The development of a modern bureaucracy

Apart from particular sectors, the army and particularly the navy, Britain was late in developing an efficient bureaucracy; for a long time, most of the local administra­tion was run by amateurs and the educational system was also backwards.

By contrast, the formation of a professional bureaucracy came much earlier in Germany. A large part of Germany and particularly Prussia went through a sub­stantial modernization from the mid-eighteenth century onwards but this was a modernization of the bureaucracy rather than the political sector. We have already traced part of this development under Frederick William I and Frederick II. The next step came after Prussia’s defeat by Napoleon in 1806 and was led by Prince Karl August von Hardenberg and Baron Karl vom und zum Stein. Already in 1770, Prussia had introduced a reform of the civil service with examinations as the basis for promotion.²⁶ Now the education of civil servants was improved and the bureaucracy in practice took over much of the king’s power.

In Austria, the reign of Maria Theresa marks an important epoch. She not only saved the Empire from dissolution; she carried out a number of important reforms. Despite being basically conservative, a staunch Catholic, anti-Protestant and anti- Jewish, she is one of the most prominent representatives of enlightened despotism in contemporary Europe. She reformed the army and the bureaucracy — often inspecting the units on horseback — increased the revenues of the government, improved the bureaucracy, eased the conditions of the peasants and restricted the power of the landowners. She introduced compulsory education for the whole population and reformed court procedures. Although she was personally against the reform, she was persuaded by her counsellors to abolish judicial torture in 1774. Generally, she was clever in finding good counsellors and willing to listen to advice even if it went against her original opinions. The reforms were continued during the reigns of her two sons, Joseph II (1780-90) and Leopold II (1790-92). Joseph II closed down Schonbrunn, the Austrian equivalent of Versailles, and converted the old palace in the centre, the Hofburg, into offices, while living himself in a house in the Augarten, described by his biographer as ‘no bigger, and much plainer and less ostentatious than a Victorian suburban villa’.²⁷ Like his older contemporary Frederick II, he regarded himself as a servant of the state.

The Austrian Empire shows a combination of absolutism and constitutionalism, an absolute ruler making decisions for the empire as a whole but with limited possibilities to interfere in each country because of ancient privileges and strong opposition from local elites. The influence from the Enlightenment in the eight­eenth century did not come from constitutional assemblies but on the contrary was imposed on them by the absolute emperor. Generally, the example of Austria points to a significant difference between medieval and early modern con­stitutionalism and contemporary democracy. The former is based on privilege, whereas the latter is based on a fundamental equality between all citizens. Thus, the French revolutionaries were as much against the remains of constitutional government, the Parliament of Paris and the privileges and relative independence of various provinces, as against absolute monarchy. Even the English Parliament was largely an assembly of and for the privileged, which was heavily criticized and finally, after much conflict, was reformed in 1832. Nevertheless, as we shall see, there is some connection between ancient privileges and modern democracy.

The Danish kings were absolute throughout the eighteenth century, but their personal qualities made it necessary to leave more to the colleges. This applies par­ticularly to the reign of Christian VII, who was mad, probably from schizophrenia, and during most of his long reign (1766—1808) was entirely incapable of governing. Characteristically, this meant that political power passed to his immediate entourage, first, his medical doctor, then his teacher. The former, the German Struensee, launched an ambitious reform programme and in addition had an affair with the queen, which led to a coup against him and his execution in 1772. The latter, Ove Hoegh Guldberg, a professor and a classical scholar, ruled as the head of a regency government until he was deposed by the crown prince in 1784.

Whereas Guldberg had been basically conservative, the new government, led by A.P. Bernstorff, inaugurated a series of liberal reforms, partly resembling those of Struensee, including the abolition of censorship. It also introduced a major agrarian reform (1788), which abolished the manorial system and allowed the farmers to buy their own land from the landowners. Although the reform was controversial, it was not a stroke against the noble landowners, nor was it intended as such.²⁸ Bernstorff was a noble and the greatest landowner in the country. The reform was introduced at a period of boom in agricultural prices and was accepted by many landowners who regarded it as an opportunity to make their farms more profitable and get rid of their administrative duties.²⁹ A similar reform was introduced in Sweden at around the same time. In both countries, there was a change from peasants subordinated to the lord of the manor to free farmers who either owned their own farm or leased it against a fixed rent. Typically, these farmers formed the basis of the democratic movements in both countries as well as in Norway in the nineteenth century, in contrast to many other countries, where agrarian parties were often reactionary and anti-democratic.

However, the reform shows the advantage of the Danish system once gov­ernment had decided for reform; there was no assembly that had to be con­vinced and no possibility of protesting against the king’s decision. By contrast, the system was not quite as successful when the rather mediocre Frederick VI had restored government by the king in person, formally when he succeeded his father in 1808 but in reality earlier. Ministerial government was introduced once more, together with a thorough revision of the whole administration, when absolutism was abolished in 1848.³⁰

Although Denmark was formally and largely also in reality the most absolute kingdom in Europe, the scholarly evaluation of its regime has often been positive. Despite a series of wars in the beginning, the country enjoyed a period of almost permanent peace between 1720 and 1807, its wealth increased, there were no great conflicts, education and learning improved and censorship was abolished or at least relaxed from the late eighteenth century onwards. When Norway was ceded to Sweden in 1814, the country had an enlightened elite which in a short time suc­ceeded in composing a constitution, influenced by many similar documents that were produced in the years after the French Revolution. Despite financial problems in the beginning, it also managed to establish an efficient government. Denmark itself also managed a peaceful change from absolute to constitutional government in 1848, although the process was complicated by the composite nature of the mon­archy, with a large German-speaking population in the duchies in the south. This relatively harmonious transition from absolutism to constitutional rule has given rise to a theory, with some support from contemporary evidence, that the king and the government ruled largely in accordance with public opinion.³¹ This is probably exaggerated, as freedom of expression during most of the time was limited, although various suggestions for the government might be expressed and the numerous peti­tions sent to the king gave information of the needs and interest of a number of individual people.

Despite considerable individual variation among kings and reforms that were more on paper than in reality, Enlightened Despotism is no empty phrase. The ideas of the Enlightenment did influence kings and governments and a number of reforms were attempted, more or less successfully. Most dramatic were the ones of Joseph II which were about to lead to disaster when he died. These reforms are also evidence of the problems of limited monarchy. Joseph suffered his worst defeats in countries with constitutional assemblies, like Hungary and the Southern Netherlands. By contrast, Denmark, where the king was really absolute, was able to introduce far-reaching and successful agrarian reforms in the late eighteenth century. In Sweden, the king was also the driving force in the reforms and was resisted by the nobility, whereas he received some support from the non-noble estates. Prussia was more absolute than Austria as well as more homogeneous; Frederick Il’s reforms were also reasonably successful, although they went less far than those of Joseph II in Austria.

France was central in the Enlightenment, but more in the form of discussions and publications by intellectuals than of concrete reforms introduced by the king and his ministers. Despite censorship, which might be troublesome but was as inefficient as most other aspects of government in this country, there were vivid debates on various aspects of politics, government and religion. The ideas of the Enlightenment also had political importance. The nobility was neither isolated nor reactionary; many of its members were well read and were positive to reform, at least within certain limits. Some of the ministers, notably under Louis XVI, were influenced by the Enlightenment. Some reforms were also introduced, including greater religious freedom and the abolition of judicial torture and of the cruellest forms of execution. However, there was no Frederick II or Joseph II and, apart from a long tradition of loyalty to the king, the French monarchy in the eighteenth century did little to appeal to the general public.

France is actually the great exception among the major powers of Europe regarding the position of the king and the court. Here the rules laid down by Louis XIV continued to be observed until 1789. Versailles had been functional in the seventeenth century, but now became increasingly obsolete. Paris became the centre of culture and political debate, while the king was isolated in Versailles and without contact with the new ideas. And while Louis XIV was able to create respect and admiration for himself not only by virtue of his office but also because of his personal qualities, his successors were unable to do so. Louis XV was sur­rounded by mistresses, who, in addition, had great political influence and, although he was intelligent, he was a weak and lazy ruler. Louis XVI led a respectable pri­vate life and was a man with the best intentions, but was weak and indecisive as a ruler and with little political understanding. It would seem that the people still had a good opinion of the king in 1789—90 and that a more energetic and charismatic ruler than Louis XVI might have exploited this position to carry out moderate reform. However, this did not happen; instead, the Old Regime in France broke down, and despite a number of different constitutions in the following period and various attempts to restore it, it never returned.

Could France have developed differently?³² The answer to this question depends on whether the French crisis can be explained as the result of purely technical problems or it has to do with more fundamental, structural factors. Here historians disagree. Although the royal revenues in France were significantly lower than the ones in Britain, there was no acute financial crisis until the steep rise in the debt resulting from the American War of Independence, which had been financed entirely by loans. As we have seen, the British debt was larger at the time and continued to rise in the following period without causing similar problems, but the trust in the French economy was less. At the same time, the French minister of finance, Necker, had tried to increase the efficiency of the financial administration and reduce superfluous expenses, such as the many pensions and sinecures to members of the nobility. He also stopped the sales of offices. However, the situa­tion deteriorated further as the result of a series of bad harvests which eventually led to peasant rebellions in 1789. Here it must also be added that most of France had not undergone the modernization of agriculture that took place in England and the Dutch Republic in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. Most farms were too small and were easily divided; property rights were often unclear and there was a considerable increase in population, from 20 million around 1700 to 28 million in 1789, as well as a greater difference between the few wealthy and the many poor peasants.

We can fairly easily identify the financial problem as inadequate revenues rather than too high expenses, as illustrated by the comparison with Britain. Although England was wealthier per capita than France, this difference cannot in itself explain the problem of managing the burden. The average burden on the French taxpayer was less than the one on his English counterpart, that is, the burden would have been easy, if all Frenchmen had paid taxes. The problem, of course, was that the wealthiest people in France, the nobles and the clerics and a large number of other wealthy people, most of the time did not pay direct taxes at all, so that the burden was heavy on peasants and poor people. Moreover, even this burden was distributed unequally; there were great differences between the regions, with the heaviest burden on those around Paris. Even so, it might be thought that a debt of this size might be increased relatively easily, as in Britain, but here the problem was that France had no national bank which could attract capital from the international market. Most of the creditors were French, to a great extent, the king’s officials. The French government also had to pay a higher rate of interest than the English. After the Revolution, France also introduced a national bank (1800), abolished the venal offices and the tax exemption. Still, however, the French state incomes were lower than the British ones.³³

There thus seems to have been a ‘technical’ solution to the financial problem in the form of a national bank that was able to extend the credit and a reform of the tax system that increased the revenues. In the crisis in 1709, during the War of the Spanish Succession, Louis XIV had managed to raise a new army by imposing new taxes. Although this was more difficult to do in peacetime, it would not seem impossible for a more determined and energetic government to have solved the financial crisis of the 1780s. However, there were also more deep-rooted problems: extreme inefficiency in the administration, increasing tension between the social classes, a public opinion increasingly critical of the court and the monarchy and the isolation of the latter in Versailles. Fundamentally, the problem was that to have any effect, a reform would have to go against important interests in society. The nobility had various local privileges as well as a monopoly on commissions as offi­cers in the army and navy. The bourgeoisie consisted largely of people who prof­ited from the venality of offices or were employed in the very inefficient tax­farming system, which greatly reduced the net surplus from the taxes. The many privileges and monopolies that hampered economic progress were, of course, highly profitable for the people who enjoyed them. ‘Creative destruction’ is usually regarded as necessary for economic progress, which, of course, means that it can hardly take place without meeting resistance. The last twenty years before the Revolution were characterized by a series of attempts at reform by a large number of ministers who were mostly deposed after a short time because of court intrigues or protests from influential groups. In addition, the Enlightenment movement had resulted in a public opinion increasingly critical of the court and the government and a strong demand for reform. From this point of view, it has been claimed that the decisive shift that eventually led to the Revolution must be dated to around 1760, after the defeats in the Seven Years War and Louis XV's political incompe­tence and moral failures had undermined its authority.³⁴

This, however, raises a new question: why did the changes in the eighteenth century lead to revolution in France, while the rest of Europe were either subject to moderate reforms or underwent few changes? Here we can point to the fact that the new ideas were particularly strong and widespread in France, while their practical impact was less than in many other places because of the weakness of its kings and the low competence of the bureaucracy. Prussia, Austria, many German principalities and Scandinavia performed better in both respects. Considering the opposition to reform in many countries, notably France and Austria, we may ask whether the problem in the eighteenth century was that the king was too absolute or that he was not absolute enough. Although France had no Diet operating between 1614 and 1789, there were numerous institutions that limited the power of the king, in addition to the fact that he had little control of the bureaucracy. A stronger king might possibly have been able to reform the system or at least improve it. By contrast, the Danish and Prussian governments succeeded in intro­ducing major reforms because the king was absolute and there was no assembly that might restrict his power. In the case of Sweden, it is at least possible to claim that Gustaf III carried out reforms that the previous ‘parliamentary’ system had proved unable to introduce. However, the problem with absolutism was that so much depended on the king’s personal qualities. Thus, the solution, even in countries that remained formally more or less absolute, was ministerial government based on a strong and competent bureaucracy, as in Prussia. In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, this also became a fundamental factor in democratic states. This has led to tension and problems, as caricatured in the popular television series, Yes, Prime Minister, in which the smiling and affable Sir Humphrey depicts himself as the humble servant who carries out the prime minister’s orders, while manip­ulating him to act according to the interests of the bureaucracy. It is nevertheless difficult to imagine that government by the people through their elected repre­sentatives can function without a strong element of educated professionals, recrui­ted according to merit, who solve practical problems and give the elected leaders the necessary information.

The first examples of democracy in the modern sense in the western world were the Constitutions of the United States of America of 1789 and of France of 1791. The former was probably at the time too distant to have been very important as a model, whereas the latter created strong reactions abroad, positive as well as nega­tive. Despite its resemblance to modern constitutions, it can hardly be regarded as a great success, as it was soon abolished and led to a period of terror and internal struggles, followed by military dictatorship. In the long run, however, the ideas of

the French Revolution proved victorious, in some countries after revolution or internal or external wars, in other gradually and peacefully, the latter notably in Britain and the Scandinavian countries. A series of changes in the political, cultural and economic fields led to this result: the Industrial Revolution, greater wealth, higher living standards, better education, scientific progress and the mobilization of larger and larger parts of the population to fight for their interests and demanding a say in the government of the country. To this must be added the introduction of compulsory military service and the great mobilization during the two World Wars. However, the beginning of this process lies in the eighteenth century, with the Enlightenment and the reform processes that started in constitutional as well as absolutist countries.