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Bismarck: The Man and Statesman, by A.J.P. Taylor
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A reevaluation of Bismarck's motives and methods, focusing on the chancellor's rise to power in the 1860's and his removal from office in 1890.
- Sales Rank: #690074 in Books
- Published on: 1967-10-12
- Released on: 1967-10-12
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 6.89" h x .61" w x 4.21" l, .40 pounds
- Binding: Mass Market Paperback
- 288 pages
From the Inside Flap
A reevaluation of Bismarck's motives and methods, focusing on the chancellor's rise to power in the 1860's and his removal from office in 1890.
From the Back Cover
'...Mr. Taylor has performed the difficult task of compressing the most earth-shaking career between Napoleon and Hitler into fewer than 300 pages with conspicuous success.' --(London)Times Literary Supplement
About the Author
Alan John Percivale Taylor, born in Lancashire in 1906, studied at Oriel College, Oxford. From 1953 he was a lecturer in international history at Oxford, also enjoying a successful career as a broadcaster. Taylor's many books include The Struggle for Mastery in Europe 1848 -1918 (1954). The origins of the Second World War (1961) and English History 1914-1945 (1965). Taylor died in 1990.
Most helpful customer reviews
19 of 20 people found the following review helpful.
Bismarck as only Taylor can write him
By Holff
Taylor's thesis is not meant to be an all inclusive telling of Bismarck's life from beginning to end; rather it highlights the most important events which made him famous, often notorious. As with The Second World War, Taylor takes a controversial stance in presenting his topic in order to disclaim the common misperceptions of Bismarck as a warmonger and tyrant bent on German dominance. By using reliable first-hand sources, Taylor shows how Bismarck often opted to go against popular opinion to assure peace in Europe. While this may sound entirely contradictory to contemporary historical record, Taylor does show how every goal set and made by Bismarck was ultimately to his advantage.
Taylor's Bismarck is a concise look at arguably the most influential statesman in Germany if not the world. No noticeable bias is present in Taylor's portrayal of Bismarck as he shows strength and weakness, success and failure in equal portions. While it is not all inclusive and is written for an audience with a certain level of prior knowledge of 19th Century German history, Bismarck is well composed, easy to follow and educational.
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
More commentary than biography
By Joel Dietz
As previous reviewers have noted, this biography presumes a rather wide-ranging previous knowledge of both European and German history, including various specifics of Bismarck's own life and times. This makes it a rather poor first biography for the man.
Furthermore, the author intersperses his own acerbic wit and commentary throughout the text, presuming he knows why Bismarck made the various decisions that he did and evaluating on his own terms. This also makes it a rather poor introduction to Bismarck as man. Those genuinely interested in the psychological aspects to this great figure would probably wish to know how he arrived at his various opinions, including those commonly reckoned counter-revolutionary. The author merely presumes he knows and criticizes on the basis of this presumption, yet without explaining any of the formative steps that lead him to his various unpopular opinions. At least the modern psychological biography attempts to deconstruct. Taylor, instead, leaves us with little or nothing.
For example, at the end of the book we are still left asking why Bismarck has achieved all that he has in the course of his life. Taylor presumes his frequent invocation of a sovereign deity is a farce. But, in that case, what is it that motivates Bismarck? He is apparently quite indifferent to the world at large. He lives at some degree of remove from society and continues to cherish his family first and foremost. He also does not seem to put much stock in worldly possessions.
What was it that motivated this great figure? How did he arrive at his opinions? Which opinions were constant and which changed with the times and circumstances? What did he ultimately achieve?
All of these questions remain unanswered at the end; they are not even asked.
8 of 9 people found the following review helpful.
The Iron Man
By Omer Belsky
I have long been fascinated by Otto von Bismarck, the architect of Germany's Unification, and its Iron Chancellor. Bismarck seemed an enigma: a Conservative who started the welfare state, a Prussian nationalist who made Germany into a great power, an "Iron and Blood" man who presided over and managed Europe's peace. Above all lies the question of Bismarck relations and responsibility for the Third Reich. Richard Evans opened his epic The Coming of the Third Reich by asking "Is it wrong to begin with Bismarck?"
I ran into this old biography by one of Britain's most distinguished, and controversial, historians in Foyles, London's largest bookstore. I normally prefer up to date histories, but the other books about Bismarck I found there did not strike my interest. A.J.P Taylor, though, has a way with words, even if the way he employs them would strike one as slightly anachronistic (e.g. when he says that, "unlike most men", Bismarck did not marry his mother, but her exact opposite. For better or worse, such Homilies would not find a place in a serious contemporary biography). I wish the editors would have added an introduction or an afterward by a contemporary scholar, to point out what half a century of scholarship has added to out knowledge of the subject.
Bismarck, seven years younger than Abraham Lincoln, came to power about the same times as the 16th American President. Like William Pitt the Younger (see William Hague wonderful William Pitt the Younger: A Biography), he had been chosen by the Monarch, in his case Prussian King Wilhelm I, to promote the sovereign's interests against a reluctant Parliament, in Bismarck's case, one composed of Prussian Liberals. Bismarck had done his duty, but from the get go, his alliance with the King was tactical, a means towards his own ends. Grudgingly, Wilhelm gave way on Bismarck's foreign policy agenda.
Bismarck's foreign policy aimed to increase Prussia, and later Germany's power and influence, by fostering productive alliances among the great powers and breaking dangerous ones. To that end, Bismarck led Prussia, in an alliance with Austria, to a war against Denmark in 1864, over Schleswig, a disputed land under partial Danish sovereignty. Two years after winning that war, a Prussian Austrian war broke over the administration of the province and of influence in Germany. The result was a unified Northern Germany under Prussian leadership.
"In Victory, magnanimity": When forming the new Germany, Bismarck found himself unexpectedly in alliance with the Liberals, against the conservative King and various German Princes. The Liberals loved him for uniting Germany, and he could use their power to make the King do his bidding. Furthermore, the various South German states would be more willing to join a German state than a Prussian one. Thus was the end of Bismarck's Prussian career, and the beginning of his Pan German one.
The Franco Prussian War, which broke down in 1870, was Bismarck's last war. Bismarck hadn't planned it; ironically, the "Blood and Iron" man was adverse to war: as a civilian he disliked the necessity of placing power in the hands of Generals, and as a control freak he abhorred the risks war entailed. Nor was Bismarck entirely immune to the pacifistic revulsion from war: "No one who has looked into the eyes of a man dying on the battlefield will again go lightly into war" he said (quoted on p. 105).
The war came over a dispute between France and Germany over the Spanish crown, left open after the 1868 Revolution which disposed Bourbon Queen Isabella II (Taylor's account follows the general outline as the more recent account by David Wetzel in A Duel of Giants: Bismarck, Napoleon III, and the Origins of the Franco-Prussian War). Although Bismarck did not want the war, he used it to his advantage, and claimed to have planned it all along.
During the war, unification of Germany was completed. It was brought on by military necessity - with Germany still divided into several separate state, albeit with a central command of the army at war time, an unpopular war might have led some of the states to withdraw their armed forces. Bismarck thus brought forward a radical policy, which included universal suffrage, free trade, and a strong anti Catholic campaign, the Kulturkampf.
This policy lasted for most of the 1870s. In 1878, a combination of internal and external circumstances led him to embrace change at home and abroad - he would set a course which, arguably, set the stage for both the German welfare state and the Empire's destruction in the Great War.
Internally, Bismarck moved away from the Liberals and towards a more conservative position. He gradually relaxed the anti Catholic measures, bringing the Kulturkampf to an end. He abandoned the principles of Free Trade, and started the first Social Insurance scheme in history. With legislation regarding Health and Accident Insurance in 1883 and 1884, and finally, old age pensions enacted in 1889, Bismarck helped create the modern society we know today.
In foreign affairs, a high mark was the Congress of Berlin of 1878. In Taylor's analysis, Bismarck has helped Russia receive a more or less dignified way out of its overly successful military actions against the Turks, which were objectionable to Britain and Austro-Hungary, thus preserving European Peace. Taylor's account is powerful, although there are competing interpretations. It certainly improves on the one I recently read in the Richard Aldous's The Lion and the Unicorn: Gladstone vs. Disraeli, even if both highlight the close connection and mutual appreciation of Bismarck and Beaconsfield (Disraeli). Here too, Taylor's account is superior, pointing out the underlying similarities and affinities between the Junker and the Jew.
Bismarck followed the Berlin triumph by one of the most questionable acts of his public career, a close (and official) alliance with Austria. Leaning the Austrian way in 1879 made sense - it helped keep the balance of powers so treasured by Bismarck - but by signing a formal alliance, Bismarck committed Germany to Austria more than to any other power, thus arguable planting the seeds to the disastrous alliances between the two countries in the 20th century.
As long as Wilhelm I reigned in power, Bismarck could count of the Emperor's support when facing a hostile Reichstag (the German Parliament), and vice versa. But in 1888, the year of the three emperors, Wilhelm passed away, and his son followed a hundred days later. The crown went to his grandson, Wilhelm II - who had no great love for Bismarck, and who wanted to reign himself. Bismarck, now in his seventies, was unwilling or unable to court him as he had courted Wilhelm I. The Reichstag election brought new power to the Social Democrats and the Catholics - Bismarck's enemies - and Wilhelm I would not support him. Desperate maneuvers to hold on to power failed, and in 1890, aged seventy five, he was forced to resign.
Bismarck did not enjoy retirement. Bitter and angry, he felt himself irreplaceable, and perhaps he was right. He said: "Jena came twenty years after the death of Frederick the Great; the crash will come twenty years after my departure if things go on like this." As Taylor points out, his prophecy was fulfilled almost to the month.
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