Beacon to the World: A German AAR

Chapter One: Prelude to Unification (1836-1848)

In the late 1830s, Prussia was a reactionary state. King Frederick William III had survived the Napoleonic Wars and the revolutions of 1830, determined to freeze his realm in amber. To be sure, the Prussian army had been reformed by leaders like Clausewitz and Gneisenau. The Prussian industrial complex was growing quickly, with new factories and railroads springing up everywhere. But these changes all served to increase the power of the absolute Prussian monarchy. Any hint of liberal or revolutionary thinking was strictly excluded from the Prussian social order. The people worked under close state supervision and a crushing burden of taxation.

Meanwhile, for many years Prussia had played little part in world affairs. Savaged during the Napoleonic Wars, it was widely regarded as the least significant of the great European powers. In the Belgian crisis of 1836, Prussia merely followed the British lead in guaranteeing independence to the new nation. Prussian diplomacy backed the Ottoman Turks during the Second Oriental Crisis, but stopped short of offering the Ottomans military aid. In only one respect did the Prussian state chart its own diplomatic course - by 1838 relations with Sweden had warmed so far that the two nations entered into a defensive alliance. This relationship continued almost without interruption for over 70 years, and was the cornerstone of the Northern Alliance that came to dominate European politics in the later 19th century.


King Frederick William IV of Prussia

Such was the state of affairs when Frederick William IV came to the Prussian throne in 1840. His kingdom seemed a most unlikely candidate for the eventual role of world-state.

Many German liberals had high hopes for the new king, who was widely regarded as an idealist. Early in his reign he did promote a number of minor reforms. In 1841 he decreed a law permitting the foundation of private newspapers, subject to the supervision of a state censor's bureau. He also permitted some experimentation with legal trade unions, so long as their political positions were acceptable to the state. Meanwhile, he promoted several symbols of German nationalism, including the renovation of Koln cathedral and the celebration of the 1000-year anniversary of the German Reich. However, these changes were not followed by real reform, and any hopes for popular participation in government were soon dashed.

Over the next few years, liberal political activism spread everywhere in Germany - everywhere, that is, except in Prussia. The mild reforms of 1841 appeared to stem the local tide of liberal unrest. Even a surge in Polish nationalism proved well within the capacity of the Prussian army to control. It seemed that Prussia would remain a state suspended in time.

However, during the mid-1840s the king began to rely heavily on the advice of one of his oldest friends. This relationship proved critical in the eventual transformation of Prussia.

Joseph Maria von Radowitz was a nobleman of Hungarian extraction, who had received a military education in France and had fought in Napoleon's army. Since entering Prussian service he had advanced rapidly, due to his intellectual brilliance and his marriage ties to the old Prussian aristocracy. He became prominent in the Hohenzollern court even during the last years of King Frederick William III, and became a close friend and confidante of the Crown Prince.

Von Radowitz had served for several years as a Prussian military representative to the German Confederation, that loose alliance of German states that had been formed during the Congress of Vienna. In this position, he developed a strategy for Prussian hegemony that emphasized princely sovereignty, resistance to liberal revolution, and careful social reforms. By 1846, he was one of the king's primary advisors and had impressed Frederick William with the coherence of his strategy.

Von Radowitz got his chance to shape Prussian policy during the Schleswig-Holstein crisis of 1846. A liberal-nationalist Danish government had come to power, and was pressing for the annexation of the two provinces. This policy also called for the forcible assimilation of the German population - a provision which excited outrage throughout Germany. When the Prussian foreign minister vacillated, King Frederick William IV removed him and put von Radowitz in his place.

Soon, von Radowitz was carefully laying the groundwork for a Prussian campaign against Denmark. German sentiment for war was whipped to the point of madness. Several reserve divisions were called up and deployed. Prussian envoys approached the northern German states to seek military transit rights and other assistance.

Hanover agreed to assist in any campaign against Denmark, although von Radowitz declined an offer of active participation in the war - it was no part of his plan to have Hanover lay claim to any of the disputed provinces.

Mecklenburg, on the other hand, refused to participate and declared itself neutral. This may have been due to its own liberal government, which was somewhat sympathetic to the new Danish regime. Von Radowitz was little concerned with this setback - Prussian forces could reach the disputed territory through Hanover instead - but he was careful to bring the Mecklenburger attitude to the attention of his king.

The crisis reached a head in January 1847, when Denmark refused a final Prussian ultimatum and annexed Schleswig. Prussia declared war on January 23. Denmark soon found its diplomatic position in full collapse, as its nominal allies Russia and Sweden both refused to become involved. Meanwhile, Austria also declared itself neutral. The contest would be between Denmark and Prussia alone.

One month after the war began, Prussian forces crossed into Holstein. The duchy fell by the end of March, and was forced to become a Prussian satellite and ally. Prussian forces then marched into Denmark, but the rest of the war proved inconclusive. Lacking a significant navy, Prussia could not cross the narrow channel to attack the Danish home islands. On the other hand, Denmark could not hold the Jutland peninsula, nor could it make any headway in two attempts to counterattack at Stralsund.

By August the combatants were coming under considerable pressure from the Great Powers to resolve their dispute. The Danes stubbornly refused to accept any Prussian peace proposals, and von Radowitz was able to use Danish intransigence to improve Prussia's diplomatic position. Finally, on Christmas Day 1847, Denmark agreed to a peace. The Danes retained Schleswig, but were forced to grant minority rights to the German population of the province, and they paid war reparations to Prussia for several years thereafter.

Von Radowitz then moved on to the next phase of his strategy, playing carefully on the sentiments of both the Prussian people and the Prussian king. In the press, he argued that Mecklenburg had betrayed Germany in the hour of its need and needed to be punished. In audience with the king, he pointed out that Mecklenburg was the homeland of Frederick William's own mother - a formidable lady who had once stood almost alone against Napoleon. The people of Mecklenburg needed badly to be rescued from their corrupt, cowardly, "democratic" government.

Prussia declared war on Mecklenburg on July 11, 1848. The move surprised Europe, and the Great Powers were unable to intervene effectively. The duchy had an ally in Switzerland, but although the Swiss loyally declared war on Prussia they were unable to bring any force to bear. The war lasted only two weeks, as Mecklenburg's tiny army was overwhelmed and forced to surrender en masse. Mecklenburg was annexed late in August, ending one of the first German experiments with representative democracy.

- Johann von Beck, German Empire to World State (original title: Vom Deutschen Reich zum Weltstaat), published 2054 by Berlin Freestate Press. American English translation courtesy of Babel Translations (WorldWeb address: babeltranslate/usa/comm)

Paul Drye said:

A reactionary von Radowitz, eh? Interesting POD. I suppose clean living will let him survive past 1853 as well?

Click to expand...

Not reactionary, exactly, but certainly conservative. Even in the Original History he had a plan for German unification that emphasized princely sovereignty - but that foundered at the Frankfurt Assembly. I'm assuming that he was a little more successful in this alternate history.

As to living past 1853 . . . wait and see.

Chapter Two: The Road to Erfurt (1848-1851)

Although 1848 was a year of European revolution, it was a pale thing compared to the upheaval that had taken place in 1830.

Reactionary forces were in charge in France, usually the heartland of revolutionary sentiment. An ultra-royalist party had been in power since the failure of a liberal coup in 1840, and was in the process of tightening its grip. In February the people took to the streets to protest the revocation of several liberal reforms. The army was called in, blood ran in the Parisian gutters, and the new French revolution was stillborn.

In Germany, liberal revolution was associated with German nationalism. As such, it was strongest in the minor German states, where people felt little loyalty to their local dukes and princes. Significant liberal uprisings took place in Saxony and in most of the minor states - but the revolution was weak in Bavaria and Hanover, and completely absent in Prussia. Meanwhile, the Hapsburg empire felt no great surge of German nationalism, and was largely at peace in its German provinces.

Of course, other forms of nationalism proved very troublesome to both of the major German states. Prussia continued to struggle with Polish uprisings in its eastern provinces, relying on its friendly relations with Russia to keep things under control. Meanwhile, Austria faced several years of serious turmoil as an epidemic of national uprisings spread across Galicia and Hungary.

Frederick William IV was able to take a calm line during the crisis year. Liberal unrest in Berlin was minimal, easily handled by a show of force and police-state methods. With von Radowitz at his side, the king stood fast and waited for a chance to act. He hoped to seize the issue of German unification away from the liberals, making it the backbone of a more conservative (and more distinctively Prussian) foreign policy.


Scene from the National Assembly, Frankfurt am Main, 1848

His opportunity came in 1849. For months, a liberal pan-German assembly had been meeting in Frankfurt to consider the question of German unification. The Assembly had long been paralyzed by conflict between a grossdeutsch faction (supporting a "large Germany" under Austrian leadership) and its kleindeutsch rivals (supporting a "small Germany" led by Prussia and excluding the Hapsburg empire). In June the Assembly began to feel its moment slipping away, and hurriedly papered over its differences. By a narrow margin, the Assembly voted to present a kleindeutsch unification plan to the King of Prussia, asking him to accept the title of Emperor of Germany.

On July 3, 1849, Frederick William IV refused the Assembly's offer. He expressed considerable disdain, feeling it beneath him to accept a title that "smelled of the gutter."

When news of the king's refusal reached Frankfurt, it caused the collapse of the Assembly. Most of the moderate delegates decamped in despair for their home provinces, leaving behind a rump Assembly that was dominated by radicals. With liberal gangs rioting in the Frankfurt streets, the radicals called for the abolition of aristocratic privileges, with Germany to be unified under a sovereign parliament elected through universal suffrage.

Yet even while the rump Assembly dreamed of radical glory, Prussia acted.

Radical rebellion had already forced the duke of Hesse-Darmstadt to flee to Berlin, where he was only too willing to agree to the intervention of Prussian troops. Within two weeks of Frederick William's refusal of imperial honors, Prussian forces were battling rebels in Geissen. After restoring the duke to his palace, the Prussian army marched on Frankfurt and put a final end to the National Assembly. A number of radical leaders were killed trying to flee the Prussian invasion, while many others were arrested. By the end of September Frankfurt was under Prussian administration.

The king of Prussia now stood as the great defender of conservative order against radical chaos. Many German conservatives now looked to him for protection, especially while the Hapsburgs continued to struggle against their own crop of rebellions.

One more demonstration of Prussian resolve remained. One of the most intractable centers of liberal unrest was in Saxony, where a number of the Frankfurt radicals had fled after the end of the National Assembly. In the summer of 1850, Prussia moved against the duchy of Saxe-Meiningen, which was ruled by a local diet and which harbored a number of the radical leaders. Marching through Weimar, the Prussian army seized control of the duchy by the end of July.

Late in 1850, the Hapsburgs managed to gain the upper hand in their internal struggle. Rebel forces in Galicia and Hungary were defeated, and a reactionary counter-revolution placed the Archduchess Sophia at the head of a new government. Now Austria looked north - and discovered Prussia well on its way to seizing the leadership of Germany.

Already in September, a new pan-German assembly had begun meeting in Erfurt. Unlike the National Assembly, this gathering was sponsored by Prussia and was attended primarily by the princes of northern Germany. Through the fall and winter, the gathering of aristocrats worked out a reactionary constitution for a "small Germany" which would exclude Austrian leadership. The kings and princes of Germany would be sovereign in their own provinces, but overall policy would be in the hands of the Emperor and his ministers. An aristocratic Diet would meet to serve as a consultative body, but would have no legislative power of its own.

Well into 1851, Austria made a number of diplomatic moves hoping to rescue the situation. However, the new Hapsburg regime felt too unsure of its footing to make a credible threat of open war. Indeed, its veiled threats only served to alienate several of the southern German states who might otherwise have been reluctant to accept Prussian leadership. Austria had lost the initiative.

On April 21, 1851, Joseph Maria von Radowitz conveyed the Erfurt assembly's offer of imperial honors to Frederick William. Satisfied that this offer carried no gutter stink, the king accepted. Within days, the new state gained the endorsement of two other German kings - Ernst Augustus I of Hanover, and Ludwig I Wittelsbach of Bavaria. With the prospect of a Dreikonigsbund to lead the new German Reich, all of the minor German states fell into line. By the end of May, Germany was a fact and Austrian hegemony had vanished like the morning dew.

-- Johann von Beck, Vom Deutschen Reich zum Weltstaat

Pictures now! I've figured out how to do screenshots too, and will be starting to use them in the next couple of updates.

Anyone know of a good image of Joseph Maria von Radowitz on the web? I've been searching for some time and haven't been able to come up with anything.

On second thought, I think I'll close this one out. Version 1.02 changes the game so much (and I personally appreciate the changes) that it doesn't seem worthwhile to keep up with this AAR.

A short summary of further events:

After forming through the Conservative Empire event in 1851, Germany found itself at war with Russia and France in turn. This was something of a challenge, but German arms were aided by the fact that Austria was also at war with Russia independently - the two German empires didn't cooperate as such, but the combination was too much for the Russians. Eventually Russia sued for peace with Germany, the German armies were able to concentrate on France, and by about 1854 the war was over.

The revival of the Sleswig-Holstein question about 1857 nearly triggered a war between Germany and Austria - Germany was allied with Sweden, which chose to support the Danes against Austria. Germany backed out of its alliance rather than fight Austria. Soon the incident led to the formation of a unified Scandinavian state.

Despite the diplomatic crisis, relations between Germany and Scandinavia remained good. By 1860 Germany was allied to Scandinavia again, and within a few more years an alliance had been made with the United Kingdom. That "Northern Alliance" lasted almost without interruption for the rest of the game.

The Northern Alliance went to war against France in the 1860s, mostly to grab Alsace-Lorraine and lift French colonies in Africa. The war was quite successful - Germany took Paris early on with a big army under von Moltke, British forces seized most of the French coast from Bordeaux to Calais, and allied forces grabbed a whole slew of French claims and territories.

That was the last major war fought in Europe, aside from periodic border conflicts between Austria and Russia.

From the 1870s, Germany concentrated on social reforms and colonial expansion. By the late 1880s Germany was a full democracy. There was a big swath of German claims buildings across central Africa, centered on the Congo basin. A war against Oman seized much of the East African coast (Zanzibar was acquired almost as an afterthought).

Germany then fought two colonial wars. A minor war brought Ethiopia into German control. In the early 1900s, then, Germany fought a long campaign against the Khedive of Egypt. Germany annexed all of Egypt's territory - Egypt proper, the Soudan, Crete, Cyprus, Rhodes, Palestine and Syria.

By the end of the game, Germany was the #1 power, primarily because of a huge lead in Prestige. By my count, Germany had gained the full 150 points for a majority of the cultural developments. Germany was not #1 in industrial power, unfortunately - the British edged us out by a few points in the very last year of the game.

All in all, an enjoyable game - although I suspect it wasn't as challenging under 1.01 as it would be now.