Itās one of the greatest nations in the
world. Germany is the lynchpin of the European Union,
an economic powerhouse thatās also home to one of the worldās top creative capitals. Despite a history scarred by two world wars
and 45 years of partition under a Communist dictatorship, itās a nation thatās consistently
been at the center of global affairs for 150 years. And it only exists because of one man. When Otto von Bismarck was born, Germany was
a collection of 39 weak states cowering between the superpowers of France, Austria, and Russia. By the time he died, the German nation had
been forged in blood and iron and Central Europe had a new sheriff in town. But while we all know the modern Germany he
gave us, few of us know much about Bismarck himself. In this video, we take a look at the man known
to history as the Iron Chancellor. From the Ashes
When Otto von Bismarck was born in the Prussian village of Schƶnhausen on April 1, 1815,
it was into a world that had been shattered by war. Not ten years before, Napoleonās Grand Army
had come storming through Central Europe, destroying the Holy Roman Empire and leaving
the Germanic states in ruins. Bismarckās own home of Prussia had been
deeply humiliated by a French military occupation. Not that young Otto was aware of any of this. Less than three months after he was born,
Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. For baby Otto, Napoleonās defeat meant being
able to grow up on his parentās estate without war. Thatās right: estate. Despite the image heād later cultivate as
a man of the people, Otto von Bismarck came from the Prussian nobility. His father was a Junker, a kind of minor aristocrat,
while his mother came from a family of middle class professionals. Still, money doesnāt equal comfort. Aged 7, Ottoās strict mother sent him away
to school in the Prussian capital, Berlin, an experience Otto absolutely hated. He hated it so much, in fact, that it gave
him a lifelong loathing of strong women like his mother. While Otto was sulking in Berlin, Europe was
trying to rebuild itself after Napoleon. The destruction of the thousand year-old Holy
Roman Empire had left a void in the center of the continent. To fill it, the surviving superpowers created
something called the German Confederation, a collection of 39 states locked in loose
association. The Confederation was designed to be weak. Its power was balanced between the Catholic
Austrian Empire in the south, and the Protestant kingdom of Prussia ā where Otto von Bismarck
was born ā in the north. As we run through Bismarckās life, itās
important to remember there was nothing at this stage that even remotely resembled modern
Germany. When you hear us say Bismarck studied in Hanover,
it wasnāt like you moving from, say, Colorado to Washington. It was like literally moving to another country,
albeit one where they spoke the same language. This language thing is exactly why people
would soon start wondering why there were 39 Germanic states instead of one united Germany. But more on that in a moment. For now all you need to know is Otto entered
Gƶttingen university in Hanover in the 1830s and studied to be a lawyer. Remarkably for such a great man, he was useless
as a student. His friends considered him a dandy, and his
tutors considered him a drunk. He scraped through his course and joined the
Prussian civil service, a terminally boring occupation. In fact, it was so boring that Bismarck wrote:
āthe Prussian civil servant is like one musician in an orchestraā¦ heās confined
to his own little partā¦ I, however, want to make my own music.ā Itās a quote Bismarck fans are fond of,
because it points to his future greatness. At the time though, that future greatness
was very much in doubt. Bismarck actually quit the civil service in
1839 after his mother died and returned to his fatherās estate. There he briefly became a Bible-thumping evangelical,
before marrying the pious Johanna von Puttkamer and living as just another Prussian farmer. The one notable thing he did came in 1847,
when he was sent to the Prussian parliament and made a number of speeches attacking the
nationās Jews. At this stage, in his early 30s, he really
was little more than a random hick from Pomerania. You know the saying, ācommeth the hour,
commeth the manā? Well, no-one in 1847 Europe knew it, but the
hour was very nearly upon them. And the man was already here. Revolution! In the library of European history, 1848 is
the giant red volume simply titled āWhoa!ā On February 22, a French government ban against
banquets led to a Paris uprising which deposed the king. Barely three weeks later, on March 12, a similar
uprising in Vienna toppled Klemens von Metternich, the guy whoād been holding Europe together
since Napoleonās defeat. It was a spread of revolution, a contagion
of uprisings. And, after Metternich fell, nowhere was safe. Within days, Berlin was paralyzed by riots
which nearly brought down the conservative Prussian king, Friedrich Wilhelm IV. It was only by promising a slew of liberal
reforms that Friedrich Wilhelm was able to cling onto power. One of those reforms? People could now discuss the possibility of
uniting Germany. For a guy whoās famous for uniting Germany,
you might be surprised to hear Otto von Bismarck wanted no part of this nationalist revolution. While Liberals in Prussia and the other German
states were holding elections and creating a parliament to write a new, pan-German constitution,
Bismarck was considering arming his peasants and marching on Berlin to preserve Prussian
sovereignty. In the end, though, Bismarck settled for using
his position in the Prussian parliament to become one of the loudest anti-revolutionaries
in Europe. The thing youāve gotta remember is that
āGermanyā had never been a thing before. For Bismarck, uniting all 39 states in the
German Confederation meant turning his beloved, Protestant Prussia into a support player in
a nation dominated by the Catholic Austrians. On top of that, the guys now pushing to unite
Germany were all middle class Liberals, while Bismarck was a reactionary, ultra-conservative
aristocrat. He loved his king, he loved God, and he loved
order. For Bismarck, 1848 must have been a living
hell. But that turbulent year did provide Bismarck
with one important boost. It brought Bismarck firmly to Friedrich Wilhelm
IVās attention. Throughout the revolution, Bismarck was one
of the most pro-monarchy men in Prussia. Even when it seemed the old order was about
to be swept away he clung stubbornly to the past, like a reactionary German limpet. So when the forces of counterrevolution finally
got control in 1849, Bismarck was perfectly placed to reap the rewards. As the revolutions failed in Prussia, Austria,
and elsewhere, thousands of German Liberals were forced to flee to America. By 1851, the old order had been completely
restored. For his services to the Prussian crown, Bismarck
was made ambassador to the city state of Frankfurt. Of all the countries rocked by 1848, only
one underwent permanent change. In France, where it had all kicked off, the
old monarchist order was destroyed. In its place, a president rose up whoād
soon become an emperor. His name was Napoleon III, and if youāve
already seen our video on him, youāll know he and Otto von Bismarck were destined to
collide with enough force to reshape the continent. Iron and Blood
On September 30, 1862, a giant of a man slowly lumbered to his feet in the Prussian parliament
and delivered a speech that would change European history. At 6ft4, and with a body built not unlike
a particular type of brick outhouse, Otto von Bismarck was a presence that always commanded
attention. But on this day, it was his words rather than
his size or volcanic temper that set everyone talking. In the 11 years since 1851, Bismarck had been
serving as Friedrich Wilhelmās ambassador to the capitals of Europe. Heād been in Frankfurt. St Petersburg. Heād even briefly been stationed in the
court of Napoleon III in Paris. And being so close to the levers of power
had given him time to think. Slowly, Bismarck had come to realize that
the world was changing whether he liked it or not. Menās dreams of a united Germany hadnāt
died with 1848. And the Catholic Austrians were ascendant
in the German Confederation even without a union. Either the Prussian giant stood by and watched
the Liberalsā and Austriansā dreams come true, or he beat them at their own game. It was from these musings that Bismarckās
famous āBlood and Ironā speech sprang. On that day, September 30, 1862, Bismarck
was in a precarious position. Roughly a year before, Friedrich Wilhelm IV
had died, and the Prussian crown had passed to his dull, dimwitted son Wilhelm I. Before 12 months had passed, Wilhelm had accidentally
sparked a crisis that nearly toppled his government. The short version is he needed tax rises that
the Liberal-dominated Prussian parliament simply wasnāt willing to pass. With it looking like another revolution might
be on the cards, Wilhelm panicked and recalled his fatherās old acolyte Bismarck from Paris
to become Prussiaās Minister-President. No-one expected Bismarck to last eight weeks. And now here he was, about to deliver his
first major speech to a hostile parliament. No-one could have predicted what a bombshell
it would be. In his booming, Germanic voice, Bismarck declared:
"The position of Prussia in Germany will not be determined by its liberalism but by its
power.ā He went on to say:
āNot through speeches and majority decisions will the great questions of the day be decidedāthat
was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849ābut by iron and blood.ā For the first time here, we see Bismarck explicitly
addressing the revolution of 1848 not as something horrific to be forgotten, but as something
that was just done wrong. Parliament had tried talking and building
consensus and all it had done was make chaos. Now it was time to do it right, to unify Germany
with force and iron and blood. To be clear, iron didnāt just mean war. It meant rapid industrialization. It meant a Prussia that was building ships
and bridges and railways so fast itād catch up with Britain and France. But, yes, it did also mean war. Nobody in the parliament knew it, but Bismarck
was about embark on three great wars that would take Germany from 39 shattered states
to a single behemoth under Prussian control. For the Liberals in Parliament, āiron and
bloodā was the last thing they wanted to hear. They tried to force Wilhelm I to remove his
new minister-president from power, even refusing to work with him when Bismarck began collecting
new taxes without their approval. Not that this bothered Bismarck. Heād returned to Prussia with a plan to
forge Germany in his conservative, protestant image. And the wheels ā forged from the strongest
iron, naturally ā were already in motion. War
The British Prime Minister Lord Palmerston once remarked:
āOnly three people have ever really understood the Schleswig-Holstein businessāthe Prince
Consort, who is deadāa German professor, who has gone madāand I, who have forgotten
all about it.ā All of which is our way of saying you donāt
need to worry about the super-complicated background to the Second Schleswig War. All you need to know is that Schleswig and
Holstein were two regions on the border between the German Confederation and Denmark, and
that on February 1, 1864, Bismarck convinced the Austrians to join him in invading them. The Second Schleswig War is today seen as
the beginning of the German Wars of Unification. More or less everything went according to
Bismarckās plan. Prussia and Austria stomped Demark, occupied
the peninsula, and within months had taken control of Schleswig-Holstein. Holstein went to Austria, while Schleswig
went to Prussia. In the 21st Century, itās fashionable for
historians to debate whether Bismarck really was a genius, or just extraordinarily lucky. Itās certainly true that the Second Schleswig
War was possible only thanks to a convenient succession crisis in Schleswig-Holstein. But the rest of it? Austria had no beef with Schleswig-Holstein,
they didnāt want to invade. But Bismarck managed to convince Vienna that
not joining his war would make Prussia too powerful in the German Confederation. So join it Austria did, a move that cost them
most of their allies ā just as Bismarck wanted. With Austria diplomatically isolated, Bismarck
then checked in on his old frenemy, Napoleon III, to ask if Paris had any desire to protect
Vienna. When Napoleon III was all like ānah, thatās
cool dude,ā Bismarck set about engineering his second major war. In January, 1866, Bismarck found a pretext
in Austriaās administration of Holstein. Again, the ins and outs donāt matter; what
matters is that, by June, Austria and several German states, including Hannover, were ready
for war with Prussia. This was an exceptionally bad move. The moment the starting gun fired on the Seven
Weeksā War, Prussiaās ultra-modern, ultra-efficient army was bulldozing its way across Central
Europe, crushing everything in its path. Seven weeks after the conflict exploded, the
Austrian army had been utterly defeated. Back in Berlin, Kaiser Wilhelm couldnāt
believe his luck. He and his general staff could already envisage
Prussian troops marching through Vienna. But that never happened. Bismarck put his extremely heavy foot down. There would be no march on Vienna, no humiliating
peace treaty for Austria. All he wanted was to force Vienna to promise
theyād never, ever join a united Germany. If they agreed, then any future Germany would
naturally be dominated not by the Catholic Habsburgs, but by the protestant Prussians. This practically gave Wilhelm a stroke. The Kaiser was so adamant Austria be crushed
that Bismarck had to threaten to throw himself from a fourth floor window if Wilhelm gave
the order to march on Vienna. In the end, Bismarckās theatrics carried
the day. The Austrians agreed to leave this whole uniting
Germany thing to Prussia, and Vienna was left standing. Back in Berlin, the two wars had made Bismarck
a hero. Even the Liberals whoād tried to get him
fired now sang his praises. Their chorus only got louder when Bismarck
annexed Schleswig and Holstein and Hanover, and forced every Germanic state north of the
River Main into his new North German Confederation. By July, 1867, those 39 Germanic states we
started this video with had been reduced to just five. In the south, there were Bavaria, Baden, WĆ¼rttemberg,
and Hesse-Darmstadt. In the north, Bismarckās new, Prussian-dominated
North German superstate straddled the Baltic Sea. All that was needed now was some pretext for
getting the southern states onboard this new thing called Germany. Luckily, Bismarck had plans for one final
war. Death of an Empire
For most in Europe, the creation of the North German Confederation was greeted with enthusiasm. For Liberals and German nationalists, it was
the moment theyād been waiting for since 1848. For the major powers, it was a useful corrective
to the void left by the Holy Roman Empireās destruction. But there was one man who was very displeased
with the way things were going. In Paris, Napoleon III stewed in bitterness. Having given Bismarck his blessing to go to
war with Austria, the French Emperor had been expecting something in return, and made moves
to annex Luxembourg for France. But Bismarck stopped him. Worse, he threatened to go to war over Luxembourgās
neutrality. Suddenly France was looking like the weak
European power against this booming new nation of Germany. So when a succession crisis blew up in Spain
in 1870 and Prussia tried to step in, Napoleon III decided to assert his empire. As youāll know if youāve watched our video
on Napoleon III ā and trust us, these two videos really complement one another ā Paris
dispatched the French ambassador to Ems, where he accosted a vacationing Kaiser Wilhelm I. The two had an argument and that was that. Only it wasnāt quite. See, Bismarck somehow got hold of a memo about
that argument. By now a master of the dark arts of politics,
he subtly edited what had been said so it appeared French honor had been unforgivably
insulted. Known as the Ems Dispatch, Bismarckās edited
memo did itās job perfectly. When Bismarck leaked its contents to the press,
the French public was so outraged that Napoleon III declared war. For the previous three years, Bismarck had
been trying to cajole the southern Germanic states into joining his new confederation
without success. But with the French suddenly preparing to
invade Prussia through those southern states, the holdout German rulers changed their tune. Terrified of a dollar store Napoleon rampaging
through their backyards, Bavaria and the rest fled into Bismarckās embrace. Bismarck made it simple. His army would protect them from the French,
on one condition. They join his new German Empire. Once he had their agreements, Bismarck set
out to crush the French. The French had gone to war expecting the other
European powers to join them. But Austria was now on good terms with Prussia
over that whole ānot invading Viennaā thing, while the Italians loved Prussia for
giving Austria a kicking. Britain and Russia, meanwhile, simply didnāt
care about a squabble between Paris and Berlin. So when the threadbare French Army finally
attacked the well-trained Prussian one, on August 4, 1870, it wasnāt even a rout. It was a massacre. Over the next month, the Prussians humiliated
the French. First they scattered their army. Then they invaded France. Then they laid siege to Paris. Finally, on September 2, 1870, the Prussians
surrounded and captured Napoleon III. It was the death blow for the Second French
Empire. It was also the birth of the German one. On January 18, 1871, Bismarck and Wilhelm
traveled to Louis XIVās old palace of Versailles to declare the creation of the German Empire. It was touch and go. At the last moment, Wilhelm decided he didnāt
want to be Emperor but king, and it was only after another multi-hour screaming match that
Bismarck convinced Wilhelm that if you donāt do this now, dum-dum, everything weāve been
working for this last decade will be lost! Finally, though, the empire was declared. Beneath a ceiling fresco of Louis XIV invading
the Holy Roman Empire, French representatives surrendered the territory of Alsace-Lorraine
to Germany, and agreed to pay an indemnity of five billion francs. Not 20 kilometers away, Prussian bombs continued
to fall onto the citizens of Paris, leaving them shell shocked in more ways than one. Almost a quarter of a century after the Liberal
revolutionaries of 1848 had failed to do so with speeches, Bismarck had finally created
Germany with blood and iron. It was the dawning of a brave new world, and
Europe would never be the same again. Germany: Fatherland
If the 1860s were Bismarckās decade of war, the 1870s and ā80s were his decades of peace. With France crippled and Germany suddenly
a thing, the other powers sat at the table all started exchanging uneasy looks with one
another, wondering if this new beer swilling nation was gonna start something. But they neednāt have worried. Unlike Kasier Wilhelm II, or Hitler, or Napoleon,
Bismarck was a conqueror who believed in restraint. With the Franco-Prussian War over, he halted
German expansion. Turned his attention to internal security. While future generations would assume Germanyās
existence was a matter of destiny, Bismarck knew how fragile his new empire was. Instead of fighting, now was the time for
ruling. As dual minister-president of Prussia and
Chancellor of the new Germany, Bismarck ruled with a strange combination of enlightenment
and repression. On the enlightened side, he introduced universal
male suffrage. Established a national healthcare system. Introduced accident insurance. Brought in old age pensions. This was Europeās very first modern welfare
state, and it was complemented by enlightened acts on the world stage. In 1885, Bismarck hosted a great power conference
that ended the scramble for Africa. He also devoted himself to European peace,
going out of his way to accommodate Russia, England, Austria, Italyā¦ even France. But behind this enlightened statesman lay
a guy who just couldnāt stop himself from occasionally acting like a petulant dictator. In the early 1870s, for example, Bismarck
launched a policy known as Kulturkampf. Dressed up ā as these things usually are
ā as a way of preserving ānative cultureā, it was really just an excuse to crack down
on German Catholics and try and turn them into good, Prussian-style Protestants. This was followed, in turn, by a crack down
on socialists and social democrats, and anyone basically to the left of Bismarck, which was
basically everyone under 50. Bismarck was terrified of exiting in his own
revolution. So he assumed cracking down on the forces
he feared would keep him in office forever. But while Bismarck was never overthrown, he
couldnāt keep his enemies out of government, either. When the election of 1890 rolled around, two
decades of anti-Catholic, anti-socialist policies resulted in a landslide for the anti-Bismarck
forces. However, it was 1888 rather than 1890 that
proved to be Bismarckās undoing. In German history, 1888 is known as The Year
of the Three Emperors. Thatās because, on March 9, Wilhelm I passed
away, and Fredrick III became Emperor. Bismarck had known for years that Wilhelm
was on the way out, and had spent all that time grooming Frederick just as he had Frederickās
father. Unfortunately for Bismarckās well-laid plans,
Frederick III lasted just 99 days in office before dying himself. In his wake, another man rose to the imperial
throne. A man who would go down in history for the
wrong reasons: Kaiser Wilhelm II. Wilhelm II was everything Bismarck couldnāt
stand. Impulsive, sulky, prone to absurd decisions
and, most importantly, utterly unwilling to listen to a stuffy old windbag whoād served
his grandfather and great-grandfather. Barely had Wilhelm IIās backside warmed
the imperial throne than he publicly dismissed Bismarck in 1890. The Iron Chancellor returned to his old estate
in a huff, expecting the government to recall him at any moment. But they never did. Although he lived 8 more years, Bismarck would
never be in a position of power again. Death of a Blacksmith
If Bismarckās life had been the great roar of an iron ox, his retirement was the bellowing
of a wounded bull. Until his death, Bismarck wrote books and
pamphlets and made speeches lionizing himself while tarring Wilhelm II and his government
as a bunch of incompetent boobs. While this was doubtless cheering to his supporters,
it laid an unfortunate precedent. Bismarckās self-mythologizing rants cemented
the image of Bismarck the blacksmith, single-handedly forging Germanyās destiny. It was an idea that hung around in German
politics into the mid-20th Century, influencing another self-proclaimed man of destiny: Adolf
Hitler. Unfortunate, too, was the way Bismarck simply
ranted, rather than teach. In his life, heād created a complex system
of alliances and friendship to ensure no other power tried to attack Germany. But the system was so complex that no-one
else could really grasp it. And so his departure marked the beginning
of the slippery slope to WWI. Finally, on July 30, 1898, Bismarck passed
away. In his last moments, he expressed regret that
he hadnāt been kinder to his dog, Sultan, before saying that heād soon see his wife
Johanna again. He was 83. From our modern perspective, itās impossible
to overstate how important Bismarck was. He managed to take a group of disparate European
states and transform them into a single, united whole. Itās telling that, even in the wake of WWI
and then WWII, no-one ever seriously considered breaking Germany back up again. Even the creation of Communist East Germany
ended with the two Germanys reuniting in 1990. Modern Germany may be smaller than it was
in Bismarckās day, but itās continued existence is now a geopolitical given. Can we imagine a world without Bismarck? Certainly, it would look very different from
our world today. Berlin would be a backwater, the European
Union likely wouldnāt exist, and Germany would just be a crazy dream some wayward Liberals
had once, back in 1848. On the other hand, weād have had no WWI. No WWII. No Hitler, or Goebbels, or the Final Solution. Would it be a better world? This far removed, all we can say is that itād
be unrecognizable. Those who followed Bismarck may have used
his creation for evil ends, but thereās no doubting the Iron Chancellor himself was
a great man of history. Bismarck once said he wanted to make his own
music on the world stage. Even now, over 120 years after his death,
weāre still all singing from his hymn sheet.
"All five shots had hit. In a moment that history doesn't record but I think we all know happened, Otto simply nodded, turned to the guard, said, 'iron chancellor.' Put on shades, and walked away."
This is great content but I have never been able to finish any video narrated by this guy. I guess it's just not my style.