Bismarck, Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck-Schönhausen, Duke of Lauenburg

b. 1815; d. 1898

German statesman, born at Schönhausen, near Stendal, of an impoverished but ancient Junker family. Though all his life he stressed his Junker connections, he was in fact much influenced by his mother, a clever sophisticated women with intellectual pretensions, whose romantic temperament he inherited. After attending Göttingen University (where he fought several duels) he passed the examinations necessary for a career in the diplomatic service, but then spent some years travelling abroad and on his family estates. He married in 1847. By this time he was already known as a fervent anti-liberal, although he was subsequently to use German liberalism to help him to carry out his basic aim - the unity of Germany under Prussian leadership.

All his life Bismarck was to show himself a supreme opportunist, ready to use any movement, liberal or anti-liberal, when it suited his immediate objective, and to discard it just as quickly when it had served its purpose. He was Prussia's representative from 1851 in the Frankfurt Diet, and soon became the dominant figure there. It was during this period that he became finally convinced that Prussian greatness was conditional on Austria's eclipse as a German power. He became Prussian ambassador in St Petersburg in 1858, and was later made minister in Paris. But in 1862 he was recalled and appointed minister-president of Prussia. He faced a hostile legislature, and at first his early resignation seemed inevitable. In fact, he was to hold office for 28 years. He stormed and bullied to carry through his policy or reorganising the Prussian state to ensure its efficiency in the future wars of unification which he later said he had considered inevitable, and which he had certainly hoped for, his emotional approach carried the day. Events played into his hands. In 1864 Bismarck joined with Austria in a war against Denmark which paved the way for the ultimate annexation of Scleswig-Holstein by Prussia. Two years later, with France and Italy favourably disposed to Prussia, he picked a quarrel with Austria. Austria's defeat at Königgratz was the end of Austrian predominance in Germany. The states of northern Germany were formed into the North German Confederation under Prussian leadership (1867), but the southern states still stood aloof. Only fear of France would drive them to acknowledge Prussian supremacy.

Again Bismarck was able to profit from the blunders of his opponents. Between 1867-70 France and Prussia seemed on the brink of war once more: Bismarck later claimed that he had all along considered a Franco-Prussian was inevitable, and had deliberately precipitated it by his suppression of parts of the famous 'Ems telegram', but modern critics have suggested that events in 1870 possibly took Bismarck more by surprise than he admitted. The Prussian military machine was ready, however, and during the war which followed on the publication of the telegram Bismarck accompanied the army, conducted negotiations with the French, and completed the arrangements for the entrance of the southern German states into the German federation. By 1871 France was crushed, and a German empire, with the Prussian king as its emperor, was the greatest power in continental Europe. This was the moment of Bismarck's greatest personal triumph.

From 1871, with the title of chancellor, he concentrated on consolidating the German Empire internally. His centralising policy met with opposition from the Catholic Church and the Socialists: against the Catholics he had little success, but he combated socialism by a programme of state-controlled social reform which became a European model. His foreign policy aimed continually at French isolation and to this end he allied with Austria and Italy (the Triple Alliance, 1882) and sought an understanding with Russia. In 1878 he presided over the Congress of Berlin; at this time his prestige in Europe was enormous. In 1888, however, the Emperor William I died and Bismarck and the new Emperor William II soon quarrelled.

In 1890 Bismarck proposed a coup d'état which would abolish universal suffrage. He was dismissed, and though there was a formal reconciliation in 1893, Bismarck never held office again. He had once declared: 'It is not by speechifying and majorities that the great questions of the time will have to be decided … but by blood and iron'. He himself in his memoirs fostered this impression of himself as a man of iron will, utter ruthlessness, and studied purpose, and it has only been questioned seriously in recent times, when more importance has been laid on the blunders and weaknesses of Bismarck's rivals and enemies, both inside and outside Germany, on Bismarck's basically emotional temperament, and on his extraordinary political luck. It remains true, however, that even if he was not the creator of events he held himself to be, he was able to profit by them skilfully and unscrupulously, and in so doing was the principal architect of the German Empire 1871-1918, his policies exercising an influence on German and European history long after the Empire he had built had ceased to exist.

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