Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 21.djvu/378

Rh 356 SAXONY [HISTORY. constitution promised. After consultation with the diet the king promulgated a new constitution ou September 4, 1831, which is the basis of the present government. An offer from Metternich of Austrian arms to repress the discontent by force had been refused. The feudal estates were replaced by two chambers, largely elective, and the privy council by a responsible ministry of six departments. Bernhard von Lindenau was the head of the first responsible cabinet, and the first constitutional assembly sat from January 27, 1833, till October 30, 1834. While Saxony's political liberty was thus enlarged, its commerce and credit were stimulated by the construction of railways. Antony had died in 1836, and Frederick Augustus II. (1836-1854) became sole king. Growing interest in politics produced dissatisfaction with the compromise of 1831, and the liberal opposition grew in numbers and influence. The burn- ing questions were the publicity of legal proceedings and the freedom of the press ; and on these the Government sustained its first crushing defeat in the lower or second chamber in 1842. Lindenau resigned in 1843. Religious considerations as to the recognition of the German Catholics and a new constitution for the Protestant Church began to mingle with purely political questions, and Prince John, as the supposed head of the Jesuit party, was insulted at a review of the communal guards at Leipsic in 1845. The military rashly interfered, and several innocent spectators were shot. The bitterness which this occurrence provoked was intensified by a political reaction which was initiated about the same time under Von Konneritz. Warned by the sympathy excited in Saxony by the revolutionary events at Paris in 1848, the king dismissed his reactionary ministry, and a liberal cabinet took its place in March 1848. The disputed points were now conceded to the country. The privileges of the nobles were curtailed ; the administration of justice was put on a better foot- ing ; the press was unshackled ; publicity in legal proceedings was granted ; trial by jury was introduced for some special cases ; and the German Catholics were recognized. The feudal character of the first chamber was abolished, and its members made mainly elective from among the highest tax-payers, while an almost universal suffrage was introduced for the second chamber. The first demand of the overwhelmingly democratic diet returned utrder this reform bill was that the king should accept the Frankfort constitution. Frederick, alleging the danger of acting without the concurrence of Prussia, refused, and dissolved the diet. A public demonstration at Dresden in favour of the Frankfort constitution was prohibited as illegal on May 2, 1849. This at once awoke the popular fury. The mob seized the town and barricaded the streets ; Dresden was almost destitute of troops ; and the king fled to the Konigstein. The rebels then proceeded to appoint a provisional Government, consisting of Tzschirner, Heubner, and Todt, though the true leader of the insurrection was the Russian Bakunin. Meanwhile Prussian troops had arrived to aid the Government, and after two days' fierce street fighting the rising was quelled. The bond with Prussia now became closer, and Frederick entered with Prussia and Hanover into the temporary "alliance of the three kings." He was not sin cere, however, in desiring to exclude Austria, and in 1850 accepted the invitation of that power to send deputies to Frankfort. The first chamber immediately protested against this step, and refused to consider the question of a pressing loan. The king retorted by dissolving the diet and summoning the old estates abolished in 1848. When a quorum, with some difficulty, was obtained, another period of retrograde legislation set in. The constitution of the chambers has never been restored to the basis of 1848. The king himself was carried away with the reactionary current, and the people remained for the time indifferent. Von Beust became minister for both home and foreign affairs in 1852, and under his guidance the policy of Saxony became more and more hostile to Prussia and friendly to Austria. Saxony was not, however, able to withdraw from the customs union, which indeed conferred the very highest benefit on its trade and manufactures. The sudden death of the king, by a fall from his carriage in Tyrol, left the throne to his brother John (1854-1873), a learned and accomplished prince, whose name is known in German literature as a translator and annotator of Dante. His brother's ministers kept their portfolios, but their views gradually be- came somewhat liberalized with the spirit of the times. Beust, however, still retained his federalistic and philo-Austrian views. When war was declared between Prussia and Austria in 1866, Saxony declined the former's offer of neutrality, and, when a Prussian force crossed the border, the Saxon army under the king and the crown prince joined the Austrians in Bohemia. The entire kingdom, with the solitary exception of the Konigstein, was occupied by the Prussians. On the conclusion of peace Saxony lost no territory, but had to pay a war indemnity of ten million thalers, and was compelled to enter the North-German Confedera- tion. Its army and its postal and telegraph system were placed under the control of Prussia, and its representation at foreign courts was entrusted to the Prussian embassies. Beust was forced to resign ; and liberal measures in both church and state were actively carried through. John was succeeded in 1873 by his elder son Albert (born 1828), who had won distinction as a general in the wars of 1866 and 1870. Under this prince the general course of politics has presented nothing of special importance, except perhaps the steady spread of the doctrines of social democracy, which has flourished especially in Saxony. As a loyal member of the new German empire, Saxony has gradually transferred its sympathies from its old ally Austria to its new leader Prussia. In 1877 Leipsic was chosen as the seat of the supreme court of law for the empire. The political history of the parts of Saxony left by the capitula- tion of Wittenberg to the Ernestine line, which occupy the region now generally styled Thuringia (Thiiringen), is mainly a recital of partitions, reunions, redivisions, and fresh combinations of territory among the various sons of the successive dukes. The principle of primogeniture was not introduced until the end of the 17th century, so that the Protestant Saxon dynasty, instead of building up a single compact kingdom for itself, has split Into four petty duchies, of no political influence whatever. In 1547 the ex-elector John Frederick the Magnanimous was allowed to retain Weimar, Jena, Eisenach, Gotha, Henneberg, and Saalfeld. Altenburg and a few other districts were added to the Ernestine possessions by the treaty of Naumburg in 1554, and other addi- tions were made from other sources. John Frederick, who had retained and transmitted to his descendants the title of duke of Saxony, forbade his sons to divide their inheritance ; but his wishes were respected only until after the death of his eldest son in 1565. The two survivors then founded separate jurisdictions at Weimar and Coburg, though arrangements were made to exchange territories every three years. In 1596 Saxe-Coburg gave off the branch Saxe-Eisenach ; and in 1603 Saxe- Weimar gave off Saxe- Altenburg, the elder Weimar line ending and the younger begin- ning with the latter date. By 1638 Weimar had absorbed both Coburg and Eisenach ; Altenburg remained till 1672. John, duke of Saxe- Weimar, who died in 1605, is regarded as the common ancestor of the present Ernestine lines. In 1640 his three surviving sons ruled the duchies of Weimar, Eisenach, and Gotha. Eisenach fell in in 1644 and Altenburg in 1672, thus leaving the dukes of Saxe- Weimar and Saxe-Gotha to become the ancestors of the modern ruling houses. Saxe- Weimar was still repeatedly divided ; in 1668 a Saxe-Marksuhl appears, and about 1672 a Saxe-Jena and a new Saxe-Eisenach. All these, however, were extinct by 1741, and their possessions returned to the main line, which had adopted the principle of primogeniture in 1719. The present grand-duchy of SAXE-WEIMAK-EISENACH is separately noticed. Saxe-Gotha was even more subdivided : and the climax was reached about 1680, when Gotha, Coburg, Meiningen, Itomhild, Eisenberg, Hildburghausen, and Saalfeld were each fche capital of a duchy. By the beginning of 1825 only the first three of these and Hildburghausen remained, the lands of the others having been divided after much quarrelling. In that year the Gotha line expired, and a general redistribution of the lands of the "Nexus Gothanus," as this group of duchies was called, was arranged on 12th November 1826. The duke of Hildburghausen gave up his lands entirely for Altenburg and became duke of SAXE-ALTENBURG ; the duke of Coburg exchanged Saalfeld for Gotha and became duke of SAXE-CoBURO-GoTHA ; and the duke of SAXE-MEININGEX received Hildburghausen, Saalfeld, and some other territories, and added Hildburghausen to his title. These duchies are separately noticed. See also THURINGIA. GEOGRAPHY AND STATISTICS. The kingdom of Saxony, the history of which has been traced above, is the third constituent of the German empire in point of population, and the fifth in point of area. With the exception of the two small exclaves of Ziegelhein in Saxe-Altenburg and Leibschwitz on the borders of Reuss, Saxe-Weimar, and Saxe- Altenburg, it forms a compact whole of a triangular shape, its base extending from north-east to south-west, and its apex pointing north-west. It lies between 50 10' and 51 29' N. lat. and between 11 53' and 15 4' E. long. The total area is 5789 square miles (about half the size of Belgium), or 27 per cent, of the entire empire ; its greatest length is 130 miles, and its greatest breadth 93 miles. Its frontiers have a circuit of 760 miles. On the south it is bounded by Bohemia, on the west by Bavaria and the Thuringian states, and on the remaining sides by Prussia. Except ou the south, where the Erzgebirge forms at once the limit of the kingdom and of the empire, the boundaries are entirely political. For administrative purposes the kingdom of Saxony is divided into the four districts of Bautzen in the south-east, Dresden in the north-east, Leipsic in the north-west, and Zwickau in the south-west. Physical Features. Saxony belongs almost entirely to the central mountain region of Germany, only the districts along the north border and around Leipsic descending into the great North- European plain. The average elevation of the country is not, however, great ; and it is more properly described as hilly than as mountainous. The ordinary estimates return one-fifth of the area as