The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 18, No. 109, November, 1866

Frederick William II., a weak sovereign, reigned till 1797. He took part in the first coalition against revolutionary France, and in the second and third partitions of Poland. Frederick William III. reigned from 1797 to 1840, during which time Prussia experienced every vicissitude of fortune. The first war with imperial France, in 1806-7, led to the reduction of her territory and population one half; and what was left of country and people was most mercilessly treated by Napoleon I., who should either have restored her altogether, or have annihilated her. But the great Emperor was partial to half-measures,—a folly that had much to do with his fall. The misery that Prussia then experienced was the cause of her subsequent greatness; and if she has wrested European supremacy from Napoleon III., she should thank Napoleon I. for enabling her to accomplish so great a feat of arms. The Prussian government had to undertake the task of reform, to save itself and the country from perishing. The chief man in this great work was the celebrated Baron von Stein, whose name is of infrequent mention in popular histories of the Napoleonic age, but who had more to do with the overthrow of the Man of Destiny than any other person. It is one of those strange facts which are so constantly meeting us in history, that it was by Napoleon's advice that Stein was employed by the Prussian king. "Take the Baron von Stein," said the Emperor, when the king at Tilsit spoke of the misery of his situation; "he is a man of sense." Eighteen months later, Napoleon actually outlawed Stein, the decree of outlawry dating from Madrid. The language of the decree was of the most insulting character. "One Stein" (le nommé Stein), it was said, was endeavoring to create troubles in Germany, and therefore he was denounced as an enemy of France and of the Rhenish Confederacy. The property he held in French or confederate territory was confiscated, and the troops of France and her allies were ordered to arrest him, wherever he could be found. Had he been taken, quite likely he would have been as summarily dealt with as Palm had been.

Stein fled into Bohemia, where he resided three years, when Alexander I. invited him to Russia, and employed him in the most important affairs. He kept up Alexander's courage during the darkest days of 1812, and advised, with success, against yielding to the French, though it is probable the Czar might have had his own terms from Napoleon, after the latter had reached Moscow. It is said that the American Minister in Russia, the late Mr. J. Q. Adams, was not less energetic than Stein on the same side. It may well be doubted if their advice was such as a Russian sovereign should have followed, though it was excellent for Germany and for all nations that feared Napoleon. If the American Minister did what was attributed to him, he actually acted in behalf of the very nation against which his own country had just declared war! The war between the United States and England began at the same time that active operations against Russia were entered upon by the French; and England was the only powerful nation upon which Russia could rely for assistance.

Stein had done his work before he was made to leave Prussia. He was the creator of the Prussian people. His reforms would be pronounced agrarian measures in England or America. An imitation of them in England might not be amiss; but in America, where land is a drug, and where possession of it does not give half the consideration that proceeds from the ownership of "stocks" or funds, it would be as much out of place as a mixture for blackening negroes, or a machine for converting New England soil into rocks. "Stein's main idea," says Vehse, "was, 'the burgher must become noble.' With this view, he tried to call forth a strong feeling of nationality and a new spirit in the people. His first step in introducing his new system of administration was the abolition of vassalage, and the change of the titles of seignorial property. This was done by the edict dated Memel, October 9, 1807, which did away with the monopoly until then claimed by the nobles holding such estates, which were now allowed to be acquired also by burghers and peasants. It moreover abolished all the feudal burdens of tenure. In this great law, Frederick William III. laid down the principle: 'After St. Martin's day, 1810, there will be throughout my dominions none but free people.' This edict first created in Prussia a free peasantry. Free burghers, on the other hand, were created by the municipal law from Königsberg, November 19, 1808, which restored to the burgesses their ancient municipal rights of freely electing their magistrates and deputies, and of self-government within their own civic sphere.... Stein tried in every way to secure to the burgher his independence, and to protect him against the despotism of the men in office. With equal energy he tried to develop the spirit of the people."⁵⁰ For five years most of the Prussian ministers labored in the same spirit. A military force was created, chiefly by the labors of Scharnhorst, and the limitation of the Prussian army by Napoleon was in great part evaded. Everything was done to create a people, and to have ready the moral and material means from which to create an army, should circumstances arise under which Prussia might think it safe for her to act. Hardenberg did not go so far as Stein would have gone, but it is probable that he acted wisely; for very strong measures might have brought Napoleon's hand upon him. As it was, the Emperor could not complain of measures that breathed the very spirit of the French Revolution, of which he was the impersonation and the champion,—or claimed to be.

But all the labors of Stein, and those other Prussian patriots who acted with him or followed in his footsteps, would have been of no avail, had not Napoleon afforded them an opportunity to turn their labors to account. They might have elevated the people, have accumulated money, have massed munitions, and have drilled the entire male population to the business and work of war, till they should have surpassed all that is told of Roman discipline and efficiency; but all such exertions would have been utterly thrown away had the French Emperor behaved like a rational being, and not sought to illustrate his famous dogma, that the impossible has no existence, by seeking to achieve impossibilities. At the beginning of 1812, Napoleon was literally invincible. He was master of all Continental Europe, from the Atlantic to the Niemen, and from Cape North to Reggio. There was not a sovereign in that part of the world, from the kings of Sweden and Denmark to the Emperor of Austria and the Turkish Sultan, who did not wear crowns and wield sceptres only because the sometime General Bonaparte was willing they should wear and wield the emblems of imperial or royal power. He was at war only with Great Britain, and Spain, Portugal, and Sicily; and Great Britain was the sole enemy he was bound to respect. All the more enlightened Spaniards were all but ready to acknowledge the rule of his brother Joseph, and would have done so but for French failure in the Russian war. England's army could have been driven from the Peninsula with ease, had a third of the men who were worse than wasted in Russia been directed thither in the early spring of 1812. The Bourbons of Sicily hated their English protectors so bitterly, that they were ready to unite with the French to get up a modern imitation of the Sicilian Vespers at their expense. The war might soon have been confined to the ocean, and there it would have been fought for France principally by Americans, as the United States were soon to declare war against England. Never before was man so strong as Napoleon on New-Year's day, 1812; and in less than four years he was living in lodgings, and bad lodgings too, in St. Helena! What hope could the Prussians have, a month before the march to Moscow was resolved upon? None that could encourage them. Some of the more sanguine spirits, supported by general sentiment, were still of opinion that something could be effected; but the larger number of intelligent men were very despondent, and not a few of them began to think of the world beyond the Atlantic, as English patriots had thought almost two centuries earlier, when, that "blood and iron man," Wentworth (Strafford), was developing his system of Thorough with a precision and an energy that even Count Bismark has never surpassed. The bolder Prussians, when their country had to choose between resistance to Napoleon and an alliance with him against Russia, were for resistance, and would have placed their country right across the Emperor's path, and fought out the battle with him, and abided the consequences, which would have been the annihilation of Prussia in a sixth part of the time that Mr. Seward allotted for the duration of the Secession war. The Prussian war party would have had the Russians advance into their country, and thus have staked the issue on just such a contest as occurred in 1806-7. Napoleon, it is at least believed, was desirous that Prussia should join Russia, as that would have enabled him to defeat his enemies without crossing the Russian frontier, and have afforded him an excuse for destroying Prussia. To prevent so untimely a display of resistance to French ascendency was the aim of a few Prussians, headed by the king himself, who became very unpopular in consequence. Fortunately for Prussia, they were successful, and the means employed deceived not only the patriotic party, but even Napoleon, who was completely imposed upon by the report of the Baron von dem Knesebeck against a war between Russia and France. The story belongs to the romance of history; but it is too long, because involving many facts, to be told here.

Prussia was prevented from "throwing herself into the arms of Russia," much to the disgust of Scharnhorst and his friends. She even assisted Napoleon in his war against Alexander, and sent a contingent to the Grand Army, which formed the tenth corps of that memorable force, and was commanded by Marshal Macdonald. It consisted of twenty-six thousand men, including one French infantry division,—the Prussians being generally estimated at twenty thousand men. This corps did very little during the campaign, and soon after the failure of the French it went over to the Russians, taking the first step in that course which made Prussia so formidable a member of the Grand Alliance of 1813-15. But even so late as the close of May, 1813, Prussia was in danger of annihilation, and would have been annihilated had not Napoleon proffered an armistice, which was accepted,—the greatest blunder of his career, according to some eminent critics, as well political as military.

The leading part which Prussia had in the Liberation War and in the first overthrow of Napoleon caused her to be reconstructed by the Congress of Vienna; and her part in the war of 1815 confirmed the impression she had made on the world. Waterloo was as much a Prussian as an English victory,—the loss of the Prussians in that action being about as great as the purely English loss.⁵¹ She became one of the Five Powers which by common consent were rulers of Europe. Down to 1830 she had more influence than France, and from 1830 to the re-establishment of the Napoleonic dynasty, she was France's equal; and even after Napoleon III. had replaced France at the head of Europe, Prussia was the only member of the Pentarchy which had not been humiliated by his blows, or yet more by his assistance. England has suffered from her connection with him,—a connection difficult on many occasions to distinguish from inferiority and subserviency; and in war the old superiority of the French armies to those of Russia and Austria has been asserted in the Crimea and in Italy. Prussia alone has not stooped before the avenger of the man whom she had so vindictive a part in overthrowing, and whom her military chief purposed having slain on the very spot where the Duc d'Enghien had been put to death by his (Napoleon's) orders. Of all the enemies of Napoleon and France in 1815, Prussia was the most malignant, or rather she was the only member of the Alliance which exhibited malignity.⁵² She would have had France partitioned; and failed in her design only because openly opposed by Russia and England, while Austria, fearing to offend German opinion, secretly supported the Czar and Wellington. Blücher, an earnest man, was never more in earnest than when he purposed to shoot Napoleon in the ditch of Vincennes; and it required all Wellington's influence to dissuade him from so barbarous a proceeding. Yet Napoleon III. has never been able to avenge these injuries and insults,—to say nothing of Waterloo, and of the massacre of the flying French in the night after the battle, or of the shocking conduct of the Prussians in France in 1815; and the events of the current year would seem to favor, and that strongly, the opinion of those persons who say that France never will be able to obtain her long-thought-of revenge. Certainly, if Prussia was safe, Prussia with most of Germany to back her cannot be in any serious danger of being forced to drink of that cup of humiliation which Napoleon III. has commended to so many countries.

After the settlement of Europe, in 1815, Prussia did not show much of that encroaching character which is attributed to her, but was one of the most quiet of nations. This was in great measure due to the character of the king. He was of the class of heavy men, and the first part of his reign had been marked by the occurrence of troubles so numerous and so great that his original dislike of change increased to fanaticism. He was one of the framers of the Holy Alliance, which grew out of the thorough fright which he and his friend the Czar felt during the saddest days of 1813. Alexander told a Prussian clergyman, named Egbert, in 1818, that, during one of their flights before Napoleon,—probably on that doleful day when they had to retreat from Dresden, amid wind and rain, and before the French reverse at Kulm had put a good face on the affairs of the Alliance,—Frederick William III. said to him: "Things cannot go on so! we are in the direction of the east, and it is toward the west that we ought to march, that we must march. We shall, God willing, arrive there. And if, as I trust, he should bless our united efforts, we will proclaim in the face of Heaven our conviction that to Him alone belongs the honor." Thereupon, continued the Czar, "We promised, and exchanged a pressure of hands upon it with sincerity." Both monarchs evidently thought they had succeeded in bribing Heaven; for Alexander told his reverend hearer that great victories soon came; "and," said he, "when we had arrived in Paris, we had reached the end of our painful course. The king of Prussia reminded me of the holy resolution of which he had entertained the first idea; and Francis II., who had shared our views, our opinions, and our tendencies, entered willingly into the association." Such was Alexander's account of the origin of that famous league which so perplexed and alarmed our fathers. It differs from the commonly received belief as to its origin, which is, that it was the work of Alexander himself, who was inspired by Madame de Krudener, who, having "played the devil and written a novel,"—she was unfaithful to her marriage vow, and wrote "Valerio,"—naturally became devout as old age approached. It makes somewhat against the Czar's story, that the Holy Alliance was not formed till the autumn of 1815, and that he and Frederick William arrived at Paris in the spring of 1814; and that in the interval he and Francis II. came very near going to war on the Polish question. Alexander was crack-brained, and a mystic, and it is far more likely that he should have originated the Holy Alliance than that the idea should have proceeded from so wooden-headed a personage as the Prussian king, who had about as much sentiment as a Memel log. Alexander was always haunted by the thought that he had consented to the death of his father,—that, as a Greek would have said, he was pursued by the Furies; and he was constantly thinking of expiation, and seeking to propitiate the Deity, and that by means not much different in spirit from those to which savages have resort. There was much of that Tartar in him which, according to Napoleon, you will always find when you scratch a Russian.

Whether Frederick William III. suggested the Holy Alliance may be doubted; but there can be no doubt that he lived thoroughly up to its spirit, which was the spirit of intense absolutism. He broke every promise he had made to his people when he needed their aid to keep his kingdom out of the grasp of Napoleon. He became the vindictive persecutor of the men who had led his subjects in the war to rush to arms, without counting the odds they had to encounter at first. He was a despot of the old pattern, as far as a sovereign of the nineteenth century could be one. It does not appear that he acted thus from love of power for its own sake, to which so much of tyrannical action is due. In most respects he was rather a favorable specimen of the despot. His action was the consequence of circumstances, the effect of experience. He had had two or three thorough frights, and twice he had been in danger of losing his crown, and of seeing the extinction of that nation which his ancestors had been at such pains to create. If exertions of his could prevent the recurrence of such evils, they should not be wanting. As Charles II., after the Restoration of 1660, had firmly resolved on one thing, namely, that, come what would, he would not again go upon his travels, so had Frederick William III., after the restoration of his kingdom, firmly resolved that, happen what might, he would have no more wars, and that, if he could, he would keep out of politics. So he maintained peace, and kept down the politicians. Prussia flourished marvellously during the last twenty-five years of his reign; and, judging from results, his government could not have been a bad one. Under it was created that people whose recent action has astonished the world, and produced for it a new sensation. A comprehensive system of education opened the paths to knowledge to every one; and a not less comprehensive military system made every healthy man's services available to the state. There never before took the field so highly educated a force as that which has just reduced Count Bismark's policy to practice,—not even in America. There may have been as intelligent armies in the Union's service during our civil conflict as those which obeyed Prince Frederick Charles and the Crown Prince of Prussia, but as highly educated most certainly they were not.

When Friedrich von Raumer was in England, in 1835, he, at an English dinner, gave this toast: "The King of Prussia, the greatest and best reformer in Europe." That he was the "best reformer in Europe," we will not insist upon,—but that he was the greatest reformer there, we have no doubt whatever. That he was a reformer at heart, originally, no one would pretend who knows his history. He was made one by stress of circumstances. But having become a reformer, he did a great work, as contemporary history shows. He would have been content to live, and reign, and die, sovereign of just such a Prussia as he found in 1797; but, in spite of himself, he was made to effect a mightier revolution than even a French revolutionist of 1793 would have deemed it possible to accomplish. His career is the liveliest illustration that we know of the doctrine that men are the sport of circumstances.

Frederick William III. died in 1840. His son and successor, Frederick William IV., was a man of considerable ability and a rare scholar; but he was not up to his work, the more so that the age of revolutions appeared again early in his reign. He might have made himself master of all Germany in 1848, but had not the courage to act as a Prussian sovereign should have acted. He was elected Emperor by the revolutionary Diet at Frankfort, but refused the crown. A little later, under the inspiration of General Radowitz, he took up such a position as we have seen his successor fill so effectively. War with Austria seemed close at hand, and the unity of Germany might have been brought about sixteen years since had the Prussian monarch been equal to the crisis. As it was, he "backed down," and Radowitz, who was a too-early Bismark, left his place, and died at the close of 1853. The king lost his mind in 1857; and his brother William became Regent, and succeeded to the throne in 1861, on the death of Frederick William IV.

The reign of William I. will be regarded as one of the most remarkable in Prussian history. Though an old man when he took the crown, William I. has advanced the greatness of Prussia even more than it was advanced by Frederick II. His course with regard to the Danish Duchies has called forth many indignant remarks; but it is no worse than that of most other sovereigns, and stones cannot fairly be cast at him by many ruling hands. Count Bismark has been the chief minister of Prussia under William I., and to him must be attributed that policy which has carried his country, per saltum, to the highest place among the nations. He long since came to the conclusion that nothing could be done for Germany, by Germany and in Germany, till Austria should be thrust out of Germany. He was right; and he has labored to accomplish the dismissal of Austria, with a perseverance and a persistency that it would be difficult to parallel. He alone has done the deed. Had he died last May, there would have been no war in Europe this year; for nothing less than his redoubtable courage and iron will could have overcome the obstacles that existed to the commencement of the conflict.