Otto von Bismarck

For other uses, see Bismarck (disambiguation).

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke ofLauenburg (1 April 1815 30 July 1898), known asOtto von Bismarck, was a conservative Prussian states-man who dominated German and European aairs fromthe 1860s until 1890. In the 1860s he engineered a se-ries of wars that unied the German states (excludingAustria) into a powerful German Empire under Prussianleadership. With that accomplished by 1871 he skillfullyused balance of power diplomacy to preserve Germanhegemony in a Europe which, despite many disputes andwar scares, remained at peace. For historian Eric Hobs-bawm, it was Bismarck, who remained undisputed worldchampion at the game of multilateral diplomatic chess foralmost twenty years after 1871, [and] devoted himself ex-clusively, and successfully, to maintaining peace betweenthe powers.[2]

In 1862 King Wilhelm I appointed Bismarck as MinisterPresident of Prussia, a post he would hold until 1890 (ex-cept for a short break in 1873). He provoked three short,decisive wars against Denmark, Austria and France,aligning the smaller German states behind Prussia in de-feating his arch-enemy France. In 1871 he formed theGerman Empire with himself as Chancellor, while re-taining control of Prussia. His diplomacy of realpolitikand powerful rule at home gained him the nickname theIron Chancellor. German unication and its rapid eco-nomic growth was the foundation to his foreign policy.He disliked colonialism but reluctantly built an overseasempire when it was demanded by both elite and massopinion. Juggling a very complex interlocking series ofconferences, negotiations and alliances, he used his un-rivaled diplomatic skills to maintain Germanys positionand used the balance of power to keep Europe at peacein the 1870s and 1880s.He was the master of complex politics at home. He cre-ated the rst welfare state in the modern world, with thegoal of gaining working class support that might other-wise go to his Socialist enemies. In the 1870s he alliedhimself with the Liberals (who were low-tari and anti-Catholic) and fought the Catholic Church in a culture war.He lost that battle as the Catholics responded by forminga powerful Center party and using universal male surageto gain a bloc of seats. Bismarck then reversed himself,ended the culture war, broke with the Liberals, imposedtaris, and formed a political alliance with the Centerparty to ght the Socialists. A devout Lutheran, he wasloyal to his king, who in turn gave Bismarck his full sup-

port, against the advice of his wife and his heir. WhileGermanys parliament was elected by universal male suf-frage, it did not have real control of the government. Bis-marck distrusted democracy and ruled through a strong,well-trained bureaucracy with power in the hands of a tra-ditional Junker elite that comprised the landed nobility ofthe east. Under Wilhelm I, Bismarck largely controlleddomestic and foreign aairs, until he was removed byyoung Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890.Bismarck, an aristocratic Junker himself, had an ex-tremely aggressive and domineering personality. He dis-played a violent temper and kept his power by threat-ening to resign time and again. He possessed not onlya long-term national and international vision, but alsothe short-term ability to juggle many complex develop-ments simultaneously. As the leader of what historianscall "revolutionary conservatism",[1] Bismarck became ahero to German nationalists; they built hundreds of mon-uments glorifying the iconic symbol of powerful conser-vative leadership. Historians generally praise him as astatesman of moderation and balance who kept the peacein Europe, and was primarily responsible for the uni-cation of Germany and building its world-renowned bu-reaucracy and army.

1 Early yearsBismarck was born in Schnhausen, a wealthy family es-tate situated west of Berlin in the Prussian province ofSaxony. His father, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand von Bis-marck (17711845), was a Junker estate owner and aformer Prussian military ocer; his mother, WilhelmineLuise Mencken (17891839), was the well-educateddaughter of a senior government ocial in Berlin. Theworld saw Bismarck as a typical Prussian Junkeran im-age which he encouraged by wearing military uniforms.Bismarck was well educated and cosmopolitan, with a giftfor conversation. In addition to his native German, he wasuent in English, French, Italian, Polish and Russian.[3]

Bismarck was educated at Johann Ernst Plamann's ele-mentary school,[4] and the Friedrich-Wilhelm andGrauesKloster secondary schools. From 1832 to 1833 he stud-ied law at the University of Gttingen, where he wasa member of the Corps Hannovera, and then enrolledat the University of Berlin (183335). In 1838, whilestationed as an army reservist in Greifswald, he studiedagriculture at the University of Greifswald.[1] At Gttin-gen, Bismarck became friends with the American student

1

2 2 EARLY POLITICAL CAREER

Bismarck at 21, 1836

John Lothrop Motley. Motley, who later became an emi-nent historian and diplomat while remaining close to Bis-marck, wrote a novel in 1839,Mortons Hope, or theMem-oirs of a Provincial, about life in a German university. Init he described Bismarck as a reckless and dashing eccen-tric, but also as an extremely gifted and charming youngman.[5]

Although Bismarck hoped to become a diplomat, hestarted his practical training as a lawyer in Aachen andPotsdam, and soon resigned, having rst placed his ca-reer in jeopardy by taking unauthorized leave to pursuetwo English girls, rst Laura Russell, niece of the Dukeof Cleveland, and then Isabella Loraine-Smith, daughterof a wealthy clergyman. He also served in the army fora year and became an ocer in the Landwehr (reserve),before returning to run the family estates at Schnhausenon his mothers death in his mid-twenties.Around age 30 Bismarck had an intense friendshipwith Marie von Thadden, newly married to one ofhis friends. Under her inuence, Bismarck becamea Pietist Lutheran, and later recorded that at Mariesdeathbed (from typhoid) he prayed for the rst timesince his childhood. Bismarck married Maries cousin,the noblewoman Johanna von Puttkamer (182494) atAlt-Kolziglow (modern Koczygowy) on 28 July 1847.Their long and happy marriage produced three children,Herbert (b. 1849), Wilhelm (b. 1852) and Marie (b.1847). Johanna was a shy, retiring and deeply religiouswomanalthough famed for her sharp tongue in laterlifeand in his public life Bismarck was sometimes ac-companied by his sister Malwine Malle von Arnim.

Bismarck soon adopted his wifes pietism, and he re-mained a devout Pietist Lutheran for the rest of his life.

2 Early political career

Bismarck at age 32, 1847

In 1847 Bismarck, aged 32, was chosen as a repre-sentative to the newly created Prussian legislature, theVereinigter Landtag. There, he gained a reputationas a royalist and reactionary politician with a gift forstinging rhetoric; he openly advocated the idea that themonarch had a divine right to rule. His selection wasarranged by the Gerlach brothers, fellow Pietist Luther-ans whose ultra-conservative faction was known as theKreuzzeitung after their newspaper, the Neue Preussis-che Zeitung, which was so nicknamed because it featuredan Iron Cross on its cover.[6][7]

In March 1848, Prussia faced a revolution (one of therevolutions of 1848 across Europe), which completelyoverwhelmed King Frederick William IV. The monarch,though initially inclined to use armed forces to suppressthe rebellion, ultimately declined to leave Berlin for thesafety of military headquarters at Potsdam (Bismarcklater recorded that there had been a rattling of sabres intheir scabbards from Prussian ocers when they learnedthat the King would not suppress the revolution by force).He oered numerous concessions to the liberals: he worethe black-red-and-gold revolutionary colours (as seen onthe ag of todays Germany), promised to promulgate aconstitution, agreed that Prussia and other German statesshould merge into a single nation-state, and appointed aliberal, Ludolf Camphausen, as Minister President.[8]

3Bismarck had at rst tried to rouse the peasants of his es-tate into an army tomarch on Berlin in the Kings name.[9]He travelled to Berlin in disguise to oer his services,but was instead told to make himself useful by arrang-ing food supplies for the Army from his estates in casethey were needed. The Kings brother, Prince Wilhelmhad ed to England, and Bismarck intrigued with Wil-helms wife Augusta to place their teenage son FrederickWilliam on the Prussian throne in FrederickWilliam IVsplace. Augusta would have none of it, and detested Bis-marck thereafter,[10] despite the fact that he later helpedrestore a working relationship between the King and hisbrother. Bismarck was not yet a member of the Land-tagthe lower house of the new Prussian legislature. Theliberal movement perished by the end of 1848 amid in-ternal ghting. Meanwhile, the conservatives regrouped,formed an inner group of advisersincluding the Ger-lach brothersknown as the "Camarilla"around theKing, and retook control of Berlin. Although a consti-tution was granted, its provisions fell far short of the de-mands of the revolutionaries.[11]

In 1849, Bismarck was elected to the Landtag. At thisstage in his career, he opposed the unication of Ger-many, arguing that Prussia would lose its independence inthe process. He accepted his appointment as one of Prus-sias representatives at the Erfurt Parliament, an assemblyof German states that met to discuss plans for union, buthe only did so to oppose that bodys proposals more ef-fectively. The parliament failed to bring about unica-tion, for it lacked the support of the two most importantGerman states, Prussia and Austria. In September 1850,after a dispute over Hesse, (the Hesse Crisis of 1850[12])Prussia was humiliated and forced to back down by Aus-tria (supported by Russia) in the so-called Punctation ofOlmtz;[13] a plan for the unication of Germany underPrussian leadership, proposed by Prussias Minister Pres-ident Radowitz, was also abandoned.In 1851, Frederick William IV appointed Bismarck asPrussias envoy to the Diet of the German Confedera-tion in Frankfurt. Bismarck gave up his elected seat inthe Landtag, but was appointed to the Prussian Houseof Lords a few years later. In Frankfurt he engaged ina battle of wills with the Austrian representative CountFriedrich von Thun und Hohenstein, insisting on beingtreated as an equal by petty tactics such as insisting on do-ing the same when Thun claimed the privileges of smok-ing and removing his jacket in meetings.[14] This episodewas the background for an altercation in the Frankfurtchamber with Georg von Vincke that led to a duel be-tween Bismarck and Vincke and Carl von Bodelschwinghas impartial party, which ended without injury.[15]

Bismarcks eight years in Frankfurt were marked bychanges in his political opinions, detailed in the numer-ous lengthy memoranda which he sent to his ministerialsuperiors in Berlin. No longer under the inuence ofhis ultraconservative Prussian friends, Bismarck becameless reactionary and more pragmatic. He became con-

vinced that to countervail Austrias newly restored inu-ence, Prussia would have to ally herself with other Ger-man states. As a result, he grew to be more accepting ofthe notion of a united German nation. He gradually cameto believe that he and his fellow conservatives had to takethe lead in the drive toward creating a unied nation inorder to keep from being eclipsed. He also believed thatthe middle-class liberals wanted a unied Germany morethan they wanted to break the grip of the traditional forcesover society.Bismarck also worked to maintain the friendship ofRussia and a working relationship with Napoleon III'sFrancethe latter being anathema to his conservativefriends the Gerlachs,[16] but necessary both to threatenAustria and to prevent France allying herself to Russia. Ina famous letter to Leopold von Gerlach, Bismarck wrotethat it was foolish to play chess having rst put 16 of the64 squares out of bounds. This observation was ironic asafter 1871, France indeed became Germanys permanentenemy, and eventually allied with Russia against Ger-many in the 1890s.[17]

Bismarck was alarmed by Prussias isolation during theCrimean War of the mid-1850s, in which Austria sidedwith Britain and France against Russia; Prussia was al-most not invited to the peace talks in Paris. In the East-ern crisis of the 1870s, fear of a repetition of this turn ofevents would later be a factor in Bismarcks signing theDual Alliance with Austria-Hungary in 1879.

3 Ambassador to Russia andFrance

Bismarck with Roon (centre) and Moltke (right), the three leadersof Prussia in the 1860s

4 4 MINISTER PRESIDENT OF PRUSSIA

In October 1857, Frederick William IV suered aparalysing stroke. His brother Wilhelm took over thePrussian government as Regent. Wilhelm was initiallyseen as a moderate ruler, whose friendship with liberalBritain was symbolised by the recent marriage of hisson Frederick William to Queen Victoria's eldest daugh-ter. As part of Wilhelms New Course he broughtin new ministers, moderate conservatives known as theWochenblatt party after their newspaper. Soon the Re-gent replaced Bismarck as envoy in Frankfurt and madehim Prussias ambassador to the Russian Empire. In the-ory, this was a promotion as Russia was one of Prussiastwo most powerful neighbors. But Bismarck was side-lined from events in Germany, watching impotently asFrance drove Austria out of Lombardy during the ItalianWar of 1859. Bismarck proposed that Prussia shouldexploit Austrias weakness to move her frontiers as farsouth as Lake Constance on the Swiss border; insteadPrussia mobilised troops in the Rhineland to deter fur-ther French advances into Venetia.As a further snub, the Regent, who scorned Bismarck asa Landwehrleutnant (reserve lieutenant), had declinedto promote him to the rank of major-general, normal forthe ambassador to St Petersburg (and important as Prus-sia and Russia were close military allies, whose headsof state often communicated through military contactsrather than diplomatic channels). Bismarck stayed in StPetersburg for four years, during which he almost losthis leg to botched medical treatment and once again methis future adversary, the Russian Prince Gorchakov, whohad been the Russian representative in Frankfurt in theearly 1850s. The Regent also appointed Helmuth vonMoltke as the new Chief of Sta of the Prussian Army,and Albrecht von Roon as Minister of War with the jobof reorganizing the army. Over the next 12 years thesetwo and Bismarck transformed Prussia. Bismarck laterreferred to this period as the most signicant of my life.Despite his lengthy stay abroad, Bismarck was not en-tirely detached from German domestic aairs. He re-mained well-informed due to his friendship with Roon,and they formed a lasting political alliance. In May1862, he was sent to Paris, to serve as ambassador toFrance. He also visited England that summer. Thesevisits enabled him to meet and take the measure of sev-eral adversariesNapoleon III in France, and in Britain,Prime Minister Palmerston, Foreign Secretary Earl Rus-sell, and Conservative politician Benjamin Disraeli. Dis-raeli, who would become Prime Minister in the 1870s,later claimed to have said of Bismarck, Be careful ofthat man he means every word he says.

4 Minister President of PrussiaThe regent became King Wilhelm I upon his brothersdeath in 1861. The new monarch often came into conictwith the increasingly liberal Prussian Diet. A crisis arose

Otto von Bismarck as Minister President of Prussia, shown wear-ing insignia of a knight of the Johanniterorden

in 1862, when the Diet refused to authorize funding for aproposed re-organization of the army. The Kings minis-ters could not convince legislators to pass the budget, andthe King was unwilling to make concessions. Wilhelmthreatened to abdicate in favour of his brother FrederickWilliam (who opposed it) and believed that Bismarck wasthe only politician capable of handling the crisis. How-ever, Wilhelm was ambivalent about appointing a personwho demanded unfettered control over foreign aairs.When, in September 1862, theAbgeordnetenhaus (Houseof Deputies) overwhelmingly rejected the proposed bud-get, Wilhelm was persuaded to recall Bismarck to Prussiaon the advice of Roon. On 23 September 1862, Wilhelmappointed BismarckMinister President and Foreign Min-ister.[18]

Bismarck, Roon and Moltke took charge at a timewhen relations among the Great PowersGreat Britain,France, Austria and Russiahad been shattered by theCrimean War and the Italian War. In the midst of thisdisarray, the European balance of power was restructuredwith the creation of the German Empire as the dominantpower in Europe. This was achieved by Bismarcks diplo-macy, Roons reorganization of the army, and Moltkesmilitary strategy.[19]

Despite the initial distrust of the King and Crown Prince,and the loathing of Queen Augusta, Bismarck soon ac-quired a powerful hold over the King by force of person-ality and powers of persuasion. Bismarck was intent onmaintaining royal supremacy by ending the budget dead-lock in the Kings favour, even if he had to use extralegal

5.2 Defeat of Denmark 5

means to do so. Under the Constitution, the budget couldonly be passed after the king and legislature agreed onits terms, Bismarck contended that since the Constitutiondid not provide for cases in which legislators failed to ap-prove a budget, there was a hole in the Constitution,and he could merely apply the previous years budget tokeep the government running. Thus, on the basis of the1861 budget, tax collection continued for four years.[20]

Bismarcks conict with the legislators intensied in thecoming years. Following the Alvensleben Convention of1863, the House of Deputies resolved that it could nolonger come to terms with Bismarck; in response, theKing dissolved the Diet, accusing it of trying to obtainunconstitutional control over the ministry (which, underthe Constitution, was responsible solely to the king). Bis-marck then issued an edict restricting the freedom of thepress; this policy even gained the public opposition of theCrown Prince. Despite attempts to silence critics, Bis-marck remained a largely unpopular politician. His sup-porters fared poorly in the elections of October 1863, inwhich a liberal coalition (whose primary member was theProgress Party) won over two-thirds of the seats. TheHouse made repeated calls for Bismarck to be dismissed,but the King supported him as he feared that if he did dis-miss theMinister President, he would likely be succeededby a liberal.[21]

5 Unication of GermanyMain article: Unication of Germany

5.1 Blood and Iron speechMain article: Blood and Iron speech

German unication had been a major objective of therevolutions of 1848, when representatives of the Germanstates met in Frankfurt and drafted a constitution creatinga federal union with a national parliament to be electedby universal male surage. In April 1849, the FrankfurtParliament oered the title of Emperor to King FrederickWilliam IV. Fearing the opposition of the other Germanprinces and the military intervention of Austria and Rus-sia, the King renounced this popular mandate. Thus, theFrankfurt Parliament ended in failure for the German lib-erals. On 30 September 1862, Bismarck made a speechto the Budget Committee of the Prussian Chamber ofDeputies, in which he expounded on the use of "iron andblood" to achieve Prussias goals:

Prussia must concentrate and maintain itspower for the favorable moment which hasalready slipped by several times. Prussiasboundaries according to the Vienna treaties are

not favorable to a healthy state life. The greatquestions of the time will not be resolved byspeeches and majority decisionsthat was thegreat mistake of 1848 and 1849but by ironand blood.[22]

5.2 Defeat of Denmark

Bismarck at 48, 1863

Germany, prior to the 1860s, consisted of a multitude ofprincipalities loosely bound together as members of theGerman Confederation. Bismarck used both diplomacyand the Prussian military to achieve unication, excludingAustria from a unied Germany. Not only did this makePrussia the most powerful and dominant component ofthe new Germany, but also ensured that it remained au-thoritarian, rather than a liberal parliamentary regime.[23]

Bismarck faced a diplomatic crisis when Frederick VIIof Denmark died in November 1863. Succession tothe duchies of Schleswig and Holstein were disputed;they were claimed by Christian IX (Frederick VIIs heiras King) and by Frederick von Augustenburg, a Dan-ish duke. Prussian public opinion strongly favoured Au-gustenburgs claim, as Holstein and southern Schleswigwere and still are mostly German-speaking. Bismarcktook an unpopular step by insisting that the territorieslegally belonged to the Danishmonarch under the LondonProtocol signed a decade earlier. Nonetheless, Bis-marck denounced Christians decision to completely an-nex Schleswig to Denmark. With support from Aus-

6 5 UNIFICATION OF GERMANY

tria, he issued an ultimatum for Christian IX to returnSchleswig to its former status. When Denmark refused,Austria and Prussia invaded, commencing the SecondSchleswig War and Denmark was forced to cede bothduchies.At rst this seemed like a victory for Frederick of Au-gustenburg, but Bismarck soon removed him from powerby making a series of unworkable demands, namely thatPrussia should have control over the army and navy ofthe Duchies. Originally, it was proposed that the Dietof the German Confederation (in which all the states ofGermany were represented) should determine the fate ofthe duchies; but before this scheme could be eected,Bismarck induced Austria to agree to the Gastein Con-vention. Under this agreement signed 20 August 1865,Prussia received Schleswig, while Austria received Hol-stein. In that year he was given the title of Graf (Count)von Bismarck-Schnhausen.[24]

5.3 Defeat of Austria

1867 cartoon making fun of Bismarcks dierent roles, fromgeneral to minister of foreign aairs, federal chancellor, hunter,diplomat and president of the Zollverein parliament.

In 1866, Austria reneged on the agreement and demandedthat the Diet determine the SchleswigHolstein issue.Bismarck used this as an excuse to start a war withAustria by accusing them of violating the Gastein Con-vention. Bismarck sent Prussian troops to occupy Hol-stein. Provoked, Austria called for the aid of other Ger-man states, who quickly became involved in the Austro-Prussian War.[25] Thanks to Roons reorganising, thePrussian army was nearly equal in numbers to the Aus-trian army. With the strategic genius ofMoltke, the Prus-sian army fought battles it was able to win. Bismarckhad also made a secret alliance with Italy, who desiredAustrian-controlled Venetia. Italys entry into the warforced the Austrians to divide their forces.[26]

Meanwhile, as the war began, a German radical namedFerdinand Cohen-Blind attempted to assassinate Bis-marck in Berlin, shooting him ve times at close range.Bismarck had only minor injuries; Cohen-Blind commit-ted suicide while in custody.

The war lasted seven weeksGermans called it aBlitzkrieg (lightning wara term also used in1939).[27] Austria had a seemingly powerful army; it wasallied with most of the north German and all of the southGerman states. Nevertheless Prussia won the decisiveBattle of Kniggrtz. The King and his generals wantedto push onward, conquer Bohemia and march to Vienna,but Bismarck, worried that Prussian military luck mightchange or that France might intervene on Austrias side,enlisted the help of the Crown Prince (who had opposedthe war but had commanded one of the Prussian armies atKniggrtz) to dissuade his father after stormy meetings.Bismarck insisted on a soft peace with no annexationsand no victory parades, so as to be able to quickly restorefriendly relations with Austria.[28]

As a result of the Peace of Prague (1866), the GermanConfederation was dissolved. Prussia annexed Schleswig,Holstein, Frankfurt, Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, and Nassau.Further, Austria promised not to intervene in German af-fairs. To solidify Prussian hegemony, Prussia forced the21 states north of the River Main to join it in formingthe North German Confederation in 1867. The confed-eration was governed by a constitution largely drafted byBismarck. Executive power was vested in a presidentahereditary oce of the kings of Prussia. He was assistedby a chancellor responsible only to him. As president ofthe confederation, Wilhelm appointed Bismarck as chan-cellor of the confederation. Legislation was the responsi-bility of the Reichstag, a popularly elected body, and theBundesrat, an advisory body representing the states. TheBundesrat was, in practice, the stronger chamber. Bis-marck was the dominant gure in the new arrangement;as Foreign Minister of Prussia, he instructed the Prussiandeputies to the Bundesrat. Prussia only had a plurality(17 out of 43 seats) in the Bundesrat despite being largerthan the other 21 states combined, but Bismarck couldeasily control the proceedings through alliances with thesmaller states. This began what historians refer to as TheMisery of Austria, in which Austria served as a merevassal to the superior Germany, a relationship that was toshape history until the two World Wars. Bismarck hadoriginally managed to convince smaller states like Sax-ony, Hesse-Kassel, and Hanover to join Prussia againstAustria, after promising them protection from foreign in-vasion, morale unity, and fair commercial laws.Bismarck, who by now held the rank of major in theLandwehr, wore this uniform during the campaign, andwas at last promoted to the rank of major-general in theLandwehr cavalry after the war. Although he never per-sonally commanded troops in the eld, he usually worea generals uniform in public for the rest of his life, asseen in numerous paintings and photographs. He was alsogiven a cash grant by the Prussian Landtag, which he usedto buy a new country estate, Varzin, larger than his exist-ing estates combined.Military success brought Bismarck tremendous politicalsupport in Prussia. In the House of Deputies elections

5.4 Franco-Prussian War 187071 7

of 1866, the liberals suered a major defeat, losing theirlarge majority. The new, largely conservative House wason much better terms with Bismarck than previous bod-ies; at theMinister-Presidents request, it retroactively ap-proved the budgets of the past four years, which had beenimplemented without parliamentary consent. Bismarcksuspected it would split the liberal opposition. Whilesome liberals argued that constitutional government wasa bright line that should not be crossed, most of them be-lieved it would be a waste of time to oppose the bill, andsupported it in hopes of winning more freedom in the fu-ture.

5.4 Franco-Prussian War 187071

Main article: Franco-Prussian WarPrussias victory over Austria increased tensions with

Anton von Werner's depiction of Wilhelms proclamation as Em-peror in the Hall of Mirrors in Versailles; Bismarck is in thecentre-right wearing white.

France. Its emperor, Napoleon III, feared that a pow-erful Germany would change the balance of power in Eu-rope; opposition politician Adolphe Thiers had observed,it was France, not Austria, who was really defeated atKniggrtz. Bismarck, at the same time, did not avoidwar with France, though he feared the French for a num-ber of reasons. First, he feared that Austria, hungry forrevenge, would ally with the French. Similarly, he fearedthat the Russian army would assist France to maintain abalance of power.[29] Still, however, Bismarck believedthat if the German states perceived France as the aggres-sor, they would unite behind the King of Prussia. Toachieve this he kept Napoleon III involved in various in-trigues whereby France might gain territory from Luxem-bourg or BelgiumFrance never achieved any such gain,but it was made to look greedy and untrustworthy.[30]

A suitable premise for war arose in 1870, when the Ger-man Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen wasoered the Spanish throne, vacant since a revolution in1868. France pressured Leopold into withdrawing hiscandidacy. Not content with this, Paris demanded that

Wilhelm, as head of the House of Hohenzollern, assurethat no Hohenzollern would ever seek the Spanish crownagain. To provoke France into declaring war with Prus-sia, Bismarck published the Ems Dispatch, a carefullyedited version of a conversation between King Wilhelmand the French ambassador to Prussia, Count Benedetti.This conversation had been edited so that each nation feltthat its ambassador had been disrespected and ridiculed,thus inaming popular sentiment on both sides in favorof war. Langer, however, argues that this episode playeda minor role in causing the war.[31]

France mobilized and declared war on 19 July. The Ger-man states saw France as the aggressor; swept up by na-tionalism and patriotic zeal, they rallied to Prussias sideand provided troops. Both of Bismarcks sons served asocers in the Prussian cavalry. The war was a greatsuccess for Prussia as the German army, controlled byChief of Sta Moltke, won victory after victory. Themajor battles were all fought in one month (7 August till1 September), and both French armies were captured atSedan and Metz, the latter after a siege of some weeks.Napoleon III was taken prisoner at Sedan and kept in Ger-many for a time in case Bismarck had need of him tohead the French regime; he later died in exile in Englandin 1873. The remainder of the war featured a siege ofParis, the city was ineectually bombarded";[32] the newFrench republican regime then tried, without success, torelieve Paris with various hastily assembled armies andincreasingly bitter partisan warfare.Bismarck acted immediately to secure the unicationof Germany. He negotiated with representatives of thesouthern German states, oering special concessions ifthey agreed to unication. The negotiations succeeded;patriotic sentiment overwhelmed what opposition re-mained. While the war was in its nal phase WilhelmI of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor on 18January 1871 in the Hall of Mirrors in the Chteau deVersailles.[33] The new German Empire was a federa-tion: each of its 25 constituent states (kingdoms, grandduchies, duchies, principalities, and free cities) retainedsome autonomy. The King of Prussia, as German Em-peror, was not sovereign over the entirety of Germany;he was only primus inter pares, or rst among equals. Buthe held the presidency of the Bundesrat, whichmet to dis-cuss policy presented by the Chancellor (whom the em-peror appointed).At the end, France had to surrender Alsace and part ofLorraine, because Moltke and his generals wanted it asa defensive barrier. Bismarck opposed the annexationbecause he did not wish to make a permanent enemy ofFrance. France was also required to pay an indemnity;[34]the indemnity gure was calculated, on the basis of pop-ulation, as the precise equivalent of the indemnity whichNapoleon I imposed on Prussia in 1807.

8 6 CHANCELLOR OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE

6 Chancellor of the German Em-pire

Otto von Bismarck in 1873.

In 1871, Otto von Bismarck was raised to the rank ofFrst (Prince). He was also appointed as the rst ImperialChancellor (Reichskanzler) of the German Empire, butretained his Prussian oces (including those of Minister-President and Foreign Minister). He was also promotedto the rank of lieutenant-general, and given another coun-try estate, Friedrichsruh, near Hamburg, which was largerthan Varzin, making him a very wealthy landowner. Healso continued to serve as his own foreign minister. Be-cause of both the imperial and the Prussian oces that heheld, Bismarck had near complete control over domes-tic and foreign policy. The oce of Minister Presidentof Prussia was temporarily separated from that of Chan-cellor in 1873, when Albrecht von Roon was appointedto the former oce. But by the end of the year, Roonresigned due to ill health, and Bismarck again becameMinister-President.

6.1 KulturkampfBismarck launched an anti-Catholic Kulturkampf (cul-ture struggle) in Prussia in 1871. This was partly mo-tivated by Bismarcks fear that Pius IX and his succes-sors would use papal infallibility to achieve the papaldesire for international political hegemony. ... The re-sult was the Kulturkampf, which, with its largely Prus-sian measures, complemented by similar actions in sev-eral other German states, sought to curb the clerical dan-ger by legislation restricting the Catholic churchs politi-cal power.[35] In May 1872 Bismarck thus attempted to

Between Berlin and Rome, Bismarck (left) confronts the Pope,1875

reach an understanding with other European governmentsto manipulate future papal elections; governments shouldagree beforehand on unsuitable candidates, and then in-struct their national cardinals to vote appropriately. Thegoal was to end the popes control over the bishops in agiven state, but the project went nowhere.Bismarck accelerated the Kulturkampf. In its course, allPrussian bishops and many priests were imprisoned orexiled.[36] Prussias population had greatly expanded inthe 1860s and was now one-third Catholic. Bismarck be-lieved that the pope and bishops held too much powerover the German Catholics; he was further concernedabout the emergence of the Catholic Centre Party (or-ganised in 1870). With support from the anticlericalNational Liberal Party, which had become Bismarckschief ally in the Reichstag, he abolished the Catholic De-partment of the Prussian Ministry of Culture. That leftthe Catholics without a voice in high circles. In 1872,the Jesuits were expelled from Germany. More severeanti-Roman Catholic laws of 1873 allowed the Prussiangovernment to supervise the education of the RomanCatholic clergy, and curtailed the disciplinary powers ofthe Church. In 1875, civil ceremonies were requiredfor civil weddings. Hitherto, weddings in churches werecivilly recognized.[37][38]

Kulturkampf became part of Bismarcks foreign-policy,as he sought to destabilize and weaken Catholic regimes,especially in Belgium and France.[39]

The Catholics reacted by organizing themselves; theystrengthened the Centre Party. Bismarck, a devout pietis-tic Protestant, was alarmed that secularists and socialistswere using the Kulturkampf to attack all religion. Heabandoned it in 1878 to preserve his remaining politi-cal capital. He now needed the Centre Party votes in hisnew battle against socialism. Pius IX died that year, re-placed by the more pragmatic Pope Leo XIII who negoti-ated away most of the anti-Catholic laws. The pope keptcontrol of the selection of bishops, and the Catholics sup-ported unication and most of Bismarcks policies; how-

6.4 Socialism 9

ever they never forgot his culture war and preached soli-darity lest it ever happen again.[40]

Bismarck became Chancellor of Germany in 1871.

6.2 EconomyIn 1873, Germany and much of Europe and America en-tered the Long Depression, the Grnderkrise. A down-turn hit the German economy for the rst time since in-dustrial development began to surge in the 1850s. To aidfaltering industries, the Chancellor abandoned free tradeand established protectionist import-taris, which alien-ated the National Liberals who demanded free trade. TheKulturkampf and its eects also stirred up public opinionagainst the party that supported it, and Bismarck used thisopportunity to distance himself from the National Liber-als. This marked a rapid decline in the support of theNational Liberals, and by 1879 their close ties with Bis-marck had all but ended. Bismarck instead returned toconservative factionsincluding the Centre Partyforsupport. He helped foster support from the conservativesby enacting several taris protecting German agricultureand industry from foreign competitors in 1879.[41]

6.3 GermanisationThe government tried to Germanise the states nationalminorities, situated mainly in the borders of the empire,such as the Danes in the North of Germany and the Polesin the East of Germany. He pursued a hostile policy con-

cerning the Poles[42] furthering enmity between the Ger-man and Polish peoples. The policies were motivated byBismarcks view that Polish existence was a threat to theGerman state. Bismarck compared Polish population toanimals that need to be shot and privately confessed thathe would like to exterminate them.[43][44]

6.4 SocialismWorried by the growth of the socialist movementin particular, that of the Social Democratic PartyBismarck instituted the Anti-Socialist Laws in 1878. So-cialist organizations and meetings were forbidden, as wasthe circulation of socialist literature. Police ocers couldstop, search, and arrest socialist party members; socialistleaders were arrested and tried by police courts. But de-spite these eorts, the movement steadily gained support-ers and seats in the Reichstag. Socialists won seats in theReichstag by running as independent candidates, unal-iated with any party, which was allowed by the GermanConstitution.[45]

7 Foreign policiesMain article: International relations of the Great Powers(18141919)Bismarck had unied his nation, and now he de-

A main objective of Bismarcks was to prevent other powers be-coming an ally of France (shown as the lonely girl on the farleft).

voted himself to promoting peace in Europe with hisskills in statesmanship. He was forced to contend withFrench revanchismthe desire to avenge the losses of theFranco-Prussian War. Bismarck therefore engaged in apolicy of diplomatically isolating France while maintain-ing cordial relations with other nations in Europe. He hadlittle interest in naval or colonial entanglements and thusavoided discord with Great Britain. Historians empha-size that he wanted no more territorial gains after 1871,and vigorously worked to form cross-linking alliances thatprevented any war in Europe from starting. A. J. P. Tay-lor, a leading British diplomatic historian, concludes that,

10 7 FOREIGN POLICIES

Bismarck was an honest broker of peace; and his systemof alliances compelled every Power, whatever its will, tofollow a peaceful course.[46]

Well aware that Europe was skeptical of his powerful newReich, Bismarck turned his attention to preserving peacein Europe based on a balance of power that would allowGermanys economy to ourish. Bismarck feared that ahostile combination of Austria, France, and Russia wouldcrush Germany. If two of them were allied, then the thirdwould ally with Germany only if Germany conceded ex-cessive demands. The solution was to ally with two ofthe three. In 1873 he formed the League of the ThreeEmperors, an alliance of Wilhelm, Czar Alexander II ofRussia, and Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria-Hungary.Together they would control Eastern Europe, making surethat restive ethnic groups such as the Poles were kept incontrol. The Balkans posed a more serious issue, andBismarcks solution was to give Austria predominance inthe western Balkan areas, and Russia in the eastern areas.The system collapsed in 1887.[47]

In 1872, a protracted quarrel began to fester between Bis-marck and Count Harry von Arnim, the imperial ambas-sador to France. Arnim saw himself as a rival and com-petitor for the chancellorship, but the rivalry escalated outof hand, and Arnim took sensitive records from embassyles at Paris to back up his case. He was formally ac-cused of misappropriating ocial documents, indicted,tried, and convicted, and ed into exile, where he died.No one again openly challenged Bismarck in foreign pol-icy matters until his resignation.[48]

7.1 France

Main article: International relations of the Great Powers(18141919) War in Sight crisis of 1875Between 1873 and 1877, according to Stone (1994),Germany repeatedly acted the bully against France bymanipulating the internal aairs of Frances neighbors tohurt it. Bismarck put heavy pressure on Belgium, Spain,and Italy hoping to obtain the election of liberal, anticler-ical governments. His plan was to promote republicanismin France by isolating the clerical-monarchist regime ofPresident MacMahon. He hoped that ringing France withliberal states would help the French republicans defeatMacMahon and his reactionary supporters.[49]

The bullying almost got out of hand with a brief warscare in mid-1875. It was sparked by an editorial entitledKrieg-in-Sicht (War in Sight) in a Berlin newspaperclose to the government, the Post. It indicated that highlyinuential Germans were alarmed by Frances rapid re-covery from defeat in 1875 and its announcement of anincrease in the size of its army. They talked of launching apreventive war against France to hold it down. Bismarckdenied knowing about the article ahead of time, but hecertainly knew about the talk of preventive war. The ed-itorial produced a war scare. Britain and Russia made

Bismarck ca. 1875

it clear they would not tolerate a preventive war againstFrance. Bismarck did not want any war either, and thecrisis blew over. It was a rare instance where his oppo-nents outmaneuvered and embarrassed Bismarck, but helearned an important lesson. It forced him to take into ac-count the fear and alarm that his bullying and Germanysfast-growing power was causing among its neighbors. Thecrisis reinforced Bismarcks determination that Germanyshould work in proactive fashion to preserve the peacein Europe, rather than passively let events take their owncourse and react to them.[50][51]

7.2 Italy

Bismarck maintained good relations with Italy, althoughhe had a personal dislike for Italians and their country.[52]He can be seen as a marginal contributor to Italian uni-cation. Politics surrounding the 1866 war against Austriaallowed Italy to annex Venetia, which had been a king-dom of the Austrian Empire since the 1815 Congressof Vienna. In addition, French mobilization for theFranco-Prussian War of 18701871 made it necessaryfor Napoleon III to withdraw his troops from Rome andThe Papal States. Without these two events, Italian uni-cation would have been a more prolonged process.

7.6 Avoiding war 11

7.3 RussiaAfter Russias victory over the Ottoman Empire in theRusso-Turkish War of 187778, Bismarck helped nego-tiate a settlement at the Congress of Berlin. The Treatyof Berlin revised the earlier Treaty of San Stefano, re-ducing the size of newly independent Bulgaria (a pro-Russian state at that time). Bismarck and other Euro-pean leaders opposed the growth of Russian inuence andtried to protect the integrity of the Ottoman Empire (seeEastern Question). As a result, Russo-German relationsfurther suered, with the Russian chancellor Gorchakovdenouncing Bismarck for compromising his nations vic-tory. The relationship was additionally strained due toGermanys protectionist trade policies. Some in the Ger-man military clamored for a preemptive war with Russia,but Bismarck said that Preemptive war is like commit-ting suicide for fear of death.[53]

7.4 Triple AllianceThe League of the Three Emperors having fallen apart,Bismarck negotiated the Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary, in which each guaranteed the other against Rus-sian attack. He also negotiated the Triple Alliance in1882 with Austria-Hungary and Italy. Italy and Austria-Hungary soon reached the Mediterranean Agreementwith Britain. Attempts to reconcile Germany and Russiadid not have lasting eect: the Three Emperors Leaguewas re-established in 1881, but quickly fell apart (theend of the Russian-Austrian-Prussian solidarity whichhad existed in various forms since 1813). Bismarcktherefore negotiated the Reinsurance Treaty of 1887 withRussia, in order to prevent Franco-Russian encirclementof Germany. Both powers promised to remain neu-tral towards one another unless Russia attacked Austria-Hungary. However, after Bismarcks departure from of-ce Wilhelm II failed to renew the Reinsurance Treaty,thus creating a critical problem for Germany in the eventof a war.

7.5 ColoniesBismarck had opposed colonial acquisitions, arguing thatthe burden of obtaining, maintaining, and defending suchpossessions would outweigh any potential benet. He feltthat colonies did not pay for themselves, that the Ger-man bureaucratic system would not work well in the easy-going tropics, and that the diplomatic disputes coloniesbrought would distract Germany from its central inter-est, Europe itself.[54] However, in 188384 he suddenlyreversed himself and overnight built a colonial empirein Africa and the South Pacic. Historians have de-bated exactly why he made this sudden and short-livedmove.[55] He was aware that public opinion had startedto demand colonies for reasons of German prestige. Healso wanted to undercut the anti-colonial liberals who

were sponsored by the Crown Prince, whomight soon be-come Kaiser and remove Bismarck.[56][57] The old Kaiserwas 84 years old. Bismarck was inuenced by Ham-burg merchants and traders, his neighbors at Friedrich-sruh. The establishment of the German colonial empireproceeded smoothly, starting with German New Guineain 1884.[58][59] Other European nations, led by Britainand France, were acquiring colonies in a rapid fashion(see New Imperialism). Bismarck therefore joined inthe Scramble for Africa. Germanys new colonies in-cluded Togoland (now Togo and part of Ghana), GermanKamerun (now Cameroon and part of Nigeria), GermanEast Africa (now Rwanda, Burundi, and the mainlandpart of Tanzania), and German South-West Africa (nowNamibia). The Berlin Conference (188485) establishedregulations for the acquisition of African colonies; inparticular, it protected free trade in certain parts of theCongo basin. Germany also acquired colonies in the Pa-cic, such as German New Guinea.[60]

7.6 Avoiding warIn February 1888, during a Bulgarian crisis, Bismarck ad-dressed the Reichstag on the dangers of a European war.

He warned of the imminent possibility thatGermany will have to ght on two fronts; hespoke of the desire for peace; then he set forththe Balkan case for war and demonstrates itsfutility:

Bulgaria, that little country between theDanube and the Balkans, is far from being anobject of adequate importance ... for which toplunge Europe from Moscow to the Pyrenees,and from the North Sea to Palermo, into a warwhose issue no man can foresee. At the end ofthe conict we should scarcely know why wehad fought.[61]

Bismarck also repeated his emphatic warning against anyGerman military involvement in Balkan disputes. Bis-marck had rst made this famous comment to the Reich-stag in December 1876, when the Balkan revolts againstthe Ottoman Empire threatened to extend to a war be-tween Austria and Russia.

Only a year later [1876], he is faced bythe alternative of espousing the cause of Rus-sia or that of Austria. Immediately after thelast crisis, in the summer of 1875, the mu-tual jealousies between Russia and Austria hadbeen rendered acute by the fresh risings inthe Balkans against the Turks. Now the is-sues hung upon Bismarcks decision. Imme-diately after the peace, he had tried to paral-yse the Balkan rivals by the formation of theThree Emperors League. I have no thought

12 8 SOCIAL LEGISLATION

of intervening, he said privately. That mightprecipitate a European war. [...] If I wereto espouse the cause of one of the parties,France would promptly strike a blow on theother side. [...] I am holding two powerfulheraldic beasts by their collars, and am keep-ing them apart for two reasons: rst of all, lestthey should tear one another to pieces; and sec-ondly, lest they should come to an understand-ing at our expense. In the Reichstag, he pop-ularises the same idea in the words: I am op-posed to the notion of any sort of active partic-ipation of Germany in these matters, so longas I can see no reason to suppose that Ger-man interests are involved, no interests on be-half of which it is worth our riskingexcusemy plain speakingthe healthy bones of oneof our Pomeranian musketeers.[62]

A leading diplomatic historian of the era, William L.Langer sums up Bismarks two decades as Chancellor:

Whatever else may be said of the intricatealliance system evolved by the German Chan-cellor, it must be admitted that it worked andthat it tided Europe over a period of severalcritical years without a rupture. ... there was,as Bismarck himself said, a premium upon themaintenance of peace.[63]

Langer concludes:

His had been a great career, beginning withthree wars in eight years and ending with a pe-riod of 20 years during which he worked forthe peace of Europe, despite countless oppor-tunities to embark on further enterprises withmore than even chance of success. ... Noother statesman of his standing had ever beforeshown the same great moderation and soundpolitical sense of the possible and desirable. ...Bismarck at least deserves full credit for havingsteered European politics through this danger-ous transitional period without serious conictbetween the great powers.[64]

8 Social legislationBismarck implemented the worlds rst welfare state inthe 1880s. He worked closely with large industry andaimed to stimulate German economic growth by givingworkers greater security.[65] A secondary concern wastrumping the Socialists, who had no welfare proposals oftheir own and opposed Bismarcks. Bismarck especiallylistened to Hermann Wagener and Theodor Lohmann,advisers who persuaded him to give workers a corporate

status in the legal and political structures of the new Ger-man state.[66] In March 1884, Bismarck declared:

Franz von Lenbach's portrait of Bismarck, painted in his 75thyear.

The real grievance of the worker is the in-security of his existence; he is not sure that hewill always have work, he is not sure that hewill always be healthy, and he foresees that hewill one day be old and unt to work. If he fallsinto poverty, even if only through a prolongedillness, he is then completely helpless, left tohis own devices, and society does not currentlyrecognize any real obligation towards him be-yond the usual help for the poor, even if he hasbeen working all the time ever so faithfully anddiligently. The usual help for the poor, how-ever, leaves a lot to be desired, especially inlarge cities, where it is very much worse thanin the country.[67]

Bismarcks idea was to implement welfare programs thatwere acceptable to conservatives without any socialisticaspects. He was dubious about laws protecting work-ers at the workplace, such as safe working conditions,limitation of work hours, and the regulation of womensand child labor. He believed that such regulation wouldforce workers and employers to reduce work and produc-tion, and thus harm the economy. Bismarck opened de-bate on the subject in November 1881 in the ImperialMessage to the Reichstag, using the term practical Chris-tianity to describe his program.[68] Bismarcks program

8.3 Old Age and Disability Insurance Law of 1889 13

centered squarely on insurance programs designed to in-crease productivity, and focus the political attentions ofGerman workers on supporting the Junkers government.The program included sickness insurance, accident insur-ance, disability insurance, and a retirement pension, noneof which were then in existence to any great degree.Based on Bismarcks message, the Reichstag led threebills to deal with the concepts of accident and sick-ness insurance. The subjects of retirement pensions anddisability insurance were placed on the back-burner forthe time being.[69] The social legislation implementedby Bismarck in the 1880s played a key role in thesharp, rapid decline of German emigration to America.Young men considering emigration looked at not only thegap between higher hourly direct wages in the UnitedStates and Germany but also the dierential in indi-rect wagessocial benets, which favored staying inGermany. The young men went to German industrialcities, so that Bismarcks insurance system partly osetlow wage rates in Germany and furthered the fall of theemigration rate.[70]

8.1 Sickness Insurance Law of 1883

The rst bill that had success was the Sickness InsuranceBill, which was passed in 1883. Bismarck consideredthe program the least important and the least politicallytroublesome. The program was established to providesickness insurance for German industrial laborers.[71][72]The health service was established on a local basis, withthe cost divided between employers and the employed.The employers contributed 1/3, while the workers con-tributed 2/3s. The minimum payments for medical treat-ment and sick pay for up to 13 weeks were legally xed.The individual local health bureaus were administered bya committee elected by the members of each bureau, andthis move had the unintended eect of establishing a ma-jority representation for the workers on account of theirlarge nancial contribution. This worked to the advantageof the Social Democrats whothrough heavy Workermembershipachieved their rst small foothold in pub-lic administration.[69]

8.2 Accident Insurance Law of 1884

Bismarcks government had to submit three draft bills be-fore they could get one passed by the Reichstag in 1884.Bismarck had originally proposed that the Federal Gov-ernment pay a portion of the Accident Insurance contri-bution. Bismarcks motive was a demonstration of thewillingness of the German government to lessen the hard-ship experienced by the German workers as a means ofweaning them away from the various left-wing parties,most importantly the Social Democrats. The NationalLiberals took this program to be an expression of StateSocialism, which they were dead set against. The Center

party was afraid of the expansion of Federal Power at theexpense of States Rights. As a result, the only way theprogram could be passed at all was for the entire expenseto be underwritten by the Employers. To facilitate this,Bismarck arranged for the administration of this programto be placed in the hands of Der Arbeitgeberverband inden beruichen Korporationen (the Organization of Em-ployers in Occupational Corporations). This organizationestablished central and bureaucratic insurance oces onthe Federal, and in some cases the State level to performthe actual administration. The program kicked in to re-place the sickness insurance program as of the 14th week.It paid for medical treatment and a Pension of up to 2/3sof earned wages if the worker was fully disabled. Thisprogram was expanded in 1886 to include Agriculturalworkers.[69]

8.3 Old Age and Disability Insurance Lawof 1889

The Old Age Pension program, an insurance equally -nanced by employers and workers, was designed to pro-vide a pension annuity for workers who reached age 70years. Unlike the Accident Insurance and Sickness In-surance programs, this program covered all categories ofworkersindustrial, agrarian, artisans and servants fromthe start. Also, unlike the other two programs, the prin-ciple that the national government should contribute aportion of the underwriting cost, with the other two por-tions prorated accordingly, was accepted without ques-tion. The Disability Insurance program was intended tobe used by those permanently disabled. This time, theState or Province supervised the programs directly.[73]

9 Forced to resignIn 1888, the German Emperor, Wilhelm I, died leavingthe throne to his son, Friedrich III. The newmonarch wasalready suering from an incurable throat cancer and diedafter reigning for only 99 days. He was succeeded by hisson, Wilhelm II, who opposed Bismarcks careful foreignpolicy, preferring vigorous and rapid expansion to enlargeGermanys place in the sun.[75]

Bismarck was 16 years older than Friedrich. Before thelatter became terminally ill, Bismarck did not expect hewould live to see Wilhelm ascend to the throne, and thushad no strategy to deal with him. Conicts between Wil-helm II and his chancellor soon poisoned their relation-ship. Perhaps on account of his prominent role in Wil-helms upbringing, Bismarck believed that he could dom-inate the young Kaiser and showed little respect for hispolicies in the late 1880s. However, Wilhelm wantedto be his own master and was surrounded by sycophantstelling him that Frederick the Great would not have beenso great with a Bismarck at his side. Their nal split

14 9 FORCED TO RESIGN

occurred after Bismarck tried to implement far-reachinganti-Socialist laws in early 1890. The Kartell majorityin the Reichstag, of the amalgamated Conservative Partyand the National Liberal Party, was willing to make mostof the laws permanent. But it was split about the lawallowing the police the power to expel socialist agita-tors from their homes, a power used excessively at timesagainst political opponents. The National Liberals re-fused to make this law permanent, while the Conserva-tives supported only the entirety of the bill and threatenedto and eventually vetoed the entire bill in session becauseBismarck would not agree to a modied bill.[76]

A painting of Bismarck, late in his career, by Franz von Lenbach

As the debate continued, Wilhelm became increasinglyinterested in social problems, especially the treatmentof mine workers during their strike in 1889, and keep-ing with his active policy in government, routinely in-terrupted Bismarck in Council to make clear his socialpolicy. Bismarck sharply disagreed with Wilhelms pol-icy and worked to circumvent it. Even though Wilhelmsupported the altered anti-socialist bill, Bismarck pushedfor his support to veto the bill in its entirety. But whenhis arguments could not convinceWilhelm, Bismarck be-came excited and agitated until uncharacteristically blurt-ing out his motive to see the bill fail: to have the social-ists agitate until a violent clash occurred that could beused as a pretext to crush them. Wilhelm replied that hewas not willing to open his reign with a bloody campaignagainst his own subjects. The next day, after realizing hisblunder, Bismarck attempted to reach a compromise withWilhelm by agreeing to his social policy towards indus-trial workers, and even suggested a European council todiscuss working conditions, presided over by the GermanEmperor.

Despite this, a turn of events eventually led to his dis-tancing from Wilhelm. Bismarck, feeling pressured andunappreciated by the Emperor and undermined by ambi-tious advisers, refused to sign a proclamation regardingthe protection of workers along with Wilhelm, as was re-quired by the German Constitution, to protest Wilhelmsever increasing interference to Bismarcks previously un-questioned authority. Bismarck also worked behind thescenes to break the Continental labour council on whichWilhelm had set his heart.[77]

The nal break came as Bismarck searched for a new par-liamentary majority, with his Kartell voted from powerdue to the anti-socialist bill asco. The remaining forcesin the Reichstag were the Catholic Centre Party andthe Conservative Party. Bismarck wished to form anew block with the Centre Party, and invited LudwigWindthorst, the parliamentary leader, to discuss an al-liance. This would be Bismarcks last political manoeu-vre. Wilhelm was furious to hear about Windthorstsvisit. In a parliamentary state, the head of governmentdepends on the condence of the parliamentary major-ity, and certainly has the right to form coalitions to en-sure his policies a majority. However, in Germany, theChancellor depended on the condence of the Emperoralone, and Wilhelm believed that the Emperor had theright to be informed before his ministers meeting. Aftera heated argument in Bismarcks oce Wilhelm, whomBismarck had allowed to see a letter from Tsar AlexanderIII describing him as a badly brought-up boy, stormedout, after rst ordering the rescinding of the Cabinet Or-der of 1851, which had forbidden Prussian Cabinet Min-isters to report directly to the King of Prussia, requiringthem instead to report via the Prime Minister. Bismarck,forced for the rst time into a situation he could not useto his advantage, wrote a blistering letter of resignation,decrying Wilhelms interference in foreign and domesticpolicy, which was published only after Bismarcks death.Bismarck resigned atWilhelm IIs insistence on 18March1890, at age 75, to be succeeded as Chancellor ofGermany and Minister-President of Prussia by Leo vonCaprivi.[78] Bismarck was discarded (dropping the pi-lot, in the words of the famous Punch cartoon), pro-moted to the rank of Colonel-General with the Dignityof Field Marshal (so-called because the German Armydid not appoint full Field Marshals in peacetime) andgiven a new title, Duke of Lauenburg, which he jokedwould be useful when travelling incognito. He was soonelected to the Reichstag as a National Liberal in Ben-nigsens old and supposedly safe Hamburg seat, but hewas embarrassed by being taken to a second ballot by aSocial Democrat opponent, and never actually took up hisseat. He entered into a restless, resentful retirement on hisestates at Varzin, now part of Poland. Within one monthof his wifes death on 27 November 1894, he moved toFriedrichsruh near Hamburg, waiting in vain to be calledupon for advice and counsel.

9.2 Death 15

"Dropping the Pilot" Famous caricature by Sir John Tenniel(1820-1914), published in an English magazine, 29March 1890.

9.1 Last warning and predictionIn December 1897, the Emperor Wilhelm II visited Bis-marck for the last time. Bismarck again warned himabout the dangers of improvising government policybased on the intrigues of courtiers and militarists. Bis-marcks last warning was:

Your Majesty, so long as you have thispresent ocer corps, you can do as you please.But when this is no longer the case, it will bevery dierent for you.[79]

Subsequently, Bismarck made this prediction:

"Jena came twenty years after the deathof Frederick the Great; the crash will cometwenty years after my departure if things goon like this"a prophecy fullled with theKaisers abdication almost twenty years to theday after Bismarcks death.[80]

According to Albert Ballin, the year before he died Bis-marck told him:

One day the great European War willcome out of some damned foolish thing in theBalkans.[81]

Bismarck on his 80th birthday (1 April 1895)

9.2 Death

Bismarck spent his nal years composing his memoirs(Gedanken und Erinnerungen, or Thoughts and Memo-ries), a work of literary genius but questionable accu-racy, in which he increased the drama around every eventand always presented himself favorably. He died in July1898 at the age of 83 in Friedrichsruh, where he is en-tombed in the Bismarck Mausoleum. He was succeededas Frst von Bismarck-Schnhausen by his son Herbert.He continued his feud with Wilhelm II by attacking himin his memoirs and by publishing the text of the Rein-surance Treaty with Russia, a breach of national securityfor which any individual of lesser status would have beenprosecuted.Bismarck managed one nal attack onWilhelm II by hav-ing his tombstone inscribed with the words Here lies atrue servant of the Emperor Wilhelm I.

10 Legacy and memoryHistorians have reached a broad consensus on the content,function and importance of the image of Bismarck withinGermanys political culture over the past 125 years.[82][83]According to Steinberg, his achievements in 186271were the greatest diplomatic and political achievementby any leader in the last two centuries.[84]

16 10 LEGACY AND MEMORY

Otto von Bismarck statue in Berlin

Bismarcks most important legacy is the unication ofGermany. Germany had existed as a collection of hun-dreds of separate principalities and Free Cities since theformation of the Holy Roman Empire. Over the cen-turies various rulers had tried to unify the German stateswithout success until Bismarck. Largely as a result ofBismarcks eorts, the various German kingdoms wereunited into a single country.Following unication, Germany became one of the mostpowerful nations in Europe. Bismarcks astute, cau-tious, and pragmatic foreign policies allowed Germany topeacefully retain the powerful position into which he hadbrought it; maintaining amiable diplomacy with almost allEuropean nations. France, the main exception, was dev-astated by Bismarcks wars and his harsh subsequent poli-cies towards it; France became one of Germanys mostbitter enemies in Europe. Austria, too, was weakenedby the creation of a German Empire, though to a muchlesser extent than France. Bismarck believed that as longas Britain, Russia and Italy were assured of the peacefulnature of the German Empire, French belligerency couldbe contained; his diplomatic feats were undone, however,by Kaiser Wilhelm II, whose policies unied other Eu-ropean powers against Germany in time for World WarI.Historians stress that Bismarcks peace-oriented, satu-rated continental diplomacy was increasingly unpopular,

because it consciously reined in any expansionist drives.In dramatic contrast stands the ambition of Wilhelm IIsWeltpolitik to secure the Reichs future through expan-sion, leading to World War I. Likewise Bismarcks policyto deny the military a dominant voice in foreign politi-cal decision making was overturned by 1914 as Germanybecame an armed state.Bismarcks psychology and personal traits have not beenso favourably received by scholars. The American his-torian Jonathan Steinberg portrays a malign genius whowas deeply vengeful, even toward his closest friendsand family members. Evans says he was intimidatingand unscrupulous, playing to others frailties, not theirstrengths.[85] British historians, including Evans, Taylor,Palmer and Crankshaw, see Bismarck as an ambivalentgure, undoubtedly a man of great skill but who left nolasting system in place to guide successors less skilledthan himself. Being a committed monarchist himself,Bismarck allowed no eective constitutional check on thepower of the Emperor, thus placing a time bomb in thefoundation of the Germany that he created.Observers at the time and ever since have commentedon Bismarcks skill as a writer. As Henry Kissingerhas noted, The man of 'blood and iron' wrote proseof extraordinary directness and lucidity, comparablein distinctiveness to Churchill's use of the Englishlanguage.[86]

During most of his nearly 30-year-long tenure, Bismarckheld undisputed control over the governments policies.He was well supported by his friend Albrecht von Roon,the war minister, as well as the leader of the Prussianarmy Helmuth vonMoltke. Bismarcks diplomatic movesrelied on a victorious Prussian military, and these twomen gave Bismarck the victories he needed to convincethe smaller German states to join Prussia.Bismarck took steps to silence or restrain political op-position, as evidenced by laws restricting the freedom ofthe press, and the anti-socialist laws. He waged a cul-ture war (Kulturkampf) against the Catholic Church untilhe realized the conservatism of the Catholics made themnatural allies against the Socialists. His king Wilhelm Irarely challenged the Chancellors decisions; on severaloccasions, Bismarck obtained his monarchs approval bythreatening to resign. However, Wilhelm II intended togovern the country himself, making the ousting of Bis-marck one of his rst tasks as Kaiser. Bismarcks succes-sors as Chancellor were much less inuential, as powerwas concentrated in the Emperors hands.

10.1 MemorialsImmediately after he left oce, citizens started to praisehim and established funds to build monuments likethe Bismarck Memorial or towers dedicated to him.Throughout Germany, the accolades were unending, sev-eral buildings were named in his honour, portraits of

17

Memorial dedicated to Bismarck as a student at the Rudelsburg

him were commissioned from artists such as Franz vonLenbach and C.W. Allers and books about him becamebest-sellers. The rst monument built in his honour wasthe one at Bad Kissingen erected in 1877.Numerous statues and memorials dot the cities, towns,and countryside of Germany, including the famousBismarck Memorial in Berlin and numerous Bismarcktowers on four continents. The only memorial depictinghim as a student at Gttingen University (together witha dog, possibly his Reichshund Tyras) and as a memberof his Corps Hannovera was re-erected in 2006 at theRudelsburg. The gleaming white 1906 Bismarck Monu-ment in the city of Hamburg, stands in the centre of the St.Pauli district, and is the largest, and probably best-known,memorial to Bismarck worldwide. The statues depictedhim as massive, monolithic, rigid and unambiguous.[87]Two warships were named in his honour, the SMS Bis-marck of the German Imperial Navy, and the Bismarckfrom the World War IIera.

10.2 Bismarck myth

Gerwarth (2007) shows that the Bismarck myth, built uppredominantly during his years of retirement and evenmore stridently after his death, proved a powerful rhetor-ical and ideological tool. The myth made him out to be adogmatic ideologue and ardent nationalist when, in fact,he was ideologically exible. Gerwarth argues that theconstructed memory of Bismarck played a central role asan anti-democratic myth in the highly ideological battle

The Bismarck Monument, Hamburg

over the past which raged between 1918 and 1933. Thismyth proved to be a weapon against the Weimar Repub-lic, and exercised a destructive inuence on the politicalculture of the rst German democracy. Frankel (2005)shows the Bismarck cult fostered and legitimized a newstyle of right-wing politics, and made possible the post-Bismarckian crisis of leadership, both real and perceived,that had Germans seeking the strongest possible leaderand asking, What Would Bismarck Do?"For example, Hamburgs memorial, unveiled in 1906, isconsidered one of the greatest expressions of imperialGermanys Bismarck cult and an important developmentin the history of German memorial art. It was a prod-uct of the desire of Hamburgs patrician classes to de-fend their political privileges in the face of dramatic socialchange and attendant demands for political reform. Tothose who presided over its construction, the monumentwas also a means of asserting Hamburgs cultural aspira-tions and of shrugging o a reputation as a city hostile tothe arts. The memorial was greeted with widespread dis-approval among the working classes and did not preventtheir increasing support for the Social Democrats.[88]

11 Place names

A number of localities around the world have been namedin Bismarcks honour. They include:

18 14 REFERENCES

Bismarck Archipelago, near the former Germancolony of New Guinea.

Bismarck, Illinois Bismarck, North Dakota, a city and state capital inthe United States.

Bismarck, Missouri, a city in Missouri. Bismarck Sea Bismarck Strait, a channel in Antarctica. Bismarckburg (Kasanga, Tanzania)

12 Titles and styles from birth todeath

1 April 1815 1865: Junker Otto von Bismarck 18651871: High Born Count Otto of Bismarck-Schnhausen

18711890: His Serene Highness The Prince of Bis-marck

1890 30 July 1898: His Serene Highness ThePrince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg

Bismarck was created Graf von Bismarck-Schnhausen(Count of Bismarck-Schnhausen) in 1865; this comi-tal title is borne by all his descendants in the male line. In1871, he was further created Frst von Bismarck (Princeof Bismarck) and accorded the style of Durchlaucht(equivalent to Serene Highness); this princely title de-scended only to his eldest male heirs.

12.1 Duke of LauenburgIn 1890, Bismarckwas created furtherHerzog von Lauen-burg (Duke of Lauenburg"; the Duchy was one of theterritories which Prussia seized from the Danish king in1864).It was Bismarcks ambition to be assimilated into themediatized houses of Germany. He attempted to per-suade Kaiser Wilhelm I that he should be endowed withthe sovereign duchy of Lauenburg, in reward for his ser-vices to the imperial family and the German empire. Thiswas on the understanding that Bismarck would immedi-ately restore the duchy to Prussia; all that he wanted wasthe privilege of a mediatized family for himself and hisdescendants. This novel idea was turned down by the con-servative emperor, who thought that he had already giventhe chancellor enough rewards. There is reason to believethat he informed Wilhelm II of his wishes. After beingforced by the sovereign to resign, he received the purelyhonoric title of Duke of Lauenburg, without the duchy

itself and the sovereignty that would have transformed hisfamily into a mediatized house. Bismarck regarded it as amockery of his ambition, and he considered nothing morecruel than this action of the emperor.[89]

On Bismarcks death in 1898, his dukedom (held only forhis own lifetime) was extinguished and the princely titlepassed to his eldest son, Herbert.

13 See also Adelbert Theodor Wangemann, made only knownrecording of Bismarcks voice

Film footage of Bismarck removing his military hel-met

Gerson von Bleichrder, Bismarcks banker andeconomics advisor

Here is Germany House of Bismarck Wilhelm Stieber, master spy

14 References[1] Steinberg, Jonathan. Bismarck: A Life. p. 51. ISBN

9780199782529.

[2] Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire: 18751914 (1987),p. 312.

[3] Lowe, Charles (2005). Prince Bismarck: An HistoricalBiography With Two Portraits. Kessinger Publishing. p.538. ISBN 9781419180033.

[4] Field 1898, pp. 6034.

[5] Steinberg, 2011, pp. 3941.

[6] Steinberg, 2011, p. 93.

[7] Panze 1971, p. 56.

[8] Steinberg, 2011, p. 89.

[9] Steinberg, 2011, p. 86.

[10] Steinberg, 2011, pp. 8788.

[11] Panze 1971, p. 64.

[12] Alan Palmer, Bismarck [Charles Scribner Publishers:New York, 1976] p. 41

[13] Alan Palmer, Bismarck, p. 42.

[14] Steinberg, 2011, p. 117.

[15] Steinberg, 2011, pp. 14243.

[16] Quotations from letters between Leopold von Gerlach andBismarck debating the topic of Napoleon III are in Stein-berg, 2011, pp. 13133.

19

[17] Steinberg, 2011, ch. 5.

[18] Steinberg, 2011, ch. 6.

[19] Eyck 1964, pp. 5868.

[20] Taylor 1955, pp. 4851.

[21] Eyck 1964, pp. 6970.

[22] Hollyday 1970, pp. 1618.

[23] Gordon A. Craig, Germany, 18661945 (1978), pp 121

[24] Eyck 1964, pp. 58106.

[25] Eyck 1964, pp. 10738.

[26] Pearce 2010.

[27] Friedrich Darmstaedter (2008). Bismarck and the Cre-ation of the Second Reich. Transaction Publishers. p. 289.ISBN 9781412807838.

[28] Steinberg, 2011, p. 253.

[29] Bismarck, Otto von (1966). The Memoirs vol. II. NewYork, NY: Howard Fertig. pp. 5860.

[30] Eyck 1964, pp. 13986

[31] William Langer, Bismarck as Dramatist, in Studies inDiplomatic History & Historiography in Honour of G.P.Gooch (1962) pp 199216,

[32] Taylor 1969, p. 126.

[33] Crankshaw.

[34] Taylor 1969, p. 133.

[35] Hollyday 1970, p. 6.

[36] Blackbourn 1998, pp. 2613.

[37] Ross 2000.

[38] Gross 2005.

[39] James Stone, Bismarck and the Containment of France,1873-1877, Canadian Journal of History (1994) 29#2 pp281-304 online

[40] Rebecca Ayako Bennette, Fighting for the Soul of Ger-many: The Catholic Struggle for Inclusion after Unica-tion (Harvard U.P. 2012)

[41] E. J. Feuchtwanger, Bismarck (2002) p. 208

[42] Koschnirk, Leonore; von Specht, Agnete. Room 10: TheSocial Dimension - Founders and Enemies of the Em-pire"". Deutsches Historisches Museum. Archived fromthe original on 2 July 2004.

[43] Norman Davies, Gods Playground, a History of Poland:1795 to the present (1982) p 124 online

[44] The Immigrant Threat: The Integration of Old and NewMigrants inWestern Europe Since 1850 (Studies ofWorldMigrations) Page 60 Leo Lucassen 2005 University ofIllinois The depth of his hatred for the Poles is illustratedby a letter Bismarck wrote in 1861 to his sister: Hit thePoles, so that they break down. If we want to exist, wehave to exterminate them;"

[45] Friedrich Darmstaedter, Bismarck and the creation of theSecond Reich (2008) p. xiv, xvii

[46] A.J.P. Taylor, Europe: Grandeur and Decline (1967) p 89

[47] Raymond James Sontag, European Diplomatic History:18711932 (1933) pp 358

[48] Crankshaw 1981, p. 322.

[49] James Stone, Bismarck and the Containment of France,18731877, Canadian Journal of History (1994) 29#2pp 281304, online

[50] Lothar Gall, Bismarck: The White Revolutionary, Volume2: 18711898 (1986) pp 4648

[51] William L. Langer, European Alliances and Alignments,18711890 (2nd ed. 1950) pp 4455

[52] Taylor 1969, p. 212.

[53] Retallack 2008, p. 29.

[54] Hartmut Pogge von Strandmann. Domestic Origins ofGermanys Colonial Expansion under Bismarck. Past &Present (Feb 1969), Issue 42, pp 140159 in JSTOR

[55] Kennedy 1988, ch 10.

[56] Eyck 1964, pp. 27376.

[57] Wehler 1970, pp. 11955.

[58] Strandmann 1969, pp. 14059.

[59] Crankshaw 1981, pp. 39597.

[60] S. G. Firth, The New Guinea Company, 18851899: A case of unprotable imperialism, Histori-cal Studies (1972) 15#59 pp 361377 DOI:10.1080/10314617208595478

[61] Ludwig 1927a, p. 73.

[62] Ludwig 1927b, p. 511.

[63] William L. Langer, European Alliances and Alignments:18711890 (2nd ed.) 1950 p 459

[64] Langer, European Alliances and Alignments: 18711890pp 50304

[65] E. P. Hennock, The Origin of the Welfare State in Eng-land and Germany, 18501914: Social Policies Compared(Cambridge University Press, 2007)

[66] E. P. Hennock. Social Policy under the Empire: Mythsand Evidence German History 1998 16(1): 5874; Her-man Beck, The Origins of the Authoritarian Welfare Statein Prussia. Conservatives, Bureaucracy, and the SocialQuestion, 181570. 1995.

20 15 BIBLIOGRAPHY

[67] Frederic B. M. Hollyday, Bismarck (1970) p. 65

[68] Moritz Busch. Bismarck: Some secret pages from his his-tory. New York: Macmillan, 1898. Vol. II, p. 282

[69] Holborn, Hajo. A History of Modern Germany 18401945. Princeton UP, 1969. pp. 29193.

[70] David Khoudour-Castras. Welfare State and LaborMo-bility: The Impact of Bismarcks Social Legislation onGerman Emigration BeforeWorldWar I. Journal of Eco-nomic History 68.1 (2008): 211243.

[71] Leichter, Howard M. (1979). A comparative approach topolicy analysis: health care policy in four nations. Cam-bridge: Cambridge University Press. p. 121. ISBN 0-521-22648-1. The Sickness Insurance Law (1883). Eli-gibility. The Sickness Insurance Law came into eect inDecember 1884. It provided for compulsory participationby all industrial wage earners (i.e., manual laborers) in fac-tories, ironworks, mines, shipbuilding yards, and similarworkplaces.

[72] Hennock, Ernest Peter (2007). The origin of the welfarestate in England and Germany, 18501914: social policiescompared. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. p.157. ISBN 978-0-521-59212-3.

[73] E. P. Hennock, Social Policy in the Bismarck Era: AProgress Report, German History, (June 2003) 21#2 pp229238 online

[74] Cowen 2012.

[75] Craig, (1978) pp 22529

[76] Steinberg, 2011, pp. 42964.

[77] Craig, (1978) pp 17179

[78] Rich, Norman (1965). Friedrich von Holstein: politics anddiplomacy in the era of Bismarck and Wilhelm II 1. Lon-don: Cambridge University Press. pp. 27983.shows thatFriedrich von Holstein was a key player

[79] Palmer, Alan (1976). Bismarck. New York City: CharlesScribners Sons. p. 267. ISBN 978-0684146836.

[80] Taylor 1969, p. 264.

[81] Churchill, Winston (1923). The World Crisis. CharlesScribners Sons. p. 195.

[82] Mller (2008)

[83] Urbach (1998)

[84] Steinberg, 2011, p. 184.

[85] Richard J. Evans, The Gambler in Blood and Iron, NewYork Review (23 February 2012) p 39

[86] Kissinger 2011.

[87] Sieglinde Seele, Lexikon der Bismarck-Denkmler.Trme, Standbilder, Bsten, Gedenksteine und andereEhrungen, Michael Imhof Verlag: Petersberg, 2005; 480pp.

[88] Mark A.Russell, The Building of Hamburgs BismarckMemorial, 18981906, Historical Journal 2000 43(1):133156

[89] THE MEDIATIZED OR THE HIGH NOBILITYOF EUROPE; Consisting of Something Like Fifty fam-ilies Which Enjoyed-Petty Sovereignty Before the HolyRoman Empires Overthrow, They Still Exercise Cer-tain Special Privileges Mixed with Unusual Restrictions..New York Times. 27 September 1908.

15 Bibliography

15.1 Biographical Crankshaw, Edward (1981), Bismarck, The VikingPress.

Darmstaedter, Friedrich. Bismarck and the Cre-ation of the Second Reich (2008)

Dawson, WilliamHarbutt. The Evolution ofModernGermany (1908), 503pp covers 18711906 with fo-cus on social and economic history& colonies onlinefree

Engelberg, Ernst. Bismarck; 2 vols., (198690);major academic study by an east-German historian(only in German)

Eyck, Erich (1964), Bismarck and the German Em-pire, ISBN 0393002357 (excerpt and text search)

Feuchtwanger, Edgar (2002), Bismarck, Histori-cal Biographies, Routledge, 276 pp., basic startingpoint.

Gall, Lothar (1986), Bismarck: The White Revolu-tionary, 2 vol; major academic study

Headlam, James Wyclie. Bismarck and the Foun-dation of the German Empire (1899) 471 pp solidold biography online

Heuston, Kimberley Burton (2010), Otto von Bis-marck: Iron Chancellor of Germany, FranklinWatts.

Hollyday, FBM (1970), Bismarck, Great Lives Ob-served, Prentice-Hall.

Kent, George O (1978), Bismarck and His Times. Kissinger, Henry A (31 March 2011), Otto vonBismarck, Master Statesman, The New York Times(book review).

Lerman, Katharine Anne. Bismarck: Proles inPower. Longman, 2004. ISBN 0-582-03740-9;312pp

15.3 Specialized studies 21

Ludwig, Emil (1927a), Wilhelm Hohenzollern:The last of the Kaisers, New York, ISBN9780766143418, popular.

Ludwig, Emil (1927b), Bismarck: The Story of aFighter, Little, Brown, popular.

Panze, Otto, Bismarck and the Development ofGermany; 3 vols., 196390. vol 1 online, Bismarckand the Development of Germany: The Period ofUnication, 18151871

Panze, Otto (Apr 1955), Bismarck and GermanNationalism, American Historical Review 60 (3):54866, doi:10.2307/1845577, JSTOR 1845577

Steinberg, Jonathan. Bismarck: A Life (Oxford Uni-versity Press, 2011), 592 pp

Stern, Fritz (1977), Gold and Iron: Bismarck, Ble-ichrder and the Building of the German Empire,Penguin.

Taylor, A.J.P. (1969), Bismarck: the Man and theStatesman, New York: Alfred A Knopf.

15.2 Surveys Berghahn, Volker. Imperial Germany, 18711914(1994)

Blackbourn, David (1998), The Long NineteenthCentury: A History of Germany, 17801918.

Clark, Christopher. Iron Kingdom: The Rise andDownfall of Prussia, 16001947 (2009)

Craig, Gordon A. Germany, 18661945 (1978)online edition

Holborn, Hajo (1969), The Constitutional Conictin Prussia and the Early Years of the Bismarck Min-istry, The History of Modern Germany 18401945,Alfred A Knopf, pp. 13172.

(1969), The Founding of theNew German Empire, 186571, The History ofModern Germany 18401945, Alfred A Knopf, pp.173229.

(1969), Bismarck and theConsolidation of the German Empire, 187190,TheHistory ofModernGermany 18401945, AlfredA Knopf, pp. 23397.

Langer, William L. European alliances and align-ments, 18711890 (1964)

Retallack, James N (2008), Imperial Germany,18711918, Oxford University Press.

Robinson, Janet, and Joe Robinson. Handbook ofImperial Germany (2009) excerpt and text search

Sheehan, James J. German History, 17701866(1989), dense, thorough political history

(1978), German liberalism inthe ninetury century (EBOOKS), University ofChicago Press; ACLS

15.3 Specialized studies Beck, Hermann (1995), Origins of the Authoritarian

Welfare State in Prussia, 18151870.

Clark, Chester Wells. Franz Joseph and Bismarck:The Diplomacy of Austria before the War of 1866(Harvard University Press, 1934).

Field, WG (October 1898), Bismarcks FirstSchool, The Journal of Education (Oxford Univer-sity Press) 20: 6034.

Goddard, Stacie E. When Right Makes Might:How Prussia Overturned the European Balance ofPower, International Security, Volume 33, Number3, Winter 2008/09, pp. 11042 in Project MUSE,covers 186471

Gross, Michael B (2005), The War against Catholi-cism: Liberalism and the Anti-Catholic Imaginationin Nineteenth-Century Germany.

Hennock, E. P. The Origin of the Welfare State inEngland and Germany, 18501914: Social PoliciesCompared (Cambridge University Press, 2007) 381pp.

Hennock, E. P. Social Policy in the Bismarck Era:A Progress Report, German History, (June 2003)21#2 pp 229238 online

Howard, Michael. The Franco-Prussian War: TheGerman invasion of France, 18701871 (1961)excerpt and text search

Kennedy, Paul M (1988), The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism, 18601914.

Kissinger, Henry. The White Revolutionary: Re-ections on Bismarck, Daedalus Vol. 97, No. 3,(Summer, 1968), pp. 888924 in JSTOR

Lord, Robert H. Bismarck and Russia in 1863,American Historical Review, Vol. 29, No. 1 (Oc-tober 1923), pp. 248. in JSTOR

Mork, Gordon R. Bismarck and the 'Capitulation'of German Liberalism, Journal of Modern HistoryVol. 43, No. 1 (Mar., 1971), pp. 5975 in JSTOR

Paur, Philip. The Corporatist Character of Bis-marcks Social Policy, European History Quarterly,Oct 1981; vol. 11: pp. 42760.

22 15 BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ross, Ronald J (1998), The Failure of BismarcksKulturkampf: Catholicism and State Power in Impe-rial Germany, 18711887, The Catholic Universityof America Press, 219 pp.

Stone, James. Bismarck Ante Portas! Germanyand the Seize Mai Crisis of 1877. Diplomacy &Statecraft (2012) 23#2 pp: 209-235.

Stern, Fritz. Gold and Iron: Bismark, Bleichroder,and the Building of the German Empire (1979) eco-nomic and nancial history; Bismark worked closelywith this leading banker excerpt and text search

Stone, James (1994), Bismarck and the Contain-ment of France, 18731877, Canadian Journal ofHistory 29 (2)

Strandmann, Hartmut Pogge von, Domestic Ori-gins of Germanys Colonial Expansion under Bis-marck, Past & Present No. 42 (Feb., 1969), pp.14059 in JSTOR

Waller, Bruce. Bismarck at the Crossroads. TheReorientation of German Foreign Policy after theCongress of Berlin 18781880 (1974)

Wawro, Georey. The Franco-Prussian War: TheGerman Conquest of France in 18701871(2005)

Wawro, Georey. The War Scare of 1875: Bis-marck and Europe in the Mid-1870s. German His-tory (2012) 30#1 pp: 140-141.

Wehler, Hans-Ulrich Bismarcks Imperialism18621890 Past and Present, No. 48, August1970. pp: 119155 online edition

Wetzel, David. A Duel of Nations: Germany,France, and the Diplomacy of the War of 18701871 (University of Wisconsin Press; 2012) 310pages

Wetzel, David. A Duel of Giants: Bismarck,Napoleon III, and the Origins of the Franco-PrussianWar (U of Wisconsin Press, 2001). 244 pp. ISBN0-299-17490-5

15.4 Historiography and memory

Cowen, Ron (30 January 2012), Restored EdisonRecords Revive Giants of 19th-Century Germany,New York Times, retrieved 31 January 2012

Frankel, Richard E. From the Beer Halls to theHalls of Power: The Cult of Bismarck and the Le-gitimization of a New German Right, 18981945,German Studies Review, Vol. 26, No. 3 (Oct.,2003), pp. 543560 in JSTOR

Frankel, Richard E (2005), Bismarcks Shadow. TheCult of Leadership and the Transformation of theGerman Right, 18981945, ISBN 1-84520-033-0,222 pp.

Gerwarth, Robert. Inventing the Iron Chancellor,History Today 2007 57(6): 4349, in EBSCO

(2005), The Bismarck Myth:Weimar Germany and the Legacy of the Iron Chan-cellor, ISBN 0-19-928184-X, 216 pp.

Hamerow, Theodore S. ed. Otto von Bismarck andImperial Germany: A Historical Assessment (1993),excerpts from historians and primary sources

Mller, Frank Lorenz (2008). Man, Myth andMonuments: The Legacy of Otto von Bismarck(18661998)". European History Quarterly 38 (4):62636. doi:10.1177/0265691408094517.

O'Shea, John J. Bismarcks Decline and Fall, TheAmerican Catholic Quarterly Review, Vol. XXIII,January/October 1898. online

Pearce, Robert (March 2010), The Austro-Prussian War, History Review (66).

Russell, Mark A. The Building of Hamburgs Bis-marck Memorial, 18981906, Historical Journal,Vol. 43, No. 1 (Mar., 2000), pp. 13356 in JSTOR

Steefel, Lawrence D. Bismarck, Journal of Mod-ern History, Vol. 2, No. 1 (Mar., 1930), pp. 7495in JSTOR

Strmer, Michael. Bismarck in Perspective, Cen-tral European History, Vol. 4, No. 4, 1870/71(Dec., 1971), pp. 291331 in JSTOR

Urbach, Karina. Between Saviour and Villain: 100Years of Bismarck Biographies, Historical Journal1998 41(4): 114160 in JSTOR

15.5 Primary sources Bismarck, Otto von (1899), Bismarck, the Man &

the Statesman: Being the Reections and Reminis-cences of Otto, Prince von Bismarck 1

(1898), Thoughts and Reminis-cences I