Why did Prussia rather than Austria lead the unification of Germany?

Indeed, he had soon manoeuvred Austria into the second of his so called ‘Wars of Unification’.  The Seven Weeks War between Austria and Prussia seems both a natural and obvious progression of the events of the 1860’s, and a necessary preliminary for the national unification of Germany.  The Prussian armies were superior to that of Austria in almost every way.  Prussian mobilisation was extremely fast thanks to new train lines Bismarck had put down with forethought.  Furthermore Prussia’s General von Molke was military strategist of genius, certainly in relation to Austria’s Benedek who was working with a minimal military budget due to economic limitations.  A victory both territorially and diplomatically for Bismarck, Prussia took the Elbe duchies and also the territories of Hanover, Saxony, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau and the important city of Frankfurt.  By this point in 1867, Prussian hegemony was already clear in Germany, yet despite nationalist feeling peaking Bismarck did not desire unification.  Instead he formed its precursor – the North German Confederation.

The effect of this military success on the internal politics of Prussia should now be noted as it marked a shift in German political history.  Bismarck had always been under pressure from the liberals for national unification as it would be a necessary step for the liberalisation of the state and administration.  Bismarck’s establishment of the North German Confederation was a great step towards this goal.  In this way the liberals were silenced, and the victory was seen as a victory over the Catholic/Lutheran/Calvinist Austria.  In the Landtag elections of July 1866 the Prussian’s went to the polls on (coincidentally) the day of the Battle of Königgrätz – the final victory.  The Prussian liberals lost much of their support in favour for their new nationalist fighter, Bismarck.  The crown party had silenced the Liberals and cleared the way for further policy.

The final military success Bismarck needed to engineer in order to secure Prussian supremacy in Germany (and therefore, indirectly, over Austria), was to cripple France.  Through expert foreign diplomacy he forced France to declare war in 1870, and therefore secured the help of his defensive allies in the southern German states.  Through superior technology and leadership the Prussian armies defeated Napoleon III after six months bitter fighting and the Napoleonic Second Empire collapsed.  The defeat of France brought Prussia new territories and wealth and played the ultimate role of bringing about Kleindeutschland.  The imperial title was assumed by the King of Prussia at a lavish ceremony in 1871 at the Palace of Versailles.

The ‘Wars of Unification’ serve to show in very practical and stark terms how Prussia was able to rise above Austria in the battle for German hegemony.  However in order to appreciate the intricacies used by Prussia to engineer foreign developments it is necessary to now spend some time examining the political and diplomatic elements used in conjunction with military conquest.  Though this period’s foreign policy is generally attributed to the genius of Bismarck, it is important to analyse events not just from the Prussian point of view but also with hindsight and a critical analysis.

Prussia had pursued a policy of Realpolitik since at least the early 1850’s, a policy which Bismarck elevated to a whole new level in terms of implementation abroad.  John Merriman explains Realpolitik to be the ‘pursuit of a nation’s self-interest based on a realistic assessment of the costs and consequences of an action’.  Inherent within this idea is an absence of moral or ethical considerations, and this is precisely what Bismarck used to ruthlessly exploit and engineer his rival’s weaknesses to Prussian advantage.

This is first seen when Bismarck expertly capitalises on a wave of nationalistic support from nationalists and liberals alike during the Danish War.  He was then able to ride this wave to bolster Prussia’s position in Europe.  Considering a military showdown with Austria as inevitable (perhaps even desirable), Bismarck proceeded to woo Napoleon III of France by promising him concessions in the Rhineland if France would stay out of an Austro-Prussian war.  Napoleon also tried to twists circumstances to favour France by secretly negotiating a treaty with the Habsburgs.  Bismarck’s next step was to certify that Italy would not be a threat, and he ensured her cooperation in return for Venetia on the event of Austria’s defeat.  The last country that Prussia had cause of concern over was Russia.  Luckily Austria had already alienated her over the Crimean War and Russian neutrality was easily assured by the Alvensleben Convention of 1863.  In this way we can see Bismarck systematically isolating Austria, while all around, at the same time, the two states were desperately endeavouring to outmanoeuvre each other over the question of the duchies.

It seems that Bismarck showed a calculated moderation and clemency in his treatment of Austria after victory by restraining the officer corps from pushing on to Vienna and by not placing large reparations or territorial losses upon the defeated country.  It may be that he realised he would need the support of the south German states (many of which had been allied with Austria); furthermore an over-exertion of power may have provided France and Russia with a reason to enter the conflict – something Bismarck had taken careful steps to avoid.  Bismarck’s next step appeared to be dealing with France and just as the Austro-Prussian War was a product of the Danish War, so it laid a basis for the Franco-Prussian War.

The North German Confederation, created after Austria’s defeat was a provisional solution, maintained until Kleindeutschland could be achieved.  Bismarck knew that unification would require liberal support as many conservatives were cautiously wary of the potential to a change in status and tradition.  The new constitution was a precursor to the settlement of 1871 and served to mitigate hostility from many angles.  Conservatives and nationalists were happy with the great step towards unification; the newly instated universal manhood suffrage and the new Reichstag assembly were all seen as a giant step towards democracy by the liberal community.  The dream of liberal nationalists to free Germany from Austria had finally been achieved by Bismarck through his policy of ‘blood and iron’.  The North German Confederation was awash with nationalistic feeling and unity, but why did this help Prussia and yet hinder Austria?  Prussia was more or less a homogenous state, a point which the patriotic Bismarck exploited and expanded upon.  Austria, however, was a multi-national state whose nationalities could never be Germanized, and nor did the ruling class have any wish to Germanize them.  Thus, Bismarck was aided by a very natural progression of feelings that had already been seen in Italy a decade earlier.

Austria’s defeat came as a bad surprise to Napoleon III who feared a strong united Germany – a fear that was quickly being realised.  Tension mounted when a new Spanish government invited a member of the Prussian King’s family to take the Spanish crown in 1869.  France, appalled at the prospect of the Hohenzollern dynasty at both its east and west borders, managed to stop the candidate from accepting the offer, a candidate who it is now apparent was only put forward due to pressure from Bismarck himself.  Here we can see, once again, Bismarck attempting to engineer the politics of Europe to benefit Prussia.  In fact, when France demanded a guarantee that no Prussian candidate would ever be put forward for candidacy of the Spanish throne, Bismarck, on the pretext of offence of honour, saw a most convenient casus belli.  Ingeniously, thanks to Bismarck’s crafty escalation of the crisis through the Ems Telegram, the hawks in both the Prussian and French government felt insulted and demanded war.  France declared war, a signal mistake due to the fact that Bismarck had foreseen such an event and gained a defensive alliance with the south Germany states.  The war was concluded at the Treaty of Frankfurt in May 1871.

It is essential to note that although Bismarck is presented – not least by himself in his Memoirs – as a diplomatic genius who did not make mistakes, and who had a Prussian-led German unification mapped out at every stage years in advance, there are some important considerations that should be taken note.  In his foreign policy, he was often an opportunist rather than an engineer.  His diplomatic outmanoeuvring of Denmark owed much to a Danish miscalculation of support from Britain and France.  Furthermore, the Austro-Prussian war was essentially a German Civil War which initially made Bismarck a villain and not a hero in the eyes of many nationalists.  It was also a huge gamble that may have only paid off due to Austrian incompetence and inept leadership.  Where Bismarck was able to impose his will and consistent policy over Wilhelm I of Prussia, Francis Joseph of Austria had no will of his own and no master – he changed his ministers frequently and allowed them to ruin each other’s policies.  This can be seen not least through the Schmerling-Rechberg rivalry which Bismarck was able to exploit to his advantage.  Finally, it is also important to note that though Bismarck may have had a grand design for unification, he had no clear means to see how, how far, or at what pace Prussia might defeat Austria and unify the states.

Not all historians have accepted the traditional account of the unification with almost sole responsibility attributed to Bismarck.  J.M. Keynes suggested that rather than ‘blood and iron’, the German Empire was founded on ‘coal and iron’.  Similarly, the German historian H. Bohme suggests that unification would have happened with or without Bismarck due to economic considerations.  In the 1850’s the industrial revolution reached its decisive phase where new factories, railways and exports reached new peaks.  This was accompanied with rapid population growth and urbanisation.  Such powerful surges were not seen in Austria, mainly due to a policy that was mainly defensive in character due to the structural weakness of her economy.  Such weakness was exacerbated after 1859 and the defeat by Piedmont and France.  Indeed, such was the seriousness of the state of her economy that state bonds fell from 81.5 to 29 in just three months.

The economic superiority that Prussia enjoyed enabled it to dominate the German customs union – the Zollverein.  This permitted it to sign a trade agreement with France in 1862 giving Prussia direct access to the west European trade area enjoyed by both France and Britain.  Furthermore and tellingly, Prussia also used this predominance to prevent Austria from joining the Zollverein itself, although initially Austria preferred to remain aloof.  Indeed by 1864, virtually every German state except Austria was included within the Zollverein.   It should be noted, however, that even though Prussia had an obvious dominance over trade and material production, this does not necessarily translate into political dominance as some historians will often postulate.  Although it does seem fair to suggest that Prussia may have exploited its economic power to single-mindedly keep Austria out of the Zollverein.

This customs union was not the only advantage that Prussia enjoyed over Austria.  Just as the economy was doing well, so too was Prussia’s education system providing an educated workforce which in turn would propel the economy further forward.  Austrian minister Schwarzenberg, realising the political implications of an economically superior Prussia, attempted to extend the customs union into a Zollunion in 1849.  Failing in this, he attempted to create an alternative trade area but was unsuccessful in this too.  The exemption from western European economy was a considerable burden to bear, and the Austrian economy soon descended into difficulties, particularly following the Crimean War in 1856, ultimately dooming her to a back-seat in the future developments of the European theatre of diplomacy.

It seems clear that Bismarck played an integral part in securing Prussia’s dominance over Austria and ultimately in bringing about the unification of Germany.  But the question of ‘how much’ is a topic of great historiographical debate.  John Breuilly argues that Bismarck was an ‘outsider’ and that circumstances changed in his favour, rather than them being brought about by his diplomatic genius and manoeuvring.  A.J.P. Taylor propounds a similar story suggesting that although Bismarck was a great statesman, he was not a ‘system-maker in the sense that Metternich had been’, but was rather a man of the laissez-faire age: a man that took every opportunity that showed itself.  It is also sometimes easy to overlook the fact that Bismarck was a patriot of Prussia and not Germany.  Throughout his time in power, his first priority was always Prussia – the unification was a means to glorify Prussia.  Prussia’s tactical needs had encouraged Bismarck to adopt German nationalism and the resultant rivalry with France meant he had to complete the nationalist agenda.  Austria’s time had come to an end two decades earlier at the end of the Metternich era: doomed to a period of unclear leadership, muddled direction and a complete lack of the nationalist identity required to excite such unification.

Bibliography

Breuilly, John (ed.), 19th Century Germany, New York, 2001.

Cooper, David, John Laver and David Williamson, Years of Ambition: European History, 1815-1914, London, 2001.

Merriman, John, A History of Modern Europe, London, 2004.

Pinson, Roppel, Modern Germany, It’s History and Civilisation, Toronto, 1966.

Sagarra, Eda, An Introduction to Nineteenth Century Germany, Harlow, 1980.

Stiles, Andrina and Alan Farmer, The Unification of Germany, 1815-90, London, 2001.

Taylor, A.J.P., Bismarck, London, 1974.