BOOKS.
NAPOLEONIC STATESWANSHIP IN GERMANY.* IT is perhaps an arguable point how far the world has been the gainer by the process of national consolidation which has been the most obvious result of the French Revolutionary upheaval; by the growth of powerful States like the modern German Empire and unified Italy ; by the intensification of nations. rivalry, the burden of debts and armaments, and the consequent possibility of warfare on a more devastating scale than any of which Europe has had experience. The conditions of material existence for all classes in parts, at all events, of Italy have never been so favourable as in the eighteenth century, and while the same cannot be said of Germany, where serfdom and the other abuses of feudalism still continued to flourish, political and commercial greatness and consolidation have diverted the intellectual energy of the country from the paths of poetry and philosophic thought in which she once held indisputable predominance. For France, certainly, the awakening of Germany to material aims, accomplished through her agency, has been politically an unmixed evil. The grouping of the German States from 1740 to 1805 round the two contending Powers of Austria and Prussia had been the basis of French influence in Central Europe. Napoleon's ambition first eliminated Austria from the Germanic system, and then crushed Prussia and Northern Germany, and held them for six years "under the heel of the French legionaries." "No greater misfortune," writes Mr. Fisher, "could have befallen France, for out of Jena and Auerstiidt sprang the resurrection of Prussia, the War of Liberation, and the ultimate German Empire." The argument is true, though the situa- tion might have been retrieved had Napoleon IIL been a statesman instead of an intriguer.
Mr. Fisher's learned, able, and vivacious study of Napoleonic statesmanship in Germany throws a new light on one of the greatest of historical subjects, and must be welcomed as fresh evidence that the English Universities have become worthy contributors to contemporary historical scholarship. By proofs collected from a mass of printed and unpublished material, he brings for the first time before English readers the actual condition, social, political, and constitutional, of the German States, and shows how serious, and in many respects how fruitful, was the attempt to supersede the anti- quated machinery of government in Germany by the French methods in administration, in education, in finance, in law, which had emerged from ten years of anarchical strivings, and which had at last brought peace and contentment to France. The reorganisation of that country under the Consulate forms so brilliant a page in French history as to atone in the eyes of posterity for the crimes and follies of the Revolutionary period; and if Napoleon could have remained satisfied with this splendid achievement, he might have founded, not only a lasting dynasty, but a State which for generations must have remained dominant on the Continent of Europe. But restless military ambition was, as Mr. Fisher suggests, not perhaps the only motive which dictated the Imperial policy of conquest and subjugation. The proselytising spirit of Jacobinism must have been renewed by the "swift unrolling of the splendid pageant of civil history at home " ; by the success of the new institutions, no less than by the chaotic conditions pre- vailing in Germany which afforded so tempting a field for its exercise. "Guided and inspired by a mind so potent" as Napoleon's, "France felt herself fit to rule the world," and proceeded to act on this belief.
The contrast, indeed, between the new France and the organisation of the three hundred and sixty States of the Empire, representing every grade in the feudal hierarchy from the knights to the Emperor, was of the most startling kind. "It was so cumbrous and so unreasonable as to have reduced the docile and highly educated people of Germany to a kind of political paralysis." The absence of all feeling of common nationality and the undisguised selfishness of the various German Courts bad been the main cause of the success of the raw French levies in the early years of the war, and justified the ruthless rearrangement of territories, the suppression of ecclesiastical States, the mecliatisation of principalities and
• Studies in Napoleonic Statesmanship: Germany. By Herbert A. L. Fisher, MA., Fellow of New College, Oxford. Oxford : at the Clarendon Press. [12e. net.1
free towns, the consolidation of the larger States, the military government of some, and the creation of new States, by which Napoleon in a few years completely altered the map of Germany. The Confederation of the Rhine, the grand duchy of Berg, and the kingdom of Westphalia were his political creations ; and in all of these the whole parapher- nalia of French administrative law and public instruction were introduced, in many cases by capable and enthusiastic teachers. Of these creations, writes Mr. Fisher, the most curious and important was the kingdom of West- phalia, which for six years exhibited the spectacle of a "licentious Court and a good constitution ; of beneficent reform sacrificed to an insane policy ; of Latin enlightenment transfusing Teutonic darkness and of Teutonic industry honestly enlisted in the cause of a Latin Government." It was composed of certain Prussian territories and of the con- fiscated estates of the Duke of Brunswick and the Elector of Hesse-Cassel, the best and the worst governed respectively of the old German principalities, and Jerome Bonaparte, King at twenty-three years of age, had the advice of some able and experienced statesmen, French and German. As in other parts of Germany, serfdom and all rights of feudalism were abolished, agrarian reform was encouraged by the Civil Code, and with the liberation of agriculture commerce was freed by the sweeping away of jurand-es and maitrises. The new system of justice was an even greater benefit; religious toleration was insisted on, and "the Government of Jerome displayed for the first time in Germany the leading principles of enlightened finance." In old days every little fraction in every province "had its own fiscal system, and all systems were bad, being characterised by three great vices—the exemption of the rich, impediments to transit, and a large number of irritating duties upon commodities." But confused and vicious as the old system was, it seems not to have been oppressive, while the new system ended in the absolute ruin of every class in the community. The story of the rise and fall of the kingdom of Westphalia as related at length by Mr. Fisher is one of the most enlighten- ing chapters in political history. With many chances in its favour, it "was confronted by two deadly enemies,—Jerome, its King, and Napoleon, its creator." With all his faults of ostentation and extravagance, upon which no one was more severe than his Imperial brother, Jerome was less fatal to his country than Napoleon, who "ruined Westphalia by treating it as a mere financial and military asset in his great game of politics." Germany, and especially this unlucky kingdom, was exploited not only by individuals, but by the French Govern- ment, for before all the interests of the conquered population stood the necessity of providing for the dotation of the Im- perial family and the French Marshals, and of supporting for French military needs not only a large native army, but French armies quartered on the country. Never did a policy of unprincipled aggrandisement so rapidly bring its Nemesis. "Thus," writes Mr. Fisher, "the Napoleonic system, albeit containing many elements of splendid promise, became the despair of its best servants. Men of unquestioned integrity were made accomplices in a suspicious and restless despotism. They had dreamed the dream of an Allemagne Franraise- They saw their work shattered before their eyes, the ideal of exploitation conquering the ideal of beneficence, the enthusiasm of the governed passing into acquiescence, and the acquies- cence into concentrated hate."
This work, as we have said, is a most valuable addition to historical knowledge, but it shows also fine historical judgment and power of characterisation. The famous Duke of Brunswick, for instance, is admirably described in a couple of pages. More detailed is the account of a leas well known man, Napoleon's most useful and pliant German ally, "Freiherr Carl Theodor Anton Maria von Dalberg, Prince-Primate of the Rhenish Confederation, Archbishop of Ratisbon, temporal sovereign of Frankfort and Aschaffenburg and some thirty square miles in the centre of Germany." He is well described as "one of those expansive and prosperous persons who are blind to differences and dividing lines, and have not the grit to think unpleasantly." But of even greater interest are the incidental comments on the character and career of that mighty but malign genius, the Emperor Napoleon. We may be allowed to conclude with one of these :—
" Napoleon brought France to earth. We may e911 him the
first of the Romantics, for his love of Ossian and his haunting dreams of oriental enterprise, or else the last of the Classics, remembering the lapidary style of his correspondence, his passion for Corneille, the studied and unstudied Caesarism of his polities. But the thing which made the Consulate great was Napoleon's realism, his close and comprehensive grasp of facts. He saw men as they were, ganged their characters, flattered their vanities, and in his political calculus allowed for vulgar foibles as well as for scienoe and good sense. He had the strong dash of cynicism which the enthusiasts lacked, and this, though repulsive in its excess, was valuable in an age of hyperbolic expectations. There has been no greater master in the art of using, driving, and inspiring men. He found great disorder and demoralization ; he created a bureaucracy more competent, active, and enlightened than any which Europe had seen. But as the Consulate passed into Empire, and the growing palsy of despotism spread over France, the quality of the work declined. The best men hated the never-ending wars, and saw insanity written in large token over their master's schemes. The blockade, the conscription, the arrangements for the cantonment and provisioning of troops, con- sumed their most valuable energies, and the Emperor, growing ever more impatient of contradiction, cared for little else. All criticism, all independent political thought expired. Resolutely closing his eyes to unpleasant facts, Napoleon insisted that his servants should be blind also, and being despotic and irritable, he was able to exact a constant supply of nutriment for his illusions."
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