Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Today we are tackling
a figure who is, well, just massive. I mean,
physically, historically, politically, he's a
giant in every sense of the word. He really is.
We're talking about the Iron Chancellor himself,
Otto von Bismarck. It is impossible to understand
modern Europe, or really the modern world, without
getting a handle on Bismarck. He is the fulcrum
upon which the entire 19th century turns. And
usually, you know, when you hear 19th century
German politics, your eyes might glaze over a
little bit. A little, maybe. You picture these
dusty men with, I don't know, mutton chops, signing
treaties in drafty palaces. But the sources we
have for this deep dive, they came to picture
of a man who was... Well, frankly, he was wild.
He certainly wasn't a boring bureaucrat, that's
for sure. Not at all. We're talking about a guy
who fought duels, who chased romances all across
Europe, who manipulated kings like they were
children, and who basically created the country
of Germany out of thin air. All through sheer
force of will. Exactly. And in this incredibly
cynical twist, he invented the modern welfare
state. Right, but not out of charity. He did
it mostly just to annoy his political enemies.
It's incredible. So our mission today is to unpack
this contradiction. How did this one man, this
Yunker from the countryside, completely reshape
the map of the world? And was his genius? Was
it actually the very thing that doomed the empire
he built? That is the central question, isn't
it? Because Bismarck built this incredibly complex
machine that, well, only he could operate. A
machine built for one. So let's start at the
beginning. Who was this guy? before he became
the Iron Chancellor. Because looking at his early
life, you wouldn't necessarily peg him as the
future architect of European peace. No, not at
all. You really wouldn't. He was born in 1815
into the junker class. Now, for those who aren't
steeped in Prussian social hierarchy, the junkers
were essentially the landowning nobility. The
country squires, almost. Pretty much. They were
conservative, traditional, and very much the
masters of their own little domains. Military
service, loyalty to the king. That was their
code. But Bismarck wasn't exactly the disciplined,
stoic soldier type right out of the gate, was
he? Oh, not even close. I found this detail in
the biographical notes. Hilarious at university.
His American friend, John Lothrop Motley, described
him as reckless and dashing. He was a bit of
a party animal. He attended the University of
Göttingen and then Berlin, but he wasn't exactly
hitting the books. He was known for drinking
heavily, for being loud, and for just being generally
eccentric. There's a story here that he actually
quit his early legal training. He was supposed
to go into the civil service, right? That was
the path for a man of his station, yes. And he
quit because he took unauthorized leave to chase
two different English girls across Europe. Yes,
Laura Russell and then Isabella Lorraine Smith.
He was apparently quite the romantic pursuer.
He essentially ghosted his job as a junior lawyer
to travel around Germany and Switzerland with
them. It shows a certain, well... an impulsiveness
that he later learned to control. Or at least
to channel into politics. Exactly. He weaponized
it. But yeah, his superiors were not impressed.
I can't imagine they were. And the duels, the
sources mentioned he fought something like 25
duels in his first year of university. It was
part of the student corps culture, but he seems
to have taken to it with... Particular enthusiasm.
Most were minor affairs. But then there was the
famous one later with Georg von Wicke, a political
rival. And what happened with that one? It's
interesting because it ended without injury,
but it shows the culture he was steeped in. Honor,
violence, and standing your ground were just
baked into his personality from the very beginning.
But we need to be careful not to mistake this
wildness for, you know, stupidity. Oh, absolutely
not. That's the biggest mistake people make with
Bismarck. Even in his crazy junker phase, he
was incredibly sharp. He was an intellectual
who just liked to dress up and act like a brute.
He wasn't just a simple country nobleman. Far
from it. He was genuinely a cosmopolitan. He
was fluent in English, French. Italian, Polish,
and Russian, he could quote Shakespeare and Byron.
He had a deep, deep intellect that was often
masked by this persona he projected. The persona
of the man of action. The man of iron and blood,
yes. He understood the power of image long before
modern politicians did. So when does he finally
settle down? Because you can't chase English
girls and fight duels forever if you want to
run a country. Right. Well, the stabilization
comes in his mid -20s. His family's finances
are a bit of a mess, so he goes back to run the
family estate at Nifov. And he's actually very
good at it. He brings some order to things. He
does. But the real turning point, the thing that
grounds him, is his marriage to Johanna von Puttkummer
in 1847. And from what I read, she was his complete
opposite, right? Totally. She was shy. retiring,
deeply religious. She came from this very pietistic
background. Bismarck himself had a sort of religious
reawakening around this time, partly to convince
her parents that he was a suitable husband. So
it was a strategic conversion. Maybe a little,
but it seems to have stuck. It gave him a certain
gravity he lacked before. She gave him a stable
home life, a base from which he could launch
his political career. But even with that stability,
the wild man never really went away, did it?
This is where the historian Jonathan Steinberg
talks about Bismarck's demonic personality. Demonic.
It's a strong word, but it fits. What does he
mean by that? Steinberg argues he had this almost
supernatural power over men. It was this bizarre
mix of brutal honesty, deceit and absolute terrifying
rage. He was known for having these massive temper
tantrums. Like actually breaking things. Smashing
things, screaming, weeping. And then there was
the hypochondria. Ah, yes, the strategic illnesses.
It was weaponized hypochondria. He had a million
ailments, insomnia, digestive problems, nerve
pain. And whenever he was in a tough political
spot, they would suddenly flare up. So he'd use
it to get sympathy. Or to guilt people. He would
claim to be dying or exhausted or suffering from
these terrible nerves to guilt the king or his
rivals into submission. He used his physical
and emotional state as a political tool. It's
utterly manipulative, but, you know. Incredibly
effective. It really was. So let's fast forward.
How does this demonic, hypochondriac, genius
personality actually get into a position of real
power? Because it happens during a crisis, doesn't
it? It does. It's 1862. Prussia is completely
stuck in a constitutional deadlock. King Wilhelm
I wants to reform the army, make it bigger, stronger,
more professional. Which costs money. A lot of
money. And the liberal -dominated parliament,
the Landtag, says, no, we're not giving you the
money. They were afraid the king would use a
stronger army to crush them and roll back liberal
freedoms. So it's a standoff. A total standoff.
And the king is so frustrated, so convinced he
can't fulfill his duty, that he's ready to abdicate.
He actually wrote the letter? He literally wrote
out the abdication letter. He felt he couldn't
rule if a bunch of politicians could hold his
army hostage. In desperation, his advisors basically
say, look, there's only one man scary enough
and ruthless enough to fix this. You have to
call Bismarck. That's quite the reputation to
have. have calling the bulldog exactly he had
a reputation for being an ultra conservative
anti -parliamentary hardliner so he was brought
in as minister president and his solution defines
his entire political style right he doesn't negotiate
no he doesn't compromise he finds a well he calls
it a legal loophole i love this part it's so
clever but in this really dictatorial way what
was the loophole He called it the Luckin theory,
which translates to the gap theory. He went before
Parliament and argued that, yes, the Constitution
says how a budget is passed. The king and Parliament
have to agree. OK, that seems clear enough. But
he said the Constitution does not say what happens
if they don't agree. It's a gap in the text.
And since there's a gap. Bismarck argued that
the state can't just stop functioning. The army
still needs to be paid. The government still
needs to run. So in the absence of an agreement.
The sovereign, the king, has the right to continue
collecting taxes and spending money based on
the previous year's budget. So he just hit copy
and paste on last year's budget and completely
ignored parliament. For four straight years.
He ran the government. He funded the army reforms,
all without a legally approved budget. It was
blatantly unconstitutional in spirit, but he
just bulldozed right through it. And this is
the context for that famous speech, the one everyone
knows him for, Blood and Iron. Yes. September
1862, right after he takes office, he goes to
the Budget Committee of the Parliament and he
lays it all out for them, point blank. What did
he say? He tells them, the great questions of
the time will not be resolved by speeches and
majority decisions, that was the great mistake
of 1848, but by iron and blood. Wow. That gives
me chills just hearing it. It's such a complete
and total rejection of democracy. It is. He's
telling them, your debates are pointless. Your
votes mean nothing. Power, military power, is
what actually matters. This is the definition
of real politic. Politics based on practical
power, not on ethics or ideology. He must have
been the most hated man in Prussia. Oh, absolutely
despised. The liberals, the progressives, they
saw him as a medieval dinosaur, a reactionary
trying to drag Prussia back into absolutism.
got dangerous for him didn't it Very. In fact,
in May of 1866, he survived an assassination
attempt. A young radical student named Ferdinand
Cohen -Blein walked right up to him on the street
on Unter den Linden in Berlin and shot him five
times at close range. Five times. And he lived.
How is that even possible? It's an incredible
story. Bismarck had only minor injuries. He was
wearing a thick coat and maybe a rib deflected
a bullet, but he basically turned around, grappled
the assassin himself. and handed him over to
some nearby guards. And then what did he do?
He went home and ate dinner. That's insane. That
just adds to the myth, doesn't it? The Iron Chancellor
indeed. You can't even shoot him. Precisely.
It made him look invincible, like he was a man
of destiny. And he would need that aura of invincibility
because he was about to launch a series of three
short, sharp wars that would change the map of
Europe forever. Okay, let's unpack these wars.
The outline calls him the Architect of Germany.
But he didn't just want war for the sake of war,
did he? He wasn't some kind of warmonger. No,
that's another common misconception. Bismarck
was not a warmonger in the sense of loving battle.
For him, war was a tool. It was an instrument
of policy. You know the famous saying from Clausewitz
that war is the continuation of politics by other
means. Right. Bismarck lived that. Every war
he fought had a very specific, limited diplomatic
goal. And the overarching goal was the unification
of the German states. But not all the German
states. This is the crucial part. This is absolutely
crucial. He wanted what was called the Kleindeutschland,
a little Germany. This meant a unified Germany
dominated by Protestant Prussia. And to achieve
that, he had to exclude the other great German
power, the huge, multi -ethnic, Catholic Austrian
Empire. So all three wars are... They're really
about sidelining Austria and getting the other
German states to line up behind Prussia. Exactly.
It's a three -act play. So act one, the war against
Denmark in 1864. This one always seems a bit
obscure. It seems that way, but it was a masterstroke
of diplomacy. It was a trap. The dispute was
over these two duchies, Schleswig and Holstein.
They had a really complicated legal status tied
to both Denmark and the German Confederation.
And Bismarck sees an opportunity. A huge one.
He gets Austria to ally with Prussia to fight
Denmark over the issue. They win easily, of course.
Okay, so now Prussia and Austria are buddies.
They fought together. And that's the trap. After
the war, Bismarck sets up this very complicated
joint administration of the captured territories.
Prussia would administer Schleswig and Austria
would administer Holstein, which was sandwiched
between Prussian territories. So it was designed
to be awkward. It was designed to cause friction.
He knew that sharing control would inevitably
lead to arguments and conflicts. He essentially
planted a diplomatic bomb and just waited for
it to explode. Which leads us directly to war
number two. Austria in 1866. He uses that friction
over the administration of Schleswig -Holstein
to provoke Austria into war. He makes all sorts
of demands he knows they can't accept. Most of
Europe, by the way, thought Austria would crush
Prussia. Why? Austria was an ancient empire,
the traditional leader of the German world. Prussia
was seen as the upstart, the newcomer. Prussia
had a secret weapon, or a few of them. They did.
First, they had General Helmut von Moltke, an
absolute military genius who understood modern
warfare, especially the use of railways to move
troops quickly. And second, they had the needle
gun. The Dres needle gun. Right. It was a breech
-loading rifle. A Prussian soldier could lie
down, load a new cartridge in a few seconds,
and fire five or six times a minute. The Austrians
had muzzleloaders. They had to stand up to reload,
which was slow and made them easy targets. That's
a huge technological advantage. Massive. And
the result was the Seven Weeks War. It was unbelievably
fast and ended decisively at the Battle of Königgrätz.
The Austrian army was shattered. Now, here's
where it gets really interesting to me, and it
shows his genius. Prussia wins. They have Austria
on the ropes. The king, Wilhelm I, wants to march
into Vienna. He wants a victory parade. He wants
to humiliate the Habsburgs. And the generals
agree with him. They want their moment of glory.
And Bismarck says no. He fights them tooth and
nail. This is maybe the most important moment
in his career. There are screaming matches. Bismarck
is in tears. He threatens to resign. He even
hints at suicide. He does everything he can to
stop the army from marching on Vienna. Why? Why
not take the Capitol? It seems like the natural
thing to do after such a big victory. Because
he was already thinking about the next war. He
knew he needed Austria. If he humiliated them,
if he marched through their capital and annexed
their land, they would become a permanent bitter
enemy just waiting for a chance for revenge.
And they'd probably ally with France to get it.
Exactly. He wanted Austria defeated, not destroyed.
He needed them as a potential future ally or
at least a neutral party. So he forced the king
to accept a soft peace. No victory parade, no
annexations of core Austrian territory. Austria
just had to agree to be excluded from German
affairs. That is just incredible foresight. Most
leaders in the heat of victory want the glory.
He's looking 10, 20 years down the road. Always.
But now the puzzle wasn't quite finished. He
had knocked out Austria. He'd created a new North
German confederation under Prussian control.
But the southern German states, Bavaria, Württemberg,
they were still... independent and suspicious
of Prussia. They were Catholic and they were
wary of being dominated by Protestant Berlin.
Right. So to complete the unification, he needed
a common enemy. He needed a national threat that
would make. Those southern states feel like they
had no choice but to run into Prussia's arms
for protection. Enter France. Enter Napoleon
III's France and specifically the Ems Dispatch.
This is 1870. This is maybe the ultimate example
of fake news changing the course of history.
Yeah. Walk us through this because it's brilliant
and terrifying. So it starts with a dispute over
the Spanish throne. A German prince is a candidate,
which makes the French very nervous about being
surrounded by German influence. The French ambassador
approaches King Wilhelm I, who is on vacation
at a spa town called Bad Ems. The ambassador
is quite pushy and demands that the king promise
to never again support a German candidate for
the Spanish throne. And the king. The king politely
refuses. He says he can't make that kind of promise
for all time. The meeting is a bit tense, but
it's not a disaster. Afterwards, the king sends
a telegram to Bismarck in Berlin describing what
happened. And it was a fairly standard, factual,
diplomatic telegram? It was. It was long and
detailed and honestly a bit boring. But Bismarck's
having dinner with his top generals, Moltke and
Ruhn. He reads the telegram and he sees his chance.
He asks Moltke if the army is ready for war.
Moltke says yes. And then he takes out a red
pencil. He takes a red pencil and he edits the
telegram. He doesn't add any words, but he cuts
out all the diplomatic niceties. He condenses
it to make the king's response sound incredibly
blunt and dismissive and to make the French ambassador's
request sound like an outrageous demand. So he
turned a polite refusal into a slap in the face.
A public slap in the face. And then he released
the edited version to the press. On Bastille
Day, of all days. He knew exactly what he was
doing. The French press and public went absolutely
insane. They saw it as a national insult. Crowds
in Paris were chanting to Berlin. Napoleon III,
under immense public pressure, declared war on
Prussia. So Bismarck had tricked France into
looking like the aggressor. Perfectly. And because
France was the aggressor, the defensive treaties
Prussia had with the southern German states were
activated. Bavaria and the others immediately
joined Prussia. The trap snapped shut. And the
war itself. It was even more decisive than the
one against Austria. The German armies, again
led by Moltke, were far superior in organization
and strategy. They surrounded and captured the
main French army and Napoleon III himself at
the Battle of Sedan. And then comes the crowning
moment. Literally, it doesn't happen in Berlin.
No, that would be too simple for Bismarck. The
climax happens in France, in the Hall of Mirrors
at the Palace of Versailles. The Palace of Louis
XIV, the symbol of French power and glory. The
very same. In January 1871, with Paris under
siege, the German princes gather in the Hall
of Mirrors and they proclaim the German Empire.
Wilhelm I is named German Emperor or Kaiser.
It was the ultimate calculated assertion of dominance.
They created Germany in the very heart of the
French palace. But the expert note here in our
outline says this incredible victory contained
a fatal mistake. It did. Amid the nationalist
fervor, the military and the German public demanded
that Germany annex the French border territories
of Alsace and Lorraine. Bismarck was hesitant
about this, wasn't he? He was. He saw the danger
of creating a permanent grievance. But for once,
he was overruled by the generals and by public
opinion. He gave in. And that made France a permanent
enemy. Forever. Or at least until 1945. Taking
that territory, which was deeply French in identity,
meant that France would never, ever forgive Germany.
They would spend the next 40 years dreaming of
revanche revenge. It locked Europe into a path
of hostility that led directly to World War I.
So it's 1871. Germany is unified. Bismarck has
won. He is, without question, the most powerful
man in Europe. You'd think he would just keep
going. But this is where we see the pivot. Once
the country is built, Bismarck switches gears
completely. He goes from being the arsonist to
being the firefighter. He famously declares that
Germany is a satiated state. Meaning they're
full. They don't want any more territory. Exactly.
His entire foreign policy for the next 20 years
is about one thing. preserving what he has built,
peace and stability. But first, he has some domestic
housecleaning to do. And this brings us to what's
sometimes called his white revolutionary phase.
White, as in from above, a revolution from the
top. Right. Bismarck was a conservative, but
he was willing to do radical revolutionary things
to preserve the conservative monarchical order.
First on his list, the Catholics. The Kulturkampf.
The culture struggle. Prussia was overwhelmingly
Protestant. But the new German Empire had a huge
Catholic minority, especially in the south, in
Bavaria, and among the Poles in the east. And
Bismarck didn't trust them. Not at all. This
was the era of papal infallibility, and Bismarck
was paranoid that German Catholics were more
loyal to the pope in Rome than to the Kaiser
in Berlin. He saw the Catholic Center Party as
a threat to his new unified state. So he went
on the attack. Aggressively. He passed a series
of laws expelling the Jesuits, putting all clerical
education under state supervision and making
civil marriage mandatory. He tried to crush the
political influence of the church. And how did
that work out for him? It backfired spectacularly.
It actually united the Catholics and strengthened
them. The center party became a powerhouse in
the Reichstag, the German parliament. They resisted
him at every turn. So what did he do? Well, being
the ultimate pragmatist, when he realized he
was losing, he just stopped. He abandoned the
culture camp and began to walk back the harshest
laws. He just walked away from the fight. He
did. Because he needed the center party now.
Why? Because he had found a new and in his mind
much scarier enemy, the socialists. The Red Menace.
Exactly. Industrialization was taking off in
Germany, creating a large... often miserable,
urban working class, and they were listening
to the ideas of Karl Marx and others. The Social
Democratic Party, the SPD, was growing. Bismarck
saw this as an existential threat to the monarchy
and the entire social order. So he tried the
stick approach first, I assume. Of course. After
a couple of assassination attempts on the Kaiser,
which he blamed on the socialists, he passed
the anti -socialist laws in 1878. He banned socialist
meetings, unions and newspapers. He drove the
movement underground. But he realized that wasn't
enough. And here's the aha moment. This is the
cynical genius part. He realized that you can't
just beat socialism with police truncheons. You
have to offer the workers something better. You
have to beat the socialists at their own game.
This is where he invents the well. welfare state.
Not because he's a bleeding heart liberal who
cares about the poor. Not at all. He did it to
buy the loyalty of the workers and steal the
thunder of the socialists. For the programs.
In the 1880s, he pushed through a series of groundbreaking
laws. Sickness insurance in 1883, accident insurance
in 1884, and old age and disability insurance
in 1889. These are things we completely take
for granted in most modern countries today. They
were revolutionary then. Germany was the first
country in the world to do this on a national
level. Bismarck basically told the workers, why
do you need the socialists promising you a revolution
in the future? The state, your Kaiser state,
will take care of you right now when you're sick
or when you're old. I think I read someone called
it putting the workers in golden chains. That's
a great way to put it. It tied the worker to
the state. And it worked in many ways. It gave
workers a stake in the system. It even slowed
down immigration to America because these indirect
wages, the benefits made staying in Germany more
attractive. It was, as he called it, practical
Christianity. So he's juggling these domestic
enemies, the Catholics, the socialists. But at
the same time. He's juggling the entire continent
of Europe. Section 5 here calls him the master
of the chessboard. This is where his diplomatic
skill really, really shines. From 1871 until
he's fired in 1890, his single overriding goal
was to prevent a coalition from forming against
Germany. He knew France hated him and would always
want revenge. So the key was to make sure France
never had any powerful friends. It sounds like
a high stakes balancing act. He described it
himself. He said his job was like holding two
powerful heraldic beasts by their collars. keeping
them from tearing each other apart. And who were
the beasts? Russia and Austria -Hungary, they
were both rivals. They both wanted to expand
their influence into the Balkans, into the decaying
Ottoman Empire. If they ever went to war with
each other, Germany would be dragged in. And
worse, if one of them allied with France, Germany
would be surrounded. The two -front war nightmare.
So what did he do? He created this incredibly
complex and frankly contradictory web of alliances.
There was the lead of the three emperors trying
to keep Germany, Austria, and Russia on the same
page. There was a triple alliance with Austria
and Italy, and then there was his secret masterpiece.
The Reinsurance Treaty. The Reinsurance Treaty,
a top secret treaty just between Germany and
Russia. Basically, Germany and Russia promised
to stay neutral if the other got into a war with
a third power. It was a masterpiece of duplicity,
really, but it kept the peace. Most importantly,
it kept Russia away from France. So what about
colonialism? This is the age of the scramble
for Africa. Everyone was grabbing land. Was Bismarck
into that? He famously said, I am no man for
colonies. He thought they were a waste of money
and a dangerous distraction. He pointed to a
map of Europe once and said, here is Russia and
here is France and we are in the middle. That
is my map of Africa. His focus was always on
Europe. Always. But Germany did get colonies.
Togo, Cameroon, Namibia. So why did he change
his mind? He did it eventually, but mostly for
domestic political reasons. There was a powerful
colonial lobby in Germany, and sometimes he needed
their support in Parliament. And other times
he used the colonial issue just to pick small
fights with Britain when he needed to create
a little diplomatic leverage. It was never his
passion. It was just another pawn on his very
crowded chessboard. So for two decades, he's
running the whole show. He's the puppet master
of Europe. But nothing lasts forever. Section
6, The Downfall. The fundamental problem with
the system built on one man's genius is that
men are mortal. In 1888, the old Kaiser, Wilhelm
I, dies at the age of 90. And Bismarck and the
old king had a special relationship. It was stormy,
but it worked. It did. Wilhelm I knew he wasn't
a genius, and he basically let Bismarck run the
country, even when he disagreed with him. But
then the real tragedy happens. Wilhelm's son,
Frederick III, who was liberal and admired the
British system, finally becomes Kaiser. And he
dies of throat cancer after only 99 days on the
throne. The Year of the Three Emperors, which
leaves the throne to Frederick's son, Wilhelm
II. And this is a disaster for Bismarck. A total
disaster. Wilhelm II is young, he's arrogant,
he's insecure, and he wants to be a modern emperor.
He wants to rule, not just reign. He famously
wants Germany to have its place in the sun. And
he probably doesn't appreciate this 75 -year
-old man in his office telling him what to do
all the time. Not at all. They clashed on everything.
Wilhelm II wanted to be seen as a friend of the
workers, so he wanted to let the anti -socialist
laws expire. Bismarck wanted to make them permanent
and crush the strikers. Wilhelm wanted a bigger
navy and more colonies. Bismarck thought it was
a foolish provocation of... Britain. It sounds
like a classic generational clash. The old guard
versus the new blood. It came to a head in March
of 1890. There was a series of heated arguments
in Bismarck's office. Philem II basically ordered
Bismarck to give him direct access to the other
ministers, which would destroy the chancellor's
power. So what did Bismarck do? He played his
old trump card. He offered his resignation, probably
expecting the young Kaiser to back down and come
crawling back, just like his grandfather always
had. And Wilhelm II just say, OK, bye. He said,
I accept. He called Bismarck's bluff. Bismarck
was stunned. He was forced out. At age 75, the
man who had run Europe for decades was suddenly
unemployed. And they gave him a parting gift,
right? Some kind of title. A completely meaningless
one. The Duke of Lauenburg. Bismarck mocked it.
He said he would only use the title when he was
traveling incognito. He felt utterly, completely
humiliated. And his retirement wasn't exactly
a quiet, peaceful one. He was furious. He was
bitter. He retreated to his estate and wrote
his memoirs, which were basically a long, brilliant
and deeply biased justification of his life and
an attack on all his enemies, especially Wilhelm
II. And he even leaked state secrets. He did.
The most damaging thing he did was leak the existence
of that top secret reinsurance treaty with Russia
to the press just to spite the Kaiser and his
new government and show how incompetent they
were. That's incredibly petty for a statesman
of his stature. It was vindictive. He watched
from the sidelines as Wilhelm II and his new
advisors proceeded to unravel his entire complex
alliance system. They let the treaty with Russia
lapse. Which was the one thing he feared most.
His worst nightmare. And almost immediately,
Russia began to drift into an alliance with France.
The two -front war scenario that Bismarck had
spent 20 years preventing was now becoming a
reality. He predicted it, didn't he? I read he
made a prediction about what would happen. He
did. He reportedly said, the crash will come
20 years after my departure. He was forced out
in 1890. World War I started in 1914. He was
out by four years. Chilling, isn't it? He saw
exactly where it was all heading, and even his
tombstone was one final bitter jab. What did
it say? He specifically ordered the inscription
himself. It reads, A loyal German servant of
Emperor Wilhelm I. Wow. Ouch. Completely ignoring
the current emperor, just pretending he didn't
even exist. To the bitter end. He died in 1898,
a grumpy, angry old man watching his life's work
being dismantled. So let's wrap this up. When
we try to weigh the legacy of Otto von Bismarck,
it's just so complicated. It's deeply, deeply
complicated. On the one hand, you have the achievements.
He unified Germany. He created a nation. He built
the template for the modern welfare state with
social security and health care. We are, in many
ways, still living in the world he designed.
He was a nation builder and a peacemaker for
two decades. But on the other hand... He left
a fatal flaw. He created a constitution and a
political system that had no checks and balances.
It was designed to be run by a singular genius.
It relied on one man with immense prestige and
ruthless skill, forcing everyone else to agree.
And when the genius was gone and lesser, more
arrogant men took over. The machine crashed.
The complex alliances fell apart. The militarism
and nationalism he had stoked remained, but his
caution and restraint were gone. And it led directly,
you can draw a straight line, to the catastrophe
of 1914. It raises a really provocative thought
to leave you with. Bismarck always claimed to
be a faithful servant of the king of the state.
But he created a system where only he could rule.
So was his genius actually the very thing that
doomed the Germany he built. That's the paradox
of the great man in history, isn't it? He could
build the structure, but he couldn't build a
system that could survive without him. His greatest
creation was also, in a way, his most fragile.
A fascinating deep dive into a man of iron, blood,
and massive, massive contradictions. Thanks for
helping us unpack it. It was my pleasure. And
thank you for listening. Keep an eye out for
those Bismarckian moves in modern politics. You
might be surprised how often you spot them. We'll
see you next time.