Bismarck (In Our Time)

this is the BBC this podcast is supported by advertising outside the UK thanks for downloading the nighttime podcast for more details about in our time and for our Terms of Use please go to BBC co uk hello today we will be discussing the iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck one of Europe's leading statesmen in the 19th century and credited with the unification of Germany here's repression Jonker and istick rut he took his home state and made it indomitable among the other states in the German Confederation the conflict that marked the beginning of his expansionist name was over schleswig-holstein a conflict that has gone down in history as a byword for incomprehensible wars the British prime minister Lord Palmerston said the schleswig-holstein question is so complicated that only three men in Europe have ever understood it Warners Prince Albert who is dead the second was a German professor who became mad I am the third and I forgotten all about it whatever the causes of this conflict it was just the beginning of Bismarck benefiting from regional power struggles after vanquishing Austria and France he led the new industrialised Germany and managed to rein in power for a further two decades he introduced universal suffrage for men for tactical reasons he founded one of Europe's first welfare states but he was also known for his ruthless tactics ignoring democratic institutions if they blocked his will and he was never afraid to double in dirty politics leaking to the press and bribing journalists so was the unification of Germany a carefully planned campaign or a series of unpredictable events that Bismarck made the most of how did his encouragement of nationalism bear fruit much later in Nazi Germany and what is his legacy joining me to discuss this Richard Evans professor of modern history at Cambridge University Christopher Clark reader in modern European history also a Cambridge and Catherine Lerman senior lecturer in modern European history at London Metropolitan University Richard Evans can you give us an overview of how the area we now know as Germany was organized just before the middle of the nineteenth century yes what I'm I don't think organize is really quite the word it goes back to the Holy Roman Empire founded by Charlemagne and in the early Middle Ages the favourite thousand-year Reich Hitler later sought to emulate and that was abolished by Napoleon in 1806 and in 1815 after the Battle of Waterloo the the victorious Allies couldn't think of anything better to do than kind of put it back together again but without the Emperor's and they called it the German Confederation slimmed it down but much the same boundaries 39 states which were independent states they had a kind of diet or meeting place rather like the Council of Ministers in the in the EU but essentially it had very few central powers and the German Confederation was not a nation state it included substantial national minorities it included a chunk of the Habsburg monarchy and german-speaking Austria and the Czech lands it excluded quite large parts of Prussia and the german-speaking areas outside it it was a very insofar as I had any kind of central power it was quite repressive and famously the Austrian Chancellor metalic used such institutions as the were in the German Confederation to try and dampen down free speech and and generally keep a lid on the liberal nationalist aspirations which were looming up after the French Revolution from what you what would you said an attorney which you said it I gather you think it's a a bit of a hodgepodge and be designed to quash and to suppress the revolutionary ideas that had bubbled up in in France and so on yes everyone in in government in Europe after 1815 was terrified of a resurgence of the French Revolution at the same time there were middle thor's intellectuals and professionals growing a number all the time who believed in the ideas of 1789 that there should be the nation-state that the people of every nation every culture every language should have their own state and that they people should be sovereign so there should be parliamentary institutions and governments responsible to Parliament of course all over the German Confederation in these 39 states they're a colorful mixture but almost none of them has that they're all autocracies or authoritarian states of one kind and another so that we use not thinking of nationalism as kind of right-wing force but in the 19th century it's very important to remember a left-wing force first half 19th century liberals saw getting rid of Confederation having a unified German nation state as a quickest way to abolish all these reactionary small states and have a state ruled by Parliament and responsible to the people and that drove through until 1848 the tiler revolutions can you outline what happened there and what were the two three main consequences yes well it's the hungry forties of course it's agricultural depression starving people at same time industry traditional workshops and handicrafts and the constant being undercut by Bush's industrialization so there's a huge economic crisis and on top of that there's a financial crisis and government so that the Prussian and various other governments are forced to call some kind of representative assembly initially a rather traditional sort to vote in new new taxes and this boiling popular discontent plus middle-class liberal aspirations creates a revolution first in France then it spreads across the continent and a big factor here is that people actually remembered 1789 and they thought the same kinds of things were we're going to happen so there's a panic in the existing states and governments the Prussians simply Indian pull out of Berlin they allow ministry a liberal ministry to be appointed and the Liberals in Germany have national elections they set up a national parliament at Frankfurt and they try to unify the country in a sense one could say in crude summary a sort of conservative loss of nerve but not necessary but not necessarily loss of position because that's where we can say that Bismarck comes on the scene how and why did he come on the scene then what was opportunity right 1848 is an absolutely crucial formative moment in Bismarck's life in a sense it makes Bismarck the politician or at least establishes several of his most fundamental priorities 1848 is in the first instance of course a terrible body blow for the traditional monarchical order in Prussia the king is effectively a prisoner of his people in Berlin Capital City so this is a terrible blow to the van Arkel order and for Bismarck who is an absolutely dyed-in-the-wool monarchist it's a profound shock he describes this in his in his memoirs he tells of how he went out and summoned his peasants to a kind of informal quasi Parliament on his estate he told them what had happened in Berlin and their first instinct was to say let's all arm ourselves let's march to Berlin let's free the king Cathy lemon I've skated over the surface of Bismarck Specter can you tell us more about his family background and how it informed him and how he began his political career well he was born into the Prussian agrarian nobility east of the river Elbe his father was a typical young car his mother was a nun noble birth and she made the educational choices for her two sons Otto was the younger son and sent him off very early to boarding school at the age of six which he never forgave her for he resented marriage he was a physically impressive man a giant at that time was a six foot four as as I read yes here a six foot fourteen like Gulliver developed a very powerful field and he compelled notice as well I mean he really used his appearance throughout his political career to impress and to make an impact can you tell us the first big what he's called in his knee Bismarck he's called in to solve a crisis the crisis the crisis about getting taxes to pay for the army can you briefly describe what the Christ was and what Bismarck did to solve it because that's in a sense on the home stage his breakthrough yes I mean Bismarck's career release thrived as a result of crises I mean the 1848 revolution was his first big crisis and he thrived in conflict and in crisis the second one came in 1862 which obviously led to his appointment and this was a crisis over the army reform the new king been Homme the first was keen to see the reform of the Prussian army he wanted to expand it and lengthen the time of service in the army and and at this time of course the Parliament since 1848 had a liberal majority that was opposed to the army reform and the Parliament wouldn't let the king get the taxes who want to keep the army he wanted and then he called him Bismarck to sort it out so what did this Mike do to sort it out well Bismarck pledged really to achieve the army reform irrespective of the attitude of the Parliament he was prepared to rule unconstitutionally through the 1860s collect the necessary taxes even though they've been struck from the budget and he really wanted to cast himself in the role of being a vassal of his Lord he would achieve the army reform unmodified so he ruled unconstitutionally which was very dangerous he got the taxes without guys were fun but he just went raised them so he had enough money still an extraordinary bold thinking it was he was kind of justified because of this warriors pleasure to co-sign we haven't got four days to explain why it happened in 1864 but because it was such a victory for Prussia it seems to me you tell me that I'm wrong everything that did that this justified his policies because people cheered they won a war and he was on the move then wasn't he yes a few things to say about Bismarck I mean one is that that he was somebody who wanted to do his own thing there's a famous letter of 1838 where he says I hate being civil servant because civil servants are like musicians and an officer they will have to play together to a cantata I want to make my own music he says and all the way through that's you can only really kind of ruled temperamentally he has this relationship with a king of prussia and presents himself as a royal servant but actually he also says in private I wind the king up like a clock every morning and then the first was the simple soldier type he wasn't too bright he knew as he wanted and he wanted monarchical power and he wanted the old institutions of Prussia kept and in many ways Bismarck shared his views but what Bismarck wanted to do that the King never really I think quite understood was to preserve the old Prussia by using modern methods as he said you can't alter it you have to ride the wave of history you have to steer a course on the stream of time or one one more poetic way he put it once was that you have to listen for the the rustle of God's cloak as he crosses the stage of world history and sees the helmets and passes so he's always saying you can't really force events you have to wait on events wait for things to happen and then steer them the way you want the way he wanted was really as far as possible to preserve the old prussian institutions and that brought him into conflict with a lot of old conservatives who didn't really understand what he was doing this victory of a schleswig-holstein it's call it a victory Russia and Austria divided these two says 1:1 about against against Denmark why was it such a boost for his money well the key issue in contention during the constitutional crisis was precisely military funding the size of the army the length of military service and when US remember that this is the Prussian army was an army which had not seen real warfare against a proper enemy since 1815 so that the the Danish war makes a huge difference because Bismarck is now crowned with success so is the army it's quite impossible now for the Liberals to say it wasn't worthwhile to to fund a military expansion the success proves that Bismarck was right and what seems to prove the Bismarck was right and they were wrong they went against Treasure Coast Island with Austria cathay in lemon and but very soon enough there's a couple years afterwards because my engineer is a war against Austria and against quite a lot of odds winds of what he's pressuring is a famous victory can you give us your interpretation of that yes I mean the schleswig-holstein question is obviously very very important I mean he works with Austria to rest these two Duchess away from the Danish crown and he's always prepared to work with Austria if it furthers his aims therefore uses the schleswig-holstein question to lure Austria in a way into his trap he knows that he can pick a quarrel at any time with Austria over schleswig-holstein he obviously wants to annex the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein but there are various reform plans in the 1860s about the Confederation and he provokes this war with Austria sorry I have to move on to that war with Austria and and can you tell us how he provokes it authoring the end decides to past the the issue of the Dutch is over to the German Confederation and Bismarck says basically that the German Confederation is appropriate for this and then is able to use the German Confederation as a way of a way of taking on Austria as Kathy implies this seems to be a sort of strategy that he has he's he he's turning on Austria and he's got that worked out well and I'm trying to get the fact is he taking things as they pop up oh he's a good chance at von Australis or is this a grand plan because he's given he's given so much credit for the grand design people like Disraeli admire him and all sort of look at this man knocks them off he knocks them off he he gets the thing across there and so what the Austrian thing is that pre-plan I mean it's it's the we hope we haven't on televisions haven't got a map but if you can think of a kind of map of northern Europe in 1815 part of territorial arrangement was that Prussia got a large chunk of the Rhineland which is very important long term because that's where industry Hammond does the Ruhr and all the rest of it but it was separated from the rest of Prussia by the kingdom of Hanover and other bits and one of Bismarck sayings as to strengthen Prussia by somehow taking over Hanover and unifying Crusher making it into a single large state and so Bismarck was provoking this war with Austria over it really did minister did quarrels picked quarrels of the joint administration of these two provinces in North Germany in order to take over Hanover which he did shocking conservatives by chucking out the legitimate monarch and incorporating into interpreter as they as a province so that consolidated Prussia and then what happened of course is that the Nationalists get fantastically excited by this thing this is the first step towards German unification and Bismil realize you can't stop it he already certain 1866 South Colonie will join in with North Germany it's only a matter of time could be weeks could be years could be decades but it's going to happen and he just said waits then to see how things how things happen between after 1866 and it's it's very clear he's it to him he's not going to be able to stop it so he has to kind of steer it in a way that's going to preserve Prussian institutions so it does Austria his clock and but there's a player division after silicon division between the northern and the southern cities partly or maybe wholly massively religious the North Protestant or something's very mean Catholic and their different histories the South looks to the south and so on and he's interested in bringing them on board can you tell us again was this yes I mean Bismarck is already encompassing in his in his political thought the possibility of an integration of the southern states but if you place yourself in the position of 1867 of a contemporary it's impossible to imagine how this will be achieved the three southern states the three major southern German states Baden Wurttemberg and Bavaria had all during the war with Austria had all side which sided with Austria not with Prussia they mobilized their armies against Prussia not not for pressure so they'd been beaten in a war already they had effectively been beaten I mean they because they were so timid in them in their handling of their troops they didn't there was no actual direct military encounter but they they were mobilized against Prussia so the Prussian Austrian washin we should really be calling it the Prussian German war it's a war between Prussia and most of the rest of Germany including of course Hannover which is annexed and conquered and annexed so it's very difficult to imagine how these southern states will be integrated because feelings are riding very high against Prussia the as you've said yourself the the Catholic opinion in the south is very important Catholics look to Austria for leadership of German unification if this is to take place then it ought to be in their view led by the Habsburg the Catholic Habsburg dynasty not by the this horrible Protestant juggernaut in Berlin so and there's there's a lot of clerical agitation against Prussia during the years 1867 68 but you see it kept trying to get in the mind of this man because I've read quite a comma too much as I could about him before I mean is it is he easy really thick because it's fascinating if he sticks it in there with these massive cigars and he's massive meal six boiled eggs buttered for tea every day not something thinking this through it's one thing and it's really fascinating if what comes up is what comes next it's another thing it is interesting they're not quite as impressive can I just tend to cut it for a moment here and he Chris is talking about Chris Andrews you've talked about the southern state it's in Germany the Catholic stations on there being on the side of Austria if he wants to take them out he goes to war with France now which is a bold and daring thing to be military but he's he doing this in order to to to bring the southern sights on this house because if France comes in - let us call it Germany they're gonna have to come up through the Catholic station the Catholics are gonna have to make their minds up in a very big way so whether whose side are you on is that what's going on well how did he shut off the war with France again can we talk about the aims telegram because it brings in all his sort of louche corrupt dispatch is obviously very famous for triggering off the franco-prussian war that arose from the Hohenzollern candidacy to the vacant Spanish throne there were ideas to place on the Spanish throne a whole and soul and prince the Hohenzollerns with a really house of prussia and the idea was to place a Catholic home soul on the throne of Spain this was obviously very worrying to France Bismarck really was keen to let this issue develop he saw that it had a lot of potential to cause friction with France and that it might be useful to him in the longer term to help bring the South German states into the north then we come to the image telegram according to when the French ambassador's said to the king who is on holiday this spa town in the Black Forest of Bad ends I can go in the first will you please guarantee that you will never again support German candidate for the this German Canada for the throne of Spain the king was outraged going to one report he said kiss my ass which is a fairly typical and so the king then a telegram was sent a telegram the Bismarck saying that this is what happened bhisma altered the telegram he changed the wording to make it look much ruder as a response than it that it actually was and this then was was cost leaked and leave its mark yeah and the French were outraged and then what bhisma wanted was the French to declare war he engineered a but he did not want to be seen to be aggressive and Napoleon the third wants to make a big figure he'd already backed his her unification and so he declared war on this on this pretext but he was so I think the back of it knew that a unified Germany under Prussian leadership would be a serious threat to to France and the longer term as indeed it was so he provoked France and it was proud of his tradition of leaking bribing journalists getting draw writing to France had to come it's still remarkable that this this Russian army is sort of ossified for goodness knows how many years after took them on still in in in theory a very massive force the French would they crushed them very crude that debark wasn't it soldiers Dola wrote about that absolutely I mean the really fascinating thing about the French crisis the crisis that leads to the war is is its hybrid character on the one hand it's it's a completely traditional crisis if it happens because a throne has fallen vacant in Spain I mean it was a crisis of a succession of the kind that started wars in the 18th century so in that sense is an old regime crisis on the other hand bismarck exploits this quintessentially modern phenomenon of mass nationalism through press leaks and so on so it's that capacity to operate a combined politics combining traditional and modern methods which i think is so distinctive about Bismarck's statecraft at this time Kellerman when he defeats france he's had three major military victories in five or six years he's riding the liberals are still loved though there's a quorum lubbers against him but basically he's the hero of the time isn't he can you give us some insight into what what his position was then what how he was regarded inside in 71 872 oh well he he becomes the founder of the right the Reich's kirinda and has enormous prestige obviously from his achievements I mean he himself had achieved far more than he ever imagined was possible and his stature as I say is completely different after 1871 he's delivered very tangible successes to the monarchy and seems to be really in a position of supreme power within a new German Empire he's got a formidable reputation as a result of his foreign policy successes and of course now he's got the southern states inside the inside the Federation Richard hasn't its own so he's he's worried he's got the thing together and now he actually says as it were turns in on himself rather than going out I mean that's what I've noticed Saurabh remark he turns in on the new it can call it european empire that he's great let's call it the german empire he does as a guard anymore no was that because of what was turning up what was that because he decided he had to consolidate this and make it much more in his image it's because he was very much aware of the element of fragility in chance in creating the the empire something in successes were not aware of so all is inevitable but he knew what a close-run think it was it's Chris Paul said and so his aim from 1871 until he left office nineteen years later was to consolidate the empire inside and outside and inside this is another Federation all German states including the present-day one in our own time apart from the Nazi era and the communist East Germany have been federal federal states which have left a lot of power to the to the individual constituent bits like the various acts in your Hamburg or whatever and this remained true there wasn't really even a government of the German German Empire that the Bismarck had to occupy various offices including crucially Minister presence of Prussia in order to bring all the threads together he wanted to consolidate it internally by forcing what he regarded as the the enemies of the Reich or people who opposed the the foundation or oppose a threat to the existing order they want to try and suppress them so crucially the Catholics who he thought was South German oh there Liam time a sort of venom against the Catholics personal venom yeah yes absolutely was described and he got the Liberals on board a he was constantly trying to get the liberal to betray their liberal principles and this is a classic example where they agree to force state control over Catholic Church appointments for example reduce civil liberties of Catholics and so on and then there's the working class again he tries to suppress the working class movement bands are socialists for making accentuate 1890 in his domestic policy Chris Clark he was trying to bring the mass of people and goes back to all you said about rallying the peasants on his estate and thinking and finally we all wanted to go and save the king he thought that the mass of people were naturally on his side naturally monarchists deep conservatives and is that was that the reasoning behind his introduction of universal male suffrage and introductory form of the welfare state absolutely I mean this goes back to the there was formative experiences of 1848 and it's also part of his attempt to outflank the Liberals by bringing in an even broader constituency than the Liberals can command into politics a constituent constituency which he hopes will be conservative of course he gets that totally wrong in fact germany's reichstag becomes one of the most diverse and sort of multicolored legislatures in europe and it's got a huge socialist vote incidentally his campaign against the catholics is also an utter failure bismarck wants to drive the catholics out of politics he does exactly the opposite he consolidates the catholic camp he leads to the formation of a powerful Catholic party that sent a party and he deepens the confessional division in German politics and German society sorry Richard you're about session yeah and that's something I don't really agree that I think it's his campaign ago the Catholics was a success in the sense that this Catholic centre party there was desperate to show that it was loyal to the Reich loyal to the loyalty Germany and that the the ultimate end of that of course is in 1933 when the Catholics center part is still a very large party and it caves into the the Nazi seizure of power because it essentially doesn't want to be seen as being disloyal so I think did succeed in browbeating the Catholics in an important sense can you briefly tell us Kathy how his career ended he was there for 28 years yes I mean the basis of his power throughout his chancellorship was really the support of the monarchy I mean he had done an enormous amount to bolster the power of the Prussian military monarchy through the Wars of unification and he depended very much on vilhelm the first first support hanging over Bismarck throughout his years in power was the question of the succession and obviously in 1888 Viljandi first dies and you get a pneumonic coming to power who wanted to rule personally and was very keen to oust Bismarck and seize the reins himself so he reclaimed the monocular road for himself and Bismarck was finished and Bismarck's the institutional basis of his power really really crumbles from 1888 Chris Chris Clark and then how would you sum up his legacy we went then back to the station as it was a most boisterous and raucous expelled person yes Bismarck had what one could describe is a very unquiet retirement he went into a permanent self basically until his death in 1898 he continued to use his precedent works to pelt the government with a ret and acid rain of criticism he legitimated in that way ironically enough he legitimated dissent because he became a rallying figure for anti governmental oppositional groups as for his legacy I suppose his most important legacy is the German Empire itself the Empire which he created and which in a sense only he could ever manage an empire with with numerous very serious flaws of which I think the greatest was the failure to resolve the issue of the relationship between civilian and military power have you got a last line for aspirin yeah he famously said in his AC to the great questions of the day will not be sold by parliamentary majorities and votes that was a mistake of 1848 he said but by blood and iron and it's the image after 1890 that he himself began to cultivate and then became very powerful in in the 1920s great leader doing everything by force and that I think convinces a lot of people that that's what Germany needs thank you very much Richard Evans Chris Clark Kathy Lerman next week the history of anesthetics thanks for listening we hope you've enjoyed this radio 4 podcast you can find hundreds of other programs about history science and philosophy a BBC code at UK forward slash Radio 4 you

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Keywords: bismarck, prinz eugen, history, germany, hms hood, documentary, world of warships, world war 2, battleship, sink, world war ii, royal navy, john tovey, otto von bismarck, battle of the atlantic, prussia, german history, hms prince of wales, johnny, horton, extra history, extra credits, james portnow, admiral holland, daniel floyd, lesson, study, educational, history lesson, world history, extra credits history, hitler, 1941, wwii, ww2, navy, nazi, country, music, war

Id: vd-V9uGXzvQ

Length: 30min 34sec (1834 seconds)

Published: Sun Aug 05 2018