This study will examine the three nineteenth century wars (1864, 1866 and 1870-71) which resulted in the partial unification of Germany. The primary leader behind these wars and German unification was Otto von Bismarck, the creator of what would become the German Empire. Bismarck was the premier of Prussia from 1862 to 1890 and chancellor of Germany from 1871 to 1890. Had there been no Bismarck the history of Germany, Prussia, Austria and all of Europe would have been drastically altered. (The German states included the Rhineland, Westphalia, Bavaria, etc., but especially significant in this study will be the largest entities of Austria and Prussia.)
Therefore, the story of the wars of German unification can be fairly said to be the story of Bismarck himself. Even with the indomitable will of Bismarck, however, there was no guarantee about the outcome for Germany and Europe in the 1860s any more than there is in the 1990s in Central Europe, with respect to the impact of German reunification.
In the Preface to his book The Origins of the Wars of German Unification, William Carr emphasizes the uncertainty of the events and consequences of the mid-nineteenth century in the divided states of Germany:
The story of the creation of a (partially) united Germany between 1864 and 1871 . . . depended upon many variables: the power-political struggle between Prussia and Austria, their divergent economic interests, the military prowess of the reformed Prussian army, and on the political skill of Bismarck as well as on the desire of the articulate middle class for a nation state to protect itself against French ambitions.
The 1864 war (Schleswig-Holstein, or Prussia against Denmark), the 1866 war (Austro-Prussian), and the 1870-71 war (Franco-German) were the culmination of a series of economic, political and military developments which had brought the states of Germany back from the humiliation of defeat at Napoleon's hands in...