Unification of Germany
- This article is about the 1871 German Empire. For the 1990 reunification, see German reunification.
The Unification of Germany took place on January 18, 1871, when Prussian Premier Prince Otto von Bismarck managed to unify a number of independent German states into one nation, and thus created the German Empire, from which all of the states since that time bearing the name of Germany descend.
In the early 1860s, a conflict about army reforms caused a constitutional crisis in Prussia. The Prussian king, Wilhelm I, appointed Otto von Bismarck prime minister in 1862. Bismarck hoped he could resolve the constitutional crisis with foreign triumphs. He also wanted to establish Prussia as the leading German power.
Between 1864 and 1870, Prussia, under Wilhelm and Bismarck, led confederations of German states in three short, victorious wars. In the first, the Second War of Schleswig (or Danish-Prussian War), Austria and Prussia, united under the name of the German Confederation, took the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein from Denmark. In 1866, Bismarck picked a quarrel with his recent ally Austria. His army easily defeated Austria at Königgrätz in what was called the Austro-Prussian War (also Seven Weeks' War or German Civil War). Bismarck then dissolved the German Confederation, annexed some territory to Prussia, and established the North German Confederation under Prussian leadership. The four German states south of the Main River remained independent, but made military alliances with Prussia. In 1867, the Austrian emperor, his power greatly weakened by this defeat, was forced to give equal status to his Hungarian holdings, creating the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. Austria was never again a power in Germany.
To complete the unification of Germany, Bismarck knew that he needed to overcome the opposition of Napoleon III and the Second French Empire. In 1870, he encouraged a Hohenzollern prince—that is, one of the same dynasty as Wilhelm I—to accept the throne of Spain. As Bismarck expected, France objected. Although the prince withdrew as a candidate, Bismarck used the dispute to start the Franco-Prussian War, which pitted France against the North German Confederation and its south German allies. After several battles, the Germans defeated the main French armies at Sedan in September 1870. The German army captured Paris in January 1871. Under the peace treaty, France gave up almost all of Alsace and the German-speaking part of Lorraine.
The German Empire was founded in the wake of this victory. On January 18, 1871, in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles, Wilhelm was proclaimed "German Emperor". The new German Empire included 25 states, three of which were Hanseatic cities. It was a realization of the Kleindeutsche Lösung, ("Lesser German Solution"), since Austria had been excluded, as opposed to a Großdeutsche Lösung or "Greater German Solution", which would have included Austria.
Through the Kulturkampf that followed (1872-1878), Bismarck as chancellor tried without much success to limit the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and of its political arm, the Catholic Centre Party. A policy of Germanization discriminated against non-German sections of the empire's population, including the Polish, Danish and French minorities.
See also
- German reunification at the end of the Cold War
- For a more detailed look at how German unification occurred see German Empire.
External links
- The Unification of Germany, part of The Seeds of Evil: Germany 1919 - 1933 on schoolshistory.org.uk.
Categories
Articles lacking sources from November 2006 | All articles lacking sources | Articles to be merged | History of Germany