"Germany and the Germans" Topic

Whirlwind

My only intention was to point out that people can come and go, no matter what they say in their posts. There are no rules about that, as far as I am aware. Some people don't say they are going and then suddenly reappear again, like Captain Butt.

I was intending to leave the debate and still do, as I don't believe the posts will convince anyone on either side to change. Nothing has yet been said to alter my view, in fact, if anything, it has done the opposite, and probably, nothing I will say will convince others to change their views.

But Butt has added a new element or diversion, depending on how you want to look at it. But he does not seem to understand what people are saying or their point of view. No one has said anything about people not considering the region as Germany, so why he comes up with that is a puzzle, plus his latest and silly attack against Napoleon is a joke! That suggests he wants to divert the debate! And what a convienent excuse for why there is no name or location on the published material – it could just as easily be the work of a few troublemakers unhappy with the situation and their German speaking state siding with Napoleon. And I doubt any ruler, German speaking or otherwise, would be plased or even allow a bunch of troublemakers stirring up trouble.

Anyway, I can see where Butt is aiming to take this debate. But if I come across anything interesting or related to the debate, I might well post again.

And look, no digs, as you call them, unless you see this as a dig about not being any digs. I hope not anyway.

I thought the 'pedant' and 'cherry picking' remarks interesting, though.

However, Holborn is a 20th century historian and his books were written in the 20th century, not the 21st.

Interesting, though. ;-)

B

Gazzola,

Of course, if all else fails, just type or write in 'Deutschland' and all will be much better. ;-)

B

Also – nichts Neues – sondern nur Nichtwissen – you should read Suvarov – there you will find something about Nichtwisser.

Also – nichts Neues – sondern nur Nichtwissen – you should read Suvarov – there you will find something about Nichtwisser.

Or even hatchers of Unterkunft…

Brechtel198

I guess is still smarting from providing me with material that supported my view. I think that is why he introduced the line 'your hero is murderous and delusional' – obviously to provoke and obviously a pathetic attempt to divert from the topic. Sad really, for a so called historian! Perhaps he could not get over the idea of Prussians executing Saxons simply because they did not want to become part of Prussia! Or, to put it another way, Germans killing Germans for not toeing the line! Sounds a bit like the darkness that came much later in history.

Found some other interesting bits-
'The proclamation isssued by Alexander and Frederick William in Kalisch had made clear that any German rulers who were still allies of Napoleon when their states were overrun by the allies would be likely to lose their thrones, leaving their territory free to be incorporated into some kind of new Germanic state of Stein's or Alexander's fancy.' (p112-Rites of Peace by Adam Zamoyski)

The key words there are 'their states' and 'new Germanic state' – says it all I think. Perhaps has not read it yet?

And, the real reasons for changing their alliance away from Napoleon, was not through some cultural or linguistic connection -

'Neither he nor any of the other princes was going to switch alliances without a reward, or at the very least a guarantee that they would not have to give up any of the gains they had made thanks to Napoleon. In the case of Bavaria, there were considerable. (page 112)

'The despotlation of the goodly Frederick Augustus had become, as Hardenberg put it, 'a necessity in the interests of making Prussia strong, and therefore in those of Europe.' More precisely, Saxony was the most suitable compensation Alexander could offer Frederick William in return for Prussia's former Polish provinces, which he was intending to hold on to himself. (pages 114-115)

Another interesting bit-
'Before 1866 'Germany' had been a loose term. Its political form was the German Confederation, set up at the Congress in Vienna (1815) to replace the Holy Roman Empire'
(page 1-Imperial Germany 1871-1918 by Stephen Lee.

Key words again are 'Before 1866', 'loose term' and '1815'.

And further, concerning the desire for power and dominace by Prussia. This is Bismarck talking to Disraeli in 1862 –
'When the army has been brought to such a state as to command respect, then I shall take the first opportunity to declare war with Austria, burst asunder the German Confederation, and give Germany a national union under the leadership of of Prussia. (page 4-Imperial Germany)

But people keep suggesting there was a 'German' connection which included Austria – but the Prussians wanted to go to war with Austria, their fellow 'Germans', even after Napoleon was out of the way. Funny sort of 'united Germaness isn't it'?

Since it was mentioned by , here is an interesting piece on the execution of Johannes Palm. , an historian, for some reason, forgot to inform everyone that four others were set free and that the publication also attacked the king of Bavaria. I wonder why?

link

Since it was mentioned by

Gazzola, as well as it being very rude, the FAQ says you aren't allowed to make fun of membernames.

Can I make fun of their membername?
No. (It inevitably leads to a fight.)

Reading these posts I am reminded of the Anti-bellum United States.

In that period someone would say they were, if asked, a Michiganer, an Ohioan, a New Yorker or a Georgian, putting their state before the country. True the US had a federal structure, but most 'Merkins thought of their state first, indeed some still do.

How does this differ from an ethnic and cultural German saying I'm a Prussian, a Hessian or a Saxon.

The other point I don't understand is why, when ever this subject crops up, why is it the TMP members who are particularly interested in the French weltanschauung -like Gazzola – who get so bent out of shape over this issue. Why would they be the ones who care passionately that German is not a courty – which it wasn't – even if it is a cultural identity. As a Prussian, a Hessian or a Saxon what language they spoke, would they say Prussian etc.I think not, they would say they spoke German.

The difference is as simple as it is striking-the United States was one independent country and nation, Germany was not.

As to those who claimed to be loyal to their state before the country, I would tend to disagree with you. Most of the states remained loyal and those who fought for the Union, fought for their country, not their state. And there were those southerners, such as John Gibbon, who was from North Carolina, who remained loyal to the nation and fought for it even though the rest of his family 'went south.'

So, in short, the analogy is incorrect and isn't the same thing.

B

'Just as there is no state called "America."'

Not quite correct-there is a state called the 'United States of America', also known as, in two shortened forms, 'America' and the 'United States.'

B

And why pray, do the Franchophiles get bent out of shape over this?

'Either your hero is murderous and delusional… or you have to admit that he recognized the existence of something that you say didn't exist, and that he considered it dangerous enough to kill for.'

First, Napoleon is not my 'hero'-my personal heroes are my father and eldest brother, and for reasons that are frankly none of your business.

I do admire Napoleon and many personalities of the period of many European nations, along with American personalities of the period. I also admire the Grande Armee as a military organization.

As for your pseudo-characterization of Napoleon as 'murderous and delusional' that is historically incorrect as well as ridiculous.

The excellent article on Palm and his arrest, trial, and execution by Tom Holmberg that has been referenced should answer the query on why Palm was executed. Whether or not you agree with it is immaterial.

B

'or you have to admit that he recognized the existence of something that you say didn't exist, and that he considered it dangerous enough to kill for.'

And what did I state didn't exist? A single German political entity, or state, nothing more nothing less. The issue of the 'German nation' during the period was brought up by someone else and is your bailiwick, and the two subjects are separate and not equal. As usual, you've overstated your case.

B

'…right as the Napoleonic conquest of Germany was reaching its apex…'

Could you explain what you meant here, please?

In 1805 the Austrian offensive into Bavaria, while Napoleon was on the Channel, turned Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Baden, and Hesse-Darmstadt into French allies. They were not 'conquered' by the French.

In July 1806 sixteen German states in south and central Germany formed the Confederation of the Rhine with Napoleon as 'Protector.' I don't recall any French offensive into Germany in the summer of 1806.

Prussia declared war against France that fall, and coerced Saxony into joining her. After Prussia was crushed, Napoleon turned Saxony into an ally and a member of the Confederation.

After Prussia's defeat, the remaining German states joined the Confederation.

So where is the French 'conquest' of Germany?

Prussia declared war in the fall of 1806 and was the aggressor; in 1809 Austria invaded Bavaria again and was defeated. Who was actually invading whom?

B

Brechtel198

Great posts!

Whirlwind

Making fun of his membername? Really? But he is , isn't he – Captain Cornelius Butt. Like someone calling me Gaz – just a shortened version! I can understand your point if I was making fun of his real name – but the membername is not real?

Anyway, I note what you say and if he or Bill object and see the usage as making fun and breaking house rules, then I apologize and will not use the term again.

B/K

Georg Hegel wrote in his Die Verfassung Deutschland [The Constitution of Germany] in 1802:

Germany is no longer a state.

Now how could he possibly think that, let alone write it if there was no Germany or German 'state'?

This was written in the wake of the Peace of Westphalia which dissolved the 1st Reich [you know, the 1st of three…], the remaining structure of the Holy Roman Empire, a treaty where Hegel said German statelessness had been designed into it. He concluded "How could it be possible that German is not a state and yet is a state, is very easily discovered: Germany is a state in our thought and not in reality."

That seems a fairly esoteric conclusion, but he meant more than some discouraged fantasy. Heinrich August Winkler in his book Germany 1789-1933, The Long Road West" explained Hegel's comments:

…he expected the Imperial cities and territorial estates to collaborate with the Emperor and his hereditary lands, which in constrast to Prussia, themselves formed a state based on the principles of representation and in which the populace had rights. Thus only from the Emperor may "we expect support for that which the world presently understands by the term German Rights."

Of course, he was disappointed when the Emperor abdicated that year.

However, Hegel's comment goes even deeper than the local governments and Duchies found scattered across Germany associated with the Imperial Crown. Fifty years before, just after the SYW, Frederick was faced with a devestated Prussia, where whole districts were empty. He actively recruited Germans to settle in those empty Prussian territories and the newly acquired lands. Most of those Germans came for central Germany, having lived with Hegel's "German Freedoms" of the Reich for centuries. And not supprisingly, they established those freedoms in Prussia where they could. When the next generation of German transplants volunteered to fight France, writing "Freedom" and "Liberty" on their Landwehr and volunteer flags, they weren't talking about freeing Prussia. They were fighting for "German Freedoms."

Under those conditions, Prussia was hardly a "Prussian State." The army that fought in Belgium in 1815 was led by a Mecklenburg national, staffed by a Saxon national, organized along the lines of a Hanoverian National, leading an army whose soldiers represented the entire 'geographical' extent of Germany, many not 'Prussian citizens' at all.

According to Peter Hofschroer the Prussian army of 1813-14 was drawn almost entirely from the core provinces of the Kingdom of Prussia – whereas the army of 1815, consisted only in part of "old" Prussians. [Hofschroer puts old in prenthesis because of the previous explanation.] The Rhinelanders and to an extent the Westphalians were "new" Prussians of questionable loyalty.

Also in 1815 a number of foreign, i.e. non-Prussian, formations had been amalgamated into the line and were, on paper at least, now considered regular formations, although it was really only after the Waterloo.

In many respects the Army of the Rhine was very much a "German" army and Prussian only because that state paid them, which is why it was called a 'German Army' at the time.

But not all Germans saw 'the state' as a necessary component of any German nation. After Germans were dismayed by the 1801 Treaty of Luneville, the first reduction in German freedoms, Wurttemberger Schiller wrote his Deutche Grosse [German Greatness] which articulates the views of many, many Germans of the time: 1.735

The German Reich and German Nation are two different things. the majesty of the German never rested on the heads of his princes. Set apart from all that is political, the German has established for himself his own value, and even if the Empire were to collapse [which it did the next year], German worth would remain uncontested. It is a moral greatness, one that lives in the culture and character of the nation, a nation independent of its political fate…

Germany was considered far more than some bounded geography at the time, and certainly existing for Germans long before 1871.

You're not recognizing the difference between 'cultural nationalism' and 'political nationalism.'

Further, define the term 'many' or 'many, many' especially in relation to the total population of the German states, which is undoubtedly very difficult to do. Neither you nor anyone else seems to have been able to do that.

I don't believe you actually understand the situation in Germany up to 1815, the period we are discussing.

This excerpt from Gordon Craig might be helpful:

‘To call Johann Gottfried von Herder a nationalist is to run the risk of distorting his views. The student of Kant and JG Hamann, he had little interest in politics and had a deep and abiding detestation of all forms of centralizatgion, coercion, regulation, and imperialism, which he associated with the entity that he contemptuously called the State. The State was a cold monster; it turned them into machines of obedience; it distorted and vitiated their noblest impulses.'

‘But if Herder hated the State, he believed in the nation, and in two works that influenced his won and subsequent generations-Another Philosophy of History (1774) and Reflections on the Philosophy of the History of Mankind (1776-1803)-he argued eloquently for the idea of belonging, and recognizing that one belonged, to a nation. This he defined as the community that was made up of kinship and history and social solidarity and cultural affinity and was shaped over time by climate and geography, by education, by relations with its neighbors and by other factors, and was held together most of all by language, which expressed the collective experience of the group. ‘Has a nation anything more precious?' Herder asked. ‘From a study of native literature we have learned to know ages and peoples more deeply than along the sad and frustrating path of political and military history. In the latter we seldom see more than the manner in which a people was ruled, how it let itself be slaughtered; in the former we learn how it thought, what it wished and craved for, how it took its pleasures, how it was led by its teachers or its inclination.'

‘The British historian of ideas Sir Isaiah Berlin has pointed out that in Herder's view to be a member of a group or nation was to think and act in a certain way, in the light of particular goals, values, pictures of the world. To think and act in this way was to belong, to be part of the whole, to be attuned to its spirit. The ways in which Germans spoke and moved, and ate and drank, and made love and laws would be different than those patterns of behavior and feeling in other peoples. And there was a quality common to all those patterns, a common ingredient, a Germanness, a Volksgeist that could not be abstracted and defined but represented the individuality of the nation.
‘Not its superiority, however. Herder was a pluralist who believed in the equality of all cultures under the eye of God. He flatly rejected Enlightenment notions about an ideal man and an ideal society. No person to him was like any other person, and no nation like any other nation. All were part of Humanity, the infinitely rich panorama of life to which every individual and every nation made its characteristic contribution.'

‘The young intellectuals of the years before the outbreak of the French Revolution-the so-called Storm and Stress generation-claimed herder for their own, moved by his passionate defense of individuality and his insistence that literature should express the variety and passion of life. It is doubtful whether they were aware of the inner contradiction and the ambiguous political implications of his doctrine of cultural nationalism. With the advantage of hindsight, it is possible to argue that the doctrine of belonging was an unfortunate bequest to a middle class that had no share in the political decisions of their governments, since it could be used as a rationalization of their present condition and an excuse for not doing anything about it. This was the explanation of the lethargy that lay over German political life in the years when democratic revolutions were shaking the American colonies, Geneva, the Austrian Netherlands, England, and Ireland, Poland, Hungary, and France. Closing their eyes firmly to reality, the middle class took refuge in their Germanness, persuading themselves that, since they were imbued by the undying group spirit, they were already in a state of grace.'

‘Was it not inevitable, moreover, that Herder's theories would be misused and turned into a justification, not only for the kind of State power that he detested but also for the kind of xenophobia that he deplored? And was not Herder himself partly responsible for this? It was all very well for him to say that he was not interested in politics and patriotism, and that cultures were incommensurable and had equal rights to exist. Why then did he feel called upon to say with such insistence that ‘the savage who loves himself, his wife and child…and works for the good of his tribe as for his own…is in my view more genuine than that human ghost, the …citizen of the world, who, burning with love for his fellow ghosts, loves a chimera. The savage in his hut has room for any stranger;…the saturated heart of the idle cosmopolitan is a home for no one'? And what is to be made of his not infrequent summons to Germans to be German and to protect their values from foreign corruption. Statements like ‘Awake, German nation! Do not let them ravish your palladium!' and ‘Germans, speak German! Spew out the Seine's ugly slime!' show how difficult it was to keep politics out of cultural nationalism, to prevent claims that nations were individual and unique from degenerating into the claim that some nations were superior, and one's own most of all. It was herder's tragedy that the essential humanity of his philosophy was to be perverted into narrow political nationalism by patriotic tub-thumpers, and that his views on the individuality of the nation were to be transformed by philosophers like JF Fichte and Georg Friedrich Hegel into an idealization of the State as a kind of super-Personality to which the individual citizen owed complete allegiance, which, indeed, alone validated his existence.'-Gordon Craig, The Germans, 30-32.

B

Who pushed the button on Gazzola? That's counterproductive. "Never interrupt your opponent while he's making a mistake," as the Corsican said.

"And why pray, do the Franchophiles get bent out of shape over this?"

Good question. I've recently been trying to figure out if there's some sort of lunar or tidal pattern that can be used to predict when they're going to bring it up again.

Outside of certain theological circles, I've never known anybody who so desperately needs something not to be true.

because ultimately they are trying to defend the indefensible….

B:

I don't understand the difference between Cultural and Political Nationalism?

Kevin, we have been insisting on that difference about the German Nation for a lot of posts.

Remember this quote you provided:

"When we look at the Germanic Confederation as a whole, it is obvious that it contributed greatly to the growth of a national cohesion the patriots quite wrongly asserted already existed. It did not exist even in the cultural field, much less in the relations of the social classes, and least of all in political affairs."

Gazzola made the comment that a German Nation was simply the fantasy of a few poets.

And we weren't talking about Herder's Philosophy, or his theories about Cultural Nationalism, only the widely held belief in a German Nation apart from politics, which obviously Herder shared. As you quote: "It is doubtful whether they [the Germans] were aware of the inner contradiction and the ambiguous political implications of his doctrine of cultural nationalism.

That Herder used an accepted belief in the German Nation apart for 'politics' as the basis for his philosophy really isn't here nor there. His ideas were popular only because they were grounded in existing ideas and culture.

It was a very real 'Nation' for the Germans. As Schiller said, "The German Reich and German Nation are two different things." If you will read your posts, the claim was that no such 'Cultural Nationalism' or cohesion existed. That is what we challenged, that sense of German Nationalism and Germany you said didn't exist. We never challenged the lack of a unified Germany.

Now you go and quote more evidence regarding Herder, who agrees with Schiller, Hegel and Goethe etc. that there was a real German Nation without a 'state'? What, now you're on our side?

I also notice you sidestepped the first Reich and the Germans' view of it altogether.

You are free to define German Nationalism however you want to, politically, culturally or whatever. I never once challenged that there was no 'unified German state' at the time. Though I know the Germans like Hegel and Schiller would have strongly disagreed with you until 1802….

However, if we are talking about the German Nation that actually existed during the period, the Germans at the time, as they defined themselves and "the German State" and "German Nation" are the ones we should be paying attention to. I feel like I am defending their right to their own conclusions about what did and didn't exist at the time… while you and Gazolla have decided they are wrong and you know better.

A very good posting of McLaddie above.

'I never once challenged that there was no 'unified German state' at the time. Though I know the Germans like Hegel and Schiller would have strongly disagreed with you until 1802….'

Then we have no argument.

'However, if we are talking about the German Nation that actually existed during the period, the Germans at the time, as they defined themselves and "the German State" and "German Nation" are the ones we should be paying attention to. I feel like I am defending their right to their own conclusions about what did and didn't exist at the time… while you and Gazolla have decided they are wrong and you know better.'

That is absolutely ridiculous. Holborn certainly disagrees with your conclusion and the idea of a 'German nation' was not unified either-even culturally there were differences between the southern German states and Prussia and Austria.

You're defending something that existed in the minds and wishes of a minority of Germans, as you haven't shown otherwise. And the Prussian and/or Austrian idea of a German nation was quite different from the German philosophes. And a Germany dominated by Prussia was definitely not their idea, either.

Craig and Holborn definitely don't agree with your conclusions, nor does Christopher Clark.

B

Many posts ago "imrael" wrote:
"I'd argue that France and Britain were the only political entities involved in the Napoleonic wars that could even remotely be described as a "Nation" in the modern sense, and France was a beginner at it."
That is wrong. Spain had been unified since the end of the XVth Century, being the first state-nation in Europe. Even if it formally maintained it´s various "crowns" (Castile, Aragon, etc.) for some time, they were bonded by the monarch and couldn´t be divided again, and the denomination of "King of Spain" became also more and more used throughout the XVIth Century. The concepts of Spanish nation/nationals became overwhelmingly dominant ever since. Before that time, it was used mainly as a geographical, historical, and cultural concept, but it had no unified state (well, in fact the Visigothic hispanic kingdom had been indeed a unified state long time ago, before the muslim invasion shattered it into many pieces).

You're defending something that existed in the minds and wishes of a minority of Germans, as you haven't shown otherwise. And the Prussian and/or Austrian idea of a German nation was quite different from the German philosophes. And a Germany dominated by Prussia was definitely not their idea, either.

It was hardly a minority of Germans, Kevin. And if you actually read primary works, newspapers of the time, rather than interpreting your favorite historians' words, Holborn instead of Paret, etc., you would realize that, though you were given plenty of evidence to that effect here.

Craig and Holborn definitely don't agree with your conclusions, nor does Christopher Clark.

Too often I have wondered at your reading of historians' words. Sometimes you accept conclusions without any critical concern, other times it seems you see what you want to…

If Germans were far from reaching political unification under the Confederation, they could at least feel a sense of unity.'-Hajo Holborn, A History of Modern Germany 1648-1840, 447.

K/B wrote:

That is absolutely ridiculous. Holborn certainly disagrees with your conclusion and the idea of a 'German nation' was not unified either-even culturally there were differences between the southern German states and Prussia and Austria.

Gosh. I guess all them Germans of the 18th and 19th Century were having these long-term ridiculous thoughts, believing what they did, writing and acting the way they did.

Of course there were cultural differences between the Southern German States and Prussia and Austria. There still are cultural differences between the "Unified" Germans of Germany today… Ever heard a Swabian talk to a Rhinelander? What of it? It remains the similarities perceived and valued AT THE TIME that count, not what YOU think is their 'proper' significance.

And of course, you still haven't dealt with the 1st Reich and it's aftermath.

I had no thought of 'proving' anything to you. I was interested in giving voice to what the majority of Germans felt and thought at the time, based on their writing and actions. They deserve better than your neat little 'analysis' of who and what they were, let alone Holborn and Craig.

From a famous letter by Blücher, yet unemployed, to Scharnhorst, of 5 January 1813:

It is itching in all my fingers to take the saber. If it is not now His Majesty's, our king's, and all other German princes' [Fürsten] intention [Vornehmen] to extinguish all criminal French riff-raff [alles Schelm-Franzosenzeug] together with this Bonaparte and all his complete followers [Anhang] from the German soil [vom deutschen Boden], it would seem to me that no German [kein Deutscher] will be worthy any longer of the name German [des deutschen Namens wert]. Now again it is the time to do what I had advised already in the year 9: this is to call the whole nation [Nation] to arms, and if the princes do not want and do oppose it, to chase them away together with this Bonaparte. Because not only Prussia alone, but the whole German fatherland [das ganze deutsche Vaterland] must be raised/brought up [heraufgebracht] again and the Nation restored [die Nation hergestellt].

For me, this is not a program of unifying Germany politically (as the princes – the rulers of the Rheinbund states shall be chased away only if they do not join in the fight against France). I believe that for Blücher the expression "German nation" just referes to the cultural identity of all those born in "Germany" and speaking one of the many dialects of German language.

Restoring the Nation (literally, Blücher writes: created = hergestellt, but I believe he meant: restored = wiederhergestellt, as he presupposes its existence in the phrase before), means for Blücher, I believe, to restore its political independence from foreign influences (this doesn't mean political unity), its proud, its commerce.

And what it also meant, as borne out by actions in 1813-1815, was grabbing as much German territory as Prussia could-which did happen.

B

McLaddie,

All well and good. That being the case, why were Germans still fighting other Germans as late as 1866?

I would submit that you're stretching it.

B

Blücher is expressing clearly a very strong German identity – the whole German fatherland, very German – certainly a unity in my view – the rest is for hairsplitters or Nichtwisser ( in the sense of Suvarov)

That's nice and undoubtedly he believed it-however, the 'very German' sentiment was actually Prussian and for Prussian expansion-a Germany under Prussian leadership.

B

All well and good. That being the case, why were Germans still fighting other Germans as late as 1866?

Really? That is evidence that Germans didn't have a cohesive identity? Gosh, how do you explain a civil war then? Having a common national identity doesn't require peace between its members.

That's nice and undoubtedly he believed it-however, the 'very German' sentiment was actually Prussian and for Prussian expansion-a Germany under Prussian leadership.

Pfsst. 1. Blucher wasn't Prussian. 2. If he meant Prussians he would have said Prussians. And Prussian expansion doesn't negate or even address Blucher's sentiments.

Honestly, Kevin. You are having to work very hard to negate historical German sentiments. I have held off on doing this, as I think there is plenty of evidence to support a German National identity during the Napoleonic period, without reguiring a unified state for it to exist. However…

The Holy Roman Empire came into existance about 1000 AD. In 1648 the Peace of Westphalia extablished a Constitution of the "Heiliges Römisches Reich"(HRR) which by
1700 it was referred to as "Holy Roman Empire of the German Nation" (Heiliges Römisches Reich Deutscher Nation)

For the next hundred years this recognized German 'state' had an emperor, a set of ministers, the Diet, a representative body, the Reichstag, a constitution and acknowledged Geographical boundaries which included all of the lands that would be identified as the 2nd Reich in 1871.

This German State held sovereign powers over that area, which included principalities, duchies, and Impirial territories and lands. This state was real enough that France and Austria negotiated with it as indicated by the Treaty of Luneville in 1801, the beginning of which reads:

Treaty of Luneville
Treaty of Peace concluded at Luneville, Feb. 9, 1801, between the French Republic, and the Emperor and the Germanic Body.

His majesty, the emperor and the king of Hungary and Bohemia, and the first consul of the French republic, in the name of the French people, having equally at heart to put an end to the miseries of war, have resolved to proceed to the conclusion of a definite treaty of peace and amity.

His said imperial and royal majesty, not less anxiously desirous of making the Germanic empire participate in the blessings of peace, and the present conjecture not allowing the time necessary for the empire to be consulted, and to take part by its deputies in the negotiation; his said majesty having, besides, regard to what has been agreed upon by the deputation of the empire at he preceding congress at Rastadt, has resolved, in conformity with the precedent of what has taken place in familiar circumstances, to stipulate in the name of the Germanic body.

I thought I'd bold the pertinent parts just to help. The entire treaty can be read on the Napoleon Series.

link

The Treaty states that through with the consent of the Emperor of the German Empire, the individual states within it are granted 'sovereignty' and self-determination. Hard to do if the German Empire didn't have soverneignty in the first place, let alone totally unnecessary to mention.

A number of historians refer to this freeing from governance by the German Empire as "The First German Revolution", the second being 1848. In 1806, the Emperor of the German Empire dissolved the state in the face of the French invasion of central Germany… mostly to save his own neck. The French immediately attempted to replace the Empire with the Confederation. Why, if the Empire and any provided unity didn't exist?

This is the Empire that Schiller said was not required for Germany to be a Nation. This is the Empire that Hegel lamented in his work "The German Constitution". The constitution he refers to is the Empire's. It is the German Empire that many Germans hoped would be strengthed by Napoleon having defeated both Austria and Prussia, creating a truely Unified Germany. Prussia and Austria were against it, and that is what determined the Treaty Hegel saw as so damaging to the Empire.

This is the state that established "German Freedoms" with more than 500 years of rule, providing a constitution in 1648 that allowed local representative government, something the French denied once they conquered the area, by controlling the Confederation.

The idea of Germany built on the German Empire is what has Blucher speak of 'all Germans' and why Germans fought the French to 'restore German freedoms.'

The German Empire was a centuries old institution, though very weak and fractured by 1802, yet one that all European nations recognized, even in that condition, as evidence by the Treaty of Luneville. The German Empire had all the markers of a State, including boundaries that included all of the geographical Germany that would become the 2nd Reich in 1871.

So, a German State did exist, a reality recognized by other European states. For Germans is provided a recognizable symbol of German unity. When it was dessolved in 1806, it was lamented by many Germans, and German as a Nation was still seen as existing even without the German Empire.

The 1st Reich is the reason, in 1871, the King of Prussia was crowned the Emperor of Germany and the Reichstag established.

To insist that a German State did not exist at all and that Germans did not see themselves as a Nation in any sense is to ignore history… even if such things don't fit your definitions, Kevin.

Well.

That would seem to be the nail in THAT coffin.

Yahoo!! You should've posted that earlier, McLaddie – it clearly puts the stamp on the debate ;-)

Until recently I had thought that both sides in this debate were arguing past each other, each talking about a different version of the original question.

But now McLaddie has clearly shown in a pinpoint attack, the B/G version is completely wrong. Though I had been coming to that conclusion anyway quite some posts ago, after B's and G's increased desperation was beginning to show badly.

Of course, one must always be prepared for new information to overturn a conclusion …

Why wait until the 181st post to say it though! You could have spared us all a lot of misery… though there have been a few laughs along the way too.

"Why wait until the 181st post to say it though!"

Well, to be fair, four people have said pretty much the exact same thing, starting with Otto on the first page. And any number of people have told Kevin the same thing, each time he has brought up this topic over the years.

In one of those previous threads, Kevin was presented with a link to over 300 examples of Napoleon referring to "Germany" in his (N's) correspondence; assuming, naively, as it turned out, that surely Napoleon was the one person with whom he would not argue. For example:

"Ce que désirent avec impatience les peuples d'Allemagne, c'est que les individus qui ne sont point nobles et qui ont des talents aient un égal droit à votre considération et aux emplois…. Il faut que vos peuples jouissent d'une liberté, d'une égalité, d'un bien-être inconnus aux peuples de la Germanie…"

— Napoleon, 15 November, 1807.

* * *

If nothing else, however, we can hope that this seals the topic for another year or so. After that, the Etch-a-Sketch gets shaken up and it all starts anew.

Why wait until the 181st post to say it though! You could have spared us all a lot of misery… though there have been a few laughs along the way too.

Well, for several reasons:
1. I tend to be outspoken, so I am trying to 'dial it back a bit', be a bit more circumspect, rather than rubbing anyone's nose it something--particularly when Kevin and I have had other, similar 'discussions.' I was hoping that Kevin's "fascination" with "Germany and Germans, especially in the Napoleonic period" might lead him to want to really get to know those folks and their history.

2. The topic, as with most TMP topics, wandered into some interesting and tangent areas--with a few laughs.

3. I waited for Kevin to address the 1st Reich topic, to see what he made of it… which is why I mentioned it several times before the post.

4. I was learning a great deal from others' posts. I guess the exchange wasn't as miserable for me as it was of some others. And through it, the German people were also getting their say… ;-7

So Kevin started this thread by saying:

There was no political entity of Germany until 1871 when the German empire was proclaimed at Versailles.

During the Napoleonic period, despite Prussian propaganda, the different independent states in the territory of Germany considered themselves as whatever their nationality was at the time, be it Bavarian, Saxon, Prussian, etc.

And obviously that isn't true.

I'm stillpuzzled – why do those who post here who tend to have a francophile outlook – get so so bent out of shape claiming that Germany does not exist?

Those who tend to take the Allied view of the Napoleonic Wars seem to have no problem.

This is not the first time the subject has cropped up on these boards. I recall Kevin Kiley getting bent out of shape over the idea of Germany existing some years back.

I'm stillpuzzled – why do those who post here who tend to have a francophile outlook – get so so bent out of shape claiming that Germany does not exist?

I've been branded a Francophile on this forum a few times, so I could be qualified to answer.
To be honest I don't really give a damn about this Germany issue, so it's hardly a universal thing. I found some of this thread interesting (and I've learnt a lot) but not enough to have a strong viewpoint either way. You'll have to ask K & Gazzola. More than a few Francophobes seem to have got a little steamy on this thread too you know.

By the way, I think you guys might be a little premature with your victory dances. At least give K and Gazzola a chance to reply. One of them is still in the Dawghouse, so its very poor form to crow on top the dung-hill in such circumstances.

By the way, I think you guys might be a little premature with your victory dances.

;-7 Probably. I, for one, am sorry such discussions end up in grudge matches and laying judgments on historical people instead of exploring history for what it can tell us.

I would hope that if there is a winner, it is history and the Germans of the period.

Nice post McLaddie.

@138SquadronRAF
If I have understood I think it goes somewhat like this – in simple terms as that is all I can manage these days.

The Germans were not fighting for "freedom" or "nationalism" to remove French colonial rule from "German" soil. Because there was none (German soil, German anything). Such "nationalism" was either the mind set of a few "loonies" or a Prussian or Austrian inspired stalking horse to take over all of Germany.

They were in fact just fighting for their own state, province, duchy whatever. The CotR was obviously in fact really great. All it's "German" citizens loved it so much they willingly fought for their Emperor against the Prussians and Austrians who were just trying to impose their own flawed idea of a Germanic Nation.

Thus it comes down to Napoleon = good/better, everyone else bad.

Whereas others are saying hang on, there were significant elements of "German" national consciousness. That you could have national / cultural ideologies without having the associated state, in fact in that era this was more likely than a concept of overblown state patriotism.

Thus there was an element of liberation in the "German" campaigns against the French and Napoleon.

They were in fact just fighting for their own state, province, duchy whatever. The CotR was obviously in fact really great. All it's "German" citizens loved it so much they willingly fought for their Emperor against the Prussians and Austrians who were just trying to impose their own flawed idea of a Germanic Nation.

Uh, no, not entirely, particularly when 'their state' had so recently been joined in a number of specific ways to the Empire. According the the Germans themselves, they were fighting for:
1. The local 'sovereignty' they had enjoyed and had been expanded in 1801, only to be lost in 1806,
2. The ancient 'rights' provided by the Empire's Constitution, which Hegel details in his 1802 book on "the German Empire" enjoyed in most all Imperial lands up until,
3. Napleon, who promised the French "Liberty, Equality and Fraternity', but didn't deliver.

It may be hard for us to understand, but a Saxon or Mecklinburger could and did see themselves as members of more than one political entity at one time. Sort of like a Virginian of 1860 seeing themselves as natives of, and loyal to in some degree, both the State and the Federal government.

In the case of the German Reich, it was the weak member compared to the individual German duchies and provinces within its borders. In many ways, tradition was the only thing keeping it breathing, but alive it was because the Empire still had sovereignty in a number of areas, religious, cultural and polticial, including providing a framework for most all local governments, many of them having a noble ruler, a diet-like council and a representative legislative body like the Reichstag.

That is why the Treaty of Luneville stripped the German Empire of even those powers.

So, "German Rights" and "German Freedoms" had some traction with all Germans, and important to their own states, regardless of whether they cared about the defunct German Empire or not.

The Confederate South revered the Constitution and the 'Bill of Rights' but succeded from the government that
was built on them. Its complicated, and we miss things if we try to simplify what was meaningful to the Germans themselves.

And of course, the Prussians, Austrians, French and all the ships at sea tried to use those concerns, traditions, political views etc. etc. to their own advantage whenever and however they could. If they didn't exist there would have been nothing to 'propagandize' seeking support and political advantage.

Gustav was doing a parody, Bill. He wasn't seriously trying to argue that.

CCB:
Oh. Thanks for letting me know. After some of the arguments presented on this thread, the parody aspect was kinda lost on me… I thought it was sarcasm. Perhaps we need a modocon or icon for that. ;-7

However, backpacking and racquet ball have caught up with me and I am recovering from a torn meniscus operation, so that might tie into it. Gotta love that Vicodin….

On the 18th Century TMP page,there is a book mentioned that addresses the history of the 1st Reich directly--and pertinent to wargaming:

link

German Armies: War and German Politics, 1648 to 1806 by Peter Wilson

see also my posting 9 days ago :

"

Wilson, Peter : German Armies, War and German Politics 1648 – 1806

maybe a start for those who refuse to learn German but like to be experts about Germany ;-)), it is available for download"

Sorry von Winterfeldt, didn't see it. Thanks…

Steve Smith did post a link for a free download of this book on napoleon-series.org

Some very interesting posts have been made in my absence. But the nail and coffin bit should read, rusty nail in a coffin full of holes.

And it funny to see people having to label those who challenge their views and see things differently.

I must be a Francophile because I admire and like Napoleon and the French from 1789 to 1815. Really? Well I also like the Italians during our period, so I must also be suffering from Italophilia. Hold on, I must also be suffering from Russophilia because I like and am interested in the Russians. I'm also interested in the Spanish, so I must be a Hispanophile. And I'm also very interested in the Austrians, so I must be an Austrophile. My least interest during the period is the Prussians, so does that make me a Germophobe, I wonder? No because I'm very interested in the independent German states that formed the Confederation of the Rhine. Personally, I see myself as someone very interested in the Napoleonic Wars.

People are so desperate to try and prove that a Germany existed. But a single country ot state called Germany did not exist during our period. No one has proved otherwise. Of course there was a region which people referred to as Germany or even German nation, but that relates to a cultural and historical past, not what it was in reality.

The medieval leftover known as the Holy Roman Empire is thrown up as proof of a Germany. But German states belonging to it, such as Austria, Prussia, Bavaria etc, sided against each other and invaded their lands. The various Germanic states could do that because that was what they were, independent German states. And the Holy Roman Empire was not reformed after Napoleon's fall? Why, because Autria and German wanted to be the dominant German state leading the Confederation created instead.

Of course there were those who wanted a united Germany, a single state, nation, empire or whatever. Poets, intellectuals, soldiers, all sorts. That's a given. But their dream did not come until much later. And you have to ask why do we talk of unification of Germany in 1871, if Germany was already unified –why, well because it wasn't. That's why Prussia went to war with Austria, before they went to war with France. They wanted a unified Germany, a single state or nation, with Prussia as the top dog, leading it.