 people. By 1890 this number declined to 65.3 per cent27 and by 19lli- to 53*9 per cent.28

^ Ib id .

25stehlin, op. cit., p. 2 8 5 • 26jKaiserliches Statistisches , Statistisches Jahrbuch ffcr das Deutsche Reich (Berlin). Cfh 1880, p. 7 and I9 OO pp. 5-6. (cited hereafter as St. Jb. )

^ S t e h l i n , op. c it., p. 285.

2 ^ st. Jb., 1914, P* 3. 2 2 2

These changes In Hanover's socio-economic structure boded ill for the DHP. As an agrarian party it offered lit tle to city dwellers that could not be found in other political parties. To be sure, as long as Bismarck's anti- Socialist laws remained in force, large numbers of urban workers supported the DHP, but after 1890, as has been noted, they switched their allegiance to the SPD. Even in the old Guelph Stammland the DHP found it difficu lt to maintain its strength in the face of industrialization. In Calenberg, , and Hamelin, for instance, the party did well in the seventies and eighties; after the industrialization of these areas in the nineties most voters cast their ballots for the SPD. By I9lii it was clear that the DHP could main­ tain its strength only in the most rural of Hanover's elec­ toral districts and, more particularly, only in those tradi­ tionally associated with the Guelph monarchy.29 One final cause for the decline of the DHP lay in the harassment of the party by the Hanoverian provincial govern­ ment. Throughout the seventies and eighties that body tended to ignore the DHP. Since Bismarck had called for moderation in the province, most Prussian officials appear to have left anti-Guelph measures to the chancellor himself. Beginning in 1888, however, this attitude changed. In that year

2 9prilop, op. cit., pp. I9 I4.-197 - It should not be forgotten that even in rural areas the DHP had a difficult time maintaining its strength in the face of rivalry from the Parmer's League. 223 C-eorge V's longtime opponent, Rudolf von Bennigsen, was appointed Oberprllsidont of Ilauovor. Bennigsen, it will be recalled, originally subscribed to Bismarck's policy of con­ ciliation in Hanover and since 1866 had himself consistently urged moderation. Upon’his appointment as Oberpr&sident, however, he was alarmed by the continued strength of the

Guelph movement.3® in the countryside, he noted, Guelph officials still controlled important bureaucratic and judi­ cial positions, the churches and part of the school system.

Furthermore, these officials often kept young Hanoverians from the "P russian s ta te idea" by encouraging them to f u l ­ fill their military obligation in the Saxon rather than the

Prussian army. In Bennigsen1s opinion it was mandatory for the German government to take a harsher stand against the

DHP.31

In the following years the Oberpr&sident and his advisers drew up a comprehensive program of proceeding ag ain st the Guelph movement. This included in s titu tin g a series of trials against Guelph orators for lese majeste and slander, harassing the DHP press, removing Guelph sympathisers

3°Aside f rom Bismarck himself, no other figure aroused so much hatred among the Guelphs as did Bennigsen. It was v/idely believed that he had colluded with Bismarck in 1866 and thus had built "a career on treason." The viciousness of Guelph press attacks on the new Oberpr&sident appears to have been a major factor in Bennigsen1s subsequent decision to crush the DHP. See; Brosius, Bennigsen, p. 39 e t. seq . 3bennigsen to Herrfurth, 17 December 1889, DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 3^1-3 A, Nr llj-2, Bd 6 , pp. i|5-L8. 22l+ from executive and judicial offices, and dissolving DHP political clubs and auxiliary organizations. Bennigsen per­ sonally initiated these measures in June 1889 by filing a libel suit against the editor of the Deutsche Volkszeitung, Baron Georg von Dannenberg. In the tria l that followed Dannenberg was found guilty and sentenced to three months imprisonment, 'a relatively severe punishment for a crime of this type.32 Soon afterwards a number of Guelph orators, including several Lutheran pastors, were arraigned on charges of lese majeste. In the subsequent trials most of the accused were acquitted, 33 but the Oberprlls ident continued making arrests. In fact, such procedures continued through­ out his term of off ice. 3^-

Bennigsen a lso sought to remove DHP members from executive and judicial positions in Hanover. As early as

March 1890 he reported to Berlin that six minor officials had been removed in Llichow.3-5 rpb.e next year three Guelph

Landr&te were dismissed in Bleckrede, Lftchow, and Bersenbeck; in subsequent years several DHP judges lost their jobs in other parts of the province.3&

3^Brosius, Bennigsen, p. 39 e t . s e q .

33g'he accused had, in fact, done little more than offer public toasts to the Duke of Cumberland.

3^DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 31x3 A, Nr. lL2, p. 3 6 .

33’Ben n ig sen to H errfurth, 26 March 1890, DZA, Merseburg, ’Rep. 77, Tit. 3^4-3 A, Nr. llj-2, p. 56. -^Brosius, Bennigsen, pp. 31+-35* 225 The Hanoverian provincial government also proceeded with great severity against DHP clubs and auxiliary organi­ zations. In the summer of 1892, for example, after a large number of homes wore callously searched for evidence, thirty two clubs and sixty five individuals were indicted for vio­ lating the Prussian law on political clubs. In the trials that followed,. however, only seventeen persons were actually convicted.^7 Nonetheless, the trials in themselves coupled with the infiltration of DHP clubs and meetings by police spies was enough to intimidate a number of party members and make them more restrained in their oratory.3® Added to the other reasons for the party’s decline, they helped to accel­ erate it.

DHP Attempts to Ward Off Decline DHP leaders and officials were well aware of their declining position. In order to cope with this situation and in order to ward off further deterioration, they adopted a series of programmatic and tactical measures which, at fir s t, met with varying degrees of success. In the long run these measures did not prevent the demise of the Guelph move­ ment, but for a while at least they appear to have stemmed the tide.

^The sentences meted out were very light. In most cases the convicted had to pay fines of only 5 to 10 marks. 3%rosius, Bennigsen, p. 33 and DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 3l+3 A, Nr. lij.2; Bd. 6, pp. lkO-215. 226 One of the first such attempts was to expand trie scope of the DHP and to give it a national appeal. As men­ tioned before, certain party leaders, such as Heinrich Langwerth von Simmern, always wanted to make the DHP the nucleus of a large grossdeutsch movement. Before 8 I 7 O their ideas had gained a certain degree of acceptance, but after the Reichsgrfondung, federalist concerns receeded into the background. With the unsuccessful outcome of the Brunswick problem in the eighties, however, a number of party leaders began to press for cooperation with anti-Prussian groups out­ side Hanover. The result was the formation of a national coalition of particularists from Hesse, Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, Brunswick, Bavaria, and Mecklenburg-Strelitz - the Deutsche Rechtspartei.39 The Deutsche Rechtspartei was not a p olitical party in the strict sense of the word; it presented no candidates in elections and had no representation in the Reichstag. By holding national conventions and by sponsoring an active press^ the party sought to call attention to the injustices of Prussian centralism and to the plight of the annexed pro­ vinces of 1866. In ideology the Deutsche Rechtspartei did

39pr iio p , op. c i t ., pp. 162-166. Significantly, no Alsatians, Poles, or banes were invited to participate in the Rechtspartei.

The leading newspaper, the Deutsche Rechtspartei, was edited by Wilhelm Kopf, a recalcitrant Aessian particu­ laris t and long time friend of the historian Onno Klopp. Ibid. 2 2 7

not differ from the DHP. It did, however, play down purely

Hanoverian affairs and called for the creation of a central

European Friedensbund, an organization designed to protect

Germany, Austria-Hungary, Holland, Sw itzerland. Had not

this proposal been so obviously G-ueIph-inspired it might

have gained some acceptance among the pan-German currents

of the day. As it was the Friedensbund and the Deutsche

R echtspartei never amounted to very much; by 1907 both had

receded into obscurity.^

Another method used by the DHP to stem its decline

was to shift the ideological emphasis of the party from

dynasticism to regional pride. V/hereas Guelph propaganda

once extolled the glories of the Hanoverian royal family, It

now s tre ss e d the uniqueness of the Lower Saxon Stamm. I t maintained that Prussians were half Slavic and that there

was an innate superiority in being Hanoverian. As one

Guelph writer put it, "Hanover’s history is the history of

Germany,, and Germany's history the history of Hanover."^

H-xI-Iever the less, DHP attempts to expand its activities on a national scale caused some concern for Prussian offi­ cials. See; DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 3^+3 A, Hr. 11l2, Fasz. I, p. 30.

^Georg Treu, Vaterl&ndische Schriften (Hanover, 1912), p. $ . The idea of regional.pride was hardly a new one. As we have seen, it was used extensively in the campaign of 1867 . But it was stressed much more after 1890 than it had been before. See; Oberpriasident Wentzel to Innenminister, 28 November 1909, DZA^ Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3^3 A, Hr. l!|2, Bd. , p. 27 . In 1906 a Guelph orator stressed: "lie are not JlL p a rty of"7 legitimists, but a party of justice." Ehrenfeuchter, op. c i t ., p. 337* 2 2 8 Such propaganda produced a moasure of enthusiasm for the DH? and apparently made an impression on young voters in the province. As the Prussian Gberpr&sident himself reported, what most Guelph supporters really sought by voting DHP was "to preserve the uniqueness of their province ."^-3 In its attempt to prevent its decline the Dir? also adopted a series of tactical measures. Chief among these ■v/as the creation of clubs and auxiliary organizations designed to appeal to Hanoverian youth. Those first appeared toward the end of the eighties and, despite harassment by Bennigsen's administration, grew to at least eight in number by 1900. Generally, these Guelph clubs provided opportuni­ ties for social contacts: they sponsored picnics and dances; they provided plays and entertainment; and above a ll they offered chances for social gatherings in otherwise lonely rural areas. In a larger sense, of course, the Vereine were a kind of social and cultural adjunct to the DHP. Their programs stressed Guelph folklore - particularly for young people; their names - Alter Club We If , and Sachsenross - had political implications. Club meetings, moreover, usually paid tribute to the Duke of Cumberland, to the royal family at C-munden and invariably to the 'martyred' George V.^-

^1-3D Z A , Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 3^-3 A, I\Tr. llj.2, Ba. 7, P. 75- ^fSuch tributes revealed that, despite - public claims to the contrary, the DHP remained a dynastic party. One of 229 Whatever else th e ir worth, these Guelph, clubs provided the

DHP with an important vehicle to spread propaganda and to try

to maintain party strength in an era of decline.^

the most popular Guelph songs, for example, was JIannovers Kfonigsgruss, a sad and sentim ental hymn in memory of George V:

Ich starb a Is Fftrst im fremdcn Lande Und meines Kbnigreichs beraubt; Zerrissen waren heil'ge Bande, An die ich einst so warm geglaubt. Es hat mich mancher schn&d verlassen, Auf dessen Treu ich fest gebaut. Doch musst ich friVh im Tod erblassen. Uch hab getrost auf Gott vertraut.

Ich hab' als Flirst bewahrt die Ehr1, Ss hat gesiegt.mein tapfres Heer, Lie in Volk hB.lt meine Fahne hoch, Und Gott im Himmel leb et nochi

Mein teures Volk, all' Deine Leiden .Hab ich getreu geteilt mit Dir, HBtt1 gern gelolint mit tausend Freuden 1 Dir Deine Liebe f\lr und f\!jr. J e tz t steh ' ich nun vor Gottes Throne Und bete innig fur Dein Gl&ck, Dass Er Dir Deine Treue lohne Und segnen m'ige Dein Geschich,

Ich hab’ als Fftrst bewahrt die Ehr’ etc.

Wie sich das Schicksal mag gestalten - Harr’ aus im Sturm, mein Volk, harr’ aus, 1st auch mein Reich in Feind's Gewaiten Und bd 1 mein einst so glllcklich Haus. Was wahr, was frei ist, wird erstehen. Dem Recht der Sieg doch warden muss; Ich 'send 1 aus lich ten Himmelsh'dhen, Mein Volk, Dir meinen Kbnigsgruss.

Ich hab1 als F\lrst bewahrt die Ehr1, etc. (Text by George Mehlis, reprinted in Kreisgemeinschaft Uelzen im Welfenbund e.V., Traditionen der Hannoveraner (Uelzen, 1966 ), p. 3 0 *)

^TDZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3lj-3 A, Nr. lii2, 3d. 6 , pp. 107-111, llpO-lLS, l 6Ip, Bd. 7, PP. 7, IOI 4.-I35 , Fasz. I, p. 29, and adh. 2, p. 113. 230 Another such move to hold its ground was to institute annual DHP conventions. These began in 1895 and were held regularly until the outbreak of A'orld V;ar 1 .^ In contrast to usual DI-IP meetings these conventions pretended to open up important topics affecting the party to public discussion. Before 1895 such matters were usually decided in private by the seven man directorate of the Hannoverscher '.Vahlverein; now a ll Guelph supporters were given the impression that they too had a voice in decision making. In reality, of course, the conventions were tightly controlled by the DH? leader­ ship, and most topics presented were actually the old ones of '’Justice and Injustice," "Bismarck in 1866," or "Prussian P olitics of Theft." nonetheless, these conventions appear to have stirred up so much enthusiasm in parts of Hanover that they were regularly attended by armed Prussian police. In 1901, moreover, when Guelph speaker Ludwig Alpers denounced "Prussian cleptomania," he was arrested and the convention dissolved. This move, of course, delighted DHP leaders, for it offered the type of publicity they felt necessary to prove 'Prussian brutality' and keep the party going. ^-7

^They were reinstituted in 1 9 1 9 continued through 1 9 3 0 *

^7dzA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, Tit. 3^4-3 A, Hr. Iu2, adh. 2, p. J4.7 and Faszikel r "Auflosung der Landesversammlung der deutsch-hannoverschen Partei in Ltineburg." It is debatable whether or not persecution helped or hurt.the DHP at this time. Probably few people paid much attention to what was going on. 2 3 1 One final tactical effort made by the DHP was to revamp and expand its press. The fir s t such move was made in Brunswick toward the end of 190l|., a second, in Hanover three years later: in 1907 the DI-JP sustained such a crushing defeat at the polls (it elected only one Reichstag deputy) that party leaders announced a major drive to found nev; news­ papers and to expand the circulation of existing publica­ tions. Under normal circumstances this might be easier said' than done, but the DHP was a party of such wealth^ that the drive soon became a reality. In Uelzen, Soltau, Hoya and Diepholz, new Guelph papers appeared on news stands as early as July 1907, und in the next two years circulation of a ll DKP publications seems to have increased. By 1909, Hanover's Oberpr&s ident reported to Berlin that the Guelph movement was much more active than i t had been for years. That such activity paid off was revealed in the elections of 1 9 1 2 , when the DHP regained five seats in the Reichstag.^ How successful were DHP efforts in warding off dete­ rioration? The answer is d ifficu lt to determine, for the socio-economic and p o litical forces causing decline were so great that neither a major campaign by a ll party members

^•®In 1911 a former editor of the Deutsche Volkszeitung reported to Prussian authorities that that newspaper alone received an annual subvention of 20,000 marks from the Duke of Cumberland. DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3k3 A, Ur. lb2, Bd. 13, p. 132. h-^BZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3lp3 A, Hr. lij-2; Wentzel to Bethmann Hollweg, 2 March 1907, Bd. 12, p. 199^ Wentzel to Innenminister, 28 November 1909, Bd. 13, pp. 25-30. nor a gigantic subsidy from Gmunden could really reverso the

course of events. Expressed in percentages, it will be recalled, the number of votes cast for Guelph candidates went from 31 per cent in 1890 to 20.5 per cent in 1903 to 13.5 per cent in 1912. Nevertheless, in the years between 190? and 1912 it is clear that Guelph propaganda efforts - particu­

larly on the part of clubs and the press - had some effect.

In the elections of 1912 the party obtained 79,603 votes,

ju st 1,507 more than in 1907 , 'but enough to elect five dele­ gates to the Reichstag. This is notto saythat other fac­ tors did not play a role in the DHP revival; many voters in

Hanover, as in the r e s t of Germany, were simply fed up with the sabre rattling pan-Germanism of the pro-government parties and may have voted Guelph as an act of protest.

Nevertheless, as even the Hanoverian Oberpresident concluded, a major factor in the Guelph revival was the frenetic activity of the DHP itself.^0

Changes in the Character of the DHP

The declining position of the DHP in the years before

World War I produced a change in thecharacter of the party.

Whereas bourgeois-liberal elements had at first formed a small but important segment of the party leadership,

Hanoverian Ritter and nobility came to dominate now completely

^°Franz, op. c it., Table 10 a. and Oberpr&sident Hanover to Innenminister, 29 February 1912, DZA,- herseburg, Rep* 77, Tit. 31-1-3 A, Nr. llj.2, Bd. 1 3 , p. 1 7 8 . 233 the upper echelons of the DI-IP. Of the twelve men who sat as Guelph deputies in the Reichstag between 1Q90 and XQlip, all but one came from aristocratic backgrounds.^- This in turn meant that the party assumed a more dynastic hue. As mentioned before, a good deal of lip service v;as paid to grossdeutsch federalism and to regional pride, but, in actual fa ct, party goals we re as dynastic as ever.Moreover, before the 1880's little contact existed between the DHP and the Hanoverian royal family. With the advent of the Duke of Cumberland and the development of the Brunswick crisis of

1 8 8 L.-8 5 , however, party leaders traveled more frequently to Gmunden for advice. The Duke of Cumberland became involved in party affairs and briefly assumed an important position in the leadership of the DEP.-^ Another change evident by the turn of the century was the rise to prominence of demagogues in the party. As long as the DHPmaintained close ties .to Zentrum and SPD and behaved in a responsible manner, such a development was unlikely. With the dissolution of these tie s , however, and with the ever diminishing chances of a Guelph restoration in Hanover, the DKP took on an e x tr a -ter re str ia l dimension: anyone professing loyalty to the House of Guelph was admitted

->^Max Schwarz, IvIdR, Biographisch.es Handbuch der Reichstage (Hanover, 1965) pp. 182-87.

^Inform ation supplied by Kartmut Silz. H e r r S i l z , who is a doctoral candidate under Professor Egmont Zechlin at Hamburg, has examined the extensive correspondence of the Duke of Cumberland. 23k to the party and anyone with a degree of articulation v/as often let into the party's inner circles. This meant that individuals who never could hope to play important roles in larger political parties, were able to become important figures in the DHP. One such person, for example, was Ludwig Alpers. Alpers, who came originally from Hamburg, served as a schoolteacher in Lehe, a villa ge near . Because of pro-Guelph statements he was relieved of his position in 1892 and returned to Hamburg. There he enjoyed rela tiv e safety from the Prussian authorities and began a career as a Guelph agitator. He became so renowned for the bitterness of his anti-Prussian diatribes that he soon came to the attention of the DHP leadership. In subsequent years Alpers traveled up and down the province of Hanover, harranguing mobs and pleading the Guelph cause. He was arrested on more than one occasion for slander, and in 1 9 0 1 , it was his key note address, which, as we have seen, sparked the dissolution of the DHP annual convention by the police.^3 In addition to his oratorical gifts, Alpers possessed organizational talent. In the Seventeenth Electoral District (Harburg) he mobilized public resentment of high taxes and fodder prices to the advantage of the DHP; he even went so

-^DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3^4-3 A, Nr. lij.2; Cf. Paszikel I, p. 29 and Bd. 7, PP* l$k> 170-77* 2 3 5 far as to blamo increasing cases of hooC and mouth disease on Prussian bureaucratic indifference. By appealing to individual prejudices, he built a well-knit party organiza­ tion. So successful was Alpers, in fact, that in 1912 he himself won election to the Reichstag, the first C-uelph from Harburg to do so since the annexation.-^' Obviously, Alpers was a man of considerable ability. Had he attached himself to another party, he might also have met with success; yet in view of the competition he would have encountered in other more important partis, this is questionable. By becoming a member of the DHP, however, he ensured himself a good career and became a large fish in a rather small pond. Although the deterioration of the DHP gave the party a greater dynastic bent and facilitated the rise of demago­ gues, it also caused some members to reconsider their rela­ tionship to the Prussian state. Most significant of these was Count Berthold von Bernstorff, Reichstag deputy (1893- 1907) from the F ifteenth E lectoral D istr ic t (L&chow). Some­ time during the nineties Bernstorff concluded that further resistance to Berlin was futile and that some sort of accomo­ dation should be reached. In private he expressed this opinion to leading Prussian officials^ and emphasized that,

^J-Cf. Ehrenfeuchter, op. c it., p. 176 and Wentzel to Innenminister, 29 February 1912, 'DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3^4-3 A, Nr. ll(-2, Bd. 13, p. 180. ^Exactly who is not revealed in the documents. given a chance, the DHP could become the nucleus of a strong

conservative (i.e. pro-government) movement.^ In the Reichstag he pleaded tho cause of moderation and even equivocated on some of the major Issues of the day. In 1897, for instance, ho admitted that as a Guelph he was obliged to vote against the construction of a high seas fleet yet in order "to protect German trade" he voted for the measure.count Bernstorff, of course, hardly represented the majority thinking of the DHP. In fact, had the substance of his negotiations with Prussian officials been known, he might have been drummed out of the party. Nevertheless, as time went on, it became clear that a growing number of mem­ bers agreed with Bernstorff. These people sometimes tried to reform the DHP, but more often they simply left the party. In so doing of course they only strengthened the hand of the dynasts and made the Guelph movement more p a rticu la rist than e v e r .^

The DHP in the Reichstag

During the W iihelmine epoch the C-erman-Hanoverian

Party continued to be represented in the Reichstag. No

56Landrat Rehfeld to Police President Hanover, 16 July 1903"^ and "Denkschrift \iber den Stand der Welfischen Bewegung," DZA,-Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3^4-3 A, Nr. lij-2, adh. 2 . ■

^7 S3R, (1897-98), 7 December 1897, p. 90.

•£®DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T i t . 3^-3 A, Nr. lIj-2, Bd.

p . 1 0 0 . longer dependent on the whims of the Centor and freed from

the verbal assaults of Bismarck, the DHP enjoyed a large

measure of autonomy and independence. Whatever advantages

such autonomy produced, however, v/ere offset by a decline in

the number of deputies and by the disappearance of eloquent

and articulate spokesmen such as Heinrich Ewald and Ludwig

Windhorst. Generally, the party persisted in registering

the Guelph protest and in attacking the centralism of the

Prussian state: it offered little new in the way of ideas

and thus remained a diminutive quixotic movement.

One issue which did arouse Guelph interest and which

became the subject of ardent debate in the Reichstag was the

construction of a large German battle fleet. At first, the

DHP unequivocably rejected Admiral Alfred Tirpitz's proposed

naval expansion program. It branded the program unnecessary

as w ell as costly - and warned that naval expansion could

provoke a dangerous arms race with Great Britain. By the

time the naval b ill came up for a vote, however, popular

pressure in Hanover had forced a slight change of opinion.

As Deputy Hermann von Hodenberg conceded, no other part of

Germany stood so much to gain from maritime expansion as did

Lower Saxony. On the other hand, v/ere the DHP to vote for naval construction, it would strengthen the hand of the

Reich government and add to the already heavy national debt.

Consequently, the party announced its approval "in principle, but proceeded to vote against it for fiscal reasons. One deputy, Count Bernstorff,^ as haa been notod, cast his / ballot for the governmont proposal.^® The DHP stance on the naval issue was not of major importance; the votes of a handful of Guelph delegates could hardly have changed the course of T irp itz ’s program. Never­ theless, by equivocating on the issue the party revealed just how anachronistic it had become; in order to appease maritime elements in a changing Hanover it should have supported the bill; instead it conceded its approval "on principle" only to vote against it for other ideological reasons. In a similar manner, as has been noted, the DHP did not alter its opposition to agricultural tariffs until 1 9 0 3 and as a result forfeited a large number of supporters to the Parmer's League. Aside from its resistance to the construction of a high seas fleet and an occasional plea for an Anglo-German alliance, the DHP divorced itself .more and more from the major issues of the day. In the Bismarckian era it had served the role of a Christian conservative party, somewhat pragmatic in nature and, as we have seen, somewhat concerned with issues of national importance. Moreover, its fe d e r a lis­ t s rhetoric had had some revelance at the time. How, in the twentieth century what the DHP had to say seemed ridicu­ lous; instead of addressing itself to the problems of

■^See above, p. 23£.

6 oSBR, (1896-97), 195. S itz ., 19 March 1897, pp. TI597-98), Sitz., 7 December 1897, P- 90, 70 S it z ., 23 March 18 9 8 , P* 1717. European diplomacy and WeItpolitik, the party objected to the situation in Brunswick; instead of questioning the powers of the emperor or taking a stand on m inisterial responsibil­ ity, it denounced the events of 1866; instead of concerning itself with pressing social issues, it called for a return to the medieval guild system. To be sure, Guelph orators sometimes warned against m ilitarism and im perialism ,^ but on the whole, they were most concerned v/ith extricating

Hanover from Prussian control and restoring the House of

Guelph to power. Thus, caught up in their own rhetoric, these orators and Reichstag deputies in themselves helped contribute to the declining fortunes of the DHP.^

Attitude of the German Government

In the two decades before the outbreak of the German government viewed the DHP with a shifting mix­ ture of suspicious interest and aloof indifference. Before 1890, as we have seen, Bismarck’s regime frequently assailed the party in the Reichstag as ’hostile to the Reich,’ while at the same time it disregarded or at least tolerated it in Hanover. With the advent of William II this attitude changed

k-^See, for example; SBR, (1905-06), 10 Sitzung, 12 December 1905, pp. 253-255*

6 ^DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 343 A, Nr. lk2; Deutsche Volkszeitung, 15 January 1901, Bd. 8 , pp. ISO — l 8 Ip; Das Recht, July 19067 Bd. 12, p. 58; and Wentzel to Innenminister, 29 February 1912, Bd. 13, 0 . 180. Also F aszikel 5, p. 312. SBR, (190l(.), 6 7 Sitzung, 15 April 1901]., pp. 2101-04. F inally; Ivarl Mahler, Die Programme der politischen Parteien in Deutschland (Leipzig7 '1911), PP* 58- 2[j.O inversely: in the Reichstag the DHP gained a measure of respectability and tolerance, whilo in Hanovor it was sub­ jected to periodic persecution and constant surveillance. As we have already noted, Chancellor Leo von Caprivi sought to m ollify the DHP in the Reichstag and return the Guelph fortune to the Duke of Cumberland exactly at the moment that Rudolf von Bennigsen was proceeding against the party in Hanover. As the nineteenth century drew to a close, Prussian interest in DHP activities increased. So concerned did Berlin become, in fact, that by 1900 its agents, were -investi­ gating and reporting on every imaginable aspect of the Guelph movement - that is on such wide ranging subjects as party organization, leaders, goals, tactics, special meet­ ings, clubs, picnics and even the dedication of statutes believed to be Guelph sponsored.^ Generally speaking, th is new concern for the Guelph problem seems to have been a r e fle c tio n of the 'personal rule' of William II. As we have seen, the Kaiser was not particularly interested in the DHP per se, but his desire to be his own chancellor coupled with his attempts to kindle the fires of nationalism in support of his WeItpolitik aroused new in terest in the unsolved problem of

^3in the former Prussian State Archives (now DZA, Merseburg) there e x is t seventeen thick volumes of such reports covering the years 1889 to 1918. For the period 1 8 6 7 to 1889, when the Guelph movement was much more important, there are only six such volumes. 2l(.l particularism.^ Careful attempts wore now made to achieve a regional balance in the appointment of officials to the Reich cabinet, while, at the same time, all civil servants throughout the country were rigorously examined for particu- larist leanings. In one case - just to cite an instance - Chancellor Caprivi refused to name a Hanoverian Secretary of the Reich Justice office because there were two Hanoverians already involved in drafting the Burgerliches Gesetzbuch.^ This is not to imply of course that Berlin was interested in rooting out Hanoverian particularism to the exclusion of other problems or even that it was more disturbed by the C-uelph movement than by sim ilar movements in Bavaria or in the Rhineland. But i t is to state that B erlin's renewed in terest in the Guelph problem was, in part, a natural conse­ quence of the reign of William 1 1 .^ 6 Another reason for the government's concern lay in events in Brunswick. As we have already seen, the unpopular

^William resented the limitations placed upon him as Kaiser by the Reich constitution, limitations, which as king of Prussia he did'not possess. He felt.that such restric­ tions were largely the work of the South German states and was resolved to strengthen his own personal power in order to remove them. See: J.C.G. Rfthl, Germany 'Without Bismarck (Berkeley, 1 9 6 7 ), p. 2lip. k^J.C.G. Rtthl, "Higher C ivil Servants in Germany, 1890-1900," Education and Social Structure in the Twentieth Century, (Journal of Contemporary History, 6) (New York, 1 9 5 7 ), p. 108. 66fhe presence of DHP arch-opponents Johannes Miquel as Minister of Finance and Bennigsen as 0berpr£sident of Hanover may have played a role too. r e g e n c y of Prince Albert of Prussia and the rise of a noisy Guelph movement in the duchy^ ran counter to William’s policies of nationalism and Weltpolitik.^® Because narticu- i ------larism there revolved around the Guelph dynasty, i t was only natural that Berlin viewed the problem as clo sely linked to the Guelph movement in Hanover. Hence, the German govern­ ment paid closer attention to DHP activities than it had for many years before. Throughout the n in eties, as has also been seen, the DHP suffered at the hands of Oberpr£sident Rudolf von Bennigsen. Although his systematic harassment could not be termed persecution, it proved quite- irritating to the DHP.

In I8 9 8 , moreover, Kaiser William II, irked by news that a Guelph club had given the Duke of Cumberland a ceremonial sword ’to be used against P ru ssia ,’^9 issued a manifesto that the ’’bridle should be tightened."70

6 7ln actual fact, the Guelph movement in Brunswick never assumed the importance it did in Hanover. Divided into two rival groups, the movement lacked cohesion and wi.de popular support. It did, however, command the loyalties of several governmental officials and controlled a loud and vociferous press. Perhaps, because of this Berlin viewed the movement as more dangerous than i t could ever hope to become. For more information see: Philippi, Preussen, pp. 95-98. k^At one time the Kaiser considered the situation in Brunswick so dangerous that he demanded a daily report on events there. Ib id . , p. 127. ^Actually it was the'Deutsche Volkszeitung which stated that the sword should be regarded "as a symbol of the struggle of Guelphtum against Prussia.” Philippi, Preussen, p. 103. 7°DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3ip3 A, Nr. 1i|2, Fasz. I, p. 2. S p ecifica lly what the emperor means is not In Hanover a new Oberprlisidont, Count Konstantin von

Stolborg-Wernigerode, 71r e a c h e d just the opposite conclusion. Stolberg, who enjoyed the company of Hanoverian nobility and who had sponsored an extensive study of the Guelph movement, f e l t the DHP represented no danger to the s t a t e .^ In h3 i opinion, the party represented a conservative movement which should be wooed and not harassed. Therefore, instead of legislating against it, Berlin should initiate a policy of moderation and leniency: i t should counter DHP propaganda by subsidizing pro-Prussian newspapers, by constructing new libraries and by founding new patriotic clubs. Above all, it should not seek overtly to persecute the DHP but rather simply ignore its activities.^3 Despite William II's order to "tighten the bridle," Stolberg’s recommendations won approval in Berlin - particu­ larly from Chancellor Chlodwig zu Hohenlohe-Schillingsfllrst.7^- clear. Probably the order was more an impulsive exclamation than a serious exhortation. Otherwise he would not have tolerated the policy of leniency toward the DHP which v/as initiated soon thereafter. 7•'•Apparently, a distant relative of Hanover’s f ir s t Oberpryi.sident. 7^Stolberg also felt it had little relation to the Brunswick problem. Stolberg-Wernigerode to Innenminister Rheinbaben, 11 November 1899, DZA , Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3l)-3 A , Nr. 1^2, Bd. 8 , p. 6I[_. 73stolberg-Wenigerode to Innenminister von dem Horst, 29 March 1899, DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3lf3 A, Nr. iJ|.2, Pasz. I, pp. 19r2[j..

^Rheinbaben to Hohenlohe-Schillingsftorst, 27 A u g u s t 1899, DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T i t . 3^3 A , N r . I4.2 , Pasz. I, p p . 1-15. For the next several years, therefore, Prussian officials

tended to play down Guelph activities. DHP members were

arrested less often for slander, Guelph judges were no

longer removed from office, and the few civil servants, who

did display Guelph sympathies were either ignored or, in one

or two cases, quietly transferred to K&nigsberg.

Around the year 190]? Berlin once again adopted stricter

regulations. This seems to have been partly due to p[aiser

W illiam 's wounded feelings and resentment tov/ards the Guelph

dynasty, partly to the retirement of the lenient 0berpr£si-

dent Stolberg, and partly to the advent of Bernhard von

B&low as Reich Chancellor.

We have already seen that the Duke of Cumberland's

disappearances irked the Kaiser and caused him to take a hardening line toward the situation in Brunswick.7^ This stiffening attitude also was mirrored in Hanover. There a new Oberpr&sident, Richard von W entzel replaced Count

Stolberg in 1903• Unlike his predecessor, Wentzel believed

in taking a strong stand against the DKP. In 1901). he

instructed his subordinates to observe Guelph activities closely: police v/ere sent to a ll DHP meetings to take short­ hand notes on the proceedings; no Guelph assemblies were permitted in the open air; no Guelph civ il servants v/ere

7^Stolberg-W ernigerode to /Innenm inister?/, 29 January 1902, DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3l|_3 A, Nr. llj.2, Fasz. I, p. 101.

7^See Chapter V. 21, £ promoted except under unusual circumstances. Since Y/entzel remained in o ffice u n til 191 ^4-, and his successor did not alter them, those measures remained in effect until the collapse of the German Empire in 1918.77 Meanwhile, in Berlin Chancellor Bernhard von B&low (1900-09) looked upon the Guelph movement with the same con­ tempt once displayed by Bismarck. Vain and superficial, B&low regarded the DHP as a stumbling block to his policies of nationalism and imperialism. He thought the party capa­ ble of stirring up a good deal of trouble in Brunswick, and after the unpopular Moroccan settlement of 1905, be feared the DHP might prove decisive in swinging a narrowly balanced

Reichstag against theg o v e r n m e n t .7® Consequently, it was no surprise that, after having dissolved parliament, the chan­ cellor entered the elections of 1907 with the slogan: uFor the honor and good of the nation against Social Democrats, Poles, Guelphs and Centrists ."79

77''Grundsatze f&r die Haushaltung der Verwaltung in der Provinz Hannover mit Bezug auf die w elfische Bewegung," February I90 I4., DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3^-3 A, Nr. 1L|2, Fasz. I, p. 109. 78Be cause Germany acquired no territory after the Moroccan crisis and because the government seemed incapable of ending a bitter conflict with natives of Southwest Africa, a good deal of criticism was leveled against Btilow in 1906. Furthermore when the badly sp lit Zentrum came out against the Reich government, i t was clear that four Guelph votes could be decisive. See; George D. Crothers, The German Elections of 1907 (New York, 19ipl), particularly pp. b2-65.

79philippi, Preussen, p. lip9• 2 l j . 6

B&low's hostility toward the DHP wa3 shared by

another important governmental official, Privy Councilor

Friedrich von Holstein. As a political councilor in the foreign office and a student of Bismarck's, Holstein acquired a disdain for the Guelph problem early in his career. He played a minor role in barring Ernest Augustus from the

Brunswick succession in l88i|.-85 and later concluded the

Hanoverian dynasty should be excluded from the duchy forever.

Furthermore, as an Anglophobe,-Holstein came to view the DHP as part of an English conspiracy under the leadership of the

O ri Duke of Cumberland. So adamant was Holstein in this belief, that he once persuaded the well known publicist and critic Maximilian Harden to refrain from discussing Guelph O 1 affairs in Harden's journal, Die Zukunft.

In 1909 the a t t it u d e of the German governm ent toward the Guelph movement changed once again. Just as the regime of Bernhard von Bftlow had advocated a hard line, that of

Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1909-1917) urged a policy of tolerance and leniency. In Bethmann's opinion, persecution of the DHP only aroused particularism in Hanover and stirred

^Holstein was not alone in this belief. In 1901 the Prussian envoy to Brunswick reported that the Guelph movement was a manifestation of "English arrogance." DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77 , T i t . 3l+3 A, Nr. ltj-2, Bd. 9, P* 131.

®**-In O ctober 1906 Harden suggested in the Zukunft that Cumberland's youngest son be permitted to accede the throne in Brunswick. Holstein, who was no longer in office and estranged from B&low, appealed to Harden to remain on the "German side," and not to mention the issue again. Harden com plied. ,Cf. Philippi, Preussen, pp. 151-2 a n d Helmuth Rogge, H olstein und Harden, (Munich, 1 9 5 9 ) j PP* HI, 116. up ill will in Brunswick. It wa3 b etter to ignore the party and hope that, in time, decline would lead to total collapse. This stance of course was only part of Bethmann1s larger attempt to assuage tensions in Germany. But just as his

larger program was hampered by the pan-German League, so wa3 his Guelph policy disturbed by similar chauvinistic groups. Around 1910 a number of right-wing organizations opened a vicious press campaign against the DKP and the Guelph dynasty they demanded stricter surveillance of the party and a renun­ ciation of all claims to the Hanoverian throne. The Pan- German League even in sisted on mediatizing Brunswick in order to keep i t from the Duke of Cumberland. A ll in a ll, however, such proposals failed to appeal to the great mass of the German people; most of them, along with Bethmann, wanted to forget the Guelph problem, or - if they cared at all - see

an end to it.®3 j n 1913 when Ernest Augustus married Victoria Louise and became Duke of Brunswick, these wishes seemed to have been met.

^Bethmann-Hollweg to ^Innenminis te r ? 7 , 2 , DZA, Merseburg, Rep. 77, T it. 3^3 A, Nr. ll|2, Pasz. 5, P* 1 0 .

®3philippi, Preussen, pp. 168-69* RELATIVE STRENGTH OF POLITICAL PARTIES IN PRUSSIAN PROVINCE HANOVER, 1890-1918

DHP National Liberal Zentrum SPD n m evenly split DHP/National Liberal CD mm evenly split National Liberal/othc VII

CONCLUSIONS

Despite the expectations of William II and other Prusso-Reich officials, the Guelph movement did not come to an end with the marriage of Victoria Louise to Ernest Augustus. In fact, the DHP continued to play an active - if diminished - role in Hanoverian politics for the next twenty years. That this was possible was due to the col­ lapse of the Hohenzollern monarchy in World War I, to the resulting chaos of the twenties and to a series of other events belonging more properly to the history of the Weimar Republic. These events as well as the story of the DHP in the Weimar Republic need not concern us here.-1- What should be of note, however, is that, despite a ll the vicissitudes of the years 1866-1933, the Guelph movement persisted in appealing to a sizable number of Hanoverians. If nothing else, its history serves as an illustration of the residual power of tradition.

4he best account of the DHP in these years is Prilop, Die Vorabstimmung in Hannover 19 2l±, pp. 200 et. seq. A number of revealing sketches of the party is also found in the more accessible book: William Sheridan Allen, The Nazi Seizure of Power; The Experience of a Single German Town, {Chicago, 1965) PP* 99-^00, Eij- 6 . :

2k-9 2 5 0 Tradition and resentment of Prussia were the two forces cementing the Guelph movement together. After the loss of Hanoverian independence many people simply found it impossible to forget their ruling dynasty and local tradi­ tions. That they should seek to unite in a particularist party was not unusual or unforeseen. Bismarck, however, hoped to retard the growth of particularism by retaining as many local institutions as possible and by introducing limited self-government. What he had not counted on was the stubborn resistance of George V. When forced to adopt harsh measures against the king - such as sequestering the Guelph fortune - the chancellor irritated feelings in Hanover and indirectly contributed to the growth of the German Hanover­ ian Party. In the early years of the Second Reich the Guelph movement was only one of several p a rtic u la rist movements dotting the German political landscape. Unlike most other groups, however, (such as Poles, Danes, and Alsatians) i t did not depend on language, religion, or national identity to gain support. The Guelph appeal rested instead on tra d i­ tion, regional pride, and dynasticism. By using the Hanover­ ian royal family as a rallying point Guelph leaders were able to forge a political coalition of landowners, urban workers, Protestant clerics and Roman Catholics which exer­ cised influence in Hanoverian affairs for half a century. That this anachronistic movement could have such a lasting appeal in the face of national unity and industrialization 251 illustrates once again the strength of continuity and the desire for regional individuality in human affairs. In Germany its e lf , the Guelph party assumed a certain importance by keeping alive strains running counter to the currents of the Second Reich. Some of these strains v/ere positive, other negative. On the positive side Guelph leaders recognized the basic unity of Europe. They believed in maintaining the balance of power and vigorously objected to anything upsetting that balance. Thus, excessive mili­ tary spending, the construction of a German battle fleet, and William I I ’s Vieltmachtpolitik all met with their dis­ approval and scorn. Also, contrary to the traditional pro- Russian stance of the Prusso-Reich government, the Guelphs believed in seeking rapprochement and cooperation with Great B ritain. On the negative side the extreme monarchial a n ti­ democratic nature of the Guelph movement boded i l l for Germany's future. In the 1920's Hanoverian farmers, condi­ tioned by decades of authoritarian DHP ideology, rejected the Weimar Republic and called for the return of an authori­ tarian order. They proved particularly susceptible to Nazi 2 propaganda slogans and soon abandoned the DHP for the swastika banner. These Hanoverian farmers, in fact, became some of Hitler's earliest and staunchest supporters. It

2Such as; "W&hlt den Grossdeutschen, den K&mpfer fiir Stammesfreiheit,. den Ftthrer zu Arbeit und Brot: Adolf Hitlerl” Prilop, p. 357»— was also no coincidence that after World War II many Lower Saxon farmers formed the core of the conservative Deutsche Pareti (DP) and later of the extreme right National Demo­ cratic Party (NPD). The symbol of the Guelph movement - the Hanoverian royal family - was of much less historical significance than the movement associated with it. Primarily interested in settling its own affairs with Berlin, the dynasty remained generally aloof from the DHP. After it secured the return of the revenues from the Hanoverian royal fortune and ascended the throne of Brunswick, the Guelph family seemed more or less content with its position. On the other hand, the fate of the Hanoverian dynasty had a direct bearing on the strength of the DHP. So long as the family served as a target of persecution, DHP leaders had little trouble rally­ ing anti-Prussian forces to their cause. Once such persecu­ tion ceased and a reconciliation between Berlin and Gmunden was effected, DHP strength declined. Today, the German Hanoverian Party no longer exists. Hanover has reemerged as the Land of Lower Saxony, and the arch enemy Prussia now belongs as much to memory as the German Reich its e lf. Yet among some of the farmers of Lower Saxony a lingering and inveterate loyalty to the House of Guelph s till survives. Some of them belong to the We Ifenbund, a non-political organization serving as a focal point for the Hanoverian royal family. To these people i t does not matter that over a century has passed since 1866 nor that 253 the p o ssibility of a Guelph restoration is extremely remote. They have learned to bo patient. As one of their patrons, the last Duke of Brunswick once put it; "A dynasty such as mine has learned to think in generations. Wo have more than once seen institutions disappear that were founded to last and others long ago pronounced dead return to life. One should not wish prematurely to hasten such developments, even if he should not live to see them fulfilled. From this stems our attitude toward the question of monarchy and our homeland. Only the future can bring the resolution, but we can wait without.impatience.”3

3 Ibid., p. 3 6 7 .' BIBLIOGRAPHY

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a. Deutsches Zentralarchiv, Abteilung II, Merseburg German Democratic Republic Rep. 77 - Innenministerium Rep. 90a - Staatsministerium b. Herzoglich Braunschweigisch-Lfoneburgisches Hausarchiv, Gmunden, Austria VIII B - Politica VIII C - Hannoverana und Deutsche Parteipolitik Correspondence of King George V c. HiedersS.chsisches Staatsarchiv. Hanover, Federal Republic of Germany

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Fbger, Jutta; Die Stellung der bsterreichischen Regierung zur welfischen Agitation 15b6-1570, (Vienna, 191-1-2) Kurmeier, Karl; Die Entstehung der Nationalliberalen Partei Hannovers, (Gbttingen, 1923)

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Bachem, Karl; Vorgeschichte, Geschichte und Politk der deutschen Zentrumspartei/ (Cologne, 1 9 2 7 - 3 2 ) Becker, Otto; Bismarcks Ringen urn Deutschlands Gestaltung/ (Heidelberg/ 1956) Benson, E. H.; The Kaiser and English Relations (New York, 1936) Brosius, Dieter; Rudolf von Bennigsen als Oberpr&sident~~der Provinz Hannover 1688-1897, (Hi Ides he im, 1961).) 2 5 8 Busch, Moritz: Bismarck, Some Socrot Pagea of His History, 3 vols., (London, 1090) Das Uebergangsjahr in Hannover, (Leipzig, I8 6 7 ) Bittner, Ernst: Geschichte Niedersachaens, (Leipzig. 1931) ------Crothers, Dunlop: The German Elections of 1907, (New York, 19l|21 Eyck, Erich: Bismarck, (Zurich, 19l|-l-l|I).) Pranz, Gunther; Die politischen Wahlen in Niedersachsen 18b7-19li9 (Bremen-Horn. 1953) Paber, Karl Georg: Die Nationalpolitische Publiz- istik Deutschlands von lbbb bis 1871, (Dtisseldorf, 1 9 6 3 ) Fletcher, Vuillard; The Mission of Vincent Beneaetti to B erlin, (The Hague, 1965 ) Friedjung, Hermann: The Struggle for Supr emacy in Germany 1859-186B^ (London, 1935) Guedalla, Philip: The Second Empire, (New York, 1923) “ Hammerow, Theodore; Restoration. Revolution, Reaction. Economics and P olitics in Germany 1 8 l5 - 1 8 7 1 , (Princeton, 1 9 b b }

Hartwieg, Vvilhelm: Urn Braunschweigs Thron 1 9 1 2 - 1 3 , (Brunswick, 1961H Hassell, Wilhelm von; Geschichte des Kftnigreichs Hannover, 3 vols., (Leipzig, 1599-1901} Heffter, Heinrich; Die Deutsche Selbstverwaltung im 19. Jahrhundert, (Stuttgart, 1950) H&sgen, Ed.; Ludwig Windhorst, (Cologne, 1907) Lidtke, Vernon; The Outlawed Party: Social Democ­ racy in Germany, 1878-1590, (Princeton, i 9 6 0 )

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Ivohn, Hans; The Mind of Gormany, (New York, i 9 6 0 ) Kreisgemeinschaft Uelzen im Welfenbund, Traditionen der Ilannoveraner, (Uelzen, 1 9 6 6 ) Kurenberg, Joachim von: The Kaiser, (New York, 1953) Kutsch, Ruth; Queen Victoria und die deutsche • Einigung, (Berlin, 1930) Leffler, Werner; Ursachen und Anf£nge der Deutsch- hannoverschen (welfischen) Bewegung, (vVismar,

Lubbing, Hermann; Oldenburgische Landesgeschichte, (Oldenburg, 1950) Mommsen, :Wilhelm; Johannes Miquel, (Stuttgart, 1928 ) Mosse, W. E.; The European Powers and the C-erman Question 18lp8-1071, (Cambridge, 1950) Nichols, J. Alden; Germany After Bismarck, (Cambridge, 195^1 Nftll von der Nahmer, Robert; Bismarcks Reptilien- fonds, (Mainz, 1968) Oncken, Hermann: Die Rheinlandpolitik Kaiser Napoleon I I I, von I 863 bis 1870 und der Ursprung des Krieges von I 87 O-7 I, (Stuttgart, 192b ) Rudolf von Bennigsen; Ein deutscher liberaler Politiker, 2 vols., (Stuttgart, 1910) Pflanze, Otto; Bismarck and the Development of Germany, (Princeton, 19&3) Philippi, Hans; Preussen und die braunschweigische Thronfolgefrage 18b 6 -1913', (Hildesheim, l9bb) Pinson, Kappel S.; Modern Germany, (New York, 195^) Puhle, Hans J&rgen; Agrarische Interessenpolitik und preussischer Konservatismus im Wilhelm- Thischen Reich 1893-191^i Sin Beitrag zur~ Analyse des Nationalismus in Deutschland am Beispiel des Bundes der Landwirte und der Deutsoh-Konservativen P arted (Hanover, I96 6 ) 260 Rathe, Johannes: Ernst August, Herzog von Cumber­ land, Herzop; zu Braunscbwoip;' und Llimebur'g. Ein Erinnerungsblatt an s oinen Heimgang, (Hanover, 19231 — ------^ Rogge, Helmuth: Holstein und Harden, (Munich, 1959) Rohl, J. C. G.: Germany Without Bismarck, (Berkeley, 1967 ) Rosenberg, Hans; Die Nationalpolitische Publlzistik Deutschlands, (Munich. 1935) Schnath, Georg _et. a l.: Geschichte des Landes Niedersachsen, CWllr zburg, 1962) Vom Sachsenstamm zum Lande Niedersachsen, (pfi Idesheim, 1966) Schoeps, Hans Joachim: Das Andere Preussen, (Stuttgart, 1952) Preussen, Geschichte eines Staates, (Berlin, 19661 Schwarz, Max; MdR Biographisches Handbuch der Reichstage" (Hanover, 196'5) Spael, Wilhelm: Ludwig Windhorst, Ein Lebensbild, (Osnabrti.ck, 1962)

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Ward, A. W.: Germany 1 8 1 5 -1 8 9 8 , vols., (Cambridge^ 1 9 1 ? ) Willis, Geoffrey Malden: Ernst August, Kbnig von Hannover, (Hanover, 1961) ! Ernest Augustus, Duke of Cumberland. (London, 195HI Windell, George C.; The Catholics and German Unity, (Minneapolis, 19 £l\.) Taylor, A. J. P.; The Hab3burg Monarchy, (London, 1 9 1 + 8 ) ------Treitschke, Heinrich von: Deutsche Geschichte im Neunzehnten Jahrhundertfl vols ., (Leipzig, T89SI ------Zimmerman, Paul: Ernst August, Herzog von Cumber­ land, (Hanover! i 92;9)

A rticles

Brosius, Dieter: "Bodo von Hodenberg - Ein hannoverscher Konservativen nach 1866,” Nieders&chsisches Jahrbuch f\hr Landesgeschichte 8 8 , 1966 : "Welfenfonds und Presse im Dienste der preussischen Politk in Hannover nach 1866," Nieders8.chsisch.es Jahrbuch filr Landesgeschichte 36, 19bi(. (Harden, Maximilian) "Hiatus," Die Zukunft, 82, 15 February 1913- Mehring, Franz: "Vom legitimen Prinzip," Die Neue Z eit, 2[|_, II, 19 September 1906 O'Boyle, Lenore; "The German National Verein," Journal of Central European A ffairs, XVI, .l|. / Philippi, Hans; "Zur Geschichte des Welfenfonds," Niedersci.chsisch.es Jahrbuch f8r Landesgeschichte 31, 1959 x ' Pitz, Ernst; "Deutschland und Hannover im Jahre 1866," Niedersachsisch.es Jahrbuch ffor Landesgeschichte, 36! 1966 Rbhl, J. C. G.: "Higher Civil Servants in Germany, 1890-1900," Education and Social Structure in the Twentieth Century, (Journal of Contemporary History! (New York, I 967 "! Schmitt, Hans A.; "Count Beust and Germany 1866- I87 O: Reconquest, Realignment or Resignation." Central European H istory, I, (March, 1 9 6 8 ) 262 Wippermann, "Georg V. K&nig von Ilannovor," Allgomoine Dout3che Biographie, VIII, (Leipzig, TBTTJ ------Thimme, Friedrich; "Wilhelm I, Bismarck und der Ursprung des Annoxionsgedankens," Historische Zeitschrift, 8 9 , (1902) Treitschke, Heinrich von; "Die le tz te Scholle w elfischer Erde," Preusaische Jahrbtt.ch.er, 31» l8 7 3 -