Otto von Bismarck Trivia
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48 free Otto Von Bismarck trivia questions with answers — history quiz, new questions added Oct 2026.
This Otto von Bismarck trivia quiz covers the Prussian Junker who forged the German Empire and then spent two decades keeping Europe at peace. The easy questions ask about his nickname, the country he unified, the year the empire was proclaimed, the famous phrase from his 1862 speech and the Kaiser who dismissed him. Then it works through the three wars: Schleswig-Holstein and the Gastein Convention, the seven-week war against Austria and Königgrätz, the Ems Dispatch and Sedan, and the proclamation in the Hall of Mirrors. The hard end is for people who read diplomatic history for pleasure: the American friend from Göttingen who wrote him into a novel, the two English girls who nearly wrecked his career, the budget loophole he ruled through for four years, the assassin who shot him five times, the Kulturkampf and the Centre Party, the League of the Three Emperors and the Reinsurance Treaty, the sickness, accident and old-age insurance laws, the Duke of Lauenburg title he joked about, and the words he had carved on his own tomb. Every answer was checked against the encyclopaedia entries on Bismarck and the Ems Dispatch before publishing, and the supporting sentence is stored with each question. Our German history, Franco-Prussian War and 19th-century Europe quizzes are natural next stops.
30 of 48 questions with answers and explanations. Play the quiz
Q 01Otto von Bismarck's firm rule and Realpolitik earned him what nickname?
The Iron Chancellor
The Iron Chancellor. After three wars made Germany, he fought no more: he spent his two decades as chancellor keeping Europe at peace through a web of alliances.
Q 02Under Bismarck, Prussia fought three short wars against which three countries?
Denmark, Austria and France
Denmark, Austria and France. The three quick victories in seven years united Germany around Prussia and left the German-speaking Austrians outside the new nation.
Q 03Bismarck took office in 1862 amid a deadlock over funding what?
A larger army
A larger army. Deputies had refused to fund the king's military reforms, and he was ready to abdicate before Bismarck offered to govern without an approved budget.
Q 04Bismarck said in 1862 the great questions of the day would be decided not by speeches and votes but by what?
Iron and blood
Iron and blood. He said it to parliament's budget committee days after taking office, and the line, popularly flipped to 'blood and iron', came to stand for his whole brand of power politics.
Q 05Where was Bismarck born in 1815?
Schönhausen
Schönhausen. His family sold part of the estate when he was young, so for his 70th birthday in 1885 a national fund bought it back and presented it to him.
Q 06Bismarck came from which class of Prussian landed nobility?
Junker
Junker. That was his father's side only: his mother came from a middle-class family of officials and academics, and she steered him to city schools and a law degree.
Q 07Which breed were Bismarck's dogs, so famous that Germans nicknamed them 'dogs of the Empire'?
Great Dane
Great Dane. He kept the giant dogs at his side as bodyguards, and the nickname Reichshund, 'dog of the Empire', spread from his pets to the whole breed.
Q 08After the 1866 war Bismarck annexed which kingdom, deposing its king?
Hanover
Hanover. Its crown had been joined to Britain's until 1837; its king backed the losing side, and while Bismarck took no land from Austria itself, he made Hanover a Prussian province.
Q 09Whom did Bismarck marry in 1847?
Johanna von Puttkamer
Johanna von Puttkamer. Her family was famed for its devout Pietism, and while courting her the young squire had a religious conversion that steadied him for life.
Q 10In 1851 Bismarck was appointed Prussia's envoy to the Diet of the German Confederation in which city?
Frankfurt
Frankfurt. In its sessions only Austria's envoy presumed to smoke, so Bismarck took out a cigar and asked him for a light, claiming equal rank for Prussia.
Q 11Bismarck served as Prussian ambassador to which two countries before becoming Minister President?
Russia and France
Russia and France. In St Petersburg he won the goodwill of the tsar's court, and in Paris he sized up Napoleon III, the emperor he would beat in war eight years later.
Q 12Bismarck kept collecting taxes without an approved budget by pointing to a legal what in the Prussian constitution?
Loophole
Loophole. The constitution did not say what happened when no budget passed, so he simply carried on with the last one and collected taxes that way for four years.
Q 13Under the 1865 Gastein Convention, Prussia took Schleswig while Austria received which duchy?
Holstein
Q 21Napoleon III was captured at which battle of the Franco-Prussian War?
Sedan
Sedan. Capturing an emperor did not end the war: Paris declared a republic, fought on, and held out under siege for more than four months.
Q 22The King of Prussia was proclaimed German Emperor on 18 January 1871 in which room?
The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles
The Hall of Mirrors at Versailles. The ceremony was staged in Louis XIV's palace while Paris was still under siege, and in 1919 France had the treaty that ended the First World War signed in the same room.
Q 23Which two provinces did France cede in 1871, poisoning Franco-German relations for decades?
Alsace and part of Lorraine
Holstein. The deal lasted under a year: when Austria took the duchies' future to the federal Diet in 1866, Prussia called it a breach and marched its troops into Holstein.
Q 14How long did the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 last?
Seven weeks
Seven weeks. It is still called the Seven Weeks' War, and the speed was deliberate: Bismarck pressed for a quick end before France or another power could step in.
Q 15Which battle decided the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 in Prussia's favour?
Königgrätz
Königgrätz. The king and his generals wanted to march on to Vienna, but Bismarck talked them out of it and gave Austria a lenient peace.
Q 16Which fish is sold across Germany under Bismarck's name?
Herring
Herring. He is said to have loved the vinegar-cured fillets, and rival tales credit a Flensburg innkeeper or a Stralsund fishmonger with putting his name on them.
Q 17In May 1866 a student fired at Bismarck at close range on which street?
Unter den Linden
Unter den Linden. Bismarck spun round and seized the gunman himself, then walked home barely hurt; the student killed himself in custody that night.
Q 18What federation did Bismarck create under Prussian leadership after Austria's defeat in 1866?
The North German Confederation
The North German Confederation. Bismarck gave its parliament universal male suffrage, wagering that ordinary voters would turn out to be more conservative than the liberals.
Q 19What is the edited account Bismarck published in 1870 to goad France into war called?
The Ems Dispatch
The Ems Dispatch. Bismarck trimmed the king's polite telegram from the spa of Bad Ems until each side seemed to have snubbed the other, and France declared war within a week.
Q 20The 1870 crisis that led to the Franco-Prussian War began when a Hohenzollern prince was offered which country's throne?
Spain
Spain. The prince withdrew, but France then demanded a promise that no Hohenzollern would ever take the Spanish crown, and the king's refusal became the spark for war.
Alsace and part of Lorraine. The generals wanted the land as a buffer, and France did not forget: the two were not French again until 1918.
Q 24Which British magazine ran 'Dropping the Pilot', the famous 1890 cartoon of Bismarck leaving the ship of state?
Punch
Punch. Its artist John Tenniel, who also illustrated Alice in Wonderland, drew the old pilot stepping off as the Kaiser idly watches; Bismarck, sent a copy, reportedly called it a fine one.
Q 25In the only known recording of his voice, made in 1889, Bismarck recited the opening lines of which anthem?
La Marseillaise
La Marseillaise. On the same Edison cylinder he recited an American song, a student drinking song and a German poem, yet German papers reporting the session left the French anthem out.
Q 26What title was Bismarck given in 1871 after unification?
Prince (Fürst)
Prince (Fürst). With the rank came a gift from the emperor, a great tract of royal forest, which made a squire of modest means a wealthy landowner at last.
Q 27Bismarck's 1870s campaign against the Catholic Church in Prussia is known by what name?
Kulturkampf
Kulturkampf. The word, popularised by the liberal scientist Rudolf Virchow, means 'culture struggle', and the struggle failed: it emptied hundreds of parishes yet only stiffened Catholic resistance.
Q 28Which religious order was expelled from Germany in 1872 during Bismarck's anti-Catholic campaign?
The Jesuits
The Jesuits. The 1872 law cast them as emissaries of Rome and closed their houses across Germany, and it outlived Bismarck: softened only in 1904, it was not repealed until 1917.
Q 29Bismarck's 1870s anti-Catholic campaign set out to break which party but ended by strengthening it?
The Centre Party
The Centre Party. Formed in 1870 to speak for Germany's Catholics, it soon held about a quarter of the Reichstag's seats, and persecution only bound Catholic voters to it more tightly.
Q 30Two failed attempts in 1878 to kill which man let Bismarck outlaw a rival party's organisations?
Kaiser Wilhelm I
Kaiser Wilhelm I. Neither gunman acted for the party Bismarck blamed, yet he sent parliament home, campaigned on the scare and won a ban that was renewed for twelve years.