56 Bolívar, Simón Austrians and their Hungarian allies In the Six Weeks’ War, the Prussians and their German allies defeated the Austrians and Hungarians Peace between Prussia and Austria came in the Treaty of Prague in August 1866 To Bismarck, the defeat of Austria was only a means to remove Austria from the German equation— to leave Germany’s destiny in Prussian hands Accordingly, out of the war came the North German Confederation, which Bismarck saw as a stepping stone to complete Prussian domination of the Germanic states Bavaria, a southern contender for prominence, had also been humbled—but not crushed—during the Austrian war With Franz Josef of Austria-Hungary removed from the equation, there was only one player on the European scene with plans for Germany: Emperor Napoleon III of France Although popularly elected in the wake of the French Revolution of 1848, in 1852, Louis- Napoleon Bonaparte had seized power in a military coup, much as his uncle had done in November 1799 Napoleon began to see himself also as the arbiter of German affairs, which was something Bismarck could not abide At first, Napoleon desired only territorial compensation from Bismarck in return for his neutrality in the Six Weeks’ War However, when Napoleon decided he wanted Luxembourg, Bismarck was able to marshall German opposition to French desires on German land The flash point, however, came in Spain There was a succession crisis when Queen Isabella II of Spain was deposed in 1868 Spain looked for a candidate for the throne and decided on a member of the House of Hohenzollern—the reigning house of King Wilhelm I of Prussia Napoleon feared encirclement, and tension rose in both France and Prussia The Hohenzollern candidacy was withdrawn, but Napoleon III foolishly kept up the diplomatic pressure to make it appear as a clear-cut French triumph Rather than suffer a strategic blow, Bismarck doctored the infamous Ems Telegram to King Wilhelm I to make it appear that the French had deliberately tried to humiliate the Prussian monarch The end result was predictable French pride rose up, and Napoleon answered with hostility On July 19 France declared war on Prussia By August 1870 France and Prussia, backed by the North German Confederation, began hostilities From the beginning, the odds were in the favor of the Prussians and their allies: In the face of their 400,000 troops, Napoleon III only was able to muster about half of that number On September 2, 1870, Napoleon surrendered to the Germans With peace of a sort in place with France, Bismarck had achieved his goal Germany was united under the new emperor, or kaiser, Wilhelm I Bismarck had no more territorial aspirations Instead, he devoted his career so that the new imperial Germany could progress in peace With France militarily neutralized (at least for a time), Bismarck devoted his attention to the Austrian Empire, the Dual Monarchy, and czarist Russia Bismarck’s goal was essentially to re-create the balance of power that had been put in place by the Congress of Vienna, which had brought 40 years of peace until Britain and France had confronted Russia in the Crimean War of 1854–56 The peace he sought for imperial Germany would also benefit the rest of Europe and became his lasting contribution to history Bismarck, the minister-president (prime minister) of Prussia and the Iron Chancellor of the German Empire, died on July 30, 1898 He did not live to see the adventurist policies of Wilhelm II contribute to the coming of World War I in August 1914 and the ultimate destruction of the German Empire that he had worked so passionately to create and to preserve See also Berlin, Congress of (1878) Further reading: Howard, Michael Franco-Prussian War: The German Invasion of France 1870–1871 London: Routledge, 2001; Laffin, John Jackboot: A History of the German Soldier, 1713–1945 New York: Barnes and Noble, 1995; Pflanze, Otto Bismarck and the Development of Germany Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1971; Taylor, J P The Struggle for Mastery in Europe: 1848–1918 New York: Oxford University Press, 1980; Williamson, D G Bismarck and Germany 1862–1890 London: Longman, 1998 John F Murphy, Jr Bolívar, Simón (1783–1830) liberator of South America Revered throughout Spanish-speaking Latin America as the “Liberator,” whose single-minded determination forced Spain to grant independence to South America’s nascent nation-states in the 1820s, Simón Bolívar occupies a singular position as perhaps Latin America’s greatest patriot and hero Statues and busts of Bolívar grace public plazas across the continent, while his contemporary relevance remains readily apparent, as in Venezuela’s Bolivarian revolution, brainchild of President Hugo Chávez, elected in 1998 This