A History Teacher Reacts | Extra Credits - Otto von Bismarck (Parts 3-4)

hey YouTube mr. Terry back here once again for another history teacher reacts video as I continue my quest for historical knowledge alright today we are continuing on with extra histories series on Otto von Bismarck this video I'll be watching episodes three and four of what I believe is a six-part series I did a video previously over videos one and two from them so if you haven't seen those you should probably check those out first then come back to here keep an eye out for the final video of the series that I'll have out shortly alright with that just a reminder this video series was actually selected by our patreon right now all patrons regardless of their pledge level gets to participate in a weekly poll where I put some of the videos I'm interested in and they votes and they kind of get fast-tracked to being on this channel so if that's something you might be interested in there'll be a link down below to join the patreon it's a way you can support this channel alright before I begin to want to plug the original creators here if you like the original videos be sure to go down to the description and there will be a link to the original video so you can give them a like and subscribe and your support for the great content creators out there making awesome history stuff out here on YouTube alright then I think we're ready to go okay this is episode 3 otto von bismarck iron and blood is the title of this episode so let's dive right in moved from radical to pragmatic he was at last offered a position in which he would shine the position of envoy diplomat and deal maker yet going back to the the first two parts who watch she had an interesting rise to power that seemed kind interesting to me because it doesn't see it seems like in a way he's going counter of kind of the trend that Prussia is is going in and much of Europe is going in here in the 1800s the he is somebody that would be more of a classical conservative in this in this in this era he was much more supportive of kind of the traditional system that had been around at a time when what he might consider a new the new liberalism was starting to gain popularity and some of our stronger arguments for creating like constitutional monarchies and that sort of thing while he was somebody that was more supportive of the original system supporting the Emperor and monarchy just in empire emperors and and and kind of monarchies in general but he it seemed like had found a way to like still stay kind of relevant in the face of these changes while being able to kind of be with the conservative group but then also still not seem harsh enough maybe from the more liberal side and he's kind of made his way kind of very subtly kind of up the up the ranks here and kind of be you know rubbing shoulders with kind of the who's who of the Prussian monarchy and the Prussian people here so I'm interested to see how this is going to continue Bismarck's tutelage in the diplomatic craft was Swift as he wrote to his wife I am making rapid progress in the art of using many words to say nothing at all just some people say I'd say should that just be the the tagline of just politicians people that are you know critical politicians right making rapid progress in the art of using many words to say nothing at all a lot of times people say that's that's how like just politicians sound you know what I mean and and if people buy that oh they must be they're speaking a lot and there's using a lot of words they must know what they're saying and there must be a point and there must be a plan like that he's just buying into that like stereotyped pretty much he wrote this from Frankfurt he had been assigned as the Prussian envoy to the diet of the German Confederation that being the body that was supposed to figure out how the whole mess of 39 German states were to work together but working with the Austrians was the furthest thing from Bismarck's mind so if you hadn't seen the first couple couple of so it's the big kind of topic right now is the possibility of unifying the states here in central Central Europe so with Germany potentially Austria Prussia and that's kind of been on the docket although it's not getting it seems like the support it was right now and it looks like he's somebody that probably thinks maybe that he can he can do that rather than having all again all these small kingdoms they feel that a unified kind of Central Europe here would be really advantageous you know as a power here in Europe to work together but working with the Austrians was the furthest thing from Bismarck's mind he was there to assert that Prussia was Austria's equal and he did this with aplomb by lighting a cigar see don't make him feel small privilege granted only to Austrians but when the Austrian representative sitting next to him took out a cigar and began to smoke Bismarck cracked out one of his own and saying nothing lit up the press loved it his enemies loved it too when he returns to Berlin one of them claimed publicly that the only thing Bismarck actually accomplished in Frankfurt was burning us and of course because old habits die hard one thing led to another and the ever diplomatic Bismarck found himself once again on the field of Honor trading shots for the fellow Prussian over if you also didn't remember in the first one he was known for having duels you know in his younger years and now in his adult you know more advanced adult age they're still doing that we talked about the first video how what if that was still a thing like you could legally like have these duels and the sort of results would be respected it's amazing and to have that like between politicians or something like that or just regular people it's like out the Capitol if you have two politicians and they're arguing they're like all right let's go duel and they go down the steps of the Capitol but I'll go to the lawn of the White House then they pull out a couple dueling revolvers and end it right there are burnt to snub the Hapsburgs but his time in Frankfurt taught him one thing if the Prussians were ever to carry the same weight amongst the German states as they're much larger rival they would need allies so he began to court what he saw as the two most valuable possible Confederates for Prussia Russia and France but then in October of 1857 he suffered a stroke the king's brother named Vilhelm because of course he was why should a family have to come up with more than one name took over the leadership this fell helmed though considered bismarck as nothing more than a petulant schoolboy his words bismarck had a plan though bismarck always has a plan he would counter this opinion in a most unbusy in and therefore most Bismarck e'en way he delivered to the Prince a 92 page treatise detailing exactly how Prussia could abide by the letter of the agreement they'd signed that founded the German Confederation while simultaneously aligning the other German states against Austria unfortunately Wilhelm thought that was stupid Bismarck was promptly assigned as the Prussian envoy to the Tsar because you know I guess if you want to get rid of somebody in eighteenth century Europe you didn't put him in st. Petersburg yes set him to Russia let's go and there he would sit on ice until 1862 these were some of the bleakest years of his life he was cut out of state affairs he fell ill he nearly lost the use of his leg and even withdrew himself from Russian society as his ability to serve as a diplomat was hindered by the fact that everybody knew he was there because his sovereign didn't want him in Prussia but at last a stranger respected him one saying that he should return to Berlin with haste when he got there against all odds he was asked to serve as the head of government you might reasonably ask yeah why why would the king who had so long snubbed him asked him to run the state how can he go from a remote diplomatic posting to the head of domestic affairs well because nobody else wanted the job at least nobody else the King thought wouldn't plunge the country into civil war you see for a year the Liberal Party had refused to grant funds for the army and if you know anything about Prussia you know Voltaire's old adage where some states have an army the Prussian army has a state meaning that not funding the army had brought them to the brink of constitutional crisis and the King's closest advisors best suggestion was to have the army overthrow the Democratic assembly and then figure it out from there which was basically a hundred percent guaranteed to start a civil war so the King figured calling Bismarck I guess if he succeeds fabulous if he fails then we'll just throw him on remember how and other times in his kind of positions of government they listened to him and more of the chaotic times but then when it was time for peace they didn't want him they didn't want him almost kind of it brings it in my mind like like Winston Churchill right they they when it was peace before the war they highly rejected him when there was war they brought him in rights to basically take things over for the British in World War two and then basically when the war was over to win the peace they get rid of him so it's like you know timing is so important for how he's going to be treated here I guess if he succeeds fabulous if he fails then we'll just throw him under the anachronistic bus as the announcement went out no one in the wider world of Europe really thought he had a chance neither did many in Prussia for two weeks Bismarck had to scramble to pull together a cabinet because nobody thought his government would last simultaneously he also had to bolster the spirit of the king who in his dejection was continuously on the brink of giving in and in the midst of all of this almost as an offhand remark to those who were debating funding the army he said the words that would define him and define the age yeah the great questions of the day will be decided not by speeches and majority votes that was the great mistake of 1848 and 18-49 but by iron and blood but in the midst of all the chaos Bismarck had a plan Bismarck always has a plan if he couldn't get to the lunch dog to do what he wanted well then he would just have to do what he wanted anyone yet iron and blood kind of phrase that's kind of like his the thing he's famous for iron and blood and now you can see a little bit about more about where that context comes from but it's a back it seems like it's a backhanded slap against democracy it's like real stuff real progress I don't know real action happens yeah through iron and blood so yeah wait you see the king and the Parliament were supposed to agree on any new budget before the government could collect taxes on that budget and do with them whatever they wanted everyone else took this semester the government could not collect taxes without Parliament's approval but Bismarck had other ideas see the Constitution didn't really spell out exactly what the government was supposed to do if the king and the Parliament couldn't agree on a budget so Bismarck just signed the greater well we don't have a new budget guess we have to keep collecting taxes based on last year's budget and so sent out the king's tax collectors to do what they did best for nearly half a decade the government would continue to collect the 1861 budget and the king would have a stream of revenue without asking Parliament for a thing with that settled Otto now had the prestige and the freedom to turn to what he saw as his larger project positioning Prussia to be the preeminent power in Germany when the German states finally unified he moved rapidly first he checked in with France to see if they would stay neutral or perhaps even join Prussia if an armed conflict broke out between them and Austria then he wooed the smaller German states to begin voting with Prussia even as he was baffling the Austrians with an alternating volley of threats and lofty promises about how much they could accomplish together but even as he was holding his own in German affairs his zeal abroad nearly cost him his ministry a rebellion had broken out in Poland and the Russians were eager to quell it already sending in troops Bismarck immediately dispatched Prussian divisions to the Polish border and sent a note to Russia basically saying hey guys we can totally help you with that soon protests over this action broke out from the other major European powers France Great Britain and Austria all condemning Berlin many thought that Bismarck would have to resign over this but the king the very same one who had exiled him to Russia before refused his resignation soon Europe's ire turned from Berlin to st. Petersburg and while the matter would blow over in time to the Russians this unification of the European powers against them brought to mind the recent and disastrous Crimean War and in doing so reminded them just why having an ally in Prussia might be valuable but just as this affair was being put behind him his great project was again in jeopardy the Emperor of Austria had invited the Prussian King to a congress of princes to discuss the matter of German unification Bismarck at once saw that the Austrians had stacked the deck and any vote at such a conference would go in their favor but he also knew that he wouldn't be able to convince the king that an invitation from other princes was a trap so he took a different approach the king was never the most secure of people so Bismarck convinced him that the invitation was an insult and that it should have been sent to him with much more formality there's there's so much political crafting happening here by buyed Otto here it's pretty incredible the way he plays everybody right both friend and foe he just he plays them and gets them to do like just to get him to think the way that he wants - he really is showing just expert politicking here yeah it's it's it's pretty incredible so the king declines to go but then days later the King of Saxony rode up bearing another invitation imploring the Prince to come we asked to attend by 30 Prince's with a king as the message bearer there would be no convincing good ol Vilhelm that this was a slight instead in a meeting full of shouting imploring and not a little sobbing on both sides bismarck convinced the king that he would be giving up the independence of the Prussian army if he agreed to anything at this conference and so with bismarck ripping off the door handle on the way out once again the king declined to attend with that the course was set the initial threats were in check now at last bismarck could truly begin his project of iron and blood it's good to see a more background about the whole iron and blood thing but yeah just like I was saying a second ago the it's just is method of politics is he's kind of been so you know hit or miss but but successful and everything's just so crafted you know the way he's trying to approach things so alright I just want to jump right into episode 4 because I want to see is he's really gonna get get his hands dirty here with the unification project so let's see what's going on alright so that was yep so three we're hopping to Episode four looks like this one is called the iron a Chancellor okay let's do it it is go time in Bismarck land we're off bismarck had a list and he was checking it twice action item number one on that list steamroll some danes sixteen years prior in 1848 Prussia had invaded Denmark with the hopes of annexing the largely german-speaking duchies of Schleswig and Holstein but the threat of international intervention had sent them packing no no no was time for revenge or at least a very pragmatic seizure of territory you see the Danish King had just kept it and as basically always happens I'm tiring the peon King checks out his death left everybody scrambling over the succession and in this case that scramble was played out between one staunchly Danish branch of the family and one sympathetic to the Germans when the Danish group won out they decided that it was high time to rule schleswig and holstein directly to finally incorporate them into the Kingdom of Denmark not to leave them as semi independent duchies with their own weird rules and privileges this violated on the T V the Danes had signed with the Prussians though and gave Bismarck his chance but it also made things tricky after all if bismarck used ideas of liberating the oppressed and defending smaller nations rights to justify invading she's about to find the really good reason for sticking around to occupy those places himself instead of just leaving again he had been setting up these dominoes for a while though there would be Kent you can't have your cake in here to write with with the way that he's gonna be a pro he's approaching this Danish issue so ensured to see just again what what's gonna happen here he no repeat of the last time when they had to flee due to other powers coming in on the side of the Danes he had already secured the friendship of the Russians and made vague promises to the French that they might see some territory out of the whole deal if Prussia was allowed to absorb schleswig and holstein you know why didn't they say in the first try remember in those first couple videos how he would just make promises after promises just big ones to everybody and that's a lot of pressure to do that try to make do on them he kind of yeah he had done that like crazy now you're doing it with like not just these you know individuals who's growing up with a river but now it's like power nations Russia and France but specifically with France here making these promises you can't you don't can't you know a default on this right that could be catastrophic so let's see eventually got a pay up right they might see some territory out of the whole deal if Prussia was allowed to absorb schleswig and holstein and without Russia or France Britain would protest but they'd never actually go to war on the Danish side he had also so don't do it Shriya will help them they were all on the same side Germans defending Germans and all that he even convinced them to be allies and contribute a horde of troops to the effort and this is key not only did he need Austrian troops to secure a quick victory but it would also make them complicit if after they won he said that Prussia was going to take territory the Austrians wouldn't walk away without their share which not only meant that European public opinion wouldn't turn against Prussia but also meant that he wouldn't lose the moral high ground in the German Confederacy and his plan worked perfectly the combined Prussian Austrian forces rapidly over ran Denmark the Danes had to grant the independence of schleswig and holstein Bismarck made some ludicrous demands and the Austrians not wanting to be left out eventually caved to a glorious that left bismarck exactly where he actually wanted to be Russia would keep Slovak the Austrians would get Holstein and he would get a small pile of other minor concessions to boot but Bismarck was always a man of large appetites he didn't come all this way to only get Schleswig and so part two of the plan commenced operation make fun of Austrian incompetence he played up everything that went wrong in Holstein and talked openly about it being a breeding ground for revolutionaries his sound and fury brought the two nations to the brink of war backstabber monarchs wanted to avoid such a conflict between brothers Wilhelm accepted the possibility of war but forbade Bismarck from explicitly goading the Austrians anymore Bismarck's work on that front was already done he had a back-up plan in case war didn't come Bismark always had a back-up plan but he spent most trying to shore up alliances to make sure that Prussia was ready for the fight his king sort of didn't want first the italians Victor Emmanuel the man trying to unify Italy desperately wanted to take over Venice it's like unification time in in in the mid nineteenth century right there's just been a history of all of these small states and a lot of people realize how some of these modern countries like today like Germany and Italy for example did have not really been around that long and not in the way that we look at them today right so yeah this unification has been such a big deal because it's also this idea like going back to the poliana era that just completely sent France to being this powerful state and that the imbalance that eventually got created where you have these big states in Europe and then you have all these little states and that was really shown that that kind of imbalance was really shown in the Napoleonic years and now in here in the 1900s they feel you know kind of this this people are more it looks like willing at this moment to unify or at least take it more seriously for leaders to try to unify so you can be stronger to be able to compete more in Korea and create a more balance of power well the man trying to unify Italy desperately wanted to take over Venice which was in Austrian hands I mean how can you have an Italy with no Venice but he was never gonna have the strength to fight Syria alone and so Bismarck seized on this getting him to agree that if Prussia and Austria went to war the newly formed Italian Kingdom would join in for only the small small price of one Venice which Bismarck didn't really want anyway next thread of my friend right not publicly successful in securing the French as allies Bismarck was dealing with Napoleon the third here a man too clever for his own good by half Napoleon the third who saw himself as the equal of his famous uncle but really really wasn't the only course of action that would get in name only he wouldn't support Prussia but he wouldn't support Austria either this was just fine by Bismarck stay outta me Bismarck kept pressure on Austria having Prussian officials meet with Romanians and Magyars Czechs and Serbs any ethnic minority within the Austrian Empire all in order to make it look like he was building allies and raising legions that's always been a real issue for the Ostrow for Austria is there diversity you look on a map and you just see this big swath of land but fail to realize how ethnically diverse Eastern Europe is right there already named enough people there okay Maggie ours Serbs Slavs I mean there's so many different groups there and that always been of course difficult for them to be able to yeah to unify that way of revolutionaries ready to revolt the moment the Austrians went to war but Bismarck's plans were interrupted by one thing he did not factor in as he walked down the great boulevard unter den Linden two shots broum quiet he world's a young man stands before him revolver in hand the 51 year old Bismarck grabs him three more shots ring out as they grapple finally soldiers run up and subdue the young man as the assassin is hauled off they check Bismarck for wounds one finds a hole in his coat and follows it to find a hole in his waistcoat which with some trepidation he follows to find a hole in Bismarck shirt all five shots had hit but every one of them had either only grazed him or bounced off of his ribs in a moment that history doesn't record but I think we all know happened Bismarck simply nodded to the soldier said iron Chancellor put on shades and walked away refusing to let one measly assassination attempt to get in the way of a good war as I am invincible back to work getting the german-speaking world to tear itself apart and as rumors swirled the Austrians felt they had to make a move so they called the pan German diet in Frankfurt to decide the issue of schleswig and holstein the diet moved against Prussia but this played right into Bismarck's hand the moment the diet came to their decision the Prussian representative read a statement that Bismarck had prepared for just such a moment two flaring the diet invalid and the German Confederation dissolved now it would be war it would be the northern German states and Prussia against the southern German states and the Austrian Empire hundreds of thousands of men were mustered it could have been a long war but now the king had in his service a general as capable on the battlefield as Bismarck was in the conference room General Moltke the uncle of the general multi who will so disastrously lead the German forces into the first world war this Moltke could not have been more different from his nephew he was one of the first to see that the modern rifle had made the idea of the frontal charge obsolete he grasped the importance of railroads for mobilization and realized that modern armies were too big to be commanded by one man that plans should be flexible and subordinates should be allowed to take initiative within them this this may see a lot of this seemed like common sense but battle strategies and tactics were so stiff in much European history like it's just like it has to be done this way and this is the way you do it and of course this is I mean this is a new era right we're here and mid-1800s amongst industrialization and technological advancement and those that were obviously thinking a little bit forward here and not being so stubborn to older ways are gonna find themselves you know on top that plants should be flexible and subordinates should be allowed to take initiative within them it was this Moltke who famously said plans never survived contact with the enemy Moltke led a lightning war crushing the once great austrian empire within weeks and now where Bismarck had once had to work so hard to get the king to go to war their success had been so great that he had to work equally hard to get the king to stop Bismarck realized that they could only push so far before the other Great Powers stepped in and all of the work that he had done would be undone more still he believed that once he had eclipsed them he might need the Austrians to serve as a balance against one of the other great powers so he must not impose on them a peace that would leave them hating Prussia so Bismarck called in his erstwhile enemy the Crown Prince the same Frederick vilhelm who he had so unsuccessfully tried to put on the throne and put him to work reining in his father Fritz a lover of peace despite being an excellent military commander convinced the king to accept the deal that Bismarck had on the table Prussia would take over most of northern Germany the German Confederation as a body would be disbanded their Italian allies would get Venice and Austria would forever be banned from any pan German parliament or from meddling in German affairs oh and weirdly Liechtenstein became an independent country so that also no you know things were looking up for Bismarck's grand project of uniting all of Germany under Prussian rule they're just loomed one more obstacle one great nation that although neutral so far would oppose any further increase in German unity and strength there was the problem of France yeah I mean if your France you don't like this I mean how could you I mean yeah you're kind of neutral but you don't want to see this powerful growing state bordering near you right France has been territory it's just so dominant for many years right because all these other they were basically surrounded by all of these little kingdoms right so yeah they're they're obviously going to be nervous but haven't really put their foot down we'll also be thinking about themselves as you saw Bismarck I guess try to keep the the French off their back was trying to give them stuff right to kind of make them happy there so yeah you're gonna I think this growing if you want to call German nationalism or whatever in the French nationalism is probably gonna have to come to a head here soon I mean we know a dozen and World War one but we're not there yet okay okay cool all right yeah good stuff there so it's interesting to see so much of that the politics and the deals they're remaining and these skirmishes they're kind of they can be kind of hard to follow right because there's so much of him like telling one nation one thing and this other nation either thing and these deals being made and to facing a lot of things it's very hard to follow you know if you don't know much I think about about in Bismarck it might be something you want to watch again to try to to try to make sense of it but nevertheless you just you're continuing to see his his skillful statement ship as this is slowly but surely kind of working towards his favor and the goal of a unified Germany which of course as you know the neighbors are already noticing could be quite a force to to be reckoned with especially with you know he's got these policies this you know irony you don't believe in that kind of the use of yeah iron blood as they said to to achieve things so he's very very serious about it for sure okay well great definitely looking forward to finishing up the series so be sure to look out for the next video which will cover parts five and six which should go ahead and wrap it up and we'll see how he kind of puts a bow on this thing and yeah awesome all right just a few plugs around to be at the beginning of the the video that this video was chosen by the patrons if you'd like to join our patreon go down below there'll be a link to the description and a pledge to support the channel gets you a little bit more involved and a little bit more ability to impact what videos get on this channel there a couple other invitations if you'd like to join a community of history buffs and and fans alike a link to the discord server is also down below and if we see you there great if I don't see you there hopefully I'll see you soon with the next video and we'll go ahead and into here and we'll see you soon bye

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 107,701

Rating: 4.9533024 out of 5

Keywords: react, history, otto von bismarck, prussia, germany

Id: UkRVlKmRbCU

Length: 31min 29sec (1889 seconds)

Published: Wed Aug 21 2019