Otto von Bismarck

Thank you my friend SGT (Join to see) for making us aware that on September 23, 1862 King Wilhelm I appointed master strategist Otto von Bismarck as Prime Minister and Foreign Minister of Prussia.

Otto von Bismarck: The Iron Chancellor
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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LFtz5ZTJxxw

Images:
1. Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck with Minister of War Albrecht Theodor Emil Graf von Roon and Helmuth von Moltke as Chief of Staff of the Prussian Army
2. Otto von Bismarck as Minister President of Prussia, shown wearing insignia of a knight of the Johanniterorden
3. Marie, Herbert and Wilhelm von Bismarck, c. 1855
4. Prince Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck in uniform


Biographies
1. stanford.edu/dept/german/berlin_class/people/bismarck.htm
2. theodora.com/encyclopedia/b2/prince_otto_eduard_leopold_von_bismarck.html]

1. Background from {[https://web.stanford.edu/dept/german/berlin_class/people/bismarck.html]
In full OTTO EDUARD LEOPOLD, FÜRST (PRINCE) VON BISMARCK, GRAF (COUNT) VON BISMARCK-SCHÖNHAUSEN, HERZOG (DUKE) VON LAUENBURG, prime minister of Prussia (1862-73, 1873-90) and founder and first chancellor (1871-90) of the German Empire. Once the empire was established, he actively and skillfully pursued pacific policies in foreign affairs, succeeding in preserving the peace in Europe for about two decades. But in domestic policies his patrimony was less benign, for he failed to rise above the authoritarian proclivities of the landed squirearchy to which he was born.
Early Years
Bismarck was born at Schönhausen, in the Kingdom of Prussia. His father, Ferdinand von Bismarck-Schönhausen, was a Junker squire descended from a Swabian family that had ultimately settled as estate owners in Pomerania. Ferdinand was a typical member of the Prussian landowning elite. The family's economic circumstances were modest--Ferdinand's farming skills being perhaps less than average--and Bismarck was not to know real wealth until the rewards flowed in after the achievement of German unification. His mother, Wilhelmine Mencken, came from an educated bourgeois family that had produced a number of higher civil servants and academics. She had been married to Ferdinand von Bismarck at age 16 and found provincial life confining. When her son Otto was seven, she enrolled him in the progressive Plamann Institute in Berlin and moved to the capital to be near him. The young Bismarck resented exchanging an easy life in the country for a more circumscribed life in a large city, where in school he was pitted against the sons of Berlin's best-educated families. He spent five years at the school and went on to the Frederick William gymnasium for three years. He took his university entrance examination (Abitur) in 1832.
With his mother's encouragement, he took up the study of law at the University of Göttingen in the kingdom of Hanover. Evidently Bismarck was a mediocre student who spent much of his time drinking with his comrades in an aristocratic fraternity. After a brief stint at the university in Berlin, he entered the Prussian civil service, where he was plagued by boredom and an inability to adhere to the hierarchical principles of the bureaucracy. His mother's death in 1839 gave him the opportunity of resigning in order to come to the assistance of his father, who was experiencing financial difficulties in the management of his estate. From 1839 to 1847 Bismarck lived the ordinary life of a Prussian country squire. Subsequently he was to romanticize these years on the land and wonder why he had abandoned an idyllic existence for the insecurities of a life in politics. This frequently expressed nostalgia may have been more guise than reality.
During this period he met and married Johanna von Puttkamer, the daughter of a conservative aristocratic family famed for its devout pietism. While courting Johanna, Bismarck experienced a religious conversion that was to give him inner strength and security. A subsequent critic was to remark that Bismarck believed in a God who invariably agreed with him on all issues. There is no question that the marriage was a very happy one. In fact, Bismarck's last words before dying in 1898 expressed the wish that he would once again see Johanna, who had passed away some years earlier.

Early Career
His politics during the 1840s did not diverge substantially from those of a typical country squire; if anything, they were more conservative. He believed in a Christian state that received its sanction ultimately from the deity. The existing social and political order was to be defended in order to prevent a Hobbesian chaos of all against all. Given his views, Bismarck was welcomed as a member of the religious conservative circle around the brothers von Gerlach, who were stout defenders of the noble estate against the encroachments of bureaucratic centralization. Bismarck had nothing but sarcasm for aristocratic liberals who viewed England as a model for Prussia. In 1847 he attended the Prussian United Diet, where his speeches against Jewish emancipation and contemporary liberalism gained him the reputation of a backwoods conservative, out of touch with the dynamic forces of his age. (See liberalism.)
Bismarck's response to the liberal revolution that swept through Europe in 1848 confirmed his image as a reactionary. He opposed any concessions to the liberals and expressed contempt for the king's willingness to bargain with the revolutionaries. He even considered marching his peasants to Berlin to free Frederick William IV from the baneful influence of the rebels. With other archconservatives, including Ernst Ludwig von Gerlach, he began contributing to the Kreuzzeitung newspaper (1848) as an organ of antirevolutionary sentiment. (See 1848, Revolutions of.)
For Bismarck's future role, it is important to understand his analysis of the revolution. Like his contemporary Karl Marx, he identified the forces of change as confined solely to the educated and propertied middle class. The vast majority of Prussians, however, were peasants and artisans, who, in Bismarck's view, were loyal monarchists. The task of the forces of order was to confirm the loyalty of these two groups by means of material concessions. The economic policies of the urban middle-class radicals were rooted in pure self-interest, he maintained. The radicals would spur industrial growth at the expense of the lower middle class and the farm population. Ultimately, even the middle class itself might be won over by tactical concessions and success in foreign policy. This strategic and opportunist thinking distanced Bismarck from the ideological conservatives, who were wedded to traditional concepts of authority. His vision of a manipulative state that sustained its power by rewarding obedient groups remained with him throughout his political career.
In 1849 he was elected to the Prussian Chamber of Deputies (the lower chamber of the Prussian Diet) and moved his family to Berlin. At this stage he was far from a German nationalist. He told one of his fellow conservatives, "We are Prussians, and Prussians we shall remain. . . . We do not wish to see the Kingdom of Prussia obliterated in the putrid brew of cosy south German sentimentality." In 1851 Frederick William IV appointed Bismarck as the Prussian representative to the federal Diet in Frankfurt, a clear reward for his loyalty to the monarchy.
With the defeat of the revolution in central Europe, Austria had reasserted its supremacy in the German Confederation, and Bismarck, being an archconservative, was assumed to support the status quo, which included Austrian hegemony. He lived in Frankfurt for eight years, where he experienced a commercial and cultural environment quite different from that of a Prussian estate.
It was in Frankfurt that Bismarck began to reassess his view of German nationalism and the goals of Prussian foreign policy. Not only did he find the constant deference to the Austrians in Frankfurt demeaning, but he also realized that the status quo meant acceptance of Prussia as a second-rate power in central Europe. In 1854 he opposed close cooperation with Austria, arguing that it entailed "binding our spruce and seaworthy frigate to the wormy old warship of Austria." Gradually he began to consider the options that would make Prussia the undisputed power in Germany. A vision of a Prussian-dominated northern Europe and a redirection of Austrian power to the Slavic areas in the south took shape in his mind. If necessary, a war with Austria to destroy its hegemony was not to be excluded. Implementation of such a policy would be anything but conservative because it would entail radical changes in the map of Europe as it had been drawn by the conservative powers at Versailles in 1815.

Prime Minister
In 1859 Bismarck was sent to Russia as Prussian ambassador, and not long thereafter (May 1862) he moved to Paris as ambassador to the court of Napoleon III. Thus he had 11 years of experience in foreign affairs before he became prime minister and foreign minster of Prussia in September 1862. He had come to know personally the architects of French, Russian, and Austrian foreign policy. Ironically, Bismarck was called back by King William I (1861-88) to the reigns of power at a critical juncture in Prussia's internal development.
For more than two years William had been locked in a battle with the Chamber of Deputies over military reform. Having been in the army much of his adult life, the monarch (similar to earlier Prussian kings) considered it entirely within his prerogative to increase the size of the military and the years of service. When the liberal majority did not approve the revenue for these reforms, William refused to negotiate or compromise with liberal politicians over the fundamental issue of sovereignty. He prorogued Parliament twice, and each time the liberal majority increased.
The appointment of Bismarck was the monarch's last desperate effort to avoid parliamentary sovereignty over the military. The Chamber of Deputies interpreted it as an act of defiance--a throwing down of the gauntlet. But the Bismarck who returned to Berlin from Paris was not the backwoods conservative of 1848. Having lived in Frankfurt and Paris, he had come to appreciate the growing importance of the propertied and educated middle class. And in France he had experienced the Bonapartist regime of Napoleon III, which relied on the combination of success in foreign policy and plebiscites at home to shore up the emperor's authoritarian regime. Bismarck had changed to such a degree that he actually returned with the idea of seeking a compromise over the military issue. But William I rejected a sensible proposal offered by Bismarck, leaving him no alternative but a policy of confrontation. Bismarck then announced that there was a "hole" in the constitution. If the king and the members of the Upper Chamber and the Chamber of Deputies, who together were responsible for the budget, failed to come to an agreement, the government in the interim had to proceed without it. Taxes were to be collected (and spent) on the basis of the old budget because civil servants had to be paid and the government had to continue functioning. This tactic, applied from 1863 to 1866, allowed him to implement the military reforms without the sanction of Parliament. Bismarck did, indeed, appear to be the reactionary, confrontational aristocrat out of tune with his time.
But there were hints that this was more appearance than reality. Bismarck said that "Prussia must collect and keep its strength for the right moment, which has been missed several times already; Prussia's frontiers as laid down by the Vienna treaties are not conducive to a healthy national life; it is not by means of speeches and majority resolutions that the great issues of the day will be decided--that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849--but by blood and iron." He was giving the opposition evidence that he intended to use Prussia's military might not for internal suppression but for the liberal goal of achieving national unification. The liberal opposition, however, chose to ignore these hints, and on May 22, 1863, by a vote of 239 to 61, they informed William I that they would not deal with his prime minister any further. After eight months in office, Bismarck had failed to achieve any agreement with the parliamentary opposition.
Bismarck now turned to foreign policy in the hope that success on this front would weaken the electorate's clear desire for political reform. Trouble had been brewing since 1848 between the Danes and the German population of the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. (Both duchies were in union with Denmark; Schleswig, however, had a large German population, and Holstein was a member of the German Confederation.) When the Danish king acted rashly, Bismarck made sure that it was Prussia and Austria rather than the German Confederation which represented German interests. Liberal leaders like Rudolf Virchow still saw Bismarck as an unrepentant reactionary who was "no longer the man who joined us with feeling that he was going to accomplish something with an energetic foreign policy."
A quick successful war against Denmark left the fate of Schleswig and Holstein up to Bismarck and the Austrians. After much haggling, the Convention of Gastein was signed on Aug. 20, 1865; it provided for Schleswig to be administered by Prussia and Holstein by Austria. Liberals remained unappeased by Prussian military prowess and once again defeated the army bill in January 1865.

German Unification
In 1866 Bismarck nonetheless continued his efforts to divert liberal interest from the budget conflict and toward the success of Prussian arms. He repeatedly told the Austrians that their future lay in the south and that they would be wise to yield dominance in Germany. But in both cases his words fell on deaf ears. Bismarck had clearly decided to play the German national card in order to achieve a Prussian-dominated Germany. After making sure that Russia would not intervene and after gaining an alliance with Italy, he set about fostering conflict with the Austrians. He stirred up Hungarian nationalism against Austria--a policy that showed how radical means could be used in the service of his own conservative ends. On June 9, 1866, Prussian troops invaded Holstein, and a few days later Austria, supported by the smaller states of Saxony, Hesse-Kassel, and Hanover, went to war. Within six weeks Prussia had inflicted a major defeat on the Austrians at Königgrätz (Sadowa). Bismarck then counseled moderation so that Austria would not be humiliated. Against a king and generals who wanted to march to Vienna, he urged a quick cessation of hostilities, recognizing that other powers might intervene if the war continued. Europe was stunned: in a few weeks Prussia had transformed the distribution of power in central Europe. Austria, the major power in Germany for centuries, was now relegated to secondary status.
Bismarck now showed both ruthlessness and moderation. The Peace of Nikolsburg scarcely demanded anything from Austria. But Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, and Frankfurt, all of which had fought against Prussia, were annexed, to the shock of conservatives. The king of Hanover was removed from power, as was the ruling house in Hesse. While conservatives were appalled at the German civil war between the two powers who had been opposed to revolution, the liberal middle class flocked to support Bismarck. Their goal of German unification seemed close at hand. Bismarck, moreover, now apologized for his high-handedness over the issue of the military budget and offered an olive branch of peace to the liberals. The party divided over Bismarck's offer. He had achieved one of his major goals--gaining a large part of the middle class to see the Prussian monarchy as their ally.
The North German Confederation was established in 1867 with Prussia as its matrix. Its constitution, on the surface, appeared progressive. To begin with, it established universal manhood suffrage with a secret ballot. But this was a result of Bismarck's belief that the vast majority of Prussians, if enfranchised, would vote conservative. From this perspective, a restricted ballot aided the liberals. (Of course, in 1867 neither the socialists nor the Catholic Centre had established political parties.) Moreover, whereas in theory the lower house (Reichstag) seemed an important reservoir of power given its ability to reject any bill, in practice its powers were circumscribed in the areas of military and foreign policy. Ministers were chosen by and responsible to the king and not the legislature. Nevertheless, the constitution provided a basis for evolution in a democratic direction.
Although Bismarck voiced doubts whether unification would occur in his lifetime, he actually set about tying the southern states to the north almost immediately. An all-German customs parliament was proposed, joint military training was negotiated, and a plan was advanced which entailed that the southern states recognize William as German emperor. All these efforts failed because of popular opposition in the south. Bismarck then sought to propel history a bit faster by seeking conflict with France. If he could not bring the south into a united German nation by reason, he would rely on the passions aroused by war. Ever the master tactician, he worked behind the scenes to be certain that neither Russia nor Austria would intervene in such a war. Nor did he have to work hard to produce a conflict, because the French emperor, Napoleon III, was indignant at the sudden emergence of Prussia, especially since he did not receive the compensation he sought--the annexation of Luxembourg.

When in 1869 the Spanish throne was offered to the king's cousin, Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, Napoleon III perceived this as an effort to encircle France. He twice sent his ambassador, Vincent Benedetti, to the Prussian king at Bad Ems, once to demand that acceptance of the offer be withdrawn (which it was on July 12) and a second time to demand that under no circumstances should a member of the Hohenzollern family accept the Spanish throne in the future. The king politely refused the second request. Bismarck received a telegram from Bad Ems (the Ems telegram) giving a detailed account of the interview between William I and the French ambassador, which he proceded to edit and abridge for the press in such a way that the French appeared to seek a humiliation of the Prussian monarch, and the monarch's rejection of Napoleon's demands seemed insultingly brusque to the French. The French responded by declaring war on Prussia on July 19, 1870. When the French were decisively defeated at Sedan in September, it appeared as though Bismarck would be able to score a third rapid victory in seven years. But guerrilla warfare broke out, and Paris held out despite the capture of the emperor. Bismarck, however, stirred anti-French passions to such a fever pitch that in January 1871 the four southern states joined the North German Confederation to create the German Empire. The lesser German solution, with seven million German-speaking Austrians excluded, was the result of Bismarck's three wars. He was showered with honours and hailed as a national hero.

Foreign Policy
It is important to note that the Germany Bismarck created was not the result of strong popular currents of nationalist sentiment but of cabinet diplomacy and war. Not all German-speaking areas of Europe were included but only as many as Prussia could unite while retaining hegemony. The new constitution was a revision of the Prussian constitution from 1867; it included the position of chancellor, designed with Bismarck specifically in mind. Bismarck also remained prime minister of Prussia until 1890, apart from a brief period in 1872-73.
The peace treaty with France was harsh. Alsace and part of Lorraine, two French provinces with sizable German-speaking populations, were annexed. Also, a five-billion-franc indemnity was exacted. While Austria and Denmark quickly forgot their defeats, France did not. Regardless of whether Bismarck annexed the provinces in response to German public opinion or for other reasons, French hostility was to haunt the German Empire until the provinces were returned to France in 1918.
Until his resignation in 1890, Bismarck had a relatively free hand in the conduct of foreign policy. After three successful wars, he saw his task as promoting peace and gaining time so that the powerful German Empire would come to be accepted as natural. Bismarck's two areas of concern were the Balkans, where the disintegration of the Turkish empire could easily lead to conflict between the Habsburg monarchy and Russia, and France, where the desire to avenge the defeat at Sedan was strong. In each area a general European conflagration could flare up and involve Germany. In 1873 he embraced a pacific foreign policy when he negotiated the Dreikaiserbund (Three Emperors' League) with Russia and Austria-Hungary. But the alliance did not survive the Russo-Turkish War of 1877. When the Austrians and British threatened war over a Carthaginian peace imposed on Turkey by the Russian victors, Bismarck called for a peace congress in Berlin. The German chancellor succeeded in getting the Russians to moderate their gains, and peace was preserved.
But a European conflagration had barely been averted. Soon after the conference, Bismarck negotiated a defensive alliance with Austria-Hungary, which remained in effect through World War I. Although in the mid-1860s he had rejected such an alliance as harmful, he now considered it advantageous. Because he feared that the dissolution of the Habsburg monarchy would lead to Russian expansion into central Europe, he sought the alliance to gain leverage in Vienna. He steadfastly used it to prevent a war in the Balkans. In addition, he did not want seven million Austro-German Catholics seeking admission to the empire.
Having a solid ally, Bismarck demonstrated his virtuosity by negotiating a revived Dreikaiserbund in 1881. He now had influence in St. Petersburg as well as in Vienna to prevent a Balkan war. In 1882, Italy, fearing French hostility, joined the Dual Alliance, making it into the Triple Alliance. On the surface Bismarck had triumphed. France had no allies for a war of revenge, and, for the moment, a Balkan war seemed unlikely.
But the ephemeral nature of all these alliances soon became apparent. A crisis in Bulgaria inflamed Russo-Austrian relations, leading to a breakup of the revived league. Once again a war was avoided with Bismarck's intervention, but his efforts could not reconstitute the league. He then negotiated a separate secret treaty with Russia, while maintaining the 1879 accord with Austria-Hungary.
Between 1870 and 1890 Bismarck earned the respect of European leaders for his earnest efforts in behalf of peace. Apart from a few colonial acquisitions in the mid-1880s, Germany had acted as a satiate power. All of Bismarck's considerable tactical skills had been successful in creating a powerful German Empire in his first decade in power. For the next two decades these same skills maintained the peace.

Domestic Policy
From the defeat of Austria in 1866 until 1878 Bismarck was allied primarily with the National Liberals. Together they created a civil and criminal code for the new empire and accomplished Germany's adoption of the gold standard and move toward free trade. Just as they had earlier written off Bismarck as an archconservative, liberals now viewed him as a comrade--a man who had rejected his conservative roots. Many conservative leaders agreed with this assessment. Bismarck had cashiered kings, gone to war against conservative regimes, and adopted policies that promoted rapid industrialization. Their fears were further enhanced when he joined liberals in a campaign against political Catholicism (Kulturkampf) in 1873.
Bismarck had not counted on the emergence of new parties such as the Catholic Centre or the Social Democrats, both of whom began participating in imperial and Prussian elections in the early 1870s. Along with the left liberal Progressive Party, he labeled them all enemies of the empire (Reichsfeinde). Each in its own way rejected his vision of a united Germany. The Progressives found the empire too conservative and its elite essentially feudal; the socialists questioned its capitalist character; and for the Centre the empire was Protestant and too centralized.
Bismarck's aim was clearly to destroy the Catholic Centre Party. He and the liberals feared the appeal of a clerical party to the one-third of Germans who professed Roman Catholicism. In Prussia the minister of public worship and education, Adalbert Falk, with Bismarck's blessing, introduced a series of bills establishing civil marriage, limiting the movement of the clergy, and dissolving religious orders. All church appointments were to be approved by the state. Clerical civil servants were purged from the Prussian administration. Hundreds of parishes and several bishoprics were left without incumbents.
The Kulturkampf failed to achieve its goals and, if anything, convinced the Catholic minority that their fear of persecution was real. Bismarck gradually relented in his campaign, especially after the death of the activist pope, Pius IX, in 1878. But he never relented in his hatred for the Centre leader, Ludwig Windthorst, a Hanoverian who had earlier experienced Bismarck's methods in the annexation of his kingdom. Bismarck's speeches continued to be barbed with anticlericalism until his fall in 1890.
In 1878-79 Bismarck initiated a significant change in economic policy, which coincided with his new alliance with the conservative parties at the expense of the liberals. Tariffs were introduced on iron as well as on major grains. The new policy was a result of the "great depression" that had swept Europe and the United States in the mid-1870s. Bismarck's shift had serious political implications: it signified his opposition to any further evolution in the direction of political democracy. The liberal ministers Falk and Rudolph von Delbrück resigned, and Robert von Puttkamer became minister of public worship and education in 1879 and minister of interior in 1881. The grain tariffs provided the Junker estate owners of Prussia, who constituted the main opposition to political reform, subventions that isolated them somewhat from the world market. From 1879 onward, the landed elite, major industrialists, the military, and higher civil servants formed an alliance to forestall the rise of social democracy.
Ever since the Commune of Paris of 1871, Bismarck had developed an uncompromising hatred for socialists and anarchists. His attacks on them were egregious. At one point he wrote, "They are this country's rats and should be exterminated." Another time he called them "a host of enemies bent on pillage and murder." He thus introduced a crude and unsavory discourse into everyday German politics that was to be long-lived. Although only two socialists sat in the Reichstag in 1871, their number and support grew with each election, until they had 35 seats in 1890. As early as 1876 Bismarck had sought legislation to outlaw the party but failed to get a majority. After two assassination attempts against William I he prorogued Parliament and ran a campaign in which the socialists (quite unjustly) were blamed for the failed efforts to kill the emperor. The conservative parties triumphed and the Social Democratic Party was banned in 1878. The ban was renewed until 1890.
The second part of Bismarck's strategy to destroy social democracy was the introduction of social legislation to woo the workers away from political radicalism. During the 1880s, accident and old-age insurance as well as a form of socialized medicine were introduced and implemented by the government. But Bismarck's two-pronged strategy to win the workers for the conservative regime did not succeed. Support for the Social Democrats increased with each election.
The election of 1890 was a disaster for Bismarck. The Centre, the Social Democrats, and the Progressives, the parties that he had termed enemies of the empire, gained more than half of the seats in the new Reichstag. The new young emperor William II (b. 1859; emperor and king of Prussia from 1888 to 1918) did not want to begin his reign with a bloodbath or a coup d'état by the state. Seventy-five years old in 1890, Bismarck resigned with a sense of having failed. The antisocialist law was not revived, and the new government set out to win the workers to the regime. Bismarck retired to his estate an embittered man. That he was now a prince and extremely wealthy did not ease his retirement. For the next eight years (he died in 1898) he issued sharp critiques of his successors. Elected to the Reichstag, he chose not to take his seat. He wrote his memoirs, which became best-sellers. To some extent he orchestrated the Bismarck legend that was to dominate German historical writing for the next half century.

Assessment
Bismarck was a towering figure who put his stamp on his age, as Luther and Metternich had done earlier. When Bismarck became prime minister of Prussia in 1862, the kingdom was universally considered the weakest of the five European powers. Less than nine years later Prussia had been victorious in three wars, and a unified German Empire had emerged in the heart of Europe, arousing envy and fear among its rivals. When Bismarck left office in 1890, after 28 years as prime minister of Prussia and 19 as chancellor of the German Empire, the map of Europe had been changed beyond measure. The European centre, characterized by a weak conglomeration of small and medium-sized states for centuries, was now home to the foremost military and industrial power on the Continent.
Bismarck's legacy to the next generation, however, was a mixed one. In foreign affairs his skill had led to 20 years of peace in Europe, which had gained him a deserved reputation for moderation and a sense of limits. Bismarck's greatest achievement, the German Empire, only survived him by 20 years. Although he had united Germany in one sense, he had failed to create an internally unified people. In domestic affairs--as in foreign policy--he sought to freeze the status quo after 1871. His empire was designed to be conservative. Thus he opposed the Catholic Centre in the 1870s and the socialists in the 1880s because both constituted unforeseen threats to his authoritarian creation. He also introduced a vicious rhetoric into German politics that forestalled a sense of common destiny. While German industry developed rapidly during his decades in power, he would allow no evolution in the political system toward greater participation. In this sense, Bismarck was a last representative of the world of the ancien regime and cabinet diplomacy.


2. Background from [https://theodora.com/encyclopedia/b2/prince_otto_eduard_leopold_von_bismarck.html]}
OTTO EDUARD LEOPOLD VON, PRINCE, BISMARCK duke of Lauenburg (1815-1898), German statesman, was born on the 1st of April 1815, at the manor-house of Schonhausen, his father's seat in the mark of Brandenburg. The family has, since the 14th century, belonged to the landed gentry, and many members had held high office in the kingdom of Prussia. His father (d. 1845), of whom he always spoke with much affection, was a quiet, unassuming man, who retired from the army in early life with the rank of captain of cavalry (Rittmeister). His mother, a daughter of Mencken, cabinet secretary to the king, was a woman of strong character and ability, who had been brought up at Berlin under the "Aufklarung." Her ambition was centered in her sons, but Bismarck in his recollections of his childhood missed the influences of maternal tenderness. There were several children of the marriage, which took place in 1806, but all died in childhood except Bernhard (1810-1893), Otto, and one sister, Malvina (b. 1827), who married in 1845 Oscar von Arnim. Young Bismarck was educated in Berlin, first at a private school, then at the gymnasium of the Graue Kloster (Grey Friars). At the age of seventeen he went to the university of Gottingen, where he spent a little over a year; he joined the corps of the Hannoverana and took a leading part in the social life of the students. He completed his studies at Berlin, and in 1835 passed the examinations which admitted him to the public service. He was intended for the diplomatic service, but spent some months at Aix-la-Chapelle in administrative work, and then was transferred to Potsdam and the judicial side. He soon retired from the public service; he conceived a great distaste for it, and had shown himself defective in discipline and regularity. In 1839, after his mother's death, he undertook, with his brother, the management of the family estates in Pomerania; at this time most of the estate attached to Schonhausen had to be sold. In 1844, after the marriage of his sister, he went to live with his father at Schonhausen. He and his brother took an active part in local affairs, and in 1846 he was appointed Deichhauptmann, an office in which he was responsible for the care of the dykes by which the country, in the neighborhood of the Elbe, was preserved from inundation. During these years he travelled in England, France and Switzerland. The influence of his mother, and his own wide reading and critical character, made him at one time inclined to hold liberal opinions on govern the extreme right, and distinguished himself by the vigor and originality with which he defended the rights of the king and the Christian monarchy against the Liberals. When the revolution broke out in the following year he offered to bring the peasants of Schonhausen to Berlin in order to defend the king against the revolutionary party, and in the last meeting of the estates voted in a minority of two against the address thanking the king for granting a constitution. He did not sit in any of the assemblies summoned during the revolutionary year, but took a very active part in the formation of a union of the Conservative party, and was one of the founders of the Kreuzzeitung, which has since then been the organ of the Monarchical party in Prussia. In the new parliament which was elected at the beginning of 1849, he sat for Brandenburg, and was one of the most frequent and most incisive speakers of what was called the Junker party. He took a prominent part in the discussions on the new Prussian constitution, always defending the power of the king. His speeches of this period show great debating skill, combined with strong originality and imagination. His constant theme was, that the party disputes were a struggle for power between the forces of revolution, which derived their strength from the fighters on the barricades, and the Christian monarchy, and that between these opposed principles no compromise was possible. He took also a considerable part in the debates on the foreign policy of the Prussian government; he defended the government for not accepting the Frankfort constitution, and opposed the policy of Radowitz, on the ground that the Prussian king would be subjected to the control of a non-Prussian parliament. The only thing, he said, that had come out of the revolutionary year unharmed, and had saved Prussia from dissolution and Germany from anarchy, was the Prussian army and the Prussian civil service; and in the debates on foreign policy he opposed the numerous plans for bringing about the union of Germany, by subjecting the crown and Prussia to a common German parliament. He had a seat in the parliament of Erfurt, but only went there in order to oppose the constitution which the parliament had framed. He foresaw that the policy of the government would lead it into a position when it would have to fight against Austria on behalf of a constitution by which Prussia itself would be dissolved, and he was, therefore, one of the few prominent politicians who defended the complete change of front which followed the surrender of Olmiitz.
It was probably his speeches on German policy which induced the king to appoint him Prussian representative at the restored diet of Frankfort in 1851. The appointment was a bold one, as he was entirely without diplomatic experience, but he justified the confidence placed in him.
During the eight years he spent at Frankfort he acquired an unrivalled knowledge of German politics. He was often used for important missions, as in 1852, when he was sent to Vienna. He was entrusted with the negotiations by which the duke of Augustenburg was persuaded to assent to the arrangements by which he resigned his claims to Schleswig and Holstein. The period he spent at Frankfort, however, was of most importance because of the change it brought about in his own political opinions. When he went to Frankfort he was still under the influence of the extreme Prussian Conservatives, men like the Gerlachs, who regarded the maintenance of the principle of the form of bitter personal hostility; in 1863 the ministers refused any longer to attend the sittings, and Bismarck challenged Virchow, one of his strongest opponents, to a duel, which, however, did not take place. In 1852 he had fought a duel with pistols against Georg von Vindre, a political opponent. In June 1863, as soon as parliament had risen, Bismarck published ordinances controlling the liberty of the press, which, though in accordance with the letter, seemed opposed to the intentions of the constitution, and it was on this occasion that the crown prince, hitherto a silent opponent, publicly dissociated himself from the policy of his father's ministers. Bismarck depended for his position solely on the confidence of the king, and the necessity for defending himself against the attempts to destroy this confidence added greatly to the suspiciousness of his nature. He was, however, really indispensable, for his resignation must be followed by a Liberal ministry, parliamentary control over the army, and probably the abdication of the king. Not only, therefore, was he secure in the continuance of the king's support, but he had also the complete control of foreign affairs. Thus he could afford to ignore the criticism of the House, and the king was obliged to acquiesce in the policy of a minister to whom he owed so much.
He soon gave to the policy of the monarchy a resolution which had long been wanting. When the emperor of Austria summoned a meeting of the German princes at Frank Christian monarchy against the revolution as the chief duty of the Prussian government. He was prepared on this ground for a close alliance with Austria. He found, however, a deliberate intention on the part of Austria to humble Prussia, and to degrade her from the position of an equal power, and also great jealousy of Prussia among the smaller German princes, many of whom owed their thrones to the Prussian soldiers, who, as in Saxony and Baden, had crushed the insurgents. He therefore came to the conclusion that if Prussia was to regain the position she had lost she must be prepared for the opposition of Austria, and must strengthen herself by alliances with other powers. The solidarity of Conservative interests appeared to him now a dangerous fiction. At the time of the Crimean War he advocated alliance with Russia, and it was to a great extent owing to his advice that Prussia did not join the western powers. Afterwards he urged a good understanding with Napoleon, but his advice was met by the insuperable objection of King Frederick William IV. to any alliance with a ruler of revolutionary origin.
The change of ministry which followed the establishment of a regency in 1857 made it desirable to appoint a new envoy at Frankfort, and in 1858 Bismarck was appointed ambassador at St Petersburg, where he remained for four years. During this period he acquired some knowledge of Russian, and gained the warm regard of the tsar, as well as of the dowager-empress, herself a Prussian princess. During the first two years he had little influence on the Prussian government; -the Liberal ministers distrusted his known opinions on parliamentary government, and the monarchical feeling of the prince regent was offended by Bismarck's avowed readiness for alliance with the Italians and his disregard of the rights of other princes. The failure of the ministry, and the estrangement between King William and the Liberal party, opened to him the way to power. Roon, who was appointed minister of war in 1861, was an old friend of his, and through him Bismarck was thenceforward kept closely informed of the condition of affairs in Berlin. On several occasions the prospect of entering the ministry was open to him, but nothing came of it, apparently because he required a free hand in foreign affairs, and this the king was not prepared to give him. When an acute crisis arose out of the refusal of parliament, in 1862, to vote the money required for the reorganization of the army, which the king and Roon had carried through, he was summoned to Berlin; but the king was still unable to make up his mind to appoint him, although he felt that Bismarck was the only man who had the courage and capacity for conducting the struggle with parliament. He was, therefore, in June, made ambassador at Paris as a temporary expedient. There he had the opportunity for renewing the good understanding with Napoleon which had been begun in 1857. He also paid a short visit to England, but it does not appear that this had any political results. In September the parliament, by a large majority, threw out the budget, and the king, having nowhere else to turn for help, at Roon's advice summoned Bismarck to Berlin and appointed him minister-president and foreign minister.

Bismarck's duty as minister was to carry on the government against the wishes of the Lower House, so as to enable the king to complete and maintain the reorganized army. The Ministry. opposition of the House was supported by the country and by a large party at court, including the queen and crown prince. The indignation which his appointment caused was intense; he was known only by the reputation which in his early years he had won as a violent ultra-Conservative, and the apprehensions were increased by his first speech, in which he said that the German question could not be settled by speeches and parliamentary decrees, but only by blood and iron. His early fall was predicted, and it was feared that he might bring down the monarchy with him. Standing almost alone he succeeded in the task he had undertaken. For four years he ruled without a budget, taking advantage of an omission in the constitution which did not specify what was to happen in case the crown and the two Houses could not agree on a budget. The conflict of the ministers and the House assumed at times the fort to discuss a reform of the confederation, Bismarck Foreign policy. insisted that the king of Prussia must not attend. He remained away, and his absence in itself made the congress unavailing. There can be no doubt that from the time he entered on office Bismarck was determined to bring to an issue the long struggle for supremacy in Germany between the house of Habsburg and the house of Hohenzollern. Before he was able to complete his preparations for this, two unforeseen occurrences completely altered the European situation, and caused the conflict to be postponed for three years. The first was the outbreak of rebellion in Poland. Bismarck, an inheritor of the older Prussian traditions, and recollecting how much of the greatness of Prussia had been gained at the expense of the Poles, offered his help to the tsar. By this he placed himself in opposition to the universal feeling of western Europe; no act of his life added so much to the repulsion with which at this time he was regarded as an enemy of liberty and right. He won, however, the gratitude of the tsar and the support of Russia, which in the next years was to be of vital service to him. Even more serious were the difficulties arising in Denmark. On the death of King Frederick VII. in 1863, Prince Frederick of Augustenburg came forward as claimant to the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which had hitherto been joined to the crown of Denmark. He was strongly supported by the whole German nation and by many of its princes. Bismarck, however, once more was obliged to oppose the current of national feeling, which imperiously demanded that the German duchies should be rescued from a foreign yoke. Prussia was bound by the treaty of London of 1852, which guaranteed the integrity of the Danish monarchy; to have disregarded this would have been to bring about a coalition against Germany similar to that of 1851. Moreover, he held that it would be of no advantage to Prussia to create a new German state; if Denmark were to lose the duchies, he desired that Prussia should acquire them, and to recognize the Augustenburg claims would make this impossible. His resistance to the national desire made him appear a traitor to his country. To check the agitation, he turned for help to Austria; and an alliance of the two powers, so lately at variance, was formed. He then falsified all the predictions of the opposition by going to war with Denmark, not, as they had required, in support of Augustenburg, but on the ground that the king of Denmark had violated his promise not to oppress his German subjects. Austria continued to act with Prussia, and, after the defeat of the Danes, at the peace of Vienna the sovereignty of the duchies was surrendered to the two allies - the first step towards annexation by Prussia. There is no part of Bismarck's diplomatic work which deserves such careful study as these events. Watched as he was by countless enemies at home and abroad, a single false step would have brought ruin and disgrace on himself; the growing national excitement would have burst through all restraint, and again, as fifteen years before, Germany divided and unorganized would have had to capitulate to the orders of foreign powers (see Schleswig-Holstein Question).
The peace of Vienna left him once more free to return to his older policy. For the next eighteen months he was occupied in preparing for war with Austria. For this war he was alone responsible; he undertook it deliberately p Y as the only means of securing Prussian ascendancy in Germany. The actual cause of dispute was the disposition of the conquered duchies, for Austria now wished to put Augustenburg in as duke, a plan to which Bismarck would not assent. In 1865 a provisional arrangement was made by the treaty of Gastein, for Bismarck was not yet ready. He would not risk a war unless he was certain of success, and for this he required the alliance of Italy and French support; both he secured during the next year. In October 1865 he visited Napoleon at Biarritz and Paris. No formal treaty was made, but Napoleon promised to regard favourably an extension of Prussian power in Germany; while Bismarck led the emperor to believe that Prussia would help him in extending the frontier of France. A treaty of alliance with Italy was arranged in the spring of 1866; and Bismarck then with much difficulty overcame the reluctance of the king to embark in a war with his old ally. The results of the war entirely justified his calculations. Prussia, though opposed by all the German states except a few principalities in the north, completely defeated all her enemies, and at the end of a few weeks the whole of Germany lay at her feet.

The war of 1866 is more than that of 1870 the crisis of modern German history. It finally settled the controversy which had begun more than a hundred years before, and left Prussia the dominant power in Germany. It determined that the unity of Germany should be brought about not by revolutionary means as in 1848, not as in 1849 had been attempted by voluntary agreement of the princes, not by Austria, but by the sword of Prussia. This was the great work of Bismarck's life; he had completed the programme foreshadowed in his early speeches, and finished the work of Frederick the Great. It is also the turning-point in Bismarck's own life. Having secured the dominance of the crown in Prussia and of Prussia in Germany, he could afford to make a reconciliation with the parties which had been his chief opponents, and turn to them for help in building up a new Germany. The settlement of 1866 was peculiarly his work. We must notice, first, how in arranging the terms of peace he opposed the king and the military party who wished to advance on Vienna and annex part of Austrian Silesia; with greater foresight he looked to renewing the old friendship with Austria, and insisted (even with the threat of resignation) that no territory should be demanded. The southern states he treated with equal moderation, and thereby was able to arrange an offensive and defensive alliance with them. On the other hand, in order to secure the complete control of North Germany, which was his immediate object, he required that the whole of Hanover, Hesse-Cassel, Hesse-Nassau and the city of Frankfort, as well as the Elbe duchies, should be absorbed in Prussia. He then formed a separate confederation of the North German states, but did not attempt to unite the whole of Germany, partly because of the internal difficulties which this would have produced, partly because it would have brought about a war with France. In the new confederation he became sole responsible minister, with the title Bundes-Kanzler; this position he held till 1890, in addition to his former post of premier minister. In 1871 the title was altered to Reichs-Kanzler. The reconciliation with the Prussian parliament he effected by bringing in a bill of indemnity for the money which had been spent without leave of parliament. The Radicals still continued their opposition, but he thereby made possible the formation of a large party of moderate Liberals, who thenceforward supported him in his new Nationalist policy. He also, in the constitution for the new confederation, introduced a parliament (Bundestag) elected by universal suffrage. This was the chief demand of the revolutionists in 1848; it was one to which in his early life he had been strongly opposed. His experience at Frankfort had diminished his dislike of popular representation, and it was probably to the advice of Lassalle that his adoption of universal suffrage was due. He first publicly proposed it just before the war; by carrying it out, notwithstanding the apprehensions of many Liberal politicians, he placed the new constitution on a firmer base than would otherwise have been possible.

Up to 1866 he had always appeared to be an opponent of the National party in Germany, now he became their leader. His next task was to complete the work which was half-finished, and it was this which brought about the second of the great wars which he undertook.
The relations with Napoleon III. form one of the most interesting but obscurest episodes in Bismarck's career. We have seen that he did not share the common prejudice against co-operation with France. He found Napoleon willing to aid Prussia as he had aided Piedmont, and was ready to accept his assistance. There was this difference, that he asked only for neutrality, not armed assistance, and it is improbable that he ever intended to alienate any German territory; he showed himself, however, on more than one occasion, ready to discuss plans for extending French territory, on the side of Belgium and Switzerland. Napoleon, who had. not anticipated the rapid success of Prussia, after the battle of Koniggratz at the request of Austria came forward as mediator, and there were a few days during which it was probable that Prussia would have to meet a French attempt to dictate terms of peace. Bismarck in this crisis by deferring to the emperor in appearance avoided the danger, but he knew that he had been deceived, and the cordial understanding was never renewed. Immediately after an armistice had been arranged, Benedetti, at the orders of the French government, demanded as recompense a large tract of German territory on the left bank of the Rhine. This Bismarck peremptorily refused, declaring that he would rather have war. Benedetti then made another proposal, submitting a draft treaty by which France was to support Prussia in adding the South German states to the new confederation, and Germany was to support France in the annexation of Luxemburg and Belgium. Bismarck discussed, but did not conclude the treaty; he kept, however, a copy of the draft in Benedetti's handwriting, and published it in The Times in the summer of 1870 so as to injure the credit of Napoleon in England. The failure of the scheme made a contest with France inevitable, at least unless the Germans were willing to forgo the purpose of completing the work of German unity, and during the next four years the two nations were each preparing for the struggle, and each watching to take the other at a disadvantage.

It is necessary, then, to keep in mind the general situation in considering Bismarck's conduct in the months immediately preceding the war of 1870. In 1867 there was a dispute regarding the right to garrison Luxemburg. Bismarck then produced the secret treaties with the southern states, an act which was, as it were, a challenge to France by the whole of Germany. During the next three years the Ultramontane party hoped to bring about an anti-Prussian revolution, and Napoleon was working for an alliance with Austria, where Beust, an old opponent of Bismarck's, was chancellor. Bismarck was doubtless well informed as to the progress of the negotiations, for he had established intimate relations with the Hungarians. The pressure at home for completing the work of German unity was so strong that he could with difficulty resist it, and in 1870 he was much embarrassed by a request from Baden to be admitted to the confederation, which he had to refuse. It is therefore not surprising that he eagerly welcomed the opportunity of gaining the goodwill of Spain, and supported by all the means in his power the offer made by Marshal Prim that Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern should be chosen king of that country. It was only by his urgent and repeated representations that the prince was persuaded against his will to accept. The negotiations were carried out with the greatest secrecy, but as soon as the acceptance was made known the French government intervened and declared that the project was inadmissible. Bismarck was away at Varzin, but on his instructions the Prussian foreign office in answer to inquiries denied all knowledge or responsibility. This was necessary, because it would have caused a bad impression in Germany had he gone to war with France in support of the prince's candidature. The king, by receiving Benedetti at Ems, departed from the policy of reserve Bismarck himself adopted, and Bismarck (who had now gone to Berlin) found himself in a position of such difficulty that he contemplated resignation. The French, however, by changing and extending their demands enabled him to find a cause of war of such nature that the whole of Germany would be united against French aggression. France asked for a letter of apology, and Benedetti personally requested from the king a promise that he would never allow the candidature to be resumed. Bismarck published the telegram in which this information and the refusal of the king were conveyed, but by omitting part of the telegram made it appear that the request and refusal had both been conveyed in a more abrupt form than had really been the case.' But even apart from this, the publication of the French demand, which could not be complied with, must have brought about a war.
In the campaign of 1870-71 Bismarck accompanied the headquarters of the army, as he had done in 1866. He was present at the battle of Gravelotte and at the surrender of Sedan, and it was on the morning of the 2nd of September that he had his famous meeting with Napoleon after the surrender of the emperor. He accompanied the king to Paris, and spent many months at Versailles. Here he was occupied chiefly with the arrangements for admitting the southern states to the confederation, and the establishment of the empire. He also underwent much anxiety lest the efforts of Thiers to bring about an interference by the neutral powers might be successful. He had to carry on the negotiations with the French preliminary to the surrender of Paris, and to enforce upon them the German terms of peace.

For Bismarck's political career after 1870 we must refer to the article Germany, for he was thenceforward entirely absorbed 1870. in the affairs of his country. The foreign policy he controlled absolutely. As chancellor he was responsible for the whole internal policy of the empire, and his influence is to be seen in every department of state, especially, however, in the great change of policy after 1878. During the earlier period the estrangement from the Conservatives, which had begun in 1866, became very marked, and brought about a violent quarrel with many of his old friends, which culminated in the celebrated Arnim trial. He incurred much criticism during the struggle with the Roman Catholic Church, and in 1873 he was shot at and slightly wounded by a youth called Rullmann, who professed to be an adherent of the Clerical party. Once before, in 1866, just before the outbreak of war, his life had been attempted by a young man called Cohen, a native of Wurttemberg, who wished to save Germany from a fratricidal war. In 1872 he retired from the presidency of the Prussian ministry, but returned after a few months. On several occasions he offered to retire, but the emperor always refused his consent, on the last time with the word "Never." In 1877 he took a long leave of absence for ten months. His health at this time was very bad. In 1878 he presided over the congress of Berlin. The following years were chiefly occupied, besides foreign affairs, which were always his first care, with important commercial reforms, and he held at this time also the office of Prussian minister of trade in addition to his other posts. During this period his relations with the 1 It was not till many years later that our knowledge of these events (which is still incomplete) was established; in 1894 the publication of the memoirs of the king of Rumania showed, what had hitherto been denied, that Bismarck had taken a leading part in urging the election of the prince of Hohenzollern. It was in 1892 that the language used by Bismarck himself made it necessary for the German government to publish the original form of the Ems telegram.

Reichstag were often very unsatisfactory, and at no time did he resort so freely to prosecutions in the law-courts in order to injure his opponents, so that the expression Bismarck-Beleidigung was invented. He was engaged at this time in a great struggle with the Social-Democrats, whom he tried to crush by exceptional penal laws. The death of the emperor William in 1 889 made a serious difference in his position. He had been bound to him by a long term of loyal service, which had been rewarded with equal loyalty. For his relations to the emperors Frederick and William II., and for the events connected with his dismissal from office in March 1890, we must refer to the articles under those names.
After his retirement he resided at Friedrichsruh, near Hamburg, a house on his Lauenburg estates. His criticisms of the government, given sometimes in conversation, sometimes in the columns of the Hamburger Nachrichten, caused an open breach between him and the emperor; and the new chancellor, Count Caprivi, in a circular despatch which was afterwards published, warned all German envoys that no real importance must be attached to what he said. When he visited Vienna for his son's wedding the German ambassador, Prince Reuss, was forbidden to take any notice of him. A reconciliation was affected in 1893. In 1895 his eightieth birthday was celebrated with great enthusiasm: the Reichstag alone, owing to the opposition of the Clericals and the Socialists, refused to vote an address. In 1891 he had been elected a member of the Reichstag, but he never took his seat. He died at Friedrichsruh on the 31st of July 1898.

Bismarck was made a count in 1865; in 1871 he received the rank of Furst (prince). On his retirement the emperor created him duke of Lauenburg, but he never used the title, which was not inherited by his son. In 1866 he received 60,000 as his share of the donation voted by the Reichstag for the victorious generals. With this he purchased the estate of Varzin in Pomerania, which henceforth he used as a country residence in preference to Schonhausen. In 1871 the emperor presented him with a large part of the domains of the duchy of Lauenburg. On his seventieth birthday a large sum of money (270,000) was raised by public subscription, of which half was devoted to repurchasing the estate of Schonhausen for him, and the rest was used by him to establish a fund for the assistance of schoolmasters. As a young man he was an officer in the Landwehr and militia, and in addition to his civil honors he was eventually raised to the rank of general. Among the numerous orders he received we may mention that he was the first Protestant on whom the pope bestowed the order of Christ; this was done after the cessation of the Kulturkampf and the reference of the dispute with Spain concerning the Caroline Islands to the arbitration of the pope.

Bismarck's wife died in 1894. He left one daughter and two sons. Herbert (1849-1904), the elder, was wounded at Mars-le-Tour, afterwards entered the foreign office, and acted as private secretary to his father (1871-1881). In 1882 he became councilor to the embassy at London, in 1884 was transferred to St Petersburg, and in 1885 became under-secretary of state for foreign affairs. In 1884 he had been elected to the Reichstag, but had to resign his seat when, in 1886, he was made secretary of state for foreign affairs and Prussian minister. He conducted many of the negotiations with Great Britain on colonial affairs. He retired in 1890 at the same time as his father, and in 1893 was again elected to the Reichstag. He married Countess Margarete Hoyos in 1892, and died on the 18th of September 1904. He left two daughters and three sons, of whom the eldest, Otto Christian Archibald (b. 1897), succeeded to the princely title. The second son, Wilhelm, who was president of the province of Prussia, died in 1901. By his wife, Sybilla von Arnim-Krochlendorff, he left three daughters and a son, Count Nikolaus (b. 1896).

Authorities. - The literature on Bismarck's life is very extensive, and it is only possible to enumerate a few of the most important books. The first place belongs to his own works. These include his own memoirs, published after his death, under the title Gedanken and Erinnerungen; there is an English translation, Bismarck: his Reflections and Reminiscences (London, 1898). They are incomplete, but contain very valuable discussions on particular points. The speeches are of the greatest importance both for his character and for political history; of the numerous editions that by Horst Kohl, in 12 vols. (Stuttgart, 1892-1894), is the best; there is a cheap edition in Reclam's Universalbibliothek. Bismarck was an admirable letter writer, and numbers of his private letters have been published; a collected edition has been brought out by Horst Kohl. His letters to his wife were published by Prince Herbert Bismarck (Stuttgart, 1900). A translation of a small selection of the private letters was published in 1876 by F. Maxse. Of great value for the years 1851-1858 is the correspondence with General L. v. Gerlach, which has been edited by Horst Kohl (3rd ed., Berlin, 1893). A selection of the political letters was also published under the title Politische Briefe aus den Jahren 1849-1899 (2nd ed., Berlin, 1890). Of far greater importance are the collections of dispatches and state papers edited by Herr v. Poschinger. These include four volumes entitled Preussen im Bundestag, 1851-1859 (4 vols., Leipzig, 1882-1885), which contain his dispatches during the time he was at Frankfort. Next in importance are two works, Bismarck als Volkswirth and Aktenstiicke zur Wirthschaftspolitik des Fiirsten Bismarck, which are part of the collection of state papers, Akenstiicke zur Geschichte der Wirthschaftspolitik in Preussen. They contain full information on Bismarck's commercial policy, including a number of important state papers. A useful general collection is that by Ludwig Hahn, Bismarck, sein politisches Leben, &c. (5 vols., Berlin, 1878-1891), which includes a selection from letters, speeches and newspaper articles. These collections have only been possible owing to the extreme generosity which Bismarck showed in permitting the publication of documents; he always professed to have no secrets. A full account of the diplomatic history from 1863 to 1866 is given by Sybel in Die Begriindung des deutschen Reichs (Munich, 1889-1894), written with the help of the Prussian archives. The last two volumes, covering 1866-1870, are of less value, as he was not able to use the archives for this period. Poschinger has also edited a series of works in which anecdotes, minutes of interviews and conversations are recorded; they are, however, of very unequal value. They are Bismarck and die Parlamentarier, First Bismarck and the Bundesrath, Die Ansprache the Firsten Bismarck, Neue Tischgesprdche, and Bismarck and the Diplomaten. Selections from these have been published in English by Charles Lowe, The Tabletalk of Prince Bismarck, and by Sidney Whitman, Conversations with Bismarck. By far the fullest guide to Bismarck's life is Horst Kohl's First Bismarck, Regesten zu einer wissen schaftlichen Biographic (Leipzig, 1891-1892), which contains a record of Bismarck's actions on each day, with references to and extracts from his letters and speeches. For the works of Moritz Busch, which contain graphic pictures of his daily life, see the article BUSCH. Further materials were publishes' periodically in the Bismarck-Jahrbuch, edited by Horst Kohl (Berlin, 1894-1896; Stuttgart, 1897-1899). Herr v. Poschinger also brought out a Bismarck Portfeuille. Of German biographies may be mentioned Hans Blum, Bismarck and seine Zeit (6 vols., Munich, 1894-1895), with a volume of appendices, &c. (1898); Heyck, Bismarck (Bielefeld, 1898); Kreutzer, Otto von Bismarck (2 vols., Leipzig, 1900); Klein-Hattingen, Bismarck and seine Welt, 1815-1871, Bd. i. (Berlin, 1902); Lenz, Geschichte Bismarcks (Leipzig, 1902); Penzler, First Bismarck 'tack' seiner Entlassung (7 vols., ib. 1897-1898); Liman, one volume under the same title (ib. 1901). There are English biographies by Charles Lowe, Bismarck, a Political Biography (revised edition in I vol., 1895), by James Headlam (1899), and by F. Stearns (Philadelphia, 1900). A useful bibliography of all works on Bismarck up to 1895 is Paul Schulze and Otto Koller's Bismarck Literature (Leipzig, 1896). (J. W. HE.)

FYI COL Mikel J. Burroughs LTC (Join to see) LTC Greg Henning Maj Bill Smith, Ph.D. Maj Kim Patterson MSgt Robert "Rock" Aldi GySgt Thomas Vick SSG Stephen Rogerson SGT Robert Pryor MSG Felipe De Leon Brown PO2 (Join to see) PO1 William "Chip" NagelSSG Jeffrey LeakeCSM Bruce TregoPFC (Join to see)SP5 Dennis Loberger TSgt David L.CPL Dave Hoover Cpl (Join to see)

Was kicked to the curb the the new Kiser SGT (Join to see)

His policies gave rise to Nazism in the long run.