However, on the other hand, Prussia was not only contrasting with the Austrian weaknesses but it was experiencing a period of an overall trend of ascendancy which, despite various setbacks such as the failure of the Prussian Union Plan, propagated her to a favourable position. While Austria was stagnating, Prussia saw internal reforms that certainly made her the most powerful and able among the German states, thus making unification under Prussia more likely. While the Zollverein acted as a weakness for Austria, it was certainly a benefit for Prussia in terms of her leading the unification process as it did not only cement Prussian economic dominance and encourage the Germans to look up to Prussia now but it also allowed easiness of trade resulting in the majority of the German states acting as a single market. By 1844, it was beginning to become a focal point for German national feeling and it was becoming an international entity as it signed a treaty with Belgium on beneficial terms, thus acting as one united state. However, it has to be stressed that for Prussia and Germany, the Zollverein did not only promote economic cooperation among most of the 38 states but it also highlighted “the absence of an effective central government authority” (Hamerow) which intensified German nationalism by showing what could be done if political unity were a reality.
Even in 1848, before the Prussian army had undergone the reforms, the Frankfurt Parliament recognised the superiority of the Prussian army as they were aware that it was the only army capable of acting as a national army. However, throughout the 1850s, despite the failures of the revolutions and attempts to unify Germany under a parliamentary government, the economic and military advantages did not go on separate pathways as they did before but went hand in hand towards a common purpose-Kleindeutschland only, as Bismarck confidently proposed, or a combination of the previous and Grossdeutschland in order to appease the Austrians. As the Prussian economy began to boom, industrial production, length of railway track ( to which Prussian military chiefs paid a great deal of attention for the rapid movement of troops) and foreign trade more than doubled. She was taking full advantage of its natural resources like iron, steel and coal to strengthen her military position as well as to industrialise and thus modernise the state, as by 1865 Prussia possessed 15 000 steam engines while Austria only had 3400 with horsepower 8 times as small. Such a gap between the two must have had an impact on German public opinion to some extent. It was also clear that due to its ascension, Prussia would in the near future be able to finance a full scale war. In order for a state to expand so quickly and so harmoniously, it needed to be somewhat changed socially as well. Manteuffel, the Prussian Prime Minister, aimed to unite the monarchy with its most underprivileged subjects, thus implementing measures to alleviate the suffering of the poor such as low interest government loans for peasant to buy land or minimum wages for factory workers. This may have helped Prussia be at the core of the unification as it, again, offered the people of other states the chance to look up to it, if we are to consider that many of the peasants and especially factory workers lived in miserable conditions and were greatly alienated by the state, with little interest in political affairs or unification. Socially, the army was reformed in the early 1860s as well since von Roon ensured the more rigorous training of soldiers, while von Moltke offered the General Staff more freedom of thinking in their strategies.
Yet, a diplomat who had the ability to use all of Prussia’s strengths and Austria’s weaknesses and who could manipulate key situations was needed in order to speed up or to make, depending on the perspective of either the revisionist or the traditional views.
The traditional view of Bismarck sets him to be the chief architect of the German Empire. It is thought that he had a long term strategy to make war on Austria and France in order to create a united Germany under Prussian control, as he later claimed in his memoirs. It is true that the role of the “Iron Chancellor” is undeniable due to his manipulation of events that directly led to the unification. For example, some argue that the Schleswig-Holstein crisis and the war with the Danish were carefully designed by Bismarck in such a way as to create acute tensions between Germany and Austria. However, revisionists argue that “His diplomacy in this period seems rather calculated to frighten Austria than to prepare for war”. Nonetheless, the net result of the crisis was increased friction between Prussia and Austria, which is what Prussia needed as it would only be able for Germany to unite under her once the influence of the Austrian Empire had been overcome. Internally, Bismarck was getting ready for the eventuality of war by pushing through his views of the need for military strength and thus creating a constitutional crisis as the liberals refused to increase the military budget. To confirm his stubbornness, and thus to further emphasise the importance of a strong army to him, proving that he did have in mind a war with Austria, his plan went ahead and he collected the taxes he needed to reorganise the army. Furthermore, on the international side, traditionalists think that Bismarck made full use of his diplomatic skills to ensure French neutrality in 1866. He also made a secret alliance with Italy in April 1866 and so then, Bismarck felt confident to create war between Prussia and Austria over Holstein. During the Seven Weeks’ War, Austria was not only forced to fight on two fronts due to Bismarck’s diplomacy, but due to the General Staff’s great ability, with von Moltke using five lines of railway to bring his troops, Austria was at the mercy of Prussia. This way, Bismarck was able to complete the North German Confederation due to the several factors previously mentioned, as well as due to Austria’s weaknesses as for example her military tactic of only using one single track railway from Vienna to Bohemia where the Prussians had crossed. However, the third time he provoked war with France that resulted in the full unification of Germany in 1871, Austria had been thrown off the stage by then, therefore her weaknesses not playing a role in allowing Prussia to take over any longer. It was the mixture of planning on the part of Bismarck combined with circumstance, as he did not control the whole of the Hohenzollern affair but took advantage of the situation to provoke war which would in turn create a full-scale foreign war; this was meant to raise the national consciousness and bring the people together and it proved to be a successful policy as it achieved unification with the remaining of the four states, while also preserving Prussian influence. An evidence of this is the fact that the Franco-Prussian War was the first genuinely German war, fought by the newly defined Kleindeutschland but was in fact dominated by Prussian military expertise with all the other German states fighting under her.
Therefore, as Bismarck himself understood, nationalism was the key to unification and it was within that certain setting that made unification possible. Some revisionists like A.J.P Taylor, who see Bismarck as an opportunist who was not in control of events but only turned them to Prussia’s favour, appear to give more credit to factors like nationalism while some argue that unification may have happened anyway due to the increasing national consciousness of the German states. The seeds of nationalism lay in the era of Napoleonic invasion and occupation which awakened an intense feeling of patriotism and yearning for national unity among young German intellectuals. Representative thinkers such as Schiller or Goethe asserted that each people or cultural unit ought to be united as a single political entity while Herder emphasised the presence of the Volkgeist, which distinguished Germans from other nations. With the Germans being the most literate people in Europe, it was likely that these ideas would be passed out quite easily among intellectuals. Liberalism also began growing during the 1840s, as a number of German states saw the relaxation of press censorship and reforms of the judicial system while the Prussian King Frederick William released many political prisoners and appointed a leading liberal to the Council of State. Nonetheless, during the Vormarz period the revolutionary ideas were also spread to wider elements of the lower middle class by the July revolution in France, which revived the idea of constitutional change among the Germans. It was the intellectuals that acted as the leaders of the forces of change in Germany like the Gottingen Seven professors who protested against reactionary movements and not professional revolutionaries, which on one side of the coin might be seen as good as it means that the ideas of change were spread more but on the other side, the intellectuals were against the brutal excesses which would accompany revolution. Therefore, the actual movement of the March 1848 revolution came from a more working-class and peasant background if we are to consider the Berlin riot for example. Although the revolutions of 1848 did not seem to bring about any physical change, the nationalist quality of the movement was revealed as it demanded a united Germany in a central parliament, as the Frankfurt Parliament had attempted to achieve. Moreover, after the 1848 revolutions, national consciousness continued to exist as middle classes tended to lead public opinion and with the National Association being formed in 1859. The national feeling heightened with Bismarck’s Franco-Prussian war and ultimately led to unification.
In conclusion, it was a combination of factors that helped Germany unify under Prussia. With the balance of power being reversed in the period between 1849 and 1866, Austria’s weaknesses made unification possible to a limited extent in my opinion. Of course, had she not started declining economically and militarily, Prussia might have never been able to kick her out of the race, but it may argued that the international situation which moved the balance to Prussia’s side, the nationalism and last but not least, Bismarck’s Machiavellistic motto of the end justifying the means made Pussia a naturally superior and thus a leader of the unification.