German Unification (1871)

V

The North German Confederation

Bismarck now finally had the opportunity to resolve the domestic political impasse he inherited in 1862. In the aftermath of Königgrätz, he offered Prussia's liberals a compromise. As he went about setting up the new North German Confederation, Bismarck proposed to admit he had governed illegally, provided parliament would agree to forgive him. Pleased with the victory over Austria, the liberals in parliament believed their political and economic goals could best be achieved in the context of a national state. Thus, Bismarck received from the parliament indemnity for the years in which he governed without authority. Parliament's liberals also feared being outflanked by Bismarck's surprising proposal for universal male suffrage in the North German Confederation. Many liberals believed that ultimately Bismarck would be unable to control the confederation by himself. Sooner or later, they reasoned, he would need help. Then they would be able to move the new North German Confederation in liberal directions.

The North German Confederation included a Prussia enlarged by territorial annexations, Hannover, and Saxony, plus a few nominally independent states. It was a constitutional system. The conservative upper house, representing the states, had extensive control over foreign policy and economic affairs. The lower house was elected through free and universal male suffrage by secret ballot—the most liberal franchise in Europe. The lower house also controlled the confederation's budget, a provision liberals had long sought.

The new confederation pursued a policy of economic freedom, congenial to the business community. A unified criminal law code, religious freedom, federal post and telegraph services—these and other long-standing liberal aims were put in place in a matter of months. It seemed the confederation was well on its way to becoming a centralized nation-state on the liberal model.

Bismarck did not attempt to annex or coerce the south German states of Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg to join the confederation in 1866. Instead, he chose to make his new confederation so attractive that the southern states would seek to join voluntarily. However, they kept their distance from a system that seemed too liberal, too Protestant, and above all too Prussian.

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VI

Franco-Prussian War

Prussia's international position was not yet secure. Austria made no secret of its desire to revise the results of 1866, but the principal challenge came from France. Confronted with domestic unrest and burdened by foreign-policy failures such as the French intervention in Mexico from 1864 to 1867, Napoleon's government sought new territory on the Rhine and in Belgium. Bismarck's refusal to cooperate contributed to France's sense of decline. Some of Napoleon's advisers began to see war as a way to improve France's stature.

Four years of tension between France and Prussia peaked in 1870, when the Spanish Parliament offered its throne, vacant since 1868, to a member of the Catholic branch of the House of Hohenzollern, whose Protestant head was the king of Prussia. The candidate, Prince Leopold, had only nominal connections with Prussia. Nevertheless, Napoleon's government saw the Hohenzollern candidacy as a threat, sandwiching France between a potentially hostile coalition that would challenge France's position in Europe. William, who opposed the candidacy from the beginning, responded to French initiatives by persuading his relative to withdraw.

France then overplayed its hand by asking William to forbid any future revival of the project—if he did not, France would go to war against Prussia. Buttonholed by the French ambassador while taking a vacation at the German resort of Bad Ems, William politely declined to make such a commitment and sent a message to Bismarck, informing him of the exchange.

Bismarck for his part saw conflict with France as a means of rallying nationalists in Germany under Prussian leadership and establishing Prussia as the primary power in a new European order. He attempted a diplomatic solution, but when France refused to concede the point, Bismarck decided that the Hohenzollern candidacy was grounds for war. He edited Williams's message to remove all conciliatory phrasing, then released it to the press. Liberals and nationalists in the North German Confederation, as well as in the south, insisted France be taught a lesson.

The Germans enthusiastically supported the war effort. The Prussian army destroyed its French opponents and captured the emperor himself at Sedan on September 2, 1870. Bismarck had defeated his enemy so completely that he had no one with whom to negotiate. A Government of National Defense was formed in Paris to carry on the war until mid-January of 1871, when Paris fell to the Prussians, and the war ended.

Fearing great-power intervention if the war dragged on, Bismarck moved quickly to end the conflict on terms most suitable to Prussia. Believing France would remain irreconcilably hostile, he insisted on annexation of the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, a 5-billion-franc indemnity, and a victory march through Paris.

VII

The German Empire

As the war ended, Bismarck took advantage of the military situation to transform the North German Confederation into the German Empire. Baden-Württemberg and Bavaria saw no alternative to accepting William as German emperor—particularly since treaties guaranteed them a significant degree of autonomy. For Bismarck, the empire was a compromise with what he regarded as the irresistible forces of liberalism and nationalism. The German Empire had one of the most liberal constitutions in Europe. The government's parliament, elected by universal suffrage, was paired with a conservative emperor, William I, and Chancellor Bismarck, who ruled with an iron hand and was responsible only to the emperor. If Prussia could not dominate the new German order, it could exercise supervision and control, at least as long as Otto von Bismarck was in power. On January 18, 1871, the German Empire was formally proclaimed and William was crowned emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles, France.