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The message was as brief as it was enigmatic.
If Anton von Werner manages to get to Versailles “before January 18”, then he will experience something that is “worthy of his brush”.
The telegram that arrived at the painter who was not yet 28 years old in Karlsruhe on Sunday, January 15, 1871, at around ten o'clock in the morning, came from (almost) the very highest authority: from the Prussian Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm himself.
Anton von Werner (1843–1915) in 1878
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images
Anton von Werner did not hesitate.
Although he was actually busy with his imminent move to Berlin, he quickly got himself a “thick fur coat” and set off for Paris around 2 p.m. - only four hours after the unexpected invitation.
He expected the storm on the French capital, which had been besieged since mid-September 1870, to await him.
For the 470 kilometers to Lagny-sur-Marne, the last train station before the siege ring, he needed around 51 hours with transfers and waiting times;
he did not arrive there until January 17th at 5 p.m.
But now it was still a good 50 kilometers to the actual destination.
After all, a seat in the army post coach was reserved for him.
“So it went into the pitch black night”, Werner wrote to his father, “three of them pressed together in the cart filled with postal parcels, like sardines in a box”.
This is roughly how the actual proclamation on January 18, 1871 can be imagined
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images
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The painter finally reached his destination around four o'clock in the morning, was given quarters in the small royal town that was completely occupied by the Prussian military - and was still only able to sleep a good two hours.
Because at eight o'clock in the morning he went to the Crown Prince, who had summoned him in such a hurry.
But Friedrich Wilhelm had no time for the guest;
he merely greeted him in passing and instructed the court marshal to “organize the rest of the day”.
The most important thing, apparently, was whether Werner had appropriate clothing - a tailcoat.
Of course, the painter hadn't thought of that and had to get the festive suit from a tailor in Versailles.
Soon after eleven o'clock he was at the huge castle of Ludwig XIV and was amazed at the abundance of Prussian soldiers here.
Since an ingress of warm air had caused a strong thaw after weeks of frost, the right of way and the paths around the castle were all muddy.
An engraving of the proclamation from 1880, allegedly based on the model of Anton von Werner, which is doubtful in view of the poor quality
Source: picture alliance / akg-images
Towards noon two open carriages appeared in quick succession;
The Crown Prince rose from one, and from the other his almost 74-year-old father, King Wilhelm I. He first stepped down from an honorary company of the Guard Regiment, writes the historian Christopher Nonn in his new book about the German Empire and stayed with the one who had been shot Stand the flag of unity.
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She had suffered badly in the battle of Weissenburg on August 4, 1870.
Nonn, who teaches modern history at Heinrich Heine University, recalls that up to this Wednesday, more than 170,000 dead and 220,000 wounded on both sides were on Wilhelm I's way to Versailles.
Anton von Werner's first version from 1877
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images
Then the Prussian king went into the palace and immediately into the most important room, the hall of mirrors.
Anton von Werner was one of the few civilians waiting there in the midst of hundreds of uniformed men.
On one side of the room stood simple soldiers and NCOs who had distinguished themselves in battle;
on the other generals and high officials, the latter also in uniform.
At the front of the room stood countless flags on a pedestal, including the tattered cloth of the guards regiment.
"With the painter's eye, Werner already assessed the artistic potential of the colorful uniforms reflecting in the mirrors, the flashing medals and weapons and the light," says Nonn, describing the behavior of his protagonist - who, however, still didn't know what was about to happen.
The second version of the imperial proclamation for the Berlin armory
Source: Public Domain
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Then the Prussian Crown Prince suddenly ordered: “Take off your helmet for prayer!” And a service began with a chorale sung together.
Werner meanwhile sketched the main characters in the hall of mirrors and hardly noticed anything of the long sermon;
a lieutenant colonel commented in his diary that it had more "the character of a house devotion".
Now Wilhelm I asked the representatives of all German royal houses who were present to be on the podium and was the last to join.
"And now the great event that marked the achievement of the war took place in the most ostentatious manner and with extraordinary brevity: the proclamation of the German Empire", wrote Werner in his memoirs published in 1913: "So that was what Crown Prince Friedrich Wilhelm thought had marked something worthy of my brush in his telegram. "
The Imperial Proclamation by Anton von Werner, third version, painted between 1880 and 1884
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images
Using the sketches that were quickly thrown in the hall of mirrors, Anton von Werner first created a small-format proposal that was well received by the client, the Crown Prince.
Accordingly, until the beginning of 1877, the painter worked his oil painting on canvas “Proclamation of the German Empire” for the Berlin City Palace in a format of 434 by 732 centimeters.
But the artist was not satisfied with it.
The just proclaimed emperor was too far removed from the viewer, and Otto von Bismarck, the political head of the new state, almost disappeared.
So he used Wilhelm's commission for another version for the Berlin armory to radically reinterpret his own sketches: Werner now chose a much closer position for the virtual observer, focusing on Wilhelm and Bismarck, with the Crown Prince and Chief of Staff in second place Helmuth von Moltke.
The Chancellor, untruthfully, now wore a bright white uniform, which set him apart, and medals that he had not even been awarded in 1871.
Draft for the last version of Anton von Werner from 1913
Source: picture-alliance / akg-images
In this 500 by 600 centimeter version, Anton von Werner's creation went down in the collective memory of the Germans - certainly also because there were color photographs of it, unlike the first version, which has only survived in black and white.
Both originals burned at the beginning of 1945, as did another version that Anton von Werner created in 1913 for the secondary school in his home town of Frankfurt (Oder) in the format 500 by 755 centimeters and which has been lost since 1948.
In addition to photos and sketches by Anton von Werner's own hand, only a later draft in oil on canvas in the format 167 by 202 centimeters, which Wilhelm gave to his head of government on his 70th birthday in 1885, remained.
The emergence of this iconic picture of the empire is one of twelve scenes in which Nonn depicts the essential aspects of the empire in his stimulating book.
Of course, he cannot interpret every facet in this way, but his approach gives the reader the opportunity to understand almost half a century of Wilhelminism in well-known and less well-known episodes.
This is how historiography should be more often in Germany.
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Christopher Nonn: “Twelve days and a half century. A History of the German Empire 1871–1918 ”. (CH Beck, Munich. 687 pp., 34 euros).
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