Formation of the North German Confederation
Prussia organised twenty-two German states north of the Main into a federal state in 1867, and it became the German Empire four years later. It followed the Austro-Prussian War of 1866, which Bismarck had provoked and which Prussia won in seven weeks at Königgrätz. The German Confederation of 1815 was dissolved, Austria was excluded from German affairs permanently, and Prussia annexed Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau and Frankfurt outright. The constitution Bismarck wrote is the interesting part, because it is almost exactly the one the empire used until 1918. The King of Prussia was hereditary president and commander-in-chief. The chancellor was responsible to him alone and not to any parliament. The Bundesrat, representing the states, held Prussia's votes in numbers that gave it a veto on constitutional change. Against that, the Reichstag was elected by universal male suffrage and secret ballot — franchise arrangements more democratic than Britain's at the time, granted by a conservative because Bismarck calculated that a rural electorate would vote conservatively and that the liberals feared the masses more than he did. It had no power to appoint or dismiss a government, and the military budget was voted for years at a time. The southern states — Bavaria, Württemberg, Baden and Hesse — stayed out and signed secret military conventions. The war with France in 1870 brought them in, and the empire was proclaimed at Versailles in January 1871. Bismarck's design gave Germany a parliament with a wide franchise and no power over the executive, which is the defect that outlived him. The empire he built lasted forty-seven years.
- Year: 1867 CE
- Category: Political
