March 18, 1890: Kaiser Wilhelm II, the head of state for Germany, fires the head of government, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Effectively, this makes the Emperor the dictator of the largest and most powerful nation on the Continent of Europe.
Like the Russian term "Czar," the German term "Kaiser” is derived from the ancient Roman term "Caesar." We pronounce it "SEE-zer," but the Romans pronounced it "KIGH-zer."
Otto Eduard Leopold von Bismarck-Schönhausen was born on April 1, 1815 in Schönhausen, in Saxony-Anhalt, in eastern Germany, then considered part of Prussia. A Junker, a member of the landed nobility in Prussia, he rose rapidly in politics under King Wilhelm I. He served as the Prussian ambassador to Russia and France, and in both houses of the Prussian Parliament.
In 1862, the Kaiser named him Prussia's Minister President and Foreign Minister. Under Bismarck's leadership, Prussia provoked three short, decisive wars against Denmark, Austria and France. After Austria's defeat in 1866, he replaced the German Confederation with the North German Confederation, which aligned the smaller North German states with Prussia while excluding Austria.
In 1870, Bismarck secured France's defeat in the Franco-Prussia War with support from the independent South German states, before overseeing the creation of a unified German Empire under Prussian rule.
Following Germany's unification, he was given the aristocratic title Prince of Bismarck (Fürst von Bismarck). From 1871 onwards, his balance-of-power approach to diplomacy helped maintain Germany's position in a peaceful Europe.
While averse to maritime colonialism, Bismarck acquiesced to elite and popular opinion by acquiring colonies. As part of his domestic political maneuvering, Bismarck created the first welfare state, with the goal of undermining his Socialist opponents.
In the 1870s, he allied himself with the low-tariff, anti-Catholic Liberals, and fought the Catholic Church in what was called the Kulturekampf: "Culture Struggle." He was unsuccessful, with the Catholics responding by forming the powerful Germany Centre Party, and using universal male suffrage to gain a bloc of seats. Bismarck responded by ending the Kulturekampf, breaking with the Liberals, and forming a political alliance with the Centre Party to fight the Socialists.
A staunch monarchist, Bismarck ruled autocratically through a strong bureaucracy with power concentrated in the hands of the Junker elite. But on March 9, 1888, Kaiser Wilhelm I died, just short of his 89th birthday. And his son, Kaiser Friedrich III, was already dying of cancer of the larynx, and reigned for just 99 days, dying on June 15, 1888, at 56.
This elevated his son to the throne, and Kaiser Wilhelm II was just 29 years old. Given that he was 73, and did not know Friedrich was dying, he expected to die during Friedrich's reign, and had no plan for dealing with young Wilhelm on the throne. The new Kaiser opposed Bismarck's careful foreign policy, preferring vigorous and rapid expansion to enlarge Germany's "place in the sun."
Kaiser Wilhelm II, circa 1890
The final break came as Bismarck searched for a new parliamentary majority, as his Kartell was voted from power as a consequence of a fiasco over an anti-socialist bill. The remaining forces in the Reichstag were the Catholic Centre Party and the Conservative Party. Bismarck wished to form a new bloc with the Centre Party and invited Ludwig Windthorst, the parliamentary leader, to discuss an alliance.
That would be Bismarck's last political maneuver: Upon hearing about Windthorst's visit, Wilhelm was furious. In a parliamentary state, the head of government depends on the confidence of the parliamentary majority, and has the right to form coalitions to ensure their policies have majority support. However, in Germany, the Chancellor depended on the confidence of the Kaiser alone, and Wilhelm believed that the Kaiser had the right to be informed before his minister's meeting.
After a heated argument in Bismarck's office, Wilhelm -- to whom Bismarck had shown a letter from Czar Alexander III of Russia, describing Wilhelm as a "badly brought-up boy" -- stormed out, after first ordering the rescinding of the Cabinet Order enacted in 1851 by King Frederick William IV of Prussia, which had forbidden Prussian Cabinet Ministers from reporting directly to the King of Prussia and required them instead to report via the Prussian Prime Minister.
Bismarck, forced for the first time into a situation that he could not use to his advantage, wrote a blistering letter of resignation, decrying Wilhelm's interference in foreign and domestic policy. The letter, however, was published only after Bismarck's death.
After his dismissal, he was promoted to the rank of "Colonel-General with the Dignity of Field Marshal," so-called because the German Army did not appoint full Field Marshals in peacetime. He was also given a new title, Duke of Lauenburg, which he joked would be useful when travelling incognito. He was soon elected to the Reichstag as a National Liberal in a and supposedly safe Hamburg seat, but he was so humiliated by being taken to a second ballot by a Social Democrat opponent that he never actually took up his seat.
Bismarck entered into resentful retirement, and waited in vain to be called upon for advice and counsel. After his wife Johanna's death on November 27, 1894, his health worsened. He died on July 30, 1898, at 83. At the Bismarck Mausoleum, near his final home in Friedrichsruh, Schleswig-Holstein, his own sarcophagus is inscribed with the words, "A loyal German servant of Emperor Wilhelm I." This was an intentional snub of Wilhelm II.
Thanks to the ambitions and incompetence of Wilhelm II, the Empire ended after only 48 years. Had Friedrich III still been alive in the Summer of 1914, he would have been 82 years old, so it would hardly have been impossible for him to still be on the throne. Would World War I have been avoided? Or was there enough "war fever" in the Imperial German military that a war with Britain, or France, or Russia, causing the other alliances to kick in, was inevitable? We'll never know.
The Iron Chancellor's son, Herbert von Bismarck, was Foreign Minister from 1886 until 1890, resigning shortly after his father in protest. His son, Otto, thought he could change the Nazi Party from within, managed to save thousands of Croatian Jews from the Holocaust, before serving in the postwar Bundestag (federal legislature). Otto's son, Ferdinand, was a lawyer and a real estate tycoon. And Ferdinand's son, the Iron Chancellor's great-great-grandson, Carl-Eduard, Prince of Bismarck, is an investor and a former member of the Bundestag.
The capital of North Dakota, a State with a large German-American community, is named Bismarck. So was the leading German battleship of World War II.
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March 18, 1890 was a Tuesday. There were no scores on this historic day: Baseball was in Spring Training, football was out of season, hockey barely existed, and basketball was nearly 2 years away from being invented.
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