German Confederation

The German Confederation (German: Deutscher Bund) was a loose association of Central European states created by the Congress of Vienna in 1815 to organize the surviving states of the Holy Roman Empire, which had been abolished in 1806.

Bismarck and the Wars of Unification

Shortly after the "humiliation of Olmütz," a new generation of statesmen began to respond to popular demands for national unity for their own ends not only in Germany, but in Italy and Japan as well, continuing Prussia's tradition of autocracy and reform from above. It takes very able leadership to drag along the less perceptive reactionary elements, and Italy and Germany found it to accomplish the seemingly paradoxical task of conservative modernization. Bismarck, like Stein and Hardenberg, sought to essentially preserve the position of the Junkers in a time of great changes. Bismarck, in fact, was appointed by Kaiser Wilhelm I to circumvent the liberals in the lastag who opposed the Kaiser's military build-up because of its elitist nature. Gradually the Junkers, led by Bismarck, would win over the middle class, reacting to their revolutionary sentiments expressed in 1848 by providing them with the economic opportunities for which the urban middle sectors had been fighting.

Related Topics:
Italy - Japan - Autocracy - Bismarck - Stein - Hardenberg - Lastag

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One striking fact about the course of conservative modernization is the appearance of a galaxy of distinguished political leaders; Cavour in Italy; in Germany, Stein, Hardenberg, and Bismarck, the most famous of them all; in Japan the statesmen of the Meiji Era. It seems unlikely that the appearance of a similar leadership in similar circumstance could be pure coincidence. All were conservatives in the political spectrum of their time and country, devoted to the monarchy, willing and able to use it as an instrument of reform, modernization, and national unification. Though all were aristocrats, they were dissidents or outsiders in relation to the old order. To the extent that their aristocratic background contribution habits of command and a flair for politics, one may perhaps detect a contribution of the agrarian ancien régimes to the construction of a new society.

Related Topics:
Cavour - Meiji Era - Ancien régime

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