Portrait: Otto von Bismarck, the Iron Chancellor

27 December 2017 | Author/Destination: | Rubric: Hamburg, Portrait Reading Time:  8 minutes

Otto von Bismarck in 1886 © Immanuel Giel/cc-by-sa-3.0

Otto von Bismarck in 1886 © Immanuel Giel/cc-by-sa-3.0

Otto Eduard Leopold, Prince of Bismarck, Duke of Lauenburg, known as Otto von Bismarck, was a conservative Prussian statesman who dominated German and European affairs from the 1860s until 1890. In the 1860s, he engineered a series of wars that unified the German states, deliberately excluding Austria, into a powerful German Empire under Prussian leadership. With that accomplished by 1871, he skillfully used balance of power diplomacy to maintain Germany’s position in a Europe which, despite many disputes and war scares, remained at peace. For historian Eric Hobsbawm, it was Bismarck who “remained undisputed world champion at the game of multilateral diplomatic chess for almost twenty years after 1871, [and] devoted himself exclusively, and successfully, to maintaining peace between the powers”. However, his annexation of Alsace-Lorraine gave new fuel to French nationalism and promoted Germanophobia in France. This helped set the stage for the First World War.   read more…

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