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RESTORATION POLITICS, 1815_1830 393
THE CONGRESS OF VIENNA AND THE
GERMAN QUESTION
History teaches us, and invariably we disregard her lesson, that coalitions begin to disintegrate from the moment that the common danger is removed.' Harold Nicolson wrote these lines in the summer of 1945, as he thought about the post_Napoleonic. settlements in the light of his own experience with peacemaking in 1919 and his growing uneasiness about the post_war world taking shape around him. . .
That the leaders of Britain, Russia, Austria, and Prussia had quite different interests no informed statesman could doubt. Castlereagh [from England], who represented Napoleon's most persistent foe, wanted a continent free from any single state's hegemony, security for Britain's dominions overseas, and the economic freedom required by her commercial and manufacturing enterprises. Tsar Alexander's aims were more grandiose and magnanimous but also less precise and stable: he saw himself as Europe's liberator, whose conquest of Napoleon would be followed by a massive expansion of Russian influence in the west. This Metternich feared above all else. Indeed, as we have seen, the Austrian chancellor had hoped to keep Napoleon on the throne so that France might balance Russia, thus leaving Austria free to defend her central position by playing one against the other. Metternich did not want the sort of instability in central Europe that might encourage the tsar's continental ambitions. Hardenberg [the Prussian representative], on the other hand, viewed the weakness of the smaller German states as possible sources of Prussian strength. While he recognized the need to work with Austria, Hardenberg also realized that, in order to consolidate Prussia's great power status, he would have to employ the leverage won by its military contributions in order to acquire additional territory and influence. About how they should expand their territory and influence, the
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Prussians were sharply divided, not only from their allies but also among themselves.
Peacemaking in 1814 was complicated by the fact that it was by no means clear who should be involved. The initial agreements ending the war were signed by the four major powers, together with France and Spain. Representatives of the big four had then met in London during the summer, but were unable to formulate a set of principles with which to resolve their own differences and settle the claims of the other parties. Thus, the leaders of the major powers were still divided among themselves when they gathered in Vienna to confront the motley collection of princes and plenipotentiaries who had converged on the Austrian capital. From the states of the defunct Rhenish Confederation came princes and would_be princes who had once been Napoleon's allies but were now eager to elbow their way to a place among the victors. The imperial nobility, whose lands had been swallowed up by these states, lobbied for special status if not a restoration of their independence . . . .
For generations of progressive Europeans, the true character of the Vienna proceedings was best summarized by Prince de Ligne's oft_quoted line that `Le Congres danse et ne marche pas.' [the congress dances but not walking (ie. making progress)] An extraordinary amount of money and effort was expended to feed and entertain the participants and their entourages. Throughout the autumn and winter, banquets and balls, private dinners and public concerts, fireworks displays and parades took up a great deal of time. These affairs ranged from the sublime to the outrageous-from a gala performance of Beethoven's Seventh Symphony, with
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the composer in attendance, to a hunt in which six hundred wild boars were driven into the Linzer Tiergarten so that the dignitaries, lined up according to rank, could shoot as many animals as they pleased. In addition to these official functions, many of the participants pursued clandestine joys on the frontiers of respectable society. The Countess Aurora de Marasse, who was as poor as she was beautiful, filled her attic apartment with ambassadors, officials, and courtiers, while at a somewhat different social level, one lovely lady of the night captured the heart of Denmark's king during one of his strolls through the city. Much to the displeasure of the Viennese police, she became known to her friends and neighbors as `the queen of Denmark'. Together with coachmen, wine merchants, and purveyors of luxury goods, these ladies may have been the true beneficiaries of Congress diplomacy.
But we should not make too much of the Congress's collective festivities or its participants' individual foibles. Among the major figures only the tsar was an indefatigable party_goer, always ready to dance and ever eager for a new amorous conquest. Francis and Frederick William were serious men, not given to excessive play. Hardenberg was too deaf to dance, King Frederick of Wurttemberg too fat. Humboldt, who had a taste for brief encounters with women from the lower social orders, tried to avoid high society,. which he found `more negative, empty, and monotonous than ever'. . . .
Among the issues confronting the Congress the fate of German
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Europe had particular weight, because in 1814_15, as in 1919 and 1945, it pulled into a knot the various strands of the great powers' interests. At one point, disagreements over German affairs brought the Congress to the point of dissolution; once a compromise solution to the German problem had been reached, the diplomats were able to conclude their deliberations with a show of allied unity.
The most obvious question about the German future concerned the legitimacy of Napoleon's reorganization. Now that the French imperium was broken, how much of its structure would remain? If new political boundaries were to be drawn, according to what principles should this be done? In a political setting as battered and disrupted as central Europe, what did legitimacy entail? How was sovereignty to be defined? When the Congress opened, only a few tentative answers to these questions were apparent. It was clear, for example, that the Rhenish lands annexed by France would be returned to German rule and that the satellite states of the north and west were finished. It was not apparent, however, who would get this territory. Nor was it certain what would happen to the kingdom of Saxony, whose ruler had returned to Napoleon's side after the French victories in the spring of 1813 and had been taken captive after the French defeat at Leipzig. The other middle_sized states had, as we know, managed to attain some measure of protection by rushing into the anti_Napoleonic coalition during the autumn of 1813. But would this protection be enough to withstand the territorial ambitions of the major powers and the demands from the various Herrschaften [petty bureaucrats] which the states had absorbed. The interactive process of compensation and annexation, from which' the Mittelstaaten [middle sized states] had benefitted under Napoleon, could easily be turned against them by an Austro_Prussian condominium.
Inseparable from the question of how German territories were to be distributed was the issue of German Europe's overall political organization. Here too the debris left by two decades of war made the situation perilously unstable. The old Reich, almost everybody knew, was gone forever. The Rhenish Confederation, whose collective existence had always been thin to the point of transparency, had evaporated as soon as its patron met defeat. On the eve of the Congress, therefore, the old questions about the German situation returned. How was the delicate balance of co_operation and diversity in German affairs to find institutional expression? How could the smaller states be protected and the larger ones be
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given room to realize their ambitions? Who merited protection, and from whom-for instance, were the interests of the imperial nobility and the church to be protected from the states? Or should Napoleon's former partners be made the basis of a new German order? How would the rivalry between Berlin and Vienna, so disruptive in the last stages of the Reich, affect the political character of the Reich's nineteenth_century successor?
From the moment of Napoleon's first defeats in the autumn of 1813 until the Congress met a year later, various German statesmen tried to draft proposals to answer these questions. Stein, who viewed the German situation from the vantage point of the tsar's entourage, had originally hoped for a total reordering of central Europe. After Prussia and Austria entered the war, he proposed amalgamating the states of the Rhenish Confederation into a `third Germany', separate from, but closely tied to, the two major German powers. In December 1813 Wilhelm von Humboldt, since 1810 the Prussian ambassador in Vienna, prepared a long memorandum on Stein's ideas. Germany, Humboldt wrote, must be `free and strong' in order to nourish and protect its existence as a nation. But such freedom and strength had to come gradually; unity could not be forced; longstanding habits and differences should not be ignored. For the present, Humboldt proposed a voluntary association in which states would pool their resources for common defense and arrange treaties to co_ordinate their domestic policies. Humboldt did not overestimate Prussia's ability to shape this new German association, but rather acknowledged that `the firm, consistent, and unwavering agreement and friendship of Austria and Prussia is the only cornerstone for this entire structure' About this Humboldt was surely right, both for the long_term development of German political affairs and for the immediate resolution of the German question in 1814. Until Austro_Prussian agreement was attained, German Europe's future would remain as uncertain and ill_defined as the phrasing of the Paris treaty, which had stated only that `Les etats de l'Allemagne seront independants et unis par un lien federatif.'
Hardenberg tried to provide the basis for a discussion about what independence and federation might mean in a memorandum that he prepared, in consultation with Stein and others, during the summer of 1814. In its final form, this document, conventionally called the `Forty_one Articles', represented the Prussian chancellor's efforts to
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reach a compromise between the interests of the various states and Stein's desire for a cohesive, unified replacement for the old Reich. Hardenberg proposed the creation of an `Eternal Confederation' of German states, divided into seven circles (Kreise), each of which would be under the chairmanship of one, or in some cases two, of its leading princes. The Confederation was to have two institutions, a council of the Kreise heads, under the joint direction of Prussia and Austria, and a larger diet, which would include all the states and the mediatized imperial nobility. But, while Harden= berg's plan gave Prussia and Austria considerable influence over the Confederation's affairs, important parts of both states were to remain outside its boundaries, so it was by no means clear how much influence the Confederation could exert over its two most powerful members. `The whole system can only be constructed on the foundation that Austria and Prussia are and remain united, and that they decide to place the other [states] in an essentially consultative position'. In effect, Hardenberg was offering Metternich joint hegemony over the smaller states in return for his acceptance of Prussia as Austria's equal partner in German affairs
Such a position was not acceptable to the other states, who feared the combined power of Vienna and Berlin even more than they feared domination by one or the other. Deprived of their Napoleonic protector, several of the middle_sized states had begun to look around for other allies; Wurttemberg had the advantage of dynastic ties with Russia, Hanover with Britain. Such foreign connections became all the more necessary when Metternich proposed that the final disposition of German affairs be left in the hands of the big six-Britain, Russia, Austria, Prussia, France, and Spain-who were to be guided by a German committee, composed of Austria and Prussia, plus Bavaria, Wurttemberg, and Hanover, which would in turn consult all of the assembled German princes and their representatives. If they had retained a united front, such a procedure would have enabled the major states to formulate the peace behind closed doors and impose it as they wished. But, as soon became apparent, divisions among the big six gave the smaller states considerable room to manoeuvre among them.
Metternich received Hardenberg's 'Forty_one Articles' in September, soon after the Prussian delegation arrived in Vienna. Without consulting the other German states, the Austrian chancellor, together with Humboldt, Count Munster, the Hanoverian representative, and a few aides, tried to work out an acceptable
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revision of Hardenberg's proposals which would blunt the inevitable opposition from the Mittelstaaten and protect the interests of the Habsburg monarchy. The result was the `Twelve Articles', finally finished on 12 October and presented to the various German representatives two days later. While retaining the main contours of Hardenberg's Confederation, Metternich's plan involved several important revisions: all of Austria's and Prussia's German territories were made part of the federal system, the presidency was to be in Austrian hands alone, and the power of the Kreise chiefs was increased. Most of the German statesmen at Vienna were not pleased when they learned the details of Metternich's plan. On the German committee itself, both the Bavarian and Wurttemberg delegates objected to the limitations placed on the sovereignty of their states. King Frederick of Wurttemberg instructed his representative to make clear that `there could be no thought of decreasing or limiting the existing sovereign power now held by his supreme majesty'. Until Metternich suspended them in mid_November, acrimonious and unproductive discussions in the German committee dragged on.10 But by the time these deliberations ground to a halt, they were completely overshadowed by the much more serious conflict that had erupted among the great powers over the future of Saxony and Poland.
As the reader will recall, in 1806 Napoleon consolidated his influence over Saxony by making it a kingdom and naming its king the absentee ruler of his Polish satellite, the duchy of Warsaw. Following the French defeat at Leipzig in October 1813, the Saxon and Polish territories immediately became the objects of Russian and Prussian ambitions. The latter were eager to annex the kingdom itself, which they saw as the best compensation for the lands they had abandoned to the new Mittelstaaten and for the Polish territories they were prepared to cede to Russia. Hardenberg raised the issue several times with Metternich, who was encouraging but noncommittal. In October 1814, as the bargaining over the future organization of Germany intensified, the Austrian chancellor seemed prepared to give Hardenberg most of what he wanted, in return for his co_operation in dealing with Russia. At this point Castlereagh was also prepared to back Prussia, if it would in turn support a British move to frustrate Russian ambitions in Poland. But this front could not hold against the fury of the tsar; Metternich
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eventually had to withdraw his promise of Saxony, and thus precipitated a crisis that threatened the entire process of peace_making. `I witness every day', wrote Castlereagh in mid_December, `the astonishing tenacity with which all the powers cling to the smallest points of separate interest.' As the political climate deteriorated, there was talk of war in Vienna, while in Berlin patriots began to suggest that now was the time for Prussia to assert its rights with force. Early in the new year, when Austria, England, and France stood firm against both Prussia and Russia, a compromise settlement was reached. Hardenberg had to be content with the northern part of Saxony rather than the kingdom as a whole; as compensation, Prussia was to receive extensive territories in the west. The tsar did not get the reunited Polish kingdom for which he yearned, but he did receive virtually all of the duchy of Warsaw, which became `Congress Poland', a nominally independent state under Russian control.'
In the meantime, Metternich had resumed negotiations with the Mittelstaaten in an effort to achieve a consensus on his Confederation proposals. These negotiations were still under way in March, when Napoleon's return from Elba put the entire enterprise at risk and thus provided a substantial impetus for a final compromise, which was hammered out in a series of meetings in May. The agreements on the territorial organization and federal structure of the German states were accepted by most of the participants on 8 June, and were included in the treaty signed by the major European powers on 9 June, just ten days before the battle of Waterloo. Despite efforts by the Prussian military to impose a punitive peace on France following Napoleon's defeat, the June settlement was reaffirmed when the allies gathered in Paris to sign a second peace treaty on 20 November. At the same time, allied solidarity was underscored by two additional agreements, the `Holy Alliance' of Christian powers inspired by the tsar's recently enkindled religiosity and the Quadruple Alliance of the four victorious states designed by Castlereagh as a buttress for the status quo.
The map of German Europe drawn in 1815ùtogether with some minor revisions and emendations made during the next four years-lasted until 1866 and, in many important respects, until 1919. Among the German states, Prussia was doubtlessly the big winner: the Hohenzollern received two_fifths of Saxony, with a
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population of about 850,000, some Polish land around Danzig, Swedish Pomerania (including Arndt's birthplace, the island of Rugen), most of the area lost in the Treaty of Tilsit, and extensive territories in the Rhineland and Westphalia. These Rhenish and Westphalian lands, taken with some reluctance as compensation for Prussia's thwarted ambitions in Saxony, were of particular long_term significance since they enabled Berlin to build an arc of influence across central Europe, stretching from the Hohenzollern's traditional bastions in the east to the rich and progressive provinces in the German west. Bavaria received Berchtesgaden, Ansbach and Bayreuth, Wiirzburg and Aschaffenburg, but not, as its leaders had hoped, the important fortress of Mainz (which had also been coveted by Prussia and eventually went to Hesse_Darmstadt) or all of the Electoral Palatinate. Hanover, now recognized as a kingdom but still dynastically tied to Britain, expanded into some former Prussian territory and annexed several small northern states. Saxony, although territorially truncated, remained a kingdom and kept its most important lands around Leipzig. Baden and Wurttemberg neither gained nor lost much territory-their achievement was to survive the Congress with most of their Napoleonic legacy intact. Austria, which had initially asserted its claims to some western territories, eventually used these lands to compensate some of the other states during the process of adjustment that culminated in the Territorial compromise of June 1819. The Habsburgs' main aims in 1815 were a consolidation of their dynastic lands and a strengthening of their influence in northern Italy. Metternich had decided that Austria's influence over German affairs could best be achieved through a series of diplomatic arrangements rather than a broken bridge of territories connecting Vienna to the Rhine.12
In the closing days of the Congress, as the opposing armies were taking their position in the Low Countries, Metternich hurriedly drafted a proposal for a German organization which, with Prussia's backing, he presented to the states for their approval on 23 May. Slightly revised, this became the basis for the Bundesakte, originally signed by thirty_seven states on 8 June and then, some weeks later, by Baden and Wurttemberg. In comparison to the proposals circulated earlier by Stein, Humboldt, Hardenberg, and Metternich himself, the final plan was simple and straightforward. Gone were the efforts to limit how much Austrian or Prussian territory might come under federal jurisdiction; gone were the Kreise that had been the occasion for so many complicated negotiations; gone were the
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executive, the bicameral representative institutions, the court, and many of the other measures designed to unify German public life. Instead, the `sovereign princes and free cities of Germany' established a confederation of independent states, a Staatenbund rather than a Bundesstaat.
Among the original thirty_nine members of the Confederation were Prussia and Austria (or, more accurately, those possessions of the Habsburgs and Hohenzollern that had previously belonged to the Holy Roman Empire), the kingdoms of Saxony, Bavaria, Hanover, and Wurttemberg, the electoral principality of Hesse, the grand duchies of Baden and Hesse, assorted other duchies and principalities, and the four free cities of Lubeck, Frankfurt, Bremen, and Hamburg. Most of these entities were quite small: in 1818 only seven members of the Confederation had populations of more than one million, whereas twenty_one had populations of less than 100,000, and thirteen less than 50,000; Liechtenstein, the smallest member, had just over 5,000 inhabitants. Since many of the smaller entities were enclaves in a larger state, their autonomy, especially in foreign affairs and commercial relations, was highly qualified. In the course of the Confederation's existence, several minor principalities fused; in 1866 there were only thirty_four members left.
The Confederation had only one statutory institution, the Bundesversammlung, a diet of delegates appointed and instructed by their governments. The diet could meet in a small council, composed of the eleven largest members (Austria, Prussia, Bavaria, Saxony, Hanover, Wurttemberg, Baden, Electoral Hesse, the Grand Duchy of Hesse, Denmark, and the Netherlands) and representatives of the rest grouped in six composite voting blocs, or in full assembly. In the latter, which was supposed to deal with all matters having to do with the character of the Confederation itself, either a two_thirds majority, or, on the most important issues, unanimity was necessary for a decision. This meant that, while Austria, Prussia, Hanover, Wurttemberg, Saxony, and Bavaria-each with four votes-could never be overwhelmed by a united front of the small states, neither could they overwhelm their neighbours. Austria provided the Bundesversammlung's president, but he functioned as the chairman of its proceedings, not as a chief executive. In effect, the German states had not got much further than the formulaic promise of a `lien federatif' contained in the Paris peace of May 1814. Almost everything substantive about the future, including common provisions for defense, economic
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policies, legal institutions, the legal status of the Jews, the position of the mediatized nobility, and a variety of other issues was left open, subject to subsequent discussion and decision by the diet.
Most of those who signed the Bundesakte in June 1815 did so without much enthusiasm. While representatives from the smaller states felt left out of the decision_making and objected to the lack of adequate debate, the advocates of a more cohesive national polity were disappointed that the Confederation was so loose and ill_defined. Humboldt, for instance, wrote to his wife that it was only `a shadow' of what he had wanted. Nevertheless, Humboldt recognized that the new organization had potential. In September 1816, after he had finished a year's tour of duty as Prussian representative to the diet, Humboldt reported to Hardenberg that, despite its deficiencies, the Confederation could develop from a federation of states into a federal state. Prussia should work towards this end, remaining ever mindful of hostile coalitions, but also alert to the possibilities of influencing other states `through dignity, justice, and firmness'. In the long run, Humboldt was convinced, greater unity among Germans would certainly come: `It will never be possible to stop Germany from wanting to be One state and One nation; the inclination, if not towards unity at least towards some kind of association remains . . . in every heart and
mind. '
There were, however, powerful counter-pressures to the process of unification. In the first place, the Confederation, like the old Reich, contained foreign sovereigns (the king of England, in his capacity as ruler of Hanover; the king of Denmark, as ruler of Holstein; the king of the Netherlands, as ruler of Luxemburg), whose closer amalgamation into a federal state would have strained their dual sovereignties. Second, and much more important, the smaller states, although pleased to have their sovereignty recognized and protected by the Confederation, feared that any expansion of federal power would have to come at their expense.'s As we shall see in the next two sections, after 1815 these states directed their energies and resources towards internal integration, not international co_operation. Finally, Metternich was not in favour of a more cohesive structure. From the beginning of the last war against Napoleon, Metternich had favoured retaining the
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sovereignty of the most important Mittelstaaten in order to stabilize central European affairs; nothing had happened since 1813 to change his mind. For him, the Confederation was a regional security system, designed to control Prussia by tying it to the other German states in an association that was then itself to be enmeshed in a series of other agreements with the status_quo powers.
To Humboldt, the Confederation was a foundation upon which future institutions might be built, to the rulers of the smaller states, it was a way of protecting their fragile sovereignty; to Metternich, it was one piece in a larger plan for the European order Austrian interests demanded. But, to the patriots inspired by the rhetoric of Arndt and Jahn, the Confederation stood for the reactionary particularism they wanted to destroy. After the heady excitement of war, these enthusiasts found the peace dispiriting. In 1814 Arndt had tried to keep alive the sacred flame of nationalism with ceremonies marking the anniversary of the battle of Leipzig, but the climate had changed, governments were no longer sympathetic, the need for patriotic energy had passed. When asked for ideas about a monument for the heroic Scharnhorst, Caspar David Friedrich replied, `So long as we remain the menials of princes, nothing great of this kind will be seen. Where the people have no voice, the people will not be allowed to be conscious of, and honour themselves.' Soon Friedrich's paintings began to reflect this political mood: in Die Gescheiterte Hoffnung, for instance, the remnants of a lost ship litter a landscape as glacially barren as the artist's view of public life. `Where is the Germany', asked the young men back from the war, `that was worthy of our common struggle?'
A small minority of Germans, most of them students or intellectuals, responded to this diminution of political hopes by establishing themselves as the personification of nationhood. The institutional expression of their identification with the nation was the Burschenschaft movement, formed at Jena in June 1815, when some students, dressed in what they took to be old German costumes and carrying the black-red-gold colours of the Liitzow volunteers, pledged themselves to work for the ideals defined by Arndt and the other poets of patriotic commitment. The Jena Burschenschaft soon had between 500 and 650 members; within a few months affiliated groups had been formed at other major universities. Everywhere, the Burschenschaftler shunned the ribald pleasures of traditional student life and sought to overcome the
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regional divisions embodied in the old organizations. They wanted to be German, in dress and custom, virtue and deportment, heart and soul. They believed themselves to be the best representatives of the present, the true hope of the future. The movement, Heinrich von Gagern told his father, who had helped to organized a defence of the small states at the Congress of Vienna, speaks 'to the best youth' and gives them `substance and nourishment'. We are moved above all, Gagern went on, by our love of the fatherland. 'We want more communal spirit among the individual German states, greater unity in their policies and values, the closest federal co_operation rather than independent policies of each state. Above all, we desire that Germany as a land, and the German people as a folk, can be esteemed.
The great public expression of the Burschenschaft spirit was the festival held at the Wartburg in October 1817 to celebrate the allies' victory at Leipzig and the tricentenary of the Reformation-the freedom of the nation from foreign domination and the freedom of thought from doctrinaire restraints. Four hundred and sixty_eight German students gathered at the castle where Luther had translated the Bible into the vernacular. At this shrine to the emergence of the German language, the participants heard speeches extolling them to represent the nation, transcend particularism, and defy reaction. `You should be clear that the moment you decide to attend a university', they were told, `all of Germany is open to you.' As heirs of the German literary culture of the eighteenth century, these young academicians searched for the symbols and institutions with which to express their commitment to a political nation. They did not find them. Despite the emotional fervour and rhetorical elan displayed at the Wartburg, the German national movement was obviously uncertain and divided. How would it be possible to create symbols of national unity at a place which stood for the division of Germans into different confessions? How would the majority of Germans who still owed their religious allegiance to Rome respond to Friedrich Forster's festive song . . . . ? Nor were the Burschenschaftler in agreement about the practical direction their institutions should take. Some, like Heinrich von Gagern, believed they had an educational function to provide their membership with ideals they
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could bring with them `into civil society . . . which they could try to make conform to these ideals'. Others, however, took a much more activist line and hoped for `swift and violent' acts by individuals against the nation's enemies.
The most radical sector of the national movement was led by Karl Follen at Giessen. The more frustrated Follen became with the narrowness of public life in the duchies of Hesse and Nassau, the more radically he envisioned a free, united, Christian nation. In 1818 he moved from Giessen to Jena because he hoped to broaden his influence over the Burschenschaften.19 But he was never able to attract more than two dozen eccentric followers, and would very likely have been forgotten had it not been for Karl Sand, a fringe member of his group, who in March 1819 stabbed to death August von Kotzebue, a playwright, reactionary publicist, and sometime political agent then employed by the Russian legation at Mannheim.
Karl Sand was twenty_three years old in 1819, a veteran of the Napoleonic war, member of a Burschenschaft, and student of theology. He had no doubt that murdering Kotzebue would bring him immortality: `Thank you, God, for the victory', he cried as he drove a second dagger into his own body. In a sense, of course, he was right. Sand did earn himself a place in history, even though his posthumously published writings reveal him to be politically confused, mentally unbalanced, and artistically untalented. His attempt at suicide failed and he recovered enough to stand trial and be executed. Everyone whose life had touched his was hurt by Sand's deed; for example, even though Follen's connection with the murder was never proven, he was hounded by the police, stripped of his position at the university, and forced into exile. Eventually, he moved to the United States where he died in 1840. Despite some efforts to turn Sand into a hero of political romanticism, most of those aware of what he had done viewed it with undisguised horror. Stein, for example, believed that the murder underscored the need for vigorous action against radicalism: as he wrote to Gorres in July 1819, `it is the duty of every moral and religious man to insist that this accursed sect be punished and that it become the object of public repugnance'.
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Metternich recognized immediately that the fear and anger provoked by Kotzebue's murder could be used to mobilize the Confederation against radicalism, contain south German constitutionalism, and derail Prussian reform. On 1 August Metternich met with King Frederick William at Teplitz and secured his co_operation before proceeding to a larger conclave, attended by the representatives of ten German states, held from 6 to 31 August at the fashionable resort town of Karlsbad. The decrees formulated at Karlsbad were then presented to, and unanimously passed by, the German diet when it met at Frankfurt in late September. The first decree called for closer supervision of universities throughout the Confederation: governments should ensure that no teacher misused his authority 'by spreading harmful ideas which would subvert public peace and order and undermine the foundations of the existing states'. Should a subversive teacher be dismissed by one university, he could not be hired by another. A second decree demanded tighter regulation of the press through the creation of a central commission, charged with the co_ordination and enforcement of censorship throughout the Confederation. Finally, [they created] . . . a federal bureau of investigation to handle 'revolutionary agitation discovered in several states'.
In November 1819 Metternich moved to consolidate the reactionary functions of the Confederation by calling a meeting of German ministers who, after six months of deliberations, agreed to the Wiener Schlussakte, a revised version of the federal constitution defined at Vienna four years earlier. The Schlussakte, which was accepted by the diet in July 1820, stripped the Confederation of the potentially progressive impulses that had been part of its original charter: there was no more talk about Jewish emancipation, religious toleration, or economic reforms. The institutional impediments to change within federal institutions were reinforcedùthe plenum was to be used only for voting, not discussion, and unanimity was required for the most important matters. While it was protective of its members' independence and sovereignty in most respects, the Schlussakte set limits on the possibility of change within the German states. Article Twenty_six made clear that the Confederation would intervene in a state's domestic affairs to preserve public order, especially if 'the state's government was rendered unable to seek help by the situation'. And Article Fifty_eight prohibited German princes from agreeing
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to a constitution `that would limit or hinder them in the fulfilment of their duties to the Confederation'. In its final form, the Confederation, which Humboldt had once hoped would develop into the vehicle for political reform and national cohesion, became a kind of counter_revolutionary holding company through which Metternich could co_ordinate governmental action against his political enemies. Instead of protecting citizens from the abuse of state power, the Confederation made sure that even relatively progressive governments would have to accept responsibility for stamping out dissent.
Only in one respect did the Confederation retain some shred of the national cohesion for which patriots had hoped: Article Two defined it as `a community of independent states in domestic matters . . . but in its external relations a politically unified, federated power'. That this would mean little in practical terms became clear when the federal states set out to define a common military policy. The war policy, adopted by the federal states in April 1821 and amended in July 1822, called for the creation of a single wartime army, under one commander to be chosen by the Confederation. This army was to be composed of contingents to be supplied by the member states according to a set formula. But since the state's armies would remain separate until a federal war had been declared, there were no incentives to common military planning or co_ordination. In fact, no one was especially interested in creating federal military institutions. The smaller states, burdened with debt and fearful of becoming the instruments of their larger neighbours, kept their military expenses low and their forces separate. Few Austrian or Prussian officers were ready to abandon their distinct traditions and special social role for some ill_defined German army. Only in the five federal fortresses did soldiers from several states serve together.
Once the final version of the territorial settlement of 1815 and the newly defined federal constitution had been accepted by the German states in 1819 and 1820, the German Confederation moved to the fringes of national life. The diet continued to rent crowded quarters in the Taxis family palace. It conducted its official business slowly, with a small staff of twenty_seven secretaries, clerks, and other office personnel. The various state representatives often led active social lives, but their