¶ … Otto Von Bismarck achieve the unification of Germany?
Del Delosandro T. Dugeon
Western Civilization II History 1102
It is proven by many centuries of international relations' history that some strong country appeared every century and was able to change the traditional system of international relations according to own values in this sphere. For example XVII century can be characterized as a period of French influence when French monarchs considered the main priorities of their foreign policy to be fighting for national interests of their mono-national country. XVIII century is famous for British equilibrium conception which meant that no European country should be stronger that any other state, particularly Britain. And the same occurred in 19th century when Germany led by Bismarck created new order in Europe, which meant that the major factor of international relations was military and economical strength. So, French theory of "raigon d'etat" (which meant using any methods to achieve success in national foreign policy) was replaced by Bismarck's conception of "Realpolitik" which valued only aggressive force as the leading method of international relations.
"Iron Chancellor" Otto von Bismarck was the main personality of that time; he was a unique kind of politics who managed achieving great success, which determined major events in Europe in the 20th century. Unified strong and powerful empire was the main result of his wise diplomacy and active (sometimes even aggressive) politics. Bismarck succeeded forming absolutely new nation united by the ideology of creating a new German Empire which had to be strong and powerful enough to protect German nation and revenge those European countries which bothered development of Germany for many centuries. Unified state was a dream for millions of common Germans and at last that dream came true: new era of German history began. Europe was forced to respect new strong state and all European monarchs realized they would have to reckon with that new power.
To begin with we should remember that Germany had been a separated territory for many centuries; it included weak states, which cooperated with each other only as small parts of ineffective confederation. Sure, such country would never have any chance to go on developing and improving own political, economical and cultural spheres of social life. Germany stayed an outdated territory which lived own life separately from progressive processes occurred in the leading European countries, such as France, Britain and even Russia. There were only two rather strong German states: Prussia and Austria, which could be the centers of possible unification of all German lands. Austria was a leader in German Confederation but didn't have strong national economics because it was a typical agricultural country. Prussia was a real police regime, which found order to be the main sense of life of all Prussians, but, though, being extremely antidemocratic state, Prussia was the most developed industrial part of disintegrated Germany and also had rather strong army. Ultimately just exactly this state and its politician O. von Bismarck became the leading power in great unification of Germany.
Bismarck was a typical Prussian aristocrat whose political views in the beginning of his career were rather conservative. He joined Gerlach group (conservative aristocrats) and found the main aim preserving aristocracy from bureaucratization; in other words, his political views of this early period were very traditional and reactionary. Later he realized weakness of this ideology and considered Prussian hegemony in German Confederation as the main condition of any important political success. Prussia, which was dear to Bismarck's heart was considered to be the dominant state in Northern Europe and had to unite all German lands even under the condition of bloody war. As Prussian politician "he refused to put up with Prussia's traditional role as junior partner to Austria ... " (Imanuel Geiss, Fred Bridgham The Question of German Unification: 1806-1996 p. 44) and he noticed that only under the condition of strong power and aggressive foreign policy Prussia could achieve success because as "Iron Chancellor" said:"The position of Prussia in Germany will not be determined by its liberalism but by its power..." (Bruno Schneider The Great Unification p.289.)
Bismarck's political career began in 1849 after he was elected to the Prussian Landtag (Chamber of Deputies). Later he was sent to St. Petersburg where he learnt particularities of this powerful state's diplomacy and became a real master of foreign affairs. Russian Chancellor Gorchakov valued his talents. Then Bismarck was sent to Paris as Prussian minister and 11...
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