Jasmin Kotivuori

History HL
08.10.09

4. Compare and contrast bismarcks policies towards austria and france

between 1862 and 1871.

here I should of put an introduction, outlining my essay

1. giving a time span
2. defining compare and contrast, there fore telling what I will write in my essay

Prince Otto van Bismarck (1815-1898), who came from an impoverished but old Junker family of
Brandenburg, had different agendas, therefore used different policies with France and Austria.
With Austria, Bismarck’s policies were much more lenient than what they were with France
This was for many reasons. First being that Bismarck wanted to maintain a good relationship with
Austria for the future, in case Prussia would need Austria’s loyalty. Secondly Bismarck’s had a very
lenient policy in humiliating and weakening Austria, although he would have had the chance to,
after Austria losing the war. He didn’t want to weaken Austria, because he needed it to stay strong,
to counterweight Prussia’s growing power. Even though it seems as Bismarck didn’t get anything
out of the war with Prussia, he got everything that he wanted. Austria had to consent to the
dissolution of the German confederation and her exclusion from any future German organization.
Prussia was now one step closer to their plans of German unification; Austria didn’t have any
power in Germany anymore and this victory made Prussia now one of the leading European
powers.
I would add more differences and similarities, listing them, and discussing them more making the
essay more longer and detailed.
The whole war between Prussia and France was caused by tension and hostilities. Especially by the
mistake of giving France the opportunity to humiliate Prussia, and by the French becoming too
cocky and wanting a letter from king William, saying that he guarantee that Leopold wouldn’t try to
renew his candidature but he wasn’t able to do this. Bismarck got very upset from this, saw it as an
insult and a threat. After the war ended in 1871, Bismarck wasn’t as nice to France as he had been
towards Austria. His policies this time were much stricter. He deprived France from much more
territory than what from Austria and this war was in Bismarck’s opinion in defence of Germany
against French aggression. Therefore his policy was to punish France and reward German
nationalism for its patriotism. Bismarck had no intention in trying to be nice towards France, as he
said that the fact of defeat alone would make france resentful whether or not she were deprived of
territory.

The secret to Bismarck’s success was his ability to take advantage of circumstances, to change his
designs in the face of developments and to gain such short term advantages as he could from them.
For example his ways of making his opponents attack first to make it look like Prussia would only
be defending itself. Here to the conclusion I would add more, tell more about the differences and
similarities

ill add later here the thigns nikke had wrote.