1806 establishment of the Grand Duchy, 1806–1808 During the
Napoleonic Wars,
Louis X, Landgrave of
Hesse-Darmstadt, initially sought
Prussian protection against
Napoleonic France, but after the
Battle of Austerlitz, this policy became untenable. At the last minute, Louis X switched sides and supplied troops to
Napoleon. Along with fifteen other states, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt left the
Holy Roman Empire and joined the
Confederation of the Rhine. The Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt was promoted to a grand duchy and Louis X thereafter styled himself Grand Duke Louis I (, with an extra 'e') and announced not only the promotion, but also the territories he had received under the
Treaty of the Confederation of the Rhine in an edict on 13 August 1806. Along with the promotion to the rank of grand duchy, Hesse was also rewarded with territorial gains, such as the
Electorate of Cologne. However, although all this territory lay under his
sovereignty, the princes who had previously held these territories, the
mediatised houses, retained a significant portion of their former powers. Before this territorial expansion, the Landgraviate of Hesse-Darmstadt had around 210,000 inhabitants in its territories on the right bank of the Rhine. After 1806, the population was around 546,000. At the same time, the Grand Duchy reached its greatest territorial extent, around 9,300 km2. Almost simultaneously, there was a radical change in the state's internal politics. With two edicts on 1 October 1806, the Grand Duke revoked the financial privileges of the landed nobility on a large scale (the landed nobility became subject to taxation) and their
Landstände (feudal estates) were abolished, which transformed Hesse-Darmstadt "from a mosaic of patrimonial fragments into a centralized, absolute monarchy".
Developments after 1806 On 24 April 1809, Napoleon ordered the abolition of the
Teutonic Order, amalgamating
Kloppenheim and into the grand duchy. Between 1808 and 1810, there were plans to introduce the
Napoleonic Code as only valid law for the whole grand duchy. However, these discussions were terminated by the conservative government of , which was opposed to social changes. On 11 May 1810, the grand duchy and the
French Empire concluded a treaty, which granted the grand duchy further areas under French control, which had been taken from Electoral Hesse in 1806. Although the treaty was agreed in May, it was only signed by Napoleon on 17 October 1810. The Hessian certificate of possession is dated 10 November 1810. The Babenhausen district was attached to Strakenburg province, the other territories to Upper Hesse. In August 1810, there was a three-way agreement between France, Hesse, and the
Grand Duchy of Baden. Baden placed its territories at French disposal and France gave them back to the grand duchy with a treaty signed on 11 November 1810. The Hessian certificate of possession is dated 13 November 1810.
The Congress of Vienna (1815) At the
Congress of Vienna in 1815, the grand duchy joined the
German Confederation and received a portion of the former
Mont-Tonnerre department, which had a population of 140,000 people and included the important federal
Fortress of Mainz, as compensation for the
Duchy of Westphalia, which Hesse had received in 1803 and which was now transferred to Prussia. During the turbulence of
Hundred Days, when Napoleon returned from exile, Austria, Prussia, and the Grand Duchy of Hesse concluded a treaty on 30 June 1816, which regulated the region and went into more detail that the treaty signed at Vienna in the previous year. There were further border agreements and exchanges of small areas of territory with the Electorate of Hesse and the Kingdom of Bavaria. The
patents of possession are dated 8 July 1816, but were only published on 11 July. After this consolidation, the grand duchy had a population of roughly 630,000. The neighbouring
Landgraviate of Hesse-Kassel, which Napoleon had annexed into the
Kingdom of Westphalia, was re-established by the Congress of Vienna as the
Electorate of Hesse. After Louis I's counterpart in Hesse-Kessel,
William I, Elector of Hesse, began styling himself "Elector of Hesse and Grand Duke of Fulda", Louis sought the additional title "Elector of
Mainz and Duke of
Worms" in order to match William I. However, Austria and Prussia refused to grant this. Instead, William gestured to this claimed title by changing the name of the grand duchy to the
Grand Duchy of Hesse and by Rhine (), which also helped to distinguish the two Hessian states.
The Constitution of 1820 and legal reforms Constitution As a result of these territorial acquisitions, the grand duchy was composed of numerous disparate components. A constitution was therefore urgently needed in order to unite the various territories of the new state. Furthermore, article 13 of the
Constitution of the German Confederation required each member state to establish their own "parliamentary constitution" (
Landständische Verfassung). Louis I balked at this and was quoted as saying that a parliament "in a sovereign state [is] not necessary, not useful, and in some respects dangerous." In fact, the process of constitutional reform was mainly undertaken by the civil service rather than the grand duke himself. The members of the civil service who led the reforms were: •
August Friedrich Wilhelm Crome (1753–1833) • (1769–1839) • (1771–1843) • (1773–1839) • (1781–1860) • (1776–1836) In 1816, a three-man legal commission was established to craft a constitution and other necessary laws, composed of Floret and
Carl Ludwig Wilhelm Grolman. The constitution which was promulgated by grand ducal edict in March 1820 provided for a parliament (
Landstände), but with no authority of its own. Although this led to the first elections in the grand duchy, it also caused massive protests,
tax strikes, and even armed rebellions against the government in some parts of the grand duchy. The grand duke and his administration gave in to the pressure and a new constitution was promulgated on 17 December 1820. The new constitution contained most of what the opponents of the first constitution had wanted, but the grand duke saved face since the constitution was formally granted by him. Louis I was honoured as a great lawgiver, with the in Darmstadt honouring him for "his" constitution. The constitution was followed by a wide range of further reforms in the grand duchy.
Legal and administrative reforms After its territorial augmentation, the grand duchy consisted of numerous territories with different administrative systems. To regularise this, it was urgently necessary to integrate the various regions. At the lower levels, the administrative system of these regions was still based on the
Amt system which had become obsolete centuries earlier. As well as being the lowest level administrative subdivision, the Ämter were also the courts of
first instance. Preliminary work on reforming this system began by 1816, and from 1821, the court system and the administrative system were separated at the lowest level in Starkenburg and Upper Hesse provinces. In Rheinhessen, this had already been done around twenty years earlier, while the area was under French control. The tasks that had previously been assigned to the Ämter were transferred to ("local council districts", responsible for administration) and ("local courts", responsible for judicial functions). This process took place over several years, since at first the state could make new rules about administration and justice only where it had unrestricted authority over these matters. The areas in which the grand duchy's sovereignty was unrestricted were called
Dominiallande, while the areas where the Standesherren and other nobles exercised their own judicial and administrative authority were the
Souveränitätslanden. In the latter areas, the state first had to forge agreements with the individual lords, in order to integrate their judicial powers into the state's court system. In some cases this took until the middle of the 1820s. The "Edict concerning Standesherren's Legal Relationships in the Grand Duchy of Hesse" of 27 March 1820 served as the frame of reference for these agreements. According to this edict, the individual Standesherren retained their personnel sovereignty in the and Landgerichten established in the
Souveränitätslanden, which meant that the Standesherren chose the local councillors and judges. This remaining power was only removed during the
German revolutions of 1848–1849. From the 50+ Ämter that had previously existed 24 Landratsbezirke and 27 Landgerichten were created. The new Landgerichte had their own
judicial districts, which covered almost the same areas as the Landratsbezirke did. In general, the old seats of the
Amtsmen remained either the seat of the Landrat or the Landgericht. Five further Landratsbezirke and six more Landgerichten were created over the following years as a result of the negotiations with the Standesherren.
Civic administration A modern system of civic administration, modelled on the French system, was also introduced in 1821. The outmoded cooperative parish associations were replaced by a system of civic and parish citizenship.
Bürgermeister (mayors) were established for individual settlements and parish associations with at least 400 inhabitants. In 1831 there were 1092 parishes in the grand duchy, administered by 732 mayors. The mayoralties were administered by an elected local board, consisting of the mayor, deputies, and parish councillors. Male residents elected three men and one of them was chosen as mayor: • In the
Dominialland, this decision was made by the state. • In the
Souveränitätslanden, the Standesherren chose them. This system ensured that, if the authorities did not like a particular candidate, they could prevent them from taking office. Thus, for example, the entrepreneur received the most votes in Darmstadt two times, but the mayoralty was assigned to the second or third place candidates. In Upper Hesse and Starkenburg, the local council had oversight of the mayors, while in Rhinehessen, where this local district did not exist, the mayors were chosen directly by the provincial governments.
Abolition of serfdom The state was also interested in replacing the old agricultural
ground rent, which was often based on the yield of the year's harvest, with a modern system of taxation. There had been plans for this since 1816. A first step in the process was also implemented during the reforms of 1821. However, this was only a limited reform, since only the ground rents paid to the state were removable. The removal of "private" ground rents, including those paid to churches, religious orders, and Standesherren, failed to pass the first chamber of the parliament. Furthermore, in order to remove the ground rent from their land, farmers were initially required to pay a fee which was eighteen times their annual rent and most farmers could not afford this. The process of abolition would drag on into the second half of the 19th century.
Economic reforms The constitution declared that an economic system based on
liberal principles was the state's goal. Achieving
economic freedom, which also required the
abolition of guild privileges, proved difficult, as a result of "damage to multiple interests". Even in this area, different conditions applied in different parts of the grand duchy. In Rhine-Hesse, the guilds had been abolished during French rule, while in the provinces on the right bank of the Rhine, guild privileges had only been abolished in a few places for a few industries. This abolition was expanded, but guild privileges continued to exist.
Impact of the July Revolution (1830–1848) ''. The government in Darmstadt only implemented the
Karlsbad Decrees in a moderate manner, to the displeasure of the
great powers, Prussia and Austria. On the other hand, the government continually persecuted the opposition (although without much long-term success in the courts), since they feared a revolution. In Upper Hesse province, a revolt broke out in September 1830, whose members expressed a general dissatisfaction with the state. Characteristically, the territories of the Standesherren were particularly affected:
Büdingen and
Ortenberg. In these areas, shops were burgled and the local government offices were destroyed. The toll office in
Heldenbergen and the
Nidda courthouse were also affected. The grand duke introduced
summary execution, which was unanimously approved by the Landstände. Under the command of the grand duke's brother, Prince
Emil, the rebellion was suppressed by the army. Part of this suppression was the
Södel Bloodbath, named for the number of dead and wounded. After the revolution of 1830 was over, the government regained the upper hand and decided that if they could not suppress the rising appetites for reform, they would at least try to control them. The
bourgeoisie partially switched its focus to cultural activities, which the government then began to monitor warily. Thus, the was allowed to be founded in 1833, but local societies that had originally been planned were not, and the society's charter stated that the society must not occupy itself with "contemporary history and discussion of the political circumstances of more recent times." Above all,
sports clubs were considered highly suspicious, even though a demonstration of sporting activities was presented in Darmstadt at the dedication of the Ludwig Monument in 1844. The government initially maintained its relatively open policy towards the press, but reacted harshly to the distribution of
The Hessian Courier, a pamphlet by
Georg Büchner calling for social revolution. The persecution of his fellow contributors continued until 1839.
The March Revolution (1848–1849) , chief minister during the Revolution of 1848 (lithograph by
Eduard von Heuss)
Revolution In the 1840s, , chief minister from 1821 to 1848, inaugurated the "System du Thil", which entailed the complete suppression of all political discussion. Crop failures and rapidly rising prices for basic foodstuffs created a crisis in the grand duchy. Then on 24 February 1848, a
revolution in
Paris forced King
Louis-Philippe to abdicate. The political tension grew so great that the government no longer waited for citizens' committees and other societies to take banned political actions before persecuting them. Within a few days, the situation had become so dire that, on 5 March 1848, Grand Duke Louis II named his son
Louis III as his
co-regent (in fact, Louis III became sole ruler, since Louis II was ill and died a few months later on 16 June 1848). The next day, Karl du Thil was dismissed and replaced as chief minister by
Heinrich von Gagern. Von Gagern proclaimed that the new government would grant all of the "March demands". However, the rural population's demands that the Standesherren be stripped of their privileges and for serfdom to be abolished without requiring them to pay compensation were not fulfilled. As a result, on 8 March, a massive demonstration gathered before the residences of the Standesherren and stormed some of them. After this, the Standesherren agreed to the abolition of serfdom without compensation. In doing this, however, the farmers exceeded the limits of what the bourgeoise were willing to accept, since they were not willing to countenance interventions in
private property. Von Gagern brought this protest to a close with military force, but accepted the farmers' demands. This marked the end of the "hot phase" of the revolution in the grand duchy, which thus lasted only two weeks.
Reforms After March 1848, there was a reshuffle of the ministries, since Heinrich von Gagern was elected president of the
Frankfurt Parliament and therefore had to resign from his role as a minister in the grand duchy. Nevertheless, a series of reforms delivered most of the "March demands". The new organisation of the administration saw the three provinces and all of the districts abolished and replaced by a single level of local administration midway between them, the
Regierungsbezirk ("government district"). Each of these had a
Bezirksrat (district council) to represent the people. A reform of the justice system was also carried out in the areas to the right of the Rhine, including the introduction of
jury courts. A new electoral law was not passed until 1849. Under this law, all members of both chambers of the Landstände were now to be elected – the lower house by
universal equal suffrage and the upper house by
census suffrage. So much "democracy" was novel even for liberal politicians and the interior ministry urged people to act responsibly with their right to vote. Two elections were held under the new electoral system, in 1849 and 1850. Both times, the democrats received a strong majority in the lower chamber, which they used to block the enactment of a state budget.
The Dalwigk Era (1850–1866) Grand Duke Louis III appointed as director of the ministry of the interior on 30 June 1850, transferred him provisionally to the ministry of foreign affairs and the Grand Ducal House on 8 August 1850, and finally named him president of the council of ministers on 25 September 1852. Louis III, who "imitated the image of a paternalistic ruler projected by his grandfather, without achieving his significance," and Dalwigk shared a conservative outlook and were both opposed to
liberalism and democracy. For Dalwigk, "the democratic principle [was] perilous for the state, since it necessarily leads to
socialism and
communism. These led to the election of the 14th (extraordinary) Landstände, in which pro-government representatives had a majority, and marked the beginning of comprehensive efforts to dismantle the achievements of the revolution. Even after the introduction of limited suffrage in October 1850, the Landstände still had many democratic and liberal members and the crisis regarding the
Zollverein in 1852 showed how effective this opposition could still be. However, increased pressure on individual representatives (many of whom gave up and emigrated to the
United States) and, especially, the new electoral law of 1856 weakened even this opposition.
Zollverein crisis, 1852 In external politics, Dalwigk and Louis III supported Austria, the
German Confederation, and a
pan-German solution to the German Question. The first crisis with Prussia arose in 1852 in connection with the
Zollverein, the north German customs union dominated by Prussia. In 1851, the Prussians terminated the existing customs treaty from the end of 1853. Austria then attempted to establish a customs union with the German middle states. Dalwigk signed up for this project, against all economic logic, since the grand duchy's exports to Austria were only 3% of its exports to Prussia. Massive protests followed. Even in the Landestände, which was now dominated by pro-Dalwigk conservatives, he found only a minority in favour of this policy. On 14 May 1852, the government went so far as to dissolve the city council of
Friedberg with armed police. All of this did not help Dalwigk at all. In the end, Austria and Prussia came to an agreement between themselves on customs and Austria gave up on the idea of a customs union with the German middle states. The whole affair created an enduring enemy to Dalwigk, however: the Prussian representative in the
Federal Convention,
Otto von Bismarck. He advised the Prussian government to refuse to grant a new customs treaty to the grand duchy, unless Dalwigk resigned. However, this advice was not followed.
German National Association The
German National Association was founded in 1859. Its goal was to create a liberal
Lesser Germany under Prussian leadership – the opposite goal from Dalwigk. He advised the local councils to prosecute all known members of the Association, using the ban on all political associations as justification. After some prominent Hessians, including , and , were convicted to a symbolic few days imprisonment for this, there was a massive increase in membership of the National Association, which so overwhelmed the prosecutors, that the whole persecution was discontinued in 1861. In summer 1861, the National Association had 937 members in Hesse – the highest number outside Prussia. In 1862, the liberal Hessian Progress Party stood in the Landstände elections and won a landslide victory with 32 of the 50 seats in the lower chamber. Dalwigk's attempt to organise a "Reform Association" to oppose the Progress Party and the National Association was a failure, as was his attempt to get the
Federal Convention to ban the National Association.
Dynastic reorientation and his wife
Princess Alice of the United Kingdom in December 1860 The Grand Duchess
Mathilde, a sister of King
Maximilian II of Bavaria, died in 1862. A few weeks later, the crown prince
Louis IV married
Princess Alice of the United Kingdom (1843–1878), the second eldest daughter of
Queen Victoria at
Osborne House on the
Isle of Wight. This marriage made Louis an in-law of
Frederick, crown prince of Prussia, who was married to Alice's sister
Victoria. This link changed the political climate in the grand duchy. Social questions became topical. In 1863, a workers' education society was established and in 1864 the Building Society for Workers' Housing (
Bauverein für Arbeiterwohnungen) was established with the support of Louis and Alice. This society was based on
British models and erected its first social housing complex, with 64 dwellings, between 1866 and 1868.
Lead-up to the Austro-Prussian War Von Dalwigk still supported Austria and sought to prevent the creation of a Lesser Germany. In Paris, he sounded out interest in an alliance of
middle powers against Prussia (and thus also against Great Britain). This agreement with a foreign initiative, directed against a German power, brought von Dalwigk into even greater disrepute with the Nationalists. In the face of the
Schleswig–Holstein question, this discredited him significantly. When Austria and Prussia came to an agreement at the
Gastein Convention, von Dalwigk proved to have chosen the wrong horse once again. He compounded this error in the following year when he took Hesse into the
Austro-Prussian War on the Austrian side.
Austro-Prussian War (1866) in his uniform as an Austrian
lieutenant field marshal. While
Baden advocated "armed neutrality" in the brewing conflict between Austria and Prussia, von Dalwigk entered the war on the Austrian side immediately after hostilities broke out in June 1866. Initially, the Landstände refused to grant the government the right to issue
war bonds, but they backed down in the face of popular opposition, once the government reduced its request from 4 million guilder to 2.5 million. On 14 June 1866, Prussian forces marched into the
Duchy of Holstein and the forces of the German Confederation faced off against Prussia. The Hessian troops were ready to march, but it took more than two weeks to gather the rest of the 8th Army in Frankfurt. Eventually, the army marched through Upper Hesse to the northeast. When the outcome of the war was decided by the Prussian victory at the
Battle of Königgrätz on 3 July 1866, the Hessian forces had still not encountered the enemy. On 6 July 1866, Prince Alexander halted his advance and returned home, but not quickly enough. On 13 July 1866, he was intercepted by Prussian troops at
Aschaffenburg. In the following
Battle of Frohnhofen, 800 Hessian soldiers were killed or wounded – 15% of all their deployed forces. The Hessian Minister of War, was replaced on 28 December 1866.
Peace treaty The crown princes of Hesse and Prussia arranged a cease fire in the middle of July. Dalwigk rejected this in the hope that
France would enter the war against Prussia. On 31 July, Prussian troops occupied Darmstadt without a battle. After its defeat in the war, Hesse was forced to concede territory to Prussia in the . Due to the intervention of
Alexander II of Russia, the brother-in-law of Grand Duke Louis III, this was a relatively mild treaty. Bismarck had originally intended to annex the whole of Upper Hesse. Instead, Hesse lost only 82 km2 and gained nearly 10 km2 when Prussia gave the grand duchy various enclaves within Hessian territory that had previously belonged to states which Prussia had annexed outright. All of these new territories were located in Upper Hesse, aside from , which was south of the
Main river in Strakenburg province. The territory of
Hesse-Homburg, inherited by the grand duke earlier in the year on the extinction of its ruling line, was among the territories that passed to Prussia. Hesse was also required to pay three million guilder in
war indemnities and hand its telegraph network over to the Prussians.
Aftermath station decorated for the reception of
William I of Prussia, 1868. The war did not lead to the dismissal of Dalwigk. Grand Duke Louis III remained committed to him, although his anti-Prussian policy and his very person were now a burden to the country. One consequence of the peace treaty of 1866 was that the whole area north of the Main river (the Province of Upper Hesse, as well as
Mainz-Kastel and
Mainz-Kostheim in the
Mainz district of Rhine-Hesse Province) became part of the
North German Confederation. Subsequently, Dalwigk's government attempted to prevent or at least to delay the integration of the rest of Hesse into the confederation. The only justification he would accept for southern Hesse joining the confederation was if France were to start a war with Prussia. Dalwigk also attempted to delay the integration of the Hessian army into the
Prussian Army for as long as possible. This led crown prince
Louis IV to resign as commander of the
Grand Ducal Hessian (25th) Division and caused the Prussian
Adjutant general Adolf von Bonin to issue a blatant threat to the grand duke. Minister of War, , who had actually implemented Dalwigk's delaying policy in military matters, was fired, but Dalwigk was allowed to remain in post. When King
William I of Prussia came to
Worms in 1868 for the dedication of the
Luther Monument, his first visit to the grand duchy since the war, which was interpreted as a gesture of reconciliation, "Dalwigk was conveniently away visiting relatives in
Livonia." which it joined partway through the war on 20 October 1870. Despite Bismarck's hatred of him, Dalwigk travelled to
Versailles for the negotiations about Hesse's entrance into the new German union. The treaty on the grand duchy's admission to the Confederation was signed on 15 November 1870, without Hesse receiving any reserved powers, unlike the other negotiating states. The Landstände ratified the treaty on 20 December 1870. At the
Proclamation of the German Empire on 18 January 1871 in the
Hall of Mirrors at the
Palace of Versailles, the grand duchy was represented by crown prince Louis. Grand Duke Louis III accepted the event on account of the changed circumstances, but with a heavy heart and he remained very distant from the development. As a result of documents discovered in France which revealed Dalwigk's political intrigues with the French, his position finally became unsustainable. However, it was only when Louis III was directly instructed to fire Dalwigk during a visit to
Berlin, that he was forced to give in and dismiss him on 1 April 1871. The new chief minister was the former Minister of Justice, , a final attempt at resistance by Louis III, before he appointed Prussia's preferred candidate, in 1872. After this, Louis III completely stepped back from government, handing over public duties to the crown prince and princess. This led to the development of a glorified image of him and, at the death of "Uncle Louis" in 1877, it was largely forgotten that his rule had consisted of a series of political conflicts and missteps. The Hessian ministry of war was abolished. The result of this was that higher command positions were filled by Prussians. • The largest reform of law and justice in the 19th century, in which projects that the grand duchy had failed to accomplish since 1803, like the legal unification of the whole country, were brought to completion by imperial laws, like the: • of 1872; • of 1877 (consisting of the ,
Civil procedure code, , and the ) •
Civil Law Book of 1896, which came into force on 1 January 1900. :The resulting restructuring of the laws of the country was limited and the new laws were largely concordant with the old ones. • The incorporation of the Hessian railroads into the
Prussian state railways in 1896, under the company name,
Prussian-Hessian Railway Company. The grand duchy's most significant loss was concealed to some extent by dynastic connections: Crown Prince Louis was the son-in-law of
Queen Victoria. He was a brother-in-law of
Edward VII, heir to the British throne, and of the Prussian heir,
Frederick. His daughter was married to the
Tsar Nicholas of Russia. These links were reflected in the presence of British, Russian, and Prussian envoys in the tiny Hessian capital of Darmstadt. The limited practical significance of this was shown by the inability of this Europe-wide network to prevent the outbreak of the
First World War. Louis IV's successor,
Ernest Louis was referred to in Berlin as the "Red Grand Duke", because the Prussian envoy had scandalously seen him speak with
Carl Ulrich, the leader of the
SPD on several occasions. Under these circumstances, the grand duchy retained only the power to concentrate on internal politics, especially social and cultural affairs.
Political reforms • An ordinance of 1874 reorganised the top state offices. This also abolished the Ministry for Foreign Affairs, since external relations were now controlled by the German Empire. Hitherto, the Minister for Foreign Affairs had also served as Minister of the Grand Ducal House, a job which was now entrusted to the Chief Minister. The districts (
Kreise) served both as administrative subdivisions of the state and as self-governing local areas. The old district councils (
Bezirksräte), which had only an advisory role, were replaced by communally elected district councils (
Kreistage). At the same time, the number of districts was reduced from 18 to 12. • The local self-government of the cities and
municipalities was also expanded by new regulations in 1874. • Also in 1874, the
Protestant national church received a new constitution with a strong role for
synods. • In 1911, the voting system for the lower chamber of the Landstände was modernised. Census suffrage was abolished, but all voters over fifty years old received two votes. Around 20% of the population was entitled to vote. This relatively low proportion was due to the fact that
women did not receive voting rights and because the
demographic structure of the grand duchy meant that relatively few men were over the voting age. The upper chamber was revised, so that was now a representative of the
Technical University of Darmstadt (analogous to the existing representative of the
University of Giessen) and a representative for each of the three legally recognised sectors of employment: trade and industry, craftwork, and agriculture. Until the end of the monarchy (and afterwards), officials were recruited mostly from old local families of officials and sometimes graduates of the University of Giessen. This ensured the continued existence of a liberal internal policy, unlike the neighbouring Prussian
Province of Hesse-Nassau, where the district councillors often came from the east of the kingdom and were politically conservative. Even
Carl Ulrich, later president of the
People's State of Hesse, who was repeatedly arrested under the
Anti-Socialist Laws found that "the law in Hesse is implemented very mildly."
Social policy In the social sphere, Grand Duchess Alice took the lead. With her help, the "Alice Women's Society for Nurses" (
Alice-Frauenverein für Krankenpflege) was established. With advice from
Florence Nightingale, the society organised a secular health service. At its foundation, the society already had 33 local branches and 2,500 members. This developed into the , which still operates in Darmstadt today. Together with
Luise Büchner, Alice established the "Society for the Development of Female Industry" (
Verein für Förderung weiblicher Industrie), renamed the "Alice Society for Women's Education and Employment" (
Alice-Verein für Frauenbildung und -Erwerb) in 1872. This society ran a market for women who worked at home ("the Alice Bazaar") and the Alice-School, a school that trained women for employment, which is now the Alice-Eleonoren-Schule in Darmstadt. The country also engaged in health care. At the beginning of the twentieth century, its focus was on
tuberculosis. The Ernest Ludwig Sanitorium for lung diseases was opened at
Sandbach in 1900 and the Eleonore Sanitorium for Women (now the Eleonore Clinic) in
Winterkasten in 1905, both in the
Odenwald. From 1908, Grand Duchess
Eleonore participated in "the Grand Duchess' Sales Days" to raise money for this cause. At the baptism of the Crown Prince
George Donatus, Grand Duchess Eleonore founded the "Grand Ducal Centre for the Care of Mothers and Infants" (
Großherzogliche Zentrale für Mütter- und Säuglingsfürsorge), which maintained a national advice network and help centres with nurses. In 1912, the Centre joined with the aviation pioneer,
August Euler (1868–1957), in his aircraft the
Gelber Hund and with the
LZ 10 Schwaben zeppelin to organise the
Postcard week of the Grand Duchess and Airmail in Rhein and Main, which raised 100,000
marks for the cause. Von Heyl was also a member of the
Reichstag and president of the upper chamber of the Hessian Landstände from 1874 to 1912. There he was responsible for the "Law on Housing Support for the Less Wealthy" of 1902, which provided simplified possibilities for finance. This improved on an earlier law passed in 1893. Additionally, the 1902 law created a National Housing Inspectorate ("Landeswohnungsinspektion", which monitored the state of the housing market and reported it on it. This made the grand duchy the leading state of the German Empire with respect to housing policy. Von Heyl also established the "Action Society for the Construction of Affordanble Housing" (
Aktiengesellschaft zur Erbauung billiger Wohnungen), which built a total of 250 houses with 450 inhabitants in Worms within a few years. Most of these houses are now the very upmarket district of in Worms.
Cultural policy , Darmstadt, 1906 In the cultural sphere, the
Kulturkampf was of great significance in the first years of the German Empire. After some delay, the grand duchy brought the Prussian measures into force. The duchy's
Catholic bishop,
Wilhelm Emmanuel von Ketteler of
Mainz, a strict conservative, had worked closely with von Dalwigk and was fiercely opposed to the liberals. The Darmstadt government sought to gain a higher level of control over the Roman Catholic church and the bishop led opposition to this. A whole bundle of laws were put forward by the government in 1875 to achieve this. The bishop sought to maintain the highest possible level of autonomy by all means at his disposal, but in 1876 he had to close the
seminary in Mainz and the church was not able to open it again until 1887. After Ketteler's death in 1877, the bishop's seat remained vacant until 1886, as a result of the conflict between the state and the Catholic church, since the state vetoed all candidates for the position that were put forward by the Church. The beginning of the reign of the last Grand Duke,
Ernest Louis, in 1892 at the age of twenty-three saw a marked focus on cultural policy. He rejected plans for the new
Landesmuseum in Darmstadt, because he considered the plans "hideous and too pretentious, a disfigurement of the city and a disgrace for the government." The Grand Duke sought out the Berlin architect
Alfred Messel instead and the museum which he built was widely praised. , 8 November 1918, one day before the fall of the grand duchy. The most famous project of Grand Duke Ernest Louis is the
Darmstadt Artists' Colony, a project, which his mother, Grand Duchess Alice, had first conceived, but had not brought to fruition due to her early death. The colony and its four art and craft exhibition halls on Mathildenhöhe have been a
UNESCO World Heritage Site since 2021.
First World War and end of the grand duchy (1914–1918) Under the German Empire's military constitution, Hessian troops participated in
World War I as part of the
Imperial German Army. Grand Duke Ernest Louis was nominally an infantry general, but he did not exercise an active command. He did visit the headquarters of the
Grand Ducal Hessian (25th) Division in France several times. A total of 32,000 men from this unit died during the war. In summer 1918, Darmstadt was hit by
allied airstrikes. In 1919, the Grand Duke released the officials of Hesse from their oaths of service to him, but he never issued an explicit
abdication. The grand duchy received a
republican constitution and was renamed the
People's State of Hesse (
Volksstaat Hessen). ==Government==