Otto von Bismarck was born in Brandenburg Germany in 1815. He studied law and agriculture and in 1847 extended the new Prussian parliament as an ultra. Royalist who was totally opposed to democracy.( In the Prussian Parliament, like most other parliaments, power lay in its control of the allocation of the Prussian treasury. The liberals threatened to not pass the budget, and thus not give any money to the government, unless Wilhelm reduced military spending. This led to a crisis, with the elderly king seriously considering abdication over the issue.) Encyclopedia.
His activities and attitudes as parliamentary deputy during the revolution of 1848 generally are viewed as mere preludes to an imitate career. Yet the thirty three year old political experiences help to shape his political ideas and ambitions.( Bismarck's response to the liberal revolution that swept through Europe in 1848 confirmed his image as a reactionary. He opposed any concessions to the liberals and expressed contempt for the king's willingness to bargain with the revolutionaries. He even considered marching his peasants to Berlin to free Frederick William IV from the baneful influence of the rebels. With other archconservatives, including Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach, he began contributing to the Kreuzzeitung newspaper (1848) as an organ of antirevolutionary sentiment.) Encyclopedia
When he entered politics in 1847 as the ultra conservative champion of junken interest. When revolutions swept across Europe and Berlin his first impulse was to arm the peasants of his estate and defense of king and country but two weeks later in his first speech to the United Diet he noted “the past is buried…no human power can bring it back to life” (In 1849 he was elected to the Prussian Chamber of Deputies (the lower chamber of the Prussian Diet) and moved his family to Berlin.
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."
In 1851 Frederick William IV appointed Bismarck as the Prussian representative to the federal Diet in Frankfurt, a clear reward for his loyalty to the monarchy.)(For Bismarck's future role, it is important to understand his analysis of the revolution. He identified the forces of change as confined solely to the educated and propertied middle class. The vast majority of Prussians, however, were peasants and artisans, who, in Bismarck's view, were loyal monarchists. The task of the forces of order was to confirm the loyalty of these two groups by means of material concessions.)Latin Library
This was clear expression of the “political realism” with which later his name became synonymous, and which set him apart from his political friends. “Prussian we are and Prussian we wish to remain.” June 1848 Otto von Bismarck.
Bismarck who was Germanys first iron chancellor had control over foreign and domestic affairs. (To maintain the peace necessary for the consolidation of the empire, he proposed to advance a strong military program, to gain the friendship of Austria, to preserve British friendship by avoiding naval or colonial rivalry, and to isolate France in diplomacy so that revanche would be impossible. Therefore, in 1872, he formed the Three Emperors' League (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia) and also maintained friendly relations with Italy. ) Latin Library
In 1848 during the revolutions he argued against constitutional reform but as a member of the Federal German Diet at Frankfurt demanded equal rights for Prussians.
Bismarck served as a foreign ambassador in Russia (St. Petersburg's 1859) and France (Paris 1862). Recalled in 1862 he became president of Prussia over the next few years helped to organize Germany under the leadership of Prussia. (The king had summoned Bismarck to direct Prussia's government in the face of the Prussian parliament's refusal to pass a budget because it disagreed with army reforms desired by the king and his military advisers. Although he could not secure parliament's consent to the government's budget, Bismarck was a tactician skilled and ruthless enough to govern without parlia-ment's consent from 1862 to 1866.) Bismarck Unification
In 1870 Bismarck deliberately provoked the Franco - Prussian war and as a result he was able to retain Alsace and Leviaine from France. To counter act the danger of Russia and France joining forces with Germany. Chancellor Bismarck formed the triple alliance in 1879. (The French reacted vehemently and in a national uproar declared the Franco-Prussian war. Seeing them as an aggressor the entirety of Germany rallied behind Prussia, and Prussia defeated the French invasion force, counter-invaded, and utterly defeated France, all in under a month. France was forced to pay a large indemnity to Prussia and to surrender the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine (Bismarck opposed this, saying that the territories would only cause more trouble than they were worth). Encyclopedia .
Otto von Bismarck had dealt severely with trade unionists but in an effort to reduce the appeals of socialism, Bismarck introduced the world's first modern welfare scheme which provided sickness, accident, and old age benefits. (1883-1887) (In 1879 Bismarck broke with the Liberals and relied instead on an uneasy coalition of landowners (especially junkers) and industrialists; "blood and iron" it was called. He gradually ended the Kulturkampf and turned his attention instead to the Socialists. To prove conservatives were the best guardian of the people's welfare, he introduced state insurance--for sickness in 1883, for accident in 1884, and for old age in 1889. These programs, designed by Theodor Lohmann, represented the first appearance of the modern welfare state; Bismark's model was copied by the Liberals in Britain about 1910, and the Democrats in the U.S. in the 1930s. While Bismark's programs did not detach the German workers from the Social Democratic Party (the Socialists))
After a dispute with Kaiser Wilhelm II, Bismarck resigned from office in March 1890. Otto von Bismarck has spent the rest of life in retirement and died in 1898. (The Bismarckian era closed with the death of Emperor Frederick III. A struggle for supremacy between Bismarck and William II developed immediately upon that emperor's accession in 1888 and ended with Bismarck's dismissal in 1890. Bismarck, created prince ( Fürst ) after the Franco-Prussian War, was now made duke ( Herzog ) of Lauenburg. He retired and spent the remainder of his life in oral and written criticism of the emperor and his ministers and in defense of his own policies.) Latin Library
(The arrogant. militaristic young William II (1859-1941) became Kaiser in 1888 and paid little heed to Bismark. Their most serious quarrel developed over the renewal of the anti-Socialist laws and the rights of subordinate cabinet ministers to personal audience with the Emperor. William II obtained Bismarck's resignation on March 18, 1890. The world was stunned at the sudden departure of the man credited with keeping the peace in Europe for two decades.) Encyclopedia.
