The Unification of Germany Otto Von Bismarck and

The Unification of Germany Otto Von Bismarck and His Three Wars

Wilhelm I

The Zollverein

Prussian Flag of the Second Reich

Otto von Bismarck

The less people know about how sausages and laws are made, the better they'll sleep at night. -- Otto von Bismarck

"Never believe in anything until it has been officially denied. " -Otto von Bismarck

“The great questions of the day will not be settled by speeches and majority decisions – that was the mistake of 1848 and 1849 – but by blood and iron. ” Otto von Bismarck

Bismarck manipulating the Reichstag

Bismarck’s Military Buildup

The Danish War, 1864

War over Schleswig-Holstein, 1864. Members of the Order of Saint John and Rauhe-Haus Friars collecting the wounded.

The Austro-Prussian (7 Weeks) War

Bismarck’s Brutality, as seen by the French

Two Versions of the Ems Telegram Duc De Gramont

The Franco. Prussian War, 1870 -71

Franco-Prussian War, 187071

The Prussians surrounded Paris, set up their HQ at the Palace of Versailles, to the SW, and were able to bombard much of the city with Krupps' big new cannons.

Starved of news and communications with the rest of France, the city used the unused main-line railway stations and its precious reserves of coal-gas to make paper balloons, which volunteers used to take post out past the Prussians - a hazardous one-way trip.

Punch Magazine, 1870

Germans abusing French

Coronation of Wilhelm I

German Princes Swearing Allegiance to William I

Bismarck and the Catholics

Bismarck and the Socialists “The support given to (socialists by workers) rests on the fact that the judgment of the masses is sufficiently stultified and undeveloped to allow them, with the assistance of their own greed, to be continually caught by the rhetoric of clever and ambitious (socialist) leaders. ”

House of Hohenzollern

Wilhelm II, 1888 -1918

Unification of Italy

Mazzini: 18051872

"The republic, as I at least understand it, means association, of which liberty is only an element, a necessary antecedent. It means association, a new philosophy of life, a divine Ideal that shall move the world, the only means of regeneration vouchsafed to the human race. " Giuseppe Mazzini

Cavour: 1810 -1861

. . . We shall not have long to wait for our opportunity. . . I have faith that Italy will become one state and will have Rome for its capital. . . But remember, among my political friends no one believes the enterprise possible… -Cavour, in a letter to La Farina, Secretary of the Italian National Society, September 1857

Report of the meeting of Count Cavour with Emperor Napoleon III of France, 1858 The Emperor started by saying that he had decided to support Sardinia with all his forces in a war against Austria, provided that the war was undertaken for a nonrevolutionary cause, which could be justified in the eyes of diplomacy and still more of public opinion in France and Europe.

The history of every age proves that no people can attain a high degree of intelligence and morality unless its feeling of nationality is strongly developed. This noteworthy fact is an inevitable consequence of the laws that rule human nature. . . Therefore, if we so ardently desire the emancipation of Italy--if we declare that in the face of this great question all the petty questions that divide us must be silenced--it is not only that we may see our country glorious and powerful but that above all we may elevate her in intelligence and moral development up to the plane of the most civilized nations.

. . . Nationalism has become general; it grows daily; and it has already grown strong enough to keep all parts of Italy united despite the differences that distinguish them. Cavour, 1846

Victor Emmanuel II: 1820 -1878

Garibaldi: 1807 -1882

Garibaldi in London, 1864

We'll get a rope, And hang the Pope: So up with Garibaldi! Sung by schoolchildren during his visit to England

Garibaldi on Religion It is in vain that my enemies try to make me out an atheist. I believe in God. I am of the religion of Christ, not of the religion of the Popes. Priests. . . are the enemies of true religion, liberty, and progress; they are the original cause of our slavery and degradation, and in order to subjugate the souls of Italians, they have called in foreigners to enchain our bodies. The foreigners we have expelled, now we must expel those mitered and tonsured traitors who summoned them.

"Who, remembering Galileo, his genius and his life, the torture inflicted upon him, the martyrdom he suffered-he, I say, who, remembering this, does not despise the priests of Rome, is not worthy to be called a man or an Italian"

Garibaldi is pursued by 100, 000 of the Pope's soldiers. His beloved wife Anita, who is sick and pregnant, refuses to leave his side and she dies on the beach. The Pope had placed an enormous bounty on his head but not one Italian betrays him to the Papal Army.

A contemporary British cartoon, entitled "Right Leg in the Boot at Last, " shows Garibaldi helping Victor Emmanuel put on the Italian boot.

Pope Pius IX

Tosca is set in a very specific time and place: Rome, from June 17 to 18, 1800. But history in Tosca is distorted by nationalism and by the vehement anticlerical perceptions of papal Rome shared by Puccini, and the librettists.

Tosca and Mario are in love and all they want is to be left alone. Baron Scarpia, however, wants Tosca for his physical needs. He arrests Mario for aiding a fugitive and tells Tosca she can save him by giving herself to him. She agrees, but the kiss he has so longed for is the fatal kiss of a knife blade. He had promised to set up a false execution for Mario, but the treachery of Scarpia is revealed as Mario is killed. Tosca vows to meet Scarpia in front of God as she leaps over the side of the building to her death.