Causes and Prevention of War 17 42 MIT Stephen Van Evera THE AUSTRO PRUSSIAN WAR OF 1866 I BISMARCK S PLAN TO UNIFY GERMANY LET S BAIT AUSTRIA INTO STARTING A WAR In 1866 Germany was divided into several dozen mini states of which Prussia was the largest Prussia s Chancellor Otto von Bismarck 1862 1890 sought to unify Germany under Prussian leadership Main reason Prussia was geographically not contiguous and had long borders This left it insecure A united Germany would have better borders and more resources and so be more secure Toward the goal of dominating Germany Bismarck sought to remove Austrian influence in southern Germany by war He saw two prerequisites for this campaign 1 France Britain and Russia had to be induced to stay neutral while Prussia beat Austria and 2 the Prussian king had to be induced against his sentiments to declare war on his brother German Austrians Bismarck s solution Prussia would sweettalk the other European powers into not fearing Prussia and would bait Austria into starting the war If Austria starts war it will alienate the other powers and thus be easy pickings and the Prussian king will be outraged at Austria and declare war on it II BACKGROUND TO WAR EVENTS AND CONDITIONS A Bismarck s deceptions 1 Deceptions regarding Prussian capability We re weak 2 Spin regarding Prussian intentions We re benign Bismarck sent the Schweinitz mission to Russia to proclaim that Prussia had limited aims Note Prussian intentions were in fact limited After defeating France in 1871 Bismarck proclaimed Germany sated But after 1890 Germany s appetite grew vastly It turned out Bismarck could not speak for his successors B British French and Russian were indifferent to containing Prussia in part due to Bismarck s deceptions 1 Britain feared France more than Prussia and was generally isolationist 2 France saw advantage in what it thought would be a long fratricidal Prussian Austrian war It thought We can demand the Rhineland as our fee for breaking the stalemate for the victor 3 Russia felt solidarity with Prussia against the Poles whom they both cruelly oppressed and who hated them both Russia also was distracted from central European affairs by its focus on undoing the demilitarization of the Black Sea imposed by Britain on Russia in the peace that ended the Crimean War in 1856 C Prussia signed a 3 month offensive alliance with Italy April 8 1866 Terms include giving Italy parts of southern Austria D Austria mobilized its army April 21 1866 a fateful step Why did Austria take it 1 Austria received false reports that Italy was mobilizing and mobilized very quickly in response Where did these false reports come from Maybe the Austrian military deceived its civilians or perhaps Bismarck deceived Austria Alois Karoly Austrian minister in Berlin believed Bismarck was the source of the falsehood 2 Why did Austria mobilize against Prussia as well as Italy a Austrian leaders assumed Prussia had already decided for war They didn t realize that Prussia couldn t start a war if Austria didn t move first b Austria had only one mobilization plan It posited a 2 front mobilization 3 Results Prussia s king was outraged opted for war against Austria and Britain France and Russia stood aside indifferently The table is set for Prussian victory III WARTIME EVENTS A In Prussia there was bitter civil military conflict over war aims The Prussian army said Let s smash Austria completely And perhaps France Bismarck sarcastically responded Why not go all the way to Constantinople The army didn t get its way fortunately for Prussia B Prussian war aims nevertheless do modestly widen Prussia excludes Austria from Germany instead of dividing it with Austria at the Main IV CAUSES OF THE WAR PERHAPS AMONG THEM A Austria s false optimism B Prussia s search for security and Prussia s offensive opportunity C Bismarck s baiting and Austria s unwise decision to take the bait V WHAT CAUSED THE PEACE AN EMERGING DEFENSIVE ALLIANCE AGAINST PRUSSIA VI WAS A NEGOTIATED SOLUTION TO THE CRISIS POSSIBLE PROBABLY NO SCARY THOUGHT To gain Austrian concessions Bismarck would have had to scare Austria by showing muscle and a will to fight But that would have mobilized the other powers against Prussia tipping the overall balance of power against Prussia So Bismarck could not use coercive diplomacy THE FRANCO PRUSSIAN WAR OF 1870 I BACKGROUND A Bismarck s continuing deceptions We re weak and we re benign B Bismarck s provocations to France 1 He authored the Hohenzollern candidacy for the Spanish throne to spark French fears of Prussian encirclement of France 2 He edited the Ems telegram to inject disrespect and insult France This provoked France to mobilize in July 14 triggering war C Serendipity the Salazar telegram of June 21 was mis translated as Salazar will return July 9 not June 25 hence the Spanish adjourned the Cortes to escape the summer heat hence the election of the new king was deferred hence the Hohenzollern candidature remained alive into July Accidents matter D Due mainly to Bismarck s deceptions and France s idiot belligerence Russia Britain and Austria all decided to be unconcerned about the possibility of German victory and so stayed out of the war E First move advantage Michael Howard offers hints that France perceived such an advantage and mobilized to gain it II THE WAR EVENTS A France thought Prussia would take 6 weeks to mobilize its army In fact it took Prussia 3 weeks to mobilize and Prussia s mobilized army was twice the size of France s mobilized army B The Prussians crushed the French army in 6 weeks largely by inducing the French to unwisely take the offensive But then Prussia faced a long guerilla war of resistance by the French Subduing France proved very difficult C During the war German aims widened to include Alsace Lorraine In 1867 Prussia s chief of staff Helmut von Moltke the Elder declared We desire nothing from France But Prussia then demanded AlsaceLorraine Why Pressure from the Prussian military and Bismarck saw advantage in keeping France hostile to Prussia D There was bitter civil military conflict in Prussia over war aims and military operations Moltke sought to smash France utterly and wrongly dismissed Bismarck s fears of British or other intervention Moltke also resisted civilian control over his military operations by leaving civilians in the dark Bismarck complained that he learned about events on the battlefield only five days later in the newspaper III RELEVANT