Making of a German Constitution : a Slow Revolution

–8–ConclusionThe German Idea of Revolution: Some Final ThoughtsThe King of Prussia has the constitutional right to rule autocratically ... If now the Kaisersteps forward as a personal ruler, he has every right to do so, the only question is whetherthe consequences can be borne in the long run. There is above all the question: who willwin the game? I am afraid that only a successful war will provide the necessary prestigefor this [domestic] conflict. 1 —Letter from Eulenburg to Holstein, circa 1898The game, in fact, had already been won and the Prussian monarchy lost. AsFrensdorff’s double entendre implied, the BGB brought down the crown. 2 Germany’sslow revolution reached its first apex in 1896. From 18 August of that year, themonarchy was on borrowed time pending good constitutional behavior and everybody,except perhaps for Wilhelm II, knew it. More than anything else, Eulenburg’sstrident insistence that the Kaiser could step forward as an autocrat underscored theanxieties of the hour. By 1914, the Kaiser’s domestic authority had been strippedaway, and he was hemmed in by law and a declining prestige in the diplomaticsphere as well. At least where the Reich was concerned, the majesty of the Prussianmonarchy was diminished, and, increasingly, the only hope for its survival was seenin a risky roll of the dice, in Eulenburg’s words ‘a successful war’. The answer tothe fundamental political question is, yes, there was a Bürgerliche Revolution inGermany, but it produced many discontents at the grassroots of German society; andworse, at the top. The Kaiser was the very dangerous discontent number one. Whenall else failed on the domestic front, he could still take Germany to war and unleashthe terrible violence and bloodshed that followed in 1914. It was, as Prince Alberthad written, ‘a morally unjustified undertaking’. 3This book has sought to argue that the gradual consolidation of law, especiallycivil law, in Germany during the last quarter of the nineteenth century wasthe chosen means to a fundamental constitutional transformation, and that by liberaldesign, this process was both slow and nonviolent. The Constitution of 1871,in fact, was changeable, and it left many matters to be settled through the legislativeprocess, a process that for a while Bismarck himself used adeptly. In makingthis argument, this study has drawn on the Staatslehre thought of Jellinek, Laband