I’m going to kind of build off of what Marilin Goff said in her most recent blog because it got me to thinking about Bismarck. It’s very interesting to me to think about what kind of things Bismarck could have been capable of if things had gone his way when granting the people universal suffrage. Think about it, if the Catholics had no been given the ability to vote for more Conservative and more Catholic inclined politicians to attain the goals they desired.
In my opinion, Bismarck was a genius. Mischievous and somewhat sinister in the way that he was doing things, yes, but he found a way to exploit loop holes to achieve his goals. He found a way to work around the system that was currently in place to succeed in many ways that others had not. The concept of a unified Germany must have seemed so far out of reach to others of that time period. The people of the region had been dancing around the subject for years and yet no one had found a way to make it a reality. Then along comes a spider (played conveniently by Otto Von Bismarck) and over the course of a few years, the dream of a unified Germany is no longer just a dream. Speaking for myself, I was amazed by the story that J. Malto told us about how the throne of Spain was opened and the French began their pleading to keep the Kaiser from having interest. What was probably a very mild and mannered encounter was turned into a national (bearing in mind that the term national did not yet apply) incident where the honor of the German people was attacked. It would have never occurred to me to change the wording of a telegram and leak it to the press (give me time though, it’s giving me ideas! Just kidding).
After all of the encounters with Austria and the various battles and wars which took place during the time, I can’t help but wonder if Bismarck could have in any way foreseen the unfolding of events and played them to his advantage, or if he just managed to seize the opportunities as they came to him. I thought about this during another one of my classes in which an officer in the Army in the early 1920’s began trying to convince America of the possibilities of aircraft as a tool of war. This was long before the creation of our Air Force or anything similar to it (like the Army Air Corps of WWII). What reminded me of Bismarck though is that towards the end of this officer’s career, as he was being court-martialed for his lack of tact regarding the Army, Navy, and American government, he said that he was sure air power would be the deciding factor in the future of combat. He predicted that one day, planes would descend upon American soil and drop bombs that would deal us great damage. When someone in the court asked him, almost laughing, if he was serious, the officer told him that he imagined that the enemy would be Japan and they would attack Pearl Harbor. This, of course, happened in 1941, long after his court-martial and death. After learning this, I couldn’t help but compare the American officer and Bismarck. Since both Bismarck and this officer both seemed to have a handle on what was going to happen next, then wouldn’t it make since that Bismarck would have just seen those events coming?
I suppose the only reason that my other story came to mind was to compare the fact that both of these men were able to see what was down the road. One of them was able to take advantage of those events, the other not as much. Still, it reminds me of the old saying: “History repeats itself.” Perhaps someone else will come along that can predict these events and play them to his or her advantage. Here’s hoping that person is with us and not against us. I wouldn’t want to go up against a Bismarck.
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Great points about the perceptiveness of Bismarck. Although I disagree with much of what Bismarck stood for, I still have to admire what he achieved and how he had the courage to pursue his goals when many others would have shied away. Perhaps what Bismarck so great was his willingness to take changes (measured risks?). There is a great quote where someone reminds Bismarck in the moment of his glorious victory over Austria that had the battle not gone his way, he would have been vilified. Certainly Bismarck's Germany remained an imperfect and troubled state but had he not risen to power and unified Germany, who knows what might have developed in the power vacuum in Central Europe.
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