what went wrong?
>>1301646
Being German was his first mistake.
Bismarck or the Kaiserreich?
Imperial Germany's weaknesses, that they might've been able to mitigate, all come to Bismarck's decisions. Stuff like their lack of colonies was mostly out of their control, but they kinda tried. Far as I'm concerned, the Imperial State had three distinct issues: particularism, geographic antagonism, and its very constitution.
I once read an article that cited a discussion between French and Russian diplomats in the early 19th century and what would happen if Germany were to unite. They quickly deduced that Germany would expand somewhat at France's expense, and greatly at Russia's. Given that these notions preceded German unification by decades, it's safe to say that German relations with Russia and/or France were always going to end up dogshit eventually. Only thing they got wrong was that mauling France was the catalyst for German unification rather than the result.
German particularism was also a significant issue. In the war between Prussia and Austria, North-German states that didn't go along with Prussia were straight-up annexed for their behavior. This left a lot of Prussians feeling really anti-Prussian. There was also the issue of the Empire, technically, being a formation of individual states with varying degrees of autonomy ranging from the post-office to their own armies. Hitler, for example, was a member of the Bavarian army. There's also the distinct issue of Bismarck viewing Germany as exclusively German and Protestant. His kulturkampf blew the fuck up in his face. He thought he was finding a way to attack the church, but he accidentally armed the socialists with legislative means to attack religion itself.
>>1301646
Unifying Germany was a mistake.
>>1301685
Cont'd
Finally, the constitution was pretty fucked up. First of all, the thing only worked with a Bismarck who handled multiple roles (chancellor of Germany, Minister-President of Prussia, and Prussian foreign minister) at the same time. Without one person multi-tasking everything, the government simply didn't work. Bismarck built a constitution for him alone under the auspices of a Kaiser who wouldn't refuse him, and a Crown Prince whom he actively subverted.
1848 not 1871 desu
>>1301823
You can even disregard all of that edgy Prussian shit and give them the post-1919 Polish border.
>>1301685
>but he accidentally armed the socialists with legislative means to attack religion itself.
What? His campaign led to the strengthening of the Center Party and had a significant effect on German liberalism undermining rule of law.
>>1301869
"The Kulturkampf gave secularists and socialists an opportunity to attack all religions, an outcome that distressed the Protestant leaders and especially Bismarck himself, who was a devout pietistic Protestant." Christopher Clark, Iron Kingdom: The Rise and Downfall of Prussia, 1600–1947 (2006) pp. 568–576
So, apparently I got this through wikipedia? At least it's sourced and from an actual historian.
>>1301646
fucking communists ruin everything
>>1301646
He didn't live forever.
