Politics and Diplomacy, 1850 to 1900

This is Unit Eleven of Western Civilization Two, part two of two: the socialist parties, Bismarck at home and abroad, five procedures, and the balance of power broken. Part one ended with France after Sedan: a republic by default, a commune, an affair. This part is what the conservatives who built nations did with them, and it pays off the unit's governing idea, the anchor's paradox, with its consequence: nationalism won by its enemies, and the balance of power lost by its winners. Bismarck fought Catholics and lost, banned socialists and then bought the workers with the first welfare state, and tied Germany to both its Balkan rivals until his dismissal let Russia turn to France. Then the methods: seven dates on one line, two maps, the two architects under four heads, and the speech that named the means. By the end you will be able to describe the parties and Bismarck at home. To describe his alliances and the armed peace. To sequence and map the unifications. To compare the architects and read the speech. To map the blocs. And to state the consequence.

Four entries on socialists and Bismarck at home: the International and the mass parties, the culture war he lost, the ban and the welfare state that were one policy, and the SPD's waiting game.

Quarrelling in London, then mass parties.

WC2 1028 The First International, 1864, and Mass Socialist Parties

The International Workingmen's Association met in London in September eighteen sixty-four, Marx among its quarrelling members. Mass socialist parties followed: Germany's SPD in eighteen seventy-five, French and Italian parties, and Britain's Labour, which formed in nineteen hundred and was never Marxist. The SPD was among Germany's most powerful parties by the nineties. The anchor lists Labour among the parties of the seventies; the date is corrected.

A culture war Bismarck lost.

WC2 1029 The Kulturkampf: Bismarck Against Catholics, 1873

Bismarck treated Catholicism as alien to the new Empire, where a third of subjects were Catholic, thirty-five percent by the anchor's figure. From eighteen seventy-three the state trained priests, made civil marriage compulsory and expelled resisters. Catholics answered with the Centre Party, and Bismarck lost, then allied with the Centre against socialists. Papal infallibility, declared in eighteen seventy, sharpened the fear.

Repression and welfare as one policy.

WC2 1030 The Anti-Socialist Laws of 1878 and the First Welfare State

Two attempts on the Kaiser by non-socialists gave the pretext, and eighteen seventy-eight laws banned the SPD and unions, though individuals could still stand. Then Bismarck, an arch-conservative, built the first modern welfare state, health insurance and pensions, to win workers away from socialism: health care and social security in the eighteen eighties, the witness says. Repression and welfare were one policy.

Doctrine rejected revisionism; practice followed it.

WC2 1031 The SPD Legalized, 1890: Kautsky Against Bernstein

The new Kaiser dismissed Bismarck and the SPD was legal from eighteen ninety. Its program was Marxist, awaiting capitalism's collapse, while it worked for suffrage and welfare. Bernstein argued gradual improvement was the goal; Kautsky held to revolution. Doctrine rejected revisionism; practice followed it: a revolutionary waiting game, the anchor says. Kautsky and Bernstein are anchor-only; the Erfurt program is unnamed.

Three entries on Bismarck abroad: the alliances that kept France alone, the dismissal that let Russia turn to France, and why the decades after seventy-one were an armed peace without a Concert.

Tied to both Balkan rivals.

WC2 1032 Bismarck's Alliances: Three Emperors, Dual, Triple, Reinsurance

After eighteen seventy-one Bismarck aimed to keep France isolated. The League of Three Emperors joined Germany, Austria and Russia; the Dual Alliance followed in eighteen seventy-nine, Italy joined in eighteen eighty-two, and a Reinsurance Treaty with Russia covered the gap when Austria and Russia quarrelled. Germany was tied to both rivals in the Balkans. Witness-built; the anchor has none of these names.

France isolated no more.

WC2 1033 After Bismarck: The Franco-Russian Alliance, 1894

Wilhelm the Second dismissed Bismarck in eighteen ninety and refused to renew the Reinsurance Treaty. Russia turned to France, and in eighteen ninety-four the two signed a treaty of mutual support against attack. France was isolated no more, and Germany faced the two-front war Bismarck had worked to prevent. The Triple Alliance now had a counterweight. Witness-built; Britain's ententes belong to unit fourteen.

No general war, no trust either.

WC2 1034 Diplomacy Without the Concert: Why 1871 to 1900 Was an Armed Peace

German unification destroyed the old balance, the anchor says: one state with most of the old Empire, a large population, an industrializing economy and proven arms. From eighteen seventy-one the powers jockeyed, armed and scrambled overseas, and alliances replaced the Concert. No general war for forty-three years; no trust either. Witness-named; the exam's diplomacy of eighteen seventy-one to nineteen hundred rests here.

Five procedures: seven dates on one line, the map of the two new states, the two architects under four heads, the speech read for what it assumes, and the map of the blocs.

Seven dates, one engine.

WC2 1035 Sequencing the Unifications, 1852 to 1871

Put these in order and the two unifications reveal their shared engine. The Crimean War, fifty-four to fifty-six, wrecked the Vienna alliances and set Austria adrift. The war of fifty-nine gave Piedmont Lombardy with French help. Garibaldi's Thousand took the south in sixty, and the Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed in sixty-one. Prussia beat Austria in sixty-six, and Italy took Venetia as Prussia's ally. France fell at Sedan in seventy, Rome was annexed as the French garrison left, and the German Empire was proclaimed in January seventy-one. The pattern: each unifier needed a great-power war to free his hands, and each of Prussia's wars finished a piece of Italy. Write the seven dates on one line and mark which belong to Italy, which to Germany, and which to both. No battle name is required; Magenta, Solferino and Königgrätz are disclosed, not taught.

Piedmont grows; Prussia fills its gap.

WC2 1036 Reading a Map of Unified Italy and Germany

A map question asks which state absorbed which. For Italy, find Piedmont-Sardinia in the northwest, then the pieces it gathered: Lombardy in fifty-nine, the central duchies and the south in sixty, Venetia in sixty-six, Rome in seventy. Nice and Savoy go the other way, to France. For Germany, find Prussia's two blocks, east and west, and the states it annexed after sixty-six in between, then the southern kingdoms, Bavaria and the rest, that joined in seventy-one and kept their own rulers. Alsace and Lorraine sit on the French border, taken from France. Austria lies outside both, which is the point: the German Empire was the small-German answer of eighteen forty-eight made real. If a map shows Austria inside Germany, it is not eighteen seventy-one. The Empire's states keeping autonomy is a witness feature.

Aim, method, ally, result.

WC2 1037 Cavour and Bismarck Compared: Aim, Method, Ally, Result

Set the two ministers side by side under four heads. Aim: Cavour wanted Piedmont's power, Bismarck Prussia's, and neither began with a nation in mind. Method: both used war and diplomacy, and both used a nationalist they distrusted, Garibaldi for Cavour and popular feeling for Bismarck. Ally: Cavour needed France in fifty-nine and paid with Nice and Savoy; Bismarck needed no ally, only Austria's and France's isolation, which he arranged. Result: Italy became a constitutional monarchy with a weak king and a half-million electorate; Germany a federal empire with universal manhood suffrage and a chancellor answerable to the Kaiser. The anchor's verdict, attributed, is that Bismarck was the more memorable and personally responsible for his result, while Cavour died in sixty-one with his work unfinished at Venetia and Rome. Same engine, different ally, different constitution.

Power, not liberalism; force, not votes.

WC2 1038 Reading "Iron and Blood": What Bismarck Assumes

Read the excerpt from Bismarck's speech to the Prussian budget commission of September thirtieth, eighteen sixty-two, at German History in Documents and Images. He was defending army spending the liberal chamber refused. He says Germany is not looking to Prussia's liberalism, but to its power, and that it is not by speeches and majority resolutions that the great questions of the time are decided, that was the big mistake of eighteen forty-eight and forty-nine, but by iron and blood. Three assumptions carry the argument. Germany will be united by whichever state is strongest, not by whichever is freest. Parliaments failed in forty-eight because they talked. And Prussia's borders from Vienna are unfit for a healthy state, so force is a need, not a choice. Read it as the anchor reads it: a Junker telling liberals their unification would come by his means or not at all. The quotation is the document's translation; the anchor's paraphrase says majority decisions.

A central block and a ring.

WC2 1039 Reading a Map of the Alliance Blocs, 1882 to 1907

A map of the blocs asks you to date it by who is joined to whom. Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy form the Triple Alliance from eighteen eighty-two, a central block from the North Sea to Sicily. If France and Russia are linked, the map is ninety-four or later, when their alliance put Germany between two allies. If Britain is shaded with France, the Entente Cordiale of nineteen-oh-four has been signed; if with Russia too, the Anglo-Russian Convention of nineteen-oh-seven has made the Triple Entente. Two cautions. Italy sat in the Triple Alliance on paper while its quarrel with Austria over Italians under Habsburg rule pulled it away, so a map that shades Italy with Germany is right for the treaty and wrong for the war. And Britain's ententes were understandings, not alliances; the witness says they did not formally bind Britain to fight. Witness-built; the anchor names no alliance.

One capstone entry: the paradox and its consequence, from Cavour and Bismarck to the ring around Germany and the three things unit fourteen inherits.

Nationalism won by its enemies.

WC2 1040 How Conservatives Built Nations and Broke the Balance of Power

This unit opened with a paradox and closes on its consequence. The paradox: nationalism, the creed of eighteen forty-eight's defeated revolutionaries, was carried to victory by conservative ministers who did not believe in it. Cavour wanted Piedmont's power and got Italy; Bismarck wanted Prussia's and got Germany. Each needed a great-power war to free his hands, and the Crimean War supplied it by breaking the Austro-Russian alliance that had guarded Vienna's settlement. The results were not the liberal nations of forty-eight. Italy had a half-million electorate and a resentful south; Germany a Reichstag elected by all men and outranked by an unelected council and a Kaiser. Austria answered defeat with a bargain that satisfied two nations and left the rest waiting. Russia answered it with emancipation that freed serfs into debt, then with reaction, and its radicals with a tsar's murder. France answered Sedan with a republic no one had planned, a commune drowned in blood, and a demand for revenge. The consequence: a German Empire at Europe's center destroyed the balance the Congress had kept. Bismarck's alliances held France alone for two decades; his dismissal let Russia turn to France in ninety-four, and the ring around Germany began. Inside the states, the same conservatives fought Catholics and socialists, then bought the workers with the first welfare state while the SPD waited for a revolution its practice no longer pursued. Nations built from above, an armed peace without a Concert, and empires of many nations: unit fourteen inherits all three. Nationalism won by its enemies; the balance lost by its winners. The diplomacy is witness-built, and the disclosures stand.

Look at what you can now do. You can describe the International and the mass parties, the culture war Bismarck lost, the ban and the welfare state as one policy, and the SPD's waiting game. You can describe the alliances that kept France alone, the dismissal that undid them, and the armed peace. You can sequence the unifications on seven dates and map them with Austria outside. You can compare the architects by aim, method, ally and result, and read iron and blood for its three assumptions. You can date a map of the blocs by who is joined to whom. And you can state the consequence: nationalism won by its enemies, the balance lost by its winners, which is this unit's one idea. Unit twelve opens on the second industrial revolution.