Bonapartism as a Model for Bismarckian Politics

Author(s): Allan Mitchell

Source: The Journal of Modern History , Jun., 1977, Vol. 49, No. 2 (Jun., 1977), pp.
181-199
Published by: The University of Chicago Press

Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1876335

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Bonapartism as a Model for
Bismarckian Politics*

Allan Mitchell

Although political biography may be an endangered species of seri-

ous historical scholarship, interest in certain dominating personalities
shows no sign of lagging. Judging from recent writings, one might
suppose to the contrary that the cult of personality has actually
gained a new lease on life. Psychobiography and psychohistory have
achieved a remarkable vogue, and the commercialization of Adolf
Hitler has become one of the major publishing bonanzas of the
current decade. Within the German historical guild, however, the
most significant development has perhaps been the controversy
surrounding Otto von Bismarck. Briefly brought to public attention
in Germany by the first centennial of national unification, "the
Bismarck problem" has led a remarkably resilient life of its own
which has not depended on popularization for nourishment.'
The professional debate is above all a methodological one, in
which the principal antagonists self-consciously bear the banners of
two generations. Paradoxically, the single event which did most to
arouse renewed interest in Bismarck's historical role was the publi-
cation of Helmut Bdhme's Deutschlands Weg zur Grossmacht
(1966), a book which deliberately belittled the chancellor's individual
importance. In stressing the economic thrust of national unification,
Bohme contended that German history could "no longer be written
as part of Otto von Bismarck's biography."2 While such a view did
not represent an absolute novelty, it has gained a resonance during
the past decade as never before. Soon after Bohme, riding high on a
crest of new publications, appeared Hans-Ulrich Wehler' s massive
study of Bismarck und der Imperialismus (1969), which soon made
him chef de file among the young critics. Better informed by

* A German version of this paper was presented to the thirteenth annual colloqu
of Franco-German historians (sponsored by the German Historical Institute in
in Augsburg on September 29, 1975, the proceedings of which are being publishe
special issue of Francia.
I Lothar Gall, ed., Das Bismarck-Problem in der Geschichtsschreibung nach 1945
(Cologne and Berlin, 1971), pp. 9-24.
2 Helmut B6hme, Deutschlands Weg zur Grossmacht: Studien zum Verhdltnis von
Wirtschaft und Staat wdhrend der Reichsgru'ndungszeit, 1848-1881 (Cologne and
Berlin, 1966). The quotation is from the preface of B6hme, ed., Die Reichsgrundung
(Munich, 1967). Also see Bohme, ed., Probleme der Reichsgrundungszeit, 1848-1879
(Cologne and Berlin, 1968).
[Journal of Modern HistorY 49 (June 1977): 181-2091

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182 Allan Mitchell

Anglo-American social science than most of his older colleagues

and drawing selectively on both Weberian and Marxian theory,
Wehler has been mainly responsible for promoting the thesis that the
first chancellor can best be understood as an archetypical imperialist.
Specifically, Wehler has largely succeeded in persuading a younger
generation of German historians of the validity of Bonapartism as a
model for Bismarckian politics.3 Rarely has a new conventional
wisdom become so quickly established, as evidenced by the influen-
tial collection of essays edited by Michael Stiirmer, Das kaiserliche
Deutschland (1970), in which several of Wehler's contemporaries are
represented.4
Now the time has come to regain our bearings, to assess the
merits and demerits of a Bonapartist model. If Wehler and his
adherents have put us on the right track, we are obliged to follow; if
not, we had best reconsider our options at once.

It is well known that the first to attach the label of Bonapartist to

Bismarck was his Prussian contemporary in the 1850s, Ludwig von
Gerlach. Then as now, the term was intended as an opprobrium;
otherwise this incident has little relevance to the present. Staunchly
conservative, Gerlach regarded Bonapartism as potentially revolu-
tionary and anti-Christian. He was frankly suspicious of Bismarck's
apparent flirtation with that illegitimate parvenu Napoleon III, and
he feared that any affiliation with Bonapartist France might com-
promise Prussia's relations with the Habsburg monarchy. Apart
from Bismarck's clever rejoinder-that one cannot play chess if
sixteen of the sixty-four squares on the board are excluded-we may
simply note his observation that the French emperor was no paragon
for others: to acknowledge the results of a Bonapartist coup d'etat in
Paris was not necessarily to encourage the same for Germany.
Besides, as Bismarck perceived more accurately than Gerlach,
Napoleon III was something less than a dynamic reincarnation of
his uncle.5
Another contemporary notion about Bismarck which has also had
a long genealogy is the charge that after 1870 he became a dic-

3 Hans-Ulrich Wehier, Bismarck und der Imperialismus (Cologne and Berlin, 1969).
Wehler's articles, anthologies, and editions are too numerous to cite here, but his
views are conveniently summarized in Das deutsche Kaiserreich, 1871-1918 (Got-
tingen, 1973).
4 Michael Stiirmer, ed., Das kaiserliche Deutschland: Politik und Gesellschaft,
1870-1918 (Dusseldorf, 1970). Also see Stiirmer, Regierung und Reichstag im Bis-
marckstaat, 1871-1880: Casarismus oder Parlamentarismus (Dusseldorf, 1974).
- See Allan Mitchell, Bismarck and the French Nation, 1848-1890 (New York,
1971), pp. 11-24.

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 Bonapartism 183

tator. Probably the first to make a full confession of his hostility

in such terms was Heinrich Gelzer, who served for many years
as adviser to the Archduke of Baden. Gelzer's trenchant criticisms
of Bismarck were essentially those of a disgruntled federalist who
felt that states' rights had been inadequately secured in the imperial
constitution and who abhorred the chancellor's high-handed methods
in dealing with southern statesmen. We know that this voice of
opposition to excessive centralization did not remain isolated and
was not entirely without effect.6 But coming when it did, following
Sedan, the conception of a dictatorship was not explicitly associated
with Bonapartism. Throughout the initial decades after 1870, it was
ordinarily assumed, instead, that Bismarck had defeated Napoleon
LII, not imitated him.
Hence the two concepts of Bonapartism and dictatorship were not
brought simultaneously into conjunction with Bismarck's name until
the twentieth century. One might look for an early instance in the
works of such historical luminaries as Friedrich Naumann and
Friedrich Meinecke. But their references to "Caesarism" about the
turn of this century remained tantalizingly vague.7 A more open and
forceful statement required two things: the perspective afforded by
the collapse of the Kaiserreich and a vantage point well to the left of
a German liberalism which had been closely associated with the
Bismarckian settlement. Both were embodied in Arthur Rosenberg,
whose membership on the commission established to investigate the
causes of the German defeat in 1918 placed him in an advantageous
position from which to evaluate the preceding half century. With
characteristic bluntness, he did not hesitate to refer to Bismarck as
"the old dictator." In the same breath, furthermore, he described
the fatal flaw of imperial Germany as "a compromise between the
German middle class and the Prussian military aristocracy . . . in
the form of a Napoleonic autocracy." Yet Rosenberg failed to
provide any systematic analysis of these terms; and his account
remained clouded with ambiguity. When we read that "the personal
dictatorship lived and died with the dictator himself," Bismarck's
identity is unmistakable; but later we are told that the chancellor
"championed the military dictatorship of the King of Prussia." More

6 See, e.g., the entries in Gelzer's Tagebuch for April 27 and September 14, 1874,
in Grossherzog Friedrich I. von Baden und die Reichspolitik, 1871-1907, ed. Walther
Peter Fuchs, 3 vols. (Stuttgart, 1968-), 1:166-67, 178. Also see George G. Windell,
"The Bismarckian Empire as a Federal State, 1866-1880: A Chronicle of Failure,"
Central European History 2 (1969): 291-31 1.
7 Friedrich Naumann, Demokratie und Kaisertum: Ein Handbuch far innere Politik
(Berlin, 1900); and Friedrich Meinecke, Weltburgertum und Nationalstaat: Studien
zur Genesis des deutschen Nationalstaates (Munich and Berlin, 1907).

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184 Allan Mitchell

puzzling still is the following sentence: "In order to avoid having to

hand over his authority to the imperial chancellor, the King of
Prussia [William II] had to be both by inclination and birth a
Bonaparte." The manifest confusion of these assertions left the
terminology rancertain, although the concepts of Bonapartism and
dictatorship were obviously somehow related in Rosenberg's mind.8
Let it be added, however, that he had no important echo in Ger-
many during the Weimar Republic and that veneration of Bismarck
continued to dominate the German historical profession.

A much more critical tone was generally apparent after 1945. Not
the defeat of the Kaiserreich but the catastrophe of the Hitlerreich
provided the immediate setting-a backdrop which is still evident
today, at a distance of three decades. A striking criticism of Bis-
marck had just appeared in Erich Eyck's multivolume biography
published in Zurich during the war years. Eyck's liberal critique of
the chancellor's autocratic methods suggested that Bismarck's con-
duct was both precedent and prelude for the Nazi dictatorship.9 The
same theme was explicit in a postwar publication by Heinrich
Heffter, who denounced Bismarck's "dictatorial will to power."10
Yet this tendency was far from gaining unanimous consent, even
among those little inclined to undue adulation of Bismarck. Franz
Schnabel was a case in point. Even in Schnabel's southern German
perspective, it was a mistake to depict Bismarck as a modern
demagogue; he should, instead, be understood "upon the basis of
the old statecraft, with its lofty intellectuality and self-sufficiency, in
which the people played no part." Such a judgment in fact accorded
perfectly with the most conservative interpretation, but Schnabel
gave his essentially orthodox portrait an unusual frame:

Bismarck was, after all, not only an outsider but a man out of the ordinary,
from whom one could look for a coup d'etat; he was, therefore, of the same
ilk as the men of the 18th Brumaire and 2nd December. We forget too easily
how deep an impression was made by the reappearance of Bonapartism at a
time when the nineteenth century was becoming more and more bourgeois,
in an age of liberalism and belief in progress. It was a stupendous phenome-
non which aroused misgivings lest the means and resources of liberal

8 Arthur Rosenberg, Die Entstehung der Deutschen Republik (Berlin, 1928), pp.
1-15. This followed a brief suggestion by Friedrich Engels in his 1895 introduction to
Karl Marx's Die Klassenkampfe in Frankreich: Engels wrote of Napoleon III, "His
imitator, Bismarck, adopted the same policy for Prussia; he made his coup d'etat, his
revolution from above, in 1866. . . . But Europe was too small for two Bonapartes,
and historical irony so willed it that Bismarck overthrew Bonaparte...."
9 Erich Eyck, Bismarck: Leben und Werk, 3 vols. (Zurich, 1941-44).
10 Heinrich Heffter, Die deutsche Selbstverwaltung im 19. Jahrhundert (Stuttgart,
1950), pp. 654-77.

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 Bonapartism 185

democracy prove inadequate in the difficult and hard time just beginning. If
anything encouraged Bismarck to enter upon the path of violence, it was
certainly the conduct of Prince Louis Napoleon.

Here was a clear assertion of Bismarck's Bonapartism, in terms both

of character and of conduct. Still, Schnabel was not concerned to
develop a paradigm for his comparison, and his intention was not
to combine the concepts of Bonapartism and dictatorship but to
oppose them. If Bismarck was inspired or provoked by the example
of Napoleon III, Schnabel had apparently concluded, he was never-
less not "of the same ilk" as Adolf Hitler."1
All of which confirms the observation that the unified thesis of a
Bonapartist dictatorship was not a foregone conclusion. Indeed it is
demonstrably of very recent vintage. The beginnings must be sought
in the rather elusive notion of Caesarism. In the first decade after
1945, the historian to approach most closely an image of Bismarck
as dictator as well as Bonapartist was Heinz Gollwitzer. His 1952
article in the Historische Zeitschrift carefully documented the public
response in Germany to Napoleon III and editorialized that "Prus-
sian Germany also had its Caesaristic statesman after 1862."
Gollwitzer went on to add that "the 'Bonapartist' character of
Bismarckian politics was hidden behind the respectable and very
cleverly arranged monarchist-traditionalist robes of a royal servant
and imperial chancellor...." His use of quotation marks probably
indicated that Gollwitzer was aware of making an analogy rather
than proposing a typology. Moreover, insofar as a model was sug-
gested, the choice of the term "Caesarism" had a more classical
than contemporary ring. But in contrast to Schnabel, the implication
was undisguised that Bismarck's methods owed less to convention
than to calculation and that his deference to the accepted canons of
statecraft was in reality only a veneer.12

In quite distinct fashions, two veteran scholars sought to counter

the allegations that Bismarck was either Bonapartist or dictator. In
his lucidly written study of Die Revolution in der Politik Bismarcks
(1957), Gustav Adolf Rein met the question head on: "Was Bis-
marck a Bonapartist?" And the answer was an unequivocal nega-
tive. Rein insisted on the traditional nature of Bismarck's statesman-
ship and stressed that the chancellor's nolitical status was not

'1 Franz Schnabel, "Das Problem Bismarck," Hochland 52 (1949): 1-27. In this
regard, Schnabel's opinion was barely distinguishable from that of Gerhard Ritter
(Staatskunst und Kriegshandwerk: Das Problem des "Militarismus" in Deutschland,
4 vols. [Munich, 1954-68], 1:302-29).
12 Heinz Gollwitzer, "Der Caisarismus Napoleons III. im Widerhall der offentlichen
Meinung Deutschlands," Historische Zeitschrift 173 (1952): 23-75.

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186 Allan Mitchell

literally identical with that of a French emperor, "since he was and

remained a minister, replaceable at any time, in an ancient yet still
viable monarchy." Beyond that, Rein established three criteria of
Bonapartism to which Bismarck's methods failed to correspond: (1)
the use of a plebiscite in addition to universal manhood suffrage; (2)
Caesarism, meaning a combination of absolutism and democracy;
and (3) the resort to a coup d'etat in order to interrupt the normal
constitutional process. By these specific standards, Rein insisted,
Bismarck remained in every sense a conservative politician who
adjusted to the changing circumstances of the nineteenth century but
refused to accept the radical consequences of a democratic ethos:
"The Bonapartist system was fully realized in this alternation be-
tween dictatorial measures and plebiscite. . . . Bismarck never set
foot on such paths." Thus, while he remained completely hostile to
the concept of Bismarck's Bonapartism, Rein came closer than any
of its proponents to actually defining the idea and giving it the
coherent structure of a serviceable model.13
Rather by diversion than frontal assault, the imposing constitu-
tional history by Ernst Rudolf Huber sustained Rein's counterattack.
The third volume of Huber's Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit
1789, subtitled Bismarck und das Reich, appeared in 1963. Thorough
and authoritative, Huber laid out a comprehensive scheme of the
Bismarckian political and administrative system, convinced that it
represented in its totality a German variant of western European
constitutional monarchy. An English model might have been desira-
ble but was not possible, Huber argued, whereas a French model
might have been possible but was not desirable. Hence Bismarck
was led to found the imperial constitution of 1871 on uniquely
German traditions and adapt the machinery of state to German
conditions. As a result, Huber's inference was clear, it would be
singularly inappropriate to classify Bismarck as a Bonapartist dic-
tator. 14

It was at this juncture in the 1960s that a group of younger

historians, led by Helmut Bohme and Hans-Ulrich Wehler, made
their debut. Of these two, Bohme's work-despite its strong imme-
diate impact-has proved less compelling. The reason is that
Bohme's success derived not from an innovative methodology but
from a new emphasis. One is more likely to be overwhelmed by the

13 Gustav Adolf Rein, Die Revolution in der Politik Bismarcks (Gottingen, 1957),
pp. 81-132.
14 Ernst Rudolf Huber, Deutsche Verfassungsgeschichte seit 1789, 4 vols.
(Stuttgart, 1957-69), 3:3-26, 767-85.

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 Bonapartism 187

diligence of his research than struck by the depth of his analysis,

and in fact he added little directly to the conceptual debate already
in progress. His book was essentially a detailed narrative of German
tariff policy from 1848 to 1881. Perhaps its chief novelty, apart from
the stress on Bismarck's economic rather than political motives, was
indicated by the latter date. Appropriate to his theme, Biohme
demoted the establishment of the Reich in 1871 to relative insig-
nificance and elevated to primacy the "refounding" at the end of
that decade. The leitmotiv and limits of the period in question were
thus set by the sustained phenomenon of economic expansion after
1848 and the concurrent rivalry between Prussia and Austria for
supremacy in central Europe. The continuity of that surge was not
seriously disrupted until the stock market collapse of 1873, of which
the later consequences were the adoption of protectionist legislation
in 1879 and a general reorientation of Bismarck's policies by 1881.15
Although Bohme neglected to provide the theoretical underpinning
for this scenario, it accorded well enough with the hypothesis of
long-range economic cycles (Kondratieffs) which earlier had been
adopted by Hans Rosenberg and was soon to be elaborated in his
Grosse Depression und Bismarckzeit (1967). The appearance of
Rosenberg's provocative study indicated that Bohme's real contribu-
tion was to dramatize the debate over the character of Bismarck's
achievements rather than to recast it, and it also showed that the
younger generation was not without some powerful allies among the
elders of the profession.'6
In both methodological sophistication and peer-group influence,
Bohme has been eclipsed by Wehler. What was left vague or only
implicit by the former has been sharply focused and articulated by
the latter. Wehler managed to redirect attention to the central issues
by rejecting the claims of the older generation. The fault of constitu-
tional history, he indicated was to encnist Bismarckian nolitics in a

Is Bohme, Deutschlands Weg zur Grossmacht, pp. 3-10 and passim. For a biting
critique of B6hme's methodological insufficiencies, see Hans-Ulrich Wehler,
"Sozialdkonomie und Geschichtswissenschaft," Neue Politische Literatur 3 (1969):
344-74; and Lothar Gall, "Staat und Wirtschaft in der Reichsgriindungszeit," His-
torische Zeitschrift 209 (1969): 616-30.
16 Hans Rosenberg, "Political and Social Consequences of the Great Depression of
1873-1896 in Central Europe," Economic History Review 13 (1943): 58-73, and
Grosse Depression und Bismarckzeit: Wirtschaftsablauf, Gesellschaft und Politik in
Mitteleuropa (Berlin, 1967). For an antidote, see S. B. Saul, The Myth of the Great
Depression, 1873-1896 (London, 1969). An excellent survey, containing an incisive
evaluation of B6hme, is by Jurgen Kocka, "Theoretical Approaches to Social and
Economic History of Modern Germany: Some Recent Trends, Concepts, and Prob-
lems in Western and Eastern Germany," Journal of Modern History 47 (1975):
101-19.

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188 Allan Mitchell

rigid legalism and to ignore the dynamics of power; thus to portray

imperial Germany as just the clever adaptation of a parliamentary
system was to distort reality by exaggerating the practical limitations
on Bismarck's dictatorship. Furthermore, Wehler remarked, Rein's
" arguments and evidence against Bismarck's Bonapartism may be
effortlessly employed to support a contrary thesis. " `17 Without
equivocation Wehler thereby asserted, as had no historian before
him, the Bonapartist-dictatorial character of the Bismarckian Reich.
In doing so, he was preparing the foundation for a model in the
strictest sense of the term: a related set of generally applicable
analytic principles.18 The major tenets advocated by Wehler may be
briefly summarized:
1. Revolution from above. This implies a dominant leadership
which displays an autocratic style and employs dictatorial methods;
a combination of both traditional and modem elements which is
nonetheless charismatic and self-serving; and a constitutional facade
of democracy which hides the political reality of one supreme and
arbitrary authority.
2. Foreign adventurism to offset internal difficulty. Since the
primacy of domestic politics is axiomatic for the Bonapartist leader,
any serious economic strain within his realm must be disguised or
counteracted by initiatives abroad; this may take the form of mere
diplomatic diversion or of ".pragmatic expansionism"; imperialism
thus appears initially as a form of "anticyclical economic
therapy. " 19
3. Social legislation as political manipulation. Stability and ef-
ficiency of a political regime may require certain concessions to the
laboring masses; these are conceived not out of actual concern for
the welfare of workers but as a means to ensure their docility; in its
motive of dissipating tension, therefore, such a social policy is the
internal counterpart to foreign expansion.
4. Symptom of a certain phase of economic growth. The key to
historical periodization is industrial development; in the third quarter
of the nineteenth century, France and Germany reached a stage
propitious for Bonapartism; under similar economic circumstances,
presumably, the same political phenomenon would become evident
elsewhere.

17 Hans-Ulrich Wehler, Krisenherde des Kaiserreichs, 1871-1918 (Gottingen, 1970),

pp. 9-15, 135-61, and Bismarck und der Imperialismus, pp. 455-64.
18 The classical definition of an "ideal model" (Gedankenbild) was given by Max
Weber, "Die 'Objektivitait' sozialwissenschaftlicher und sozialpolitischer Erkenntnis,"
Gesammelte Aufsatze zur Wissenschaftslehre, 3d ed. (Tiubingen, 1968), p. 191.
19 Wehler, Bismarck und der Imperialismus, p. 454.

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 Bonapartism 189

If Wehler's theory is to maintain any coherence, it must sustain at

least these four propositions, all of which have been frequently
reiterated in his major book and his other writings. They are organi-
cally joined in a logical cluster. They are derived from one historical
example (the French Second Empire) and are intended to serve as a
typology for at least one other (Bismarckian Germany). Such would
seem to be the absolute minimum for an analytic tool for which one
might justifiably claim the status of a model. Otherwise we would be
left with no more than some random assertions grouped loosely
around a central analogy-and analogy is, as we know, one of the
weakest forms of historical argument.

In order to evaluate the accuracy and utility of such a model, we

would do well to vault the generation gap. Neither side can be
entirely vindicated. Huber and Rein have emphasized one aspect;
their more junior antagonists, another. The legal and traditional
attributes of the Bismarckian system are indisputable, but it would
be foolish to suppose that written paragraphs and parliamentary
formalities alone were sufficient evidence of merely another constitu-
tional monarchy. Conversely, no matter how often Bohme and
Wehler dilate on the plebiscitary character of the imperial regime,
they cannot circumvent the intractable fact that Bismarck never
literally resorted, as did Napoleon III, to a national referendum.
Here we are confronted with a difference between the manifest and
latent content of history. Both must be kept in mind.20
A second difficulty also needs to be disposed of at once. Even
Wehler's closest collaborators are evidently unanimous in concluding
that he erred in urging the identification of Bonapartism with dic-
tatorship. Among the contributors to the anthology Das kaiserliche
Deutschland, Hans Boldt addresses himself most directly to that
issue: "Certainly the thesis of Bismarck as a 'Bonapartist dictator,'
if concepts are to mean anything, is untenable.'"21 Although Boldt
and others hold firmly to the notion of Bonapartism, they have
conspicuously avoided claiming it to be a synonym for dictatorship.
Michael Stiirmer, for example, has preferred to revert to the term
"Caesarism.'22 The difference is obviously that one need not be-
come enmeshed in tenuous comparisons of Bismarck and Hitler. Yet
the accusation that the former in fact arrogated extraconstitutional
prerogatives remains much the same. It seems only sensible to adopt

20 See Mitchell, pp. 108-9.

21 Hans Boldt, "Deutscher Konstitutionalismus und Bismarckreich," in Das kaiser-
liche Deutschland, pp. 119-42.
22 Stiirmer, Regierung und Reich, pp. 323-29.

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190 Allan Mitchell

this qualification, to rule Wehler's equation out of court, and to

restrict ourselves to the original question: Was Bismarck a Bonapar-
tist?
It is in the nature of a model that it can be neither historically
concrete in every detail nor totally abstract. After all, since no two
occurrences are precisely identical, a model could not possibly
account for every minute discrepancy. Indeed, an excess of spec-
ificity would sacrifice the very purpose of generalization for which
any model is presumably created. It should assist us to perceive
differences as well as similarities, as long as the resulting analysis is
not a gross distortion of the examples compared. At the same time,
however, a heuristic device must hold sufficiently close to historical
reality to be appropriate for a given time and place. It cannot be
solely the product of fantasy, polemic, or factual inexactitude. Thus
if a model is too idiosyncratic, it is useless; and if it is unduly
general, it may be inaccurate or irrelevant.23
This theoretical problem has been cogently stated by Hans Boldt
and placed by him in the present context:

Whether "Bonapartism" can be imposed as a general notion-as a "typolog-

ical" concept (Gollwitzer, p. 75) for power structures which can be ascribed
to a certain phase of industrial development [Wehler, p. 457]-depends on
the success in freeing it from its historically concrete relationship to the
regime of Napoleon III and developing a general model by which different
historically concrete phenomena can be measured. Understood in this way,
the designation of the Bismarckian system as "Bonapartist" would not mean
that it corresponded to that of Napoleon III in every relevant detail-which
easily might be refuted and repeatedly has been refuted [cf. Rein]-but that
it displays a series of attributes for which characteristic similarities can also
be found in the Second Empire on the basis of a general and mutually
relevant criterion. That is to pose the problem of historical model building.
24

The challenge of building an appropriate Bonapartist model could

scarcely be expressed with greater clarity. Now we must establish
whether as yet this task has been successfully undertaken.

For purposes of discussion, we may distinguish among the eco-

nomic, social, and political rationales of the Bonapartist model.
1. Economic. Ultimately, all four of the hypotheses advanced by
Wehler rest on the assumption that there was a clearly defined
pattern of industrial growth in the nineteenth century. For the time
in question, the major trend periods were the "Industrial Revolu-

23 See Kocka, pp. 117-19.

24 Boldt, pp. 140-41.

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 Bonapartism 191

tion" (1849-73) and the "Great Depression" (1873-96). Naturally

both of these cycles displayed some fluctuation in the growth rate,
and economic performance varied somewhat from locale to locale
and from sector to sector. But, Wehler believes, the broad outline of
historical periodization nonetheless remained secure for Europe and
for the rest of the industrialized world. This is of considerable
importance for his model, since he posits that Bonapartism was the
product of "a certain phase of industrial growth."25
The only question is, precisely to which phase does he refer?
Presumably we must associate the intrusion of Bonapartism in
France with the "Industrial Revolution" after 1849, when the Sec-
ond Empire became the patron of the most rapid and sustained
economic development realized by France before the twentieth cen-
tury. Yet this hardly seems applicable to the Bismarckian Reich,
which proved unable to maintain the extraordinary economic boom
of its first months and thereafter slumped into more than two
decades of depressed prices and narrowed profit margins.
The most obvious way to save an economic argument for Bis-
marck's Bonapartism would be to presume that his incipient tenden-
cies had already been formed before 1873 and only became more
visible once the "Great Depression" began. But this is not really
the burden of Wehler's own work, nor is it the orientation of his
supporters. Michael Sturmer locates the "imperialistic departure" in
Bismarck's politics after 1878-79 and especially following the sharp
economic setbacks of 1882. In specific reference to 1878, he says,
"The threat of a coup d'etat, combined with the emphasizing of
plebiscitary and Caesaristic tendencies, remained thereafter the great
alternative of Bismarckian policy."26 The alternative to what? In
economic terms, the answer can only be, to the so-called (by
Sturmer himself) liberal era of free trade which still existed whe
Reich was unified, which was threatened by the onset of depression
in 1873, and which ended with the adoption of protectionist legisla-
tion in 1879. Before that date, the single most salient Bonapartist
trait-"pragmatic expansionism" as "a diversionary strategy" was
not evident. This was so and must have been so, Stuirmer explains,
because "after 1871 there was initially no outlet for internal conflict
to be resolved through foreign policy decisions."27
For somewhat different reasons, a similar standpoint has been

25 Wehler, Bismarck und der Imperialismus, p. 457.

26 Stiurmer, "Konservatismus und Revolution in Bismarcks Politik," in Das kaise
liche Deutschland, pp. 143-67. The italics are mine.
27 Ibid., pp. 147-58. The term "pragmatic expansionism" was originally employed
by Wehler.

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192 Allan Mitchell

lately adopted by Helmut B6hme-lately, since his own major work

of more than 600 pages had made no reference to Bismarck's
Bonapartism. His subsequent explanation for that lacuna, as if to
rehabilitate himself, has been that he was formerly treating only the
pre-Bonapartist portion of the chancellor's career: "Thereby the
period of national unification-the liberal-authoritarian [machtstaat-
lich] phase before 1878-79-is contrasted with the later
conservative-Bonapartist phase."28 Such an interpretation may re-
turn Bdhme to good standing with some of his academic colleagues,
but it is singularly compromising for the proposed model. If taken at
face value, this would require us to accept two utterly contradictory
economiic policies and call them both Bonapartist: Napoleon III's
free trade in a period of growing prosperity and Bismarck's protec-
tionism in the darkest days of a depression.
A rather interesting alternative has been advanced, perhaps unwit-
tingly, by Hans Boldt. He too concludes that "the definitive break-
through to a 'Napoleonic,' imperialistic foreign policy" occurred
only after 1878-79; but this reference is intended to specify as
Bismarck's true successor the "Volkskaiser," William 11.29 Con-
ceivably, following this lead, it might be possible to reconstruct the
model entirely by dating German Bonapartism from the economic
resurgence of 1896. When compared with France after 1849, this
would make far more sense in terms of Wehler's emphasis on "a
certain phase" of economic growth. But it would also of course
explode the rest of his model and presumably force him to revise his
image of Bismarck as the arch-imperialist of his day.30
2. Social. The Bismarckian settlement of 1871 has been described
by Hans Boldt as a "constitutionally regulated state of war be-
tween conservatism and liberalism [or], sociologically speaking, be-
tween landed aristocracy and wealthy bourgeoisie." Two things are
apparent in this definition. First, political-economic categories are
directly transposed into social categories, so that liberalism is
equated with the upper bourgeoisie; and second, it is assumed that
the old land-owning elites stood in hostility to the new industrial
elites. Indeed, Boldt asserts, Bismarck's major purpose in introduc-
ing universal suffrage was "to break the liberal parliamentary domi-
nance" and thereby to ensure the continuation of "the old ruling
order." What gave this strategy a distinctly Bonapartist twist, he

28 Helmut Bohme, "Politik und Oekonomie in der Reichsgriindungs- und spiiten

Bismarckzeit," in Stiirmer, Das kaiserliche Deutschland, pp. 26-50.
29 Boldt, p. 133.
30 In this light, see the deft rejoinder to Wehler by Paul M. Kennedy, "German
Colonial Expansion: Has the 'Manipulated Social Imperialism' Been Ante-dated?" Past
and Present, no. 54 (1972), pp. 134-41.

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 Bonapartism 193

continues, was Bismarck's deliberate exploitation of the working

classes to achieve his objectives: for example, "the attempt to gain
support from the masses against the liberal opposition or the effort
to remove politics from the parliament, thereby advancing the inter-
ests of the bourgeoisie and implicating the laboring populace in this
system through a socialisme autoritaire."'31 At first glance, this may
appear to be a plausible social analysis of the motives and methods
of Bismarck's Bonapartism.
But a second glance is necessary. If the liberals were actually
opponents of the chancellor, who advocated universal suffrage in
order to crush them, why should this serve the interests of the
bourgeoisie-a sociological designation for the liberals? The patent
self-contradiction of this version is compounded when we consult the
other advocates of a Bonapartist model. Far from seeing Bismarck's
intentions in the 1870s to have been the isolation and destruction of
the liberals, Michael Stuirmer contends that the chancellor's purpose
was to incorporate them: "The struggle against political Catholicism
became a means of internal integration that bound the liberals for
better or worse to Bismarck's policies. . . ." This does not imply, of
course, that Bismarck wished to cashier the traditional elites; but it
does deny that he originally sought to create a "state of war" with
the new middle classes. He attempted, rather, to co-opt them into
his system. A conflict only became necessary and useful, Stiirmer
asserts, after 1878, when Bismarck actively sought "the division of
the liberals."32
Whereas Boldt and Sturmer apply themselves in this fashion to the
decade of the 1870s, Bohme and Wehler show relatively little inter-
est in the social problems of that time. Since he wishes to minimize
the importance of 1871, Bohme displays only a modicum of concern
about the social strategy implicit in the granting of universal suf-
frage.33 Wehler's gaze is also turned away from the constitutional
settlement as such because of his conception of Bismarck's im-
perialistic machinations as a direct response to the economic crisis
beginning in 1873. "To conceal serious social and political tensions
inside the empire," he argues, the chancellor was increasingly forced
to adopt Bonapartist techniques. Since the same tensions did not yet
exist in 1871, they cannot be used by Wehler to explain the constitu-
tional settlement.34
Insofar as a coherent model is at stake, this reasoning seems to

3' Boldt, pp. 131-33.

32 Stiirmer, "Konservatismus und Revolution in der Politik Bismarcks," pp. 149
157.
33 Bohme, Deutschlands Weg zur Grossmacht, pp. 303-6.
34 Wehler, Bismarck und der Imperialismus, pp. 454-55.

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194 Allan Mitchell

lead us further into a morass of illogic. It is, in effect, the rhythm

that is wrong. Bismarck began in the midst of a liberal era, we are
told (by all except Boldt), and then became more illiberal and
antiliberal in the second decade of his chancellorship. Yet for
Napoleon III, the pattern was exactly the reverse. His c
in 1851 was a crackdown on the liberal opposition and was followed
by a reactionary phase during the balance of that decade; the latter
half of his reign was by any standard the more liberal period, and if
anything, his response to the economic tremor of 1868 was to
capitulate further to demands for reform. If his foolish foreign
adventures before then such as the expedition to Mexico can be
understood as efforts to retain public approval, they were clearly not
the result of social strains induced by a slump in the rate of
economic growth.35 The comparative historian may perhaps think of
a host of unanswered questions about the French emperor's mo-
tives; but one cannot overlook the fact that the social analysis
stipulated by the model involves a deep contradiction. In sum, it
does not help us to comprehend why, during two decades at their
respective helms of state, Louis Bonaparte and Bismarck were
moving rapidly in opposite directions.
3. Political. Here we may touch briefly and provisionally on the
problem of Bismarck's Reichsfeinde. There is simply no counterpart
in the history of the Second Empire to the Kulturkampf or the
anti-Socialist laws. Napoleon III's open courtship of Catholic favor
in the 1850s bore no resemblance whatever to Germany of the
1870s; and his self-alleged sympathy for social welfare, however
paternalistic or phony, never allowed him the inverse extreme of
public persecution of the French labor movement. These were
substantive political matters which involved very major segments of
the population in both nations. Given the striking divergence, one
must wonder about the use of a Bonapartist model as an instrument
of political analysis for Bismarckian Germany.
Such specific objections to the accuracy of the model create a
serious difficulty for its proponents; and it is perhaps for this reason
that their prose is strewn with references to the Bonapartist "style,'"
"'method," "tactics," "technique," or "character" of Bismarckian

35 See Jean Marczewski, "The Take-off Hypothesis and French Experience," in

The Economics of Take-off into Sustained Growth, ed. Walt W. Rostow (New York,
1963), pp. 119-38; Frangois Crouzet, "Essai de construction d'un indice annuel de la
production industrielle franqaise au XIXe siecle," Annales 25 (1970): 56-99; Maurice
Levy-Leboyer, "La De&celration de 1'economie frangaise dans la seconde moitie du
XIXe siecle," Revue d'histoire economique et sociale 49 (1971): 485-507; and the
capable survey by Tom Kemp, Economic Forces in French History (London, 1971),
pp. 155-216.

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 Bonapartism 195

politics. Imprecise by their nature, these terms imply that the model
cannot always guarantee remarkable parallels between Napoleon III
and Bismarck ("which easily might be refuted," as Hans Boldt has
conceded) but that a common modus operandi nonetheless charac-
terized the actions of both.36 In domestic as in foreign affairs,
Wehler observes, "Bismarck practiced with virtuosity the Bonapar-
tist methods of limited compromise, repression, and diversion."37
Without question, many instances of all three can be extrapolated
from the record of Bismarck's long tenure as German chancellor.
Unfortunately for the political analyst, however, the same is true of
nearly any politician who ever defrauded the public. There is noth-
ing exclusively or quintessentially Bonapartist about cajoling, deceiv-
ing, or throttling one's constituents. By those criteria, we might just
as well substitute a Nixonian for a Napoleonic model. Amusing as
that exercise might be, it could not be considered analytically
serious-unless, of course, we were to forget entirely about
Bonapartism as a political phenomenon which appears at a certain
stage of socioeconomic development.
When viewed as a whole, then, the Bonapartist model is locked
into a dilemma. In very specific terms, it is inaccurate as a literal
comparison of the two basic historical examples upon which it
purports to rest; yet in very general terms, it is not useful in
distinguishing those cases from countless others.

The pessimistic conclusions of this inquiry might lead us to adopt

one of three attitudes: that we have reached a methodological
terminus and must acknowledge that no model can ever satisfy all
the demands of rigorous analysis; that, much like Max Weber's
depiction of the Protestant ethic and the spirit of capitalism, we
should accept the model of Bismarck's Bonapartism as sufficiently
fruitful even though it is demonstrably flawed; or that we can
attempt to locate another model which better serves to epitomize
Bismarck's imperial policies. Before resigning ourselves to one of
the first two choices-which are perhaps not mutually exclusive-it
is worthwhile to pursue the third. We have good reason for making
such an effort. Not to do so would be virtually an admission that all
historical comparisons are finally hopeless. If we are unable to

36 Boldt, pp. 140-41.

37 Wehler, Bismarck und der Imperialismus, p. 488. This formula has been adop
and needlessly embellished (" . . . die bonapartistische Methode des begrenzten
gegenkommens, der radikalen Unterdriickung und der Ablenkung nach Bedarf
by Stiirmer, "Konservatismus und Revolution in Bismarcks Politik," p. 147.

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196 Allan Mitchell

fashion some tools of generalization, we will be left by default to

speculate aimlessly on one damn thing after another.
Since a viable model must finally justify itself in practice, it must
suffice here to suggest only the outlines of an alternative. Fortu-
nately, the principles as well as the deficiencies of the Bonapartist
model offer a point of departure. If a political prototype is to be
utilized to compare two historical instances, we can agree, it must
be derived from a corresponding phase of socioeconomic develop-
ment. For the mid-nineteenth century we cannot overlook Ger-
many's lag behind France in these regards. A suitable French model
for Bismarck's time must therefore be chronologically anterior to it.
This deduction suggests that the economically troubled and socially
fluid circumstances in France before 1848 provide the most appro-
priate comparison. To be still more precise, it appears that Wehler's
hypothesis of a cyclical growth pattern can be employed to far better
advantage if we replace the notion of Bismarck's Bonapartism with
Bismarck' s Guizotism.
In the interests of brevity, we may restrict the tenets of such a
model to five:
1. The indispensable first minister. Like Guizot, Bismarck's des-
ignated function was that of premier in a constitutional monarchy;
that is, ostensibly he served as mediator between crown and parlia-
ment. The actuality, to be sure, was somewhat different. The
monarch's role was more often than not ceremonial: of William I no
less than of Louis Philippe it could be justifiably said that "le roi
regne, mais il ne gouveme pas."38 At the same time, the Reichstag
was dominated by the regime and was moreover largely unrepresen-
tative of the German nation; like the French Assembly of the July
monarchy, it was a place where the government's policies were
explained, not determined. Both Guizot and Bismarck were stoutly
opposed to a regime d'assemblee and saw the government as some-
thing separate from and superior to the legislative branch. Thereby
they each controlled a system of double or nothing, in which the
premier required both the loyalty of the monarch and the subservi-
ence of the parliament in order to maintain the efficiency of his
regime.3 9
2. Interaction of diplomacy and domestic affairs. In both cases,
the premier was his own foreign minister. This institutional arrange-

38 This famous phrase was, of course, coined by Adolphe Thiers.

39 The scholarly literature on Guizot is surprisingly sparse. See Charles Pouthas,
Guizot pendant la Restauration (Paris, 1923); Rene Remond, La Droite en France
(Paris, 1954), pp. 75-94; and Douglas Johnson, Guizot: Aspects of French History,
1787-1874 (London, 1963).

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 Bonapartism 197

ment was more than a formality; it facilitated the kind of manipula-

tion of events at home and abroad that was so characteristic of
Guizot and Bismarck. Their governments did not so much seek
foreign involvements as they found them useful for internal con-
sumption, especially in a period of economic dislocation and social
unrest such as France experienced in the 1840s and Germany in the
1880s. Yet to insist flatly on the primacy of domestic politics is to
overstate the case. Diplomatic imbroglios provided their own
momentum and sometimes produced unanticipated political repercus-
sions.40 It is a conscious and continuous reciprocity of internal and
external affairs that this model suggests.
3. Predominance of the "pays legal." In certain regards, the July
monarchy did not literally provide an example for imperial Germany.
Bismarck opted for universal manhood suffrage in 1871, whereas
Guizot firmly opposed that principle, despite the stipulations made
by the Charter of 1830 for the participation of the people in public
affairs.41 In practice, however, both men realized that their authority
rested not on genuine democracy but on the pays legal. The two
electoral systems reflected not a social reality but a political ruse.
Bismarck was free to risk universal suffrage because, unlike cen-
tralized France, Germany's federal structure imposed important re-
straints on the direct expression of a popular will; obviously Prus-
sia's three-class suffrage was an autocratic device par excellence,
one to which Guizot had no recourse. If the style was somewhat
different, the antidemocratic substance was much alike. In this
context, it is not difficult to appraise the Kulturkampf and the
anti-Socialist laws as attempts by Bismarck to restrict the pays legal
to suit his own purposes. In the end, one is struck less by the
difference in tactics of Guizot and Bismarck than by the similarity of
their strategy.
4. Consolidation of a new notability. Just as it is a distortion to
see the French Revolution as an unmitigated triumph of the com-
mercial or industrial bourgeoisie over a feudal aristocracy, so it is an
error to regard German unification as a victory of East Elbian
Junkers at the expense of the liberals. To think in such categorical
terms is already to forfeit any chance of a nuanced social analysis.
Much of the confusion surrounding Bismarck's treatment of the
German liberals could be avoided if a French model from the early

40 The most obvious example was General Boulanger. See Frederic H. Seager, The
Boulanger Affair: Political Crossroads of France, 1886-1889 (Ithaca, N.Y., 1969); and
Mitchell (n. 5 above), pp. 99-105.
41 See Vincent E. Starzinger, Middlingness: Juste Milieu; Political Theory in
France and England, 1815-48 (Charlottesville, Va., 1965), p. 57.

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198 Allan Mitchell

nineteenth century were more consistently applied. The operative

fact can be described not as the winning or losing by certain political
or social factions but as an amalgamation of the foremost property-
owning strata: les notables.42 It was the primacy of an expanded
notability which Guizot and Bismarck sought to anchor in the
political institutions and mores of their respective countries. This
required mutual concessions of aristocracy and upper bourgeoisie,
governmental inducements to both, and an attempt to repress or
assuage any popular opposition to such a restricted realignment of
privilege.43
5. Short-term success, long-term failure. If one considers the
entire reign of the July monarchy, it stretched across nearly two
decades and almost attained the longevity of the Bismarckian Reich.
Guizot's premiership proved to be the last in a series of political
improvisations which had begun with the Revolution of 1830. The
purpose was always the same: to adapt an essentially autocratic
ruling system to a changed and still changing socioeconomic reality.
Guizot was the most durable and most successful of Louis Philippe's
ministers. Yet his virtues, inevitably, were also his faults; and the
monarchy outlasted his dismissal by only several hours. By compari-
son, Germany's development appears in slow motion. The principal
figure is longer in view; his actions are broader and can be
scrutinized in more detail. After his disappearance, it is a matter of
decades rather than days before his system collapses. But many of
the same generalizations are valid. Bismarck's immediate advantages
also became his successors' eventual liabilities. A political ma-
chinery which had been created by and for himself was not well
suited to endure in the hands of others. For his part, confronted
without delay by the consequences of his own policies, Guizot
responded with characteristic haughtiness: "J'ai eu l'honneur de
tomber le premier dans le desastre de mon pays."44 Had he lived to
witness the future of the German nation, Bismarck might well have
repeated those words.

As a comparative standard by which to judge the character of

Bismarckian politics, the Bonapartist model fails. Whether an alter-

42 For France, see Andre-Jean Tudesq, Les Grands Notables en France, 1840-1849:
Etude historique d'une psychologie sociale, 2 vols. (Paris, 1964); and Adeline
Daumard, La Bourgeoisie parisienne de 1815 di 1848 (Paris, 1963).
43 For Germany, see Karl Erich Born, "Der soziale und wirtschaftliche Struktur-
wandel Deutschlands am Ende des 19. Jahrhunderts," Vierteljahrsschrift fur Sozial-
und Wirtschaftsgeschichte 50 (1963): 361-76; and in general, Ralf Dahrendorf,
Geselischaft und Demokratie in Deutschland (Munich, 1965).
44 Cited by Johnson, p. 432.

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 Bonapartism 199

native model may legitimately be substituted for it is debatable. The

notion of Bismarck's Guizotism offers a number of arresting paral-
lels, but it is not altogether unproblematical. Certainly there are
those who would argue that Guizot's stubborn defense of a limited
suffrage marked an unbridgeable contrast with the electoral proce-
dures adopted in the German imperial constitution of 1871.
Yet the fundamental problem is less formal and lies more deeply
imbedded in what Pierre Renouvin once called les forces pro-
fondes.45 No historical model can entirely and precisely account for
the basic economic, social, and political differences between France
and Germany in the nineteenth century. Neither the growth rate nor
the pattern of industrial development in France was identical with
that of Germany-with the result that no analysis based on a
"6certain phase" of the national economy can be wholly satisfactory.
The demographic structure and social composition of the two coun-
tries were not exactly the same-with the result that any Franco-
German analogy must necessarily strain to grasp important differ-
ences of class, status, and region. By mid-century France was
already highly centralized while Germany was not-with the result
that Prussia's three-class franchise could not possibly have had a
literal counterpart in French politics.
These are elementary realities that have been ignored too often in
the effort to justify a Bonapartist model that packs, finally, more
subliminal than analytic force. Contrary to their stated intentions,
the real fault of the model's advocates has been to concentrate
attention on the personal foibles and political style of a few outstand-
ing leaders. This has served to sustain a high level of interest; but it
also represents, in effect, a shortcut which is leading into a dead
end. What is needed is a much broader and more patient attempt to
construct a comparative Franco-German history that is less beholden
to personalities and polemics.

45 See Pierre Renouvin and Jean-Baptiste Duroselle, Introduction ta l'histoire d

relations internationales (Paris, 1964).

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