Relationship between the Franco-Prussian War and the rise of nationalism in Germany?

Germany had lost 50% of its civilian population in the 30 years war which was fought on German soil between Austria, Russia, Spain. France, Sweden and the Netherlands. It needed 120 years to recover just in time to be plundered by Napoleon seven times in a row. Out of sheer desperation the Prussians founded a military academy to study the mechanisms of warfare and to be able to defend themselves against the pillages of Napoleon. The Prussians were anything but anti French. The French language was the official language on the Prussian court. The Prussian King Friededrich the Great regarded "German" to be the language of "common people and kettle farmers". (That is why the largest medical university of Europe in Berlin still has the name "Charite´ "). When the Protestant French "Hugenottes" were given the choice to leave France or to become galley slaves, 75% of them accepted the offer of the Prussian king to settle in Prussia and to become Prussian citizens. One of the founding fathers of the Prussian military academy was Carl von Clausewitz who still is quoted in military academies all over the world. (One copy of the Prussian military academy is "West Point" by the way).

In 1866 the Prussians founded the "Northern German Federation". The largest states of the South, Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg , did not join the federation, being hostile to the Prussians and regarding them to be arrogant. In 1870 when the Earl of Sigmaringen, a small town in the very south of Germany, submitted an application for the vacant Spanish thone, Napoleon III., who another time had crushed the French democracy and declared himself an emperor and who was known not to be intellectually too brilliant, prove that assumption by declaring war against the Northern German Federation who most likely never ever before had heard of the "County of Sigmaringen" in the southern Kingdom of Württemberg. Napoleon "the intelligent" had assumed that he could beat the Prussians and their Northern allieds because the South would not come to their defense. Bismarck who was chancellor of the Northern German Federation at that time however in an extreme hurry negotiated a military alliance by accepting the most important conditions of th Southern States:

1. They would be paid for their effort

2. The Bavarian Army would not be under the command of the Prussian King (a feature with great importance. It was kept later in the German Reich of 1871 and led to the effect that in 1914 emperor Wilhelm II. had to declare the state of war for Germany "except for the territory of the Kingdom of Bavaria". The situation was attempted to be changed in 1920 by the socialist federal government of the Weimar Republic and let to Hitler's march to Berlin, known as "Beer Hall Putsch").

3. No southern soldier was obliged to wear the "Pickelhaube", the Prussian spiked helmet,for the Southerns a provocative symbol of Prussian arrogance.

Because the Soputhern Kingdoms had invested extremely into their railway system, another fact which had escaped Napoleon's attention, they were able to deploy their troops to the French border before the French army even had left their billets. This way Napoleon III. was captured in Verdun in the 6th week of the war when he arrived there in front of a cavalry platoon and to his astonishment had found out that the complete German army already had arrived too. After his capture the French Republic and democracy was re established in France. The German leaders having hoped that a democratic France would stop that most unnecessary war where however disappointed and had to fight the war until France was overpowered in 1871. The first time in history having successfully repelled a French aggression led to the Prussian military academy becoming very popular throughout Germany, mainly little children wanting to run around in German Navy Uniforms (look at a Donald Duck picture, he is wearing one). It also led to the foundation of the constitutional monarchy "German Reich" of 1871, the King of Prussia being the "Deutscher Kaiser" (German Emperor), not "Kaiser von Deutschland" (Emperor of Germany) which is a big difference and intentionally chosen by the fathers of the German constitution to reveal the fact that Germany in no way was an absolute monarchy. The German Emperors, mainly Wilhelm II. hated that title and regularly complained about it. It was never changed however. The contemporary popularity of the Prussian military academy later was and still is misused by British post war propaganda to create a false picture of German militarism. One of this hoaxes is accusing Bismarck to have fabricated the reason for the war. How he could have managed to make Napoleon III. to declare war against the wrong one is a question waiting to be answered by British anti German propaganda.

The Franco-Prussian War was engineered by the man who designed nationalism in Germany: Otto von Bismarck, worth Googling. Check out Bismarck's wiki article. He was chancelor of Prussia, a large Northern German state, at a time when Germany was broken up into 27 kingdoms. There HAD BEEN earlier attempts at unification: there had been, in fact, a mediaeval empire or "Reich" from the time of Charlemagne circa 800 AD until around 1806 or so when the last "Holy Roman Emperour" dissolved the Holy Roman and Germanic Empire or "First" Reich. About forty years after he did this, Austria was entirely seperate from the rest of Germany politically and there were 27 kingdoms dividing up what we TODAY know as the country of "Germany". Bismarck wanted to unify these 27 kingdoms into a "Second Reich" by having his boss, the King of Prussia, dominate the other 26 kings. He managed this through such political maneuvering as the Franco-Prussian War, which he started by sending false telegrammes to different kings while they were out of town and could not verify the facts, thus forcing them or tricking them into war. He variously bullied, persuaded, and browbeat different kings of the 26 kingdoms until finally, at the end of the Franco-Prussian War, they met at Versailles in a freshly-conquered France, and proclaimed the King of Prussia their Emperour or "Kaiser". This would have been circa 1860 or so.

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