No episode was more momentous in the Nineteenth Century European history than the unification of Germany. This was the fusion of ten electors of the Holy Roman Emperor that ruled German electorates as archbishop of Cologne, Mainz, Trier, King of Bohemia, the Count Palatine of the Rhine, the Duke of Saxony, Margrave of Brandenburg, Duke of Bavaria and King of Hanover. The unification not only provided impetus to German nationalistic aspirations but turned out to be the cause of the two great wars.

The man behind this epoch was the Prussian statesman and Prime Minster of Prussia, Edward Leopold, Prince Otto Von Bismarck, who later on become the first Chancellor of the unified German Empire in 1871. Otto von Bismarck was born on April 1, 1815, at Schonhausen, Brandenburg. His father was a landowner, however, his mother came from an education bourgeois family. It was the mother who inspired Bismarck to study law at the University of Gottingen in Hanover. Academically he was a mediocre student, spending much of his time drinking with his comrades in the aristocratic fraternity. He then had a brief stint in civil service during which his mother expired.

The marriage after a short courtship with an already wedded Johanna von Puttkamer, the daughter of a conservative aristocratic family famed for its devout pietism paved the way for Bismarck to enter the religious conservative circle. He viewed aristocratic liberals who made England as a model for Prussia with sarcasm. In 1847, he attended Diet (parliament) where his speeches against Jewish emancipation and contemporary liberalism gained him the reputation of a backward conservative out of touch with the dynamic forces of the age.

In 1849 he was elected to the Prussian Chamber of Deputies. At this stage he was far from a German nationalist. He told one of his fellow conservatives, “We are Prussians, and Prussians we shall remain … We do not wish to see the Kingdom of Prussia obliterated in the putrid brew of cosy south German sentimentality”.

Frederick William IV appointed Bismarck as the Prussian representative to the federal Diet in Frankfurt. It was at this time that, after the defeat of the revolution in central Europe, Austria had reasserted its supremacy in the German Confederation. Gradually Bismarck began to dream of making Prussia the undisputed power dominating northern Europe and redirection of Austrian power to Slavic areas in the south. If necessary, even a war with Austria to destroy its hegemony was not excluded in his plans. Implementation of such a policy would be anything but conservative because it would entail radical changes in the map of Europe as it had been drawn by the conservative powers at Versailles in 1815.

He was, however, sent to Russia in 1859 as Prussian ambassador and shortly afterwards to Paris in the court of Napoleon III, till he was called back and made the Prime Minster and Foreign Minster of Prussia in 1862. His 11 years of ambassadorship made him close to the architects of three powers – Russia, Austria and France.

Back home King William was locked in a battle with the Chamber of Deputies over military reforms. The appointment of Bismarck was the monarch’s last desperate attempt to avoid parliamentary sovereignty over the military. But the Bismarck who returned to Berlin from Paris was no more a conservative. Nevertheless, military reforms were carried out without the sanction of parliament.

Bismarck hinted that “Prussia’s frontiers as laid down by the Vienna treaties were no conducive to healthy national life; it is not by means of speeches and majority resolutions that the great issues of the day will be decided – that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849 – but by blood and iron”.

The liberal opposition did not agree with Bismarck on the issue. Meanwhile, in the foreign policy front, changes were taking place. There was trouble brewing between Danes and the German people of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, the former had large Germen population and later a member of German confederation. A quick war against Denmark left the fate of both duchies up to Bismarck and Australians. When his persuasion with Austria to yield German affairs failed, with assurance of non-interference from Russia, he stirred Hungarian nationalism against Austria.

In June Prussian troops invaded Holstein, and few days later Austria, supported by the smaller states of Saxony, Hesse-Kassel and Hanover went to war with Prussia. Within six weeks Prussia inflicted a major defeat on the Austrians. After this humiliating defeat, Austria, the major power in Germany for centuries, was now relegated to secondary status.

The states of Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau and Frankfurt, all of which fought against Prussia, were annexed. Now the liberal middle-class flocked to support Bismarck who in turn apologized for his high-handedness over the issue of military reforms. In 1867, North German Confederation was established with Prussia. The South, however, resisted.

As a master tactician, Bismarck worked behind the scene to provoke France to conflict and also ensure that Austria and Russia do not intervene. The opportunity was made available when in 1869 Spanish throne was offered to king’s cousin Prince Leopold of Hohenzollelrn-Sigmaringen. The French Emperor Napoleon III perceived this as an effort to encircle France. He sent emissaries to William I once to demand that acceptance of the offer is withdrawn and the second time to demand that under no circumstance should a member of the Hohenzollelrn family accept the Spanish throne in the future.

The wily Bismarck edited and abridged the telegram he received from King addressed to Napoleon III in such a way that the French responded by declaring war on Prussia on July 19, 1870. In this war the French were decisively defeated and Napoleon III was captured and then went into exile to England. The terms of treaty with France were very harsh. Alsace and part of Lorraine, two French provinces with sizable German-speaking population were annexed with a five-billion-franc indemnity was exacted. French hostility haunted the German empire until the provinces were returned to France in 1918.

After the Franco-German war, Bismarck stirred anti-French passions in the four southern reluctant German-speaking provinces to such a feverish pitch that they ultimately joined the North German Confederation in 1871 to create German empire.

After the political unification of Germany, Bismarck was appointed imperial chancellor and created Prince von Bismarck in 1871 and virtually ruled as dictator till 1890 when his bete-noire William II (1888), ascended the throne and dismissed him unceremoniously. Interestingly, the Germany Bismarck created was not a result of strong popular currents of nationalistic response but of machinations, cabinet diplomacy and war.