National Unification and Diplomatic Tensions

By the end of this lesson, students will be able to:

• Identify the conditions that produced Italian unification and German unification (Skill 2.C; LO C).
• Account for how nationalist sentiment and political alliances generated tension among European powers between 1815 and 1914 (LO D).
• Account for KC-3.4.II.A: how the Crimean War exposed the weakness of the Ottoman Empire and contributed to the breakdown of the Concert of Europe.
• Account for KC-3.4.III.A: how Cavour's diplomacy combined with Garibaldi's military campaigns to produce Italian unification.
• Account for KC-3.4.III.B: how Bismarck used Realpolitik to unify Germany through three wars.
• Account for KC-3.4.III.C, KC-3.4.III.D, and KC-3.4.III.E: how the post-1871 alliance system operated, how it broke down after Bismarck's dismissal in 1890, and how Balkan nationalist tensions drew the great powers into the First World War.

Topic 7.3 traces the central political transformation of late-nineteenth-century Europe: the unification of Italy and Germany, and the diplomatic order that emerged after 1871. The unifications reshaped the European balance of power decisively. The post-1871 Bismarckian alliance system attempted to manage the new balance through complex diplomacy; its post-1890 breakdown produced the antagonistic alliance blocks that drew Europe into the First World War.

The Crimean War and the breakdown of the Concert. KC-3.4.II.A: the Crimean War demonstrated the weakness of the Ottoman Empire and contributed to the breakdown of the Concert of Europe, thereby creating the conditions in which Italy and Germany could be unified. The war (1853-1856) pitted Britain, France, the Ottoman Empire, and (from 1855) Piedmont-Sardinia against Russia. The immediate trigger was Russian pressure on the Ottoman Empire over the protection of Orthodox Christians in Palestine; the deeper issue was the long-running "Eastern Question" of how to manage the Ottoman Empire's gradual decline. The war was costly and inconclusive in military terms (the principal battles at Balaclava, Inkerman, and the siege of Sevastopol in 1854-1855) but politically transformative. Russia's defeat ended its post-1815 role as the gendarme of European conservatism. The Treaty of Paris (March 1856) demilitarized the Black Sea and produced the conditions in which Italian and German unification would proceed without effective Russian opposition. Cavour's small Piedmontese contribution to the war (15,000 troops sent to Crimea in 1855) gave Piedmont-Sardinia a seat at the Paris peace conference and the diplomatic standing to pursue Italian unification with French support.

Italian unification. KC-3.4.III.A: Cavour's diplomatic strategies, combined with the popular Garibaldi's military campaigns, produced the unification of Italy. The unification proceeded in three principal phases.

The 1859 war against Austria. Camillo Benso, Count of Cavour (1810-1861), Prime Minister of Piedmont-Sardinia from 1852, met Napoleon III secretly at Plombieres-les-Bains in July 1858 and negotiated a treaty providing for French military assistance against Austria in exchange for Piedmontese cession of Nice and Savoy to France. Cavour engineered an Austrian declaration of war in April 1859. The combined French-Piedmontese forces won the principal battles at Magenta and Solferino in June 1859. The Solferino battlefield was so bloody (Henri Dunant's experience of the aftermath inspired the founding of the International Red Cross in 1863). Napoleon III, alarmed at Prussian mobilization on the Rhine and at the size of his own losses, signed an armistice at Villafranca in July 1859 short of Cavour's full territorial aims. Lombardy was nonetheless transferred to Piedmont-Sardinia. Cavour resigned in protest at Villafranca but returned to office in January 1860.

The 1860 plebiscites and Garibaldi's southern campaign. Plebiscites in Tuscany, Parma, Modena, and the Romagna in March 1860 produced large majorities for union with Piedmont-Sardinia; the central Italian states formally joined the kingdom. In May 1860, Giuseppe Garibaldi (1807-1882) and his thousand red-shirted volunteers (the Mille) sailed from Genoa to Sicily to support a popular revolt against Bourbon-Sicilian rule. Garibaldi's small force defeated the much larger Bourbon army at Calatafimi (15 May), captured Palermo (27 May), crossed to the Italian mainland, and entered Naples on 7 September. Cavour, alarmed by Garibaldi's republican sympathies and by the prospect of an attack on Rome that would provoke French intervention, sent the Piedmontese army through the Papal States to meet Garibaldi at Teano (26 October 1860). Garibaldi handed over his conquests to King Victor Emmanuel II and retired to his farm on Caprera. The Kingdom of Italy was proclaimed at Turin on 17 March 1861.

The completion of unification. Two territories remained outside the new kingdom in 1861: Venetia (under Austrian rule until 1866) and Rome (under Papal rule, defended by a French garrison stationed there since the 1849 suppression of the Roman Republic). Venice was added in 1866 after the Austro-Prussian War: Italy fought as Prussia's ally and received Venetia in the peace settlement despite military defeats at Custoza (24 June 1866) and Lissa (20 July 1866). Rome was added in 1870 after the Franco-Prussian War: the French garrison withdrew in August 1870 to fight the Prussians, and Italian troops entered Rome on 20 September 1870. Pope Pius IX declared himself a "prisoner in the Vatican" and refused to recognize the Italian state until the 1929 Lateran Treaty.

German unification. KC-3.4.III.B: Bismarck used Realpolitik — diplomacy, industrialized warfare, modern weaponry, and the manipulation of democratic mechanisms — to unify Germany. The unification proceeded through three wars over seven years.

The 1864 Danish War. Otto von Bismarck (Minister-President of Prussia from September 1862, after the "Blood and Iron" speech covered in Topic 7.1) maneuvered Austria into joint Prussian-Austrian intervention against Denmark over the disputed duchies of Schleswig and Holstein. Combined Prussian-Austrian forces defeated Denmark in a brief war (February-October 1864). The Treaty of Vienna placed the duchies under joint Austro-Prussian condominium — an arrangement Bismarck used to engineer subsequent conflict with Austria.

The 1866 Austro-Prussian War (Seven Weeks' War). Bismarck provoked Austria into war over the administration of Schleswig and Holstein in June 1866. The Prussian army under Helmuth von Moltke had been reformed and re-equipped (the Dreyse needle gun, more rapid mobilization through the Prussian railway network); the Austrian forces fought capably but were defeated at Koniggratz (Sadowa) on 3 July 1866. Bismarck restrained Wilhelm I and the Prussian generals from imposing harsh terms on Austria, calculating that Austria would be a useful future ally. The Treaty of Prague (August 1866) excluded Austria from German affairs and established the North German Confederation under Prussian leadership. Italy, allied with Prussia, received Venetia. The Habsburg Empire reorganized itself the following year through the Ausgleich (Topic 7.2) into the dual monarchy of Austria-Hungary.

The 1870-1871 Franco-Prussian War. The 1868 Spanish revolution had deposed Queen Isabella II; the Spanish throne was offered in 1870 to Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a relative of Wilhelm I. France protested vigorously; the candidacy was withdrawn, but French Foreign Minister Antoine de Gramont demanded a public guarantee from Wilhelm I that the candidacy would never be renewed. Wilhelm refused politely; Bismarck edited the telegraphic report of the meeting (the Ems Dispatch) to make Wilhelm's refusal sound more abrupt and provocative. France declared war on 19 July 1870. The Prussian-led North German forces (joined by the South German states) defeated the French armies in a sequence of battles in August 1870, captured Napoleon III at Sedan on 1 September 1870, and besieged Paris from 19 September. The Second French Empire collapsed; the Third French Republic was proclaimed on 4 September 1870. Paris surrendered on 28 January 1871. The German Empire was proclaimed at the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles on 18 January 1871, with Wilhelm I as German Emperor and Bismarck as Chancellor. The Treaty of Frankfurt (May 1871) transferred Alsace and most of Lorraine from France to the new German Empire and imposed an indemnity of five billion francs — territorial and financial losses that French opinion never accepted, producing the persistent Franco-German antagonism of the next four decades.

The post-1871 alliance system. KC-3.4.III.C: after 1871, Bismarck attempted to maintain the European balance of power through a complex alliance system aimed at isolating France. The system had four principal components.

The Three Emperors' League (Dreikaiserbund), signed in October 1873 by the Russian Tsar Alexander II, the Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph, and the German Kaiser Wilhelm I, committed the three monarchies to consult on threats to peace and to oppose the spread of revolutionary movements. The League was renewed and updated in 1881. It worked imperfectly because Russian and Austrian interests in the Balkans were fundamentally opposed.

The Dual Alliance, signed October 1879 between Germany and Austria-Hungary, provided for mutual defense if either were attacked by Russia. The treaty was provoked by Russian dissatisfaction with Bismarck's handling of the 1878 Congress of Berlin (which had reduced Russian gains from the Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 in deference to British and Austrian concerns). The Dual Alliance was renewed at intervals and remained in force through 1918.

The Triple Alliance, signed May 1882, added Italy to the Dual Alliance. Italy's principal motive was anger at France's 1881 establishment of a protectorate over Tunisia, which Italy had sought for itself. The Triple Alliance was renewed at five-yearly intervals through 1912. Italian commitment to it was always weaker than German or Austrian; Italy entered the First World War in May 1915 on the Allied side rather than supporting its nominal Triple Alliance partners.

The Reinsurance Treaty, signed June 1887 between Germany and Russia, was Bismarck's mechanism for keeping Russia diplomatically reassured despite the Dual Alliance with Austria. The treaty committed each power to neutrality if the other were attacked, with exceptions if Germany attacked France or if Russia attacked Austria. The treaty was secret and was kept secret even from Austria and Italy. It expired in 1890 and Wilhelm II's new government refused to renew it — the principal mistake of the early Wilhelmine period and the immediate trigger for the Franco-Russian rapprochement.

The post-1890 antagonistic alliance system. KC-3.4.III.D: Bismarck's dismissal in 1890 by the new Kaiser Wilhelm II eventually produced a system of mutually antagonistic alliances and rising international tensions. Wilhelm II (1859-1941, reigned 1888-1918) was Wilhelm I's grandson; he had succeeded his short-lived father Frederick III in 1888. Wilhelm II's relationship with Bismarck had been strained from the start; a conflict over labor policy in March 1890 produced Bismarck's resignation. Wilhelm II's foreign-policy team (Chancellor Leo von Caprivi from 1890; Foreign Secretary Friedrich von Holstein) refused to renew the Reinsurance Treaty in 1890 on the ground that it was incompatible with the Dual Alliance.

The Russian response was rapid. France, isolated since 1871, had been seeking a Russian alliance for years; the lapse of the Reinsurance Treaty removed the principal diplomatic obstacle. Russia and France signed a military convention in August 1892 and a formal alliance in January 1894. The Franco-Russian Alliance fundamentally altered the European diplomatic landscape: Germany now faced potential war on two fronts. The German General Staff's response, the 1905 Schlieffen Plan, contemplated a rapid initial defeat of France through Belgium followed by transfer of forces eastward against Russia — the plan that produced the German violation of Belgian neutrality in August 1914.

British alignment shifted gradually. Britain had pursued "splendid isolation" through most of the late nineteenth century, with no formal continental commitments. Concerns about German naval expansion (the German High Seas Fleet program from 1898 under Admiral Tirpitz; the Anglo-German naval arms race) and shared concerns with France over German continental ambitions produced the 1904 Entente Cordiale, settling Anglo-French colonial disputes. The 1907 Anglo-Russian Convention extended the alignment to Russia. The Triple Entente of Britain, France, and Russia faced the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy. Italian commitment was weak; the practical alignment was Britain-France-Russia versus Germany-Austria-Hungary.

The Balkan crises and the road to war. KC-3.4.III.E: nationalist tensions in the Balkans drew the great powers into a series of crises that led to the First World War. The Balkans were the region of greatest tension because Ottoman decline produced a power vacuum that competing Balkan nationalisms (Greek, Serbian, Bulgarian, Romanian, Albanian) and competing great-power ambitions (Russian Pan-Slavist sympathy, Austrian fear of Slavic nationalism, German support for Austria) all sought to fill.

The 1908 Bosnian Crisis began when Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia and Herzegovina (which it had administered since the 1878 Congress of Berlin) without prior consultation with Russia. Russia, weakened by its 1904-1905 defeat by Japan and the 1905 Revolution, was unable to respond effectively but accepted the annexation only under German pressure. The crisis embittered Russian-Austrian relations and produced Russian determination to support Serbia, the principal regional Slavic state. The Bulgarian declaration of full independence from Ottoman suzerainty (October 1908) accompanied the Bosnian annexation.

The Balkan Wars (1912-1913) further destabilized the region. The First Balkan War (October 1912 to May 1913) saw the Balkan League (Bulgaria, Serbia, Greece, Montenegro) defeat the Ottoman Empire and largely expel Ottoman forces from Europe. The Second Balkan War (June-August 1913) saw Bulgaria attack its former allies over the division of spoils, lose, and surrender most of its earlier gains. Serbia emerged substantially enlarged and self-confident; Austria-Hungary increasingly viewed Serbian success as an existential threat to Habsburg control of the southern Slavic lands.

The July Crisis of 1914 brought the system to war. On 28 June 1914, the Bosnian Serb nationalist Gavrilo Princip assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, at Sarajevo. Austria-Hungary, with German backing (the "blank check" of 5-6 July), issued an ultimatum to Serbia on 23 July with terms designed to be unacceptable. Serbia accepted most of the terms; Austria declared war on 28 July. Russian general mobilization (30 July) triggered German mobilization, French mobilization, and the German invasion of Belgium and France in early August. By 4 August, the principal European powers were at war.

Three sources framing Italian and German unification and the post-1871 diplomatic order: Cavour's letter on the Plombieres meeting, Bismarck's account of the Ems Dispatch, and the Triple Alliance treaty text.

1. (Causation, Skill 2.C) Account for the conditions that produced Italian and German unification. How did the Crimean War's weakening of the Concert of Europe make both unifications possible?
2. (Causation, Skill 2.C) Read the Cavour letter on the Plombieres meeting. What is its point of view, purpose, historical situation, and audience? How does Cavour's diplomatic-Realpolitik approach compare with Garibaldi's popular-military approach?
3. (Causation, Skill 2.C) Read the Bismarck memoir on the Ems Dispatch. What is its point of view, purpose, historical situation, and audience? Why does this affect how we read Bismarck's account of the episode?
4. (Causation) Account for KC-3.4.III.C: how did Bismarck's post-1871 alliance system attempt to maintain the European balance of power and isolate France? Identify the principal components.
5. (Causation) Account for KC-3.4.III.D and KC-3.4.III.E: how did the post-1890 antagonistic alliance system emerge, and how did Balkan crises eventually trigger the First World War in 1914?

Draft alignment — pending educator review. AP European History codes correspond to the official College Board Course and Exam Description (Effective Fall 2023, V.1). Statements below are paraphrased in the CountryReports voice; refer to the College Board's published CED for verbatim wording.