His father, Karl Wilhelm Ferdinand von Bismarck (1771–1845), was a Swabian-descendant Junker estate owner and a former Prussian military officer; his mother, Wilhelmine Luise Mencken (1789–1839), was the well-educated daughter of a senior government official in Berlin whose family produced many civil servants along with academics.

[1] Despite the assets they held, their financial affairs were average; Ferdinand's below adequate agricultural skills led to a decreased salary, with Bismarck having never obtained any significant wealth before die Einigung, given the lack of such received from his father.

[6] Although Bismarck hoped to become a diplomat, he started his practical training as a lawyer in Aachen and Potsdam, and soon resigned, having first placed his career in jeopardy by taking unauthorised leave to pursue two English girls: first Laura Russell, niece of the Duke of Cleveland, and then Isabella Loraine-Smith, daughter of a wealthy clergyman.

A month after her death, Bismarck wrote to ask for the hand in marriage of Marie's cousin, the noblewoman Johanna von Puttkamer (1824–1894);[7] they were married at Alt-Kolziglow (modern Kołczygłowy) on 28 July 1847.

His selection was arranged by the Gerlach brothers, fellow Pietist Lutherans whose ultra-conservative faction was known as the "Kreuzzeitung" after their newspaper, the Neue Preußische Zeitung, which was so nicknamed because it featured an Iron Cross on its cover.

He accepted his appointment as one of Prussia's representatives at the Erfurt Parliament, an assembly of German states that met to discuss plans for union, but he only did so to oppose that body's proposals more effectively.

Wilhelm was initially seen as a moderate ruler, whose friendship with liberal Britain was symbolised by the recent marriage of his son Frederick William to Queen Victoria's eldest daughter.

These visits enabled him to meet and take the measure of several adversaries: Napoleon III in France, and in Britain, Prime Minister Palmerston, Foreign Secretary Earl Russell, and Conservative politician Benjamin Disraeli.

Originally, it had been proposed that the Diet of the German Confederation, in which all the states of Germany were represented, should determine the fate of the duchies; but before this scheme could be effected, Bismarck induced Austria to agree to the Gastein Convention.

They conclude that factors in addition to the strength of Bismarck's Realpolitik led a collection of early modern polities to reorganise political, economic, military, and diplomatic relationships in the 19th century.

The result was the Kulturkampf, which, with its largely Prussian measures, complemented by similar actions in several other German states, sought to curb the clerical danger by legislation restricting the Catholic church's political power.

[53] The British ambassador Odo Russell reported to London in October 1872 that Bismarck's plans were backfiring by strengthening the ultramontane (pro-papal) position inside German Catholicism: "The German Bishops, who were politically powerless in Germany and theologically in opposition to the Pope in Rome, have now become powerful political leaders in Germany and enthusiastic defenders of the now infallible Faith of Rome, united, disciplined, and thirsting for martyrdom, thanks to Bismarck's uncalled for antiliberal declaration of War on the freedom they had hitherto peacefully enjoyed.

[57] Imperial and provincial government bureaucracies attempted to Germanise the state's national minorities situated near the borders of the empire: the Danes in the North, the Francophones in the West and Poles in the East.

As minister president of Prussia and as imperial chancellor, Bismarck "sorted people into their linguistic [and religious] 'tribes'"; he pursued a policy of hostility in particular toward the Poles, which was an expedient rooted in Prussian history.

"[59] Bismarck's antagonism is revealed in a private letter to his sister in 1861: "Hammer the Poles until they despair of living [...] I have all the sympathy in the world for their situation, but if we want to exist we have no choice but to wipe them out: wolves are only what God made them, but we shoot them all the same when we can get at them.

For historian Eric Hobsbawm, it was Bismarck who "remained undisputed world champion at the game of multilateral diplomatic chess for almost twenty years after 1871, [and] devoted himself exclusively, and successfully, to maintaining peace between the powers".

[69] Historian Paul Knaplund concludes: Bismarck's main mistake was giving in to the Army and to intense public demand in Germany for the acquisition of the border provinces of Alsace and Lorraine, thereby turning France into a permanent, deeply-committed enemy (see French–German enmity).

[103]In domestic policy, Bismarck pursued a conservative state-building strategy designed to make ordinary Germans—not just his own Junker elite—more loyal to the throne and empire, implementing the modern welfare state in Germany in the 1880s.

Bismarck especially listened to Hermann Wagener and Theodor Lohmann, advisers who persuaded him to give workers a corporate status in the legal and political structures of the new German state.

If he falls into poverty, even if only through a prolonged illness, he is then completely helpless, left to his own devices, and society does not currently recognise any real obligation towards him beyond the usual help for the poor, even if he has been working all the time ever so faithfully and diligently.

The individual local health bureaus were administered by a committee elected by the members of each bureau, and this move had the unintended effect of establishing a majority representation for the workers on account of their large financial contributions.

To facilitate this, Bismarck arranged for the administration of this program to be placed in the hands of Der Arbeitgeberverband in den beruflichen Korporationen (the Organisation of Employers in Occupational Corporations).

He was succeeded by his son, Wilhelm II, who opposed Bismarck's careful foreign policy, preferring vigorous and rapid expansion to enlarge Germany's "place in the sun".

The next day, after realising his blunder, Bismarck attempted to reach a compromise with Wilhelm by agreeing to his social policy towards industrial workers and even suggested a European council to discuss working conditions, presided over by the Emperor.

Bismarck, feeling pressured and unappreciated by the emperor and undermined by ambitious advisers, refused to sign a proclamation regarding the protection of workers along with Wilhelm, as was required by the German constitution.

After a heated argument in Bismarck's office, Wilhelm—to whom Bismarck had shown a letter from Tsar Alexander III describing Wilhelm as a "badly brought-up boy"—stormed out, after first ordering the rescinding of the Cabinet Order enacted in 1851 by 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's astute, cautious, and pragmatic foreign policies allowed Germany to peacefully retain the powerful position into which he had brought it, while maintaining amiable diplomacy with almost all European nations.

Jonathan Steinberg, in his 2011 biography of Bismarck wrote that he was:a political genius of a very unusual kind [whose success] rested on several sets of conflicting characteristics among which brutal, disarming honesty mingled with the wiles and deceits of a confidence man.

Liberal intellectuals, few in number but dominant in the universities and business houses, celebrated his achievement of the national state, a constitutional monarchy, and the rule of law, forestalling revolution and marginalising radicalism.

There is reason to believe that he informed Wilhelm II of his wishes; after being forced by the sovereign to resign, he received the purely honorific title of "Duke of Lauenburg", without the duchy itself and the sovereignty that would have transformed his family into a mediatised house.