The Election of 1887
Four years on from the events of 1883 – when the Austrian War which brought the Habsburg Monarchy to its knees came to an end, the Centre was swept to power with an absolute majority and the Anti-Socialist Laws were repealed – Germany experienced an even more spectacular year. Earlier in the year the Habsburg Emperor had been forced to flee his own country, coming to Germany he had negotiated a return to power in Austria with his country being joined to Germany. Yet with this compromise being hotly contested in the election the stability of the new territories remained in question.
The first election since the unification with Austria proved to be a remarkably tightly contested affair. With the DFP narrowly outperforming the DZP amongst the German community, and the DZP and its allies gaining a slightly larger share of the vote of the minority communities the DFP led block in the Reichstag outnumbered the Centrist block by just a single Reichstag member.
Compared to the party’s 1883 performance, the 1887 election was an utter disaster for the Centre Party – its share of the vote (even including its minority Allies) plummeting from over 50% to around 1/3. However, this share of the vote was largely in line with what the Centre had achieved throughout the 1870s, the revived challenge of the DFP for the vote of German democrats and the advance of the SPD into the Centre’s old working class constituency had been expected to sweep away an even larger portion of the vote than they actually did. It was noticeable that across the German Empire the Centre Party meant very different things in different regions. In the North the Party was largely based upon the labouring classes – from peasants through to industrial workers – and was very left leaning, in the South the Party was decidedly Catholic, anti-Prussian and democratic, meanwhile in the Austrian lands (including amongst the Czechs) the Centre was broadly speaking a conservative and right wing party – the pro-Habsburg opposition to DFP led quasi-Republicanism.
The only other party to establish itself as a truly national institution in 1887 was the DFP – winning votes across all of Germany the party stood for liberalism, democracy, reform and laicism. In the old Austrian lands the Party assumed the mantle of the Anti-Habsburg Republican factions, securing a substantial share of the vote and even seeing its Czech wing secure one more seat than the Centre’s amongst the most important of Germany’s minority communities. The fall of the Liberal Union of Germany had been a tremendous boon to the Empire’s Progressive Liberals, as they established themselves as the single largest force in the Reichstag – if only just.
Whilst the SPD managed to gain votes across Germany, its supporters were largely concentrated in highly industrialised areas – Berlin, Vienna, Munich, the Rhineland, parts of Saxony, Bohemia and Silesia all returned substantial numbers of Socialist votes. With 72 Socialists sitting in the expanded Reichstag – a substantial increase on the 8 elected in 1883 at the SPD’s nadir – Socialism was back on the agenda amongst the German working classes. However, across the Empire the Socialists were still in competition with Centre supporters, and in some areas Liberals even amongst the core proletarian communities. The Socialists were a long way off of competing for power.
The two traditionally Prussian parties – the National Liberals and German Conservative Reich Party – performed as might have been expected. Both were very strong in Prussia – the two parties dominating politics in Prussia East of the Elbe, and securing a strong showing across Northern Germany but largely failing to make an impression beyond. The DKRP did manage to cobble together a loose coalition of supporters in the old Austrian lands amongst arch-reactionaries, but their vote was inconsequential in comparison to the dominance of Liberals and Christian Democrats. It is notable that the National Liberals did not support opposition Liberal factions amongst the minority communities of the Empire. Instead, rather than split the Liberal vote with an inevitably much smaller minority ever likely to support pro-NLP candidates, the National Liberals backed whatever Liberal candidates existed, resulting in the DFP’s allies being backed by the National Liberals as well.
The Reichstag was now sorely divided with no clear victor having emerged. The Centrist and Progressive Liberal blocks each controlled around 1/3 of the chamber with the remaining third divided relatively equally amongst National Liberals, Conservatives and Socialists. With the National Liberals quick to pledge their support to any DFP led government the Liberals found themselves in the stronger position – the 257 deputies supporting a Liberal administration clearly outnumbering the Centre’s 195. With the Liberals, and the Socialist ensured of their usual pariah status no government was possible without the Liberals. However the DFP was left with a harsh choice – it could either invite the Conservatives into alliance – likely having to make substantial compromises, join with the Centre into a super-majority or attempt to form a Liberal minority government and rely on maintaining a working relationship with both the Centre and Conservatives.
Progress Party leader Eugen Richter used the sympathetic Kaiser as leverage in a negotiation with the DKRP. The Conservative agreed to tolerate a Liberal administration, even without support, in the name of stability and preventing the Centre from staking a claim to government. At the same time Richter met with Windthorst and made promises to keep channels of communication between the Liberals and the Centre open. After just under a fortnight’s deliberation Richter was appointed Chancellor of Germany, leading a government consisting of both Progressive and National Liberal Ministers. With hopes of a new Liberal dawn in German politics flowing through Liberals of all shades, others feared that the new government might bring about instability and chaos with its radical reform agenda and commitment to laissez faire economics.
