Germany: The German Confederation and the Rise of Prussia

The German Confederation and the Rise of Prussia

The most powerful German state to emerge from the wars of the 17th and 18th cent. was Prussia, which under Frederick II (reigned 1740–86) successfully challenged the military might of Austria and became a European power. The French Revolution and the wars of Napoleon I brought the demise (1806) of the moribund Holy Roman Empire and also forced the German states, notably Prussia, to accept long-needed social, political, and administrative reforms.

Germany's military humiliation by Napoleon stimulated nationalist fervor for a strong and unified state. By the Congress of Vienna (see Vienna, Congress of) the German map was redrawn in 1814–15, eliminating many petty states and expanding Prussia and Bavaria. The German states were loosely linked in the German Confederation, set up by the congress. Conservative Austria obtained control of the confederation, and Metternich, who also dominated the Holy Alliance, frustrated nationalist ambitions. In ensuing decades, nationalist sentiment was furthered by German romanticism, a noteworthy exponent of which was the poet Ernst Moritz Arndt, and by persons like Friedrich Jahn, the educator and gymnast.

German nationalism, linked with liberalism, emerged in the revolutions of 1848, which shook the German states. However, the revolutionists were soon defeated, and the Frankfurt Parliament, having failed to obtain the unification of Germany under Frederick William IV, disbanded. Prussia was humiliated by Austria in the Treaty of Olomouc (1850) but used the Zollverein, a customs union from which Austria was excluded, to consolidate Prussian hegemony in N Germany.

Otto von Bismarck, who in 1862 took charge of Prussian policy, resolved on the course of creating a “Little Germany” (a Germany without Austria) under Prussian leadership. In the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, Prussia triumphed over its rival, and Austria was excluded from the newly created North German Confederation. As a result of the Franco-Prussian War of 1870–71 Bismarck attained his goal: William I of Prussia was proclaimed German emperor by the assembled German princes in the Palace of Versailles (1871). The peace treaty with France awarded Alsace and Lorraine to Germany and stamped it as the chief power of continental Europe.

Sections in this article:

Introduction
Reunification of Germany
West Germany
East Germany
Postwar Germany
The Third Reich
The Weimar Republic
The German Empire and the Weimar Republic
The German Confederation and the Rise of Prussia
The Holy Roman Empire
History to the Early Middle AgesGermany to 1871
History
Government
Economy
Land and People
Bibliography

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