49 Fun Facts About Otto Von Bismarck

Otto von Bismarck's firm rule and Realpolitik earned him what nickname?

He served as the German Empire's first chancellor from 1871 to 1890.

Under Bismarck, Prussia provoked three short wars against which three countries?

Denmark fell in 1864, Austria in 1866 and France in 1870–71, each war clearing a path to unification.

In which year did Bismarck become Minister President and Foreign Minister of Prussia?

King Wilhelm recalled him on the advice of War Minister Roon after the Landtag rejected the army budget.

Bismarck said in 1862 the great questions of the day would be decided not by speeches and votes but by what?

He called speeches and majorities 'the great mistake of 1848 and 1849'.

Where was Bismarck born in 1815?

It was a family estate west of Berlin; the next year the family moved to Kniephof in Pomerania, where he grew up.

Bismarck came from which class of Prussian landed nobility?

He played up the backwoods-squire image by wearing uniforms, though he spoke English, French, Italian, Polish and Russian.

Which American student, later a famous historian, befriended Bismarck at Göttingen and put him in a novel?

Motley's 1839 novel Morton's Hope drew on their student days; the two stayed close for life.

Bismarck jeopardised his early legal career by taking unauthorised leave to pursue what?

Laura Russell, niece of the Duke of Cleveland, and Isabella Loraine-Smith were the objects of his attention.

Whom did Bismarck marry in 1847?

He proposed a month after the death of her cousin Marie, with whom he had formed an intense friendship.

In 1851 Bismarck was appointed Prussia's envoy to the Diet of the German Confederation in which city?

He needled the Austrian representative by copying his habit of smoking and removing his jacket in meetings.

Bismarck served as Prussian ambassador to which two countries before becoming Minister President?

In St Petersburg he nearly lost a leg to botched treatment; in Paris in 1862 he took the measure of Napoleon III.

Bismarck kept collecting taxes without a passed budget by exploiting what he called a legal what?

He argued the constitution said nothing about a failed budget, so the previous year's budget simply carried on.

Under the 1865 Gastein Convention, Prussia took Schleswig while Austria received which duchy?

Austria's later demand that the Diet settle the duchies gave Bismarck his pretext for war in 1866.

How long did the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 last?

Prussia's win at Königgrätz was decisive, and Bismarck insisted on a soft peace with no annexations from Austria.

Which battle decided the war of 1866 in Prussia's favour?

The king wanted to march on Vienna; Bismarck enlisted the crown prince to talk him out of it.

Which country did Bismarck secretly ally with before the 1866 war, forcing Austria to split its forces?

Italy wanted Venetia, which it duly annexed after Austria's defeat.

In 1866 Ferdinand Cohen-Blind shot Bismarck how many times at close range, causing only minor injuries?

Cohen-Blind killed himself in custody; Bismarck later blamed socialists for two 1878 attempts on the Kaiser instead.

What federation did Bismarck create under Prussian leadership after Austria's 1866 defeat, excluding Austria?

It bound the smaller northern states to Prussia and pointedly excluded Austria.

What is the edited account Bismarck published in 1870 to goad France into war called?

Wilhelm was taking the waters at Bad Ems; France declared war six days later, on 19 July 1870.

The crisis of 1870 began when a Hohenzollern candidate was offered the throne of which country?

Leopold withdrew, but Paris then demanded a promise that no Hohenzollern would ever seek the crown again.

Napoleon III was captured at which battle of the Franco-Prussian War?

Bismarck kept him in Germany for a while in case he was needed to head a French regime; he died in exile in England in 1873.

The King of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor on 18 January 1871 in which room?

The new empire was a federation of 25 states, with the emperor only 'first among equals'.

Which two provinces did France cede after 1871, poisoning Franco-German relations for decades?

Historians debate whether Bismarck wanted the annexation or was pushed by Moltke and public opinion.

On what basis was the war indemnity France paid after 1871 calculated?

It was worked out by population, as the precise equivalent of the 1807 indemnity.

What did Bismarck recite, apparently to mock the French, in his only known voice recording of 1889?

A biographer says he did it 19 years after the war purely to needle France.

What title was Bismarck given in 1871 after unification?

He also bought a former hotel at Friedrichsruh near Hamburg, which became his estate and eventually his mausoleum.

Bismarck's 1870s campaign against the Catholic Church in Prussia is known by what name?

Every Prussian bishop was imprisoned or exiled and the Jesuits expelled, yet Catholics answered by building the Centre Party.

Which religious order was expelled from Germany in 1872 during Bismarck's anti-Catholic campaign?

An 1875 law then required civil ceremonies for weddings to be legally recognised.

Bismarck dropped his anti-Catholic campaign in 1878 because he needed whose votes?

The more pragmatic Pope Leo XIII, elected that year, negotiated away most of the anti-Catholic laws.

Bismarck's Anti-Socialist Laws of 1878 followed two failed assassination attempts on whom?

He blamed the Social Democratic Workers' Party without evidence; some 330 workers' organisations were banned over twelve years.

Bismarck's welfare programme, his 'practical Christianity', was mainly designed to undermine which movement?

He created the first welfare state, but the Social Democrats kept gaining votes at every election anyway.

Bismarck's first successful social insurance law, passed in 1883, covered what?

Employers paid a third and workers two-thirds; accident insurance followed in 1884 and old-age pensions in 1889.

Bismarck's 1889 old-age pension law paid an annuity to workers who reached what age?

Unlike the earlier laws it covered all categories of workers, from farm labourers to servants.

In 1873 Bismarck formed the League of the Three Emperors between Germany, Russia and which other power?

His nightmare was a hostile combination of Austria, France and Russia, so he made sure to be allied with two of the three.

Bismarck hosted the 1878 congress that revised the Treaty of San Stefano in which city?

It shrank the new pro-Russian Bulgaria and left Russia's foreign minister Gorchakov furious with him.

What was Bismarck's secret 1887 agreement with Russia to prevent a Franco-Russian alliance called?

In retirement he published its text in his memoirs, a breach of secrecy that would have seen a lesser man prosecuted.

Bismarck's 1882 Triple Alliance joined Germany and the Habsburg empire with which third country?

It followed the 1879 Dual Alliance, in which Germany and Austria-Hungary guaranteed each other against Russian attack.

Which Kaiser forced Bismarck to resign in March 1890?

The young emperor wanted a 'place in the sun' and disliked being lectured; Bismarck was 75.

Frederick III, between the first two Kaisers, reigned for how many days before dying of throat cancer?

His son's impatience with Bismarck's cautious diplomacy sealed the old chancellor's fate.

Who succeeded Bismarck as Imperial Chancellor in 1890?

The dismissed Bismarck was consoled with the rank of Colonel-General with the Dignity of Field Marshal.

On his dismissal Bismarck received a title he joked would be useful when travelling incognito. What was it?

He was then elected to the Reichstag for a Hamburg seat but was so humiliated by being forced to a second ballot that he never took it up.

What is the title of the memoirs Bismarck wrote in retirement, continuing his feud with the Kaiser?

'Thoughts and Memories' is lauded by historians even though he dramatised events and flattered himself throughout.

Bismarck died in 1898 at which estate, where he is entombed in a mausoleum?

He was 83, wheelchair-bound with gangrene in his foot that he had refused to have treated.

How did Bismarck deliver a posthumous snub to the Kaiser who had dismissed him?

The sarcophagus reads 'A loyal German servant of Emperor Wilhelm I' — pointedly not the grandson who sacked him.

Which US state capital is the only one named after a foreign statesman, Bismarck?

The Bismarck Archipelago off New Guinea and the Bismarck Sea also carry his name.

Which army reformer and chief of staff share credit with Bismarck for transforming Prussia?

Roon reorganised the army, Moltke supplied the strategy and Bismarck the diplomacy.

Bismarck said it was foolish to play chess with how many of the 64 squares put out of bounds?

The remark turned ironic: after 1871 France became Germany's permanent enemy and allied with Russia in the 1890s.

While stationed as an army reservist in 1838, what subject did Bismarck study at Greifswald?

He had earlier studied law at Gottingen, where he joined the Corps Hannovera, and then at Berlin.

Which German city hosts the gleaming white 1906 Bismarck Monument in its St. Pauli district?

Bismarck towers were raised on four continents in his memory.