The Frontier

     With the advents of the Industrial Revolution and Globalism, the materialism of Capitalism has spread from Europe and America around the world. These dual events have enormously changed life in every region and nation around the world whether through locomotion and medicine or through colonization and exploitation. While these effects are uncontested, the residual philosophies prior to the Industrial Revolution's impacts in the early nineteenth century have placed the world, resources, and biological population limits into new perspectives.
     With the public discovery of a New World by Christopher Columbus's expeditions in the 1490s, Europe began an expansive invasion-settlement of these newly recognized lands. European nations began sending conquers to subdue native populations and explore the lands. Later, settlers, particularly in North America, made permanent homes along the coast to enable trade with their mother European nations. With the devastation of ninety-percent of native populations, the Europeans had half the world to extract wealth and resources from to send back to Europe. The Spanish and Portuguese focused on gold, silver, and precious materials to supplement their coffers while the French, Dutch, and British turned to fur and forestry.
     The Spanish and Portuguese did not make permanent plans of colonization and instead concentrated their efforts on extraction. The North American experience was different but similarly economically-oriented; settlers hunted several animals to extinction and cut huge swathes of forests that permanently changed the landscape and soil type. Because of the required manual labor and slow trans-Atlantic shipping, the extraction of New World resources escalated slowly and seemed to be able to last forever.
     With the improvements of steam and machine and the growing populations in both Europe and these New World settlements, resource extraction became mechanized to meet industrial needs. Never before had the provisions of nature been taxed so greatly to provide materials for the incredible population boom. The seemingly endless reserves of resources in the New World began to be depleted by the mid-nineteenth century.

     As the abundance of natural resources became more difficult to find and extract, the populations of Europe began to look elsewhere to meet their new industrial might, especially toward Africa and SouthEast Asia. The inhabitants of the New World, particularly in the United States where industrial growth was increasing to match Europe's, had to live in the reality of the stripped, barren landscapes. This proximity to the destructive greed of man birthed two movements in the United States just before the turn of the twentieth century. The first group continued the practices from the decades before and moved on to new lands that were farther west and previously inaccessible. The second group began a conservationist movement that sought to protect resources and restore land usefulness after strip mining and clear cutting forests.
     The first group, known to history as the frontiersmen, miners, and cowboys of the American West, continued to exploit the immense natural wealth of the land without regard to future uses. Despite the efforts of the conversation movement and the establishment of federal government regulations like the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) in 1972 and Endangered Species Act (ESA) in 1973, the indoctrination of capitalist-consumerism of Americans and industrial countries requires escalated production to grow the economy and collect the money of consumers who buy things that they did not know they needed.
     The ecological term for the exploitation of natural resources because of their endless reserves in known as the Frontiersman Mentality or the Cowboy Mindset. While modern people might pride themselves on being green or practicing efficient, renewable business practices, the frontier's influence on the United States has not disappeared. Today Americans throw away more reusable materials than every before, especially non-degradable plastics. The Throwaway Mindset of a consumerist culture is directly related to the assumption that resources are endless and that there will always be new reserves to take from.
     This century as the global population begins to level off around eleven billion and the easiest reverses of metal, oil, and timber are used up, humanity will not be able to run away from its actions any more. Overlooking the effects of climate change, the economy, and agricultural needs, as the waste and debris of the civilized, industrial countries begins to choke the world, change will come from choice or inevitability. There is not another frontier.

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Agatha Tyche

Splintered Unity III: Blood and Iron

     With Prussia's economic ties to Northern Germany solidified through the Zollverein, Bismarck asserts Prussia as the leader of Germanic self-determination. Allying with Austria in 1864 to take control of the German-dominated Schleswig-Holstein from Denmark, Prussia added two provinces to the mass of German states dependent on Prussia for trade and military protection. Austria protested that its contribution in the victory was overlooked because all territory ceded by Denmark fell into Prussia's grasp.
     This situation further antagonized Austria in German eyes since Austria seemed to focus more on the addition of land than on the nationalism of a united Germany. With the Austrian-Prussian alliance's defeat of Danish forces in 1864, their united military strength represented an intimidating force. From an international viewpoint, Bismarck used this dispute to calm the Great Powers of Europe away from a permanent Austrio-Prussian alliance that would disrupt the balance of power. Nonetheless, this victory gave German states redeemed confidence in Prussia. Militaristic forces worked together for unity, not divided by on issues of the liberalism movement.      
     Furthermore, Prussian industrialization provided “a superior energy which swallow[ed] up [other German states].” Bismarck remarked that “the great questions of the day will not be decided by speeches and the resolutions of the majorities . . . but by iron and blood.” Much of Prussia’s prestige and conciliatory power depended on its military readiness. Political maneuvering, Bismarck’s strength, remained the largest barrier against an Austrio-Prussian war. The consequences of the Danish War in 1864 created financial problems in both Prussia and Austria and provided Bismarck with a reason for a separatory war with Austria for German unification. War could finalize Austria’s separation from the German states.

     Much of the two year delay between the Danish and Austrian wars stemmed from empty Prussian coffers. Bismarck could not fight Austria until the money for war had been collected after the expenses of 1864. When ready Bismarck used provocative Prussian policies to cause Austria to mobilize troops which led to the Austrio-Prussian War. As Bismarck prepared for war, he used, “the complexity and confusion of the political and legal system, and the disagreements among the Great Powers” to isolate Austria from her traditional allies and allow a private war between Prussia and Austria over the German states.
     During his fundraising campaigns to the Federal German Parliament to expand Prussia's military budget in preparation for war, Bismarck gave a speech that revealed this resolution of German Unification at all costs. Public opinion was inconsequential since it could be controlled with propaganda, and the Great Powers of Europe could be persuaded to avoid an, essentially, German civil war.

We are too hot-blooded, we have a preference for putting on armor that is too big for our small body; and now we are actually supposed to utilize it. Germany is not looking to Prussia's liberalism, but to its power; Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden may indulge liberalism, and yet no one will assign them Prussia's role; Prussia has to coalesce and concentrate its power for the opportune moment, which has already been missed several times; Prussia's borders according to the Vienna Treaties [of 1814-15] are not favorable for a healthy, vital state; it is not by speeches and majority resolutions that the great questions of the time are decided – that was the big mistake of 1848 and 1849 – but by iron and blood.

Source: Otto von Bismarck, Reden 1847-1869 [Speeches, 1847-1869], ed., Wilhelm Schüßler, vol. 10, Bismarck: Die gesammelten Werke [Bismarck: Collected Works], ed. Hermann von Petersdorff. Berlin: Otto Stolberg, 1924-35, pp. 139-40.

     Prussia chanced war to gain the power of a united Germany. Moltke recommended that Bismarck recruit Italy as an ally to create a two-front war with Austria which succeeded in splitting Austrian forces. Prussia matched Austria’s number of troops, but better infantry and mobilization technology made substantial differences in the battles. The main pillar of Austria’s Habsburg dynasty, the army, protected the empire and functioned as an “effective instrument for indoctrinating a large body of men of every class and nationality with dynastic sentiments and the idea of imperial unity . . . To the army, the fatherland was the whole empire, not some province or region.” This unifying view in Austria negated the specific German nationalism Prussia attempted to exploit in the unification wars. Because her subjects remained loyal to Austria as a whole, Prussia did not want to entail non-Germanic cultures in its newly formed empire.

     In 1866 Bismarck transitioned Prussia from political negotiations to military action. During the Austro-Prussian War, many of the lesser German states still favored Austria in attempts to retain the dualist balance of power. A large portion of German and Prussian civilians resisted efforts of war and wrote in protest of it. By eliminating Austrian influence in the German states, Bismarck reduced anti-Prussian influences which aided in consolidation.

     In the Austro-Prussian War, Prussia had to mobilize against Austria as well as many of the Germanic states loyal to Austria. “The campaign of Prussia against Austria and her allies, who comprised most of the north German and all of the south German states, was a Blitzkrieg in the most exact sense of the word.” With Austria’s quick defeat, Bismarck accomplished Austria’s political expulsion from the German diets. No territorial gains by Prussia on Austrian territory were proposed, only consolatory holds within Germany. Bismarck claimed that “The strength of the government in relation to parliament had been enormously increased by military victory.” With victory over Austria, Prussia became the predominant continental European power. A German newspaper toted, “The quick and decisive victory . . . has indeed shocked the whole political world and thrown everybody off his balance.” Bismarck took advantage of this unsettled climate to make Prussian advances as complete as possible. Austria’s resumption in Germany would negate these political gains.

The peace terms of the Seven Weeks War permanently ended Austrian claims in Germany and dissolved the German Confederation. With this, Prussia issued a new constitution to the German states. Prussia’s victory destroyed the territorial barriers that separated her eastern and western halves.

Before 1866 Prussia could only claim the desires of a great European power. With Austria’s poor performance in the Crimean War and subsequent defeat ten years later by Prussia at the Battle of Königgrätz, it fell from the European stage. Prussia’s political ambitions desired full recognition for its new zenith. By disassociating Austrian influence in Germany, Prussia could proudly declare the new strength to be from its own establishments, not Austria’s. “[Bismarck] had only one idea, the idea summed up by the term Realpolitik, the exaltation of the Staatsrecht, the right and duty of the state to pursue its own advantage regardless of any other consideration and by whatever means comes to hand . . . The state above all morality.” The Prussian drive for dominance combined with growing German nationalism provided the foundation for the new empire, the Second Reich.

     The progressive outlook took hold of the German populace. After the Franco-Prussian war in 1871, Emperor Wilhelm I said, “What is past is past! . . . Nothing can be brought back; may every attempt to do so be abandoned! It is now the ‘duty of every patriot’ to ‘help build the new Prussia’.” As Prussia’s power increased through the nineteenth century, Austria’s waned. While Bismarck could have allowed Austria to remain as a secondary power in a united Germany and lend its historic prestige, this would have undermined Prussia’s new political strength over the German parliament. There was no need to share the new with the old.

     The Southern German Confederation resisted Prussian efforts because of continued Austrian political and economic ties. To finalize a complete consolidation of German states, Bismarck provoked France into another war that allowed Southern Germany to be allied with a victorious Prussia  and gain a sense of unity. Prussia’s emperor, Wilhelm I, and parliamentary body, the Reichstag, dominated the new confederation. The new Confederation of Prussia and Germany “had to satisfy the Prussian king and the king’s party and his royal cousins on the smaller thrones of northern Germany, [the] populace, and it had to prove attractive to the South Germans.” Bismarck desired material hegemony over Germany before political hegemony since economics would encourage loyalties more directly. In the end, his efforts were successful, and Prussia came to integrate all the German duchies into her political and industrial military might.

     The unification of Germany seemed inevitable as early as the 1840s, but the power behind the process did not exist prior to 1866. Austria’s exclusion from the unification process, especially its German population, later proved unnecessary due to Prussia's incredible military.

     The political competition between Austria and Germany began at the Treaty of Vienna in 1815. By the 1860s Prussia’s political ambitions desired full recognition for its new zenith. By disassociating Austrian influence in Germany, Prussia could proudly declare the new power to be from her establishments. One of these establishments, the Zollverein, gave Prussia a huge economic advantage over her competitor. After the Austro-Prussian war, many Germans retained favorable Austrian views. By removing Austria from a united Germany, Prussia negated Austria’s stance in favor of cultivating Prussian interests. Single power dominance aided in consolidation efforts because of a single power base. To speed this process, war propaganda purposefully created a negative public perception of Austria to encourage war tensions in the public, and Bismarck continued to use this intentional division between Prussia and Austria after the war.

     Internal and external forces also combined to exclude Austria from the new German empire. A unified Germany with both Prussia and Austria would incite a European war to maintain the balance of power like the Crimean War in 1853-1856. After the Danish defeat in 1864, the Austrian-Prussian military alliance represented an intimidating force. Thus, Bismarck rejected retention of the alliance since a united German nation would be just as unstoppable as the alliance but would solely represent Prussian interests.

     Domestically, nationalism, initiated with Napoleon’s invasion at the beginning of the century, excited the great German dream of unification. Once the balance of power within Germany between Prussia and Austria upset, the largest obstacle to unification vanished. Prussia saw itself as a pure German state while Austria’s mixed population was impure. The German empire, inspired by German nationalism, would be a German country.

     Prussia’s unification of Germany required Austria’s exclusion because of the divisive nature of the dualist approach that prevented the unification in the 1840s-1850s. Austria’s exclusion from the Zollverein weakened their influence in the Frankfurt Diet and allowed Prussian military and economic strength to dominate the German states. The nationalist tendencies remained so strong as to disregard the balance of power in Europe, remove Austrian influence, and form a single Germanic nation: Germany.

     Prussia's careful, methodical manipulation of the Germanic states and the international European political alliances of the time allowed for an economically vigorous, rapidly industrializing, militarily focused nation to rise in the center of the European continent. Despite hundreds of years of insoluble fractures, a Prussian-spurred union based off of popular nationalist ideals solidified a fearsome new power who had transformed from slag into the "guns of August."

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Agatha Tyche