Prussian roulette
Friday, 31 August 2007
Bertrand Benoit
If death is the ultimate failure, then Prussia is surely the ultimate failed state. The country began its short life as a leopardskin of landlocked, unconnected territories, fought its way to great-power status and was wiped off the map after the second world war. Law number 46 of the Allied Control Council, which branded Prussia "a bearer of militarism and reaction in Germany", did not just abolish the kingdom. It discredited its memory, shaping a popular perception of a militarist, illiberal and intolerant Prussia as a prototype for Nazi Germany.
In the past two decades, a small group of German historians sought to challenge this view by emphasising Prussia's special brand of enlightenment, its religious tolerance and its modernising role. What ensued was a classic German controversy as accusations of falsification and revisionism filled the feuilleton sections of quality newspapers. As the dispute surrounding the planned reconstruction of the Hohenzollerns' palace in central Berlin demonstrates, Prussia still fires passions today.
For a complete outsider to be heard against such a noisy backdrop is no small enterprise. Yet this is what Iron Kingdom, Christopher Clark's attempt to set the record straight, achieves. Sweeping aside the loaded narratives, the Australian historian delivers a magisterial history of Europe's only extinct power, nuanced, dispassionate and utterly gripping. Iron Kingdom does not just shine through its erudition and stylistic brilliance. Its main strength lies in its methodological integrity. Resisting the temptation to write a forensic theory of Prussia -- one that would prove or disprove its role in paving the way for Hitler's Germany -- Clark offers a clear-headed analysis of the internal and external forces that made and unmade the kingdom.
For Clark, culture, institutions or geography do not make history. Men (and in Prussia's case, men in particular) do, and their actions are more often reactions than the unfolding of carefully laid plans. Neither is he blind to the fact that rulers, while they make history, also use it as a political instrument.
Just as Prussia is a relatively recent construct - its core territory was acquired in 1415 by an obscure Franconian dynasty and it never developed a strong regional identity with attendant folklore - its famed militarism was no archaic martial trait, but a reaction of its early rulers to their vulnerability.
If Frederick William -- the "Great elector" -- turned his puny army of 3,000 men into a standing force of 30,000 during a reign spanning half of the 17th century, it was in response to the prior devastation of the Thirty Years, War. As Prussia began to challenge the claims of Austria, France and Russia to regional supremacy, it never overcame its vulnerability. A strong army was a condition of its survival.
Inevitably, given that most of what has been written about Prussia since 1945 cast it in a negative light, Clark's balanced account often ends up emphasising the positive. Frederick the Great's 1740 invasion of Habsburg Silesia betrayed his belief in aggression as a legitimate tool of foreign policy. Yet in the context of France's continuous bullying of Belgium and the Anglo-Dutch seizure of Gibraltar in 1704, his move was more daring than shocking.
Clark reveals that during Frederick's reign, Prussia spent fewer years at war than any other big European power. Internally, the monarch's abolition of judicial torture and the marginalisation of the death penalty compared favourably with the rough justice meted out in France and liberal Britain. On the other hand, his famed emancipation of the Jews was selective and dictated by vested interests.
If Clark has one theory, it is that Germany was Prussia's undoing, not the other way round. The nationalistic tide that swept through Germany's patchwork of states and principalities from the south during the 19th century itself largely the work of Napoleon - was a determining factor. In fact, the former kingdom was among the last bastions of democracy in the dying years of the Weimar Republic.
At 800 pages, Iron Kingdom could have been hard going under a different pen. But Clark knows how to grab his readers. His character portraits, especially that of Frederick the Great, are delightful. And his vignettes, such as his digression on Friedrich Ludwig Jahn's gymnasts' movement, which merged nationalism, libertarianism and athletics, are small master pieces of understated humour: "Gymnasts did not 'march'," he writes, "because marching killed the autonomous will and was intended to degrade the individual to the mere tool of a higher authority. Instead they 'walked', swinging their legs in a flowing, natural motion, as befitted free men."
Iron Kingdom is not a book about Germany and it will disappoint those looking for insights into the Nazi and postwar eras. As Prussia's history becomes that of the nation-state, the narrative quickens -- the two world wars and their aftermath are expedited in just over 70 pages. For anyone unconvinced by Churchill's description of Prussia as "the source of the recurring pestilence", however, Clark's subtle and rounded account will bring rich rewards.
........................................
FT Syndication Service
If death is the ultimate failure, then Prussia is surely the ultimate failed state. The country began its short life as a leopardskin of landlocked, unconnected territories, fought its way to great-power status and was wiped off the map after the second world war. Law number 46 of the Allied Control Council, which branded Prussia "a bearer of militarism and reaction in Germany", did not just abolish the kingdom. It discredited its memory, shaping a popular perception of a militarist, illiberal and intolerant Prussia as a prototype for Nazi Germany.
In the past two decades, a small group of German historians sought to challenge this view by emphasising Prussia's special brand of enlightenment, its religious tolerance and its modernising role. What ensued was a classic German controversy as accusations of falsification and revisionism filled the feuilleton sections of quality newspapers. As the dispute surrounding the planned reconstruction of the Hohenzollerns' palace in central Berlin demonstrates, Prussia still fires passions today.
For a complete outsider to be heard against such a noisy backdrop is no small enterprise. Yet this is what Iron Kingdom, Christopher Clark's attempt to set the record straight, achieves. Sweeping aside the loaded narratives, the Australian historian delivers a magisterial history of Europe's only extinct power, nuanced, dispassionate and utterly gripping. Iron Kingdom does not just shine through its erudition and stylistic brilliance. Its main strength lies in its methodological integrity. Resisting the temptation to write a forensic theory of Prussia -- one that would prove or disprove its role in paving the way for Hitler's Germany -- Clark offers a clear-headed analysis of the internal and external forces that made and unmade the kingdom.
For Clark, culture, institutions or geography do not make history. Men (and in Prussia's case, men in particular) do, and their actions are more often reactions than the unfolding of carefully laid plans. Neither is he blind to the fact that rulers, while they make history, also use it as a political instrument.
Just as Prussia is a relatively recent construct - its core territory was acquired in 1415 by an obscure Franconian dynasty and it never developed a strong regional identity with attendant folklore - its famed militarism was no archaic martial trait, but a reaction of its early rulers to their vulnerability.
If Frederick William -- the "Great elector" -- turned his puny army of 3,000 men into a standing force of 30,000 during a reign spanning half of the 17th century, it was in response to the prior devastation of the Thirty Years, War. As Prussia began to challenge the claims of Austria, France and Russia to regional supremacy, it never overcame its vulnerability. A strong army was a condition of its survival.
Inevitably, given that most of what has been written about Prussia since 1945 cast it in a negative light, Clark's balanced account often ends up emphasising the positive. Frederick the Great's 1740 invasion of Habsburg Silesia betrayed his belief in aggression as a legitimate tool of foreign policy. Yet in the context of France's continuous bullying of Belgium and the Anglo-Dutch seizure of Gibraltar in 1704, his move was more daring than shocking.
Clark reveals that during Frederick's reign, Prussia spent fewer years at war than any other big European power. Internally, the monarch's abolition of judicial torture and the marginalisation of the death penalty compared favourably with the rough justice meted out in France and liberal Britain. On the other hand, his famed emancipation of the Jews was selective and dictated by vested interests.
If Clark has one theory, it is that Germany was Prussia's undoing, not the other way round. The nationalistic tide that swept through Germany's patchwork of states and principalities from the south during the 19th century itself largely the work of Napoleon - was a determining factor. In fact, the former kingdom was among the last bastions of democracy in the dying years of the Weimar Republic.
At 800 pages, Iron Kingdom could have been hard going under a different pen. But Clark knows how to grab his readers. His character portraits, especially that of Frederick the Great, are delightful. And his vignettes, such as his digression on Friedrich Ludwig Jahn's gymnasts' movement, which merged nationalism, libertarianism and athletics, are small master pieces of understated humour: "Gymnasts did not 'march'," he writes, "because marching killed the autonomous will and was intended to degrade the individual to the mere tool of a higher authority. Instead they 'walked', swinging their legs in a flowing, natural motion, as befitted free men."
Iron Kingdom is not a book about Germany and it will disappoint those looking for insights into the Nazi and postwar eras. As Prussia's history becomes that of the nation-state, the narrative quickens -- the two world wars and their aftermath are expedited in just over 70 pages. For anyone unconvinced by Churchill's description of Prussia as "the source of the recurring pestilence", however, Clark's subtle and rounded account will bring rich rewards.
........................................
FT Syndication Service