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.
Friday, September 11, 2009
Sunday, August 30, 2009
First blog with a few thoughts
Well we just began to learn about the various issues and social problems with the German confederation and many thoughts crossed my mind. During our lectures, discussions, and readings I’ve been very interested in how the people of these areas must have perceived the events unfolding around them. The more we have learned of their social structure has only served to interest me further.
The beliefs of the various groups (i.e. conservatives, liberals, etc.) were very interesting to me not because of how they conflicted, but because of how the groups seemed to cancel one another out on nearly every issue that was presented. Something about our country’s governmental structure (keeping the obvious differences in mind) is that regardless of what group you may belong to, your voice must usually be at least acknowledged. The various complaints of one group against the government structure, be it conservative or liberal, is not only acknowledged in many cases but acted on.
Forgive me for being scattered, but it’s been a long 7 days and I’m doing my best to form coherent thoughts. It seemed to me throughout the various readings that governments did so much to avoid uprisings or the loss of power that they not only prevented any progress from occurring, but also managed to force regression. As time passed in the German states, the balance of power (along with progression) went wildly up and down like a came of Chutes and Ladders.
Then again, who am I to say that this isn’t just how progress is made? A continual back and forth that leaves one hoping that the scale will eventually tilt towards the betterment of the society. I understand that in many cases throughout history progress has been hampered or altogether stopped because a monarch refuses to give up power. What amazes me about the German timeline, however, is that the different groups seemed to be more of a hindrance to progress that many of the monarchs. Instead of little advancements being made here and there over the course of time, each group stood in the way of good that could be done in order to make their own version of “good” while the monarch of the time, for fear of losing his power, scrambled around to keep everyone at bay. This of course just made everyone unhappy and created more issues for the people to argue about.
As frantic and aimless as my thought process may be in this first blog (please continue to bear with me), my central aim in this rambling is to express how baffled I became with how every group down to the smallest role in German history was so concerned with their own power, wellbeing, survival, etc. that it seemed the only thing that had been accomplished was a complete standstill among the groups, monarch, and lower classes.
But hey, this is why we have uprisings and revolution! Whenever everything gets just a bit too far off base, we just shake it up and seem to start from scratch with glorious and inspired goals. I suppose that’s how the German countries made the tiny bits of progress that they did. One turn up the tall ladder, another down the short slide, and then eventually you find yourself in a better position.Let’s hope my rambling in the future finds more interesting targets, shall we?
The beliefs of the various groups (i.e. conservatives, liberals, etc.) were very interesting to me not because of how they conflicted, but because of how the groups seemed to cancel one another out on nearly every issue that was presented. Something about our country’s governmental structure (keeping the obvious differences in mind) is that regardless of what group you may belong to, your voice must usually be at least acknowledged. The various complaints of one group against the government structure, be it conservative or liberal, is not only acknowledged in many cases but acted on.
Forgive me for being scattered, but it’s been a long 7 days and I’m doing my best to form coherent thoughts. It seemed to me throughout the various readings that governments did so much to avoid uprisings or the loss of power that they not only prevented any progress from occurring, but also managed to force regression. As time passed in the German states, the balance of power (along with progression) went wildly up and down like a came of Chutes and Ladders.
Then again, who am I to say that this isn’t just how progress is made? A continual back and forth that leaves one hoping that the scale will eventually tilt towards the betterment of the society. I understand that in many cases throughout history progress has been hampered or altogether stopped because a monarch refuses to give up power. What amazes me about the German timeline, however, is that the different groups seemed to be more of a hindrance to progress that many of the monarchs. Instead of little advancements being made here and there over the course of time, each group stood in the way of good that could be done in order to make their own version of “good” while the monarch of the time, for fear of losing his power, scrambled around to keep everyone at bay. This of course just made everyone unhappy and created more issues for the people to argue about.
As frantic and aimless as my thought process may be in this first blog (please continue to bear with me), my central aim in this rambling is to express how baffled I became with how every group down to the smallest role in German history was so concerned with their own power, wellbeing, survival, etc. that it seemed the only thing that had been accomplished was a complete standstill among the groups, monarch, and lower classes.
But hey, this is why we have uprisings and revolution! Whenever everything gets just a bit too far off base, we just shake it up and seem to start from scratch with glorious and inspired goals. I suppose that’s how the German countries made the tiny bits of progress that they did. One turn up the tall ladder, another down the short slide, and then eventually you find yourself in a better position.Let’s hope my rambling in the future finds more interesting targets, shall we?
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)