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On the 18th of January 1871, the leaders of the German states, decked out in blue military uniforms, gathered in the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles outside Paris for a ceremony to mark the unification of the German Empire. The inaugural emperor was Wilhelm I, the King of Prussia. However, in the most famous painting of the coronation, produced by Anton von Werner, it is a dour looking man in white at the very centre of the painting who commands the eye: Otto von Bismarck. Who was Bismarck and why is he, rather than Emperor Wilhelm, seen as the man who
unified the German Empire? This is the story of Otto von Bismarck, the unifier of Germany. The man known to history as Otto von Bismarck was born on the 1st of April 1815 at Schonhausen in the Saxony-Anhalt region of what is now eastern Germany, and what was then a part of the Kingdom of Prussia. His full name was Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck. Otto's father was Karl Wilhelm von Bismarck, a member of the Prussian landed aristocracy or Junker class who had also served as a Prussian military officer in a kingdom where military
service was considered a duty rather than an option in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries for the minor nobility. Otto was a middle child. Karl's marriage to Wilhelmine Luise Mencken had resulted in a son, Bernhard, in 1810, and a daughter, Malwine, followed many years later in 1827. Shortly after Otto was born, the family relocated to the Pomerania region of northern Prussia along the coast of the Baltic Sea near the port city of Stettin in modern-day Poland. They were a modest Prussian Junker family and Bismarck's later, more elaborate titles of Count,
Duke and Prince were all acquired as part of his service to the royal House of Hohenzollern, rather than being inherited via his family line. Bismarck was born just as the maps of Europe were being completely redrawn. Napoleon Bonaparte's French empire, which he had built to extend from Spain to Poland through a series of wars after he emerged as the First Consul and then the Emperor of the French, had collapsed in 1813 and 1814 after his disastrous invasion of Russia in the summer of 1812. At the Congress of Vienna,
Europe's statesmen had to work out who the winners and losers were at the end of a quarter of a century of war that linked all the way back to the French Revolution in 1789 and the onset of the French Revolutionary Wars in 1792. For some countries, like Britain and Russia, this meant that they gained lands or colonies. The British, for instance, formalised their ownership of places like the Cape Colony in South Africa and Sri Lanka, colonies of France's Dutch ally which the British had occupied during the wars. Austria and Prussia, by far the two largest German states,
also gained. Prussia, Bismarck's home country, had been savagely stripped of land by Napoleon via the Treaty of Tilsit in 1807. At Vienna in 1814 and 1815 it re-emerged as one of the victors of the war, acquiring additional lands in western Germany. However, the situation in Germany as a whole was complex. One consequence of the Napoleonic Wars was that the Holy Roman Empire, an entity which had loosely tied hundreds of German states, free cities and small polities together for a thousand years, was brought to an end when Francis II of Austria abdicated
in 1806, replaced soon after by the Kingdom of Westphalia and the Confederation of the Rhine, two Napoleonic entities which were dismantled in due course at the end of the wars. This meant that there was significant consolidation of Germany at the Congress of Vienna, a process that had already been underway in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. At the end of it, there were two dominant German states, Protestant Prussia in the north and Roman Catholic Austria in the south, with approximately three dozen smaller states like Bavaria, Hanover and Saxony in between.
A new German Confederation was also created with 39 member states at the Congress of Vienna, but in an era of growing nationalism and centralisation, there was a swelling desire amongst some Germans for a unified German state to be created. The issue was whether Austria or Prussia would lead it were such a state to emerge. The question of German unification, and the wider problems that the emergence of a huge power in Central Europe might create for the balance of power across the continent, would shape Bismarck's entire life and career.
The most striking element of Bismarck's early life was how unremarkable it was. He didn't begin to make his mark on the world until he was well into his thirties. His childhood was characteristic of a child of the Prussian landed class. He attended school in Berlin and then proceeded onwards to the University of Gottingen, one of Europe's leading universities, where he studied the law. A further brief spell at the University of Berlin was book-ended by a quite brief spell in the Prussian military. After little more than a year in service, Bismarck joined the reserves and retired back to his family's country estate.
This was not as unusual as it appears. In the 1830s the prevailing mood was still one of peace around Europe, with the memory of the long Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars fresh in people's minds. Had he remained a junior officer, Bismarck would have been serving for an extended period in peacetime conditions. Back in the countryside on the Bismarck estate, he took to a leisurely life as a country gentleman with a tendency towards drinking quite a bit, spending much of his time riding and hunting. Nobody today might have heard of Otto von Bismarck had it not been for a personal awakening in 1846 and 1847.
In this period of his life he had formed a close relationship with Marie von Thadden-Trieglaff, a woman who had married one of Bismarck's friends, Moritz von Blanckenburg. Under her influence, Bismarck came into contact with the Pietist Lutheran movement, a religious movement which started in Germany in the seventeenth century, though it was entering a new resurgence in the 1830s and 1840s, a period of intense Christian revival in many western nations, including the United States. Bismarck was badly impacted by the death of Marie in November 1846. The event clearly
shook him into a change of course in his life and within weeks he had written to Marie's friend, Johanna von Puttkamer, to ask her to marry him. They had first met in 1844 and she was also a member of the Pietist circle in Pomerania. Their marriage resulted in three children. Their daughter, Marie, was born in 1848, followed by two sons, Herbert and Wilhelm, in 1849 and 1852. By then Bismarck had entered into politics. He became a member of the Prussian legislature in 1847, aligning with the conservative and Lutheran faction there. Thus, at 32 years of age,
after a very slow start to his career, Bismarck had finally embarked into politics in a meaningful way. He would shape the history of Germany and Europe over the next forty years. Bismarck's political outlook was shaped by events that began within months of his entry into the Prussian legislature. The mid-to-late 1840s were an extremely difficult period in the history of nineteenth-century Europe. The proximate cause was the arrival of the potato blight, Phytophthora infestans, to Europe from the Americas on board the first trans-Atlantic steamships early in the
decade. This wreaked devastation in countries like Ireland and parts of Eastern Europe in Prussia and the Russian Empire that had become dangerously dependent on the potato crop for the survival of their swelling populations. Famine set in and this set off a chain of interlocking economic and political crises. These manifested first in France in February 1848 and then spread around the continent. The 'springtime of the people', as the revolution of 1848 became known in the German lands, was a series of loosely connected movements in the various German states, which
mixed a wide variety of demands and causes. For instance, some called for greater workers' rights and others for more political representation for the common people of a kind that harked back to the French Revolution. What was most striking about the revolution of 1848 in the German lands was the appearance of the German tricolour flag and the calls for a unified German state, as the spirit of romantic nationalism took hold from the Rhineland to Prussia. A Constituent National Assembly was even briefly formed in Frankfurt, one which actively sought to draw
up a national constitution for a new German state, while the Prussian government relented to the degree that it allowed an elected assembly to sit for the first time in Berlin in a country which had previously been an absolutist monarchy. The revolutions eventually died down across Europe in the course of 1848 and 1849. Some, such as the Hungarian Revolution, were violently suppressed. Others, like the French example, led to a new republic and ultimately paved the way for the rise of Napoleon III as a new Emperor of the French in 1852. In the German lands, they augured
the beginning of a race to unify the lands under either Prussian or Austrian leadership. Bismarck's views on German unification changed in the middle of the nineteenth century. Initially he was very sceptical about the idea and in the midst of the revolution of 1848 he had considered leading a band of his local peasant tenants to march on Berlin in support of King Frederick William IV and the traditional Prussian order. Later he became a keen convert to the notion of unification. This typified Bismarck's political outlook. He was, above all else, a pragmatist,
one who was capable of quickly changing his stance on an issue or his political alliances when the moment called for it. This would later be seen in how he formed alliances in the German parliament, or his attitude towards colonisation. Earlier in his career it manifested most tangibly in terms of how he switched to become a keen promoter of German unity, perhaps realising that if Prussia did not unify the German lands, Austria would do it instead, threatening Prussia's position in Central Europe in the process. Before he was able to influence the course of national politics,
he first had to rise up the ranks of the Prussian state. He did so primarily as a foreign diplomat. In 1851 he was appointed as the Prussian representative to the parliament or Diet of the German Confederation, which sat in Frankfurt. This gave him a keen insight into the views of the leaders of the smaller German states and what could motivate each to accept a Prussian-led German Empire. Then, between 1859 and 1862, he served as the Prussian ambassador to Russia, living in St Petersburg. In 1862 he was transferred to France to serve as ambassador
there. The French appointment led to a visit to Britain as well in the summer of 1862. What all of this meant is that before Bismarck ever became the head of the Prussian government, he had developed a nuanced understanding of the diplomatic situation around Europe, what each state would tolerate in terms of German unification and the balance of power, and what each of the smaller German states required in order to accept the creation of a German Empire. Bismarck's ascent to the pinnacle of European politics began with the death of King Frederick William IV on the 2nd of January 1861. He was succeeded by his younger brother, Wilhelm I,
who had already served as regent since 1858. Wilhelm soon found himself dealing with a budgetary crisis which led to him making vague suggestions that he would abdicate in favour of his son, Frederick William, who was already in his early thirties. Instead, his son, along with the Minister of War, Albrecht von Roon, urged him to recall Bismarck from France and appoint him to lead the government as Minister President of Prussia. Wilhelm was reluctant at first, as Bismarck had indicated that he wished to be given a free hand to dictate policy in many
domains if he was given charge of the government. Eventually Wilhelm, who wished to take a less active role in day-to-day government affairs and who was dealing with a parliamentary block on funding for military spending, relented, and on the 23rd of September 1862, the king appointed Bismarck to the position of Minister President of Prussia. A week later he gave his famous 'Blood and Iron' speech before the parliament over the military financing issue. After stressing the need for an expanded military budget, he concluded by stating "The position of Prussia in Germany will
not be determined by its liberalism but by its power … Prussia must concentrate its strength and hold it for the favourable moment, which has already come and gone several times … Not through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decided … but by iron and blood." It was an unequivocal statement of his intent as head of the Prussian government. Bismarck's view, at least looking back in retrospect, must clearly have been to wait for diplomatic incidents to create reasons for declaring war on a neighbour and then using these
conflicts to bind the smaller German states, with the exception of Austria, closer to Prussia. The first such opportunity was presented when King Frederick VII of Denmark died in November 1863. He did not have a direct male heir and his throne passed to his distant cousin, who then became King Christian IX. He also carried the title of Duke of Schleswig and Holstein, the two regions which lay along the German and Danish borders along the southern rim of the Jutland Peninsula. Exploiting Christian's attempt to tie Schleswig closer to the Danish crown, Bismarck orchestrated a diplomatic crisis following Christian's accession, and then launched
the Second Schleswig War in February 1864. In this war, Bismarck encouraged the Austrians to join Prussia and in the autumn of 1864, the two German states defeated Denmark and carved up the border regions between them. Then Bismarck turned on Austria. Early in 1866 a dispute arose over the Austrian occupation of Holstein. This led to the Austro-Prussian War, a seven-week war in the summer of 1866 in which Prussia won a swift victory. In the aftermath, the Prussians acquired Holstein and a number of other smaller border territories around Germany. The outflanking of
Austria was completed when the North German Confederation was established in July 1867, a new political alliance of the German states that excluded Austria and set the smaller states on the path to unification under Prussian leadership. By the end of the 1860s, Bismarck needed one final war and diplomatic event in order to fully galvanise the German states into unification. A fresh opportunity presented itself when Queen Isabella II was deposed from the throne of Spain in 1868. The Spanish Revolution led to a succession crisis in which several candidates
from Europe's royal houses put forward claims to become the next King of Spain. Prince Leopold of the House of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, an adjacent branch of the German royal house of Hohenzollern, was offered the throne early in 1870, a development which deeply worried the French. The diplomatic stand-off came to a head on the 13th of July 1870 with the famous Ems Dispatch, an incident centred on a telegram sent to Bismarck while Wilhelm I was holidaying at the spa waters at Ems. Bismarck orchestrated it so that the telegram, which discussed Prussia and France's respective demands over the Spanish succession, was made public,
leading the French to retaliate by declaring war on the 19th of July. The Franco-Prussian War that followed was surprisingly short for a war that was so significant. After defeat at the Battle of Sedan, Emperor Napoleon III of France was deposed. The Prussians then pressed on and laid siege to Paris. Even before the war ended, Bismarck arranged for a ceremony at the Palace of Versailles on the 18th of January 1871 at which the leaders of the smaller German states agreed to unite into a new German Empire, with Wilhelm I ascending as Emperor Wilhelm I, a new
German Kaiser or Caesar. The eastern provinces of France, Lorraine and Alsace, the latter of which was broadly German-speaking and which were historically contested between France and the Holy Roman Empire, were annexed into the new German Empire. Bismarck's diplomatic coup was striking, not only had he united the German states, but he had done so under Prussian leadership, with Austria excluded. Two months later he transitioned to become the first Chancellor of the German Empire, while Wilhelm made him a Prince of the new empire at the same time.
Bismarck served as Chancellor of the German Empire for the next 19 years. It was an extremely complicated challenge. The new nation was a constitutional monarchy. Bismarck was appointed directly by the Kaiser and served at his discretion, but he still needed a parliamentary majority in order to ensure the passage of legislation through parliament and he needed to be able to pass lots of legislation at a time when Germany's economy was industrialising and modernising at a striking rate and a vast range of new economic and
social laws were needed. This required Bismarck to balance six or seven different political parties who represented diverse views in Germany, such as the Centre Party, the National Liberal Party, the Conservative Party and the German Progress Party. Some of these were on the left, others on the right, while others represented the sectional interests of the Roman Catholic minority in the empire or the large Polish minority that inhabited the far eastern lands. There were even separatist and regional parties, such as the German-Hanoverian Party and the
Alsace-Lorraine Party. Bismarck constantly moved the chairs around across the 1870s and 1880s, abandoning one alliance and forming another when events made it expedient to do so. Initially he was willing to countenance an alliance with the Liberals for economic reasons. Later he shifted to overtly align with the conservative parties, especially after the economic downturn created by the Long Depression of 1873. Ultimately German politics in the first two decades of the imperial era was a delicate balancing act to secure a majority for the passage of laws.
Much of the legislation Bismarck sought to pass concerned social policy. Germany's swift industrialisation had brought with it common problems as millions of people streamed into the cities and began living and working in sprawling tenements and grim factory settings. This in turn created demands for better working conditions and a diffusion of the wealth of the new Germany to provide basic services. Bismarck appears to have been one of the first statesmen to see with complete clarity that the best way to offset the rise of the radical socialists such as the
Communists was to fight them with more moderate socialist policies. In the 1880s, in particular, he began passing a series of laws that would provide the basic safety net for workers which are taken for granted in the western world today, yet which were only in gestation in the late nineteenth century. These included measures like the Sickness Insurance Act of 1883, which provided some basic pay for workers for several months if they became ill after years of working. Other laws provided for compensation in the event of being injured while working in factories and mines that
were far less safe in the nineteenth century than they are today. He also oversaw the introduction of the beginnings of a pension system and measures to provide access to basic healthcare. In short, Bismarck put in place the basic elements of a German welfare system. He didn't do this purely out of some Machiavellian desire to undermine the socialists. Although he was an inherently conservative politician, Bismarck also expressed a genuine desire to put in place measures that would make life for German workers better at a time when millions were leaving the country to settle
in countries like the United States, Canada, Brazil, Argentina, Chile and Paraguay. It was not all smooth sailing for Bismarck. In one area his trademark desire to balance all competing interests and placate everyone did not apply. This was in relation to Germany's Roman Catholics. Prussia was a staunchly Protestant kingdom, but the new empire contained a very sizeable Roman Catholic minority, especially in the lands of the Kingdom of Bavaria in the south, the second largest state next to Prussia to form the union in 1871.
Bismarck viewed the centralised power of the Roman Catholic Church as a threat to imperial authority and launched a war between church and state as soon as the new German Empire came into existence. The Kulturkampf or 'Culture War', as it is known, has to be viewed as part of a wider European push to reduce Rome's influence within the education system in nations like France where the church continued to play a prominent role in how children were educated, as well as infringing into areas of society which governments now considered their exclusive domains. While the Kulturkampf was
a constant running thread of German government policy under Bismarck, it was at its most intense between 1871 and 1875 when the Falk Laws or May Laws were being passed by the Minister of Culture, Adalbert Falk. These sought to place the education system throughout the empire exclusively under government control, in addition to either expelling groups like the Jesuits or reducing the influence of the holy orders. It was not just with the socialists at home that Bismarck was engaged in a campaign of containment. The same was true when it came to foreign policy.
The unification of Germany had fundamentally changed the balance of power in Europe. Since the end of the Napoleonic Wars there had been no rival to Britain in Europe, or indeed globally. Its empire continued to expand across the globe, while closer to home in Europe, France was greatly weakened and powers like Austria exerted great influence in regions like the Balkans, but did not have the international stature of the British Empire. Only Russia posed a threat of a kind, having ended the Napoleonic Wars as the emergent power of the
continent. The British were jealous of their superpower status and had fought the Crimean War between 1853 and 1856 to try to stop any further expansion of the Russian Empire in the Balkans and Black Sea region. German unification changed this dynamic. Suddenly there was a third great power of the continent again, with Germany's growing industrial might and sheer population levels creating a nation that could rival the British and Russians. Bismarck was wary of this. He wanted to give the British little reason to fear Germany and at the same time sought to build up a new
alliance which would leave Germany in a strong position should a future war come. Therefore, in October 1879, in a diplomatic masterstroke, he managed to negotiate the Dual Alliance with the Austro-Hungarian Empire, turning a nation which he had only recently waged war against into an ally. Three years later, after Italy lost out to the French in the rivalry to establish Tunisia as a colony, the Dual Alliance became the Triple Alliance. In an era when Britain, France and Russia were still seemingly unwilling to ally with each other in any way, the formation of the Triple
Alliance acted as a huge deterrent against any potential rivals of the German Empire. It was not that Bismarck simply managed to negate the threat of great power rivalry in this way. He presented himself as the leading statesman of the day; a figure who would ensure the continuation of the European peace. This was seen most clearly in 1878, after Russia's comprehensive defeat of the Ottoman Empire, in yet another Russo-Turkish War, had threatened to destabilise the balance of power in the Balkans. In response, Bismarck convened a conference of the great powers in Berlin that summer, with the key issue being the British
and Austrian determination to block the expansion of Russian influence in the Balkans through the creation of an independent Bulgaria, which would be a quasi-Russian vassal. At the conference, Bismarck succeeded in having the plans for a fully independent Bulgaria blocked, while Britain was placated by being given the island of Cyprus. More broadly, Bismarck managed to present himself and Germany as a sympathetic party towards British interests, while the Anglo-Russian rivalry was deepened temporarily. Such was the success of Bismarck's initiative that six and a half years
later, a second Congress of Berlin was convened, this time to mediate on a number of disputes that had arisen between the great powers in the rush to colonise Africa in the 1870s and 1880s. This latter conference is best known for securing the grant of the Congo as a personal fiefdom of King Leopold II of Belgium, a massive colony that became notorious for mass slavery and atrocities over the next quarter of a century. For Bismarck, though, the second gathering at Berlin confirmed his position as Europe's mediator and the conveying of the idea that Germany sought peace in Europe, rather than rivalry with Britain, in particular.
Although he presided over the second Congress of Berlin, which sought to work out a range of disputes between Britain, France, Italy, Belgium and Portugal concerning parts of Africa, Bismarck had been personally disinclined to drag the German Empire into the Scramble for Africa or the Scramble for Oceania that was underway in the Western Pacific Ocean. This was all tied into his strategy of containment and avoidance of war on the international stage. His perception was that if Germany entered into the colonial race, it could potentially aggravate tensions with Britain.
He also stated the view that the French could be distracted away from trying to reclaim Alsace and Lorraine if they were compensated with new colonies in Africa, which was generally correct, at least for a while. Therefore, for most of his time as Chancellor of the German Empire, the country avoided colonial entanglements. And then, suddenly, he capitulated to the growing colonial movement amongst the mercantile and business class in Germany. In 1884 the Germans had occupied a part of the island of New Guinea and several island chains in the southwest Pacific.
A foothold was also acquired in modern-day Namibia to establish the vast colony of German Southwest Africa. In the summer of 1885, a German armada arrived to east Africa and began carving out the colony of German East Africa in what is now Tanzania. Finally, smaller colonies were acquired to the north in Togoland and Cameroon. The second Congress of Berlin must be viewed in the context of Bismarck's sudden capitulation to the colonial lobby group within Germany in 1884. Historians have long questioned the motives for Bismarck's sudden change of heart when it came
to the creation of a German colonial empire. The most likely cause of his abrupt shift in sentiment was an awareness that his great patron of more than twenty years was not long for the world and that a change of ruler would bring an altered stance on colonisation. Wilhelm I had turned 87 in March 1884 and his son and grandson were both more inclined to expand as a colonial power, especially his grandson, Wilhelm. Bismarck was potentially trying to move on an issue which he knew would become a problem for him as Chancellor within a short period of time. If this was his
motivation, subsequent events would quickly prove his instinct correct. Wilhelm I lived in the end until the eve of his 91st birthday, dying on the 9th of March 1888. This then became known as the Year of the Three Emperors as his son succeeded as Frederick III and promptly died just three months later from cancer of the larynx, bringing his own son to the throne as Kaiser Wilhelm II. The new ruler was much more inclined to play an active role in politics than his grandfather had been. Moreover, he wanted Germany to stress its position as a new great power on the world stage,
the very thing which Bismarck had sought to avoid since 1871 for fear of aggravating relations with Britain. Bismarck had a problem. The rapid turnover of leaders in 1888 had taken Bismarck by surprise. He had expected to have to deal with Frederick, not the younger and much more difficult Wilhelm II. Furthermore, it was not simply that they disagreed on foreign policy matters. In 1889 it became clear that they were also at cross purposes when it came to many domestic policy issues. Wilhelm was hardly a socialist, but he was inclined to
make broader concessions in the sphere of economic and social policy, for the simple reason that he was a populist with a desire to be seen as a new, benevolent ruler. On several occasions in 1889 the Kaiser and the Chancellor clashed over legislation which Bismarck was looking to pass to strengthen his anti-socialist position. This led to a souring of relations which deteriorated into outright conflict by the start of 1890 as Bismarck became reluctant to sign off on documentation which Wilhelm had already put his name to. Bismarck's efforts to then form a new working majority in
parliament that would include the Catholic Centre Party, without seeking Wilhelm's permission, infuriated the Kaiser. It is often suggested that when Bismarck eventually offered his letter of resignation on the 18th of March 1890, that he did so in the naive belief that Wilhelm would refuse it and that the threat of losing the great chancellor would force the emperor into a less active role in government. In reality, nothing of the sort happened. Bismarck was told to offer his resignation or he would be forced out of government in a less dignified manner.
Thus, when the letter was presented in mid-March, the Kaiser accepted it, and after 28 years as the head of Prussia and then Germany, Bismarck was suddenly no longer the Chancellor. Bismarck retired to his country estate following his resignation. He was succeeded as Chancellor by Leo von Caprivi, the head of the Imperial Admiralty between 1883 and 1888. There was an almost immediate shift in policy. Bismarck had secretly negotiated the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia in 1887, a clandestine agreement which stipulated that neither side would join any war in
which the other was engaged against a third power. It basically constituted a secretive agreement that Germany would not honour the Triple Alliance if Austria and Russia went to war against each other in the Balkans. Simultaneously it insured that Russia would not ally with France to launch a two-front war against Germany. Von Caprivi declined to renew it in 1890. As the Reinsurance Treaty was a secret agreement, Bismarck was not at liberty to discuss it in retirement, but he was publicly critical of other policies pursued by the Kaiser and Caprivi in the early 1890s.
He also composed his memoirs, entitled Gedanken und Erinnerungen, or Thoughts and Memories, as a way of bolstering his own legacy. Despite his resentments about having to leave office, his health was deteriorating in a way which would have ended his political career anyway had Wilhelm not done so. By 1895 he was largely incapacitated and could not walk unaided. Perhaps emboldened by an awareness that his own end was not far away, in 1896 he published the text of the Reinsurance Treaty of 1887, a highly controversial move which threatened to completely
undermine the alliance with Austria. Wilhelm did not punish him, aware that Bismarck was literally rotting away at his manor in Friedrichsruh. There he had developed gangrene which gradually spread, finally taking his life at 83 years of age on the 30th of July 1898. In a pointed insult towards the reigning Kaiser, his sarcophagus in the Bismarck Mausoleum just outside of Friedrichsruh was inscribed with a statement that he had been a loyal servant of Kaiser Wilhelm I. Had Bismarck lived for another twenty or so years he would have seen everything he had worked for
his entire life overthrown. Under Wilhelm II Germany became more aggressive and confrontational on the world stage. This was already in evidence while Bismarck was still alive, but it escalated in a dramatic way in the 1900s, especially in relation to the one power that Bismarck had always tried to appease: Britain. A completely misjudged naval arms race that Germany could never win was entered into, while a project to build a vast railway from Berlin to Baghdad, thus opening up German trade and diplomatic ties east to the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean beyond,
spheres of British influence since the middle of the eighteenth century, aggravated the situation further. Rivalries were sparked with France and others in Africa, while tensions continued to simmer between Austria and Russia in the Balkans as the Ottoman Empire collapsed there. As all of this occurred, Britain, France and Russia, who had traditionally been rivals of one another in various spheres, drew closer. In 1904, the Entente Cordiale was agreed between Britain and France, by which time the French and Russians had been aligning diplomatically and militarily for
over a decade. The two-front war on the continent which Bismarck had feared was now a real prospect for Germany, as was British aggression. In 1914 a crisis in the Balkans spiralled into a full-blown continental war. Germany was defeated in the First World War after more than four years of fighting. At the peace conference in Paris in 1919 it was stripped of substantial territory in the east, lost Alsace and Lorraine in the west, and was forced to accept demilitarisation and punitive war reparations payments. All of its colonies were taken and divided up amongst the
victorious powers as well. As this happened, socialist revolutionaries fought to claim control over cities like Berlin and Munich. Bismarck's life work was largely in ruins. Otto von Bismarck is one of the world's few statesmen whose name is memorialised around the world today. The managers of the Northern Pacific Railway named a settlement in the Great Plains of America during the Dakota Boom of the 1870s and 1880s after him as a way of attracting German settlers to this part of the American frontier. Bismarck is the second largest city
of North Dakota today, while on the other side of the world, the Bismarck Archipelago in the south-western Pacific is a testament to the great man's legacy. There are few historians who do not acknowledge Bismarck's remarkable abilities. The manner in which he forged the German Empire together in less than a decade after he became Minister President of Prussia, was one of the most significant acts of statecraft in modern history. It changed the history of Europe and the world. Perhaps even more impressive was Bismarck's capacity for managing the complicated internal
politics of the new Germany in the 1870s and maintaining a peaceful balance of power across Europe in an age when Europe's great nations were anxious for war after decades of peace. Bismarck neutralised the powers of Central Europe by forming the Triple Alliance and then skilfully isolating France, placating Britain and secretly aligning with Russia. Few leaders of a powerful nation have ever managed so many challenges as deftly as Bismarck for nearly twenty years. The problem was what came after: all of Bismarck's successors were incapable of maintaining the
system he had created, and Wilhelm II actively sought to destroy it. Two world wars were the consequence when the Bismarckian system failed. Even after the damage inflicted by Wilhelm, the Nazis and latterly the Soviets, the country emerged as the powerhouse of Europe in the second half of the twentieth century. German unification still influences the world today. What do you think of Otto von Bismarck? Was he one of the greatest statesmen in modern history or did he largely build a system which delayed resolution of the problems
created by the unification of Germany and which ultimately led to the First World War in 1914? Please let us know in the comment section, and in the meantime, thank you very much for watching.
