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Period: to
Failed Attemps at Unification
March 13th – Metternich forced to resign in Austria.
March – Riots in Berlin. Initially these radical revolutionaries were supported by King of Prussia, Frederick Wilhelm IV.
May – Frankfurt Parliament (aka National Assembly) begins – 596 liberals elected from the German Confederation meet to plan a constitution for a unified Germany.
Nov – Frederick Wilhelm IV rejected revolutions (became a conservative/ reactionary) and regained control of Berlin.
March – Frankfurt Parliament agree on -
Willliam I becomes King of Prussia
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Otto Von Bismarck becomes Prime Minister/Chancellor of Prussia
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Bismarck wants to gain Schleiswig and Holstein
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Austria and Prussia go to war against Denmark
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Denmark Surrenders to Prussia and Austria
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Austria gets Holstein and Prussia gets Schleiswig
Bismarck knows that this will become a conflict with Austria in the near future -
7 Weeks' War begins with Austria and Prussia
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Bismarck makes Prussia the most powerful state
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Ems Telegram
Bismarck makes the French look bad through the king's words that Bismarck rewrote -
France Declares War. *Beginning of the Franco-Prussian War
Bismarck and the Unification of GermanySource 1:In view of the attitude to France, our national sense of honour compelled us, in my opinion to go to war; and if we did not act according to the demands of this feeling, we should lose... the entire impetus towards our national development won in 1866, while the German national feeling south of the Main, aroused by our military successes in 1866;… would have to grow cold again… Under this conviction I made use of the royal authorization communicated to me... to publish the contents of the telegram…I reduced the telegram by striking out words.. The difference in the effect of the abbreviated text of the Ems telegram… made this announcement appear decisive. After I read out the edition to my two guests, Moltke remarked: ‘Now it has a different ring; it sounded before like a parley; now it Is like a flourish in answer to a challenge’;Bismarck: ‘The Man and the Statesman’, July 1870 [ A.J.P Taylor] Volume 1. This exert was written by Otto Von Bismarck, July 1870. In this source Bismarck refers to his decision to edit and modify the Ems Telegram to provoke tension amongst France and Prussia by altering the dispatch to make it appear decisive. Bismarck states his ambition to go to war with France in order to achieve national unity amongst the German states which he believed would provoke German Unification. He explains in the source that with this aspiration in mind he decided to edit the telegram; to give it a more severe and direct tone. This secondary source is written from the perspective of Otto Von Bismarck therefore it contains some bias, as it is written in a subjective tone which supports Bismarck’s actions and does not give an objective view of the events. The source is also written with hindsight and therefore has a limited reliability due to Bismarck's context. Hindsight has allowed Bismarck to project his own recollection of events, which may not have been strictly correctBismarck and the Unification of Germany
Source 1:
In view of the attitude to France, our national sense of honour compelled us, in my opinion to go to war; and if we did not act according to the demands of this feeling, we should lose... the entire impetus towards our national development won in 1866, while the German national feeling south of the Main, aroused by our military successes in 1866;… would have to grow cold again… Under this conviction I made use of the royal authorization communica -
Germany is created!
William I is Kaiser
Bismarck is Chancellor -
Proclamation issued to declare the formation of the German Empire
Whereas the German princes and the free cities have unanimously called upon us to renew and to assume, with the restoration of the German Empire, the German imperial office, which has been empty for more than sixty years; and Whereas adequate arrangements have been provided for this in the constitution of the German Confederation;We, Wilhelm, by the grace of God King of Prussia, do herewith declare that we have considered it a duty to our common fatherland to answer the summons of the united German princes and cities and to accept the German imperial title. In consequence, we and our successors on the throne of Prussia will henceforth bear the imperial title in all our relations and in all the business of the German Empire, and we hope to God that the German nation will be granted the ability to fashion a propitious future for the fatherland under the symbol of its ancient glory. We assume the imperial title, conscious of the duty of protecting, with German loyalty, the rights of the Empire and of its members, of keeping the peace, and of protecting the independence of Germany, which depends in its turn upon the united strength of the people. We assume the title in the hope that the German people will be granted the ability to enjoy the reward of its ardent and self-sacrificing wars in lasting peace, within boundaries which afford the fatherland a security against renewed French aggression which has been lost for centuries. And may God grant that We and our successors on the imperial throne may at all times increase the wealth of the German Empire, not by military conquests, but by the blessings and the gifts of peace, in the realm of national prosperity, liberty, and morality. Wilhelm I, Kaiser und König.Representatives of the allied German states met in the "Hall of Mirrors" of the palace of Versailles near Paris. They issued a proclamation declaring the formation of the German empire, which included all German states except Austria.
