Section 50 - The National Movements: Germany

Palmer & Colton, A History of the Modern World

The Resistance to Napoleon: Nationalism

- As far back as 1792, the French met with resistance as well as collaboration in the
countries they occupied.
- There was resentment when invading armies plundered the country, when the
newly organized states were required to pay a fee of men and money, when policies
were dictated by the French, and when the Continental System was used for the
especial benefit of French manufacturers.
- Europeans commonly began to feel that Napoleon was using them as tools against
England.
- In all countries, including France, people began to grow tired of constant warfare,
uneasy peace, conscription and taxes, the bureaucratic government, and Napoleon’s
insatiable appetite for power.
- Movements of protest and independence manifested themselves even within
Napoleon’s structure.
• Napoleon’s brother, Louis Bonaparte, King of Holland, attempted to put Dutch
interests above Napoleon’s demands.
• His brother in law, Joachim Murat, King of Naples, appealed to Italian
sentiment to secure his own throne.
- Nationalism developed as a movement of resistance against Napoleon’s forcible
campaign to unify Europe. These movements were anti-French and anti-autocratic.
- This nationalism was a mixture of the conservative and the liberal.
- Certain nationalists called for the protection of their own particular customs,
institutions, and historical development, which they feared might be lost under the
Napoleonic system.
- Others insisted on more self-determination, participation in government,
representative institutions, and freedom of the individual.
- Nationalism appeared in different countries in different ways. In England, the
solidarity of the country exhibited itself in rallies in which all classes stood against
Bonaparte and his ideas.
- The Napoleonic wars might have saved England from crisis; with the coming of the
Industrial Revolution, there was much social conflict, but the threat of Napoleon gave
everyone a common rallying point.
- In Spain, nationalism took the form of resistance to the French armies. A bourgeois
group at Cadiz rebelled against the French regime and proclaimed the Spanish
constitution of 1812, modeled on the French constitution of 1791.
- Spanish nationalism also drew support from counterrevolutionaries, who still hoped
to restore the clergy and the Bourbons.
- In Italy, the Napoleonic regime was more popular than in Spain and therefore much
less anti-French sentiment existed. Much of the bourgeoisie of Italy prized the
efficiency of the French.
- The French regime, which lasted in Italy from 1796-1814 and broke up the motley
collection of city-states, kingdoms, and duchies that the nation had previously been.
While it never unified Italy, it assembled it into 3 parts, and left hope that it could one
day be whole.
- Napoleon was popular in Poland, and offered them the hope of a unified nation in
exchange for Polish support.

The Movement of Thought in Napoleonic Germany

- The most momentous national movement occurred in Germany, when the Germans
rebelled against Napoleonic rule as well as the century-old ascendancy of French
civilization (French armies and Enlightenment philosophy).
- German culture had flourished under the years of Napoleon, and German ideas
came under the umbrella of romanticism which increasingly challenged the “dry
abstractions” of the Age of Reason.
- Germany became the most “romantic” of all countries and its influence spread
throughout Europe.
- In the 19th century, the Germans came to be widely regarded as intellectual leaders,
as the French had previously been.
- Previously, and especially in the time following the Peace of Westphalia, the
Germans had been the least nationally minded of the European nations. They were
conscious of the rest of Europe, but not of Germany (as it was made up of small
states).
- The upper class of Germany adopted the French language, culture, fashions, and
etiquette. France was regarded as the international standard.
- Around 1870, signs of a change began to set in.
- In 1784, J. G. Herder published a book called Ideas on the Philosophy of the
History of Mankind. Herder was a Protestant pastor and theologian who considered
the French frivolous. He claimed that:
• Imitation of foreign ways made people shallow and artificial. While German
ways were different from those of the French, they were no less worthy of
respect.
• All true culture or civilization must come from native roots, as well as from
the common people, the Volk.
• Each citizenry had its own attitudes, spirit, or genius, and the character of a
people was unique to itself.
• A sound civilization must display a national character.
• Good laws reflected local conditions or national idiosyncrasies.
- This philosophy was very different from that of Voltaire and the philosophes’.
- Herder’s idea was reinforced and passed to other countries in the general
movement of romantic thought.
- It emphasized genius or intuition rather than reason, and stressed the differences
rather than similarity of mankind (in direct contrast to Enlightenment thinking).
- This set forth a cultural nationalism, though without a political message, as
Germans had long been a non-political people.
- The French Revolution had shown Germany what could be done with a state, and
inspired a “national awakening”. Germans began to see the futilities of the Holy
Roman Empire and remembered in humiliation “the shame of the princes”. This
sentiment set in strongly after 1800.
- It was directed not only against Napoleon, but also against the German rulers and
French influenced upper classes.
- Germans appreciated the idea of political and national greatness because they had
neither. A national German state seemed to be the solution to all their problems,
however in practice there seemed to be nothing they could do.
- “Father” Jahn organized a youth movement, but many Germans thought him
extreme.
- An anonymous anti-French work, Germany in Its Deep Humiliation, was
published, for which its publisher Palm was executed.
- The Moral and Scientific Union (Tugendbund) was formed as a league of virtue
or manliness, whose members were to contribute to the future of Germany.
- J. G. Fichte was a moral and metaphysical philosopher, and a professor at the
University of Jena. His doctrine was that the spirit of the individual creates its own
moral universe. He wholeheartedly approved of the French Revolution, and saw the
state as a means of human salvation.
- In Closed Commercial State, in 1800, he proposed a totalitarian system that
would develop national character. He became intensely German after the French
conquered Germany.
- At Berlin, in 1808, he delivered a series of Addresses to the German Nation,
declaring that there was a strong German spirit/national character that must be kept
pure from outside influence.

Reforms in Prussia
- In the revolt against the French, the main transformation came in Prussia.
- After the death of Frederick the Great, Prussia had entered a period of
complacence. But in 1806, at Jena-Auerstadt, the kingdom collapsed in a single
battle. Most of its territories were confiscated, and the French began an occupation.
- However, in the eyes of German nationalists, it was the state least compromised by
collaboration with the French, and Prussia soon became the center of the German
movement for freedom.
- Prussia’s main problem was its military, because Napoleon could be usurped only
by military force. The problem was of morale and personnel, because its army lacked
passion, patriotism, and spirit.
- The aim of the army reformers, Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, was to instill this
spirit.
- If Prussia was to strengthen itself against France, it must inspire equal participation
and to allow capable individuals to hold high positions, regardless of social status.
- The reconstruction of the state was initiated by Baron Stein and continued by
Hardenberg.
- Under Stein, the social structure became more flexible. Property became
interchangeable between classes; positions were opened up to bourgeois. He also
established self-government in the cities.
- His most famous work was the abolition of serfdom in 1807, but it only abolished
“hereditary subjection” of peasants to their manorial lords. It gave the peasants the
rights to certain freedoms without the lord’s approval.
- This set the framework for a modern state and modern economy.