Question

about german unification

Answer 1

When the United States announced its independence from Great Britain in 1776, Central Europe was a fragmented area of roughly 300 sovereign, independent states (kingdoms, duchies, principalities, free cities, etc.). The German states were bound together in a loose political entity known as the Holy Roman Empire, which dated to the era of Charlemagnein the 800s. By the late eighteenth century, the Holy Roman Empire was, as Voltaire remarked, “Neither holy, nor Roman, nor an Empire.”

During the mid-eighteenth century, a rivalry developed between the Holy Roman Empire’s two largest (and strongest) states: the Kingdom of Austria, ruled by the Habsburgs, and the Kingdom of Prussia, ruled by the Hohenzollerns. Traditionally Austria was the dominant German state, and as such the Habsburg king was elected as the Holy Roman Emperor. This influence started to change in the 1740s when Prussia, strengthened by newly acquired lands and an enlarged military, began to challenge Austria’s hegemony. The Kingdom of Prussia was the first German state to officially recognize the United States in 1785 when it signed a Treaty of Amity and Commerce; Austria did not recognize the United States until 1797, when it accepted Conrad Frederick Wagner as U.S. Consul at Trieste, a city then under the jurisdiction of the Habsburg Empire.

During the early nineteenth century, Napoleon’s armies occupied, moved through, or were allied with the German states. In 1806 the Holy Roman Empire was dissolved, and when the Congress of Vienna met in 1814-15, a major question was what to do with Central Europe. The solution was to consolidate the German states and to create the German Confederation, a conglomeration of 39 states, including Austria and Prussia. The members of the German Confederation pledged to come to the aid of any member who was attacked by a foreign power; however, the confederation fell short of any economic or national unity. The first effort at striking some form of economic unification between the members of the German Confederation came with the 1834 establishment of the Zollverein customs union.

In the meantime, the effects of the First Industrial Revolution (1750-1850) began to take hold in Central Europe and North America. During this time there was increased emigration by Germans to the United States in search of greater economic opportunities as well as political, religious, and personal freedom. The combination of these two events propelled the first official acts of recognition between the United States and various smaller German states as they negotiated and signed treaties, conventions, and agreements to regulate trade, commerce, navigation, naturalization, and inheritance rights. In a few cases, the United States established diplomatic relations, such as with the Hanseatic League (the Free Cities of Lübeck, Bremen, and Hamburg) and the Kingdom of Baden.

The main issue that confronted the idea of German unification by the mid-nineteenth century was the idea of a “greater” Germany versus a “smaller” Germany. The concept of a “smaller” Germany was that a unified German entity should exclude Austria, while the idea of “greater" Germany was that Germany should include the Kingdom of Austria. Proponents of “smaller” Germany argued that Austria’s inclusion would only cause difficulties for German policy, as the Kingdom of Austria was part of the greater Austrian Empire, which included large swaths of land in Central and Southeastern Europe that was composed of nearly 15 different minorities. Those who favored “greater” Germany pointed to the traditional role played by Austria, which was mostly composed of Germans, and the Habsburg rulers in German affairs.

Answer 2

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