The Unification of Germany: A Turning Point in European History

To what extent was the Unification of the German States in 1871 a part of the changing nature of European diplomacy?

According to notable German historian, Koppel S Pinson “The Bismarckian Second Reich was a product of three wars: the Danish War of 1864, the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, and the Franco-Prussian War of 1871”. While this explanation is vastly accepted by historians it is important to look at the diplomacy and political opposition to a unified Germany. There was a uniform fear across Europe of the unmatched power that such a political change would exert in European diplomacy. The wars were merely the outcome of the obvious pathway that had already been taken towards Unification.

The Germanic provinces were split into various Kingdoms, Grand Duchies, Duchies, Principalities and free city states all of which had independent rulers. The sheer mass of different governments meant that there was no real power in any of these states alone to disagree with the large European empires in matters affecting their existence. They had to align themselves with different powers in order to survive. The Southern German Kingdom of Bavaria, for instance, was aligned with the French under King Max Joseph, but when succeeded by Ludwig I, shifted away from the French influence . The diplomacy of the independent states was thereby seriously unstable as there was no unified approach to foreign policy issues. It was also unreasonable for the states to remain independent as there were very many similarities between them. They all spoke German, had similar economic and social interest as a result of basically identical culture and history. The German states on the most part had been part of the Holy Roman Empire which had dissolved during the Napoleonic Wars of the early 1800’s. The key reason for unification, according to Pinson, was that many Germans saw the unification as a return to the old empire of medieval times, a reappearance of the strong national identity, a view being cultivated by Bismarck.

The Unification brought to an end the Austrian dominance of the German Confederation. Austria, while it was a German speaking nation, was not as desirable as the Prussians to head a Unification push. The Austrians had a more defined difference in culture and had forged their own empire without the states. Unification was much more likely to be both politically effective and unilaterally accepted by a new more interconnected power such as Prussia. In many respects, the whole point of a German Confederation overseen by Austria was to provide the German rulers with an opportunity for organised squabbling, which would keep the states weak and at the mercy of the Empires, France, Russia and Austria. Prussia, under the charismatic leadership of Bismarck, made the move towards the Unification as he saw that such a merge was needed to face the changes brought by industrialisation and to take their place in Europe as an empire.