German Confederation and Empire
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Following the fall of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna founded the German Confederation, a loose league of 39 sovereign states. The appointment of the emperor of Austria as the permanent president reflected the Congress's rejection of Prussia's rising influence. Disagreement within restoration politics partly led to the rise of liberal movements, followed by new measures of repression by Austrian statesman Klemens von Metternich.[52][53] The Zollverein, a tariff union, furthered economic unity.[54] In light of revolutionary movements in Europe, intellectuals and commoners started the revolutions of 1848 in the German states, raising the German question. King Frederick William IV of Prussia was offered the title of emperor, but with a loss of power; he rejected the crown and the proposed constitution, a temporary setback for the movement.[55]
King William I appointed Otto von Bismarck as the Minister President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck successfully concluded the war with Denmark in 1864; the subsequent decisive Prussian victory in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 enabled him to create the North German Confederation which excluded Austria. After the defeat of France in the Franco-Prussian War, the German princes proclaimed the founding of the German Empire in 1871. Prussia was the dominant constituent state of the new empire; the King of Prussia ruled as its Kaiser, and Berlin became its capital.[56][57]
In the Gründerzeit period following the unification of Germany, Bismarck's foreign policy as chancellor of Germany secured Germany's position as a great nation by forging alliances and avoiding war.[57] However, under Wilhelm II, Germany took an imperialistic course, leading to friction with neighbouring countries.[58] A dual alliance was created with the multinational realm of Austria-Hungary; the Triple Alliance of 1882 included Italy. Britain, France and Russia also concluded alliances to protect against Habsburg interference with Russian interests in the Balkans or German interference against France.[59] At the Berlin Conference in 1884, Germany claimed several colonies including German East Africa, German South West Africa, Togoland, and Kamerun.[60] Later, Germany further expanded its colonial empire to include holdings in the Pacific and China.[61] The colonial government in South West Africa (present-day Namibia), from 1904 to 1908, carried out the annihilation of the local Herero and Nama peoples as punishment for an uprising;[62][63][64] this was the 20th century's first genocide.[63]
The assassination of Austria's crown prince on 28 June 1914 provided the pretext for Austria-Hungary to attack Serbia and trigger World War I. After four years of warfare, in which approximately two million German soldiers were killed,[65] a general armistice ended the fighting. In the German Revolution (November 1918), Wilhelm II and the ruling princes abdicated their positions, and Germany was declared a federal republic. Germany's new leadership signed the Treaty of Versailles in 1919, accepting defeat by the Allies. Germans perceived the treaty as humiliating, which was seen by historians as influential in the rise of Adolf Hitler.[66] Germany lost around 13% of its European territory and ceded all of its colonial possessions in Africa and the Pacific.[67]