Otto von Bismarck: The Way of the Iron Chancellor

Otto von Bismarck is a prominent German statesman. He was born in 1815 in Schönhausen. Otto von Bismarck received a law degree. He was the most reactionary deputy of the United Prussian Landtags (1847-1848 gg.) And advocated a stiff suppression of any revolutionary speeches.

In the period 1851-1859 Bismarck represented Prussia in the Bundestag (Frankfurt am Main). From 1859 to 1862 he was sent to Russia as ambassador, and in 1862 - to France. In the same year, King William I, after a constitutional conflict between him and the Landtag, appoints Bismarck as president. In this position, he defended the rights of the royal authority and resolved the conflict in its favor.

In the sixties, contrary to the constitution and budgetary rights of the Landtag, Otto von Bismarck reformed the army, which seriously increased Prussian military power. In 1863, he initiated an agreement with the Russian government on joint measures to suppress possible uprisings in Poland.

Relying on the Prussian military machine, he is uniting Germany as a result of the Danish (1864), Austro-Prussian (1866) and Franco-Prussian (1870-1871) wars. In 1871 Bismarck received the post of Reich Chancellor of the German Empire. In the same year he renders active assistance to France in suppressing the Paris Commune. Using his very broad rights, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck in every possible way strengthened the positions of the bourgeois-Junkers bloc in the state.

In the 1970s he opposed the Catholic party and the claims of the clerical-particularist opposition supported by Pope Pius IX (Kulturkampf). In 1878 the Iron Chancellor Otto von Bismarck applied the Exceptional Law (against dangerous and harmful intentions) to the Socialists and their program. This rule prohibited the activities of Social-Democratic parties outside the Landtag and the Reichstag.

All the time in office Chancellor Bismarck unsuccessfully tried to prevent the untwisting of the flywheel of the workers' revolutionary movement. His government also actively suppressed the national movement in the Polish territories, which were part of Germany. One of the measures of counteraction was total numeration of the population. The Chancellor's government, in the interests of the big bourgeoisie and the Junkers, carried out a protectionist course.

Otto von Bismarck in foreign policy considered the first priority measures to prevent France's revenge after its defeat of the Franco-Prussian war. Therefore, he was preparing for a new conflict with this country even before it can restore its military power. The French state in the previous war lost a very important economic area of Lorraine and Alsace.

Bismarck greatly feared that an anti-German coalition would be created. Therefore, in 1873 he initiated the signing of the "Union of Three Emperors" (between Germany, Austria-Hungary, Russia). In 1979, Bismarck concluded the Austro-German Treaty, and in 1882 - the Triple Alliance (Italy, Germany, Austria-Hungary), which was directed against France. However, the Chancellor was afraid of the war on two fronts. In 1887, he signed a "reinsurance treaty" with Russia.

In the late 1980s, Germany's militaristic circles wanted to start a preventive war against the Russian Empire, but Bismarck considered this conflict extremely dangerous for the country. However, the penetration of Germany into the Balkan Peninsula and lobbying there the Austro-Hungarian interests, as well as measures against Russian exports, spoiled the relations between the states, which led to the rapprochement of France and Russia.

The Chancellor tried to get closer to Britain, but did not take into account the depth of existing contradictions with this country. The crossing of Anglo-German interests as a result of British colonial expansion led to the deterioration of relations between states. Recent failures in foreign policy and the ineffectiveness of countering the revolutionary movement led to the resignation of Bismarck in the 1890s. He died in his estate 8 years after that.