THE REMINISCENCES OF CARL SCHURZ
with it a period of a new German national consciousness. To this feeling appealed the famous manifesto, issued from the town of Kalisch, in which the king of Prussia, allied with the Russian Czar, after Napoleon's defeat in Russia, called the German people to arms, promising at the same time a new national union and participation of the people in the business of government under constitutional forms. The new birth of a united German national empire, the abolition of arbitrary government by the introduction of free political institutions—that was the solemn promise of the Prussian king as the people understood it—that was the hope which inspired the people in the struggle against Napoleonic rule with enthusiastic heroism and a self-sacrifice without limit, and ended in a final victory. It was one of the periods in history when a people proved itself ready to sacrifice all for the attainment of an ideal. But after the victories of Leipzig and Waterloo followed another time of bitter disappointment. Against the formation of a united Germany arose not only the jealous opposition of non-German Europe, but also the selfish ambitions of the smaller German princes, especially of those who, as members of the “Rheinbund,” such as Bavaria, Würtemberg, Baden, etc., had been raised in their rank. And this opposition was strengthened by the intriguing policy of Austria, which, with her possessions outside of Germany, had also un-German interests and designs. And this Austrian policy was conducted by Prince Metternich, the prime minister of Austria, to whom every emotion of German patriotism was foreign, as he hated and feared every free aspiration among the people. Thus the peace was far from bringing to the German people the reward for their sacrifices which they had deserved and expected. From the Congress of Vienna, in 1814 and 1815, which disposed of peoples as of herds of cattle in order to establish a permanent
[ 104 ]
