• About Me
  • About This Blog
  • Index of Movies
  • Links
  • Support This Blog!
  • Why “An Historian”?

An Historian Goes to the Movies

~ Exploring history on the screen

An Historian Goes to the Movies

Tag Archives: Nationalism

Fall of Eagles: The Unification of Germany

05 Wednesday Jul 2017

Posted by aelarsen in Fall of Eagles, History, Movies, TV Shows

≈ 4 Comments

Tags

19th Century Europe, 19th Century Germany, BBC, Curt Jürgens, Fall of Eagles, Frederick III, Gemma Jones, Liberalism, Nationalism, Otto von Bismarck, Unification of Germany, William I of Prussia

As I discussed in my previous post, Fall of Eagles deals with major political events from the perspective of the royal families of Austria, Prussia/Germany, and Russia, but doesn’t both to explain the wider political movements that were driving many of the major events. Liberalism is frequently referenced, but never explained, and nationalism isn’t even mentioned as an ideology. The first episode deals with the Revolutions of 1848 on Austria and Hungary while focusing mostly on the limited viewpoint of Empress Elisabeth. The second episode, “The English Princess”, takes the same approach to the unification of Germany in the 1860s.

MV5BMTk2NDcyOTI5Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjg3MDA0MQ@@._V1_UY268_CR4,0,182,268_AL_

The main viewpoint character in this episode is Crown Princess Victoria (Gemma Jones), daughter of Queen Victoria and wife of the Prussian Crown Prince Frederick (Denis Lill), son of King William I (Maurice Denham), who is depicted as hesitant, unsure of himself, and prone to fits of tears. Historically. Victoria and Frederick were Liberals, which as I explained in my previous post means they favored a strong Parliament and other representative elements of government, whereas William I and his Chancellor Otto von Bismarck (Curt Jürgens) were Conservatives, so that they favored a strong monarch with few limits on his authority. But the viewer is left to figure this out mostly through William and Bismarck’s preference for an unrestrained military and a willingness to ignore the Prussian Parliament.

The episode focuses on the tensions between William and his son and daughter-in-law. William demands that Frederick express support for press censorship, and when Frederick gives a speech that dodges the issue, William feels betrayed and accuses Frederick of wanting to usurp the throne, and Bismarck counsels William to cut Frederick out of government duties and isolate them. The series frames this as William being unable to conceive of the idea of ‘loyal opposition’, an idea deeply embedded in British politics. Both Victoria and Frederick resent this isolation and their viewpoint is championed in the series with the way the individual scenes frame the situation.

 

The Unification of Germany

The Revolutions of 1848 demonstrated that there were many Germans who wished to see the unification of the fragmented German nation into a single nation-state. Bismarck, however, wanted to strengthen Prussia and turn it into the greatest European power. While a unified Germany was a way to make Prussia more powerful, there was a serious problem. Austria was a rival of Prussia, and unifying the Germans meant bringing both Austria and Prussia into a new German nation-state, which meant that Prussia would not be able to dominate the new Germany. So Bismarck’s Conservatism was at odds with the goals of German Nationalists.

Bundesarchiv_Bild_183-R68588,_Otto_von_Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck

Bismarck’s solution to this problem was to use Nationalism as a way to disguise his ambitions for Prussia. Over the 1860s, he waged three wars: the Second Schleswig War in 1864, the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, and the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. He used the Second Schleswig War as an opportunity to promote himself as the defender of the German Nation from Danish oppression, this winning favor with the German Nationalists. When Austria tried to revise the settlement by appealing to a German Diet, Bismarck accused them of violating the terms of the peace treaty and declared war. In fact, Bismarck’s goal was to force Austria into withdrawing from German politics, and the Prussian military trounced Austria brutally at the Battle of Königgrätz, forcing Austria to sue for peace.

1868_Bleibtreu_Schlacht_bei_Koeniggraetz_anagoria.JPG

Bismarck watching the battle of Königgrätz

Then Bismarch orchestrated the Franco-Prussian War, editing a telegram from William I to the French ambassador in a way that suggested that William had insulted the French. This tricked Napoleon III into declaring war on Prussia. In the brief war that followed, Prussia again triumphed handily. This gave Bismarck the political capital to press for a German unification that excluded Austria and which allowed Prussia to dictate the terms of the unification. The Nationalists rejoiced to see their goal of German unification advanced so far, while the Liberals looked away from Bismarch’s violent methods and toward the constitution that he offered.

On the surface, the constitution appeared to be a Liberal document, establishing universal manhood suffrage and vesting substantial power in what was essentially a two-house Parliament. The Reichstag (functionally the Lower House) was elected by all male citizens over 25, while the Bundesrat (functionally the Upper House) was appointed by the heads of the individual German states, with Prussia getting as many votes as the next four largest house combined and slightly more than 25% of the total votes. The Bundespräsidium or presidency of the German Confederacy was held by the Prussian king, who received the title of Emperor. But when looks closely at the details of the constitution, it actually grants the king of Prussia enormous power, because the Bundesrat held much more power than the Reichstag, and it was dominated by Prussian appointees, which allowed the king of Prussia to issue orders that the Bundesrat carried out. In practice, this was a Conservative constitution dressed up as a Liberal one, and it vastly increased the power of Prussia by making in the dominant state in Germany.

In the series, William I feels so unable to govern that he attempts to abdicate in favor of his son, but Frederick refuses on the grounds that Hohenzollerns do not abdicate. (Whether this detail is true I am unsure of. I haven’t been able to find any confirmation of it.) Instead, William turns to Bismarck, who takes advantage of the fact that the old man just wants to be told what to do, and sets about engineering the unification of Germany to make himself more powerful. The series makes no mention of the Second Schleswig War, and then focuses on the Austro-Prussian War, which is simply blames on Bismarck’s aggression. There is an extended scene in which Bismarck, having defeated Austria in three battles in as many days now wants to negotiate for peace. William and General von Moltke want to press onward and occupy Vienna, hoping to take Austrian land. Bismarck (backed by Frederick, who dislikes war) says that Austrian land has no value to Prussia. It’s understandable why William and von Moltke can’t understand what Bismarck wants because Bismarck never clearly explains what his purpose for the war is. He gets his way by threatening to quit and then orchestrates the Franco-Prussian War, again failing to explain what his motives are. Somehow, victory over France leads the other German states to press William to become emperor, which he resists but which Frederick presses for.

If one does not know what Bismarck was actually up to, this episode would certainly not enlighten one much about the process of German unification. Bismarck comes off as a steely but emotional man who cares little for human lives other than his soldiers and has little respect for the ruler he serves.

This review was made possible by a reader who made a generous donation to my Paypal account and requested I review this series. If you have something you’d like me to review, make a donation and tell me what you’d like me to watch.

Want to Know More? 

Fall of Eagles is available on Youtube. The series is available through Amazon, but if you decide to buy it, make sure you’re getting a format that will play on your DVD player; some versions only play British and European formats.  For those interested in Bismarck himself, try Jonathan Steinberg’s Bismarck: A Life. If you want to know more about Bismarck’s unification of Germany, take a look at DG Williamson’s Bismarck and German Unification, 1862-1890.


Advertisement

Fall of Eagles: The Revolutions of 1848

25 Sunday Jun 2017

Posted by aelarsen in Fall of Eagles, History, Movies, TV Shows

≈ 7 Comments

Tags

19th Century Austria, 19th Century Europe, BBC, Conservatism, Elisabeth of Austria, Fall of Eagles, Franz Joseph I, Liberalism, Milwaukee, Nationalism, Revolutions of 1848

The BBC miniseries Fall of Eagles concentrates on the big political developments and views them through the lens of the monarchs of Austria, Prussia, and Russia. The show touches on a variety of important socio-political developments, but it makes little effort to explain these developments, with the partial exception of Socialism, which gets a full episode devoted to Lenin (Patrick Stewart) and his maneuverings within the Communist party. So let’s talk about the movements that form a critical background to the events in the series.

MV5BMTk2NDcyOTI5Nl5BMl5BanBnXkFtZTcwMjg3MDA0MQ@@._V1_UY268_CR4,0,182,268_AL_

 

Liberalism and Conservatism

The monarchs in the series make repeated references to ‘liberals’, but exactly what liberals wanted is never directly addressed. Liberalism arguably goes back to the late 17th century, at least as a philosophical movement, but it blossomed as a political movement at the end of the 18th century with the American and French Revolutions. 19th century Liberals, broadly speaking, sought to build on the principles of representative democracy established in those two revolutions (as well as in the 18th century British Parliament). Liberals favored a strong representative body such as a parliament, and wanted this parliament to be elected based on a wide franchise (the right to vote). Different Liberals advocated for a different basis for the franchise: ownership of land, an independent income, adult male status (universal manhood suffrage), or universal suffrage (which would grant women the right to vote), but they all agreed that the general population ought to be directly represented in government. Because they wanted a strong representative element in government, they generally wanted a more restricted executive (either a king or an elected leader) whose powers were clearly defined. Typically, though not inevitably, Liberals wanted to establish a written constitution that clearly laid out the powers of the different segments of the government.

Liberals also tended to favor a notion of basic rights that included such things as freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and freedom of religion. In the mid-19th century, British member of Parliament and political philosopher John Stuart Mill articulated what became for more than a century the classic statement of Liberal freedom. He argued that the only reason the state was justified in coercing a citizen was to protect that person from interfering with another citizen’s free exercise of their rights. In Mill’s view, the government had no right to restrict what its citizens could think, say, or believe, and could only restrict what they could do to protect the rights of other citizens.

John_Stuart_Mill_by_London_Stereoscopic_Company,_c1870.jpg

John Stuart Mill

The opposing political position was Conservatism, which emerged out of a reaction against the French Revolution. Conservatives tended to follow the principles of British member of Parliament and political philosopher Edmund Burke, who rejected the idea of human equality in favor of a society in which different people had different levels of wealth and political rights based on inheritance. A society with many different competing social groups, Burke argued, could only change through a process of compromise, which would ensure moderation, slow change, and stability. As Burke saw it, monarchy was the best guarantor of stability because kings had the most to lose during a political upheaval.

EdmundBurke1771.jpg

Edmund Burke

From Burke’s theories, it followed that what was needed was a strong monarch with wide and less-strictly defined powers. That meant that Conservatives resisted representative institutions or wanted them fairly weak. They favored the political rights of the aristocracy over the rights of the general population, and typically wanted limits on the freedoms that Liberals championed. For example, they often maintained the need for some degree of censorship of ideas and liked the idea of a state church. The Austrian, German, and Russian monarchs in this series are all voices for Conservatism, but the show never identifies them as such because the series is told from their point of view, and to them these positions are simply self-evident. They seek to govern the way their ancestors did, and as a result, they view Liberals as unjustified upstarts.

 

Nationalism

When I teach Modern Western Civilization, I always have to spend a day talking about Nationalism, because it’s an ideology that had a huge impact on 19th and 20th century Europe. I tell my students that they will have a hard time wrapping their heads around it because they think they know what a Nation is, but they’re wrong. In 20th century terminology, a nation is basically just a synonym for a country. But in 19th century terms, a Nation is not a place but rather a group of people. Nations were comprised of people who had a broad set of common characteristics, typically seen as a common ancestry, shared language, shared religion, and shared cultural values such as a particular style of music, cooking, clothing, and so on (although different Nationalists focused on different sets of these traits).

So, for example, the French are clearly a Nation in the 19th century sense of the term. They have a shared ancestry, a common language, tend toward a cultural Catholicism mixed with agnosticism or atheism, a sophisticated cuisine (which they actually teach in primary schools to ensure that children will embrace it), an inexplicable love of lousy Euro-pop, and so on. In contrast, modern Americans are not a Nation; we do not have a common ancestry, we do not all speak one language (although English predominates, many speak Spanish, for example), we do not all belong to a single religion or denomination, and we have a wide range of styles of cooking and music. In other words, what 19th century people called a Nation we would probably call an ethnic group.

On a social level, Nationalists emphasized that people ought to draw their primary sense of identity from their nation and should be loyal to it. They wanted to convince people that they belonged to a Nation. On a political level, what Nationalists wanted was a Nation-State, that is, a political state (a country) whose boundaries included all the members of the nation. So French Nationalists wanted (and to a considerable extent already had) a state of France that included all the French-speaker parts of Europe. There were a few bits along their eastern frontier that were not part of France, but overall, the French nation was mostly in France.

But other European Nationalists were not so lucky. They tended to have one of two problems. German Nationalists had the problem that ‘Germany’ was not a county in the early 19th century, merely a geographic region like the Midwest. The German Nation was divided up between several dozen small states, each of which was its own country. Italian Nationalists had a similar problem; ‘Italy’ was a geographic term, not a country. These Nationalists pursued a goal of National Unification, seeking to pull their fragmented Nations together into one Nation-State

In Eastern Europe, the Nationalist problem was quite different. There were several dozen small Nations that were subsumed into other countries. The classical example (very relevant for this series) was Austria (or after 1867, Austria-Hungary). Austria-Hungary was technically the union of two separate kingdoms, Austria and Hungary, which were united because the Hapsburg dynasty had inherited the crowns of both states. This state was a multi-National state (in 19th century terms). The western half of Austria was predominantly German, but the eastern half included more than a dozen other National groups, including the Hungarians, the Czechs, the Slovaks, the Poles, the Croats, the Serbs, and so on. What Nationalists of each of these different groups wanted was for their Nation to be an independent Nation-State, completely separate from Austrian control. Nationalism was an existential threat to Austria, because if it got a strong foothold there, it would pull Austria apart.

Austria_Hungary_ethnic.svg.png

Map of Austria showing all the major Nations

Nationalism often, though not inevitably, went hand in hand with Liberalism, because Liberalism offered Nationalists tools to potentially achieve their goals with. Rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of the press meant that Nationalists could spread their ideas freely in the face of governments that opposed them. The establishment of a representative legislature based on a wide franchise would mean that Nationalists could try to achieve National Independence or Unification through democratic methods.

 

The Revolutions of 1848

In 1848, these movements produced a set of upheavals known as the Revolutions of 1848 (also sometimes called the Spring of Nations). Starting in France and eventually breaking out in about 50 different countries, Liberals and Nationalists, among others, agitated for political change. But different segments of the population wanted different things, so the uprisings were not truly coordinated, even within the same country or region. The Revolutions of 1848 were too complicated to explore in detail here, because they played out differently in different countries. So I’ll restrict myself to just Austria and Germany.

In Austria, a group of Viennese university students began a protest in March of the year, demanding an Austrian constitution and a legislature elected by universal manhood suffrage. Emperor Ferdinand I ordered his troops to open fire on the students, killing several and provoking Viennese workers to join the protest in anger over the killings, causing the protest to develop into an armed insurrection.

Ferdinand tried various measures to appease the insurrectionaries. He fired his unpopular chief minister Metternich and ordered the drafting of a constitution in April, but the proposed constitution did not establish a wide franchise and so was rejected. After fleeing Vienna, Ferdinand established an elected legislature.

About the same time this was happened, a Nationalist insurrection broke out in Hungary seeking Hungarian independence. The Nationalists adopted a Liberal agenda known as the 10 Points, which included things such as freedom of the press, freedom of religion, the election of government ministers in parliament, and the abolition of legal and tax privileges for certain classes of people. Eventually Ferdinand sent Austrian troops into Hungary, but they were defeated. This action provoked vehement opposition in Vienna, forcing Ferdinand to abdicate in favor of his nephew Franz Joseph I.

Emperor_Francis_Joseph.jpg

Franz Joseph late in life

Hungary briefly established a Hungarian Republic led by Regent-President Louis Kosuth, whose forces defeated the Austrians several times over the next year. But in May of 1849, the situation turned in favor of Austria when Czar Nicholas I decided to support Franz Joseph. By August, Austrian and Russian forces had crushed the rebellion and re-established Austrian control over Hungary, bringing an end for a generation to Hungarian Nationalist efforts to achieve independence.

The situation in Germany is messier, because ‘Germany’ wasn’t one country, but rather about 3 dozen countries, most of which saw some form of upheaval. In Prussia, which after Austria was the largest of the German states, protesters took to the streets of Berlin in March, demanding a constitution, parliamentary elections, freedom of the press, and the unification of Germany. King Frederick William IV played for time by agreeing to allow a liberal constitution. establishing an elected assembly, and embracing the principle of German unification. In May, the Prussian National Assembly met for the first time, tasked with drafting a liberal constitution. But then in December, Frederick William dissolved the Assembly, imposed a Conservative constitution that vested most of the power in the hands of the king, and allowed the establishment of a bicameral legislature.

220px-Friedrich_Wilhelm_IV_von_preussen_1847.jpg

Frederick William IV

But in May of 1848, the All-German National Assembly convened in Frankfurt am Main with representatives elected from across the German states (including both Austria and Prussia). It was an overwhelmingly middle class and Liberal group of representatives. It drafted a proposed German Constitution and decided to offer the crown of the proposed new German Empire to Frederick William, who had continued to indicate support for the unification of Germany. But Frederick William contemptuously declared that would not receive “a crown from the gutter.” Frederick’s rejection was driven by two things, his hostility to revolution and his staunch belief in the divine right of kings; he refused to accept that a group of people could select their own ruler. Only God could choose rulers, and if people could choose their ruler, logically they could depose him as well. Frederick William’s refusal of the crown spelled the end of the so-called March Revolution across Germany.

That failure, incidentally, caused large numbers of Liberals and Socialists to flee Germany for the United States. A very sizable number of them ultimately came to my home town Milwaukee, making it the most German city outside of Germany for about a century. The heavily German character of Milwaukee was still fairly evident as I was growing up in the 70s, although it’s mostly faded away now. The heavy Socialist presence in the city is the reason Milwauke had three Socialist mayors in the first half of the century and played such an important role in the growth of the American Labor Union movement.

The Revolutions in Fall of Eagles

The first episode, “Death Waltz” opens with a brief narration about the Revolution of 1848 in Austria.

“1848. The Eagle trembled. New and revolutionary forces are suddenly unleashed. Student protests and demonstrations by a starving and resentful population lead to traditional ideas of monarchy and government being questioned throughout Europe. When Hungarian nationalists took to the barricades in Vienna, the young emperor Franz Josef of Austria ordered his troops to crush the rebellion. Men died in their thousands. Hundreds were shot and hundreds were executed and those leaders who escaped were hanged in effigy. As blood ran in the streets of Vienna, the emperor and his court waltzed beneath glittering chandeliers.”

While everything in that passage is technically correct, it omits the point that the protests toppled Emperor Ferdinand. More importantly, it fails to explain what the protestors wanted. There’s no explanation of Liberalism’s primary principles or indeed any mention of Liberalism at all, and no explanation of what the Hungarian nationalists wanted, or that by late in 1848 it was looking as if the Hungarian nationalists were going to win.

As the voiceover ends, we see the domineering Archduchess Sophie (Pamela Brown) discussing the court protocol with Princess Helene of Bavaria, who is supposed to marry the young emperor. But Franz Joseph (Miles Anderson) instead falls deeply in love with Helene’s sister Elisabeth (Diane Keen), defies his mother and marries her. All of this happened in 1854, not 1848 as the episode suggests. (The only clue to this is a flashback that isn’t obviously a flashback, in which Helene and Elisabeth’s tutor refers to the Revolution of 1848 and the Hungarian revolt.) The rest of the episode concentrates on Elisabeth’s rather unhappy marriage with Franz Joseph. Although he loved her deeply, her feelings for him were rather cooler, and she got on very poorly with Sophie, who sought to control her domestic life.

Unknown-2.jpeg

Keen and Anderson as Elisabeth and Franz Joseph

The episode focuses a fair amount of time on Elisabeth’s growing interest in Hungary and her sympathy with the Hungarian desire for ‘freedom’, as the episode summarizes Hungarian Nationalism. There’s no discussion of the idea of a Hungarian Nation, only that the Hungarians wanted a greater voice in government. The episode asserts that Elisabeth’s dissatisfaction with her personal life made her deeply sympathetic to the Hungarian desire for freedom. One scene touches on one of the underlying issues of Nationalism though. Elisabeth insists on wearing a tiara that mimics a Hungarian style of headdress, which is implicitly a statement of support for the Hungarians, despite Sophie’s efforts to get her to wear something more German. (See the photo above.) The idea that Germans and Hungarians would dress differently because they were different Nations is not explained, so the viewer is left to read between the lines why this tiara is an issue.

230px-Winterhalter_Elisabeth_2.jpg

Empress Elisabeth of Austria

(Elisabeth, by the way, was one of the great beauties of 19th century Europe. She spent between 2 and 3 hours a day on her hair, exercised and dieted aggressively, and managed to maintain a 16 inch waist despite three pregancies; later in life she had only a 19 1/2 inch waist. After she turned 33, she refused to sit for any more portraits, so that her image in the public mind would always be one of youth and beauty.)

That the Revolutions of 1848 also played themselves out in Germany is not mentioned directly, although Frederick William’s rejection of the ‘crown from the gutters’ is references in a later episode.

To my mind, failing to explain Liberalism and Nationalism in any direct way is a mistake of the series. While the narrative of the event is clear enough for the viewer, the series doesn’t really explain what the issues driving events were, except in the most basic sense that people wanted self-government.

 

Want to Know More? 

Fall of Eagles is available on Youtube. The series is available through Amazon, but if you decide to buy it, make sure you’re getting a format that will play on your DVD player; some versions only play British and European formats.

Support This Blog

All donations gratefully accepted and go to helping me continue blogging about history & movies. Buy Now Button

300 2: Rise of an Empire 1492: The Conquest of Paradise Alexander Amistad Ben Hur Braveheart Elizabeth Elizabeth: the Golden Age Empire Exodus: Gods and Kings Fall of Eagles Gladiator History I, Claudius King Arthur Literature Miscellaneous Movies Penny Dreadful Pseudohistory Robin Hood Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves Salem Stonewall The Last Kingdom The Physician The Vikings The White Queen TV Shows Versailles
Follow An Historian Goes to the Movies on WordPress.com

Recent Posts

  • The King: Agincourt
  • Benedetta: Naked Lust in Sinful Italy
  • The King: Falstaff
  • Kenau: Women to the Rescue!
  • All is True: Shakespeare’s Women

Recent Comments

aelarsen on Downton Abbey: Why I Stopped W…
ronagirl9 on Downton Abbey: Why I Stopped W…
Hollywood Myths, Cra… on The Physician: Medieval People…
Alice on Braveheart: How Not to Dress L…
aelarsen on Out of Africa: Wonderful Movie…

Top Posts & Pages

  • Index of Movies
  • The Last Kingdom: The Background
  • Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade: Let’s Just Fake a Quote
  • Out of Africa: Wonderful Movie, Fuzzy History
  • King Arthur: The Sarmatian Theory
  • Braveheart: How Not to Dress Like a Medieval Scotsman
  • Versailles: The Queen’s Baby
  • Why "An Historian"?
  • Salem: Who's Real and Who's Not 
  • Cadfael: Medieval Murders

Previous Posts

Blog at WordPress.com.

Privacy & Cookies: This site uses cookies. By continuing to use this website, you agree to their use.
To find out more, including how to control cookies, see here: Cookie Policy
  • Follow Following
    • An Historian Goes to the Movies
    • Join 490 other followers
    • Already have a WordPress.com account? Log in now.
    • An Historian Goes to the Movies
    • Customize
    • Follow Following
    • Sign up
    • Log in
    • Report this content
    • View site in Reader
    • Manage subscriptions
    • Collapse this bar
 

Loading Comments...