Prussia and Bismarck Essay

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Evaluate the role Bismarck played in bringing about the unification of the German states under Prussian leadership

The formation of a united Germany in central Europe marked one of the greatest transformations in the History of international relations. And the most notable person behind this unification, as History reveals, is Otto Von Bismarck. This brave, conniving, clever and skilful soldier who always had Prussia at heart did everything possible to push German unification through "blood and iron" and he had a skilful understanding of real politics. During the course of this merge, this unification of Germany between 1862 and 1871 was a result of the three wars fought by Prussia against Denmark, Austria and France and all these were made possible via Bismarck.

At the foremost, Bismarck focussed more on his military and its delivery and strength by providing army reform that William I wanted to enforce. Quite notably Bismarck was a forceful leader, almost a dictator who enforced his own laws and was highly persuasive by deceiving many people. As such he underwent numerous steps to ensure that he gave great motivation and set precedence. One such motivation is quite evident in his “blood and iron” speech in1862 where he sets the tone in future policies as he was determined to build a strong unified German state with Prussia as the leader. He tried to prove to the constitution that Prussia needed to build more military power, “for it is not by speeches and resolutions that the great questions of the time are decided but by iron and blood.” (Blood and Iron speech, September 30, 1862). Iron being the winning technology produced by the industrialisation and Blood being the wars that Prussia will fight in, this is anything but liberalism and Bismarck did effectively use both diplomacy and the Prussian military to achieve the so called unification. One such example was when Denmark decided to capture Schleswig, Bismarck joined forces with Austria in order to cover his intent to increase territory and together they attacked Denmark in 1864. Furthermore, with Prussia’s available modern equipment, the war was won easily and quickly. As a result, Holstein was given to Austria and Schleswig to Prussia. However, things didn’t turn out as was expected. Both after gaining their territory, Prussia and Austria began to argue over rights of passage to the territories, reason being, in order to reach Holstein, Austrians had to go through Prussian territory. This caused serious tension, and while Bismarck was pretending to be aiming for peace at this point in time, he was in fact egging each side on, and after the issue grew too big, they declared war, which lasted seven weeks. Soon a victory for Prussia was seen, due to its high military support and new rail and road networks, which helped the Prussian troops, move quicker than the Austrian. All these actions of Bismarck saw him as a very powerful leader and most German states started trusting and believing in him, so was the start of his unification process.

In his role in bringing about the unification of the German states, Bismarck played out his conniving plans in order to start up a war with France, all to his advantage. It all started when the queen of Spain was removed, Prussian kings cousin (William I) Prince Leopold became a favoured candidate to be the next ruler. And so on July 2 1870, Leopold took the offer but the French ambassador to Prussia; Count Benedetti opposed the idea and insisted Leopold’s candidature to never be reconsidered in the future again as he was related to the Prussian royal house, the Hohenzollerns. And afterwards when Benedetti and William met on the second time at Ems to discuss the issue, it ended on a good tone. It so happened that William telegraphed the account of the meeting to Bismarck in Berlin who then edited the Kings telegram in such a way that it seemed that Benedetti had insulted the king and the ambassadors. Bismarck wanted to
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