life of Germany. Austria, although associated with the Empire, could no longer feel sure of her predominance, and it was inevitable that the jealousies of the two states should lead to a final conflict for supremacy. Even before the Seven Years’ War there were signs that the German people were beginning to tire of incessant imitation of France, for in literature they welcomed the early efforts of Klopstock, Wieland and Lessing; but the movement received a powerful impulse from the great deeds of Frederick. The nation, as a whole, was proud of him, and began, for the first time since the Thirty Years’ War, to feel that it might once more assume a commanding place in the world.
In 1772 the necessities of Frederick’s position compelled him
to join Russia and Austria in the deplorable partition of Poland,
whereby he gained West Prussia, exclusive of Danzig
and Thorn, and Austria acquired West Silesia. After
this he had to watch closely the movements of the
Partition of Poland.
Joseph II.
emperor Joseph II., who, although an ardent admirer of Frederick,
was anxious to restore to Austria the greatness she had partially
lost. The younger branch of the Wittelsbach line, which
had hitherto possessed Bavaria, having died out in
1777, Joseph asserted claims to part of its territory.
Frederick intervened, and although no battle was fought in the
nominal war which followed, the emperor was obliged to content
himself with a very unimportant concession. He made a second
attempt in 1785, but Frederick again came forward. This time
he formed a league (Fürstenbund) for the defence of the imperial
constitution, and it was joined by the majority of the small
states. The memory of this league was almost blotted out by
the tremendous events which soon absorbed the attention of
Germany and the world, but it truly indicated the direction of
the political forces which were then at work beneath the surface,
and which long afterwards triumphed. The formation of the
league was a distinct attempt on the part of Prussia to make
herself the centre for the national aspirations both of northern
and of southern Germany.
The French Revolution was hailed by many of the best minds of Germany as the opening of a new era. Among the princes it excited horror and alarm, and in 1792 the emperor Leopold II. and Frederick William II., the unworthy successor of Frederick the Great, met at Pillnitz, French Revolution. and agreed to support by arms the cause of the French king. A more important resolution was never taken. It plunged Europe into a conflict which cost millions of lives, and which overthrew the entire states system of the continent. Germany herself was the principal sufferer. The structure which the princes had so laboriously built up crumbled into ruins, and the mistakes of centuries were expiated in an agony of disaster and humiliation.
The states of the Empire joined Austria and Prussia, and, had there been hearty co-operation between the allies, they could scarcely have failed of success. While the war was in progress, in 1793, Prussia joined Russia in the second partition of Poland. Austria considered herself overreached, and began negotiations with Russia for the third and final partition, which was effected by the three powers in 1795. Prussia, irritated by the proceedings of her rival, did as little as possible in the war with France; and in 1795 she retired from the struggle, and by the treaty of Basel ceded to the French republic her possessions on the left bank of the Rhine. The war was continued by Austria, but her power was so effectually shattered by blow after blow that in 1797 she was forced to conclude the peace of Campo Formio. Napoleon Bonaparte, to whose genius the triumph of France was mainly due, began separate negotiations with the states of the Empire at Rastadt; but, before terms could be agreed upon, war again began in 1799, Austria acting on this occasion as the ally of Great Britain and Russia. She was beaten, and the peace of Lunéville added fresh humiliations to those imposed upon her by the previous war. France now obtained the whole of the left bank of the Rhine, the dispossessed princes being compensated by grants of secularized church lands and of mediatized imperial cities (1803). The contempt of Napoleon for the Empire was illustrated by his occupation of Hanover in 1803, and by his seizure of the duke of Enghien on imperial territory in 1804. In 1805 Austria once more appealed to arms in association with her former allies, but in vain. By the peace of Presburg she accepted more disastrous terms than ever, and for the moment it seemed as if she could not again hope to rise to her former splendour. In this war she was opposed not only by France, but by Bavaria, Württemberg and Baden, all of which were liberally rewarded for their services, the rulers of the two former countries being proclaimed kings. The degradation of Germany was completed by the formation, in 1806, of the Confederation of the Rhine, which was composed of the chief central and southern states. The welfare of the End of the Holy Roman Empire. Empire was asserted to be its object, but a body of which Napoleon was the protector existed, of course, for no other purpose than to be a menace to Austria and Prussia. Francis II., who had succeeded Leopold II. in 1792 and in 1804 had proclaimed himself hereditary emperor of Austria, as Francis I., now resigned the imperial crown, and thus the Holy Roman Empire and the German kingdom came to an end. The various states, which had for centuries been virtually independent, were during the next few years not connected even by a nominal bond. (J. Si.)
Frederick William III. (1797–1840) of Prussia, the successor
of Frederick William II., had held aloof from the struggle of
Austria with France. This attitude had been dictated
partly by his constitutional timidity, partly by the
desire to annex Hanover, to which Austria and Russia
Prussia defeated
at Jena.
would never have assented, but which Napoleon was
willing to concede in return for a Prussian alliance. The Confederation
of the Rhine, however, was a menace to Prussia too
serious to be neglected; and Frederick William’s hesitations
were suddenly ended by Napoleon’s contemptuous violation of
Prussian territory in marching three French brigades through
Ansbach without leave asked. The king at once concluded a
convention with the emperor Alexander I. of Russia and declared
war on France. The campaign that ended in the disastrous
battle of Jena (October 14, 1806) followed; and the prestige
of the Prussian arms, created by Frederick the Great, perished
at a blow. With the aid of Russia Frederick William held out a
while longer, but after Napoleon’s decisive victory at Friedland
(June 14, 1807) the tsar came to terms with the French emperor,
sacrificing the interests of his ally. By the treaty of Tilsit
(July 9) the king of Prussia was stripped of the best part of his
dominions and more than half his subjects.
Germany now seemed fairly in the grip of Napoleon. Early in November 1806 he had contemptuously deposed the elector of Hesse and added his dominions to Jerome’s kingdom of Westphalia; on the 21st of the same month he issued from Berlin the famous decree establishing the Napoleon in power. “continental system,” which, by forbidding all trade with England, threatened German commerce with ruin. His triumph seemed complete when, on the 11th of October 1807, Metternich signed at Fontainebleau, on behalf of Austria, a convention that conceded all his outstanding claims, and seemed to range the Habsburg monarchy definitely on his side. There was, however, to be one final struggle before Napoleon’s supremacy was established. The submission of Austria had been but an expedient for gaining time; under Count Stadion’s auspices she set to work increasing and reorganizing her forces; and when it became clear from Napoleon’s resentment that he was meditating fresh designs against her she declared war (1809). The campaign ended in the crushing defeat of Wagram (July 6) and the humiliating treaty of peace dictated by Napoleon at the palace of Schönbrunn in Vienna (October 14). Austria, shorn of her fairest provinces, robbed of her oversea commerce, bankrupt and surrounded on all sides by the territories of the French emperor and his allies, seemed to exist only on sufferance, and had ceased to have any effective authority in Germany—now absolutely in the power of Napoleon, who proved this in 1810 by annexing the whole of the northern coast as far as the Elbe to his empire.
