IV.

The Wars of Unification

It was Bismarck’s goal to unite the German states into a strong, single, German empire with Prussia at its centre. Bismarck knew that war would be necessary to achieve German unification, and he began to plan accordingly. Though at first Bismarck’s policies were not well received by the parliament, public opinion began shifting to his side in 1864. In that year he used the expanded Prussian army, in alliance with Austria, to wrest the provinces of Schleswig and Holstein (see Schleswig-Holstein) from Denmark. Two years later he escalated a Prusso-Austrian quarrel over the administration of these provinces into the Seven Weeks’ War against Austria and other German states. Austria and its allies were quickly defeated, and Bismarck incorporated Schleswig-Holstein, Hanover, and some other territories into Prussia. The German Confederation was dissolved and was replaced by the North German Confederation, which consisted of the northern and central German states, under Prussian leadership. Austria was not included in the new confederation.

Other members of the government wanted to march victoriously through the Austrian capital. Bismarck instead negotiated a peace that did not humiliate Austria. His primary goal was to avoid making an enemy of the Austrians; he wanted Austria to remain neutral in any future war with France. As a result of these wars, Bismarck won the support of Prussia’s parliament; in 1866 it passed legislation retroactively sanctioning his military expenditures over the previous four years.

Bismarck tried repeatedly to entice the southern German states into a confederation with the north, but these attempts failed due to popular opposition in the south. Bismarck decided that the only way to bring the south into an alliance with the north was to start a war that threatened both north and south equally. In 1870 Bismarck provoked hostilities with the French by editing an important diplomatic exchange between Prussia and France to sound insulting and hostile towards the French. French politicians were infuriated and declared war on Prussia. In the ensuing Franco-Prussian War, Bismarck secured the support of the southern German states by warning them that France intended to conquer their territories. The combined Prussian and German armies were quickly victorious, Paris was captured, and France was occupied by German and Prussian troops. As Bismarck had assumed, the successful war with France won the support of the south German states, and in 1871 they agreed to join with the members of the North German Confederation in a newly unified German Empire. King William I of Prussia became the German emperor and, as a final humiliation of the defeated French, was crowned at Versailles, outside Paris, on January 18, 1871.