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Published online by Cambridge University Press: 01 December 2010
I have very rarely thought it requisite to occupy your Lordship's attention with any details of local affairs unless they had an influence on, or connexion with, the general politics of the German Confederation. The present condition of Wurtemberg may however appear to deserve some attention as exceptional, and nearly singularly so, for besides Weimar it is the only state which retains the “Grundrechte” as reported to your Lordship in Lord Augustus Loftus's Despatch No 4 of the 2nd instt.
1 The Reichsgesetz, betreffend die Grundrechte des deutschen Volkes was adopted by the Frankfurt National Assembly on 20 December 1848 and promulgated on 27 December. Formally a part of the 1849 Reichsverfassung, the Basic Rights Law guaranteed individual, civil, and political rights. It was announced in Württemberg by the ministerial decree of 16 January 1849.
2 On 23 August 1851, the Federal Diet annulled the Basic Rights Law and – in a second resolution (Beschluß zur Wahrung der öffentlichen Sicherheit und Ordnung im Deutschen Bund) – called upon the German governments to revise their respective constitutions, laws, and institutions according to federal law. Federal intervention was threatened for cases of non-compliance.
3 The constitutional project, which had been under discussion since 1849, was presented to the second chamber on 13 June 1851.
4 According to the ministerial proposal, the first chamber was to be appointed on the basis of property and tax payments and not – as in the constitution of 1819 – on the basis of feudal privileges. The royal princes, the representatives of the Churches, the university, and ten persons chosen by the king were additional members.
5 The Römer administration was dismissed in October 1849 and a new government was formed under Johannes von Schlayer. In his dispatch, Malet refers to the conservative cabinet under Joseph Freiherr von Linden that followed in July 1850.
6 In his analysis, Malet conflates the different proposals for reform made by the Württemberg government since December 1849. The scheme proposed in June 1851 (see n. 4 in this section) was based on property qualifications, so the aristocracy would have retained a majority in the first chamber.
7 See n. 9 in Frankfurt section.
8 See n. 14 in Hanover section.
9 A low-denomination Austrian banknote. Austrian paper money was inconvertible, and depreciated in value throughout the 1850s in relation to silver.
10 The imperial patent (for all crown lands) of 6 November 1851 had introduced a new tariff from 1 February 1852.
11 Despite the decree of Prince Regent Friedrich on 27 April, Hermann von Vicari, Archbishop of Freiburg, prohibited requiem masses on 10 May for the late Protestant Grand Duke Leopold. Instead, he ordered that only a funerary oration and Psalm-singing were to be allowed, and this would take place on the evening of Sunday 9 May. The proclamation of the Baden government of 6 May insisted upon the requiem mass, and cited the precedents of full funerary services for Karl Friedrich (1811), Karl (1818), and Ludwig (1830).
12 Enclosures: proclamation of Grand Ducal Minster of Interior, Adolf Freiherr Marschall von Bieberstein, regarding the celebration of Funeral Service in the Catholic Church, 6 May 1852 (original and translation).
13 The ecclesiastical province consisted of the Archbishopric of Freiburg (Baden) and the Bishoprics of Mainz (Hesse-Darmstadt; Bishop Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler), Fulda (Electoral Hesse; Bishop Christoph Florentius Kött), Rottenburg (Württemberg; Bishop Josef von Lipp), and Limburg (Nassau; Bishop Peter Josef Blum).
14 Loftus refers to the Prussian church conflict over mixed marriages (1837–1841).
15 In their memorandum of March 1851, the bishops addressed their sovereigns and demanded the abolition of state supremacy and superintendence over the Catholic Church, which had been instituted in the joint landesherrliche Verordnungen of 1830. Their specific demands included: the privilege of training and appointment of priests; the maintenance of Catholic schools; the establishment of religious societies and associations; and the power of disposal of Church property.
16 Eugen von Seyfried.
17 Einleitung in die Geschichte des neunzehnten Jahrhunderts (Leipzig, 1853).
18 Enclosures: copy of report from Loftus to Magenis, dated 12 February 1853; accusation laid by the Attorney General at Mannheim against the writing of Professor Gervinus, dated 12 January 1853 (original and translation); reply of Professor Gervinus delivered to the Bailiwick of Heidelberg, dated 28 January 1853 (original and translation).
19 Friedrich.
20 For the Gotha Party see n. 7 in Frankfurt section.
21 For the Bamberg Conference of 25–30 May 1854 see n. 9 in Bavaria section.
22 Act of the Confederation of 1815 (Articles 2 and 11) and the Vienna Final Act of 1820 (Articles 36–49).
23 Constantin Freiherr von Neurath to Wilhelm, 5 and 6 July 1854. Neurath resigned from his post as foreign minister on 10 July 1854; Wilhelm accepted this resignation on 14 July.
24 The Austrian request on 14 January 1855 for mobilization was rejected by the majority of the Federal Diet on 8 February. Instead, the federal army was merely placed on a general war footing.
25 Speech of Linden on 6 March 1855. On 22 February 1855, Otto von Bismarck explained to the Federal Diet that the federal resolution of 8 February only pertained to Article 2 of the Federal Act of 1815, which declared the general duty to maintain the internal and external security of Germany.
26 These were, respectively, Ferrière le Vayer, Maximilian Joseph Freiherr von Handel, Theodor Franz Christian Graf zu Seckendorff-Gutend, and Max von Neumayr.
27 King Wilhelm alluded to Napoleon III's visit to England from 16 to 21 April 1855.
28 Lord John Russell was British plenipotentiary to the Vienna conference on the Eastern Question from 4 March to 23 April 1855.
29 Crown Prince Karl and Olga Nikolaevna.
30 The chambers were dissolved on 20 August 1855 and new elections for the second chamber were held in December 1855.
31 Hamilton refers to the government's attempts to alter the municipal electoral law. The bill, which was rejected by the second chamber on 21 February 1855, proposed a three-class suffrage that favoured the large aristocratic landowners.
32 On 14 July 1855, the government of Württemberg had retracted a bill that would have compensated the nobility for the losses incurred as the result of the laws enacted in April 1848 and June 1849, which had included the abolition of tithes.
33 Article 14 of the Act of the German Confederation of 1815.
34 ‘A vexed or disputed question’.
35 In addition to proposals to compensate the nobility, the second chamber rejected the proposal for the reorganization of local administrations, the ban on the municipal corporations’ right to petition the government, and the increase of salaries for ministers of state.
36 Carl Pfeifer.
37 Crown Prince Karl had married Olga Nikolaevna on 13 July 1846.
38 ‘That peace is being worked towards’; for the peace negotiations with Russia see n. 27 in Frankfurt section.
39 ‘Ulterior motive’.
40 ‘More good faith and less ill will’.
41 Ferrière le Vayer referred to Linden's speech in the first chamber on 6 March 1856. For the disputed interpretation of the federal resolution of 8 February 1855 on the mobilization of the federal army, see n. 25 in this section.
42 ‘All that I desire is that we are left in peace.’
43 Karl.
44 Sophie.
45 Olga Nikolaevna.
46 Luise Marie.
47 See n. 30 in this section.
48 Karl had reproached Berlichingen for neglecting his official duties, as he had not ordered a royal carriage for the crown prince's guest, Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich of Russia, in good time.
49 Muzhik: Russian peasant.
50 Constitution of 25 September 1819.
51 Edikt über die Besoldungen der Staats-Diener, 18 November 1817.
52 The March Ministry of 1848–1849 had reduced ministerial salaries with the agreement of the Landtag. In 1855, the Württemberg government attempted to raise these back to their pre-1848 levels, but was opposed in the chamber of deputies. As a result, the government raised the salaries without the agreement of the chambers in October 1855 and June 1856.
53 Gustav von Rümelin (speech in the chamber of deputies, 10 July 1858).
54 Johannes Schlayer.
55 Jerningham refers to the intervention of the Federal Diet in the Hanoverian constitutional struggle in 1855. See nn. 75 and 126 in Hanover section.
56 For Wilhelm's regency in Prussia see n. 45 in Frankfurt section.
57 15th Polizeikonferenz, 6–8 August 1860. The police conferences were held from 1851, for the purposes of exchanging information regarding police procedures and activities.
58 The first general assembly of the Nationalverein (see n. 71 in Frankfurt section) took place in Coburg on 3–5 September 1860.
59 Diet of the German Confederation.
60 Gottfried Kinkel.
61 Ernst II.
62 Queen Victoria visited Coburg from 25 September to 10 October 1860.
63 The federal resolution on the press of 1854 (see n. 29 in Hanover section) was published as a royal decree in the Staatsanzeiger für Württemberg on 11 January 1856.
64 Meeting of the Württemberg Fortschrittspartei (Progressive Party) in Esslingen on 3 February 1861, with 700 participants.
65 Gordon was British envoy to Hanover at the time of the Second War of Italian Independence in May and June 1859.
66 See n. 58 in Hanover section.
67 The saying ‘It is worse than a crime, it is a blunder’ (C'est pire qu'une crime, c'est une faute) – which originally referred to the murder of the duc d'Enghien by Napoleon I in 1804 – was ascribed to Talleyrand.
68 The question of the revision of the federal military law (Bundeskriegsverfassung) of 1821 remained unresolved after Austria's rejection of Prussia's proposal for a defensive alliance, as put forward at the Berlin military conferences (January–April 1861). While Prussia proposed to divide the federal army into Prussian and Austrian parts, the Würzburg Coalition, which reassembled for its third conference from 21 to 23 May 1861, advocated the creation of an independent military contingent of the German middle states. See pp. 426–428.
69 At the banquet, which was held at Baden-Baden on 7 April 1861 on the occasion of the opening of the railway bridge between Strasburg and Kehl, Reinhard von Dalwigk toasted Napoleon III.
70 Sir Alexander Malet, envoy to the German Confederation at Frankfurt, was also accredited to Hesse-Darmstadt.
71 The flower show was held from 31 March to 18 April 1861 in the conservatories of Biebrich castle, the summer residence of the Duke of Nassau.
72 Wilhelm visited Darmstadt on 3 April 1861.
73 The Hessian authorities, in the decree of 21 September 1859, were advised to take legal action against all members of the Nationalverein (for whom, see n. 71 in Frankfurt section). The Hessian government based this procedure on the decree of 2 October 1850, which expressly forbade participation in foreign and domestic political organizations.
74 Dalwigk stayed in Paris in April 1861 for personal reasons, and not (as Crowe suspected) on the orders of the south German states to inform Napoleon III of their willingness to accept French protection.
75 Augsburger Allgemeine Zeitung.
76 On 2 February 1862, the envoys to Berlin of the signatory states of the Austro-Bavarian protocol of 22 January (with the exception of Saxony) presented identical notes to Bernstorff, the Prussian minister for foreign affairs, rejecting the plan for a smaller union put forward in his dispatch of 20 December to the Prussian envoy to Dresden, Carl Friedrich von Savigny. Saxony addressed a separate note to the Prussian government on the same day.
77 Hanover and Saxony.
78 Denkschrift der königlichen Regierung zu dem Projekt einer Reform des deutschen Bundes, 15 October 1861.
79 Gustav von der Schulenburg-Priemern.
80 The Baden minister of foreign affairs, Franz Freiherr Roggenbach, advocated a ‘Doppelbund’, made up of a smaller union under Prussian leadership, and a wider union including Austria.
81 The Würzburg Coalition was named after the conferences on federal reforms that were held in Würzburg from 1859 to 1861. See n. 55 in Hanover section and nn. 57 and 58 in Bavaria section.
82 For the identical notes of 2 February 1862 see n. 76 in this section.
83 Ferdinand Freiherr von Beust had already officially presented his reform proposal (see n. 78 in this section) to Prussia on 11 November 1861. In his note to Karl Adolf Graf von Hohental-Knauthain of 11 January 1862, Beust answered Bernstorff's plan for German unity of 20 December 1861 (see n. 76 in this section).
84 The Olmütz Punctation, signed by Austria and Prussia on 29 November 1850, forced Prussia to abandon its union project, and thereby its claim for supremacy in Germany.
85 Prussian answer of 14 February 1862.
86 For Roggenbach's position see n. 80 in this section.
87 For the Nationalverein see n. 71 in Frankfurt section.
88 ‘Inertia’.
89 For the Franco-Prussian Commercial Treaty of 1862 see n. 88 in Frankfurt section.
90 The treaty of 8 April 1853 (Verlängerungs- und Erneuerungsvertrag) agreed that the Zollverein would be extended until 31 December 1865.
91 See n. 88 in Frankfurt section.
92 Otto von Bismarck to Gustav von der Schulenburg-Priemern, dated Berlin, 12 November 1862. In this despatch, Bismarck interpreted Württemberg's refusal (of 12 August) to endorse the Franco-Prussian Commercial Treaty of 1862 as an indication of Württemberg's intention not to continue the Zollverein beyond the current treaty period.
93 At the assembly of the Stuttgart Bürgergesellschaft, the majority of the 200 participants (primarily Landtag delegates and merchants) pronounced in favour of the commercial agreement with France.
94 The Karlsruher Zeitung, the official government gazette of Baden, was founded in 1757 as the Karlsruher Wochenblatt.
95 Probably the Schwäbischer Merkur, the main political daily in Württemberg, founded in 1785.
96 For the Nationalverein see n. 71 in Frankfurt section.
97 Baillie refers to the Esslingen assembly of the Württemberg Fortschrittspartei (Progressive Party) on 14 December 1862, which declared in favour of joining the Nationalverein.
98 Der Beobachter, a liberal-democratic newspaper, founded as Der Hochwächter in Stuttgart in 1830.
99 Enclosure: Baron Hügel's declaration in the chamber of deputies, 27 November 1863 (original and translation). Württemberg acceded to the London Protocol (see n. 97 in Frankfurt section) on 23 November 1852.
100 The British government expressed its expectation that Württemberg would remain bound by the London Protocol and support Christian IX's claims over the sovereignty of the duchies in the forthcoming discussions of the matter in the Federal Diet.
101 On 24 November 1863, an address to the king from the first chamber and a resolution from the chamber of deputies both declared their support for the Augustenburg succession in the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein and demanded the immediate occupation of the duchies in consequence of Christian IX's proclamation as King of Denmark and Duke of Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg on 16 November.
102 See n. 92 in this section.
103 Following the conclusion of the Second War of Italian Independence in 1859, Venetia remained under Austrian rule, as the remnant of the Kingdom of Lombardy-Venetia.
104 The Austro-Prussian motion of 28 December 1863 was rejected by the Federal Diet on 14 January 1864. The joint constitution for Denmark and Schleswig of 18 November 1863 incorporated Schleswig into the Kingdom of Denmark and stipulated the separation of the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein.
105 Article 47 of the Vienna Final Act of 1820 regulated the commitment of the Confederation in the event of attacks on the territories of federal states lying outside the Confederation. In this case, Friedrich von Augustenburg, who claimed the right of succession in the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein (see n. 97 in Frankfurt section), argued that Schleswig (as opposed to Holstein) was not a part of the German Confederation.
106 ‘Come what may’.
107 Maximilian Joseph Freiherr von Handel and Gustav von der Schulenburg-Priemern.
108 August Lothar Graf von Reigersberg, Ferdinand von Dusch, and Julius von Breidenbach.
109 Bismarck's circular to the governments of the Zollverein states on 15 December 1863 gave notice that Prussia would terminate the Zollverein treaty at the end of 1865. For the Franco-Prussian Commercial Treaty see n. 88 in Frankfurt section.
110 The criticism related to Great Britain's continued adherence to the London Protocol of 1852 (see n. 97 in Frankfurt section).
111 The demand for a boycott was published in the Lübecker Zeitung on 22 May 1864.
112 Von der Pfordten visited Stuttgart on 29 December 1864.
113 ‘Very calm, and was possibly even calmer when he left us’.
114 For the idea of a ‘Trias’ see n. 18 in Bavaria section. Enclosure: Evan Montague Baillie to George John Robert Gordon, No 19, Carlsruhe, 30 December 1864.
115 The original Confederation of the Rhine was established by Napoleon I in 1806.
116 In the Gastein Convention of 14 August 1865, Austria and Prussia adhered to the policy of combined supremacy in the duchies, though with Schleswig under Prussian administration and Holstein under Austrian. Additionally, Austria ceded its claims to the Duchy of Lauenburg to Prussia for the payment of two and a half million Danish thalers.
117 Swabian dialect for Sklaverei (‘slavery’).
118 The abolition of tithes and other manorial dues in Württemberg was regulated by the laws of April 1848 and June 1849. Since 1855, all attempts to gain additional compensation for the nobility had been unsuccessful and had been resisted by the second chamber (see n. 32 in this section).
119 The Committee of 36 (see n. 109 in Frankfurt section) was summoned to meet in Leipzig on 3 September 1865.
120 The Austro-Prussian conflict had been further aggravated by Bismarck's circular to the German governments of 24 March 1866, in which he stated the need for federal reform.
121 ‘Very bluntly’.
122 On 4 July 1866, Prince Wilhelm, commander of the Baden division in the 8th corps of the federal army, was ordered to unite his troops with the Bavarian contingent. However, he did not carry this out, and instead ordered a retreat to Frankfurt. Wilhelm was accused of treason and pro-Prussian sympathies by many sections of the press, although the Baden government stated that there were military reasons for his actions.
123 Von der Pfordten was attempting to conclude an armistice with Prussia, in order to prevent the threatened invasion of Bavaria and preserve the independence of the south German states.
124 Darmstadt was occupied by Prussian troops on 18 July 1866.
125 Olga.
126 After the Prussian entry into the Archduchy of Austria on 14 July 1866, the Landsturm (militia) were mobilized and a citizen defence formed. The final engagement between Prussia and Austria took place on 22 July at Preßburg (Bratislava) and a preliminary peace was agreed on 26 July at Nikolsburg (see n. 174 in Prussia section).
127 The meeting, with around 1,500 participants, was held in Stuttgart on 12 July 1866. The supporters of Prussia, who included numerous Pietists (adherents of a Protestant revival movement), merged in August 1866 to form the Deutsche Partei. The Volkspartei developed in 1864–1865 from a section of the Fortschrittspartei (Progressive Party), composed primarily of federally minded democrats.
128 French mediation in the negotiation of an armistice between Prussia and Austria (including Italy) was opposed because it was feared from the French peace proposal of 14 July 1866 that it would lead to French territorial expansion in south-west Germany (particularly Landau and the Saar valley), as well as the surrender of Venetia.