Chapter 1 Essay

To determine if the unification of Germany was inevitable regardless of Bismarck's role one must trace back what event caused the unification which is then determined if Bismarck is responsible. In my opinion unification would have occured had it not been for the Franco Prussian war. This is because, had it not been for the resulting hostility, the Southern States would not have felt vulnerable of a French reprisal and therefore would not have felt the need for political unity with the North German Confederation.

The question which follows is whether or not Bismarck's actions led to the war, or whether or not it was deliberate.
In source 11 one historian, Taylor, insists that there is no evidence that Bismarck worked deliberately towards a war with France. Source D on p.25 agrees with source 11 stating that Bismarck believed French politicians would have blocked a war since Bismarck was against preventative war.
The author Eyck of Source E disagrees with the above two by stating that Bismarck is responsible for the war and foresaw that Napoleon would want war.

I personally think that Bismarck's actions were responsible for the war, and to go further, the unification. Seeing as he did pressure Leopold into taking the throne in 1870. At that point in time however, Bismarck may have not been aiming or a war but rather keeping the possibility open much like what Pflatz suggests on page 16, "Prince Bismarck likes to provide himself with an alternative in order to be able to decide the same in one of two opposed directions" (Source 10). Perhaps later Bismarck had the intention of going to war with France which caused him to edit and publish the Ems Telegram later that year.

Whether or not Bismarck was using the tensions with the French as a teleological means to a united Germany is unsure. Though it appears that only after the war and unification took place that Bismarck say that he knew a war with France must take place for a unification of Germany, saying that "I did not doubt that a Franco German war must take place before the construction of a united Germany could be realised" (Source C).
It is for this reason that I disagree with the statement "the unification of Germany was inevitable regardless of Bismarck's role."