The foreign policy of the German Empire until about half of the 90s of the XIX century. First of all, it was determined by the conditions in which the national unification of Germany took place, and with it a new socio-political structure of Central Europe took shape. It was not until the 1990s that the interests of monopoly capital began to play a leading role in German foreign policy, and consequently only from that time on did German policy take on a modern imperialist character.
The bourgeois transformation of Austria and Prussia took place under conditions when the bourgeoisie had already ceased to be a revolutionary force, and the proletariat of these countries was still too weak. As a result, the "bourgeois transformation" took place here "in the most unfavorable form for the workers, with the preservation of both the monarchy and the privileges of the nobility ... and a host of other remnants of the Middle Ages" 1 . In Austria, the system of Austro-Hungarian dualism was established, and the national unification of Northern Germany was carried out by the forces of the Prussian monarchy 2 and led to the "hegemony of the Prussian landowners" 3 in the newly created German Empire. This hegemony rested on a definite deal between the nobility and the big bourgeoisie; this latter, out of fear of the proletariat, bought the conditions for its economic flourishing "at the price of a direct renunciation of its own political power" 4 . It is clear, of course, that the character of the Prussian monarchy could not help but change: the traits of Bonapartism 5 clung to it. But since in Germany the old monarchy assumed relatively more modern forms without great shocks to the economic power of the old ruling class, it turned out that "both in the old absolute monarchy and in the modern Bonapartist monarchy, the real government power" remained "in the hands of a special officer and bureaucratic caste. , which in Prussia is replenished partly from its own environment, partly from the petty majorate nobility, less often from the higher nobility and, in the most insignificant part, from the bourgeoisie" 6 .
The position of the Monarchy and the Junkers rested primarily on the strength of the Prussian army, which, in the course of three exceptionally victorious wars, established for itself the reputation of the best military organization in the whole world, and it is not surprising that the Monarchy and the Junkers should strive to create such conditions, who would do
1 Lenin, Reformism in Russian Social Democracy, vol. XV, p. 211.
2 Lenin, Letter to I. I. Skvortsov-Stepanov, vol. XIV, p. 215.
3 Lenin, August Bebel, vol. XVI. pp. 647; vol. XVII, p. 100 ("Zabern").
4 Engels, Preface to the "Peasant" War in Germany", vol. XV, p. 140; cf. Lenin, vol. IX, p. 263.
5 Lenin, vol. XVI, pp. 152 - 153.
6 Engels, On the Housing Question, vol. XV. page 53.
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the first national necessity is to permanently strengthen the army. We cannot here touch on the considerations that prompted Bismarck to agree with the opinion of the general strain, who demanded the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine. But whatever the subjective significance of these considerations, the objective significance of annexation was such that, in the words of Marx, it became the "surest way" to end the Franco-German war into a "European institution" and thus turned out to be the "best means" to "to perpetuate in a renewed Germany military despotism, as a necessary condition for domination, over Western Poland 7 , Alsace and Lorraine." And, conversely, an honorable peace with France, creating "the possibility of peaceful development in the West of the Continent" (Marx), would lead to the "dissolution" of Prussia in Germany 8 . In revealing in this remarkable document the significance of the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine as a means of strengthening the class structure of the German Empire, Marx says absolutely nothing about the role of Lorraine ore. There is no doubt that in determining the details in the direction of the border, Bismarck took into account the presence of ore resources, but at the moment when the question of annexation was being decided, and in general for at least the first decade after the Franco-Prussian war, this ore was not of decisive importance for him in the Alsace-Lorraine question; to understand the reasons for this, it is enough to recall that it gained great economic importance only after the invention by Thomas in 1878 of a method for processing ores rich in phosphorus 9 .
By transforming the European world into a system of "armed peace", into "an endless war under the guise of peace", as Edgar Quinet would put it, 10 the annexations of 1871 "formed the basis for Bismarck's reactionary policy both in domestic and foreign policy" 11 . Franco-German relations were reminiscent of "a simple truce until France is strong enough to demand back the territory taken from her" 12 . With his sometimes cynical frankness, Bismarck explained to a French diplomat just three months after the signing of the Frankfurt Peace that it would be a mistake for Germany to take Alsace-Lorraine "if the world was destined to be durable" (si la paix devaitetre durable), because for us "this province is just a burden." It will become a new "Poland, with France behind it," put in the Frenchman. "Yes," agreed Bismarck, "by Poland, with France behind her." Thus, an eternal hotbed of military danger was created on the Franco-German border. At the same time, this hearth turned into a life-giving source of strength for the Prussian-German monarchy, for it raised the importance of the army and gave the monarchy a powerful weapon in order to extort new funds from the Reichstag to strengthen it. Big business was inclined to draw the same conclusions from the international situation as Bismarck. The second "war with France over Alsace-Lorraine is a historical necessity. Only after it has been victoriously carried out will the German nation-state be firmly
7 So in the Russian translation. Marx wants to say, of course: "Over the Poland of the West."
8 Marx, Committee of the German S. -d. labor party. "Archive of Marx and Engels" I(VI), pp. 377 - 378.
9 Sartorius von Waltershausen. Deutsche Wirtsehaftsgeschichte, S. 241. Sombart, History of the economic development of Germany in the 19th century. Russian trans., ed. Brockhaus and Efron, pp. 139 - 140.
11 Engels in The Socialist: op. after G. Mayer, Fr. Engels, Bd. II, S. 405. Cf. Marx and Engels, vol. XV, p. 672.
12 Marx, Op. document.
13 Documents diplomatiquos francais, I serie, v. I, p. 62.
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secured," 14 - so wrote the leader of the National Liberals, Beningsen, during the days of military tension in February 1887. From the point of view of the significance of the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, it is extremely Characteristic are the arguments with which the leader of the Conservatives Count Geldorf on the same day justified in the Reichstag the need to strengthen the army. "We have parties whose leaders ... no longer stand on the basis of domestic politics, but conduct internationalist politics ... We have in this chamber," he continued, "representatives of one region who openly object to belonging to the empire" fifteen . As a Russian diplomat aptly remarked, Bismarck's usual trick was to "represent the external situation in a threatening form" in order to "distract public opinion from burning internal questions, inflate military chauvinism and thereby hone the terrible weapon of military power, which can be thus to use against both external and internal enemies" 16 . On Bismarck's part, this was certainly no mere bluff. The fact of the matter is that the rejection of Alsace and Lorraine forced the armaments of France. It is clear that in this way the annexation also created a real need to strengthen the army from the point of view of purely military necessity. This was the case during the Franco-German tensions of 1874 (due to the anti-German speech of the French bishops against the kamife cultures), 17 and during the days of military alarm in 1875, and during the crisis in the winter of 1886-1887. During the latter, an increase in the civilian composition of the army by 41 thousand people was achieved. Until 1912, no German military law gave such an increase in the personnel of the army; even the law of 1893, which followed the Franco-Russian alliance, gave a somewhat smaller increase - by 38 thousand, all the rest - much less.
Another indication of the internal political significance of the Franco-German war danger is the elections that Bismarck "made" playing on the chauvinism it had provoked. So, having dissolved at the end of 1888 the Reichstag, which he did not like, which rejected the draft military law, he created the famous "cartel Reichstag" - perhaps the most "convenient" from the very foundation of the empire.
Since Bismarck used the danger of war to carry out septenates, i.e., to belittle the already small character of the Reichstag, it is understandable that that part of the bourgeoisie that remained with the cowardly opposition against Bismarck tried to expose the significance of the Franco-German relations we have outlined from the point of view internal policy of the German Empire: "Germany is led by a philistine (because he is not dictated by a junker and a priest), and this philistine is stupid enough to think that the French will come tomorrow without a septennat," wrote Ludwig Bamberger 18. And to the leader of the "freethinkers" Yevgeny Richter, "foreign policy grounds, which were supposed to make the need to burden the taxpayer more urgent, seemed only to have already become a habit, prepared arguments for any agitation for a new increase in military spending" 19 .
But all these domestic political achievements were only one
14 H. Oncken, R. von Bennigsen. Nach seinen Briefen und bintergelassenen Papieren, 1910, S. 535.
15 Stenographische Berichte uber die Verhandlungen des Reichstages, VII Legislaturperiode, I session, 1887, Bd. I, S. 17.
16 Lamzdorf, Diary, 1891 - 1892, p. 315 (Shuvalov's report of April 7, 1892).
17 Langer, European Alliances and Alignments 1871-1890, p. 38.
18 Der Deutsche Liberalismus im Zeitalter Bismarcks. Eine politische Briefsammlung. bd. II., hrsg. von Wentzke. S. 432.
19 L. Ullstein, E. Richter als Publizist und Herausgeber, 1930, S. 152.
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side of the medal its other side was those foreign policy dangers on which, after all, all the benefits of domestic policy were based. The other side of the medal was that "nightmare of coalitions" 20 which, since 1871, has not left Bismarck for a minute. The fact that he had summoned the ghost himself did not make him any less terrifying.
Bismarck from the very beginning was firmly convinced of the inevitability of a new Franco-German war. “The General Staff asked me,” Bismarck said in the conversation with the French diplomat just quoted, “can I guarantee that Fancia will not take revenge. I replied that, on the contrary, I am completely convinced” that behind the past war between France and Germany "will be followed by a number of others 21. Proceeding from the inevitability of French revenge, Bismarck believed that as soon as it became certain that France was beginning to prepare for a new war, "we have no need to wait, but, on the contrary ... we will have to strike immediately" 22. Franco "Bismarck was not at all afraid of German single combat, on the contrary, a new defeat of France could not but be desirable for him. After all, if it only happened, then that center would be weakened, which was then the crystallization point of all possible coalitions against Germany. Only this could really firmly strengthen the position of the German Empire.Why this defeat did not happen - this is answered by the following remark of the British diplomat: "It would be easy crush and crush France, but will it be possible to do this without causing storms in other countries in other quarters?" 23.
One could not count on single combat with France, and if there could be any illusions in this, then the experience of the military alarm of 1875 should have completely dispelled them. And if France succeeded in forming a coalition against Germany, then the latter could be in mortal danger. Under such conditions, the diplomatic isolation of France becomes the most important task of Bismarck's foreign policy. Due to the conditions of its emergence through "revolution from above" and dynastic wars, the security of the German Empire from the very beginning was very much dependent on external alliances with Austria, Russia or England.
Let us first look at how things stood with the Austro-German and Austro-Russian relations. The class structure of the German Empire, in the form in which it arose as a result of the "revolution from above", also determined the initial development of Austro-German relations. Germany-Great Prussia turned out to be very closely and peculiarly connected with the Habsburg monarchy defeated by it. First of all, in the event of the disintegration of Austria into its constituent national elements, the annexation of German Austria to the German Empire would become almost inevitable. Meanwhile, for Bismarck's Germany, such an "Anschluss" was a highly undesirable affair. It would mean an enormous strengthening of anti-Prussian elements within Germany - both liberal and especially Catholic - and would threaten the political hegemony of the Prussian Junkers. After all, only the six eastern provinces of Prussia were the citadel of the Junkers, and already the events of 1866 and 1871. greatly strengthened in the state alien junkers
21 Documents diplomatiques francais, I serie, v. I, p. 62.
22 Waldersee, Denkwurdigkeiten, Bd. I, S. 139.
23 Newton, Lord Lyons, Lnd. 1913, v. II, p. 60.
25 In German literature, Schsussler, Oesterreih und das deutsche Schicksal emphasizes this aspect. Wed also in O. Becker, Bismarcks Reichsverfassung und Deutschlands Zusammenbruch, Berlin 1922. and Brandenburg, Propylaen Weltgeschite Bd. X, S. 146.
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Elements 26 . In the event of the collapse of the Habsburg monarchy, wrote Count Monts, the future German ambassador in Rome, the most friendly part of the monarchy to Germany - Hungary - "will be reduced to half of its territory. Will we then be strong enough to maintain the influence that we need on the rest of Austria for the purpose of self-preservation, without direct accession to this Catholic chump and in order to secure a position for ourselves later in Hungary, Croatia and Semigradje - I doubt this. Meanwhile, - Monts concluded, - we alone will be lost between two millstones - Russia and France "27 . You sing of what has just been said, it is clear that the class interests of the Junkers demanded the conservation of Austria.
Since the consolidation of German influence in the Slavic and Romanian areas of the Danube basin after the collapse of the Habsburgs seemed doubtful, in the event of the collapse of Austria-Hungary, Germany was in danger of colliding with Russian influence along its entire southern border, from Krakow to the Adriatic. It was necessary "to prolong the existence of Austria, if only because without this all the Balkans would fall under Russian influence" 28 . When evaluating the Austro-German alliance, it is too often forgotten that it created political guarantees for the unity and accessibility of such a very important market for German industry, which, due to the fragility of the political organization that existed in it, without outside support, threatened to fall apart into its component parts, which, probably, becoming independent, would have been much more hostile to German exports. This explains the popularity of the Austro-German alliance in the circles of the German liberal parties, which represented precisely the interests of the bourgeoisie. "The Little German liberals," writes Bennigsen's biographer, "after helping to throw Austria out of the German confederation, were now wholeheartedly in favor of now tying a firm international legal bond across the abyss of 1886" 29 . The importance of the Austro-Hungarian market is determined by the fact that in the 80-90s it absorbed 10-12% of all German exports. In 1890, he took third place in German exports, by 1895 moving to second, overtaking the USA and standing directly behind the UK. In German imports, the share of Austria-Hungary was 14% in 1890 and 12.4% in 1895 30 . One can agree with W. Schüsler that Austria-Hungary, to a certain extent, replaced the colonial territories that Germany lacked 31 .
As a result of all that has been said, it becomes clear that the Austro-German alliance became, one might say, the core of the foreign policy of the German Empire and that "the preservation of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy as an independent strong great power" was "for Germany a condition for maintaining, equilibrium in Europe" 32.
Let us recall that, as Marx repeatedly pointed out, the Great German Democratic Republic, reinforced by German Austria, which arose in revolutionary war against tsarism, in a war that would give national independence to Poland, relying on the latter and on Hungary, without having behind it the predatory Peace of Frankfurt and the Franco-German war as a "European institution" - such Germany was
26 Engels, Crisis in Prussia, vol. XV, p. 84, Cf. preface to "The Peasants' War, in Germany", ibid., pp. 138 - 139.
27 Monts in a letter to Bulow (November 1891): Bulow, op. cit., I, S. 29-30.
28 Ibid, I, S. 319.
29 H. Oncken, op. cit., S. 351.
30 Statistische Jahrbucher fur das Deutsche Reich, 1892, S. 65. - Das Deutsche Volkswirtschaft am schlusse des XIX Jahrhunderts. Bearbeitet im Kaiserlichen Statistischen Amt. Berlin 1900, S. 149 - 150.
31 Schussler, op. cit., S. 9.
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would have been in a completely different position in the face of the Russian danger 33 . Therefore, she would not have been forced to link her fate with the archaic state of the Habsburgs. The preservation of the latter and the connection that actually arose between Germany and Austria-Hungary were the result of the victory of the "revolution from above." But without this, Prussia would also have to cease to exist; without this, a much wider arena would have been cleared for the development of the class struggle of the proletariat. And neither the Junkers nor big business wanted this.
Relations with Russia evolved differently than with Austria. The German Empire was created with the closest help from Tsarist Russia, and it is not surprising that Bismarck from the very beginning tries to strengthen the Russo-German alliance. Thus was the union treaty of 1872.
The empires of the Romanovs and the Hohenzollerns were soldered to each other by a number of extremely important ties. The trouble for both of them was that, for all their importance, the threads that bound them were not strong enough to prevent the final collision. In 1863, the connection between Russian and Prussian reactionaries found legal formalization in the well-known Alvensleben Convention, which established cooperation in the suppression of the Polish uprising. Bülow sympathetically quotes in his memoirs Van Dahl's remark that the partition of Poland was the "bloody cradle in which Russo-Prussian friendship was born" 34 . Indeed, the success of the Polish uprising in Russia, the liberation of Russian Poland in general - no matter which way - would make it extremely difficult to maintain foreign domination in German Poland as well. Meanwhile, the loss of Poland would mean enormous damage to Prussia, if only because of the outline of the Polish-German ethnographic border.
A revolution in Russia, in the words of Marx, would be "a death knell for Prussia" 36 . In his memoirs, Bismarck repeatedly speaks, especially in connection with the alliance of the three emperors, about monarchist solidarity, which is much more important than squabbles over some Balkans, because it is an important weapon in the fight against revolution 37 . And Bülow also writes that he believed that no matter how the Russo-German war ended, the dynasties would be the first to pay for its outcome.
One instruction from Bismarck to his diplomats, dated November 1880, clearly reveals to us why, apart from Poland, solidarity with Russian absolutism was a real need for German-Prussian reaction. "The expansion of the Russian empire at the expense of any Turkish provinces and even Constantinople would not pose any threat to Germany at all, and to Austria to a lesser extent than it is commonly thought." But if the expansion of the Romanov Empire does not frighten Bismarck, then, "on the contrary, Pan-Slavism with its revolutionary goals would be dangerous for both German powers, for Austria even more than for us, and most of all for the Russian Empire itself and its dynasty" 39 .
We have cited this quotation not at all because it correctly depicts the objective role of real "pan-Slavism". But it is important that, not in the least
33 See Marx's already cited letter to the Central Committee of the German Party about the prospects for the development of international relations similar to democratic Germany for his time. Wed Works, vol. VII, p. 291, etc.
34 Bulow, op. cit., I, S. 47; cf. ibid., p. 408.
35 On this see Behrendt, Die polniscle Frage und das Osterreichisch - deutsche Bunonis 1885-1887 (Arch, fur Politik und Gesch., 1916, Heft 12, S 701 and p.).
36 Marx, On the Eastern Question, vol. XV, p. 380; cf. letter from Engels to Bebel on September 13 - 14, 1886 ("Archive of Marx and Engels", vol. I (VI), pp. 359 and 362).
38 Bulow, op. cit., S. 47.
39 Die Grosse Politik der Europaischen Kabinette, Bd. IV, No. 719 (hereinafter abbreviated: G. P., IV, 719).
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Assuming the capture of Constantinople by tsarist Russia, Bismarck is afraid of the appearance in its place of any revolutionary force. Bismarck always spoke out even against the transition of Russia to a constitutional regime and, as is known, shortly after March 1 directly influenced Alexander III in this sense. If we now recall Engels' remark that in the event of the victory of the revolution in Russia, "Austria, having then become sticky, must disintegrate by itself, by itself," 40 and if we take into account the significance of the preservation of Austria for Prussian Little Germany, then we will understand why the replacement of Russia by Tsarist Russia revolutionary so frightened Bismarck, and not only him - monarchist solidarity was a slogan that was part of the ideology of all Prussian conservatism as a necessary component. After all, the existence of Austria rested on the fears of the peoples that were part of it - primarily the Hungarians, Poles, but also the Czechs and others - to fall under even worse national oppression, under the oppression of Russian tsarism 41 . The practice of tsarism in Bulgaria has shown that five or six years of being in charge of the "liberators" are sufficient to completely cure the "liberated" of any illusions about their "benefactors". And if, in this way, the establishment of tsarism in the Balkans for Austria, in the words of Bismarck's cited instruction, is "less dangerous than it is customary to think there," then revolutionary Russia would be a completely different matter. It would cease to be the scarecrow that tsarism was for the Hungarians, Poles, Romanians and Bulgarians.
But such was the dialectic of history that one and the same fact - the unification of Germany "from above", making it extremely desirable for the German Empire to preserve tsarism in Russia, simultaneously confronted it with the fact of the inevitable increase in the threat of a Russo-German war. "The war of 1870 is just as inevitably fraught with war between Russia and Germany, just as the war of 1866 was fraught with the war of 1870." 43.
Beginning in 1874, a whole chain of events takes place that reveals that tsarist Russia does not intend to allow a new defeat of France. Gorchakov's formula: "A strong and powerful France is necessary for Europe" 44 meant that the objective international situation created a very narrow framework for Russian-German friendship. In the process of growing military tension in 1875, the main lines of the international situation on the continent were clearly revealed: the defeat of France would have made tsarist Russia completely dependent on Germany. On the contrary, for Germany, the defeat of Austria meant no less danger. Thus, the whole situation suggested to Germany an alliance with Austria, but not with Russia. Nevertheless, Bismarck always sought the latter. He had every reason to desire this union, but he did not have the strength to make it lasting.
The alliance with Austria, while eliminating the danger of the most terrible coalition, the so-called Kaunitz coalition - from Austria, Russia and France, did not eliminate the danger of a Franco-Russian alliance, a danger also quite formidable. Hence Bismarck's all-out efforts, in parallel with the Austro-German alliance, to maintain relations with Russia that would keep her from an alliance with France. Here lies the second source of Bismarck's famous Russophilism. We will now dwell on this side of his policy, as it developed towards the end of his chancellorship in the second half of the 1980s against the backdrop of Boulanger and Bulgarian Crisis.
40 Engels, Strength and Economics in the Formation of the German Empire, M. 1923, p. 30.
41 Lenin, vol. XVII, p. 437.
42 Wed. G.P., ibid.
43 Marx, Committee of the German S. -d. workers' party ("Archive" vol. I (VI), p. 378); cf. Marx and Engels, vol. XXIV, pp. 373-374, and also vol. XV, p. 222.
44 Documents diplomatques francais, I cerie, v. I, N 343, 346, 354.
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sis, in order to see later how far Bismarck succeeded in changing the conditions for the development of Russian-German relations that we have just outlined.
German nationalist historiography strives to present the all-round strengthening of European peace as the highest goal of Bismarck's policy. Having united Germany "by blood and iron", the chancellor, it turns out, then turned into a great peacemaker. The system of alliances built by Bismarck served him as a means of restraining those powers from which in his time one could expect violations of the peace: revanchist France and "pan-Slavist" Russia. Let's see how this interpretation of Bismarck's policy corresponds to historical truth.
At first glance it may seem that this is indeed the case. There are no number of diplomatic documents in which Bismarck speaks out for the preservation of peace and friendship with Russia 45 .
According to the Russian-German treaty of 1887, which replaced the treaty of the "three emperors", Bismarck, as you know, promised the Russian government if it took steps to seize the straits, "observe benevolent neutrality and provide" him with "moral and diplomatic support" "(Additional Protocol), recognize the "legality of the prevailing and decisive influence" of Russia "in Bulgaria and Eastern Rumelia" (art. 2) and guarantee appropriate pressure on the Sultan to make him support in practice the principle of closing the straits to military courts (art. 3 ).
Undoubtedly, all this was not empty words. Bismarck not only signed promising treaties with the Russian government, but in a number of cases actually pursued a policy aimed at keeping Austria from resisting Russian expansion in the Balkans, tirelessly explaining to the Austrians that, under the treaty of 1879, the German government undertook to defend Austria in the event of an attack on Russia, but not at all to support its Balkan policy: "The impulse to war," Bismarck wrote to Reiss, ambassador in Vienna, "for us will never consist in Balkan questions, but always exclusively in the need to defend the independence of Austria, as soon as the latter is 46. Bismarck frustrated the attempts of the Austrians to expand the casus foederis by means of an agreement between the sides of the German Empire in the event of an attack by Russia, Bismarck under the Russian-German treaty of 1887 guaranteed Russia's neutrality in the event of an Austrian attack on it (Art. one). Bismarck reserved the solution to this delicate question of who "attacked" whom, suggesting that his partners rely here on his "loyalty" 48 . In this case, we can agree with both Bismarck and his apologist historians that such a policy should undoubtedly have contributed to the prevention of the Austro-Russian conflict, 49 because each side, in the presence of such a position in Germany, had to
45 G. P., VI, 1340, 1341, 1343, 1344, 1346, 1347; VII, 1620 (p. 369) and many others.
46 G. P. VI, 1163; cf. also 1186, vol. V, 1014, etc. Bismarck repeatedly publicly developed this point of view; cf. for example, his speech to the Reichstag on January 11, 1887, and his explanations after his resignation in the press inspired by him - see Hoffmann, Furst Bismarck, Bd. II (article "Hamburger Nachrichten" dated January 24, 1892, etc.).
47 H. Oncken, Das Deutsche Reich and die Vorgeschichte des Krieges, Bd. I, S. 341, 343.
48 G. P., V, 1087, 1100; cf. Hoffmann, Bd. II (article "Hamburger Nachrichten" of June 15, 1892).
49 G. P., VI, 1163, 1184, 1185, 1236, 1342; VII, 1620; Hoffmann, Bd. II, "Hamburger Nachrichten" article of November 7, 1896.
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think hard before attacking another. There is also no doubt that neither side would have dared to do this without first consulting with the German government.
The outlined characterization of Bismarck's "Russian" policy has now become, one might say, a commonplace in historical literature. It turns out that Bismarck really was a great peacemaker - after all, it seems that sources of first-class reliability speak of this.
Meanwhile, in 1879, Engels believed that "Bismarck will use all his efforts to provoke a war with Russia" 50 . It appears that Engels was mistaken. All that we have said about Bismarck's Russian policy seems to indicate that Engels guessed incorrectly the direction of German policy. If we turn, for example, to the latest characterization of Bismarck's policy that has appeared in "solid" German literature (Volume I of Oncken's work) 51 , or if we turn to how the American Fay 52 interprets Bismarck's policy, then we will not find any material there which could give at least a remote confirmation of the above statement of Engels.
But here it is necessary to pay attention to the following circumstance: both of these authors - and they are not alone (we took them only as examples) in their presentation focus mainly on that part of Bismarck's policy that revolves around his relations with France and the Eastern European monarchical triangle. We find the grounds for such an interpretation of Bismarck's policy in his own memoirs and in the articles inspired by him in the Hamburger Nachrichten, which are still of great interest. Meanwhile, another trend among the German historians and memoirists themselves (Plön 53 , Gammann 54 , Eckardstein 55 , Rachfal 56 ) has long since sufficiently fully revealed the other side of Bismarck's policy, his "English" policy.
Seeing the main task of this policy in concluding an alliance with England, these researchers, of course, present us with Bismarck's political system in a distorted mirror. But their error lies not at all in the incorrectness of the assertion that Bismarck sought to negotiate with England, but in the fact that they completely misinterpret the meaning of his attempts. Only in the light of Bismarck's "English" policy is the true significance of his policy toward Russia and Austria revealed, and the question of the correctness or fallacy of Engels' conjecture is decided.
But, before moving on to a characterization of Anglo-German relations, we must dwell on one more aspect of relations with Russia, which will lead us directly to relations with England.
There is no doubt that of all the terms of the reinsurance contract for tsarist Russia, from the German point of view, the greatest role was played by § 3, which provided for diplomatic assistance and maintenance of the principle of closing the straits. It was this paragraph that the Russian government itself attached the greatest value to. This paragraph gave an extremely important guarantee of the effectiveness of the principle of closing the straits and thereby effectively blocked the British fleet from entering the Black Sea in case of complications in Anglo-Russian relations. Its practical significance
50 Marx and Engels, vol. XXIV, p. 514.
51 H. Oncken, Das Deutsche Reich und die Vorgeschichte des Weltkrieges, Bd. I, 1933.
52 Fay, The origins of the world war, 2nd ed. N. Y. 1931; a Russian translation of volume I was published.
53 H. Plehn, Bismarcks answartige Politik nach der Reichsgrundung, 1920.
54 O. Hamman, Der Misserstandene Bismarck, 1921.
55 Eckardstein, Lebenserinnerungen, Bd. 13.
56 Rachfahl, Bismarcks englische Bundnispolitik (Freiburg 1922); his own, Deutschland und die Weltpolitik, Bd. I, 1923.
57 G.P., V, 1096.
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manifested itself in full force during the Afghan incident of 1885, when, at the request of the Russian government, Bismarck, with complete success, put the corresponding pressure on Turkey 58 . The closure of the straits made it impossible for England to threaten Russia in the south, and "thereby" "the Caucasus, the base of operations in Transcaspia against Herat, etc." was "covered from the rear and from the flank" 59 . Meanwhile, the British plan of military operations included, as a very important component, a landing on the Caucasian coast of the Black Sea with sabotage against Odessa. The Russian government thus obtained a solid cover for its expansion in Central Asia, almost in the most vulnerable point for the English fleet.
By this, Bismarck undoubtedly encouraged Russian expansion both in the Middle East and in the Middle East. During the negotiations on the conclusion of the reinsurance agreement, he was very willing to expand his obligations "not to interfere" with Russia in Vostok 61 and repeatedly expressed his satisfaction with any adventurous attempts by tsarist Russia in this direction: "mochte sie doch", - he noted, for example on the background of a report from St. Petersburg, reporting on the alleged attempts of Russia to resume an active policy in Bulgaria 62 . For the same purpose, Bismarck encouraged, for example, the most adventurous attempts by tsarist Russia to interfere in Abyssinian affairs. He also welcomed the capture of Constantinople, for all this would have drawn Russia's forces away from the German and Austrian borders and would have strengthened the Anglo-Russian antagonism, which of course increased the value of relations with Germany for both opponents and prevented the possibility of their agreement, which could be directed against this latter 64 . But Bismarck's main task at the same time was to achieve firm treaty obligations on the part of England in relation not to Germany itself, but to its allies - to Austria and Italy, according to which she would undertake to resist Russia in her advance to the East, t i.e., precisely on the very path to which Bismarck himself pushed it. The capture of Constantinople by Russia "would make it impossible for England to remain in its present role of a cold observer" 65 . With the active assistance of Bismarck, the so-called "Eastern Entente" of 1887 arose between Austria-Hungary, Italy and England. The reinsurance agreement and the "eastern entente" were concluded during the same year. With the help of one, Bismarck urged Russia to take "the keys to her house," with the help of the other, he - by proxy - erected obstacles in front of her to mastering these keys. It is easy to see that this policy meant a provocation of war.
This circumstance, extremely unpleasant for German historians, did not remain a secret for knowledgeable and observant contemporaries. Volumes III and IV of the biography of Lord Salisbury have recently appeared, not yet used in any major work on Bismarck; they make it possible to reveal a number of new aspects in the Chancellor's policy. British Prime Minister
58 Ibid IV, 763, 765, 767, 768
59 Ibid, VII, 1376. It should not be forgotten that the Samara-Tashkent railway did not yet exist, and all operations in Central Asia were based on the Trans-Caspian road and the Caucasus.
60 Langer, op. cit., S. 313; G. P., IV, 778.
61 "Red Archive", I, pp. 95 - 97 and G. P., V, ch. 34; see in particular 1082, p. 240 et al.
62 G.P., VI, 1354, S. 352.
63 Lamsdorf, Diary, vol. I, p. 131.
64 Bismarck, op. cit., Bd. II, S. 263; Hohenlohe, Denkwurdigkeiten, Bd. II, S. 134, 358; G. P., V, 777, VI, 1343; H. Rothfels, Bismarcks englische Bundnisspolitik, S. 135 (published Busch's interesting attitude to Reiss, September 5, 1882, and Reiss' report, July 2, 1884, missing in G. P.).
65 G.P., VI, 1350.
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bluntly declared in his letters that he considered "the Eastern Entente an instrument of war, and not at all a means of strengthening peace: "In the interests of peace, this step is unreasonable," he wrote.66 Bismarck's most intimate plans are revealed by one document published in Grosse Politik, referring to the autumn of 1886 and representing a record of Bismarck's thoughts under his dictation, a record not intended verbatim for communication even to German diplomats. Bulgaria - an attack by Russia, will be able to count on the support of England, and if we were completely convinced of this, then we would not consider it our task to restrain Austria in her resistance to Russia. "But so far there is no such confidence. Without the participation of England The entire burden of the war on two fronts will fall primarily on our shoulders. "Because of this, I still see the only correct path of our policy in the preservation of peace" 67 . This document clearly reveals the true reason for Bismarck's "pacifism" and his policy of preventing the Austro-Russian conflict and maintaining "friendship" with Russia: he needed all this only as long as there was no firm agreement with England. Back in 1870 - this scheme remained so unchanged with him - Bismarck said: "As long as our relations with Austria are not placed on a better and more solid foundation, until the conviction prevails in England that its only and most it can find a reliable ally on the continent only in Germany - good relations with Russia represent the greatest price for us. Bismarck really wanted to avoid a war between Austria and Germany against Russia and France, but only until "until" the participation of England was secured. "The possibility of war," Bismarck once said in a private conversation, "depends on the position that England takes towards Russia: whether she takes on the role of a working bull or an obese, suffering from suffocation" 69 .
We now see how matters stand with Bismarck's "pacifism". We see that Engels was right, and not Bismarck's apologists. But more than that. In the letter quoted above to Marx, Engels, pointing out that Bismarck wants war, continues: "In alliance with Austria and England, he can already decide on this"; "if England joined, the chances would be very favorable for Bismarck" 70 . One can only marvel at Engels's foresight; we can now document his assessment. Indeed, on the question of war, the transition from assumptions to reality was decided for Bismarck depending on the position of England.
But Bismarck needed more than just an agreement with England. The Anglo-German alliance directed against Russia did not suit him. "England can never count on our alliance against Russia," he said.
66 Cecil, Life of Robert, marquis of Salisbury, v. IV, 70. Cf. opinion of Berchem (G. P. VII, 1368).
67 G. P., IV, 873 (note dated November 27, 1886) (underlined by us - V. H.); in a more cautious form, the British were told that Germany "could have taken the prospect of a two-front war more calmly if she had been given a guarantee of English friendship" (G. P., IV, 784, cf. ibid., 883). Wed Bismarck's letter to Betticher, Bismarcks Entlassung. app. N 9.
68 G.P., II, p. 19.
69 Booth, Personliche Erinnerungen an den Fursten Bismarek, Hamburg 1899, S. 72. Op. after Langer, op. cit., S. 439.
70 Marx and Engels, vol. XXIV, p. 616 (underlined by us - V. H.), cf. Marx's letter of 10 September (written before Engels' letter was received).
71 On this one can fully agree with the conclusion of Otto Becker (Bismarck und die Einkreisung Deutsclands, 1-r Teil. Bismarck Bundnispolitik, Berlin 1923).
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to the English ambassador Malet, the chancellor's son Herbert Bismarck 72 . A number of considerations made such an alliance undesirable. We will note here only one thing: the whole burden of the war, which would inevitably turn into a war against France, 73 would then fall on the shoulders of Germany, and she would not have the strength to deal France a crushing blow enough. And without this, a victory over Russia would mean for the German Empire only the danger of revenge from the East as well, the growth of dependence on its allies and, consequently, the undermining of Germany's hegemony in Europe 74 .
It would be a different matter if, having unleashed England and Austria against Russia, Germany would have sent the bulk of its own forces against France. "We must have our hands free ... so that if it comes to a break with Russia over the Middle East, we will not be involved in this immediately, because we need all our forces against France" 75 . And here is the perspective that Bismarck threatened the Austrians, persuading them not to interfere with Russia until England was drawn into the conflict: this latter, but an immediate attack on France, and our attitude towards the war with Russia must be made dependent on the success of our war with France. Let us note that from his point of view one can think that "a Franco-German war can be carried out without being simultaneously forced to fight against Russia" 77 . In other words, he was even ready to leave Austria to his fate in such a case in exchange for the opportunity to defeat France.
It is clear that Bismarck did not want this last version at all, and after all, the above remarks were conceived by him as a warning to the Austrian government. But, as we see, things would change radically if there was confidence that Austria would not be left alone, that England would help her.
The politician on whom it was in the first place to give Bismarck such confidence, that is, Lord Salisbury, perfectly guessed the essence of Bismarck's outlined policy. The latter, he wrote, wants to divert the Russian bear from the west to the southeast. "If he can organize a nice little war between Russia and the three powers (that is, England, Austria and Italy), he will have the leisure to make France a harmless neighbor for the future" 78 . On another occasion, Salisbury wrote that Bismarck "would very much like Russia to be in Constantinople, for he is sure that in this case Turkey, England and Austria will be forced into war, while he maintains benevolent neutrality, or, if he introduces himself chance will deal a new blow to France" 79 . He is inclined to think, Salisbury wrote to the Queen, that "Prince Bismarck wanted war with France," and when it became obvious to him that Russia would not allow
72 G. P., IV, 868 (note dated September 28, 1886); cf. See also Bismarck's notes on Harzfeld's report of November 11, 1887 (ibid., 926, p. 373).
73 "It is absolutely certain that we will have a war on two fronts as soon as we start it on the Russian front." (G.P., VI, 1340, 1341).
74 G. P., VI, 1340, 1341, etc.
75 G. P., IV, 900. Bismarck continues in this interesting document: the concentration of all forces on the French frontier "will save us from war with France", and the consequence of Germany not getting involved in a conflict with Russia will be "very likely that each of the two wars that threaten Europe can be fought separately."
76 G. P., VI, 1163, p. 27; cf. ibid., 1186, p. 68
77 G.P., VI, 1341.
78 Cecil, Life of Robert, Marquis of Salisbury, v. IV, p. 71 (letter from Salisbury to White, 2 November 1887).
79 Ibid., pp. 8 - 9.
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its defeat, "the prince tried to sow enmity between Russia and Bulgaria, hoping that the tsar's hands would be too busy due to this to allow him to intervene in favor of France" 80 . Without doubting that Bismarck would like to strike at France, Salisbury hesitated whether Bismarck was guided here simply by the desire to defeat her, or whether this thought was instilled in him by the fear that if he did not do this, the French would start the war anyway. It is important for us that even if the last assumption is correct, Bismarck would like to warn them - "if the opportunity presents itself." In order for the opportunity to "present itself", it was necessary first of all to get the obligation of England to help Austria against Russia.
However, achieving such a commitment was far from easy. The real essence of the tense diplomatic game that was being played between Berlin and London in the second half of the 1980s around the Eastern question, and which, unfortunately, we cannot trace here in detail, consisted in only one question: who will be able to force whom to take the brunt of the war. against Russia. If Bismarck sought to bind England, while retaining freedom of action, then Salisbury set himself a completely similar task: to bind Austria, and with it Germany - Austria alone was too weak.
We shall proceed directly to the results of these negotiations, which were expressed in the exchange of sweat between Great Britain and Italy of February 12, 1887, to which Austria-Hungary joined on March 23, and in the exchange of notes between the three powers on December 12 of the same year. Taken together, these notes constitute the so-called "threesome agreement" (accord a trois) or "Eastern Entente". Leaving aside the points concerning France and the western part of the Mediterranean basin, this agreement boils down to the following: the point of the 1st February note read: “The status quo in the Mediterranean, Adriatic, Aegean and Black Seas should be preserved as far as possible. efforts should be made to prevent any change whatsoever, to the disadvantage of both powers. Nothing more related to the Black Sea, this agreement does not contain. The December 12 agreement somewhat specifies what exactly the status quo should be: "Turkey has no right to either cede or delegate its suzerain rights in relation to Bulgaria to any other power, or resort to intervention in order to establish foreign control, nor likewise, Turkey, placed by treaties in the post of guardian of the straits, may not in any way cede her sovereign rights, or part of them, nor delegate her power to any any other power in Asia Minor" (p. 5) 81 . Thus, as to what should be the lines of a joint policy, sufficient clarity has been established. Apparently, under the conditions of the Bulgarian crisis, Franco-Russian agreement on the Egyptian question 82 - remember that at that time Drummond Wolff was negotiating an Anglo-Turkish convention - and the danger of a Franco-German war, which could untie the hands of tsarism in the East 83 , Salisbury did not he decided to abandon such an agreement with Austria and Italy, which imposed obligations on England, fearing by his refusal to push these powers into an agreement with Russia and France. “My personal opinion is,” wrote Salisbury, “that we should agree
80 Ibid., p. 26.
81 Pribram, Politische Geheimvertrage Oesterreich-Ungarns, Bdl., S. 37. 52.
82 Cecil, IV, 66.
83 Ibid, 16, 83-84, etc.
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live, but I declare it with regret. "We help Bismarck, he wrote, to extract chestnuts from the fire (literally, Bismarck said the same thing about Salisbury). "I hate to be one of the forces in Bismarck's shameless game," Salisbury wrote with disgust , which was often peculiar to him when he spoke of Bismarck, but, he continued, unanimity with Austria and Italy "is so important for us" that it is better to meet them halfway to a certain extent, "than to violate the present agreement", which would threaten England by isolation 84. However, in giving his consent, Salisbury tried to give the treaty the least binding form possible 85. When Crispi proposed in the autumn of 1887 to conclude a real military convention, Salisbury refused to talk about it and talk 86. As a result, if the program of action was established " Eastern Entente" with sufficient certainty, the nature of the very actions necessary to put this program into practice was outlined, on the contrary, in a rather vague form: "In the case of resistance against Turkey in any illegal undertakings referred to in the fifth article, the three powers will immediately agree on the measures to be taken to protect the independence of the Ottoman Empire "and the inviolability of its territory" (para. 7). If Turkey itself participates in some such "illegal enterprise" to take away pieces of its own territory (recall the text of Article 5), then the three powers "jointly or each separately will begin" temporary occupation ... of the points of the Ottoman territory." In other words, "undertaking" not to refuse to seize a piece of Turkey if Russia did the same, and promising not to deny it to Italy and Austria, the British Cabinet nevertheless did not undertake any firm commitments regarding participation in the war against Russia. The Government of Salisbury could rightly have said this in Parliament, in response to a request from the Radical Labouchere, after rumors had entered the press that there was some kind of treaty.
The cabinet agreed with the premier's opinion that it was impossible to completely abandon the agreement. He decided, however, to postpone the final decision until more detailed information "regarding the role that Germany is supposed to play in the proposed agreement" 87 . After all, Austria alone was too weak to incur the main “silt of a Russian blow. Salisbury pointed out to Hatzfeld that, in view of the persistent rumors about the Russophilia of Prince Wilhelm 88, he was especially interested in “getting assurances of the moral approval of the agreement proposed by England from Germany” 89. Before the ink had dried on the reinsurance treaty in which Bismarck promised his "moral" assistance in the capture of Constantinople by Russia, he was about to give "moral" approval to an agreement calculated to prevent Russia from doing so. Bismarck's personal letter to Salisbury dated November 1887, which has become, one might say, famous in the vast literature devoted to Bismarck.At the same time, the text of the Austro-German treaty of 1879 was communicated to Salisbury.
In Bismarck's letter, many researchers are inclined to see an attempt to probe the ground regarding the possibility of an Anglo-German alliance. This is hardly the case. In fact, what goals did Bismarck dictate political
84 Cecil, IV, 71, 69, 24; cf. a similar impression of Garzfeld concerning the fear of being olated (G. P., IV, 886).
85 G. P., IV, 881, 884, 885, 890; Cecil. IV, pp. 20ff., 78-79.
86 Crispi, Memoirs; Cecil, op. cit., IV, 66.
87 Cecil., IV, 71.
88 Future Wilhelm II.
89 G.P., IV, 925, 926; cf. ibid., p. 376, note.**
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What was the situation when he wrote this letter? He had to induce Salisbury to conclude an agreement with Austria-Hungary. It is clear that in order to achieve this goal, it was impossible to encourage the hopes that never left Salisbury that Germany would be forced to actively resist Russian aggression in the East and that England would be able to carry out the war by proxy, nor to intimidate him by refusing to do anything. support from the only truly "first-class" military power of the tripartite alliance. The letter was mainly designed to create the psychological effect needed to achieve the intended goal.
Nothing more can be subtracted from this long letter, striking in the care with which the author seeks to choose ambiguous phrases. Bismarck stated one thing with complete clarity: the German Empire would in any case defend the integrity of Austria; The text of the Austro-German alliance, which was communicated to him at the same time, was supposed to finally reassure Salisbury on this score. Bismarck assured that Germany would change its policy only if its allies betrayed it. Then, to prevent a two-front war, he will go to an agreement with Russia. As long as there is no such betrayal, not a single German emperor will refuse to defend the "independence" of friendly powers: Austria - against Russia, Italy or England in the event of an attack on them by France. At the same time, Bismarck emphasized that because of the Balkan affairs, Germany could not fight (this statement Salisbury should have expected). Bismarck expressing his approval of the desire of the three Mediterranean powers to agree. But at the end of the letter we find, among other things, the following phrase: "It is impossible to suppose that any German emperor will ever give Russia the help of his weapons to help her break or weaken one of those powers whose support we count on" against herself. Russia. Characteristically, in mentioning armed support, Bismarck passed over in silence the question of diplomatic support. And how could he give such an assurance, since there was a reinsured agreement with Russia! Bismarck's letter was so carefully edited by him in purely obscure terms that, long before it caused German historians to scratch their heads, it began to mislead those who had to read it, and above all the one who read it first - Marquess of Salisbury. In his reply letter, Salisbury wrote that without "a guarantee of support from Germany, England, agreeing to an accord a trois, would go for a policy doomed to failure: Meanwhile, the Austro-German treaty communicated to him by Bismarck "establishes that under no circumstances can the existence of Austria-Hungary be endangered in the event of its resistance to "illegal Russian designs" 91. in the end the Cabinet joined the “Eastern Entente.” It is easy to see that Salisbury unwittingly, or rather deliberately, reinterpreted Bismarck's letter in his own way, all the ingenious distinctions that Bismarck draws between the protection of Austria's security and the protection of her Balkan interests are completely ignored by Salisbury's formula.
It must be said that before "his own" Salisbury was by no means inclined to exaggerate the significance of the British obligations: he points out that they are obligatory only for this ministry 92 and emphasizes that the agreement
90 Except for the above mentioned G. P., IV, 892.
91 G.P., IV, 936; IV, 72 (the text of the treaty, Salisbury wrote to the Queen, "sufficiently stipulates that Germany must side with Austria in any war between Austria and Russia").
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does not oblige to more than those obligations that England long ago assumed by signing the Paris and Berlin treatises 93 . Explaining why he opposed giving the agreement the form of identical notes, Salisbury wrote: “One of my goals in doing so was to destroy them (i.e., his partners - V. H.) the opinion that our interest in Turkish domination over: the straits is on the same level as the interest of Austria and Italy; although I fully acknowledge the existence of our interest, it is not as urgent and vital as theirs" 94 .
The 1887 agreement gave insufficiently defined commitments and was only a semi-success for Bismarck. In connection with this circumstance, there is another attempt by Bismarck to achieve a firm agreement with England on a different basis. In January 1889, he proposed to Salisbury to conclude a formal alliance, no longer with Germany's allies, but with Germany itself, but directed not against Russia, but exclusively against France. Dressed in exquisitely amiable forms, this proposal was accompanied, as was Bismarck's custom, with a threat: if England did not give up her isolationist position, then Germany, he pointed out, "would be forced to seek her well-being in such international relations as she could achieve without England" 95 . Here Bismarck again plays his trump card - the possibility of reorientation to Russia, taking advantage of his "friendship" with her. This again and again serves him as a means of forging a bloc against the Franco-Russian group. But the means that Bismarck had at his disposal to put pressure on England turned out to be insufficient: writing to one of his colleagues that "vile Herbert" was very much seeking an alliance with England 96 , Salisbury answered Bismarck with a polite refusal 97 .
August 17, 1889 Lucius von Balhausen, one of the Prussian ministers, writes in his diary the following words of Bismarck, uttered by him at a meeting of the Prussian ministry: "For ten years, the main task of German policy has been to get England into the triple alliance" - At the same time, we have no reason to understand this phrase in such a way that Bismarck sought the formal accession of England to the very document that was signed in May 1882 and renewed in 1887 between Germany, Austria and Italy. "This is possible," he continued, "only if Germany again and again emphasizes its indifference to the Eastern question. If only Germany should quarrel with Russia, England will sit quietly, allowing herself to carry chestnuts from the fire."
We have to admit that Bismarck failed in his policy. And if, in the year of the founding of the German Empire, he hoped that England would understand that Germany was her natural ally, 99 this hope was in vain.
The alliance proposed by Bismarck was absolutely unnecessary for Salisbury, and he characterizes Bismarck's advances as "too irritating German friendship" 100 . “France represents the greatest danger to England,” wrote Salisbury, “and it will remain so in the future, but this danger is lulled, since there is a modern tense situation between France and both of her eastern neighbors. If France were to
93 Ibid, IV, 23, 78.
94 Ilid, 78.
95 G.P., IV, 943.
96 Cecil, IV, 124.
97 G.P., IV, 946.
98 Lucius von Balhausen, Bismarckerinnerungen.
99 See above.
100 Cecil, IV, 140.
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101. Salisbury did not go for an alliance against France, because there was no need to bind himself, since without this there was full confidence that in the event of an Anglo-French conflict, Germany would become on the side of England if this conflict emerges from the stage of colonial squabbles. On the other hand, Salisbury was afraid that the war between Germany and France would untie the hands of tsarist Russia. In this case, he wants an alliance against Russia and with Austria and Germany. But such an alliance is not already suited Bismarck.The problem of Anglo-German relations before the outbreak of Anglo-German imperialist antagonism was that "an alliance of the kind that England wanted was to make Germany dependent on England" 102 Bismarck, was completely unnecessary to the British. "The alliance with Austria covers the only weak point in the position of England," wrote Salisbury. erzhava ... is not able to violate British interests, with the exception of Russia, if she strikes at Constantinople. If a. Austria (it should be said Hungary) will be able to look indifferently at the seizure of the Bosphorus by Russia, the position of England will become extremely difficult, since England will have to defend the Bosphorus herself; for Russia can always buy the complicity of Germany and Italy by agreeing to let them do whatever they please with France. But as long as Austria firmly adheres to this point of view, Germany, and consequently Italy, must go along with it. For England, therefore, at present the most important question is what Austria's intentions are. As far as we can judge, her views have never been more favorable. 103 And Salisbury concluded from this that England had nothing to particularly strive for rapprochement with Germany. , and Salisbury - only Bismarck's completely non-binding personal letter, then, unlike the latter, Lord Salisbury, due to the nature of Austro-German relations, who, after getting acquainted with the text of the Austro-German alliance treaty, became completely clear to him 104, was more or less sure that even without direct obligations to England, the German Empire was at his disposal in the event of an Austro-Russian conflict.
These calculations of Salisbury were the most important obstacle in the way of an Anglo-German agreement and in Bismarck's way to a new defeat of France, and when we say that this defeat was undoubtedly Bismarck's highest ideal, this certainly does not mean at all that Bismarck desired war at any moment. On the contrary, we even think that in practice he would have wanted to avoid it for most of the days of his chancellorship; more than that - he more than once averted its danger. But this is only because he failed to cobble together that bloc, with the help of which he considered the war unconditionally beneficial.
Bismarck absolutely did not want a war "on two fronts", without the participation of England. In this case, he wrote, Germany would find herself, although not in a hopeless, but still in a very difficult situation. Willy-nilly
101 Letters of Queen Victoria, 3-d series, v. I, p. 438,
102 Becker, Bismarck und die Einkreisung Deutschlands, Bd. - I; s. 149.
103 Letters of Queen Victoria, Vol. I, p. 436 ff.
104 Salisbury's letter to Queen Victoria, just quoted, is dated 25 August 1888
105 G. P., V, 1095: IV, 930, etc.
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I had to take care "for the time being" of maintaining peace 106 . After all, according to Bismarck, it was "absolutely certain that we would have a war on both fronts" as soon as we started it on the Russian front. "Russian antagonism. We have now explained its origin. It was a consequence of the collapse of his "English" policy. The refusal to war also hit Bismarck's domestic policy aimed at the violent suppression of the workers' movement. If the exceptional law was to destroy the workers' party, if the so-called " Bismarck's social legislation was supposed to split the working class and reconcile its more backward part with the existing system, then the war, which took on the character of a struggle "for national existence", would raise a wave of chauvinism, which, as Marx and Engels feared, would overwhelm the German revolutionary movement.108 Bismarck needed the war for the same reason that Marx and Engels considered it, on the contrary, highly undesirable. Since the situation in Russia has changed due to the growth of the revolutionary movement, they have staked not on the war against Russia, but on the Russian revolution. Bismarck's "peacefulness" meant only the impossibility of organizing such a war, which brought not only a military victory, but also a decisive political success, freeing Germany from the nightmare of a coalition.
But Bismarck's peace policy also contained a deep internal contradiction. Bismarck substantiated the possibility of a Russian-German rapprochement usually with two theses. The first of them read: "There are no disagreements between Russia and Germany that would harbor the germs of conflict and rupture" 110 . The second thesis stated the complete absence of Germany's own interests in the East (Desinteressementim Oreen) 111 . To what extent did these statements correspond to the objective state of affairs? Regarding the second thesis, it can be said with full confidence that in the 80s the interests of German capitalism in Turkey were so small that the thesis "this in itself was completely true, and Bismarck could rightly declare that, because of the question of who rules on the Bosporus", Germany is not worth fighting 112 . Bismarck pointed out directly (in 1888) to entrepreneurs who approached him that "we cannot take responsibility for encouraging German capital to go to Turkey." 113 Bismarck was also inert about the acquisition of the concession for the line to Angora by Deutsche Banle 114 and rather
106 Thus, there is absolutely no contradiction between Engels's above indication that Bismarck is preparing a war against Russia, and other statements by Marx and Engels in which they assert that Bismarck is striving to prevent a war and accuse him of Russophilism and dependence on Russia. Marx and Engels understood exactly and correctly what kind of war Bismarck wanted and what kind of war he feared. When Gustav Major, in the recently published II volume of his biography of Engels, asserts that Bismarck's policy was not completely clear to Engels, he thereby only reveals that neither Bismarck's policy nor Engels's views are "completely clear" to him (G. Mayer, Ft. (Engels II, s. 460)
107 G. P. VI, 1340.
108 Marx and Engels, vol. XXIV, p. 514.
109 Engels, letter to Bebel, December 22, 1882; to him dated November 17, 1889; to him dated December 16, 1879 (Archive, I, IV) pp. 218, 316, 170).
111 Ibid p. 266 etc.
It can be said that German economic interests in Turkey were not yet powerful enough to influence policy. But if the German Empire did not have its own political interests in the East, then Austria had them - and, moreover, of great importance. To understand the essence of these interests, it is necessary to take into account the peculiarities of Austria as a multinational state 117 . The specific political structure that Austria adopted after 1866 - the system of dualism established by the agreement of 1867 - meant the actual dominance of the Magyar nobility in the Habsburg monarchy 118 . The system of dualism and the predominance of the Hungarian landowners were a natural consequence of the creation of Little Germany: the Battle of Sadovaya, by driving Austria out of Germany and thereby weakening both the German element in Cisleitania and the position of the dynasty itself and the court, forced the latter to make concessions to the Hungarians. And in 1867 gr. Veist, preparing for revenge for Sadovaya, was forced, in order to strengthen the rear, to agree with the Magyars on the division between Germans and Hungarians of "labor" for the oppression of other nationalities. Thus arose in Austria that "old special system of government, when the bourgeois power brings certain nationalities closer to itself, gives them privileges, and belittles the rest of the nations." Undoubtedly, this system of Austro-Hungarian dualism was fraught with enormous dangers, intensifying the "instability and fragility" inherent in all multinational bourgeois states. And this applied to Hungary to an even greater extent than to Austria proper. In Hungary, about 2,000 owners owned over 575,000 properties. ha, moreover, each had an average of 31/2 thousand hectares; among them there were owners of latifundia up to 240 thousand people. ha, which had no equal in Europe. This amounted (according to the 1895 cadastre) to 31.2%, i.e., approximately 1/3 of the entire land area (note that the cadastre does not take into account the areas of estates that were not cultivated at all). Meanwhile, of these purely pasture and forest possessions, most of them fall precisely on latifundia. This same handful of Magyar land magnates, with the addition of some more elements of a petty gentry, 120 held in their hands all the posts in the state apparatus as a monopoly. The collapse of the political power of the Hungarians over the Slavs and Romanians would mean both the loss of this monopoly and the loss of all estates located outside the regions inhabited by the Hungarians proper. Meanwhile, for 7.4 million of these latter in Hungary
accounted for 7.6 million Slavs and Romanians and 2 million Germans. The dominance of the Hungarians under such conditions could only be maintained thanks to a system of cruel suppression of all political activity of other nationalities. In Hungary, as in Austria, the national question thus represented "the axis of political life, the question of existence" 121 . From all of the above follows the Balkan policy of the Hungarian nobility. Its main task was to conserve the Ottoman Empire, this "Austrian dam against Russia and her Slavic retinue" 122 as far as possible.
The disintegration of European Turkey and the national unification of Turkish Slavs would mean a threat that the Balkan states would turn their eyes on their fellow tribesmen in Austria-Hungary. This danger would become formidable if political fragmentation in the Balkans were eliminated due to the emergence of a large Yugoslav state. The formation of the latter would have threatened the disintegration of the two-pronged monarchy. To prevent this was for her - and especially for Hungary - a matter of life and death. San Stefano Bulgaria was successfully liquidated by the Berlin Congress. But a great Serbia could pose an even greater danger. “The expansion of the borders of Serbia,” said Count Andrassy Gorchakov, “which the adherents of the so-called Great Serbian idea dream of and which would cover both Bosnia and Herzegovina and other regions, cannot be reconciled with the position of Austria-Hungary, part of whose subjects belong to of the same nation, and therefore may be filled with similar aspirations. In other words, great Serbia can become a center of attraction for the South-Slavs of Austria-Hungary. Namely, in order to prevent the creation of a large Slavic state, Andrássy carried out the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina, despite the vigorous resistance of his fellow tribesmen - the Magyars. For the goal of Hungarian policy at that time was - and since part of the Balkan peoples had already liberated themselves from Turkish rule - precisely the "Balkanization" of the Balkans, and not at all territorial seizures. The same Count Andrassy once declared that "the Magyar boat is overflowing with wealth and any new cargo - be it gold, be it dirt - can only overturn it." In a less poetic form, the same idea was expressed by another Hungarian diplomat Szechenyi: "The strengthening of the Yugoslav elements is undesirable from the point of view of maintaining the balance of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy" 124 . These considerations undoubtedly applied not only to the interests of the Magyar magnates, but also to the German bourgeoisie of Austria proper. But among the Hungarians, an extremely important purely economic moment was added to this: in the event of annexations of the agrarian Balkan regions, the customs wall that protected the Austrian market from Balkan raw materials would inevitably fall.
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The second most important place was hired by the Balkan countries, primarily Turkey, Romania and Serbia, which together absorbed about 66 million guilders of Austro-Hungarian goods, and together with other Balkan countries more than 70 million guilders, i.e. about 9%. But this figure says absolutely nothing about the importance of the Balkans as a market for Austrian industry: after all, mainly industrial exports went there. For iron ... iron products (in 1894), the three named Middle Eastern markets absorbed about 25% of all exports; about the same was their role for the export of textiles (except silk) and for the finished dress. The sugar industry used them to sell about 15% of its exports, this percentage was somewhat higher for paper and paper products, and for the match industry it was even more than 40%. In some branches of the textile industry, namely, woolen products, this percentage also rises to 40,126. The combination of all these points led to the fact that the Austro-Hungarian policy in the Balkans can be reduced to two main tasks: firstly, the maintenance of the territorial status quo; secondly, within the framework of this satus quo - the all-round strengthening of Austrian influence. The essence of these two political tasks can be expressed by the formula: economic hegemony without political annexation. The greatest danger to such a policy was tsarist Russia. The strengthening of Russian influence in the Balkans would mean not only a threat to the economic interests of Austrian industry, but also a huge encouragement for the anti-Austrian claims of the Balkan states. Hence the panicky horror that inspired the Austrians with the assertion of Russian influence in Bulgaria, and even more so with the capture of Constantinople, which, in the words of Engels 127, would have meant "complete domination" of Russia over the Balkan Peninsula. This is how Austro-Russian antagonism grew, and at the same time, the foreign policy of the German Empire, in the absence of sufficient contact with England, and as the absence of such contact loomed, faced the following triune problem: 1) the preservation of the integrity of Austria-Hungary, 2) the preservation friendly relations with Russia and the prevention of an Austro-Russian conflict, and all this under the third condition - with the indispensable preservation of the Austro-Russian antagonism, which would make Austria-Hungary need an alliance with Germany. We have already mentioned the horror Bismarck felt about the danger of an Austro-Russian rapprochement and the prospect of the Kaunitz Coalition. The best guarantee against this was the preservation of the system of dualism in Austria. For by no means all elements among the ruling classes of Austria-Hungary were filled with such a panicky fear of "pan-Slavism" as the Hungarian gentry and magnates and the liberal German bourgeoisie of Austria.
But in the system of dualism there was also a moment that turned the above-described triune task of German politics into the task of squaring the circle. Firstly, it was precisely the domination of the medieval Magyar elements that colossally intensified the national struggle in Austria, and therefore weakened it internally, and thereby brought the task of preserving Austria-Hungary closer and closer to the work of conserving labor. The national struggle threatened to affect the army, and because of this, the alliance with Austria-Hungary was losing its military value: “I don’t care,” Bismarck once said, “whether they speak German or Slavic in Carinthia or Krajina, but it is important for us that the Austro-Hungarian army remains united. If it is
126 Osterreichisches Statistisches Handbuch, Hrsg. von derk. u. k. Statistischer Zentraicommission, 14 Jahrgang, 1895. Wien 1896, SS. 205 - 206.
127Fr. Engels, Die auswartige Politik des russischen Zarpentum, "Die Neue Zeit" 1890, s. 147
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weakened by national contradictions, then the value of our allies will decrease" and "we will have to consider whether it is expedient to renew our union" 128 . The system of dualism made Austria-Hungary a loyal ally, but it also undermined the value of this alliance. The weakening of Austria-Hungary undoubtedly increased the value of Russian friendship for Germany, but the same dualism drove a wedge into Russian-German relations as well. Finally, while maintaining “friendship” with Russia, pushing her to the Balkans, Bismarck, outwardly occupying the position of an arbiter between Russia and Austria, at the same time unwittingly contributed to the decomposition of Turkey and the breakthrough of the Turkish dam that protected Austria from Russia, i.e. In other words, if we consider the matter on a large historical scale, he threatened the integrity of the very Austria that he so sought to preserve. Marx and Engels revealed this true objective result of Bismarck's policy by analyzing the Eastern crises in 1877-1878 and 1886-1887. In doing so, Bismarck undermined - again, if you look at things on a broad historical scale - the foundations of the very order that he wanted to maintain. After all, "Turkey and Austria were the last stronghold of the old European state order, which was mended in 1815, and with their death this order collapses completely. This collapse, which will be carried out in a series of wars (first "localized", and under the horses of" ), accelerates the social crisis, and with it the death of all these saber-rattling shampowers (inflated powers)". It was impossible to more accurately predict where the disintegration of Austria and Turkey would lead under the influence of Russian aggression and Bismarck's slogan: "do not interfere." it really led to the "general" war of 1914.
We we see that Bismarck's policy, with all its cunning combinations of mutually complementary treaties, has become entangled in serious contradictions. It is not for nothing that the old diplomat Schweinitz 130 asked himself with anguish: "Where is this acrobatic policy leading us?"
Bismarck's policy was based on the support of tsarism in the Bulgarian and Constantinople issues. But no matter how he restrained Austria here in her anti-Russian speeches, tsarist diplomacy could not help but believe that if the conflict took on a serious character, vitally dangerous for its participants, Germany would be on the side of Austria-Hungary. Characteristically, during the negotiations on the conclusion of the reinsurance treaty, Bismarck refused to include in the treaty an obligation not to intercede for Austria in the event that a conflict arose because of her opposition to Russia in Bulgaria or in the straits 131 .
We now see that Bismarck's thesis about the absence of contradictions between Russia and Germany turned out to be historically untenable: the Austro-Russian conflict grew into a Russian-German one, and the Eastern question nevertheless arose between Russia and Germany.
But the Franco-Russian contradictions did not end there. With the agrarian crisis, which began to be felt in the second half of the 1970s, the Prussian Junkers faced the need to defend against the competition of Russian agricultural imports. In 1879, the German government introduced duties on imported grain products, and then during the 1880s these duties were significantly increased twice (in 1885 and 1887). Added to this is the constraint on the import of livestock, which often turned into a complete ban on imports, and only from Russia under the guise of protection against epizootics. All these measures were intended not only to protect the German market from Russian agricultural exports, but also to prepare for an attack on the rampantly growing customs wall that protected the Russian market from German industrial exports precisely in these same years. It is clear that Bismarck's customs policy was by no means conducive to the deepening of Russian-German "friendship". Measures against German exports terribly irritated the Russian ruling circles. But according to Schweinitz, "measures against the vetlyansky plague (which Russian cattle was ill with) aroused more hatred in Germany than the support provided to Austria in the Eastern question" 134
Bismarck's customs policy thus stood in sharp contrast to his "big" policy. This reflected another contradiction. While the direct economic interests of the Prussian agrarians demanded protection from Russian competition, and the interests of the German export industry demanded the conquest of the Russian market and, consequently, the struggle against Russia, the deeper class interests of the same strata, connected with the tasks of preserving the existing forms of their class domination, preserving the entire Prussian-German state demanded rapprochement with it. Otherwise, the nightmare of coalitions that hung over the German Empire threatened to become a reality. Bismarck felt this contradiction, but could not eliminate it. He could only invent an outlandish theory about the supposedly complete independence of political and economic relations between states 135 and continue to cling to the departing Russian "friendship". →
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January 18, 1871 proclamation of the German Empire. The first German imperial chancellor was von Bismarck (1815-1898). For almost 20 years (1871-1890).
Bismarck has become an unattainable model. His power deliberately pursued public goals and dynastic interests. Self-interest was sacrificed. All his achievements were not appreciated by his contemporaries or followers. He was not a monarchist and was not an adherent of Prussian hegemony. Its main goal is the national interest.
administrative reform.
1872. in Prussia, an administrative reform was carried out, according to which the hereditary patrimonial power of the Junkers in the countryside was canceled;
In the communities, she passed to the elected elders,
In the volost - to the amtman, Amtman ruled with the participation of elected elders
In the district - to the landrat, who were appointed by the Prussian king from candidates presented by the local elected assembly, almost always from among the local landowners. Under the landrats, district councils were formed, which were elected according to a three-class electoral system.
As a result, the state apparatus was strengthened in the interests of the junkers.
financial reform.
Strengthening the economic and political position of the country, the imperial government introduced 1871 - 1873. single monetary system. adopted as the main currency gold mark. AT 1875. the Prussian bank was transformed into the Reichsbank (Reichsbank) with a monopoly on the issuance of bank notes throughout the empire. Centralization of mail.
Judicial reform.
AT 1876. laws were passed that determined a single system of justice throughout the empire. They met with strong resistance from the South German states, and here the practical application of the new legal proceedings began only in 1879. According to the judicial reform, the highest court was imperial court, but the seat of the imperial court was established not in the capital of the empire - Berlin, but in the Saxon city Leipzig. With this gesture, the German government made an ostentatious concession.
military sphere.
After the formation of the empire, Bismarck always dreamed of revenge on the part of the defeated in the war of 1870-1871. France. AT 1874. with the support of the National Liberal faction, he achieved the approval of the Reichstag military budget immediately on seven years ahead.
Kulturkampf.
Bismarck's policy of Prussianization of Germany was opposed by the Catholic clergy, who sought to maintain their former independence and influence. To fight with Prussianization Some sections of the population of the southwestern states of Germany also rose, subjected to heavy national oppression: the Poles, the French population of Alsace and Lorraine. The party of the Catholic "center" acted as a "defender" of the interests of these peoples, as it saw in this a means of strengthening its political role.
To break the stubbornness of the Catholic Church and the "center" party, Bismarck held in 1872 the law, according to which the clergy was deprived of the right to supervise schools, the priests were forbidden to conduct political agitation. At the same time, the so-called May Laws were adopted by the Prussian Landtag. was held civil record law marriages, births and deaths, which took away from the church the rights that strengthened its social influence, and very solid sources of income . Catholic clergy disobeyed these laws and boycotted them. Pope Pius IX issued a call to fight. Bismarck responded by arresting and deporting recalcitrant priests from Germany.
Catholic priests began to pose as "martyrs" of the church. Bismarck's struggle with recalcitrant priests was compared with the persecution of Christians by ancient Roman emperors. The clergy must submit to the spiritual court, and the spiritual court is arranged by secular authorities, The state appoints pastors., Religious education is removed from episcopal jurisdiction., The clergy as a whole were subordinate to secular authorities, the activities of the Jesuit Order, etc. were prohibited.
In order to fight the working class, Bismarck agreed to reconcile with the opposition "Centre" party. During the period from 1878 to 1882. Almost all laws against the Catholic Church were repealed. All that remained of the Kulturkampf legislation was the law on civil marriage and government oversight of schools.
A decade of purposeful struggle by Otto von Bismarck for the creation of a unified German state was crowned with success and brought about fundamental changes in the balance of power in Europe. Bismarck, acting within the framework of the "iron and blood" policy, managed to create a large militaristic state, which took the place of one of the fundamental military forces on the European continent. However, after the military victories, the turn came to resolve significant internal contradictions, which, when creating a united Germany, could not be avoided due to the long existence of numerous German monarchies, disunited not only politically, but also culturally.
The beginning of the internal consolidation of German society was marked by Bismarck's proclaimed Kulturkampf policy aimed at unifying the cultural side of the life of German society - an extremely narrow interpretation of Kulturkampf, its goals were not disclosed! Such an urgent need was primarily due to the predominance of the Catholic faith in the newly annexed South German lands, in contrast to the Protestantism that characterized the religious moods of Northern Germany. The acuteness of the situation was added by disagreements in the very Catholic environment of German society. In order to gradually resolve the existing problem, Bismarck in 1871 introduced additions to the Constitution that prohibited any political propaganda in the church. In order to subordinate church education to the state, Otto von Bismarck initiated a school law in 1873, transferring all church schools under state control. From that moment on, the church in Germany lost all independence and appeared as a state institution. Such an active opposition to the church was due to the following reflections of Bismarck: “The Catholic clergy is a political institution in church form and transfers to its employees its own conviction that its freedom lies in its power and that wherever the church does not dominate, it has the right to complain about Diocletian persecution".
Throughout the 1870s, Otto von Bismarck became involved in a difficult and exhausting political struggle in parliament, caused by the dissatisfaction of many parliamentarians with the religious policy of the chancellor. The retention of the positions obtained as a result of the political triumph was due, first of all, to the political structure of the German Empire, because, according to V.V. Chubinsky, "it combined centripetal and centrifugal elements, centralism and particularism, absolutism and constitutionalism" .
In parliament, Bismarck constantly had to maneuver between major political forces, such as centrists, conservatives, national liberals, as well as social democrats, which aroused clearly visible antipathy from the chancellor. In addition, the imperial chancellor was in an imperious, but at the same time in a state of servitude, since the decisive word in most matters was reserved for the first person in the state - the emperor. He, in turn, was influenced by completely different political figures, including those who had an open negative attitude towards Bismarck.
An important feature that characterized the position of a powerful chancellor was the fact that Emperor Wilhelm I could end his reign at any time due to the fact that already in the 1870s he was at a fairly respectable age by the standards of that time. If the ruler changed, Bismarck's place would no doubt be occupied by another protege of the king and, according to Hillgruber - who is it ?, "no "majority" in the Reichstag, and no popularity of the founder of the empire could prevent such a replacement in the seventies or early eighties » . - page?
Thus, we can say that, despite all the seemingly strong position of the "Iron Chancellor", in fact it seemed very fragile, dependent on the monarch who was on the throne. Undoubtedly, such considerations were reflected in the policy pursued by Bismarck, but, nevertheless, they could not violate his characteristic decisiveness and political activity.
Defending his political line, Bismarck entered into significant disagreements with the conservatives, in the ranks of which he once began his career in big politics. Dissatisfied with the country's departure away from pre-existing foundations that emphasized the importance and role of the Junkers, the conservatives often opposed the bill introduced by the Chancellor and thereby brought an ever greater split into relations between former comrades-in-arms. As disagreements with political opponents grew, Bismarck actually emphasized that "his opponent automatically turned for him into an opponent of the monarch and the monarchy - the most terrible crime."
The growing opposition in Parliament forced Bismarck to move closer to the National Liberals, in the hope of putting his initiatives into practice. However, this alliance did not give the chancellor the desired result, and he began to feel more and more difficulties in the parliamentary struggle. By 1875, the Kulturkampf policy actually reached a dead end and forced Bismarck to abandon its active continuation.
By the end of the 1870s, Otto von Bismarck began to incline towards carrying out a decisive blow against his most hated enemy - social democracy. - why is this the most hated enemy and why was hostility not manifested during the Kulturkampf period? The assassination attempts on Emperor Wilhelm I in 1878, which had no proven relationship to the socialist movement, nevertheless became a convenient excuse for the chancellor to start a full-scale political battle, which ultimately had tremendous significance.
The first of the attempts made to strike at the socialists was unsuccessful, but the second attempt on the emperor changed the situation in favor of Bismarck. With great effort, he managed to overcome the resistance of the parliamentary groupings. As a result, the laws passed against the socialists made it possible to ban the activities of the Social Democratic Party. The propaganda activities of the socialists were banned, and the police received expanded powers in the fight against dangerous socio-political elements, on which punishments were imposed from fines to imprisonment and expulsion from the country.
Despite the initial successes in the anti-socialist struggle, Bismarck eventually had to make sure that he did not manage to win the final victory. Starting this struggle, as V.V. Chubinsky, Otto von Bismarck "committed the biggest political mistake of his life along with Kulturkampf" . - why?
After Bismarck's difficult parliamentary elections in 1881, he attempted to persuade the working class into the fold of loyalty to the state regime. The chancellor became the initiator of large-scale social reforms, which in their scope noticeably exceeded similar reforms in other developed countries. In 1883-1890, a number of bills were passed aimed at introducing insurance for workers in production, as well as the introduction of monetary compensation. Subsequent historical events proved that it was not possible to extinguish the growth of the popularity of socialism, and all Bismarck's efforts in this direction were mostly in vain.
No less important and multifaceted activity of Otto von Bismarck than domestic transformations was foreign policy. The appearance of the German Empire on the political map of the world naturally affected the international situation. Bismarck, being in fact at the helm of one of the strongest states in Europe, sought to improve its foreign policy position in every possible way.
Soon after the end of the Franco-German (Franco-Prussian) war, the rapid recovery of the defeated France, which managed to pay off the indemnity debts ahead of schedule, became noticeable. In addition, in 1873, the German troops stationed in East France were withdrawn. All this contributed to a sharp increase in tension in relations both between France and Germany, and throughout the continent. Sensing the possibility of starting a new war between recent opponents, the Russian and British empires became noticeably more active and created a situation that threatened Germany with a war on two fronts. As the researcher Hillgruber noted, “it was finally unequivocally demonstrated that the achievements of 1871 were the greatest that other European powers were ready to recognize” .
An important political event was the conclusion on June 6, 1873 of an alliance treaty between Russia and Austria. Bismarck, who sought to establish close ties with them, became the initiator of Germany's accession to the treaty. Thus, the agreement was transformed into the "Union of the Three Emperors", which took a significant place in European politics.
The events of 1875 associated with the national liberation actions in Bosnia and Herzegovina, as well as Serbia and Montenegro. It is not for nothing that the Balkans, nicknamed the "powder keg" of Europe, riveted the attention of all leading powers, including Germany in the person of Otto von Bismarck. The idea that he had at that time about the need to refuse to be involved in close allied relations with anyone soon began to change dramatically. This leap in the goal-setting of German foreign policy was due to Bismarck's desire to maintain a favorable balance of power. Thus, the support of Austria-Hungary, as well as the maximum weakening of France, became the primary directions. In addition, the desire for rapprochement with the Russian Empire continued to occupy a significant position in Bismarck's policy, but the Russian-Turkish war largely influenced the change in positions on this issue.
Russia's victory in the war and the conclusion of the San Stefano peace treaty could not satisfy Bismarck's aspirations, to allow the victorious side to become excessively stronger. For this reason, the chancellor initiated the convening of the Berlin Congress to participate, in which Russia, England, Austria-Hungary, France, Italy, Turkey, Greece, Iran, Romania, Montenegro and Serbia responded.
As A.R. Andreev, “Bismarck frankly and rudely expressed the purpose of the congress in the famous words: “Gentlemen, we have gathered here not to confer about the happiness of the Bulgarians, but in order to ensure peace in Europe” . - and what is rude and negative? Bismarck's vigorous activity contributed to the achievement of the desired results aimed at eliminating the possibility of creating in Europe a major military-political alliance directed against Germany. An interesting remark about the content of the Berlin Treaty, signed on July 13, 1878, is the thought of the French historian Antonin Debidour: “in the Berlin Treaty, it is striking, first of all, that it seemed to be created not to ensure universal peace, but with the aim of quarreling all the great and even many small European powers ... There is no doubt that not one of the interested parties returned from the Congress without some discontent, without a feeling of unrest, without a new germ of hatred and conflict.
Bismarck at the Berlin Congress for the first time demonstrated to the whole world his political talents and proved his worth in defending the interests of his state in the international arena. In fact, having stolen from Russia the political achievements deserved by a military victory, Bismarck embarked on the path of a gradual departure from friendly relations between countries. Thus, thanks to the efforts of the chancellor, according to article 60 of the treatise, a provision was established according to which “the valley of Alashkert and the city of Bayazet ceded to Russia by article XIX of the Treaty of San Stefano” were returned to Turkey.
The allied treaty signed a year later with Austria-Hungary, directed against Russia, finally shifted Russian-German relations in the direction of growing mutual hostility. Russia began rapprochement with France.
Otto von Bismarck's attempt in 1881 to restore the "Union of Three Emperors", battered by the events of 1878-79, turned out to be unsuccessful, because, despite the extension of the existence of the union in 1884, the Austro-Russian contradictions escalated a hostile environment. After 1885, which was marked by increased tension in the Balkans, where the interests of Russia and Austria clashed, the significance of the union was practically reduced to zero. Russia transferred its capital from Germany to France, which sharply hit the political balance on the continent. Sensing the risk of a war on two fronts for Germany, Otto von Bismarck tried to minimize it. Despite the tariff wars, which actually turned into an economic war with the Russian Empire, the chancellor nevertheless managed to conclude an agreement in 1887 that ensured its neutrality in the event of a Franco-German war. The failed attempt at an alliance with England in 1889 proved to be the last major foreign policy action undertaken by Otto von Bismarck as Chancellor of the German Empire.
The elections to the German parliament on February 20, 1890, marked a significant defeat for the coalition of National Liberals and Conservatives, created under the influence of Bismarck. Having been on the throne since 1898, Emperor Wilhelm II, who did not feel sympathy for the old chancellor, was inclined to decide on his resignation. - the reasons for the resignation are not disclosed? What are the differences between Bismarck and the new Kaiser? Thus ended the path of Otto von Bismarck, in fact, at the helm of the German state.
The main arena where Bismarck could fully show his strength was diplomacy, which was based on militarism and was aimed at ensuring the German Empire's dominant position in Europe.
Bismarck sought to isolate France internationally, which was recovering surprisingly quickly from her defeat.
In 1873, she completed the payment of indemnity, and the German troops had to leave her territory. Germany responded by forcing the arms race.
To avert the threat of war on two fronts, Bismarck sought to improve relations with Russia. In 1873, a secret military convention was concluded between Germany and Russia, according to which, in the event of an attack on one of them by any other European power, both sides undertook to send an army of 200,000 to help the ally. Bismarck, however, declared that the convention would come into force only after Austria-Hungary joined it. The subsequent signing by Vienna and St. Petersburg of a consultative convention and the accession of Germany to it led to the creation of the Union of the Three Emperors, based on the principle of monarchical solidarity. But soon the strength of this alliance was seriously tested.
In order to prevent the restoration of the French army, the Reich Chancellor was ready to resort to a military threat. From a military point of view, the war with France in 1874-1875 would undoubtedly be beneficial to Germany. In April 1875, the German press published Bismarck-inspired articles on France's military preparations, one of which bore the significant title "Is War Foreseen?". At the same time, Chief of the General Staff Helmut f0n Moltke developed the idea of a preventive war against the western neighbor.
This time, the "military alarm" did not lead to war, as Russia and Great Britain came out in support of France. During a visit to Berlin by the Russian Emperor Alexander Ts and Chancellor A. M. Gorchakov, Bismarck stated that he was not going to attack France, that Moltke was “a baby in politics, and you shouldn’t listen to him at all.” This serious diplomatic failure of Bismarck was an important step in the gradual cooling of German-Russian relations.
The German chancellor sought to push Russia, which, in his opinion, was the most powerful and dangerous German neighbor, to "use its excess forces in the East" in order to weaken its position in the West. At the same time, Germany in every possible way contributed to the expansion of the influence of Austria-Hungary in the Balkans, where the interests of the Habsburg monarchy clashed with the interests of Russia. In 1876, Bismarck, at a meeting of the Reichstag, uttered the famous words that Germany did not have any interests in the Middle East that were worth even "the bones of a single Pomeranian musketeer."
However, the Eastern question as a whole was for the German chancellor "an object of big politics." Maintaining a line of "equidistance" from Austria-Hungary and Russia did not prevent Bismarck from providing political support to Vienna during the Russian-Turkish war of 1877-1878. and during the revision of the terms of the San Stefano peace treaty between Russia and the Ottoman Empire at the Berlin Congress of 1878, which was held under his chairmanship. As a result, Russian-Austrian and Serbo-Bulgarian relations aggravated. Austria-Hungary received the right to occupy Bosnia and Herzegovina. Bismarck, who played at the congress, in his words, the role of an “honest broker”, later admitted that he considered it a “triumph of state art” to “leave open the eastern abscess and thereby upset the unity of other great powers and secure our (i.e. Germany) own world".
Bismarck was haunted by the "nightmare of coalitions", which he tried to dispel by creating a network of alliances involving Germany. Not wanting a break with Russia, he sought to make Austria-Hungary Germany's main ally. He had to overcome the stubborn resistance of Wilhelm I, who refused to commit "betrayal" against Russia. The secret Austro-German alliance treaty, signed in Vienna in October 1879, provided that if Russia attacked one of the parties, the other would come to its aid with all its armed forces and none of the allies would conclude a separate peace. If one of the parties is attacked by a third power (not Russia), the other side will observe benevolent neutrality.
The signing of the Austro-German treaty became a milestone in the development of German foreign policy. It turned out to be the most durable of all the treaties and agreements concluded by Bismarck, and the “dual alliance” created by him many years later initiated the outbreak of the First World War.
In order to isolate France, Bismarck took advantage of Italy's desire for rapprochement with Germany and declared that Italy should look for the key to the door that opens the way to Germany in Vienna.
The Italians managed to negotiate with the Austrians. As a result, on May 20, 1882, an agreement on the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy was signed in Vienna. In accordance with the treaty, Germany and Austria-Hungary undertook to assist Italy with all their forces if she were attacked by France, and Italy undertook to do the same in the event of a French attack on Germany. In subsequent years, the Treaty of the Triple Alliance was repeatedly extended and continued to operate until the First World War.
After negotiations that lasted a whole year, on June 6 (18), 1881, an agreement was signed between Germany, Russia and Austria-Hungary on the renewal of the “Union of the Three Emperors”, according to which, in the event of a war between one of the three powers and the fourth great power, the other two parties to the agreement were to maintain benevolent neutrality. Germany was guaranteed the neutrality of Russia if it was attacked by France.
Germany immediately acceded to the secret alliance treaty signed in 1883 between Austria-Hungary and Romania, which provided for mutual assistance in an attack on one of the parties. Italy acceded to this treaty only in 1888.
So, as a result of many years of efforts, Bismarck organized a system of blocs, which, according to his plan, was supposed to guarantee not only security, but also the hegemony of Germany on the European continent.
In the mid-1980s, the Bismarck government laid the foundations of the German colonial empire, principally by granting safe-conduct to German subjects involved in shipping and overseas trade. In April 1884, the coast of South-West Africa, acquired by the Bremen merchant Luderitz, turned out to be under the auspices of Germany. In the same year, an imperial protectorate was established over Togo and Cameroon.
In 1885, the adventurer Karl Peters, who took over vast territories in East Africa, and the Society for German Colonization, created by him, were issued an imperial "protection letter". In 1887 The German Colonial Society was formed. Germany's entry into the path of colonial conquest led to a sharp deterioration in her relations with England. Bismarck began to obstruct British policy in Egypt and the Congo.
But the focus of the "Iron Chancellor" has always been the balance of power in Europe. In response to revanchist agitation and measures to strengthen the army in France, Bismarck in 1886 introduced a bill to the Reichstag that increased the composition of the German army in peacetime and established a military budget for 7 years in advance. He argued that "the threat of war comes exclusively from France", and the press colorfully described this threat. However, fearing a war with Russia, Bismarck during the period of "military alarm" in 1887 was forced to refrain from attacking France.
The deterioration of relations between Russia and Austria-Hungary in connection with the events in the Balkans in 1885-1886. made it impossible to prolong the "Union of the Three Emperors". But as a result of lengthy negotiations, on June 6 (18), 1887, a secret Russian-German agreement was signed in Berlin, called the "reinsurance contract". The treaty stipulates that if one of the parties that has concluded it finds itself in a state of war with a third great power, the other side will maintain benevolent neutrality towards the first. As for the war with Austria-Hungary or France, the obligation to maintain neutrality came into force only when these countries attacked one of the contracting parties. Bismarck failed to obtain from Russia the obligation to observe neutrality during the German attack on France.
Meanwhile, a customs war broke out between Russia and Germany. In 1887, Bismarck ordered the Reichsbank not to accept Russian securities as collateral and suggested that German banks be freed from Russian valuables "in view of the obviously unstable state of Russian finances." Chief of the German General Staff Moltke and his assistant Waldersee, referring to the military reforms in Russia, insisted on a preventive war against her. However, Bismarck, intimidating Russia, was against such an idea and tried at all costs to avoid a war on two fronts. He wrote: “Even the most favorable outcome of the war will never lead to the disintegration of the main force of Russia, which is based on millions of Russians themselves ...”
The aggravation of contradictions with Russia and France prompted Bismarck to seek rapprochement with England, but negotiations with London were unsuccessful.
January 18, 1871 proclamation of the German Empire. The first German imperial chancellor was von Bismarck (1815-1898). For almost 20 years (1871-1890).
Bismarck has become an unattainable model. His power deliberately pursued public goals and dynastic interests. Self-interest was sacrificed. All his achievements were not appreciated by his contemporaries or followers. He was not a monarchist and was not an adherent of Prussian hegemony. Its main goal is the national interest.
administrative reform.
1872. in Prussia, an administrative reform was carried out, according to which the hereditary patrimonial power of the Junkers in the countryside was canceled;
- In communities, she passed to elected elders,
- in the volost - to the amtman, Amtman ruled with the participation of elected elders
- in the district - to the landrat, who were appointed by the Prussian king from candidates presented by the local elected assembly, almost always from among the local landowners. Under the landrats, district councils were formed, which were elected according to a three-class electoral system.
As a result, the state apparatus was strengthened in the interests of the junkers.
financial reform.
Strengthening the economic and political position of the country, the imperial government introduced 1871 - 1873. single monetary system. adopted as the main currency gold mark. AT 1875. the Prussian bank was transformed into the Reichsbank (Reichsbank) with a monopoly on the issuance of bank notes throughout the empire. Centralization of mail.
Judicial reform.
AT 1876. laws were passed that determined a single system of justice throughout the empire. They met with strong resistance from the South German states, and here the practical application of the new legal proceedings began only in 1879. According to the judicial reform, the highest court was imperial court, but the seat of the imperial court was established not in the capital of the empire - Berlin, but in the Saxon city Leipzig. With this gesture, the German government made an ostentatious concession.
military sphere.
After the formation of the empire, Bismarck always dreamed of revenge on the part of the defeated in the war of 1870-1871. France. AT 1874. with the support of the National Liberal faction, he achieved the approval of the Reichstag military budget immediately on seven years ahead.
Kulturkampf.
Bismarck's policy of Prussianization of Germany was opposed by the Catholic clergy, who sought to maintain their former independence and influence. To fight with Prussianization Some sections of the population of the southwestern states of Germany also rose, subjected to heavy national oppression: the Poles, the French population of Alsace and Lorraine. The party of the Catholic "center" acted as a "defender" of the interests of these peoples, as it saw in this a means of strengthening its political role.
To break the stubbornness of the Catholic Church and the "center" party, Bismarck held in 1872 the law, according to which the clergy was deprived of the right to supervise schools, the priests were forbidden to conduct political agitation. At the same time, the so-called May Laws were adopted by the Prussian Landtag. was held civil record law marriages, births and deaths, which took away from the church the rights that strengthened its social influence, and very solid sources of income . Catholic clergy disobeyed these laws and boycotted them. Pope Pius IX issued a call to fight. Bismarck responded by arresting and deporting recalcitrant priests from Germany.
Catholic priests began to pose as "martyrs" of the church. Bismarck's struggle with recalcitrant priests was compared with the persecution of Christians by ancient Roman emperors. The clergy must submit to the spiritual court, and the spiritual court is arranged by secular authorities, The state appoints pastors., Religious education is removed from episcopal jurisdiction., The clergy as a whole were subordinate to secular authorities, the activities of the Jesuit Order, etc. were prohibited.
In order to fight the working class, Bismarck agreed to reconcile with the opposition "Centre" party. During the period from 1878 to 1882. Almost all laws against the Catholic Church were repealed. All that remained of the Kulturkampf legislation was the law on civil marriage and government oversight of schools.
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Domestic policy of Chancellor Bismarck.
Otto Eduard Leopold Karl-Wilhelm-Ferdinand Duke von Lauenburg Prince von Bismarck und Schönhausen(German Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck-Schönhausen; April 1, 1815 - July 30, 1898) - Prince, politician, statesman, the first Chancellor of the German Empire (Second Reich), nicknamed the "Iron Chancellor". He had the honorary rank (peacetime) of the Prussian Colonel General with the rank of Field Marshal (March 20, 1890).
German unification
Domestic politics
In 1872-1875, on the initiative and under pressure from Bismarck, laws were passed against the Catholic Church depriving the clergy of the right to supervise schools, prohibiting the Jesuit order in Germany, making civil marriage compulsory, repealing articles of the constitution that provided for the autonomy of the church, etc. These measures so-called. "Kulturkampf", dictated by purely political considerations of the struggle against the particularist-clerical opposition, seriously limited the rights of the Catholic clergy; attempts of disobedience provoked reprisals. This led to the alienation from the state of the Catholic part of the population. In 1878, Bismarck passed through the Reichstag an "exceptional law" against the socialists, which prohibited the activities of social democratic organizations.
In 1879, Bismarck secured the adoption by the Reichstag of a protectionist customs tariff. Liberals were forced out of big politics. The new course of economic and financial policy corresponded to the interests of large industrialists and large farmers. Their union occupied a dominant position in political life and in public administration. In 1881-89, Bismarck passed "social laws" (on insurance of workers in case of illness and injury, on pensions for old age and disability), which laid the foundations for the social insurance of workers. At the same time, he demanded a tougher anti-worker policy and during the 80s. successfully sought the extension of the "exceptional law". The dual policy towards workers and socialists prevented their integration into the social and state structure of the empire.
Ticket 8.
1. Colonial rivalry between European powers in the second half of the 19th - early 20th centuries.
By the end of the XVIII century. in most of the Spanish and Portuguese possessions in America, revolutionary changes were also ripe. The growth of economic, political, social and national contradictions between the Spaniards and the Portuguese, who concentrated in their hands all the highest posts in the administration, the army and the church, on the one hand, and the majority of the population, including landowners, merchants and Creole industrialists (descendants of Europeans of American origin) , - on the other hand, ultimately led to the War of Independence 1810-1826. As a result, all possessions of Spain, with the exception of Cuba and Puerto Rico, became free states. Brazil, in which the liberation movement developed mainly in peaceful forms, achieved independence in 1822 (the formal recognition of the independence of Latin American countries by Spain and Portugal dragged on for decades).
After North and South America gained independence, the colonial interests of the European powers focused on the East and Africa. It was there that colonialism reached its highest flourishing and power, it was there that the disintegration of the colonial system began and ended.
In the 40s. 19th century The British East India Company, after a bloody war, conquered the principality of Punjab and other still independent parts of India, thereby completing its complete subjugation. An active colonial development of the country began: the construction of railways, reforms of land tenure, land use and the tax system, which were aimed at adapting traditional ways of doing business and a way of life to the interests of England.
The subjugation of India opened the way for the British to the north and east, to Afghanistan and Burma. In Afghanistan, the colonial interests of England and Russia clashed. After the Anglo-Afghan wars of 1838-1842 and 1878-1881. the British established control over the foreign policy of this country, but they could not achieve its complete subordination.
As a result of the first (1824-1826) and second (1852-1853) Anglo-Burmese wars waged by the East India Company, its army, which consisted mainly of hired Indian sepoy soldiers under the command of English officers, occupied a large part of Burma. The so-called Upper Burma, which retained its independence, was cut off from the sea in the 60s. England imposed on her unequal treaties, and in the 80s. completely subjugated the entire country.
In the 19th century increased British expansion in Southeast Asia. In 1819, a naval base was founded in Singapore, which became the main stronghold of England in this part of the world. Less successfully for the British ended a long-standing rivalry with Holland in Indonesia, where they managed to establish themselves only in the north of Borneo and small islands.
In the middle of the XIX century. France captured South Vietnam and made it its colony in the 80s. ousted a weakening China from North Vietnam and established a protectorate over it. At the end of the XIX century. The French created the so-called Indochinese Union, which included Vietnam, Cambodia and Laos. The French governor-general was placed at the head of the union.
In the 19th century completed the colonization of Australia. On the territory of New South Wales, the colonies of Tasmania, Victoria (named after the Dutch traveler Tasman and the English Queen Victoria) and Queensland stood out, and new independent settlements of Western and South Australia were formed. The influx of free settlers increased. In the middle of the XIX century. they achieved an end to the deportation of convicts to Australia. In the 50s. gold was discovered in New South Wales and Victoria. This attracted to Australia not only new thousands of colonists, but also capital.
In 1882, Egypt was occupied by British troops, and in 1914 England established its own protectorate over it. In 1922, the protectorate was abolished, Egypt was proclaimed an independent and sovereign state, but this was independence on paper, since England completely controlled the economic, foreign policy and military spheres of his life.
By the beginning of the XX century. over 90% of the territory of Africa belonged to the largest colonial powers: England, France, Germany, Belgium, Italy, Portugal, Spain.
At the turn of the XIX and XX centuries. colonial rivalry and the struggle for spheres of influence in the world escalated. In 1898, the American-Spanish war broke out, as a result of which the United States captured the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Guam, the Hawaiian Islands and established control over Cuba, which received formal independence. After the Russo-Japanese War, Japan established de facto dominance over Korea and Manchuria. Anglo-Boer War 1899-1902 completed the "gathering" of lands in southern Africa by England. European powers actively intervened in the economic and political life of the countries that were part of the decaying Ottoman Empire.
After the First World War, one of the main reasons for which was colonial rivalry, there was a territorial redivision of the world.
In 1919, the League of Nations was created, on behalf of which trusteeship was established over the possessions of Germany and Turkey. The colonies of the vanquished were taken over by the victors. Australia received German possessions in New Guinea, Germany's African colonies went to England (Tanganyika, part of Togo and Cameroon), Belgium (Rwanda and Burundi), France (part of Togo and Cameroon), the Union of South Africa (Southwest Africa). France also received Syria and Lebanon, which belonged to Turkey, and Japan, which hardly participated in the war, bargained for the German port of Qingdao in China and the islands in the Pacific Ocean.
With common goals, the colonial policy of each power had its own characteristics. For example, Portugal, in addition to the methods of military-police suppression and economic exploitation practiced by all colonial powers, also used other rather subtle means of influencing subject peoples, including encouraging mixed marriages and granting the right to assimilate, i.e. equalize in one way or another in rights with the Europeans. True, in order to become the so-called "assimiladush", one had to prove one's preparedness for this in terms of the level of education and social status. It is not surprising, therefore, that in Angola, which was subordinated to Portugal in the middle of the 19th - early 20th centuries, in the 30s. 20th century there were only 24 thousand assimilated souls out of about 3 million inhabitants, in Mozambique - 1.8 thousand out of 4.3 million, in the vast Belgian Congo, where the system of colonial government was similar to the Portuguese, in the 50s. only 0.8 thousand of the approximately 14 million indigenous people partially received the rights that Europeans had in this colony.
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Otto Eduard Leopold von Schönhausen Bismarck
Bismarck Otto Eduard Leopold von Schonhausen Prussian-German statesman, the first Chancellor of the German Empire.
Carier start
A native of the Pomeranian Junkers. Studied law in Göttingen and Berlin. In 1847-48 he was a deputy to the 1st and 2nd Prussian Landtags, during the revolution of 1848 he advocated armed suppression of unrest. One of the organizers of the Prussian Conservative Party. In 1851-59 Prussian representative in the Bundestag in Frankfurt am Main. In 1859-1862 Prussian ambassador to Russia, in 1862 Prussian ambassador to France. In September 1862, during a constitutional conflict between the Prussian royal government and the liberal majority of the Prussian Landtag, Bismarck was called by King Wilhelm I to the post of Prussian minister-president; stubbornly defended the rights of the crown and achieved a resolution of the conflict in her favor.
German unification
Under the leadership of Bismarck, the unification of Germany was carried out by means of a "revolution from above" as a result of three victorious wars of Prussia: in 1864 together with Austria against Denmark, in 1866 against Austria, in 1870-71 against France. Remaining loyal to the Junkers and loyal to the Prussian monarchy, Bismarck was forced during this period to link his actions with the German national liberal movement. He managed to embody the hopes of the rising bourgeoisie and the national aspirations of the German people, to ensure Germany's breakthrough on the path to an industrial society.
Domestic politics
After the formation of the North German Confederation in 1867, Bismarck became the Bundeschancellor. In the German Empire proclaimed on January 18, 1871, he received the highest state post of imperial chancellor, and, in accordance with the constitution of 1871, practically unlimited power. In the first years after the formation of the empire, Bismarck had to reckon with the liberals who constituted the parliamentary majority. But the desire to ensure Prussia's dominant position in the empire, to strengthen the traditional social and political hierarchy and its own power caused constant friction in relations between the chancellor and parliament. The system created and carefully guarded by Bismarck - a strong executive power, personified by himself, and a weak parliament, a repressive policy towards the workers' and socialist movement did not correspond to the tasks of a rapidly developing industrial society. This was the underlying cause of the weakening of Bismarck's position by the end of the 80s.
In 1872-1875, on the initiative and under pressure from Bismarck, laws were passed against the Catholic Church depriving the clergy of the right to supervise schools, prohibiting the Jesuit order in Germany, making civil marriage compulsory, repealing articles of the constitution that provided for the autonomy of the church, etc. These measures so-called. "Kulturkampf", dictated by purely political considerations of the struggle against the particularist-clerical opposition, seriously limited the rights of the Catholic clergy; attempts of disobedience provoked reprisals. This led to the alienation from the state of the Catholic part of the population.
In 1878, Bismarck passed through the Reichstag an "exceptional law" against the socialists, which prohibited the activities of social democratic organizations. In 1879, Bismarck secured the adoption by the Reichstag of a protectionist customs tariff. Liberals were forced out of big politics. The new course of economic and financial policy corresponded to the interests of large industrialists and large farmers. Their union occupied a dominant position in political life and in public administration. In 1881-89, Bismarck passed "social laws" (on insurance of workers in case of illness and injury, on pensions for old age and disability), which laid the foundations for the social insurance of workers. At the same time, he demanded a tougher anti-worker policy and during the 80s. successfully sought the extension of the "exceptional law". The dual policy towards workers and socialists prevented their integration into the social and state structure of the empire.
Foreign policy
Bismarck built his foreign policy on the basis of the situation that developed in 1871 after the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian war and the capture of Alsace and Lorraine by Germany, which became a source of constant tension. With the help of a complex system of alliances that ensured the isolation of France, the rapprochement of Germany with Austria-Hungary and the maintenance of good relations with Russia (the alliance of the three emperors of Germany, Austria-Hungary and Russia in 1873 and 1881; the Austro-German alliance in 1879; the Triple Alliance between Germany, Austria-Hungary and Hungary and Italy in 1882; the Mediterranean agreement of 1887 between Austria-Hungary, Italy and England and the "reinsurance agreement" with Russia in 1887) Bismarck managed to maintain peace in Europe; The German Empire became one of the leaders in international politics.
Career decline
However, in the late 1980s, this system began to crack. A rapprochement between Russia and France was planned. The colonial expansion of Germany, begun in the 80s, aggravated Anglo-German relations. Russia's refusal to renew the "reinsurance pact" at the beginning of 1890 was a serious setback for the Chancellor. Bismarck's failure in domestic politics was the failure of his plan to turn the "exceptional law" against the socialists into a permanent one. In January 1890 the Reichstag refused to renew it. As a result of contradictions with the new emperor Wilhelm II and with the military command on foreign and colonial policy and on the labor issue, Bismarck was dismissed in March 1890 and spent the last 8 years of his life on his Friedrichsruh estate.
S. V. Obolenskaya
Encyclopedia of Cyril and Methodius
Back to Bismarck's main page
2.1.2. Prussian socialism.
With the formation of the German Empire, socialist movements began to develop in its industrial regions. One of the important prerequisites for this was the adoption by Bismarck of such a regulatory legal act as the “Law Concerning the Equalization of the Rights of Religions in Their Civil Rights” in 1869, extending to the territory of the North German Confederation, and since 1971 to the territory of the entire German Empire. Seeing the socialists as a threat to the empire's political regime, Bismarck attempted to enact new repressive legislation. Perhaps this attitude towards the socialists was the reason for the assassination attempt on the chancellor in Bad Kissingen in 1874. After that, Bismarck actively tried to pass through the Reichstag a decree on the control of all clubs and associations by the state, but he was rejected by the centrists and liberal progressives. The result of Bismarck's efforts were only some changes in the articles of the criminal code concerning these associations. Bismarck was not at all happy with the fact that he began to lose his huge influence in the Reichstag because of the parties of the left. Therefore, the chancellor turned to public opinion. In newspapers and various speeches, Bismarck's thoughts began to flicker that the liberals and socialists were trying to destroy the empire from within. And on the wave of public opinion, Bismarck finally received the support of a majority in the Reichstag. In the 1877 elections, the Liberals lost their majority in Parliament, which again swung noticeably to the right.
In 1878, Bismarck demanded a harsh law against socialists of all denominations. The reason for this was the attack on the emperor committed in the same year. Without any serious evidence, Bismarck declared the attacker a member of the Social Democratic Party (it included Marxists, Lassalleans, etc.), founded in Gotha in 1875. But a member of the National Liberal Party, Benigsen (1824-1902), in the Bundesrat, on behalf of the right-liberal faction, declared that Bismarck's demand was "a declaration of war on the Reichstag", and he was rejected.
In June 1878, another attempt was made to assassinate the emperor. Bismarck tried to use this as an excuse to dissolve the deputies, pass anti-socialist laws, and win a parliamentary majority to implement his tariff reforms. But the deputation from Baden spoke out against the dissolution of parliament. Then Bismarck declared that he needed "unanimous support" and began to threaten him with resignation or a coup d'état. The Bundesrat relented, and the elections of July 30, 1878, resulted in the Conservatives and Centrists gaining a strong majority in the German Parliament at the expense of the Liberals and Socialists (who, however, received two more mandates than before). Now Bismarck again had great influence in the Reichstag, where the number of his supporters increased.
After that, the chancellor began to act. And the first thing he did was to pass through the Reichstag a bill directed against the socialists. The Social Democratic Party was banned, as well as its rallies, the socialists were deprived of the license for their publications. But deputies, former members of the party, could still be elected to the Reichstag and freely deliver their critical speeches against the state system in it, and gather in Switzerland and from there forward publications to Germany.
Another outcome of the new alignment of forces in the Reichstag was the opportunity to introduce protectionist economic reforms to overcome the economic crisis that had lasted since 1873. With these reforms, the chancellor managed to greatly disorient the national liberals and win over the centrists. Thus, in 1878 it became clear that Bismarck's period of more liberal and democratic policies was over.
The 1881 elections were effectively a defeat for Bismarck: Bismarck's conservative parties and liberals lost out to the Center parties, progressive liberals and socialists. The situation became even more serious when the opposition parties united in order to cut the cost of maintaining the army.
Germany lagged behind England and France in regulating the relationship between employers and employees.
But Bismarck conceived the so-called pension reforms as a means to transform the working class into a class loyal to the state and conservative, that is, cherishing their position. He began by submitting to the Reichstag a project for the health insurance of workers (1883), which provided for the payment of sickness benefits from its third day for a maximum of 13 weeks. After three years of debate, accident insurance was introduced in 1884. Compensation was 2/3 of the average salary and started from the 14th week of illness; the responsibility for paying this compensation rested with business associations based on cooperative principles. Finally, in 1889, the Reichstag passed a law on pensions due to age or disability. However, the amounts paid on the basis of this law remained extremely small for a long time, averaging 152 marks per year by 1914, while the average annual salary was equal to 1083 marks in the same year.
As a result, government measures for various reasons did not satisfy both employees and employers. Moreover, in principle, they could not stop the growth of the social democratic movement, since the goal of the latter was the development of social control, and not social compensation. But one cannot but agree that the labor insurance measures developed by Bismarck far exceeded those adopted in other industrialized countries, and became the basis for further social reforms.
Already after the death of Wilhelm I, the changes on the German throne greatly increased the instability of the political system. One of the reasons for this: the understanding of the inefficiency of repressive methods and the bribery of workers by "social reform". If under William I all this was kept in a state of equilibrium, then with his death the balance was disturbed. To the new Kaiser, the ambitious Wilhelm II, Bismarck's policy seemed old-fashioned, too limited, devoid of global scope, so the chancellor was fired. Bismarck had to leave because, in the conditions of the rapid capitalist development of Germany reunited by him, deep class contradictions had already grown between the bourgeois junkers and the growing working class. The exceptional laws against socialists introduced and existing for 12 years could not eliminate these contradictions.
2.2. The foreign policy of Otto von Bismarck.
2.2.1. Bismarck's system of alliances.
The Peace of Frankfurt, signed between Germany and France in 1871 after the end of the war, became the basis of the foreign policy of Bismarck Germany. The chancellor sought to perpetuate this peace, as he provided Germany with significant privileges in relation to France. Meanwhile, the peace, which completed the victory of reunited Germany over defeated France, further aggravated the contradictions that had already existed between these powers, this was aggravated by the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine to Germany.
Thus, after the Peace of Frankfurt, Bismarck could always be sure that if Germany had an enemy, then France would certainly become his ally. New tasks arose from this: to weaken the internal forces of France and isolate her in the international arena. Hence his desire to prevent a rapprochement between Austria and France, who have “sharpened their teeth on Germany”, hence his desire to strengthen relations with Russia.
Bismarck tells in his memoirs that even at the height of the campaign against France, he was preoccupied with strengthening relations with Russia and Austria-Hungary. Thus, he sought to prevent a possible repetition of a coalition of three powers: Russia, Austria and France. He reveals another hidden thought, which he was already occupied with at that time - to attract Italy to the future union of the monarchical powers.
In addition, Bismarck was looking for an ally in the person of England, but the British government took a neutral side. Around the same time, Bismarck declared that as long as England did not realize that she could find her only and reliable ally on the continent in the person of Germany, good relations with Russia were of the greatest value to Germany.
Bismarck brought to the fore the idea of common dynastic interests of the three Eastern European monarchies. On this basis, he created the Union of the Three Emperors - German, Russian and Austrian (1873). The main goal that Bismarck pursued in creating an alliance was to strengthen the European positions of the young German Empire. In the alliance of the three emperors, Bismarck sought to ensure Germany's international position, which had developed after the Frankfurt Peace. He sought to use not only his political rapprochement with both empires, but also the contradictions between them. To no lesser extent, he sought to use the contradictions between Russia and England.
At that time, Bismarck needed Russia's friendship in order to isolate France, which paid the indemnity ahead of schedule and began to strengthen its army. France, after the defeat of the Paris Commune, began to prepare for revenge. The German government was not going to wait until the French took the political or military initiative into their own hands. It was necessary to make a preemptive strike. To this end, Bismarck formulated the well-known militaristic concept of preventive war. “A state like Prussia or Germany,” Bismarck argued, “can be attacked from three or four sides, and therefore it will be natural if, under certain circumstances, this state, at the most advantageous moment for itself, having forestalled the enemy, itself starts hostilities against him” fourteen.
Bismarck understood that, without securing the neutral position of Russia, Germany could not start a war with France again, so he tried with all his might to influence the Russian government, but failed due to Gorchakov's intervention. It became quite clear that Russia would not stand aside if hostilities began, but the most unexpected thing for Bismarck was that England also showed interest in this issue. Thus, instead of the desired isolation of France, symptoms of a possible isolation of Germany were revealed if she undertook a new war. It was clear that the alliance of the three emperors - the faction on which Bismarck tried to rely - had cracked.
By the end of the 70s, Bismarck began to support the active colonial expansion of the French bourgeoisie in order to ease the tense situation between the countries. He knew that along the way France would run into England (in Indo-China and Egypt) and Italy (in Tunisia). But at the same time, Bismarck supported both England and Italy as France's colonial rivals. Even earlier, he began to push tsarist Russia with Austria to a conflict in the Middle East. But about the latter, it should be said that Bismarck did not seek to start a war between Russia and Austria-Hungary, since the undoubted victory of Russia in this war would lead Germany to a certain dependence on the “new eastern neighbor”. In Austria, he saw a counterbalance to Russia. At the same time, he did not give up the idea of using another counterbalance - England. But Bismarck still chose Austria. In 1879, an alliance treaty was signed with Austria-Hungary, which was guaranteed armed assistance in the event of a war with Russia. For its part, Austria-Hungary, providing Germany with assistance in the event of a war with Russia, pledged to remain neutral in the event of a war with France. This was another major crack for the Three Emperors Alliance.
Thus, drawing a line under the above, Bismarck stubbornly sought to avert the danger of a war with Russia, which would inevitably turn into a war on two fronts for Germany. The weakened "Union of the Three Emperors" in 1881 was reinforced by the Austro-Russian-German agreement on the mutual neutrality of these powers if one of them was attacked by a fourth, in particular in the event of an attack by England on Russia or France against Germany. But there was little hope for this treaty.
Bismarck did not abandon attempts to isolate France, and therefore encouraged Italy to compete with France, its claims to Tunisia captured by France and helped to muffle its claims to Trieste and Trentino (northern Italy) that belonged to Austria-Hungary. But Austria-Hungary considered its main enemy not Italy, but Russia. This allowed Germany, Italy and Austria-Hungary in 1882 to sign the "Triple Alliance" for a period of five years. Bismarck again got what he needed: the obligation of Italy to support Germany in the event of an attack on her by France (Austria-Hungary did not have such an obligation). If France attacked Italy, then both allies should have helped her. If one of the parties to the treaty was attacked by two great powers at once, military assistance was provided to him. If one of the participants himself attacked someone, he was provided with neutrality from both partners. Special statements emphasized that the provisions of the treaty should not be considered directed against England. In his memoirs, Bismarck says that “the Tripartite Alliance is a strategic position which, in view of the dangers that threatened us at the time of its conclusion, was prudent and, under the circumstances, achievable.” Based on the above, a conclusion can be drawn. From the moment of the formation of the German Empire, Bismarck waged a tense struggle in the field of foreign policy for the establishment of the state in the international arena. He managed to create around Germany a large and complex system of alliances and groupings. He sought to insure and reinsure himself in various situations that arose as quickly as they collapsed. In my opinion, one of the main reasons for the creation of various alliances and the conclusion of treaties of Germany with other countries was Bismarck's desire to resolve the conflict with France. The "Iron Chancellor" showed his diplomatic talent in this situation. He literally "juggled" the countries of Europe and "walked along the edge of the abyss", fighting for the interests of the empire. As a result, Bismarck secured himself to the best of his ability against the threat from France and made Germany the center of a system of alliances that had to be maintained and perhaps even expanded on occasion.
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