UNIFICATION OF GERMANY UNDER OTTO VON BISMARCK:

1st Chancellor "Otto von Bismarck":

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg (1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898), known as Otto von Bismarck, was a conservative Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890. In the 1860s he engineered a series of wars that unified the German states (excluding Austria) into a powerful German Empire under Prussian leadership. With that accomplished by 1871 he skillfully used balance of power diplomacy to preserve German hegemony in a Europe which, despite many disputes and war scares, remained at peace. For historian Eric Hobsbawm, it was Bismarck, who "remained undisputed world champion at the game of multilateral diplomatic chess for almost twenty years after 1871, and devoted himself exclusively, and successfully, to maintaining the power.

Truer Words Have Been Spoken in 1862 King Wilhelm I appointed Bismarck as Minister President of Prussia, a position he would hold until 1890 (except for a short break in 1873). He provoked three short, decisive wars against Denmark, Austria and France, aligning the smaller German states behind Prussia in defeating his arch-enemy France. In 1871 he formed the German Empire with himself as Chancellor, while retaining control of Prussia. His diplomacy of real political and powerful rule at home gained him the nickname the "Iron Chancellor." German unification and its rapid economic growth was the foundation to his foreign policy. He disliked colonialism but reluctantly built an overseas empire when it was demanded by both elite and mass opinion. Juggling a very complex interlocking series of conferences, negotiations and alliances, he used his diplomatic skills to maintain Germany's position and used the balance of power to keep Europe at peace in the 1870s and 1880s.

Politics the art of Arcane:

He was the master of complex politics at home. He created the first welfare state in the modern world, with the goal of gaining working class support that might otherwise go to his Socialist enemies. In the 1870s he allied himself with the Liberals (who were low-tariff and anti-Catholic) and fought the Catholic Church in a culture war. He lost that battle as the Catholics responded by forming a powerful Center party and using universal male suffrage to gain a bloc of seats. Bismarck then reversed himself, ended the culture war, broke with the Liberals, imposed tariffs, and formed a political alliance with the Center party to fight the Socialists. A devout Lutheran, he was loyal to his king, who in turn gave Bismarck his full support, against the advice of his wife and his heir. While Germany's parliament was elected by universal male suffrage, it did not have real control of the government. Bismarck distrusted democracy and ruled through a strong, well-trained bureaucracy with power in the hands of a traditional Junker elite that comprised the landed nobility of the east. Under Wilhelm I, Bismarck largely controlled domestic and foreign affairs, until he was removed by young Kaiser Wilhelm II in 1890.

Bismarck, an aristocratic Junker himself, had an extremely aggressive and domineering personality. He displayed a violent temper and kept his power by threatening to resign time and again. He possessed not only a long-term national and international vision, but also the short-term ability to juggle many complex developments simultaneously. As the leader of what historians call "revolutionary conservatism,"[1] Bismarck became a hero to German nationalists; they built hundreds of monuments glorifying the iconic symbol of powerful conservative leadership. Historians generally praise him as a statesman of moderation and balance who kept the peace in Europe, and was primarily responsible for the unification of Germany and building its world-renowned bureaucracy and army.

Prussia:

 It was a historic state originating out of the Duchy of Prussia and the Margraviate of Brandenburg, and centered on the region of Prussia. For centuries, the House of Hohenzollern ruled Prussia, successfully expanding its size by way of an unusually well-organized and effective army. Prussia, with its capital in Königsberg and from 1701 moved to Berlin, shaped the history of Germany. In 1871, German states united to create the German Empire under Prussian leadership.

Unification Germany under Otto von Bismarck:

Otto von Bismarck pushed German unification through "blood and iron" and skillful understanding of realpolitik. As the map of central Europe stood in 1850, Prussia competed with Austria for dominance over a series of small principalities fiercely keen on maintaining their independence and distinctive characteristics. Prussia proper stretched from modern-day Lithuania to central Germany. Prussia also controlled the German lands around the Rhine River in the west. In between, from Denmark to Switzerland, lay small provinces that Bismarck needed to incorporate under the Prussian crown to create a viable German Empire.

Construction of Prussian Army and Political tactics:

In 1862, Bismarck reorganized the Prussian army and improved training in preparation for war. In 1864, he constructed an alliance with Austria to fight Denmark over Denmark's southern provinces of Schleswig and Holstein. Prussia received Schleswig while Austria administered Holstein. That situation, however, could not stand for long, as Austrian Holstein was now surrounded by Prussian lands.

War with Austria:

The second episode in Bismarck's unification efforts occurred in 1866. In concert with the newly formed Italy, Bismarck created a diplomatic environment in which Austria declared war on Prussia. The dramatic prelude to the war occurred largely in Frankfurt, where the two powers claimed to speak for all the German states in the parliament. In April 1866, the Prussian representative in Florence signed a secret agreement with the Italian government, committing each state to assist the other in a war against Austria. The next day, the Prussian delegate to the Frankfurt assembly presented a plan calling for a national constitution, a directly elected national Diet, and universal suffrage. German liberals were justifiably skeptical of this plan, having witnessed Bismarck's difficult and ambiguous relationship with the Prussian Landtag (State Parliament), a relationship characterized by Bismarck's cajoling and riding roughshod over the representatives. These skeptics saw the proposal as a ploy to enhance Prussian power rather than a progressive agenda of reform. Bismarck provoked a conflict with Austria over an unrelated border dispute and in the subsequent Seven Weeks' War--named for its brevity--Prussia crushed the collapsing Austrian army. The peace settlement transferred Holstein to Prussia and forced Austria to officially remove itself from all German affairs.

With Austria out of Bismarck's way, his next obstacle was the skepticism of the southern provinces. Overwhelmingly Catholic and anti-militaristic, the southern provinces doubted Prussia's commitment to a united Germany of all provinces. Prussia's Protestantism and historic militarism made the gulf between north and south quite serious. Therefore, Bismarck turned to realpolitik to unite the Germanic provinces by constructing a war against a common enemy. In 1870, Bismarck forged a note from the French ambassador, implying that the ambassador had insulted the Prussian king. After he leaked this letter to both populations, the people of France and Prussia, roused by nationalist sentiment, rose up in favor of war. As Bismarck hoped, the southern provinces rallied to Prussia's side without any hesitation. 

Franco-Prussian War:

Military conflict and tactical operation "In July 1870, France declared war on Prussia"

Napoleon III had tried to secure territorial concessions from both sides before and after the Austro-Prussian War, but despite his role as mediator during the peace negotiations, he ended up with nothing. He then hoped that Austria would join in a war of revenge and that its former allies particularly the southern German states of Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria, would join in the cause. This hope would prove futile since the 1866 treaty came into effect and united all German states militarily, if not happily  to fight against France. Instead of a war of revenge against Prussia, supported by various German allies, France engaged in a war against all of the German states without any allies of its own. The reorganization of the military by von Roon and the operational strategy of Moltke combined against France to great effect. The speed of Prussian mobilization astonished the French, and the Prussian ability to concentrate power at specific points — reminiscent of Napoleon I's strategies seventy years earlier , overwhelmed French mobilization. Utilizing their efficiently laid rail grid, Prussian troops were delivered to battle areas rested and prepared to fight, whereas French troops had to march for considerable distances to reach combat zones. After a number of battles, notably Spicheren, Wörth, Mars la Tour, and Gravelotte, the Prussians defeated the main French armies and advanced on the primary city of Metz and the French capital of Paris. They captured Napoleon III and took an entire army as prisoners at Sedan on 1 September 1870.. Alsace-Lorraine was transferred to Germany in the peace settlement, allowing Prussia to declare the German Empire, or Second Reich, on January 21, 1871.

Proclamation of the German Empire:

The humiliating capture of the French emperor and the loss of the French army itself, which marched into captivity at a makeshift camp in the Saarland ("Camp Misery"), threw the French government into turmoil; Napoleon's energetic opponents overthrew his government and proclaimed the Third Republic.The German High Command expected an overture of peace from the French, but the new republic refused to surrender. The Prussian army invested Paris and held it under siege until mid-January, with the city being "ineffectually bombarded".On 18 January 1871, the German princes and senior military commanders proclaimed Wilhelm "German Emperor" in the Hall of Mirrors of the Palace of Versailles. Under the subsequent Treaty of Frankfurt, France relinquished most of its traditionally German regions (Alsace and the German-speaking part of Lorraine); paid an indemnity, calculated (on the basis of population) as the precise equivalent of the indemnity that Napoleon Bonaparte imposed on Prussia in 1807; and accepted German administration of Paris and most of northern France, with "German troops to be withdrawn stage by stage with each installment of the indemnity payment.

Over all Timeline:

1804: Napoleon Bonaparte, self-crowned emperor of France, began his conquests of Germanic states east of the Rhine.

1805: Dissolution of the Austrian-led Holy Roman Empire, Francis I of Austria declared the new Austrian Empire.

1805: Napoleon grouped the Germanic states into the Confederation of the Rhine as a French client-state.

1815: After the defeat of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna reinstated the Germanic states into the German Confederation under the leadership of the Austrian Empire.

1819: The Carlsbad Decrees suppressed any form of pan-Germanic activities to avoid the creation of a 'German state'; the Kingdom of Prussia, however, initiated a customs union with other Confederation states.

1834: The Prussian-led custom union evolved into the Zollverein that included almost all Confederation states except the Austrian Empire.

1848: Revolts across the German Confederation, such as in Berlin, Dresden and Frankfurt, forced King Frederick William IV of Prussia to grant a constitution to the Confederation. In the meantime, the Frankfurt Parliament was set up in 1848 and attempted to proclaim a united Germany, but this was refused by William IV. The question of a united Germany under the Kleindeutsch solution (to exclude Austria) or the so-called Großdeutsch (to include Austria) began to surface.

1861: King Wilhelm I became King of Prussia and he appointed Otto von Bismarck as the Chancellor, who favored a 'blood-and-iron' policy to create a united Germany under the leadership of Prussia.

1864: The Danish-Prussian War started as Prussia protested against Danish incorporation of Schleswig into the Kingdom of Denmark. The Austrian Empire was deliberately drawn into this war by Otto von Bismarck, Chancellor of Prussia. The Austro-Prussian victory led to Schleswig, the northern part, being governed by Prussia and Holstein, the southern part, being governed by Austria, as per the Treaty of Vienna (1864).

1866: Bismarck accused the Austrian Empire of stirring up troubles in Prussian-held Schleswig. Prussian troops drove into Austrian-held Holstein and took control of the entire state of Schleswig-Holstein. Austria declared war on Prussia and, after fighting the Austro-Prussian War (Seven Weeks' War), was swiftly defeated. The Treaty of Prague (1866) formally dissolved the German Confederation and Prussia created the North German Confederation to include all Germanic states except the pro-French, southern kingdoms of Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg.

1870: When the French emperor, Napoleon III, demanded territories of the Rhineland in return for his neutrality amid the Austro-Prussian War, Bismarck used the Spanish Succession Question and Ems Telegram (1868) as an opportunity to incorporate the southern kingdoms. Napoleon III declared war against Prussia.

1871: The Franco-Prussian War ended with Prussian troops capturing Paris, the capital of the Second French Empire. Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg were incorporated into the North German Confederation in the Treaty of Frankfurt (1871). Bismarck then proclaimed King Wilhelm I, now Kaiser Wilhelm I, as leader of the new, united Germany (German Reich). With the German troops remaining in Paris, Napoleon III dissolved the French Empire and a new republic, the Third French Republic, was created under Adolphe Thiers.

Ghenghis khan and Mongolians Dynasty

Nature of Mongolians:

The knights at their tournaments, in their finery, armor and emblems of ancestry, believed they were the foremost warriors in the world, while Mongol warriors thought otherwise. Mongol horses were small, but their riders were lightly clad and they moved with greater speed. These were hardy men who grew up on horses and hunting, making them better warriors than those who grew up in agricultural societies and cities. Their main weapon was the bow and arrow. And the Mongols of the early 1200s were highly disciplined, superbly coordinated and brilliant in tactics.

The Mongols were illiterate, religiously shamanistic and perhaps no more than 700,000 in number. Their language today is described as Altaic, a language unrelated to Chinese, derived from inhabitants in the Altay mountain range in western Mongolia. They were herdsmen on the grassy plains north of the Gobi Desert, south of Siberia's forests. Before the year 1200, the Mongols were fragmented, moving about in small bands headed by a chief, or khan, and living in portable felt dwellings. The Mongols endured frequent deprivations and sparse areas for grazing their animals. They frequently fought over turf, and during hard times they occasionally raided, interested in goods rather than bloodshed. They did not collect heads or scalps as trophies.

Childhood of Tamujin:

At the time of his birth in 1162, no one in China had heard of Europe and no one in Europe had heard of China.

By the time of his death in 1227, he had connected them with diplomatic and and commercial contacts that still remains unbroken.

Genghis Khan was born near the border of modern Mongolia and Siberia. Holeum, a young kidnapped girl struggle to give birth to him, her first child. Temujin was not valued by his father who was already married before he kidnapped his mother and had a son, Begter, slightly older than him from his first wife. At the age of 9, Temujin choose his wife Borte. His father died at the same period.

With her husband dead and no other man willing to take her, Holeum's family  was abandon by the Tayichiud tribe protecting them. Holeum and and an other woman with their 7 children were left out behind to die. Most of Temujin's youth was consumed by the work of helping his family survive. In the land of harsh lives, they had fallen to the lowest level of steppe life.

Death of his Father:

When he was nine, Yesugei, a member of the royal Borjigin clan of the Mongols, was poisoned by a band of Tatars, another nomadic people, in continuance of an old feud.

With Yesugei dead, the remainder of the clan, led by the rival Taychiut family, abandoned his widow, Höelün, and her children, considering them too weak to exercise leadership and seizing the opportunity to usurp power. For a time the small family led a life of extreme poverty, eating roots and fish instead of the normal nomad diet of mutton and mare’s milk. Two anecdotes illustrate both Temüjin’s straitened circumstances and, more significantly, the power he already had of attracting supporters through sheer force of personality. Once he was captured by the Taychiut, who, rather than killing him, kept him around their camps, wearing a wooden collar. One night, when they were feasting, Temüjin, noticing that he was being ineptly guarded, knocked down the sentry with a blow from his wooden collar and fled. The Taychiut searched all night for him, and he was seen by one of their people, who, impressed by the fire in his eyes, did not denounce him but helped him escape at the risk of his own life. On another occasion horse thieves came and stole eight of the nine horses that the small family owned. Temüjin pursued them. On the way he stopped to ask a young stranger, called Bo’orchu, if he had seen the horses. Bo’orchu immediately left the milking he was engaged in, gave Temüjin a fresh horse, and set out with him to help recover the lost beasts. 

Prince become his brother:

Temüjin and his family apparently preserved a considerable fund of prestige as members of the royal Borjigin clan, in spite of their rejection by it. Among other things, he was able to claim the wife to whom Yesügei had betrothed him just before his death. But the Merkit people, a tribe living in northern Mongolia, bore Temüjin a grudge, because Yesügei had stolen his own wife, Höelün, from one of their men, and in their turn they ravished Temüjin’s wife Börte. Temüjin felt able to appeal to Toghril, khan of the Kereit tribe, with whom Yesügei had had the relationship of anda, or sworn brother, and at that time the most powerful Mongol prince, for help in recovering Börte. He had had the foresight to rekindle this friendship by presenting Toghril with a sable skin, which he himself had received as a bridal gift. He seems to have had nothing else to offer; yet, in exchange, Toghril promised to reunite Temüjin’s scattered people, and he is said to have redeemed his promise by furnishing 20,000 men and persuading Jamuka, a boyhood friend of Temüjin’s, to supply an army as well. 

Stolen Death:

 Jamukha and Temüjin drifted apart in their friendship, each began consolidating power, and soon became rivals. Jamukha supported the traditional Mongolian aristocracy, while Temüjin followed a meritocratic method, and attracted a broader, though lower class, range of followers.Due to his earlier defeat of the Merkits, and a proclamation by the shaman Kokochu that the Eternal Blue Sky had set aside the world for Temüjin, Temüjin began rising to power. In 1186, Temüjin was elected khan of the Mongols. However, Jamukha, threatened by Temüjin's rapid ascent, quickly moved to stop Temüjin's ambitions. In 1187, he launched an attack against his former friend with an army of thirty thousand troops. Temüjin hastily gathered together his followers to defend against the attack, but he was decisively beaten in the Battle of Dalan Balzhut.Jamukha horrified people greatly and harmed his image by boiling seventy young male captives alive in cauldrons, alienating many of his potential followers and eliciting sympathy for Temüjin.Toghrul, as Temüjin's patron, was exiled to the Qara Khitai. The life of Temüjin for the next ten years is very unclear, as historical records are mostly silent on that period.

Elimination of Rivals:

Temüjin now set about systematically eliminating all rivals. Successive coalitions formed by Jamuka were defeated. The Tatars were exterminated. Toghril allowed himself to be maneuvered by Jamuka’s intrigues and by his own son’s ambitions and suspicions into outright war against Temüjin, and he and his Kereit people were destroyed. Finally, in the west, the Naiman ruler, fearful of the rising power of the Mongols, tried to form yet another coalition, with the participation of Jamuka, but was utterly defeated and lost his kingdom. Jamuka, inconstant as ever, deserted the Naiman khan at the last moment. These campaigns took place in the few years before 1206 and left Temüjin master of the steppes. In that year a great assembly was held by the River Onon, and Temüjin was proclaimed Genghis Khan: the title probably meant Universal Ruler.

Unification of Mongol Empire into one seal

The part of the Merkit clan that sided with the Naimans were defeated by Subutai, who was by then a member of Temüjin's personal guard and later became one of the most successful commanders of Genghis Khan. The Naimans' defeat left Temüjin as the sole ruler of the Mongol plains – all the prominent confederations fell or united under his Mongol confederation.

Accounts of Genghis Khan's life are marked by claims of a series of betrayals and conspiracies. These include rifts with his early allies such as Jamukha (who also wanted to be a ruler of Mongol tribes) and Wang Khan (his and his father's ally), his son Jochi, and problems with the most important shaman, who was allegedly trying to drive a wedge between him and his loyal brother Khasar. His military strategies showed a deep interest in gathering good intelligence and understanding the motivations of his rivals, exemplified by his extensive spy network and Yam route systems. He seemed to be a quick student, adopting new technologies and ideas that he encountered, such as siege warfare from the Chinese. He was also ruthless, demonstrated by his tactic of measuring against the linchpin, used against the tribes led by Jamukha.

As a result, by 1206 Temüjin had managed to unite or subdue the Merkits, Naimans, Mongols, Khereids, Tatars, Uyghurs, and other disparate smaller tribes under his rule. It was a monumental feat for the "Mongols" (as they became known collectively). At a Khuruldai, a council of Mongol chiefs, Temüjin was acknowledged as "Khan" of the consolidated tribes and took the new title "Genghis Khan". The title Khagan was not conferred on Genghis until after his death, when his son and successor, Ögedei, took the title for himself and extended it posthumously to his father (as he was also to be posthumously declared the founder of the Yuan dynasty). This unification of all confederations by Genghis Khan established peace between previously warring tribes and a single political and military force under Genghis Khan.

Conquests in Northern China:

Genghis Khan moved to secure his borders. To his south he made an alliance with the Uyghurs, who were closer than the Mongols were to the Silk Road and to wealth. He married his daughter to the Uighur Khan, and the Uighur Khan brought to the wedding party a caravan laden with gold, silver, pearls, brocaded fabrics, silks and satins. The Mongols had only leather, fur and felt – a humiliation for a master of the entire world.

Genghis Khan needed booty to pay troops securing his northern border and subduing an old enemy there, the Merkits. He acted on his mandate as the rightful ruler of the entire world and attacked the Tangut conquerors of northwestern China from a century before, the Tangut ruling Chinese farmers and herders there. The Tangut had much in goods like the Uighur Khan. Against the Tangut the Mongols were outnumbered in warriors two to one, and the Mongols had to learn a new kind of warfare against fortified cities, including cutting supply lines and diverting rivers. Genghis Khan and his army were victorious, and in 1210 Genghis Khan won from the Tngut recognition as overlord.

Also in 1210, the Jurchen emperor, Weishaowang, who ruled a part of northern China that includd Beijing, was concerned. He sent a delegation to Genghis Khan demanding submission as a vassal. The Jurchen emperor controlled the flow of goods along the Silk Road, and defying him meant a lack of access to those goods. Genghis Khan discussed the matter with his fellow Mongols and choe war. Genghis, according to the scholar Jack Weatherford, prayed alone on a mountain, bowing dwn and stating his case to "his supernatral guardians," describing the grievances, the tortures and killings that generations of his people had suffered at the hands of the Jurchens. And he pleaded that he had not sought war against the Jurchens and had not initiated the quarrel.

In 1211, Genghis Khan and his army attacked. The Jurchens had a large and effective army but they were hard pressed by both the Mongols and the Tangut. And the Jurchens were under attack by Chinese from south of the Yangzi River, the Southen Song emperor there wishing to take advantage of the Jurchen-Mongol conflict to liberat northern China.

The Jurchens drove the Chinese armies into retreat. The Mongols were benefiting from China having failed during the previous century to make itself a strong militay power, and the Mongols were benefitting from the Jurchens being burdened by their rule over a conquered people. The Mongols were benevolent toward those who sided with them and used terror and violence against those who did not. The Mongols ravaged the countryside, gathered information and booty and drove populations in front of them, clogging the roads and trapping the Jurchens within their cities, where Jurchen authority was subject to revolty those they had conquered. The Mongols used conscripted labor in attacking cities and in operating their newly acquired Chinese siege engines.

Against the Jurchens the Mongols had an advantage in diet, which included a lot of meat, milk and yogurt, and they could miss a day or two of eating better than Jurchen sold iers, who ate grains. Genghis Khan and his army overran Beijing and pushed into the heartland of northern China. Military success helped as people acquired the impression that Genghis  Khan had the Mand ate of Hea ven and that fighting against him was fighting heaven itself. The Jurchen emperor recognized Mong ol authority and agreed to pay tribute.

Religion of Genghis Khan:

The religion of genghis Khan, empeor of the mongols, about whose romantic conquests much has been written, must remain largely a matter of conjecture and theory . But the subject is important from the point of view of the impact of animasim and origional monotheism. Did monotheism precede animism among the mongolians, or was it contemporary with, or develop from it. Did Tamuchin as a youth have same idea of God as he had when he died, as Genghis Khan, or had he been subtly influcenced by Christianity or Mohammedanism, with the both of witch he had contacts in later life, though he embraced neither faith. For the remained a Deist supported by shamanism. There may be many source of information about his life history, but these are not all easily availble to students of the region of Mongolia, at that period. Whatever the religious views of his tibesmen may have been, genghis kHan was certainly the man of Crystallize and consilidate them, in the same way as he consolidated the loose tribes which afterwards formed his Empire.