The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815-1871
The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815-1871

Author: Bodie A. Ashton

Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing

Published: 2017-01-12

Total Pages: 241

ISBN-13: 1350000086

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CHOICE Outstanding Academic Title 2017 This book examines the 1871 unification of Germany through the prism of one of its 'forgotten states', the Kingdom of Württemberg. It moves beyond the traditional argument for the importance of the great powers of Austria and Prussia in controlling German destiny at this time. Bodie A. Ashton champions the significance of Württemberg and as a result all 38 German states in the unification process, noting that each had their own institutions and traditions that proved vital to the eventual shape of German unity. The Kingdom of Württemberg and the Making of Germany, 1815-1871 demonstrates that the state's government was dynamic and in full control of its own policy-making throughout most of the 19th century, with Ashton showing a keen appreciation for the state's domestic development during the period. The book traces Württemberg's strong involvement in the national question, and how successive governments and monarchs in the state's capital of Stuttgart manoeuvred the country so as to gain the greatest advantage. It successfully argues that the shape of German unification was not inevitable, and was in fact driven largely by the desires of the Mittelstaaten, rather than the great powers; the eventual Reichsgründung of January 1871 was merely the final step in a long series of negotiations, diplomatic manoeuvres and subterfuge, with Württemberg playing a vital, regional role. Making use of a wealth of primary sources, including telegrams, newspaper articles, diary entries, letters and government documents, this is a vitally important study for all scholars and students of 19th-century Germany.

The Refounding of the German Empire 1848-1871
The Refounding of the German Empire 1848-1871

Author: G. B. Malleson

Publisher: CreateSpace

Published: 2014-09-17

Total Pages: 258

ISBN-13: 9781502400024

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This book covers the critical years that brought about the unification of Germany in the late 19th century. From the preface: "THIS book deals especially with a period of German history of twenty-three years' duration. Beginning with the French Revolution of 1848 it records the rousing in Germany of passions long pent-up, and, for the time, difficult to be controlled or directed; the manner in which these passions were eventually mastered; the great void and the fierce longing they left behind them; the use made by one of the chief Powers of Germany of the feelings and aspirations thus dormant, and, finally, the complete reversal, by the means employed by that Power, of the positions held in Europe till that period by Austria and Prussia on the one side, by France and Germany on the other. During this period of twenty-three years there occurred in Europe five wars; and although, of those five wars, two, the Crimean war and the Franco-Austrian war require in this volume but a cursory notice, the other three, viz., the Danish war, the Austro-Prussian war, and the Franco-German war constitute the three steps which made possible the refounding of the German Empire. The second and third of these wars would have been impossible without their predecessor. For if the first of the three, the Danish war, may be regarded as a small thing-the whole of Germany being pitted against the smallest country in Europe-it was, nevertheless, the necessary prelude to the wars that followed. That war, and the two greater wars of 1866 and 1870, had been predetermined in the mind of the regenerator of Germany before a shot in the first had been fired. The initial war, in fact, was needed to cause the second; the second to produce the third. The Danish war, then, far from being a war of secondary importance, was the first act of a deliberately planned system; the first consequence of the introduction of that policy of 'Blood and Iron' which, in one of his earliest speeches to the Prussian parliament. Count Bismarck declared to be necessary for the solution of the great questions which were agitating Germany."