Bismarck-Schönhausen, OTTO EDUARD LEOPOLD, PRINCE VON, DUKE OF LAUENBURG, chancellor of the German empire and foremost statesman of his time, was born 1st April 1815, at Schönhausen in Brandenburg, of an old family distinguished both in war and statesmanship. Bismarck received his university education at Göttingen, Berlin, and Greifswald, where he studied law and agriculture, but became more distinguished as a swordsman than as a reading man. After finishing his studies, he lived for a time on his estates. Before 1847 he was little heard of, but about that time he began to attract attention in the new Prussian parliament as an ultra-royalist, and a fierce but unsuccessful opponent of the constitutional demands resulting from the March revolution of 1848. He opposed the scheme of a German empire as proposed by the Frankfort parliament of 1849, for the reason that the title to the imperial dignity offered to the king of Prussia was merely based on the popular will and not on the concurrent assent of the German sovereigns as well. His diplomatic career commenced in 1851, when he was appointed Prussian member of the resuscitated German diet of Frankfort. Here he began to manifest that zeal for the interests and aggrandisement of Prussia, which has since undeviatingly guided him, often regardless of the means. In the diet, he gave open expression to the long-felt discontent with the predominance of Austria, and demanded equal rights for Prussia. At Frankfort he remained till 1859, when he beheld in the approach of the Italian war an opportunity of freeing Prussia and Germany from the injurious dominance of Austria; but his views of energetic action being not yet shared by the cautious and pacific prince-regent, Bismarck was meanwhile recalled from the diet and sent as minister to St Petersburg. In the spring of 1862 King William, on the urgent advice of the Prince of Hohenzollern, transferred Bismarck as ambassador to Paris, in order to give him an insight into the politics of the Tuileries, before intrusting him with the direction of affairs at home. During his short stay at Paris Bismarck visited London, and had interviews with the leading politicians of the time, including Lord Palmerston and Mr Disraeli. In autumn, when the king's government could not obtain the consent of the lower house to the new military organisation, Bismarck was recalled, to take the portfolio of the ministry for foreign affairs, and the presidency of the cabinet. Not being able to pass the reorganisation bill and the budget, he closed the chambers (October 1862), announcing to the deputies that the king's government would be obliged to do without their sanction. Accordingly, the army reorganisation went on; and the next four sessions of parliament were closed or dissolved in the same way, without the government obtaining, or even caring to obtain, the sanction of the house. When the 'Conflict Era,' as it was called, approached a crisis, the death of the king of Denmark re-opened up the Sleswick-Holstein question, and excited a fever of national German feeling, which Bismarck was adroit enough to work so as to aggrandise Prussia by the acquisition of the Elbe Duchies, and reconcile his opponents to his high-handed policy by pointing to the success of the newly-modelled army. Throughout the events which ended in the humiliation of Austria at the battle of Königgrätz (1866), and the reorganisation of Germany under the leadership of Prussia (see GERMANY), Bismarck was the guiding spirit; and such is the magic of success, that, from being universally disliked, he now became the most popular man in Germany. It was Bismarck that negotiated the neutralisation of the Luxemburg territory (1867).
The action of France in regard to the candidature of Prince Leopold of Hohenzollern for the throne of Spain gave Bismarck the opportunity of carrying into action the intensified feeling of unity amongst Germans. During the war of 1870-71, Bismarck was the spokesman of Germany; he it was that in February 1871 dictated the terms of peace to France. Having been made a count in 1866, he was now created a prince and chancellor of the German empire. From the peace of Frankfort (10th May 1871) the sole aim of Bismarck's policy, domestic and foreign, was to consolidate the young empire of his own creating, by rendering its institutions more beneficent, authoritative, homogeneous, and stable; and again by securing it, through alliances and political combinations, against attack from without. Thus, conceiving the unity of the nation and the authority of its government to be endangered by the Church of Rome, and its doctrines of Papal Infallibility, he embarked on that long and bitter struggle with the Vatican, called the Kulturkampf, in the course of which the Imperial and Prussian parliaments passed a series of most stringent measures (Falk or May laws) against the Catholic hierarchy. But Bismarck had underrated the resisting power of the Romish Church, and motives of political expediency gradually led him to modify or repeal the most oppressive of the anti-papal edicts, leaving the Catholics virtual masters of the field. Otherwise, his domestic policy has been marked, among other things, by a reformed coinage, a codification of law, a nationalisation of the Prussian railways (as a preliminary step to Imperial state lines), fiscal reform in the direction of making the empire self-supporting (i.e. independent of 'matricular contributions' from its component states), repeated increase of the army and the regular voting of its estimates for seven years at a time (Military Septennate), the introduction of a protective tariff (1879), and the attempt to combat social democracy and its attendant evils by means at once repressive and remedial—among the latter being a lightening of the burden of direct taxation, the insurance of working men against suffering from accidents, indigence, and old age, with other economic experiments, which have caused Bismarck to be called the greatest state socialist of the age. With a view to improve the finances of the empire, Bismarck has repeatedly tried to establish various government monopolies, of tobacco, &c., but hitherto without success.
In 1884 Bismarck inaugurated the career of Germany as a colonising power, a new departure which brought him into sharp but temporary conflict with the England of Mr Gladstone. For the rest, his foreign policy aimed principally at isolating France and rendering her incapable of forming anti-German alliances. On the other hand, he gradually combined the central powers of Europe into a peace-league, aiming at counteracting the aggressiveness of Russia and France, separately or combined, on the Danube or the Rhine. The nucleus of this peace-league was formed in 1879 by the Austro-German Treaty of Alliance (published February 1888), which Italy joined in 1886. It entitled Bismarck to be called the 'Peace-maker' of Europe, a character he first acquired when, as 'honest broker' between Austria and Russia, he presided over the Berlin Congress in 1878. The phrase, 'man of blood and iron,' is based on 'the Iron Chancellor's' own use of the words in a speech in 1862.
Bismarck's life was repeatedly threatened, and twice actually attempted—once at Berlin in 1866, just before the Bohemian campaign, by a crazy representative of popular dissatisfaction with Bismarck as champion of absolutism and fratricidal war; and again in 1874 at Kissingen, by an Ultramontane tinsmith named Kullmann. In 1885 Bismarck's 70th birthday was celebrated as a great national event. As a statesman he was imperious yet prudent, jealous, vindictive, and even unscrupulous—faults that sprang from his fervid patriotism; but in private life he could be genial, witty, and entertaining. He was tall and massive in person, fair and fresh of complexion, and quiet and cultured in manner. Though no orator, in public speeches he wielded the mother-tongue with trenchant vigour (see GERMANY); and he spoke French, Russian, and English with facility. Soon after the accession of William II., the relations between the veteran and his young master became strained. The emperor resented the chancellor's independent and masterful ways, and Bismarck felt driven to resign in March 1890, retiring with the title of Duke of Lauenburg. He now became, and—though there was a formal reconciliation in 1894—continued, a caustic and inconvenient critic of the emperor, the successive chancellors, and the new polity generally. In 1895 his birthday was again a national celebration, though the Reichstag refused to present an address of congratulation. Bismarck died 30th July 1898, and an autobiography was printed immediately after.
There are German lives by Busch (3d ed. 1890) and Görlach (5th ed. 1885); and by Lowe (2 vols. 1886, 2d ed. 1888; abridged 1895). See also Die Bismarck Litteratur (1895); and Lowe, Bismarck's Tabletalk (1896).