Austria After The Schleswig Holstein Issue

It was Germany's goal gain strategic position that enemy forces may gain to use against them, such as Austria. Bismarck was also contemplating another war to banish the French threat once and for all. Germany's interest played a key roll in pushing Austria-Hungary to disaster. The Emperor's League that was formed, which consisted of Germany, Austria, and Italy, did one major thing; it brought Austria and Germany closer together.

They also promised an invasion of France on his behalf. Even though the Girondin leader, Brissot, wanted Louis XVI to remain in power, he felt threatened by The Declaration of Pillnitz and declared war on Austria. This further imperilled Louis, especially when Prussia joined Austria’s allies shortly afterwards. France was unprepared for the war and fled. This left the country vulnerable to counterattack. However, Austria and Prussia were not always huge threats as there were distractions from time to time: one of them being the invasion of Poland.

At the Convention of Gastein, Austria took over a German state. This bad feeling for Austria made Prussia more popular. Bismarck then isolated Austria by persuading Russia, France and Italy to remain neutral towards her. Prussia then defeated Austria in a war. Afterwards, the Prussian king and generals wanted to finish Austria off, however, Bismarck showed strength and wouldn't let them. Instead he made peace with Austria to ensure her future support. Bismarck stated: "We shall need Austria's strength ourselves". A good example of opportunism is when Bismarck goaded France into declaring war by editing the EMS telegram. Bismarck edited the telegram to make it seem as if Prussia had insulted France. This angered Napoleon and he declared war. This made France seem like the aggressor, which ensured the neutrality of the other powers. Bismarck described it as: "a red rag to a Gallic bull". All of these points show that Bismarck undoubtedly played an important role in unifying Germany.

Bismarck’s alliance system brought peace between the European countries. (Stewart, Fitzgerald, Pickard 12) His alliance system starts with a treaty with Austria-Hungary who was one of the 5 powers in Europe. In 1879, Germany and Austria-Hungary signed the Dual Alliance, which was planned as a merely defensive arrangement or military alliance. Both governments promised that they should help or remain neutral when other powerful countries such as Russia or France attack. (Stewart, Fitzgerald, Pickard 13) The second allied country was with Italy. In 1882, Bismarck turns Dual Alliance into Triple Alliance by making Italy to join in his alliance system. Since Italy had close friendship with Great Britain, although Italy was not a strong military nation, it was an influential part of the Alliance. And at the same time, Great Britain and Germany had conflict in North Africa on colonial aspiration. Therefore, it was the perfect time to be an ally with her to isolate France. (Stewart, Fitzgerald, Pickard 14) Making Great Britain as a close friend was a benefit for Germany. Bismarck’s next target to isolate France was Russia. In 1881, the Dreikaiserbund was made a treaty, which was the agreement between Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia promising not to help the fourth power, France. However in 1884, this treaty had renewed and Russia refused to renew her membership in Dreikaiserbund. Then Bismarck discussed the Reinsurance Treaty with

Despite the fact that Italy was unified, it wasn’t as nearly as strong as Germany was becoming. Bismarck joined both authoritarianism and nationalism to increase Prussia’s power. He was a very clever diplomat and used whatever means possible to work towards his goal. Bismarck’s Realpolitiks, the pursuing of realistic goals by any available method instead of the pursuit of an ideology. Bismarck never wanted to have enemies for long and hoped to pacify the Liberals with foreign policy achievement, notably the unification of Germany. He wanted to exclude Austria from the unification process. This led to the Austria-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars. His plan was successful. Even with the fact south German states were reluctant to join in his unification because of strong religious and political traditions. After the overpowering of France in 1871 the southern states finally joined. This was the defeat the brought them together.

Similarly, Austria Hungary made alliance with Serbia to stop Russia from gaining control of Serbia. While, in 1882 Germany and Austria-Hungary had an alliance with Italy to stop taking sides with Russia.

During the period of 1864 to 1871, Bismarck led Prussia into three significant wars. As said by G.A Craig in The Germans, 1991, the unified Germany was “created in 1871 by Bismarck’s diplomacy and Prussian military power.” The first of these wars was the war with Denmark over the provinces of Schleswig-Holstein in 1864. Prussia and Austria combined their military forces and won against the much weaker Denmark with considerable ease. This was a contributing factor in the second of the three wars, which was fought against Austria, as the two states

France and England created an alliance because they both feared Germany’s naval strength and supremacy. Despite claiming it was defensive in nature, it spread east and eventually, other countries were involved. Since Austria-Hungary and Germany were in dispute over the assassination, they became involved too. Therefore, alliance systems played a significant role in the outbreak of the war. Since these countries. became involved in

Since the 1870s, most of the major countries in Europe had been preparing for war with each other. The independent German kingdoms were unified in the 1870s and had quickly become the largest power on the continent. This triggered the the Holy Alliance between Prussia, Russia, and Austria. When Germany was united in 1871, Prussia became part of the new German nation. Russia also feared Germans threat and sought to ally itself with Great Britain, France, and even Germany itself for protection against other nations.

Bismarck determined that this cause should be a war, (Richards, 1977, 142) for there is no better bonding agent then that of the threat to one's livelihood. Bismarck used the Danish war to help consolidate his internal position in Prussia and to strengthen Prussian military transportation. (Christopher, 1991, p.103) "Liberal sentiment in Germany had always been stirred by a desire to separate Schleswig- Holstein from Denmark. The liberals called for a repudiation of international agreements by Prussia (such as the 1852 Protocol which put the Danish issue on ice), while Bismarck declared in the Diet that he would not be a party to a breach of international obligations. So Bismarck made an agreement with Austria, the avowed enemy of German unity, to proceed within the context of the 1852 Protocol.

Bismarck had brought Germany closer to unification, Thus, meaning Bismarck had an important role in the progression of the unification of Germany. Some historians argue whether or not Bismarck was an opportunist or a planner. In the case of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 it is evident that Bismarck deliberately planned the outbreak of war against Austria. In William Carr’s Germany 1815-1945 he quotes a conversation between Bismarck to Disraeli in 1862: “when the army has been brought to such a state as to command a respect then I shall take the first opportunity to declare war with Austria” proving that Bismarck had planned to go to war with Austria. but he also took advantage of an opportunity which enabled him to go to war with Austria as he stated. Therefore Bismarck can be viewed as both a planner and an opportunist. The wars of unification helped unite Germany as all members of the Bund came together and fought as one in all of these wars.

Many principalities competed for political power, but the two main principalities competing against each other were the Habsburg-Austria and the Brandenburg-Prussia. This leads into the “stated-building realism”. The trend for the larger principalities was striving and having the need to obtain undivided executive power. Although Habsburg-Austria was larger than Brandenburg-Prussia both in extent and populations, Prussia was still able to conquer Austria. Brandenburg-Prussia, for example, imposed more taxes on its people to support their rising army and it’s “expansive military-civil bureaucracy”. This leads into the Economical development of

The first war lead by Otto von Bismarck was the Danish-Prussian war in 1864. It started with Denmark wanting to invade North German States, Schleswig and Holstein. Prussian power wasn’t going to let this happen because they wanted control of those North German States. They Proceeded to have a war with Denmark over these states and Prussia had the help of Austria. In the end, Prussia and Austria did end up winning the war and they gained control of the German States, Schleswig and Holstein. With “The Treaty of Gastein”, Austria got

Historians often argue two main points in discussing the downfall of the Habsburg Empire: the rise of nationalism and its foreign policy decisions. In the discussion of the first argument, it is important to note the historical background that lead to the rise of nationalism in the Habsburg Empire. Nationalisms’ origins can be said to have been rooted in the French Revolution and was further expanded by Napoleon. The French Revolution “gave force to the ideas of nationalism and liberalism… which threatened the very existence of the Habsburg state which was both illiberal and multi-ethnic” (Pelling 4). The notion of nationality is a complicated one even in the twenty-first century, so to picture the problems that arose within the Habsburg empire,

Many, on the other hand, blame the flaws in the world's alliance systems for the war. Development of political and military alliances caused tension and hostility among nations leading up to World War I. Two major alliance systems developed due to conflicting national interests, which had been evident during the past two decades throughout Europe. These were the 'Triple Alliance' of Germany, Austro-Hungary and Italy and the 'Triple Entente' of Britain, France and Russia. Also several smaller countries became indirectly involved in the alliances, which effectively divided Europe into two 'Armed Camps'. Russia pledged to support Serbia in order to prevent further Austrian-Hungarian expansion into the Balkans. Germany stated its support for Austria-Hungary and Britain had given its support for Belgium's independence in 1839. However, historians such as A. J. P. Taylor argue that 'Pre 1914 alliances were so precarious and fragile that they cannot be seen as the major cause of war'. This points to the fact that it should also be stressed that even a formal alliance in 1914 did not guarantee support for war, therefore not being a significant factor.