How Did Bismarck Lead To German Unification

Throughout the 19th century, Europe was experiencing a period of unification. This period would result in the creation of two new powers in Europe, Italy and Germany. Both of these new powers would be lead to unification by one man. The Italian unification being led by Camillo di Cavour, while the unification of German being led by Otto Von Bismarck. Both men utilized different strategy to achieve the unification of their respective country. In the words of Otto Von Bismarck, “Politics is not an exact science.” Although both men were different in how they would work to unify their country, there were still many things that the two would have in common to achieve their goal.

Cavour began to take positions of leadership in the government of Sardinia,

becoming member of parliament from 1848-1849, the minister of agriculture, industry, and commerce in 1850, finance minister in 1851, and eventually prime minister in 1852.1 Cavour as Prime Minister supported policies that helped economic development, allowed some liberalization in politics, and started reforms that compromised the position of the church.2 Through these reforms, Cavour was able to strengthen the Sardinian economy.

Some of these changes were the building of highways, canals, docks, and railroads.3 Cavour would then continue to strengthen the economy through trade treaties, and reforms to the credit system. These changes were calculated in that other Italian states would see this and want to join Sardinia. But just the help of neighboring Italian states would allow for Cavour to push Austria out of northern Italy and allow for the Italian states to unify. Then in 1853, a conflict broke out in Europe. This conflict known as the Crimean War, was between Britain, France, and Turkey against Russia. Seeing as this conflict, would give Sardinia connections with a major power, joined in on the campaign. Although the actual war did not involve any issues of interest for Sardinia, it gave Cavour connections to the french. Through these connections Cavour would enlist the french in July 1858 to help them wage war against Austria. The war did not begin until April 29, 1859, where two major battles took place,

the battle of Magenta and Solferino in June of 1859.4 Both of these conflicted ended in Austrian retreats, while being very bloody and indecisive. After these victories, Prussia and Germanic states threatened to side with Austria. This caused France to sign agreement with Austria, giving France most of Lombardy, which in return gave the land to Sardinia. While Austria keep Venetia and returned central Italy to their formal leaders. After the war with Austria, the central states of Italy, some of the Papal States joined Sardinia. With the help of Garibaldi, Cavour attacked Sicily and were successful. At this point in the unification only Venetia and rome were not part of Italy. But Venetia was gained through Italy’s help in a war between Prussia and Austria and from there French afraid of a war with German pulled out their occupancy of Rome. This gave Italy control of Rome, completing the unification of Italy. Unlike Bismarck, Cavour did not complete his unification through military power, rather he used diplomacy to achieve unification.
While Cavour achieved his unification through diplomacy, Bismarck used military prowess to achieve the unification of Germany. Before Bismarck’s unification, Germany was group of smaller Germanic states, known as the German confederation. Each of these states was owned by Kings and Princes. Revolutions occurred in almost every states. This caused Constitutions to be formed, and allow elections to the German National Assembly in Frankfurt. Then in 1848, the Assembly in Frankfurt took place to plan for the formation of a united and constitutional German nation-state.5 But by autumn of the next year the hope of fully unifying German had failed. There were two schools of thought, for the future of Germany. “Smaller Germany” which was the idea of a unified Germany without Austria. The other school of thought was “Greater Germany”, this was the idea of a unified Germany with Austria.