The Story of Mankind [146]
baronies, electorates, free cities and free villages,
ruled by the strangest assortment of potentates that was ever
seen off the comic opera stage. Frederick the Great had
changed this when he created a strong Prussia, but this state
had not survived him by many years.
Napoleon had blue-penciled the demand for independence
of most of these little countries, and only fifty-two out of a
total of more than three hundred had survived the year 1806.
During the years of the great struggle for independence, many
a young soldier had dreamed of a new Fatherland that should
be strong and united. But there can be no union without a
strong leadership, and who was to be this leader?
There were five kingdoms in the German speaking lands.
The rulers of two of these, Austria and Prussia, were kings by
the Grace of God. The rulers of three others, Bavaria, Saxony
and Wurtemberg, were kings by the Grace of Napoleon, and
as they had been the faithful henchmen of the Emperor, their
patriotic credit with the other Germans was therefore not very
good.
The Congress had established a new German Confederation,
a league of thirty-eight sovereign states, under the chairmanship
of the King of Austria, who was now known as the
Emperor of Austria. It was the sort of make-shift arrangement
which satisfied no one. It is true that a German Diet,
which met in the old coronation city of Frankfort. had been
created to discuss matters of ``common policy and importance.''
But in this Diet, thirty-eight delegates represented thirty-eight
different interests and as no decision could be taken without a
unanimous vote (a parliamentary rule which had in previous
centuries ruined the mighty kingdom of Poland), the famous
German Confederation became very soon the laughing stock
of Europe and the politics of the old Empire began to resemble
those of our Central American neighbours in the forties and
the fifties of the last century.
It was terribly humiliating to the people who had sacrificed
everything for a national ideal. But the Congress was not
interested in the private feelings of ``subjects,'' and the debate
was closed.
Did anybody object? Most assuredly. As soon as the first
feeling of hatred against Napoleon had quieted down--as soon
as the enthusiasm of the great war had subsided--as soon as
the people came to a full realisation of the crime that had been
committed in the name of ``peace and stability'' they began to
murmur. They even made threats of open revolt. But what
could they do? They were powerless. They were at the mercy
of the most pitiless and efficient police system the world had
ever seen.
The members of the Congress of Vienna honestly and sincerely
believed that ``the Revolutionary Principle had led to
the criminal usurpation of the throne by the former emperor
Napoleon.'' They felt that they were called upon to eradicate
the adherents of the so-called ``French ideas'' just as Philip II
had only followed the voice of his conscience when he burned
Protestants or hanged Moors. In the beginning of the sixteenth
century a man who did not believe in the divine right
of the Pope to rule his subjects as he saw fit was a ``heretic''
and it was the duty of all loyal citizens to kill him. In the
beginning of the nineteenth century, on the continent of Europe,
a man who did not believe in the divine right of his king to
rule him as he or his Prime Minister saw fit, was a ``heretic,'' and
it was the duty of all loyal citizens to denounce him to the nearest
policeman and see that he got punished.
But the rulers of the year 1815 had learned efficiency in
the school of Napoleon and they performed their task much
better than it had been done in the year 1517. The period
between the year 1815 and the year 1860 was the great era of
the political spy. Spies were everywhere. They lived in palaces
and they were to be found in the lowest