19th Century Politics - Germany

19th Century Politics: Germany Ever since the end of Charlamagne's empire, Austria and Germany had not been unified as a single nation. This was finally achieved by the Prussian Otto von Bismark after a long period of suppression of German nationalists. So this was a period were people were feeling lots of nationalism. And that didn't mean just a pride in their country, it meant a pride in their shared languages, traditions, culture, history, and so the people who were living in what was now known as Germany, were very proud of all those things, and they were very much a close knit group and they wanted to keep their country their country. But the Prussian Otto von Bismark suppressed some of that nationalism so that he could unite Germany with the rest of the nation that used to be the German empire. Bismark's unification of Prussia was mainly aimed at defeating the rival Hapsburgs, who controlled Austria. So he wasn't just doing it for Germany's sake, he was doing it because he wanted to defeat his rivals. And the Hapsburgs were controlling Austria at this time, Bismark wanted to defeat Austria, unite Prussia, Austria, Germany all together into the German empire which had been united under Charlamagne's empire long before now. So in 1871, after Prussia won the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars in quick succession, so the wars between Prussia and Austria and Prussia and France, Bismark declared that he had achieved his ends and united the German empire. He had gotten all of these countries under one ruler again. So under Bismark's rulership, he actually did do some good things for Germany. He promoted a balance of power, such as was set up during the Congress of Vienna between European nations, which meant that they would't try to take over other nations. So even though he did kind of take over Austria and unite Prussia, Austria and Germany together, he was promoting a balance of power political system between European nations. He said he wasn't going to go after any other land, other nations shouldn't try to go after any other nation's land, everyone should just kind of keep their power balanced as it is now. So promoting this, he was able to keep peace in Europe from 1817 which lasted until 1914. Now he didn't rule that whole time, but peace did last that long. And it wasn't all due to Bismark. The other ruling nations had to the other rulers of nations had to agree to this balance of power as well. If any one of them had said oh no actually I want to take this land over here, then the balance of power would have shifted and people wouldn't have been happy. Someone somewhere would have been contesting that. Bismark also oversaw the creation of the Reichstag, which was a legislative body similar to Britain's Parliament and this legislative body provided representation for the middle and lower classes. So you had your group of you had your ruler and the group that surrounded the ruler, the king of Germany or the Emperor as they were calling it the German Empire and then you had the Reichstag, which was the body that was giving a voice to the middle and lower class citizens. So Bismark did promote a balance of power between other European nations which kept peace between European nations after 1871 until around 1914, and he also created the Reichstag to give the lower and middle classes a voice. And after Bismark united the German Empire once again, Germany then threw itself into the project of industrialization. So Germany was a little bit behind in the Industrial Revolution, but after Bismark united Germany with Prussia and Austria creating or recreating the German Empire, they then did begin to industrialize, develop factories, have more of a shift to people living in urban areas to help support the rising industrialization in those cities. So, 19th century politics started off with a little bit of rockiness in Germany until it was united and stabilized in 1871, and from that time on the Reichstag was developed, peace was kept in Europe, and industrialization finally began and really started to move quickly within Germany.