North German Confederation

North German Confederation (German Norddeutscher Bund), union of independent German states north of the Main River, formed in 1867 under the leadership of Prussia on the initiative of its foreign minister, Otto von Bismarck. Prussia had defeated Austria in the Seven Weeks' War of 1866, then established a confederation of north German states. The North German Confederation replaced the German Confederation, a union of 39 German states under Austrian leadership that had been established (1815) by the Congress of Vienna at the end of the Napoleonic Wars. Twenty-two German states adhered to the North German Confederation. According to the agreement, each retained its own government but submitted its military forces to the control of the confederation; the commander in chief of the combined armies was the king of Prussia. A legislative body was created; its president was the king of Prussia, but the duties of the office were performed by a chancellor, responsible only to the king.

Alliances were entered into between the North German Confederation and the important states to the south of the Main—namely, the kingdom of Bavaria, the Grand Duchy of Baden, and the kingdom of Württemberg—under which these states agreed to place their military forces under command of the king of Prussia in case of war against the confederation. The North German Confederation was an important step toward the unification of Germany, finally achieved in 1871 at the end of the Franco-Prussian War. After their victory in this war, the states of the North German Confederation and the remaining states of the former German Confederation (excluding Austria) formed the German Empire. The constitution of the confederation was adopted with slight modification as the constitution of the empire.