The German Empire: From Prussia To A European Power

On January 18, 1871, in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles, a site symbolic for the French monarchy, German aristocrats proclaimed Wilhelm I of the House of Hohenzollern Emperor of the newly created state. The Prime Minister of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck, who is called the architect of the German Empire, It was he who united Germany, fragmented for centuries by iron and blood. The Kingdom of Prussia, the Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, and King Wilhelm I finally resolved the 19th century German question. Prussia became the core of the new German Empire. Unification along the lesser German path secured for the Hohenzollerns not only political primacy in the German lands. During victorious wars, they seized significant territories of the Kingdom of Denmark and effectively completed the downfall of Imperial France, which became a republic. The Austrian Habsburgs, who cultivated their own Greater German Project, ultimately failed to realize their ambitions. After the Compromise of 1867, their multinational diverse state turned into the dual Austro-Hungarian Empire, a political giant with feet of clay. The culmination was the Franco-Prussian Conflict. After defeat, France was forced to sign the Treaty of Frankfurt. The German Empire received Alsace and part of Lorraine, and the newly created Third French Republic had to recognize the imperial title of Wilhelm I. Later, historians called the annexation of Alsace and Lorraine Otto von Bismarck's main mistake. Although he took this step under pressure from German generals and public opinion, it turned the French Republic into a principled enemy of the German Empire. The British historian Theodore Zeldin, in the second volume of his work, France, 1848-1945, Intellect, Taste, and Anxiety, described Franco-German relations as follows. Revenge and the recovery of Alsace and Lorraine became the chief aim of French policy for the next 40 years. The fact that Germany became France's enemy turned into a key factor in international relations. On the third anniversary of the decisive victory over France at the Battle of Cédon, in honor of all three victorious wars for German unification, the German-Danish, Austro-Prussian, and Franco-Prussian, by order of Emperor Wilhelm I, the Berlin Victory Column was erected in 1873. This monument was to embody the grandeur of the new empire and its triumphs over its enemies. The project was designed by the architect Heinrich Strach, and the bronze figure of the Roman goddess Victoria was created by the sculptor Friedrich Drache. Berliners still colloquially call it the Golden Elsa. It is the same statue from 1873, restored and regilded many times, including more than a century later, when the city celebrated its 750th anniversary. We've already shown how ChatLLM by abacus.ai helps us with our workflow, but honestly, this service is useful for almost anyone, no matter what you do. 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See for yourself at chatllm.abacus.ai Otto von Bismarck was in power for almost 20 years. Throughout this time, he skillfully played an extraordinarily complex game of diplomatic chess. His strategy was simple only at first glance—to isolate France, keep Russia friendly, and prevent Europe from erupting into a major war. Part of his tactics on the diplomatic chessboard was Realpolitik and the rejection of expansion. Bismarck decided that Germany no longer needed new lands in Europe. Instead of conquests, he chose to preserve what existed and focus on domestic politics and the economy, avoiding bloodshed. Bismarck feared a war on two fronts, or the creation of an anti-German coalition. To prevent this, he united three giants—the German, Austrian, and Russian emperors. This alliance made it possible to control Central and Eastern Europe and to monitor rebellious national groups—for example, the Poles, who dreamed of restoring the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. The German Empire also prudently maintained diplomatic relations with the sick man of Europe—the Ottoman Empire—a potential ally in a possible war with Russia. Bismarck did not unnecessarily intervene in the turbulent events in the Balkans or in regional disputes among the Austro-Hungarian, Russian, and Ottoman Empires. On the other hand, he understood that the Balkans were a minefield—a source of tension between Austria-Hungary and Russia. The Iron Chancellor extinguished fires before they could spread across Europe. When tensions reached their peak, Bismarck appeared at the Congress of Berlin in 1878 as an honest broker between the British, Austro-Hungarian, and Russian Empires in their struggle for influence in the Balkans. The main issue of the Congress was British-Austrian opposition to Russian hegemony over the Ottoman Empire. The Reich Chancellor conducted negotiations according to principles established shortly before the Congress by Great Britain at a secret German-British meeting. Bismarck sought to avoid Russian domination in the Balkans and to keep Constantinople in Ottoman hands. In addition, he helped secure civil rights for Jews in the Balkan region. By the Treaty of Berlin of the same year, 1878, the Congress reorganized the borders of southeastern Europe. Austria-Hungary occupied Bosnia and Herzegovina, and Great Britain took control of Cyprus. The self-proclaimed independence of the Romanian, Serbian, Bulgarian, and Montenegrin was also formally recognized. Bismarck managed to avoid a large-scale war, although the compromises generated a new wave of tension. This was a side effect he could not control. Rivalry between Great Britain and Russia intensified the confrontation known as the Great Game. National conflicts escalated in the Balkans. This latter confrontation later led to the Balkan Wars and the large-scale First World War. Realizing that friendship with Russia was becoming fragile, Bismarck created a fallback option for protection. He turned the alliance with Austria-Hungary into a military bloc and brought Italy into it. The logic was ironclad. If France, Russia, or Great Britain attacked one of them, all three would defend. Thus emerged the Triple Alliance. Bismarck opposed German colonial expansion. He considered colonies an unnecessary burden. But under pressure from his entourage, he nevertheless agreed to a knight's move. Germany occupied territories in Africa and Oceania. This was more a concession to domestic politics than his own desire. The Empire's first African colonies were German Southwest Africa, German Cameroon, and the Protectorate of Togoland. In the same year, German New Guinea was created in Oceania. And the following year, 1885, another colony was founded, German East Africa. Historian Eric Hobsbawm called Bismarck the world champion at the game of diplomatic chess, who devoted himself exclusively and successfully to maintaining peace among states. The Iron Chancellor managed to preserve peace in Europe. But the system created by Bismarck was so complex that without him, it began to crack at the seams, which ultimately led to the First World War. In domestic politics, Otto von Bismarck balanced between conservatism and liberalism. He carried out reforms and introduced new laws, turning the German Empire into a European superpower. With a harsh Kulturkampf campaign, the struggle against Catholic influence and the Polish movement, the Reich Chancellor initiated a prolonged conflict with Pope Pius IX and launched large-scale Germanization of Polish lands within the Empire. For Bismarck, this was not merely a struggle over language or schools, but a matter of control. He argued that Germany, from the Russian border to the Adriatic Sea, encounters a united propaganda of Slavs, ultramodernists, and reactionaries, and therefore must openly defend German national interests and language from enemies. Within the Kulturkampf, Poles were effectively portrayed as enemies of the Reich. Rumors spread in society that Bismarck saw Germanization as almost the only way to resolve the Polish question. The anti-Catholic campaign struck Poles in the German Empire especially hard, since most of them were Catholics. Bismarck's government went further. Everything non-German, above all the Polish language, was gradually pushed out of schools and public life. Tensions rose. It went so far that the Germans imprisoned the primate of Poland, Mieczysław Litochowski, and already in the 1880s organized mass deportations of Poles. Germanization continued until the First World War, but the result was the opposite. The Polish movement only grew stronger, and people began to switch en masse to homeschooling in order to preserve their language and culture. The conflict with the Catholic Church flared up in 1872, when the Jesuits were expelled from the German Empire. At that time, the papacy was in an extremely weak position. It had lost all its territories to the Kingdom of Italy, and the Pope himself effectively became a prisoner of the Vatican. The Catholic Church attempted to restore its influence over key social spheres – marriage, family, education. Bismarck, by contrast, sought to limit this influence in his empire. In 1873, the state adopted the so-called May Laws, under which schools came under government control and church affairs began to be handled by a special state court. In 1875, Pius IX declared these laws invalid, but Bismarck did not back down. The empire completely ceased financial support for the Catholic Church in the German Empire, and took control of its property under a new law. It was then that the Kulturkampf reached its apogee. The denouement came after the death of Pius IX in 1878. Bismarck, who was at that very time shifting course from liberalism toward conservatism, quickly found common ground with the new Pope Leo XIII. From that moment, the conflict began to subside. The year 1888 became the Year of the Three Emperors and changed German history. In March, the 90-year-old Wilhelm I, the first emperor of the new German Empire, died. His heir, Frederick III, mortally ill, remained on the throne for only 99 days. After his death, in the summer, power passed to his son, the ambitious Wilhelm II. He became the third and last German emperor. The young ruler immediately clashed with the old Reich Chancellor. Tension quickly escalated into conflict, and already in 1890, Bismarck was sent into retirement. The writer Theodor Fontane described those events as follows. It is good that we got rid of Bismarck. In fact, he was simply a ruler who did everything as he pleased and demanded ever greater devotion. His greatness remained in the past. Later, Wilhelm II and Bismarck publicly reconciled, but the road back was closed. The creator of the German Empire devoted the rest of his life to memoirs. In 1898, he died. By his prior order, the following was engraved on Bismarck's sarcophagus. A loyal German servant of Emperor Wilhelm I. Thus, Bismarck made clear whom he had served and whom he considered unworthy of his legacy. After Otto von Bismarck's resignation, his complex system of alliances began to fall apart. Wilhelm II chose a completely different course, more aggressive and ambitious, later called Wilhelminism by historians. In 1891, what Bismarck had feared occurred. France and Russia concluded an alliance. For Germany, this meant a potential war on two fronts. The worst case scenario. At the same time, in the 1890s, the German colonial empire grew rapidly. In a short period, Germany entered the top three largest colonial powers in the world, along with Britain and France. And already on December 6, 1897, in his speech in the German Reichstag, the Minister of Foreign Affairs and future Reich Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow used the famous phrase, a place in the sun, which has since acquired a political connotation. We are ready to meet the interests of other great powers in South Asia, hoping for recognition of our interests as well. We are not pushing anyone into the shade, but we demand a place in the sun for ourselves. In East and West India, we will fight in the traditions of German policy to secure recognition of our rights and interests without unnecessary antagonism, but also without unnecessary weakness. Germany's course finally changed, from Otto von Bismarck's cautious, defensive Realpolitik to the aggressive policy of global ambitions and the struggle for influence of Emperor Wilhelm II. In 1903, the German authorities initiated a grand project, the Baghdad Railway, which was to connect Constantinople and Baghdad and give Germany its own outlet to the Persian Gulf. Unofficially, it was called the Berlin-Baghdad Railway. 1,600 kilometers long, 1,000 miles, it would have passed through present-day Turkey, Syria, and Iraq. This was a direct challenge to Britain in the Middle East. But because of the First World War, the railway was never completed. It was finished only in the mid-20th century. In 1904, Germany suffered another blow to its positions. England and France, the main rivals of the German Empire for leadership in European and world politics, formed an alliance. A year later, the First Moroccan Crisis erupted. Germany tried to disrupt the strengthening of French influence in Morocco, a formerly independent North African country. This further exacerbated Germany's already strained relations with France itself and its ally, Great Britain. After the Algeciras Conference of 1906 in the Kingdom of Spain, with the participation of the most influential European countries and the United States, the world recognized France's special rights in Morocco. Berlin's relations with Paris and London became even worse. In 1907, the formation of the Military-Political Alliance of Great Britain, the French Republic, and the Russian Empire, the Entente, accelerated Germany's diplomatic isolation. The final straw was the Second Moroccan Crisis. The French introduced troops into Morocco, and the Germans sent the gunboat SMS Panther to the Moroccan port of Agadir. The German Empire opposed French expansion, threatened war, and demanded territorial compensation. Negotiations between Berlin and Paris and the Treaty of Fez resolved the crisis. France established a protectorate over Morocco, and Germany received in exchange territories in central Africa, part of the French Congo, annexed to German Cameroon. But this temporary compromise did not save Germany's relations with France and Great Britain. Europe took another step toward the First World War. Over nearly half a century of its existence, the German Empire became one of the most powerful states in the world, created one of the strongest armies on the planet, and became the leading economy of continental Europe. The Germans built the longest railway network in Europe, surpassed globally only by the United States. And the fleet, which Emperor Wilhelm II persistently expanded, became second only to the British, something that provoked sharp dissatisfaction in London. The industrial breakthrough was colossal. The steelmaking empire of the Krupp family and the arms factories of Rheinmetall turned Germany into the main producer of weapons on the continent. At the beginning of the 20th century, Germany accounted for a quarter of the world's production of steel and cast iron. And its chemical giants, BASF, Bayer, and Hoechst, dominated the global market. This was not merely economic power. It was preparation for the greatest war of the era. In science, Germany also achieved much. From the beginning of the 20th century until the First World War, its scientists received a third of all Nobel Prizes in physics and chemistry. It was in Germany that Gottlieb Daimler and Wilhelm Maybach's motorcycle appeared, the gasoline engine and the first commercial automobile by Karl Benz, Paul Niepkow's disc, Rudolf Diesel's diesel engine, the Zeppelin airship, and the Geiger-Müller counter. In the social sphere, the German empire became a global innovator. Local workers had pensions, enjoyed healthcare assistance, insurance, canteens, and changing rooms. At the same time, Germany's population grew from the moment of unification to the beginning of the First World War, from 41 to 68 million. In less than 50 years, the German empire traveled the path from unification by iron and blood and maintaining the balance of power in Europe to aggressive foreign policy and the search for a place in the sun. But ahead lay the Great War, which changed everything. It destroyed the empire and overturned the history of Europe and the entire world.