Bismarck: The Founding of A German Empire

1
Bismarck The Founding of A German Empire

• Section 13.65

2
Introduction

• Keeping Germany divided was the focus of France
  and Russia since the Reformation
• One primary outcome of the fragmentation was the
  shift of modernization to the sea board
• A second outcome of the fragmentation was the
  rise of the military empire in Russia and its
  spread westward into Poland
• The marginalized position of Germany was evident
  at the Peace of 1856 (Crimean War)

3
Introduction

• The Napoleonic Wars sparked a sense of
  nationalism in Germany
• Uniqueness of German culture and rejection of
  Enlightenments universalism was germinating
• Superior feelings toward the Slavs
• Hegelian philosophy fostered a feeling that
  individualism was western, not German
• Hegels philosophy glorified group loyalties,
  collectivist principals and the state first
• History would dictate to human beings (roots and
  trees) the states destiny
• History was said to ordain, require,
  necessitate, condemn, justify, or excuse.

4
The German States after 1848

• Revolutions of 1848 unseated several gov of
  Germany
• Private citizens assembled at Frankfurt in hope
  of creating a united Germany via constitutional
  methods
• They failed. Why?
• Frankfurt Assembly failed because it had no power
  (Prussian Military)
• Frankfurt Assembly was not revolutionary enough
• Sober, orderly, respectful

5
The German States after 1848

• Movement toward die Macht (resume power)
• But member of Frankfurt Assembly were still
  attached to their own states
• The Italian example of the revolutionary
  destruction of all old governments (except
  Piedmont) would not work in Germany
• The loose confederation (Bund) was restored by
  1850

6
Advantages of Unity

• Revolutionist were confused after the failure of
  1848
• Old states (Austria, Prussia, Hanover, Saxony,
  Bavaria, Wurttemberg were restored
• Loose confederation of 1815 (Bund) that linked
  them together restored
• But great economic and social changes were
  evident
• b/t 1850-1870 Coal and iron output was increasing
• The Zollverein (formed in Prussia in 1834) was
  growing to include most of Germany outside
  Austria (economic unity)

7
Advantages of Unity

• Cities were growing
• Rail and telegraph was expanding
• Capital and labor (industrial revolution) was
  increasing
• Advantages of unity were obvious
• German cultural character of an exaggerated
  respect for the state and power, habit of
  accepting events as the judgment of history made
  the plum was ripe for the picking
• Enter Prussia

8
Prussia in the 1860s Bismarck

• Had always been the smallest and most precarious
  of the great powers
• owed its international influence and character to
  its military
• Used the army to expand by conquest or diplomacy
• Silesia in 1740
• Poland in the late 1770s, 90s

9
Prussia in the 1860s Bismarck

• After 1850 the situation was grim
• Shaken by Revolution
• Crimean War and Congress of Paris 1856 Prussia
  was ignored
• Italy was unified to the south without any
  Prussian yes or no
• Prussias power was waning

10
Parliamentary politics

• Prussias parliament was led by the wealthy
• Some of the wealthy (liberal Rhinelanders) wanted
  parliament to have control over economic matters
• Junkers were perceived by the liberals as
  barriers to reform (they were)
• Liberals didnt like professional armies and
  refused appropriations for its expansion
• Enter Bismarck

11
Bismarck

• 1862 Bismarck is appointed as the Chief Minister
• From the finest cut of Junker class but more
  intellectual than landlord class
• Was like Junkers in his pietism
• Not deterred by criticism
• Loyal to Prussia
• German unification is a means to elevating
  Prussian status
• Junker sympathies in his nature led him to find
  the west materialistic, turbulent, revolutionary
• Parliaments were ineffective
• Liberty was selfish and disorderly

12
Bismarck

• Stressed duty, service, order (ordun)
• there has to be order
• Realpolitik philosophy
• Had no ideology, No set principle
• Somewhat Machiavellian
• Used war as a tool of statecraft
• Not farseeing
• Was practical and opportunistic and winged it as
  things came up

13
Constitutional Struggles (1862-1866)

• Parliament refused to pass taxes
• Bismarck (minister president) collected them
  anyway
• People paid them (orderliness)
• Docile population who had exaggerated respect for
  officialdom
• Liberals lack of power was exposed
• Parliament called his policies unconstitutional

14
Constitutional Struggles (1862-1866)

• Bismarck acted anyway claiming the best interests
  of the state
• Said the constitution could not have been meant
  to undermine the state
• Parliament argued that Prussian liberalism would
  attract Germany
• Bismarck argued that Prussian power would attract
  Germany and
• Prussia would grow not by speeches and majority
  votesbut by blood and iron

15
Bismarcks Wars North German Confederation,1867

• Danes wanted to make the duchy of Schleswig part
  of Denmark
• Population was mixed (Dane and German)
• German Confederation called for all-German war on
  Danes
• Bismarck (not wanting to strengthen the Diet)
  joined with just Austria and invaded Schleswig
  and Holstein
• Bismarck arranged that Prussia would occupy
  Schleswig, and Austria, Holstein
• Internal unrest over the occupation isolated
  Austria
• Austria was isolated as Bismarck nurtured a
  relationship with Napoleon III
• Had charmed Nap at Biarritz

16
Bismarcks Wars North German Confederation,1867

• Russia had its own problems and liked Bismarck
• England was following a nonintervention policy
• Bismarck held out to Italy Venetia
• Bismarck (under the pretense of democracy)
  proposed to reform the German Confederation
  (universal male-suffrage)
• He knew that most Germans werent loyal to their
  existing governments and used democracy as his
  wedge

17
North German Confederation,1867
18
Seven Weeks War

• Austria brought quarrel over Schleswig-Holstein
  to German federal diet
• Bismarck said that this was an aggressive move,
  the diet had no authority, and moved in Holstein
• Austria appeals to all Germany (1866)
• Prussian army showed its superiority
• defeated the combined force at Sadowa
  (Austro-Prussian War)
• Needles guns (allowed infantryman to deliver five
  rounds a minute)
• Used RR
• German von Moltke led capable army to victory in
  seven weeks

19
Result of 7 Weeks War

• Prussia annexed Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover,
  Nassau, Hesse-Cassel, Frankfurt
• Old governments were swallowed up by red
  reactionary
• German federal union disappeared was replaced
  by Northern Confederation (21 small states)
• German states south of river Main (Austria,
  Baden, Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Hesse-Darmastadt
  were outside the North Confed
• Italy takes Venetia

In this cartoon, the personification of Denmark
watches contentedly as Austria and Prussia fight
the Seven Weeks' (or Austro-Prussian) War, while
Prussia's ally, Italy (in the guise of King
Victor Emanuel), enters the scene with sword
unsheathed.  Denmark's cession of Schleswig and
Holstein to both Austria and Prussia jointly
following the Danish War (1864) served as the
immediate cause of the Seven Weeks' War two years
later.
20
Result of 7 Weeks War
In this cartoon, the personification of Denmark
watches contentedly as Austria and Prussia fight
the Seven Weeks' (or Austro-Prussian) War, while
Prussia's ally, Italy (in the guise of King
Victor Emanuel), enters the scene with sword
unsheathed.  Denmark's cession of Schleswig and
Holstein to both Austria and Prussia jointly
following the Danish War (1864) served as the
immediate cause of the Seven Weeks' War two years
later.

• Prussia annexed Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover,
  Nassau, Hesse-Cassel, Frankfurt
• Old governments were swallowed up by red
  reactionary
• German federal union disappeared was replaced
  by Northern Confederation (21 small states)
• German states south of river Main (Austria,
  Baden, Bavaria, Wurttemberg, Hesse-Darmastadt
  were outside the North Confed
• Italy takes Venetia

21
A New Constitution

• Bismarck proposed new constitution
• A federal structure
• King would be hereditary and ministers
  responsible to him
• 2 chamber parliament
• Upper house was for the states
• Lower house (Reichstag) was elected by universal
  suffrage
• This seemed crazy to the conservative Junkers

Ferdinand Lassalle
22
A New Constitution

• Bismarck believed that he could use the masses as
  a key ally against private interests
• negotiated freely with popular interests
• He worked with socialists to improve working
  class conditions
• Socialist followed Ferdinand Lassalle who unlike
  Marx said that improvement could be attained via
  parliamentary means
• The empire is growing

Ferdinand Lassalle
23
The Franco-Prussian War

• Who would the small south German states gravitate
  to (France, Prussia, or Austria)
• Napoleon III was under heavy pressure in France
  for
• His Mexico intervention
• Allowing a united Italy to emerge
• Allowing a large German state to emerge

24
The Franco-Prussian War

• Bismarck used the potential of French expansion
  to bring southern German states into the
  confederation and leave Austria out of the loop
• Threat of war with France would push the southern
  states toward Prussia
• Napoleon III felt a victory against Prussia would
  revive his position in France

25
France Thwarts New Spanish King

• Revolution in Spain drove reigning queen into
  exile
• Provisional govt. invited Prince Leopold of
  Hohenzollern, king of Prussias cousin, to be
  king of Spain
• 3 times Hohenzollern family refused offer
• Bismarck persuaded Spanish to ask once more
• 7/2/1870 Paris heard that Leo had accepted
• French ambassador to Prussia, Benedetti, met king
  of Prussia at resort (Ems)
• Demanded Leo withdraw it, which it was- on July
  12
• Then France demanded a commitment from
  Hohenzollerns that no they would never rule Spain
• King politely refused

Ems Telegram
26
France Thwarts New Spanish King

• The exchange was recorded (Ems dispatch), edited
  by Bismarck and published
• He saw a chance to wave a red flag before the
  Gallic bull
• Made it seems that King was insulted (Germany was
  insulted)
• Made it seem that the ambassador of France was
  snubbed
• War parties gathered in both countries
• 7/19/1870 Napoleon declares war on Prussia

Ems Telegram
27
A Short War

• England felt France was in the wrong (concerned
  about actions in Mexico)
• Italians were poised to seize Rome
• They did in 1870
• Russia was waiting for a chance to get a naval
  presence in the Black Sea
• This was against the Peace of 1856
• They did in 1870
• France had no allies
• At Sedan the French were defeated
• Napoleon III was taken prisoner
• Riots in Paris deposed the government and
  declared the Third Republic
• Prussia took Paris after laying siege for 4 months

This Harper's Weekly cartoon by Thomas Nast
sketches the crowning of King Wilhelm I of
Prussia as Emperor (Kaiser) of Germany, after the
unification of the German states into a single
nation in 1871.  Nast portrays Otto von Bismarck,
the Prussian chancellor, as the (political)
artist who has redrawn the map of Germany. 
Wilhelm I looks vainly in a mirror, admiring his
imperial crown, while his kingly (König) crown
lies in the trash basket.  The mirror is held by
King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who joined the
Prussian fight against France in July 1870, and
that December, at Bismarck's urging, wrote a
public letter proposing creation of a unified
German empire. 
28
A Short War
This Harper's Weekly cartoon by Thomas Nast
sketches the crowning of King Wilhelm I of
Prussia as Emperor (Kaiser) of Germany, after the
unification of the German states into a single
nation in 1871.  Nast portrays Otto von Bismarck,
the Prussian chancellor, as the (political)
artist who has redrawn the map of Germany. 
Wilhelm I looks vainly in a mirror, admiring his
imperial crown, while his kingly (König) crown
lies in the trash basket.  The mirror is held by
King Ludwig II of Bavaria, who joined the
Prussian fight against France in July 1870, and
that December, at Bismarck's urging, wrote a
public letter proposing creation of a unified
German empire. 

• England felt France was in the wrong (concerned
  about actions in Mexico)
• Italians were poised to seize Rome
• They did in 1870
• Russia was waiting for a chance to get a naval
  presence in the Black Sea
• This was against the Peace of 1856
• They did in 1870
• France had no allies
• At Sedan the French were defeated
• Napoleon III was taken prisoner
• Riots in Paris deposed the government and
  declared the Third Republic
• Prussia took Paris after laying siege for 4 months

29
The German Empire, 1871

• The German rulers assembled at Versailles
• The Prussian King is proclaimed Emperor, German
  Empire is proclaimed
• Paris surrendered (starving)
• No government existed for Germany to negotiate
  with
• Bismarck called for the election of a Constituent
  Assembly (by universal suffrage)
• Demanded reparations of 5 billion gold francs
• Seized Alsace and Lorraine (They were not asked)

30
The German Empire, 1871

• The German rulers assembled at Versailles
• The Prussian King is proclaimed Emperor, German
  Empire is proclaimed
• Paris surrendered (starving)
• No government existed for Germany to negotiate
  with
• Bismarck called for the election of a Constituent
  Assembly (by universal suffrage)
• Demanded reparations of 5 billion gold francs
• Seized Alsace and Lorraine (They were not asked)

31
The Strength of the German State

• War reversed the dictum of the Peace of Vienna
  and Westphalia
• Germany became at its birth the strongest state
  on the continent
• Continued its rapid industrialization
• Bis had outsmarted everyone (even the Germans)
• Bismarck and the Parliament made amends
• He admitted to high handedness during the
  constitutional struggles and they passed his
  taxes (ex post facto)
• Liberalism was derailed by nationalism
• German Empire was a federation of monarchies
  (divine right)
• But the Reichstag was elected by universal male
  suffrage

32
The Strength of the German State

• Ministers were responsible to the emperor, not
  the elected chamber
• The rulers, not the people joined the empire
• Each state kept its own laws and gov
• Emperor (the king of Prussia) had legal control
  over foreign and military policy
• The Emperor was the king of Prussia and magnified
  Prussian influence
• Bismarcks masterpiece was nearing completion
• Stay tuned for dropping off the pilot