37.2 KT1 - Ruling the Second Reich, 1871-79

Enquiry Frame and Chronology

This is a Paper 3 depth enquiry. The task is not to tell the whole story of Germany from
1871 to 1990. It is to explain how the new empire was ruled in its first decade and why
that mattered for later German politics.

Keep three enquiry questions in view.

The official period is short, but the sequence is crucial.

The best overall judgement is that the early Reich was stable enough to govern but not
integrated enough to be politically settled. Bismarck could build majorities, isolate
opponents and appeal to national unity. Yet the means he used often confirmed the very
divisions he claimed to overcome.

Constitution: Unity and Division

The 1871 constitution was designed to solve a hard problem: how could Germany become a
single empire without making the rulers of Bavaria, Saxony, Wurttemberg and the smaller
states feel that they had simply been swallowed by Prussia? Bismarck's answer was a
federal empire. The Reich would have authority over common matters such as customs,
coinage, trade, the army, foreign policy, law and national administration. But the member
states, or Lander, retained their dynasties, governments, local administrations and many
domestic powers.

This was not accidental vagueness. It was the bargain that made unification possible.
Southern states had entered the empire after the Franco-Prussian War, but they still
valued their separate identities. Bavaria in particular kept important reserved rights,
including its own peacetime army arrangements and postal and telegraph services. These
concessions were not enough to make Bavaria equal to Prussia, but they made the new Reich
look like a federation of German rulers rather than a direct Prussian annexation.

The constitution also made unity real. Reich law took precedence over state law in areas
given to the Reich. Germany became a single customs and commercial territory, even though
some free port arrangements survived. The emperor represented the Reich abroad. Military
organisation was brought under imperial command. The result was a state that could act
internationally and legislate nationally, while still speaking the language of federal
rights.

The constitution therefore reconciled unity and division by institutionalising both. It
created a national parliament and common imperial laws, but it also preserved a federal
council of state governments. It gave the Reich a common army, but the imperial army was
bound to Prussian command traditions. It allowed the Reichstag to vote laws and budgets,
but it did not make the Chancellor answerable to the Reichstag.

This matters for assessment. Do not describe the constitution as simply democratic or
simply authoritarian. It was democratic in its electorate, federal in its structure and
monarchical in its executive. That mixture was Bismarck's governing instrument. It allowed
him to use the Reichstag when he needed national legitimacy, the Bundesrat when he needed
state support, and the Kaiser when he needed executive authority.

Its limits were equally important. The constitution did not solve religious division,
class conflict, Polish or Alsace-Lorraine opposition, or the tension between liberal hopes
and monarchical power. In fact, it gave each of those divisions a national political stage.
Once universal male suffrage existed, Catholic, socialist, liberal, conservative and
regional grievances could become Reichstag parties.

Reichstag and Parties

The Reichstag mattered because it made politics visible. It was elected by universal male
suffrage, and its debates were reported to a public that was becoming more politically
aware. It could not dismiss Bismarck, but it could pass or block legislation. That meant
Bismarck could not rule simply by issuing orders. He had to construct parliamentary
majorities while insisting that Germany was not a parliamentary state.

This produced an unusual relationship. Bismarck despised the idea that parties should form
a government. He saw himself as the servant of the Kaiser and the Reich, not of a party
caucus. Yet he constantly used parties. He negotiated with them, divided them, frightened
them, blamed them and changed alliances when one majority no longer suited his policy.
The Reichstag was therefore both a limit on Bismarck and a tool for him.

The party system reflected regional and social division.

Regional division mattered because Germany was not socially or confessionally uniform.
Catholics formed roughly a third of the empire, but they were concentrated in particular
regions. Poles in eastern Prussia and Alsace-Lorrainers in the west had reasons to distrust
Prussian-German nationalism. Bavarians, Saxons and Wurttembergers could support Germany
while still caring about their own rulers and institutions. This meant that voting often
followed identity as well as policy.

Social division mattered too. National Liberals hoped the new Reich would be a modern,
legal and economically dynamic nation-state. Conservatives wanted monarchy, army and
landed influence protected. Industrial workers were beginning to organise around socialist
politics. Catholics wanted religious freedom and protection from Protestant Prussian
domination. These groups did not simply disagree about one law; they disagreed about what
kind of Germany the empire should become.

The Reichstag election data reveal this fragmentation. In 1874 the National Liberals were
the largest parliamentary group, with 155 seats, while the Centre won 91 seats at the
height of the Kulturkampf. By 1878 the National Liberals had fallen to 99 seats, the
Centre remained strong with 94, and conservative forces had recovered. Bismarck's room for
manoeuvre depended on these shifts. He could not ignore the Reichstag, but no single party
could normally impose a government programme on him.

The key exam judgement is that the Reichstag was important without being sovereign. Its
importance lay in legislation, public debate, political mobilisation and the need for
coalition-building. Its weakness lay in the fact that the Chancellor did not need its
confidence to remain in office. That constitutional half-way house shaped the whole early
Reich.

Liberal Partnership and Limits

Bismarck's early alliance with the National Liberals was the most important working
relationship of the new empire. It was not a natural friendship in every respect.
Bismarck was a conservative monarchist who had fought the Prussian liberals in the 1860s.
The National Liberals were middle-class constitutional nationalists who wanted law,
economic freedom and a strong national state. What joined them after 1871 was the belief
that German unity had to be made practical.

The National Liberals supported many measures that turned unification from a military
victory into a functioning state. The Reich developed more uniform legal procedures,
commercial rules and economic institutions. A common currency, the mark, strengthened
economic unity. The Reichsbank was founded in 1875. Press law, business law, freedom of
movement and legal standardisation all helped create a national public and economic area.
These reforms were not merely technical. They made Germany easier to govern as one state.

This liberal partnership also helped Bismarck against conservative particularism. Some
old Prussian conservatives disliked the way the empire diluted the older Prussian state
inside a larger Germany. National Liberals, by contrast, were enthusiastic about the Reich
because they saw it as the fulfilment of national unity. For several years they gave
Bismarck a parliamentary base that looked almost like a government party, even though
Germany had no parliamentary cabinet.

Yet the partnership had limits from the start. National Liberals wanted more than national
administration. Many hoped that the Reichstag would become more powerful over time and
that ministers would become more accountable. Bismarck would not accept that. He could
consult Rudolf von Bennigsen and other National Liberal leaders, but he would not allow
them to turn cooperation into parliamentary control.

Military finance showed this tension. The Reichstag had budgetary rights, but Bismarck
wanted the army insulated from annual parliamentary pressure. The 1874 Septennat fixed peacetime army strength for seven years. Annual budget
votes formally continued, but the commitment to maintain that strength limited deputies'
practical leverage over military expenditure. From Bismarck's viewpoint, this protected the state and
army from party politics. From a liberal viewpoint, it limited real parliamentary
scrutiny over the most important instrument of power in the empire.

The Kulturkampf also pulled the alliance in a particular direction. Many National Liberals
strongly supported attacks on Catholic clerical influence because they saw the Catholic
Church as anti-modern, anti-national and hostile to the sovereignty of the state. In that
sense, the Kulturkampf was not simply Bismarck manipulating liberals. It was a policy area
where anti-clerical liberalism and Bismarck's suspicion of the Centre Party overlapped.