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Many conservatives certainly harboured worries about Francesco Crispi's democratic leanings and the possibility that his impulsiveness might embroil Italy in some risky foreign adventure; but such fears were tempered by relief that after years of weak government the country had a leader who could impart dignity and authority to the institutions. When Agostino Depretis died in July 1887, Crispi became interim Foreign Minister. Few doubted that Crispi would soon be prime minister as well; and most had no problem with the idea. Central to Crispi's foreign policy — central to his first term as prime minister from 1887 - 1891 — was a desire to involve Italy in a successful war against France. This chapter discusses Crispi's famous visit to German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck early in October 1887; Crispi's speech in Turin after his visit to Bismarck; the signing of military convention between Italy and Germany; and Italy's trade war with France.

Two months after Italian soldiers captured Rome, general elections were held in Italy. Francesco Crispi stood again in the college of Castelvetrano. He had also been elected in the college of Tricarico, in Basilicata; and it was for this constituency that he decided to take his seat in parliament. The Italian nation needed first and foremost to be affirmed morally; and that, Crispi felt, required dynamic leadership, major political (as well as socioeconomic) reforms, vigorous anti-clericalism, and a strong foreign policy. Helping to hone these ideas was Crispi's continued and growing admiration after 1870 for Germany, especially Otto von Bismarck's achievements. This chapter discusses Bismarck's influence on Crispi in the field of politics, Crispi's tenure in parliament from 1871 to 1876, his affair with Lina Barbagallo, his election as President of the Chamber of Deputies in November 1876, his visit to Europe, and his appointment as Minister of the Interior.

Germany was unified in 1871, creating a new great power in the center of Europe. Surprisingly, the first concerted effort to balance against Germany did not come until the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1893. This chapters explains this sustained cooperation by focusing on Germany Chancellor Otto von Bismarck’s efforts to keep the other great powers of Europe focused on short-term opportunities for cooperation rather than the potential long-term threat posed by Germany. Uncertainty about long-term German intentions created the conditions under which mutually beneficial short-term cooperation was possible.

The Six Weeks War, which culminated in the battle of Königgrätz, remains one of the most decisive and fateful conflicts of the nineteenth century. The notion of a modern united Germany under Prussian leadership was born here. German hegemony in Europe, and the two terrible wars of the twentieth century fought to prevent it, could not have happened without Prussia's victory in 1866. This chapter describes the men who initiated this chain of events. On the Prussian side was the “Iron Chancellor”, Otto von Bismarck (1815—98), whose political statecraft first cajoled a reluctant Prussian monarch into war with Austria. The second Prussian protagonist of that day was Helmuth von Moltke, Chief of the Prussian General Staff. During this battle he directed operations with almost unfailing skill despite being in his 67th year. Ludwig Benedek was the unfortunate officer who was “on call” to confront these formidable characters and was summoned to sacrifice himself for the Habsburg dynasty.

After briefly mentioning some Reformation-related commemorations that took place after the tercentenary in 1817, this chapter profiles the 400th anniversary of Martin Luther’s birth in 1883 as it was celebrated in Germany (which had achieved national unity in 1871) and in the United States. It argues that while, again, older religious motivations persisted, these commemorations bore witness to a pungent nationalism and/or to a type of “civil religion” as it manifested itself in these two nation-states. Throughout, this chapter also looks at some of the monuments that were erected in the nineteenth century to commemorate Martin Luther and the Reformation.

This chapter examines the rise of the welfare state in the United States following the Great Depression. It begins with a historical background on the welfare state, tracing its origins to Germany under Count Otto von Bismarck and discussing Britain's social welfare legislation that was passed in 1911. It then considers the views of Arthur C. Pigou, who published his basic work on economics, The Economics of Welfare, in 1920, and a host of factors that sparked the movement toward the welfare state. In particular, it looks at the role of the institutionalists, led by John R. Commons, and the University of Wisconsin as the source of both the ideas and the practical initiative basic to the welfare legislation. Finally, it describes the Social Security Act of 1935 and the business reaction to it.

This chapter discusses the nineteenth century name “Canossa” and how it became synonymous, for Germans of strong nationalistic disposition, with the abject humiliation of a German emperor and the German national spirit at the arrogant hands of a foreign religious potentate. It is argued here that it is only via a casual anachronism that one could assume a convincing symmetry to exist between the events of 1872 and those of 1076. In 1872, Otto von Bismarck, chancellor of the newly unified German Reich, proclaimed to the Reichstag that “we will not go to Canossa.” This proclamation was made during the launch of the so-called May laws aimed at asserting state control over Roman Catholic schools, and over the education and appointment of Catholic priests. The events of 1076 involved the humiliation at Canossa of the emperor Henry IV. The humiliation may have been a small price to pay, however, since it became a tactical strategy that threatened to sunder the alliance which had arrayed against him.

This chapter considers the United Kingdom’s rivalry with Germany in the late 18th and early 19th centuries. After nearly two centuries of ascendancy, the UK was challenged by an autocratic Germany growing in the heart of Europe. The two clashed in World War I, and the United Kingdom emerged victorious and with its largest-ever territorial expanse, expanding its empire into the Middle East. World War II took a harder toll on the UK, but, again, with the help of its navy, its financial power, and its democratic allies—and in no small part to the heedless decision-making of its autocratic rival—it once again prevailed.