What is Realpolitik?

Public domain cartoon of Bismarck and Pope Pius IX during the Kulturkampf

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I always looked up to Bismarck as the greatest statesman ever—a foreign policy genius who knew exactly what political moves to make, how to calculate each move, and how each move would play out. A part of me read the books in hopes that I would understand the “secret sauce” that made him such a foreign policy genius, and I found it.

The reason why Bismarck was such a foreign policy genius was because he was a man who lacked political principles. As a matter of fact, Bismarck began his political career as a Prussian conservative. A conservative in the 1800s was one who believed in most of the following principles: first, in the obedience to the political authority of a monarch, second, in the opposition to individual rights or elected representatives for governments, third, that revolutions were a political evil, and fourth, that organized religion was crucial to order in society.

Public domain illustration of the execution of King Louis XVI during the French Revolution

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Bismarck believed in the first principle, in the political authority of King Frederick Wilhelm I. But later in his career, he did not care for the other three. It was he who introduced universal suffrage in Germany, it was he who separated church from state and replaced clerical supervision in all public and private schools with state supervision, and it he who went so far as to defend political revolution. Here is Bismarck in his own words:

How many existences are there in today’s political world that have no roots in revolutionary soil? Take Spain, Portugal, Brazil, all the American Republics, Belgium, Holland, Switzerland, Greece, Sweden and England which bases itself on the consciousness of the Glorious Revolution of 1688…. (Bismarck: A Life, pg. 132)

This lack of principles eventually caused many of his fellow conservatives to distance themselves from him toward the latter half of his career. And it’s this lack of principles that makes Realpolitik possible. Here is a perfect illustration of this:

When Bismarck served as Prussia's envoy to the German Confederation in Frankfurt, he wrote to his conservative friend Leopold von Gerlach that it should be in Prussia’s interest to ally with the revolutionary France of Napoleon III. For a conservative of the 1800s, an alliance with a revolutionary republic—with an “illegitimate” emperor such as Napoleon III—was nothing short of scandalous. Gerlach, representing the Prussian conservatism of the day, wrote the following to Bismarck:

My political principle is, and remains, the struggle against the Revolution. You will not convince Napoleon that he is not on the side of the Revolution. He has no desire either to be anywhere else…. You say yourself that people cannot rely upon us, and yet one cannot fail to recognize that he only is to be relied on who acts according to definite principles and not according to shifting notions of interests, and so forth. (Bismarck: A Life, pgs. 131-132)

Bismarck, being no true conservative as Gerlach hinted at above, did not make decisions by any conservative principles. As a matter of fact, allying with revolutionary France was nothing but a rational calculation, one possible chess move among many for Prussia’s rise to dominance over Austria. And in a game of chess, it’s important for the player to have as many moves open to him as possible. As Bismarck observed years later:

My entire life was spent gambling for high stakes with other people’s money. I could never foresee exactly whether my plan would succeed…. Politics is a thankless job because everything depends on chance and conjecture. One has to reckon with a series of probabilities and improbabilities and base one’s plans upon this reckoning. (Bismarck: A Life, pg. 130)

This kind of cold, rational calculation lies at the heart of Bismarck’s Realpolitik, which has “nothing to do with good and evil, virtue and vice; it had to do with power and self-interest.” (Bismarck: A Life, pg. 130) The power of Prussia and the self-interest of Prussia is, in a nutshell, is how Bismarck conducted his foreign policy. And France was just one chess move among many to increase the power of Prussia and to destroy the power of Austria. As Bismarck wrote to Gerlach:

You begin with the assumption that I sacrifice my principles to an individual who impresses me. I reject both the first and the second phrase in that sentence. The man does not impress me at all…. France only interests me as it affects the situation of my Fatherland, and we can only make our policy with the France that exists…. Sympathies and antipathies with regard to foreign powers and persons I cannot reconcile with my concept of duty in the foreign service of my country, neither in myself nor in others…. As long as each of us believes that a part of the chess board is closed to us by our own choice or that we have an arm tied where others can use both arms to our disadvantage, they will make use of our kindness without fear and without thanks. (Bismarck: A Life, pg. 131)

This is Realpolitik. Whereas a conservative guided by conservative principles would not ally with France, thereby closing a space in a game of chess that would otherwise be open to him, a man who lacks principles has this space open as a possibility, thereby making him a more versatile and dangerous player in the international system.

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Review of Iron Kingdom by Christopher Clark

Photo by Alexander I. Velasquez (author’s copy)

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Book Details

Category: Non-fiction, history, European history
Page Count: 688
Year of Publication: 2006 (Paperback Edition)
Rating: 5/5
10-Word Summary: The rise and downfall of the Prussian state from 1600-1947.

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About Iron Kingdom

Christopher Clark’s Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600-1947 is a historical work of the highest tier. Clark writes an excellent summary of the entire history of Prussia from its humble beginnings as Brandenburg—an Electorate within the Holy Roman Empire—to its abolition by the Allies after Germany’s defeat in Second World War. The story of Prussia is a remarkable one, but what makes Iron Kingdom wonderful to read is Christopher Clark’s writing style, in which he details the unfolding of Prussian history without inserting any of his own views or prejudices.

One thing to note is that those who are looking for a detailed account of Germany will be disappointed, as Clark’s focus throughout the book is on the Prussian state, and not necessarily the German state; this means that other German states, such as Hanover or Bavaria, are not discussed unless they are in relation to Prussia. This doesn’t diminish Clark’s work, as the title makes it clear that Clark’s focus throughout the entire book is on Prussia. But if the reader is looking for a detailed work on the German state, then it may be best to look elsewhere, as only the final two chapters (out of seventeen) discuss the German state post-1871 unification.

One final disclaimer is that any reader who would like a detailed account of Germany during the First and Second World Wars will also be disappointed, as Clark’s focus in the last two chapters are on Prussian culture and politics post-1871 unification. Again, this does not diminish Clark’s work, but it is worth pointing out nevertheless.

Religion, the Military, and the Fredericks

At the risk of oversimplifying Clark’s work, I will state that there are three great themes that cover his book from start to finish: religion, the military, and the Fredericks.

To start, religion is a major theme of the first half of the book, and this makes sense given the time period in Europe. Though Clark doesn’t discuss the Protestant Reformation itself, he does an excellent job explaining the significance of the Reformation for the early Prussian state. The Holy Roman Empire was a Catholic state centered around the Catholic Habsburg Dynasty. The Protestant Reformation broke the religious unity of the empire, and though Habsburg Emperor Charles V (1519-1556) fought anti-Lutheran wars to keep a religiously united empire, he settled for the Peace of Augsburg in 1555 which “acknowledged the existence of Lutheran territories within the Empire and conceded the right of Lutheran sovereigns to impose confessional conformity upon their own subjects.” (Page 7)

It was Brandenburg Elector Joachim II (1535-1571) who would convert to the new Lutheran faith. Slowly but surely, Brandenburg would become a Lutheran state. But once Calvinism took hold of Western and Southern Germany, it would be Elector John Sigismund (1608-1619) who would convert to Calvinism, making Brandenburg-Prussia a bi-confessional state. This placed the Electorate in cultural opposition to the Catholic German south, and this opposition would continue even until the days of Otto von Bismarck (1815-1898), the famous statesman who would unify Prussia with thirty-nine other German states into the unified Germany of 1871. It was Bismarck who launched a Kulturkampf, a “struggle of cultures,” against the Catholics because of his belief that political Catholicism was the enemy of Prussia. Hence, the tension between Lutherans and Calvinists, Protestants and Catholics, plays a major role in understanding not just the history of Prussia but the greater history of Germany.

The military is another major theme. The Thirty Years’ War left the German lands devastated, and it was Frederick William the Great Elector (1640-1688) who oversaw the recovery and expansion of Brandenburg, ascending the throne during Swedish foreign occupation. It was he who rebuilt the military from three thousand men in the early 1640s to between twenty to thirty thousand men in the 1680s. Given that Prussia was a small, open territory with no natural frontiers for defense, an expansionist Swedish King Charles X to its north and an expansionist French King Louis XIV to its west, it’s safe to say that Prussia’s existence was dependent upon the strength of its military. Hence, from the beginning of the narrative Clark spares no pages in expounding on the importance and culture of the Prussian military.

And the final great theme of the book is the Fredericks. This is the first book on Prussian history that I have read, and I must say that it doesn’t help that every Prussian ruler beginning with Frederick William the Great Elector has Frederick as his first name. But Clark does a great job in explaining what each Frederick does, as well as the style of their rule. Nevertheless, a few Fredericks do stand out from the pack:

Frederick William the Great Elector (1640-1688) helped establish Brandenburg-Prussia as a European power after its devastation wrought during the Thirty Years’ War. Then there was Frederick the Great (1740-1786) who, among other great achievements, fought and defeated Austria during the Seven Years’ War, thereby annexing Silesia in the process and providing Prussia with money, produce, and subjects while weakening the Habsburgs in the Austrian Empire—who never quite got over the loss of Silesia. There was the Frederick William III (1797-1840) who was perceived as a weak ruler in the face of Napoleon’s conquest of Europe and was always indecisive as to whether to ally with Napoleon, commit to neutrality, or ally with Russia and the anti-Napoleon alliance of the other great European powers. And, finally, there was Frederick William IV (1840-1861) who lived through a politically tumultuous time of revolution where Prussian liberals demanded a constitution. William gave the liberals what they wanted and granted Prussia both a constitution and a parliament in the late 1840s, forever changing the political landscape of Prussia until its unification with the rest of the German states in 1871.

Should You Read Iron Kingdom?

Anyone looking for a detailed account of Prussian history written in a straightforward, matter-of-fact style will find this to be the perfect read. However, those seeking a book on strictly German history or on German history in relation to the First and Second World Wars would be better off looking elsewhere.

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