844 



WILHELM I. 



the conferring of any share in legislation on an 

 assembly elected by universal male suffrage, 

 and finally placed himself at the head of the 

 Prussian array that was sent to disperse the 

 Frankfort Parliament and put an end to popu- 

 lar government by defeating the national army 

 in Baden. But the police regime under the 

 Manteuffel, Westphalen, and Hinckeldey minis- 

 tries found no favor in the eyes of the upright 

 prince, and the abasement of Prussia before 

 Russia and Austria so incensed him that he 

 would have gone to war with Russia, though 

 the Emperor Nicholas was his brother-in-law 

 and the guardian of monarchical principles in 

 Europe, rather than renounce Prussian suprem- 

 a'cy in Germany and accede to the resuscita- 

 tion of the old Bund, as was done in the treaty 

 of Olmiitz. When the Crimean War broke out, 

 in 1854, he dissuaded his brother from making 

 an alliance with the power that had so humili- 

 ated Prussia. 



After the peace of Paris was signed in 1856, 

 King Friedrich Wilhelm, who began to show 

 symptoms of insanity, resigned the direction 

 of public business into the hands of the Prince 

 of Prussia. The decree was twice renewed, 

 and when the King's condition grew worse, 

 Prince Wilhelm was appointed Regent on Oct. 

 9, 1858. Disgusted with the " white terror/' 

 the Prince Regent determined to create a Lib- 

 eral administration, to the head of which he 

 called Prince Hohenzollern - Sigmaringen, by 

 whom, with the aid of his colleague Rudolf 

 von Auerswald and others of like opinions, 

 police espionage and repression were abolished. 

 When Napoleon III made war on Austria in 

 1859 the Emperor Franz Josef gave up the 

 Italian provinces and hastened to conclude 

 peace as soon as he heard of the proposal of 

 Prussia in the Diet to mobilize the German 

 armies and send them to the Rhine, preferring 

 to suffer the diminution of his own territory 

 rather than aid in the aggrandizement of his 

 rival for military supremacy in Germany. On 

 the death of Friedrich Wilhelm the Prince- 

 Regent succeeded to the throne as William I, 

 Jan. 2, 1861. He had already begun to pre- 

 pare for the struggle with Austria, being aided 

 in the development of his policy by the genius 

 of Otto von Bismarck. The German people 

 had no predilection for a military state, and in 

 the Prussian and German Parliaments it was 

 proposed to convert the armies into a militia 

 with elective officers following civil occupa- 

 tions in time of peace, a scheme which the 

 Prince of Prussia had opposed in an anony- 

 mous pamphlet. In 1860 Bismarck brought in 

 a budget authorizing the doubling of the army. 

 The minister had incurred great unpopularity 

 by aiding Russia to suppress the Polish insur- 

 rection, and the Assembly rejected the military 

 bill by a large majority, whereupon Bismarck 

 declared that, as the House of Lords had ac- 

 cepted the budget rejected by the Chamber, 

 there was no properly authorized budget, and 

 the Government must therefore frame one to 



suit the exigencies of the case. This singular 

 interpretation of the Constitution was sus- 

 tained by the supreme tribunal, packed for the 

 purpose, and for four years the administration 

 was carried on without a properly voted budg- 

 et. The people protested against the collection 

 of taxes, but did not openly resist the despot- 

 ism of the Hohenzollern and his Prime Minis- 

 ter. The terror and dismay that hung over 

 the country in this period was not dispelled by 

 the successes of the Danish war and the acqui- 

 sition of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864, and when 

 Prussia went to war with Austria in 1866 for 

 the retention of the duchies, the Prussian 

 people mistrusted their rulers and feared a 

 bargain with Napoleon for the cession of the 

 Rhine frontier. The sudden and complete 

 victory of the North German armies, paving 

 the way to German unity, dissipated all doubts, 

 and nearly reconciled the people to the usur- 

 pation of their liberties, since it had led to the 

 triumph of their national ambition. Parliament 

 at once voted an indemnity for all military ex- 

 penditure. King Wilhelm and his counselors 

 began forthwith to prepare for the greater 

 war that must ensue from the refusal of the 

 Emperor Napoleon's demand for the cession of 

 Mayence and the Rhine frontier of 1814, as 

 compensation for German unity and the baffling 

 of his subsequent designs on Belgium and Lux- 

 emburg. King Wilhelm concluded secret of- 

 fensive and defensive alliances with each of the 

 South German states after the campaign of 

 1866, and therefore acceded without demur to 

 the article placed in the Treaty of Prague to 

 appease French susceptibilities, to the effect 

 that those states should maintain " an interna- 

 tional and independent position." The Franco- 

 Prussian War of 1870 was planned by King 

 Wilhelm, under the guidance of Count Bis- 

 marck, as the means of consolidating the 

 power of Prussia and completing the political 

 unification of Germany. Count Moltke, as 

 early as the winter of 1868, elaborated a com- 

 plete scheme for the invasion of France. Na- 

 poleon III more confidently and more hastily 

 rushed into the war in the expectation of 

 crushing the military power of Prussia and 

 retrieving his political position at home. Both 

 governments were eager to seize on the 

 dispute about th.e candidacy of Prince Leopold 

 of Hohenzollern for the Spanish throne, as a 

 device for kindling popular enthusiasm in the 

 war. King Wilhelm, accustomed from his 

 youth to a soldier's fare, marched across the 

 frontier with his armies at the age of 73, fre- 

 quently exposed himself to the enemy's fire in 

 the hottest battles, and by his presence in- 

 spired his troops with irresistible courage. 



On Jan. 18, 1871, the 170th anniversary of 

 the coronation of the first King of Prussia, the 

 victorious monarch was acclaimed German 

 Emperor by the princes of the German states 

 and the commanders of the army, in the Hall 

 of Mirrors at Versailles. As soon as the war 

 was over, and the German Empire established 



