WELTREICH: Victoria 3 Germany Campaign AAR (1836–1870)

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This is me wasting my time ‘enhancing’ my gameplay by writing a historical chronology alongside a Vanilla game of Victoria 3…

Amateurish, obviously, not least because I didn’t spend a tonne of time fleshing out the writing… It’s embarrassingly cliché at many times.

It’s also VERY long — I will release a part 2 & 3 of the (potentially unfinished) other stuff.

CONTENTS

• Concert of Europe (1836–46)
• Winds of Change (1847–57)
• Bismarckian Era (1857–70)

Link to Part 2 https://medium.com/@edisonzhou2007/weltreich-part-2-victoria-iii-aar-1870-1920-3e38d1c25869

3 https://medium.com/@edisonzhou2007/weltreich-part-3-victoria-iii-aar-1920-1925-a77a0f722e07

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Concert of Europe, 1836–1846

Figure 1.0, Europe in 1836

Europe had known wide peace since 1815’s Congress of Vienna and the downfall of Napoleon.

King Friedrich Wilhelm III ruled over the Kingdom of Prussia, one of two German states — the other being the Austrian Empire, an old and famed monarchy.

Europe was working together — it was in Concert — to preserve the old, monarchical order.

The Great Powers were ranked Great Britain, Russia, France, Austria, Prussia (#5), and the USA.

Frederick Wilhelm III was extremely shy and indecisive. But his advisors were doing work to solidify the Protestant churches, and he was supported most by the Prussian Army and the Junker class.

They worked to build the Prussian economy in a way such as to better rival Austria’s.

In August-September, the government’s push to a model of colonial exploitation was met with fury by rural folk, who took up their pitchforks to protest across the Rhineland.

Figure 1.1

The conservatives did all they could to limit the situation: making compromise deals with some peasants, using violent suppression on the other hand. To add to the ‘carrots’, the Junkers agreed to reduce taxation of farmers massively to help cope with a food crisis.

Before long they were pushing for the introduction of a secret police. Long-term implications of this were not major, but what it did show was the systemic ability of European empires to quell popular feeling through a stranglehold on the organs of the state.

The laws were changed, and the first Prussian colonisers started arriving to meet with the Igbo tribes that year. What was initially a friendly series of interactions would before long become very tense — the Igbo wisened up to the malicious nature of colonialism.

In July 1836, Prussia officialised alliances with Frankfurt, Saxe-Weimar, Brunswick, and Wurttemburg.

The customs union Zollverein worked greatly to its favour and fostered strong intra-German relationships.

Figure 1.2 Zollverein

On 10 August 1842, the king passed, succeeded by Frederick Wilhelm IV, a conservative at heart.

Across this time, German nationalism was on the rise, as well as liberalism across the continent. The preponderance of the reactionary classes, however, was still evident — particularly in an 1844 law that removed the right of women to own property. Romanticism, realism, and a general retrenchment from the radical rationalism of the Enlightenment took hold from Brest on the far western coast to Moscow in the east.

Winds of Change, 1846–1857

In France, the king was deposed in a second French Revolution, to be replaced by the Second Republic.

This new government was notably expansionist. It laid claim to the ‘natural borders’ of France, i.e. up to the Rhine river.

Prussia was, expectedly, alarmed.

The government began to run a massive deficit to expand the military.

With the wave of 1848 Revolutions in Europe, Prussia too was heavily affected.

Although the King refused attempts by liberals in Berlin to crown him Emperor of Germany, there were sweeping government changes: the military and industrial interest groups banded together to unseat the Junkers from the top positions. The right to assembly replaced censorship, laissez-faire economics replaced interventionism, and a successful political campaign instituted free trade.

The latter policy was very beneficial for the injection of resources for German industrialisation.

This more nationalist government also made a very aggressive colonial move: seeing French attempts to snag Benin as a protectorate (which would have cut off the Niger Delta), Prussia tried to make all of Sokoto its protectorate.

Figure 3.0, the Sokoto Caliphate and German colonialism

The local Caliph did not back down; it was war against Prussia. But insultingly, the Prussians did not see it as such — rather, it was just a limited skirmish against uncivilised African warriors. The Sokoto Caliphate was promptly chastened when Prussia actually deployed an army corps to Niger, where a port had recently been established. A small display of arms along the border convinced him to capitulate to the original terms.

France could not say much after its own expansion in Benin. That had been an overt move to cut off Germany and its unexpected intrusion into west Africa. There was surprisingly little rhetoric on either side over these affairs, however, which if anything was indicative of the strong separation in the minds of the great powers between local matters and colonial ones.

Libyan War (1852–53) and Schleswig War (1853)

An interesting crisis broke out in 1852 when France, continuing its policy of expansionism, made a play for Ottoman Tripolitania. Thus, ironically, Austria came in support of Ottoman Turkey, and when Sardinia-Piedmont also expressed its opposition to the French power-grab, President Lecointe reacted most curiously by also laying claim to Savoy.

The Prussian King prevaricated, and so Prussia did not become embroiled in a war. France though did mightily exceed its capabilities when it declared war despite even Spain backing the Ottomans. As the Libyan War was fought, and Prussia sat idly, Prussian prestige fell among the ranks.

This rankled among the Junkers.

With the support of the military, particularly Helmuth von Moltke (Sr), the king was convinced to embark upon another long-simmering interest of the German people: the incorporation of the duchies Schleswig, Holstein, and Saxe-Lauenberg.

The timing worked to the German favour: the two most likely balancers, France and Austria, were preoccupied. While the decision was met with anger from the other minor German states, the Prussians believed that to be insignificant in the long-term. But of all the powers who might have intervened, America did, in a written letter to the king on 26 January 1853, asking him to consider not further tilting Europe into war. This had the precise opposite effect. It united even the more ambivalent Prussians because now their national pride was in question. Prussia could not imaginably kowtow to a regional power across the Atlantic.

The Prussian Army was mobilised in full on the 14th of February. This did not stave off war, which Prussia duly declared on 9 April.

It would be fair to say that Prussia was wholly unprepared for war. The defection of states like Mecklenburg meant that Prussia, unwilling to invoke the wrath of all of Germany by violating neutrality, had no land path to Schleswig or Holstein.

Therefore, they would need some kind of navy.

Construction for the fleet was ramped up, with the aim of acquiring 20 frigates and 10 man-o-wars by the end of the year — an unrealistic goal.

The Americans sank hundreds of convoys. It is estimated that 1200 ships were downed during the war’s course.

At least on land, the Prussian Army warded off two landing attempts — one Danish one in East Prussia, then one in Pomerania by the USA.

Figure 4.0, the East Prussian landing attempt by Denmark.

Figure 4.1, casualties of the First Schleswig War

Most casualties had been suffered by the Americans, but the Danes themselves had lost 20,000 men. This was more than their small nation could continue to suffer at such a pace.

So the war ended with the transfer of Holstein. Schleswig itself was not given to Prussia; it had not won decisive enough a victory to demand that.

Remarkably, France managed to settle with the Ottomans and acquire Libya for itself too.

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The year 1855 was also known in Prussia because it saw the re-assertion of conservative forces. The government ruled by the industrial groups had become increasingly technocratic.

The Junkers railed against this. Before long, enfranchisement was restricted to the extent where it required considerable land ownership to vote.

In the middle of 1855 they started to agitate and even conducted some pogroms against Jews and workers, demanding the end of the right to assembly. This continued with increasing frequencies of mutinies in the army well into 1856. The king was inclined to agree.

Thereafter, they would play a major role in governance once more.

In 1857, a crisis over Venetian secession (Republic of San Marco) began when Prussia backed Italian nationalists against their rival German state. In a secret deal, Austria promised a favour to Prussia should it switch its support, and this they did.

Prussia benefited by selling small arms to both sides.

In November of that year, the world was shook to learn that America was undergoing a civil war, caused primarily by the attempt of the northern states to ban slavery.

Figure 5.0, the 1857 American Civil War

On a side note, Prussia’s traumatic experience of convoy warfare from the Americans convinced them of the need to have a strong, defensive navy. That year they surpassed their target and accumulated 23 frigates and 11 ironclads — the second power after Britain to attain the latter type in the world.

Other paradigm shifts were observed: in Austria, a 1857 revolution in Hungary forced the creation of the Dual Monarchy, Austria-Hungary.

Bismarckian Era, 1857–1870

In 1857, the King appointed an ambitious and fiery politician to be his Reichskanzler: Otto von Bismarck. He also represented the Junkers, for conservatism in Prussia was finding itself in difficult times, with some historians estimating that 4 million people out of 16.8 million Prussians were radicalised against the establishment. Bismarck took the reins on one condition: that he retain sole control over foreign policy.

Figures 6.0 and 6.1, Prussian population census data

Bismarck immediately began clearing up domestic affairs. The industrialists were bought over by massive state investments into the arms industries, particularly for Krupp and the Ruhr Munition Combine, with an estimated deficit spending of -80k pounds a week. The Chancellor aimed to raise standards of living to buy support in the short term. He also emphasised Prussianisation of the significant Polish minority.

Over the coming months, with a coalition of the National Liberals and the Conservatives backing him up, he would aim to introduce poor laws and healthcare — a program curious for being known as ‘State Socialism’.

Second Schleswig War (1859)

Bismarck had a sole goal envisioned for his career. To achieve the gargantuan task of unifying all of Germany. To do this would require the skills of “blood and iron”, he declared, and through war could Germany be forged.

In April 1859, Bismarck was ready to enact the first stage of his plan, by using the isolation of Denmark diplomatically to wage another war, this time against King Frederick of Oldenburg’s personal union-state, Schleswig.

Things took a dire turn with the French President making a trip to Copenhagen and pledged his support to Denmark. Prussia showed its determination by mobilising most of its army and stationing it on the French border.

What this meant though was that Russia was then able to be swayed over with the promise of a treaty port in Greenland should Prussia win. Bismarck also talked to Franz Jozef I of Austria and acquired their support in return for a favour should Austria-Hungary need it in a future war. Bismarck tactfully acquired Swedish support too by sending them a very large financial package.

This was risky brinkmanship. He did not want, and was not ready for, war with France. But the hope was that Denmark would back down.

Bismarck, getting worried, gave one last threat on 4 August that he would also take the Danish port in Togo if they did not back down.

France gave its promise of commitment, and so it was back to war!

Russia and Austria-Hungary took the burden in invading Denmark.

Prussia had its hands full with France…

The French 2e Corps was dealt a heavy blow by Winneritz’s 1. Armee in the Battle of Metz (November 1859) and then again in the Battle of Strasbourg that month.

Denmark’s capitulation was secured in February the next year, and all wargoals were attained. France, however, could no longer disguise its naked attempt to take the Rhineland — they sued for peace.

Bismarck ignored the clamour about annexing Alsace-Lorraine and instead let France have a white peace; he wished for them to be neutral in the foreseeable Austrian war of the future. Besides, their casualties were already exorbitantly heavy.

Figure 7.0, casualties of the Second Schleswig War.

By comparison, Prussian total casualties were at 163,000 dead or wounded.

Many convoys were sunk again, and the Prussian GDP declined by about 1.1 million pounds over the course of the war, down to 27.9M. — -

Figure 7.1, Europe in 1860

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On 26 November, 1860, the 18 year old Prince Heinrich (heir apparent) was wedded to a British royal, as part of Bismarck’s attempt to woo the English over to, at least, neutrality.

The two powers signed a trade agreement in 1862.

Bismarck’s position was cemented after the 1862 election.

Figure 8.0, 1862 Prussian election.

To some extent, he managed to manipulate the election results through press censorship, especially when an internal government poll revealed that the bourgeois parties were dominating the polls. Protestant voters linked arms with the conservatives. Some campaign blunders and a counter-productive call to boycott the electoral system by major academics resulted in the confirmation of the Junkers, and gave Bismarck the confidence to pursue his next foreign policy aims.

This election coincided with the finished restructuring of the Prussian army in Silesia — which, by the way, had become Prussia’s most productive region.

Prussia now possessed 237 battalions.

Brothers War (Austro-Prussian War) (1862–63)

Prussia now made its most aggressive move yet. In his July Memorandum 1862, Bismarck declared that “Henceforth, it is the sword, not the shield, that shall determine the future of the nation”. He had the implicit support of most of the minor German states, save for Hanover.

Figure 9.0, diplomatic manoeuvring before the Brothers War.

Bismarck was put in the position of arch-statesman, much like the great Metternich, once more. There was the issue of the Austro-Hungarian alliance with the Ottomans. The similar problem as with the First Schleswig War could be observed, because by expanding the war and calling on their ally, Austria-Hungary encouraged Russia to back Prussia — which it did on condition of a preferential trade agreement.

Austria may have had a curious ally in Mexico, but Bismarck co-opted Italian nationalism by partnering with the Two Sicilies, and the balance was tipped decisively in the Prussian favour when Britain was successfully called up, because it wanted to humiliate Austria-Hungary and because it could not let Russia dictate terms towards the Ottomans.

There is to be observed here a curious pattern of European diplomacy at the turn of the mid-19th century: crises had a self-expanding tendency because of the cut-throat nature of great power politics and the webs they all drew of their interests and their alliances.

Figure 9.1: Caucasus Front of the Brothers War. The Russians were shocked by the force of the Ottoman attack, and were pushed back all the way to the Caucasus mountains. Rather than expend men in fighting up the mountains, a truce agreement on that particular front was signed between the two Black Sea powers on New Years’ 1863. Casualties in the mountain terrain with improvised supply lines were excessively, and primarily attritional.

Prussia declared war on Austria-Hungary on 19 November 1862. A day later, the Ottoman Empire declared war on Prussia, the Russian Empire declared war on Austria and the Ottomans, and Britain declared war on Austria-Hungary.

In the first week, battles began in Kars and Poti, in Moldavia, and in Krakow, Moravia, and Bohemia at large.

Figure 9.2, Bohemia and Moravia under attack

Mexico’s Expeditionary Corps had been shipped over in a costly trip funded by Austria-Hungary. About 40,000 Mexicans became casualties in the first two months.

Winneritz’s offensive into Bohemia was generally a success. After the north was overrun by a broad front assault, the Prussian Army redeployed to assist the Russians with Galicia. It was the Imperial Russian Army which most underperformed in this war. However, all powers were surprised at the sheer rate of death in modern war — increases in artillery firepower and rifle reload rates. The British extended the offensive to Vienna, and upon its fall, Mexico promptly severed its alliance with Austria-Hungary.

Nearly an exact year after it had begun, the Peace of Prague was signed on 2 July 1863, and the war was ended, with all goals of the attackers — Prussian dominance in the race to German unification, the humiliation of Austria-Hungary, and its war reparations — having been acquired.

Figure 9.3, casualties of the Brothers War to Great Powers

The end of the Brothers War and the conglomeration of northern Germany into a North German Confederation had several significant impacts on perceptions in foreign relations.

1. Russia received a wake-up call about the degenerated state of its military. Nepotism and complacency had taken their clear toll on combat effectiveness.
2. To Tsar Nicholas I’s chagrin, Russia gained effectively nothing out of this war.
3. Austria-Hungary would cease to be a rival on equal terms against either Russia or Germany. Only with an ally (eg Ottomans or Germans) could it exercise its ambitions in the Balkans, Ukraine, or Mediterranean.
4. Britain’s outsized cost from its large-scale intervention on the mainland would convince it to pursue a policy of Splendid Isolation.
5. Bismarck learnt that not only would it be more difficult to create isolated wars in Europe but also, a lesson shared by all, that any war between modernising powers would scale in cost and death.

Figure 9.4, Europe in 1863.

Bismarck had begun to accumulate something of a legend for himself. Prussia had in one masterstroke leapfrogged to the world’s third Great Power and a GDP of 50.9 million pounds. Its population became 27.6 million.

As part of his strategy of Realpolitik — pragmatic consideration of power above all else — Bismarck immediately began a rapprochement with Austria-Hungary. His eyes turned instead to France, which all of the west had come to fear. As Europe’s penultimate power (behind only Britain), the jingoistic leadership of the Catholic President Vincent Lecointe saw the French armada overtake the size of Britain’s Royal Navy by 25% (as of 1863). France had experienced something of a cultural revival after the Second French Revolution, and its annual population growth (averaged at 0.55% p.a.) had surpassed Germany’s, and its GDP had soared in the 1850s and was now at 64.4 million pounds, above Russia’s.

While Europe casted anxious eyes to French colonialism (Senegal, the Ivory Coast, Benin, Libya, Algeria, and Western Sahara), Bismarck had secret confidence: the Prussian Army and new elements formed a standing, professional army of 330,000 men — the second largest in the world after China; and once Bavaria, Baden, and Wurttemburg was annexed, Germany could overtake France by at least 5 million pounds in annual GDP.

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The popularity of the Junkers had diluted even further with the addition of the non-Prussian states.

As a mechanism of distracting from home affairs, Bismarck undertook colonial distractions, much in the Bonapartist manner. He began a Congo River expedition, fought a quick war to crush the resistant Bamum, reduced Sokoto from protectorate to dominion, and reorganised the army to create a permanent Afrikakorps.

To build up the German states and link them infrastructure-wise, Bismarck had undergone an extremely expensive program of national investment. By the end of 1864, Germany was approaching 18.7 million pounds in debt, and as a materialist factor in foreign policy it meant that the envisioned, ultimate war with France would have to come in late 1865.

He was also weighing up whether to establish Kleindeutschland or the ‘Greater Germany’ espoused by nationalists. The Iron Chancellor himself was not thus affected. To him, nationalism was a means to an end, not an end in itself, and the end he desired was the centralisation of Prussia over a German state, and thereby in his eyes the defence of the conservative agricultural class. As early as November 1864 (showing a most remarkable foresight!) he was weighing up these options by a calculus of the European balance of power; should Germany become too strong, inevitably its neighbours would coalesce against it, and these questions would present themselves in force the following year.

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As it happened, Bismarck had his hands tied with a native uprising in Cameroon (he was always pleased to learn that a German expedition had found the source of the Nile and traced it to the great lakes of central Africa) and an Austro-Hungarian approach for a trade agreement. The passing of December forced him to attend until Winter finished.

As for the question of ‘why’ this war, Bismarck had no doubt that he needed a “minimum victory” over France to bring about the effect of German unification, to stop the French veto of it and to unite in national spirit North and South Germans.

Franco-Prussian War, 1866–1870

The Germans were pressed by economic hardship to begin their ultimate war.

Bismarck announced an embargo against France; Bismarck had a suitable excuse, of course, which was the ‘discovery’ of racial discrimination against Germans in civilian and professional life in Alsace. “This will cause a war when we need it” is exactly how Bismarck received that information months ago. The latter’s diplomatic isolation meant North Germany should have a free hand.

Austria-Hungary was fully behind the German cause.

In fact, the May election 1866 acted as a confirmation for Bismarck’s movement towards war with France, with an alliance of the Conservatives, bourgeoisie, evangelicals, and military interest groups winning a dominant and unprecedented 54% share of the vote. High turnout and exceedingly high support for the older groups was an interesting phenomenon, and can only be explained by the fact that citizens viewed this vote as essentially a plebiscite on Bismarck himself.

Mobilisation was ordered for the French in late April and Germany followed in May. War was essentially inevitable. It was finally provoked through the Ems Dispatch, in which Bismarck manipulated genuine discussion between French and German representatives to make it appear, at once, that the French had been insulted and that the Germans had been disrespected. The brusque and brash Lecointe was therefore provoked to declare war on 4 October, which allowed Bismarck to claim the defensive, and call upon the South German states in defence of the Vaterland.

The combined German armies faced stiff resistance in Alsace and were repulsed twice. Moltke took overall command and ordered them to dig in with the coming of 1866 Winter. Predictably, the French now gave chase, but instead suffered two severe reverses at Karlsruhe and Saarbrucken.

By March the next year, Bismarck had no choice but to call a major mobilisation of another 130,000 men. Germany was badly losing the sea war, with its trade completely cut off, but the Royal Prussian Navy had its successes when operating all in one as a combined force.

The real war would be won on land, however. And the convoy warfare scheme was not working considering that German costs from the war were at about 2 million pounds halfway through 1867 while the French one was at 8.85 million. (There are some explanations for this statistic. For example, most of the Prussian Army was professionally trained and retained through expensive upkeep, while France had the business of raising up a new army.)

Moltke’s May Offensive began on the 17th as 280,000 men clashed over Mulhouse. Richtofen then lead a costly assault through minefields for Strasbourg and managed to snatch a victory over Leuchtenberg. The coup de grace was delivered on July of 1867 with a very broad battle which saw such spectacles as Edo men from Benin perform terrifyingly against the Prussians.

In November, however, Elchingen led a bold counter-offensive and managed to penetrate and recover lands as far as Strasbourg. Simultaneously, Dieter Jahn’s siege of Verdun was rebuffed, and on the whole the German war plan had been frustrated again.

The Prussians returned to defensive positions.

With France making headway and winning several battles, they proposed a truce and eventual white peace in December 1867. This the Germans denied categorically. Their claim on Alsace-Lorraine had now become a focal point for nationalism. Bismarck’s appeared vindicated when two more French attacks in different cities failed due to a mix of German resolve and because of the onset of Winter.

Morale on both sides had long become terribly low. Because Germany had the historical Napoleonic oppression and its national myth of the 1813 War of Liberation to motivate it, French public opinion was significantly less tolerant of the wastage, not least because it was Alsace-Lorraine that was being wrecked and because it was nominally a democracy, much more so than Prussia. The French army was relying increasingly on colonial troops — something of a taboo among European militaries, because it introduced ‘civilised’ warfare to the ‘barbarians’ and also brought tales of their own savagery to the ostensible ‘savages’ of Africa… Historians estimate that as many as 60,000 colonial troops probably fought on the French side. Treated as expendable material, very few of them lived to tell any tale.

That France continued to launch foolhardy offensives can be blamed more on a political failure than a military one. So desperate was Lecointe for something to show to the press that he tarnished all his generals’ reputations (McMahon, for example), but, what was worse, damaged French soldiers’ cohesion irrecoverably.

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On the 1st of July, 1868, King Friedrich Wilhelm’s illustrious reign came to an end. The imperious political operator and idealist, Heinrich, succeeded him at the age of 25.

As a supporter of the market liberals and frequently enraptured by the intellectual fashions of the day, his ascendance meant that the days of the Junker chancellor were numbered.

For now, he was perfectly willing to aid in the war.

By August, Lecointe had been ousted. In his place was the no less wrathful Raymond Cloue, but he had a specific role to fulfil: to propose to Germany another peace deal. This they rejected out of hand once more.

Remarkably, Prussia’s small but effective fleet, under Wolfgang Goerdeler’s masterful command, had been the sole source of total success so far. With 12 ironclads and 59 frigates, he had carved out a path for German shipping from the North Sea to the Bay of Biscay and now the Mediterranean (where losses were replaced by Austrian supplements).

A very radical (and perhaps silly) plan had been floating around the Rhine HQs for a while by this point, which suggested detaching a German corps to navally invade Picardy. It would either succeed and decapitate the government in Paris (Case A), or fail but act as a diversion for a greater offensive on the main front (Case B). The idea actually received serious attention when the King himself sponsored it, in light of Goerdeler’s successes. So it was drafted and developed, and implemented in March. It just so happened that France threw all its weight into a massive offensive at the start of that month, which would make Case A or Case B likely to succeed, and either way the German generals were glad to have that distraction.

The whole thing was an ignominious failure from the very start: the Prussians lost the naval battle and had to scurry home. But now, having withstood the brunt of the French attack, it was time for Germany to go on the offence once more.

The results this time were overwhelming good: four battles won in two weeks.

Figure 10,0 Germans blast a hole through with the April Offensive.

On 16 January, 1870, Germany was at the gates of Paris. Henri de Croy’s valiant efforts came to nought; Richtofen and Prince Friedrich Karl in the ‘Race to Paris’ were already beating back the National Guard. The Prince took the city.

France finally delivered its surrender on 15 June 1870.

Figure 10.1

Their intransigence had cost an amazing 1 million French lives and over a million wounded. These losses would shock Europe into anti-war sentiment for at least the next decade. One must not forget that this was roughly 200% of the size of their armies at the end of the war. Such casualty rates are hard to find even in the Napoleonic Wars. Literature published about the war mocked the name ‘Sacred War’ and called it instead the ‘Inglorious War’. Germany’s death toll was nearly as heavy. The one big disparity was in financial cost; France took double the damage there, but 45 million pounds of German debt hardly made things better.

Bled to its core, France acquiesced to all the original demands. German vitriol was so intense that a much more punishing settlement may have been demanded if it were not for the moderation of Bismarck.

At the Palace of Versailles, in a climactic moment immortalised forever after by artworks, King Heinrich of Prussia was crowned Kaiser of Germany. Bismarck’s dwindling power is evident in his failure to prevent the creation of the more stable Kleindeutschland; the collective feeling of having completed a Manichaean struggle in the battle for the sole of Central Europe swept over Austria and the North German Confederation, forcing ultimately his hand with a fait accompli when overzealous nationalists cornered Franz Josef II and, after a long debate, convinced him to abdicate in favour of the forthcoming Emperor. And so it was that Austria-Hungary, a fragile creation, fell apart at the top, splintering into a Kingdom of Hungary, Croatia, Transylvania, and Galicia-Lodomeria, whilst the Two Sicilies rushed to claim Venice.

Figure 10.2, the Crowning of Kaiser Heinrich I of Greater Germany

Thus it was that in 1870 as a new era of the Grossdeutschland began — with economic domination over the Balkans and Italy and naval reach into the Mediterranean — just as the Bismarckian Era came to a close.

Figure 10.3, Europe in 1870.

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END OF PART 1…