NOTE: Free essay sample provided on this page should be used for references or sample purposes only. The sample essay is available to anyone, so any direct quoting without mentioning the source will be considered plagiarism by schools, colleges and universities that use plagiarism detection software. To get a completely brand-new, plagiarism-free essay, please use our essay writing service.
One click instant price quote
... of an advanced school and university system. For a long time Prussia had the highest literacy rate and exemplary schools. This was partly a consequence of the reforms in the wake of the Prussian defeat against Napoleon.
Industrialization was accompanied by rapid population growth and urbanization, the expansion of the middle classes and of the proletariat, which began to constitute independent organizations. After having lagged behind Western Europe for three hundred years, Germany caught up within two decades. From 1773 the kings of Denmark held both duchies, Schleswig as full sovereigns, Holstein as princes of the Holy Roman Empire. Both duchies were in personal union with, but not part of, Denmark.
The Congress of Vienna (1814 - 15) did not change the status of the two duchies, except that the German Confederation had succeeded the Holy Roman Empire in its suzerainty over Holstein. The German Confederation later guaranteed a constitution for Holstein. On November 1863, just before Frederick's death, a common constitution for Denmark and Schleswig was drawn up. His successor, Christian IX, signed the constitution, which the German diet declared in violation of the protocol. In January 1864, Prussia and Austria declared war on Denmark, which was easily defeated.
Bismarck, who was guiding Prussian policy, had already resolved to annex the duchies and had encouraged the Danish War with that end in view. By the Treaty of Gastein (1865) with Austria, Bismarck deliberately imposed a solution that was bound to create friction with Austria. Schleswig was placed under Prussian administration and Holstein under Austrian administration, while the duchy of Lauenburg (also lost by Denmark in 1864) went to Prussia in return for a money payment to Austria. The dual administration led, as Bismarck had anticipated, to such tension that Austria could easily be maneuvered into a war with Prussia.
This war against Denmark gave Bismarck a chance to test out the strength of the Prussian army and the Austrian army. Prussian power and influence in Northern Germany had been extended. Austria had been forced to give the initiative in leading the German Confederation to Prussia. Bismarck realized that if Prussia were to become the main power in Germany Austria had to be dealt with sooner or later. The confrontation would come about partly as a result of arguments over the administration of Schleswig and Holstein. He also felt that the Danish war showed that Britain and Russia would be unlikely to interfere in a war between Prussia and Austria.
Bismarck then crafted an alliance with Napoleon III of France, receiving assurances that the French emperor would remain neutral in the event of military conflict between Austria and Prussia. Bismarck promised Venetia to the Italians in exchange for their support of Prussia. Tensions mounted, and in June 1866 Austria declared war on Prussia. Austria was no match for Prussian armed forces, which used the telegraph and rail links in its mobilization.
As an ardent and aggressive Prussian nationalist, Bismarck had long been an opponent of Austria because both states sought primacy within the same area -- Germany. Austria had been weakened by reverses abroad, including the loss of territory in Italy, and by the 1860 s, because of clumsy diplomacy, had no foreign allies outside Germany. Bismarck used a diplomatic dispute to provoke Austria to declare war on Prussia in 1866. Against expectations, Prussia quickly won the Seven Weeks' War (also known as the Austro-Prussian War) against Austria and its south German allies. Bismarck imposed a lenient peace on Austria because he recognized that Prussia might later need the Austrians as allies. But he dealt harshly with the other German states that had resisted Prussia and expanded Prussian territory by annexing Hanover, Schleswig-Holstein, some smaller states, and the city of Frankfurt.
The German Confederation was replaced by the North German Confederation and was furnished with both a constitution and a parliament. Austria was excluded from Germany. South German states outside the confederation -- Baden, Wrttemberg, and Bavaria -- were tied to Prussia by military alliances. For Prussia to win this war, to a great extent, Bismarck's diplomacy and reforms were crucial. The Treaty of Prague of August 1866 officially ended the Seven Weeks' War, resulting in Prussia's control of both Schleswig and Holstein. Once again, this war succeeded with Bismarck's clever diplomacy to a great extent.
The emergence of Prussia as the leading German power and the increasing unification of the German states were viewed with apprehension by Napoleon III after the Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Bismarck, at the same time, deliberately encouraged the growing rift between Prussia and France in order to bring the states of South Germany into a national union. He made sure of Russian and Italian neutrality and counted-correctly-on British neutrality. War preparations were pushed on both sides, with remarkable inefficiency in France and with astounding thoroughness in Prussia. The immediate pretext for war presented itself when the throne of Spain was offered to a prince of the house of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a branch of the ruling house of Prussia. The offer, at first accepted on Bismarck's advice, was rejected (July 12) after a strong French protest.
But the aggressive French foreign minister, the Duke de Grant, insisted on further Prussian assurances, which King William I of Prussia (later Emperor William I) refused. Bismarck, by publishing the famous Ems telegram to the press, inflamed French feeling, and on July 19, 1870 France declared war. This war would become known to history as the Franco-Prussian War. Nationalistic fervor was ignited by the promised annexation of Lorraine and Alsace, which had belonged to the Holy Roman Empire and had been seized by France in the seventeenth century. With this goal in sight, the south German states eagerly joined in the war against the country that had come to be seen as Germany's traditional enemy. Bismarck's major war aim: the voluntary entry of the south German states into a constitutional German nation-state, occurred during the patriotic frenzy generated by stunning military victories against French forces in the fall of 1870.
In the end, France was defeated and The Treaty of Frankfurt was signed. France had to then pay indemnity and lost Alsace and Lorraine to Germany. Months before the peace treaty was signed with France in May 1871, a united Germany was established as the German Empire, and the Prussian king, William I, was crowned its emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. To a great extent, this war was again due to Bismarck's plans and diplomacy especially shown through the Ems Telegram Incident.
As a conclusion, without Bismarck's help from his reforms to his clever diplomacy, the unification of Germany might not have been successful. He was an aggressive leader, which reshaped Europe in the nineteenth-century; they also tended to write national histories. He also dominated explanations of German unification. Bismarck finished the unification of Germany more effectively and economically than other unifications, with short and limited wars and after the unification in 1971, he prevented all further wars.
As Kaiser Wilhelm I once said, "It isn't easy to be an emperor under a chancellor like this one [Bismarck]." Politically, Bismarck was undoubtedly a force to be reckoned with, with an aggressive foreign policy. His diplomacy of blood and iron was a great force that called for an active foreign policy, which emphasized that Prussia had to keep its power together always because the people of Germany did not look at Prussia's liberalism, but at its power.
Free research essays on topics related to: unification of germany, german confederation, austro prussian, south german states, holy roman empire
Research essay sample on Germany Unification And Diplomacy
