Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck was born in Schönhausen to the Junker family of Prussia in 1815, the year peace was restored to Europe after the tumultuous Napoleonic Wars.
He was the fourth of six children – four sons and two daughters - of whom the eldest was born in 1807 and the youngest in 1827.
In his youth he preferred drinking and duels to his law studies in Berlin and his later duties as a civil servant.
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| Otto von Bismarck in 1874 |
In 1847, desirous of more excitement and power than he could find in the country, he reentered public life. Four years later he began to build a base of diplomatic experience as the Prussian delegate to the Parliament of the Germanic Confederation.
In 1849, the Prussian king arrested the Frankfurt Assembly, Bismarck expressed his approval. His support of the Prussian monarchy won him a post in the government and in 1862 he was appointed chancellor.
When he took office, Prussia was widely considered the weakest of the five European powers, but under his leadership Prussian won a war against Denmark in 1864, the even Weeks’ War in 1866, and the Franco-Prussian War (1870-71).
Through these wars he achieved his goal of political unification of a Prussian-dominated Germane Empire.
He was not a political gambler but a moderate who waged war only when all other diplomatic alternatives had been exhausted and when he was reasonably sure that all the military diplomatic advantages were on his side.
In 1890 William II dismissed Bismarck. In 1898 the frustrated ‘Iron Chancellor’ died.
Otto von Bismarck (1 April 1815 – 30 July 1898)
