Work in Progress: Sucess/Failures of Bismark 1871-1889
Success and failures of Bismarck’s foreign policies Bismarck, nicknamed the ‘iron chancellor’ can be considered as the father of Germany, uniting Prussia and other states. During his years as chancellor from 1871-1890, he successfully secured the new German boarders by keeping peace within Europe. Through rallying the southern states of Germany by engaging the Franco-Prussian war of 1871, with the German ‘traditional enemy, Bismarck successfully achieved his aim of uniting the scattered states of Germany and in addition gained control over the fertile lands: Alsace and Lorraine through the treaty of Frankfurt in 1871.
This sparked a new era for international relationships between the great European powers as Bismarck efficiently modernized Germany in both industrialization and enhancing the German military. During his time as chancellor, Bismarck’s priority was to keep Germany a ‘satisfied state’ through keeping peace in Europe, he stated ‘…here is Russia and here is France, and we are in the middle’.
As problems started to appear such as the demise of the ‘sick man of Europe’ and increased tension of the Balkan states that might jeopardize peace in Europe, Bismarck cleverly making alliances with Russia and Austria-Hungary, both geographically and politically with the signing of the first Dreikaiserbund of 1873. The signing of the DKB strongly deterred any alliance between Russia and France; in addition, the DKB eased the tension between Russia and Austria-Hungary over the Balkan issues, which could have easily ignite a war in Europe, thus the forming of the DKB can be arguably one of the greatest success in foreign policy from Bismarck.
In 1875, Bismarck foolishly provoked war against France with no clear purpose but also contradicted his policy to keep the boarders of Germany safe with the arising of the ‘War in sight’ crisis. Although the crisis may have been caused by Bismarck’s restlessness of France rapidly recovering her loses from the treaty of Frankfurt, his foreseeing of other European powers supporting Germany horribly backfired; support favoring France was given by both Russia and Britain against German threats afterwards.
As the eastern crisis continues to cause tension between Russia and Austria-Hungary, Bismarck proposed Britain, with interests with Constantinople, as a negotiator to ease the tension. However, in 1876, the ‘Bulgarian atrocities’ provoked Russia to declare war against the Turks, which ultimately lead to the signing of the treaty of Sans Stefano in 1878. Arguably one of the largest failure of Bismarck was that he was unable to bring a swift solution to the unfair territorial gains over the Balkans of Russia, thus angering Austria-Hungary furiously.
Bismarck minified the tensions by stating earlier that territorial gain over Balkans region were not ‘worth the healthy bones of a singed Pomeranian musketeer’ and offering himself as the ‘honest broker’ during the congress of Berlin in summer 1878. Even though partners of the DKB came to a democratic solution, historians agree that Congress of Berlin was a failure as it didn’t provide any long-term solutions over the Balkan issues but also seeded a Franco-Russian alliance as The Tsar considered it as ‘a European coalition against Russia, under the leadership of price Bismarck’.
