How was Germany unified?

Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 · Paper 1 Section A, Core Content Option A Syllabus: 2027 and 2028 Option A: The nineteenth century: the development of modern nation states, 1848 to 1914 Key Question 3 of six

This is the Key Question that runs from the failed German revolutions of 1848 to the proclamation of the German Empire in 1871. It covers German nationalism, the Zollverein, the revolution in Prussia, the Frankfurt Parliament, Austria's recovery by 1850, Bismarck's appointment in 1862, and the three wars against Denmark, Austria and France.

If you came here for Italian unification, that is a separate Key Question with its own file, How was Italy unified?. If you came here for Weimar Germany, Hitler or the Third Reich, that is a Depth Study and nothing on this page will help you. Bismarck is on this page. What Germany did after 1871 is not.

1. What the syllabus actually asks

This is the wording printed in the Cambridge IGCSE History 0470 syllabus for 2027 and 2028. Learn the Key Question itself, because examiners build 10 mark questions straight out of it.

Key Question 3

How was Germany unified?

Focus points

• Why was Germany not unified in 1848 to 1850?
• How did Bismarck bring about Austria's defeat of 1866?
• How did Bismarck bring about France's defeat of 1870?
• How far was Bismarck responsible for the unification of Germany?

Specified content

• German nationalism
• The Zollverein
• The 1848 revolution in Prussia
• The setting up and eventual failure of the Frankfurt Parliament
• Re-establishment of Austrian influence in Germany by 1850
• Bismarck as Prussian Minister-President
• Bismarck's foreign policy to 1871:
• Schleswig-Holstein
• the Austro-Prussian War and its consequences
• relations with France
• the Spanish Succession and the Franco-Prussian War
• the creation of the German empire

How the three layers work

Cambridge defines them itself. Key questions set the over-arching issues. Focus points identify the issues that enable candidates to gain an understanding of the key question. Specified content gives guidance on what needs to be studied.

That means the four focus points are not four chapters to memorise in order. They are four arguments, and each is a ready made 10 mark question. Read them again as things you must be able to argue both ways.

Every one of those four has been set as a real 10 mark question between 2018 and 2024, and the fourth has been set far more often than the other three combined.

A note on the option title

Older material calls Option A things like "international relations and colonial expansion". The 2027 and 2028 syllabus does not. It reads The nineteenth century: the development of modern nation states, 1848 to 1914, on both the syllabus overview page and the subject content page. Use that.

A note on the dates, because the option header understates this Key Question

The option is headed 1848 to 1914, and that is the header for six Key Questions at once, not a boundary for each of them. This Key Question runs to its own end date, printed in the specified content as Bismarck's foreign policy to 1871, and it also starts earlier than the header does.

The Zollverein was formed in 1833 and the Hambach festival belongs to the 1830s, and both are examined. Cambridge has set part (a) on how the Zollverein worked and part (b) on why it encouraged German nationalism, neither of which can be answered inside 1848 to 1914 alone. So the working range for this Key Question is roughly the 1830s to 1871. Do not exclude a 1830s Zollverein point because the option header says 1848.

2. How Paper 1 marks this Key Question

The three level ladders, the three part structure, the assessment objective split and the two rules Cambridge changed for the 2024 series are the same on every question on this paper. They are set out in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes. Read that page once. Nothing below repeats it.

What follows is only what is true of this Key Question.

Where the question sits on the paper

Forty-eight Paper 1 mark schemes were read for these notes, covering the March, June and November series from 2018 to 2024. Thirty-five of them set a full three part question on German unification. Thirteen did not set one at all.

The four Option A questions run in Key Question order: 1848, then Italy, then Germany, then the United States, then empire, then the First World War. So Germany lands at question 2 whenever exactly one of the earlier two is set, and at question 3 in the rare paper that sets 1848 and Italy as well. All four of those were November papers.

The practical version: look at question 2 first. If question 2 is Italy or 1848, look at question 3. If neither is Germany, the topic is not on that paper, which happened in about one paper in four, so do not walk in assuming it will be there.

Part (a) on this content is generous

Part (a) changed for the 2024 series, and the change is described in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes. On this Key Question the consequence is comfortable rather than painful. Cambridge's own indicative lists for part (a) here run long: the November 2024 Schleswig-Holstein list carries ten bullets, the November 2018 version of the same question carries fifteen, and the North German Confederation lists carry ten each. There is no (a) question in this corpus where finding four separate points is hard, provided you know the topic at all.

Paper 2 uses this Key Question too, and one series matters

Paper 2 sets source questions on one prescribed topic taken from Section A, and the syllabus prints which topic belongs to which series. For examination in 2027 the syllabus states:

Nineteenth century Core content (Option A):
How was Germany unified? (March exam, India only)

So this Key Question is the Option A Paper 2 topic for the March 2027 series only. It is not the prescribed topic for June or November 2027, and it does not appear at all in the 2028 list, where Option A runs Italy in March, Italy in June and the First World War in November.

It has been a Paper 2 topic before. In the corpus read here, all three June 2018 variants and all three November 2021 variants set Paper 2 on this content, with titles such as who was responsible for the Franco-Prussian War, whether Bismarck was responsible for the war with Austria, and how important King William I of Prussia was.

3. The board before Bismarck: nationalism and the Zollverein

This section carries two pieces of specified content, German nationalism and the Zollverein. Both matter most as the counter-argument in focus point four, because they are what allows a candidate to say unification was already coming before Bismarck arrived.

German nationalism

Cambridge's own description of what German nationalism meant in 1848 is narrower than students expect. It supported the idea of a unified Germany, argued that a united Germany would be a strong Germany, often carried the idea of constitutional rule, sometimes came bundled with liberal reforms, and looked to Prussia for leadership, specifically to Frederick William as a possible first German emperor.

That last point is the one worth holding. German nationalism in 1848 was not anti-Prussian. It was already pointing at Prussia, nineteen years before Prussia took the job.

Mark schemes credit the visible expressions of it: the Hambach festival in the 1830s, festivals celebrating the victory at Waterloo, and later the Nationalverein, formed after the war crisis of 1859 following a meeting of liberals from across Germany and described in one scheme as the first national political organisation in German history.

The Zollverein

The Zollverein is a customs union, not a political one, and the whole argument turns on the gap between those two words.

Cambridge credits: several German customs unions joined together in 1833 to form it; it was set up and led by Prussia; Austria was not a member, excluded because of its highly protected industry; it managed tariffs and economic policy across member states; it abolished internal customs barriers, where before the flow of trade had been held up at hundreds of separate customs posts with different tariff rates and different regulations; it reduced the number of currencies in use; it encouraged railways and roads; it helped members industrialise; it made commercial agreements with outside countries such as Sweden; and by 1866 it included most German states.

1. Prussia builds a customs union and leaves Austria out
2. German states get rich trading with each other and with Prussia
3. they learn that acting together pays
4. economic habit hardens into political expectation
5. Prussia, not Austria, starts to look like the natural head of a German state.

That chain is the single most useful thing on this page for the 10 mark question, because it lets you argue unification without mentioning Bismarck once.

4. Focus point: why was Germany not unified in 1848 to 1850?

Three pieces of specified content live here: the 1848 revolution in Prussia, the setting up and eventual failure of the Frankfurt Parliament, and re-establishment of Austrian influence in Germany by 1850.

The revolution in Prussia

Why it broke out, in Cambridge's terms: food shortages and soaring prices, a rapid rise in unemployment, workers facing very difficult conditions, demands for a constitution and an end to censorship, and news of Metternich's dismissal in Vienna arriving and inflaming the protests.

What happened in Berlin: self-employed craftsmen went to the palace square to demand an improvement in their standard of living, threw stones at the troops guarding the palace, and the troops opened fire. A crowd gathered in front of Berlin Castle believing the King was about to announce liberal reforms, troops appeared to disperse them, shots were fired, and over 200 protesters were killed. Street fighting followed and barricades went up. The King agreed to withdraw the troops if the barricades came down.

Frederick William IV's own conduct is the examiner's favourite thread here, because it is contradictory and therefore arguable. He first tried to repress the revolution with the army. Then he withdrew the troops, called a national assembly, called for a constitution to be drawn up, and announced his support for the unification of Germany. Then, once his position was secure, he ordered the army to reoccupy Berlin, dissolved the assembly, and brought in a constitution of his own.

Why the revolution failed: the revolutionaries were never strong, and only got as far as they did because of the King's dithering. The Junker landowners plotted against the National Assembly. The middle classes were disturbed by street violence and split away from the more extreme elements. The army stayed loyal. When it finally acted the counter-revolution was bloodless. From November 1848 the King undid most of it: the liberal government went, his uncle was put in charge of a new one, the Prussian Assembly was dissolved, the Civic Guard was disbanded, troops poured into Berlin and martial law was declared, and the same happened across Prussia.

1. Frederick William hesitates in March
2. the revolutionaries take that hesitation for strength they do not have
3. the middle classes recoil from the violence and drop out
4. the army stays loyal throughout
5. in November the King acts, and the revolution collapses without a fight.

The constitution is the honest both-sides material. Cambridge sets it up as a genuine argument. Against: it confirmed the King's divine right to rule, left him in command of the army, and let him raise taxes and hire and fire ministers without Parliament having a say. For: it granted freedom of religion and of assembly, created a Parliament partly elected by all the men of Prussia, swept away feudalism, and encouraged a German nationalism that did not go away afterwards.

The Frankfurt Parliament

Why it was set up: risings across Germany produced demands for an all-German assembly, helped along by the deposing of Louis Philippe in France. Representatives met and agreed to form a pre-parliament, which prepared elections for a national constitutional assembly. Elections were held in the German states and the Assembly met at Frankfurt. Its purpose was to write a constitution for Germany and to help create a united Germany.

Why it failed, and this list is worth learning as a list because it is set as a 4 mark question in its own right:

• It took far too long to discuss ideas and reach decisions, and by the time it decided anything the revolutions were fading.
• It was made up of the educated middle classes, who had little understanding of what workers needed.
• It was divided between those who wanted a lesser Germany and those who wanted a greater Germany.
• It had no power base and no army to enforce its decisions, and the Prussian army refused to support it.
• It failed to win the support of the people.
• It could be, and was, simply disbanded by the Frankfurt authorities.
• Frederick William IV's refusal of the imperial crown finished it.

Why Frederick William IV refused the crown

This is set repeatedly and answered badly, because most candidates guess at modesty or fear. Cambridge's reasons are constitutional and snobbish rather than nervous. He rejected it because it was being offered by a Parliament and not by the German princes, and he did not think a Parliament elected by lower-class people had the right to offer it. What he actually wanted was something closer to a revived Holy Roman Empire of princes under a Habsburg emperor. One scheme adds that it was not clear to him whether the crown on offer included Austria or excluded it.

1. The Frankfurt Parliament offers Frederick William the imperial crown
2. he will not take a crown from an elected assembly rather than from fellow princes
3. the only body that wanted a united Germany has nothing left to offer anyone
4. the Parliament dissolves and 1848 ends with Germany exactly as it started.

Erfurt, Hesse-Cassel and Olmütz: Austrian influence restored by 1850

Prussia did try again, immediately, and lost. Cambridge's sequence:

• Prussia set up a Prussian-dominated union of German states, and the schemes call it the Erfurt Union, the Prussian Union and the League of Princes.
• Austria, its own fear of revolution having receded, proposed re-establishing the old German Confederation instead. In May 1850 Austria reconvened the Confederation at Frankfurt and every German state attended except Prussia and a few of its supporters.
• The ruler of Hesse-Cassel was overthrown and appealed for help. He went to Austria and the German Diet, not to Prussia. Austria sent an army of 200,000. Hesse-Cassel mattered to Prussia, and Frederick William did nothing and accepted the Austrian occupation.
• At Olmütz in 1850 Prussia backed down, abandoned its union, and accepted the restoration of the Bund under Austrian leadership.

1. Prussia builds a rival union at Erfurt
2. Austria revives the old Confederation and most states prefer it
3. Hesse-Cassel asks Austria for troops rather than Prussia
4. Prussia lets an Austrian army occupy a state in its own sphere
5. at Olmütz Prussia dissolves its union and accepts Austrian leadership, and the whole 1848 project is over.

Do not treat Olmütz as only a humiliation. Cambridge itself supplies the other side, and it is where the 10 mark marks are: in the short term Olmütz was a humiliation and proof that 1848 had failed, but in the longer term it bought Prussia time. Austria did not get everything it wanted and ran into serious financial problems, while Prussia grew economically through the 1850s and increased its influence in Germany. Bismarck, who had supported Olmütz at the time, had concluded by 1856 that Prussia would have to fight Austria for dominance. Army reform then made sure Prussia could win that fight quickly when it came.

Did 1848 help or hinder unification?

Set as a 10 mark question in its own right. Both sides, in Cambridge's own words.

It helped. It drew ordinary Germans into politics and made unification a live public issue, creating the groundswell of opinion that made Bismarck's later achievements possible. By offering the crown to the King of Prussia, the Frankfurt Parliament showed the shape of the answer: a Germany led by Prussia and excluding Austria. After Frankfurt, organising Germany without any German parliament was out of the question.

It hindered. The revolutions were a failure. Frederick William's refusal proved unification was no closer. The supporters of unification turned out to have no real power and the individual states reasserted themselves. The dissolution of the Erfurt Union and the return of the Confederation under Austria showed that nothing had been achieved.

5. Bismarck as Prussian Minister-President

Specified content in its own right, and set as both a 4 mark and a 6 mark question.

Prince Wilhelm became King of Prussia in 1861. In 1862 the Liberals dominated the House of Deputies and refused to authorise the money to reorganise and reform the Prussian army. The King's ministers tried to persuade them and failed, the King would not make concessions, and there was deadlock. He threatened to abdicate in favour of his son. Roon recommended Bismarck, on the grounds that Bismarck would either force the budget through or find another way round, and Wilhelm appointed him Minister-President in 1862.

Cambridge's reasons for choosing him: he was a strong supporter of the King, he was a Conservative, he had influential friends including Roon, he had a great deal of experience in foreign affairs, and he would get the money for military reform.

The army reform is the point of the appointment, and it is set as a 4 mark question about the years 1859 to 1862 and again about 1859 to 1866. Credited details: Roon appointed Minister of War; the budget increased; the Landwehr subordinated to the regular army; Moltke as Chief of the General Staff enlarging the General Staff, issuing a handbook for warfare and running war-game training for officers; the breech-loading needle gun introduced; a field army of 500,000 with a vast trained reserve; senior officers encouraged to use their own initiative; and the railways developed so that troops could be moved quickly.

1. The Diet refuses to fund the army
2. the King cannot govern and considers abdicating
3. Roon puts forward the one man who will govern without a budget
4. Bismarck takes office in 1862 and the army is rebuilt anyway
5. Prussia has the instrument for 1864, 1866 and 1870 before it has a plan for them.

6. Focus point: how did Bismarck bring about Austria's defeat of 1866?

Specified content here: Schleswig-Holstein and the Austro-Prussian War and its consequences.

The Schleswig-Holstein question

Learn the background, because part (a) asks for it directly and vaguely-remembered answers score nothing. Schleswig was Danish in its northern part and German in the south. Holstein was almost entirely German. Both duchies had traditionally been under Danish rule. Danish nationalists wanted Schleswig absorbed into Denmark; German nationalists wanted Schleswig tied to Holstein. An earlier round had produced a German uprising in the duchies supported by Prussia, Prussia driving Danish troops out, and then the Great Powers pressing Prussia into the London Protocol, under which the duchies went back to Denmark on condition the Danes did not bind Schleswig more closely to Denmark than Holstein. One mark scheme calls the whole thing the most difficult diplomatic situation of the nineteenth century.

The 1863 to 1864 round: the King of Denmark, Frederick VII, died, and the Danish government tried to sign a new joint constitution with Schleswig. Bismarck called for Holstein to be occupied. In December 1863 Saxon and Hanoverian troops marched into Holstein. In January 1864 Bismarck demanded the constitution be abandoned, Denmark refused, and Prussian and Austrian troops invaded Schleswig in February. The Prussian needle gun proved very effective. Denmark was defeated, the war ended with the Peace of Vienna, and Austria and Prussia took the duchies together.

The Convention of Gastein, 1865, is the hinge. It was signed between Prussia and Austria and settled how the duchies would be governed: Prussia would run Schleswig, Austria would run Holstein. Austria had to cross Prussian territory to reach the province it now administered.

1. Prussia and Austria win Denmark's duchies together
2. Gastein splits the administration between them
3. Austria's half is physically cut off behind Prussia's half
4. any disagreement over administration becomes a border dispute
5. Bismarck has a quarrel with Austria available whenever he wants one.

Was it a plan?

This is the argument, and Cambridge argues both sides of it.

Planned. He wanted to destroy Austrian influence in Germany, make Prussia the leading state and eventually unify Germany. He inflated the dispute over running Schleswig-Holstein into a provocation. He made an alliance with Italy, which only makes sense as preparation for war. He secured a promise of neutrality from Napoleon III. He picked the moment when the Prussian army was much stronger than Austria's. He sent Prussian troops into Holstein to provoke Austria into declaring war. When Austria mobilised and took the dispute to the German Diet, Bismarck declared war and invaded.

Not planned. The claim that he planned it is one he made much later. Allying with Austria against Denmark made straightforward sense at the time and expanded Prussia. He could not have known that Austria would do anything in Schleswig-Holstein that could be turned into a war. He responded to events as they came.

The war and its consequences

The war: Prussia had an alliance with Italy, and Italy's declaration of war forced Austria to divide its forces across two fronts. Prussian troops marched into Holstein. Moltke led the army into Saxony. The decisive battle was a crushing Prussian victory, and Cambridge names it both ways, as Koniggratz in one scheme and as Sadowa in another. It was over quickly, and the Peace of Prague was signed in July 1866.

The terms, and this list is set as a 4 mark question:

• The Habsburgs were permanently excluded from German affairs.
• The German Confederation was abolished.
• The North German Confederation was formed.
• Schleswig-Holstein became Prussian, giving Prussia access to the Baltic, good harbours on both the North Sea and the Baltic, farmland and fishing ports, and the possibility of cutting a canal across Holstein so that ships need not sail round Denmark.
• Hanover, Frankfurt and Nassau were annexed by Prussia, and north Germany was completely remodelled.
• The southern German states outside the Confederation paid large indemnities to Prussia.
• Venetia went to Italy. What that meant for Italy belongs in the How was Italy unified? notes.

Why the terms were mild on Austria is the detail that separates a good answer from an average one. Bismarck persuaded William I that keeping Austria's place in Europe intact would serve Prussia better in future than harsh terms, because he might need Austrian neutrality in a war with France. Harsh terms risked pushing Austria into a French alliance later.

The North German Confederation

Formed in 1867, after Prussia's victory and the dissolution of the old Confederation. Its capital was Berlin and it brought 22 states together, and Cambridge calls it the forerunner of the German Empire. It had a federal parliament, a Diet, elected by universal male suffrage, and a president whose office was hereditary in the Prussian crown. The King of Prussia was therefore President, commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and able to declare war and peace. Member states kept their own laws. It introduced free movement of people, a common postal system and common passports.

1. Austria is defeated and expelled from German affairs
2. the old Confederation is abolished and 22 northern states are gathered into a new one
3. its president is permanently the King of Prussia and its army is his
4. unification in the north has already happened, and only the southern states are left outside.

7. Focus point: how did Bismarck bring about France's defeat of 1870?

Specified content here: relations with France, the Spanish Succession and the Franco-Prussian War, and the creation of the German empire.

Relations with France: the Luxembourg crisis of 1867

Set as a 4 mark question and almost nobody knows it, which is exactly why it is worth ten minutes. Bismarck had promised Napoleon III French control of Luxembourg in return for French neutrality in a war with Austria. After Austria was beaten, Napoleon offered to buy Luxembourg from the Dutch, who agreed. Bismarck then went back on his promise, objected, and threatened war. The idea of France taking Luxembourg was very unpopular in Germany. Napoleon III demanded that Prussian soldiers leave Luxembourg City. A conference in London settled it by making Luxembourg neutral. France got nothing.

The point for an essay is not the outcome. It is that Bismarck had already discovered that a French claim on German-speaking territory united German opinion behind Prussia for free.

The Spanish Succession

Queen Isabella of Spain was overthrown by a revolution, and the question was who should succeed her. Prince Leopold, a relative of the Prussian royal family, was offered the throne. Bismarck persuaded William I to back the candidature. The French protested angrily, because a German prince on the Spanish throne would alter the balance of power in Europe and leave France with a hostile monarch on two frontiers. Leopold withdrew, at William's urging. France then over-reached: it demanded an official renunciation guaranteeing that the candidature would never be renewed. William refused.

The Ems telegram

A report of a meeting between King William I and the French ambassador, sent to Bismarck from Ems on 13 July 1870. Bismarck published it having left out key details, so that it read as though the French ambassador had been snubbed and the French had been insulted. There were protests in France, and France declared war on Prussia in July 1870.

1. France demands a guarantee it has no right to demand
2. William refuses politely and reports the meeting to Bismarck
3. Bismarck edits the report and publishes it so both sides look insulted
4. French opinion demands war and France declares it
5. Prussia is the injured party, and the southern German states join Prussia the moment France mobilises.

That last step is the whole reason the war was worth having. Cambridge is explicit: Bismarck knew a war with France would whip up German nationalism and bring southern states such as Bavaria in on Prussia's side, and that is what happened.

The war and the creation of the German empire

The war began on 19 July 1870 and ended on 28 January 1871. German forces were led by the Prussian Field Marshal Helmuth von Moltke. At Sedan on 1 September 1870 the Prussians encircled the French, broke their line of defence, took over 100,000 prisoners and captured Napoleon III himself.

What Germany gained:

• A united Germany, with the southern German states joining.
• King William I of Prussia proclaimed German Emperor at Versailles in January 1871, in the former palace of the kings of France.
• Alsace, part of Lorraine, and Metz annexed, with over 1,500 villages and towns transferred.
• Under the Treaty of Frankfurt of 1871, the frontier between the French Third Republic and the German Empire fixed, an indemnity of 5 billion francs payable within five years, and German troops occupying France's northern provinces at French expense until it was paid.

8. Focus point: how far was Bismarck responsible for the unification of Germany?

This is the big one. Fourteen of the thirty-five 10 mark questions in the corpus are versions of it: whether he planned it, whether he was an opportunist, whether force or diplomacy did the work, whether his policies or German nationalism mattered more.

The trap is that the question sounds like it wants a verdict on Bismarck's character. It does not. It wants a comparison between one man and a set of conditions.

The case for Bismarck

He isolated and then defeated Austria, which left Prussia the only possible leader of Germany. He built the North German Confederation under Prussian control. He then engineered a war with France, which removed the last external obstacle and brought the southern states in. Between 1862 and 1871 the map of Germany was radically altered and he led the events that altered it. The wars that unified Germany were his wars: he negotiated French neutrality, allied with Italy, and made Austria look like the aggressor. The Prussian army was only able to use its strength because Bismarck manoeuvred both Austria and France into fighting.

The case against

Prussia was economically the strongest German state before Bismarck ever took office. It led the Zollverein and its industrial output was growing far faster than Austria's. Germany was already being united economically through the customs union and through road and rail. Austria was in long-term decline. German liberals had been campaigning for a united Germany for years and German nationalism had been growing across the century. The 1848 revolutions showed how much support unification already had. Bismarck operated inside a context these forces created, and without them there would have been nothing to unify and no instrument to unify it with.

1. Prussia leads the Zollverein and outgrows Austria industrially
2. German states get used to acting with Prussia and without Austria
3. Austria declines and cannot match Prussian military reform
4. by 1862 the outcome is available to whoever takes it
5. Bismarck takes it, faster and more violently than it would otherwise have happened.

That chain is a Level 5 judgement in embryo, because it answers "how far" rather than "yes" or "no".

Planner or opportunist

Cambridge sets this as a question in its own words, and gives both sides.

Opportunist. He could manipulate people and countries and provoke quarrels. He wanted control of northern Germany, and took the chance to get it by picking a war with Austria over Schleswig-Holstein and proposing a new Confederation. He made the most of other people's mistakes, such as the French handling of the Hohenzollern candidature, and of accidents such as the Ems telegram.

Planner. The sequence is too neat to be accidental: isolate Austria, defeat Austria, build a Prussian-run Confederation, provoke France, absorb the south. He had concluded by 1856 that Prussia would have to fight Austria. He allied with Italy before the war he claimed not to want.

Force or diplomacy

Force. Unification could not happen without defeating Austria, and Austria's defeat in 1866 cost it control of Germany and replaced the Bund with a Prussia-dominated Confederation. The defeat of France was equally necessary, because otherwise the southern states might have allied with France. In 1866 a well trained Prussian army destroyed a larger Austrian one.

Diplomacy. Every one of those wars was arranged. The Austrian war was engineered by negotiating French neutrality, allying with Italy and making Austria look like the aggressor. Bismarck agreed not to help the Poles, which kept Russia out of the wars of the 1860s. He used the Spanish succession and an edited telegram to get France to declare war on him. The army only ever fought wars diplomacy had already set up.

9. What the papers actually ask

Built from the thirty-five questions in the corpus.

The 4 mark families

The 6 mark families

Always "why". The recurring ones: why the Zollverein mattered to German nationalism, or to the relationship between Austria and Prussia, or to unification; why revolution broke out in Prussia in 1848; why the Frankfurt Parliament was set up, and why it failed; why Frederick William IV rejected the crown; why Austria was able to re-establish its influence, and why Olmütz was a humiliation; why Bismarck was appointed in 1862; why Schleswig-Holstein presented Bismarck with opportunities; why Prussia went to war with Austria in 1866, why it won, and why that defeat mattered; why the North German Confederation mattered to Bismarck; why the Spanish Succession mattered; why the Ems telegram mattered; why the war with France mattered to his plans.

The 10 mark families

10. Judgement sentences for this question

Level 5 is Level 4 plus a supported judgement, and it is one sentence. Each of these takes a position on a real question from the corpus and attaches a reason.

• "Bismarck mattered more than nationalism, because nationalism had been demanding a united Germany since the 1830s and got one only when a state with an army decided to supply it."
• "Nationalism mattered more than Bismarck, because his wars only unified Germany once German opinion had already decided that Prussia should lead it."
• "He was an opportunist with a fixed destination, because the opportunities he took all pointed the same way and the ones he declined all pointed elsewhere."
• "Diplomacy mattered more than force, because the Prussian army never fought a war that diplomacy had not already isolated its enemy for."
• "The defeat of Austria mattered more than the defeat of France, because 1866 decided who would unify Germany and 1870 only decided when."
• "The defeat of France mattered more, because after 1866 the southern states were still outside, and only a common enemy brought them in."
• "1848 helped more than it hindered, because it failed at unification but permanently established that Prussia and not Austria would have to do it."
• "Olmütz was a humiliation that helped Prussia, because the ten years it bought were the ten years in which Prussia out-grew and out-armed Austria."

11. What goes wrong on this content specifically

The generic faults, listing instead of explaining, one-sided 10 mark answers, over-writing part (a), are in the How Cambridge marks History 0470 Paper 1 notes. These are the ones that belong to this topic.

There is almost no examiner commentary on this content, and you should know why

Across eighteen Principal Examiner reports from 2018 to 2024, covering thirty-nine Paper 1 components, the Option A questions are dismissed with a single sentence in nearly all of them: "There were too few responses to these questions for meaningful comments to be made." Option A is a minority choice worldwide.

Exactly one examiner report in the corpus comments on a German unification question: June 2019, Paper 11, Question 2. What it says:

• On part (a), on the hopes of German liberals and nationalists in 1848, most candidates managed at least two relevant points, and the weak answers were "generalised in nature" with no focus on 1848 specifically.
• On part (b), on Schleswig-Holstein, most candidates produced a list of identified points rather than explanations, and some wrote about Bismarck in general without addressing Schleswig-Holstein at all.
• On part (c), comparing the two wars, the weaker answers described the events of the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian Wars instead of explaining how each linked to unification.

That is the whole examiner record for this Key Question. Two of those three faults are the same fault: knowing the narrative and telling it instead of using it. This topic has more narrative in it than almost any other on the paper, three wars and four treaties, which is precisely why it is the fault that shows up here.

Naming traps, and they are Cambridge's own

Cambridge's mark schemes use different names for the same things across series. You will not be penalised for either, but you need to recognise all of them in a question stem.

Confusions that do lose marks

• The Frankfurt Parliament and the Frankfurt Diet are not the same body. The Parliament is the elected assembly of 1848 to 1849. The Diet is the German Confederation's standing assembly, which Austria reconvened at Frankfurt in 1850. They met in the same city ten years apart and mean opposite things.
• The German Confederation and the North German Confederation are not the same body. The first was Austrian-led and abolished in 1866. The second was Prussian-led and created in 1867.
• The Treaty of Frankfurt of 1871 is not the Frankfurt Parliament, and it is not the Treaty of Prague. Prague ends the Austrian war in 1866. Frankfurt ends the French war in 1871.
• Schleswig and Holstein swap in every retelling. Gastein gave Prussia Schleswig and Austria Holstein. Getting them the wrong way round breaks the geography argument, because it is Austria's isolated province that makes the quarrel available.
• Do not drift past 1871. Bismarck's career after unification, the Kulturkampf, the alliance system, Weltpolitik and the road to 1914 are elsewhere in the syllabus. A question about how Germany was unified stops at the proclamation at Versailles.
• Do not drift into Italy. The Prussian alliance with Italy in 1866 and the transfer of Venetia belong here only as things that helped or resulted from Prussia's war. Italy's own story is in How was Italy unified?.
• Watch the date limits. Stems in this corpus carry them constantly: 1848 to 1850, 1859 to 1862, 1859 to 1866, 1862 to 1871, 1863 to 1864, 1864 to 1871, 1868 to 1870. Everything outside the window earns nothing.

12. Quick revision

• Zollverein: Prussian-led customs union, several unions joined in 1833, Austria excluded, most German states in by 1866. The argument that unification was economic before it was political.
• 1848 in Prussia: food shortages and unemployment, crowds at the palace in March 1848, over 200 killed, Frederick William concedes then reoccupies Berlin in November, dissolves the Assembly, imposes his own constitution.
• Frankfurt Parliament: too slow, middle class, split between lesser and greater Germany, no army. Offers the crown to Frederick William IV, who refuses it because it came from a Parliament and not from princes.
• Austria restored by 1850: Erfurt Union, Confederation reconvened at Frankfurt in May 1850, Hesse-Cassel and an Austrian army of 200,000, Prussia backs down at Olmütz.
• Bismarck: appointed Minister-President 1862 over the army budget deadlock, on Roon's recommendation. Roon and Moltke rebuild the army: General Staff, needle gun, railways, field army of 500,000.
• 1864: Frederick VII dies, Danish constitution for Schleswig, Austria and Prussia invade, Peace of Vienna, duchies taken jointly.
• 1865 Gastein: Prussia takes Schleswig, Austria takes Holstein, and Austria's half sits behind Prussia's.
• 1866: Italian alliance, two fronts, Moltke into Saxony, Koniggratz or Sadowa, Peace of Prague July 1866. German Confederation abolished, Austria excluded permanently, Hanover, Frankfurt and Nassau annexed, mild terms on Austria on purpose.
• 1867: North German Confederation, 22 states, capital Berlin, Diet by universal male suffrage, President hereditary in the Prussian crown. Luxembourg crisis embarrasses France.
• 1870: Spanish succession, Leopold, withdrawal, French demand for a guarantee, Ems telegram 13 July, France declares war. War 19 July 1870 to 28 January 1871, Sedan 1 September 1870, Napoleon III captured, over 100,000 prisoners.
• 1871: William I proclaimed Emperor at Versailles, southern states join, Alsace, Lorraine and Metz annexed, Treaty of Frankfurt, indemnity of 5 billion francs in five years.
• On the paper: question 2 in 31 of 35 papers, question 3 in the other 4, absent from 13 of 48. Paper 2 prescribed topic for March 2027 only, India only.

Where these facts come from

Taken from Cambridge's own published 0470 materials, meaning the 2027 and 2028 syllabus, the forty-eight Paper 1 mark schemes from 2018 to 2024, the Paper 2 question papers, and the Principal Examiner reports:

the Key Question, focus point and specified content wording; the option title; the Paper 2 prescribed topic list for 2027 and 2028; every question stem quoted or counted; the Zollverein description including 1833, the exclusion of Austria and the 1866 spread; the features of German nationalism in 1848, the Hambach festival and the Nationalverein after 1859; the causes and course of the Berlin rising, the figure of over 200 dead, and the November counter-revolution; the contents of the Prussian constitution on both sides of the argument; the setting up and the seven weaknesses of the Frankfurt Parliament; Frederick William IV's reasons for refusing the crown; the Erfurt Union, the reconvening of the Confederation in May 1850, Hesse-Cassel, the Austrian army of 200,000 and Olmütz, including the argument that Olmütz helped Prussia in the long run; the 1861 accession, the 1862 budget deadlock, Roon's recommendation and Bismarck's appointment; the Roon and Moltke army reforms, the needle gun, the General Staff and the field army of 500,000; the whole Schleswig-Holstein background including the London Protocol, the death of Frederick VII, the December 1863 and February 1864 movements, the Peace of Vienna and the Convention of Gastein of 1865; the Italian alliance, the two-front problem, Moltke in Saxony, Koniggratz and Sadowa, the Peace of Prague and every term listed; Bismarck's reason for mild terms on Austria; the North German Confederation's date, 22 states, Berlin capital, Diet, suffrage and hereditary presidency; the Luxembourg crisis of 1867; the Spanish succession, Leopold, the French demand, the Ems telegram of 13 July 1870 and its editing; the war dates of 19 July 1870 and 28 January 1871, Sedan on 1 September 1870, von Moltke's command, the capture of Napoleon III and the 100,000 prisoners; the proclamation at Versailles in January 1871, the annexation of Alsace, Lorraine and Metz, the 1,500 villages and towns, and the Treaty of Frankfurt indemnity of 5 billion francs within five years; and the June 2019 Paper 11 examiner commentary.

Where Cambridge's own materials disagree

Three real conflicts turned up. Do not try to reconcile them, and do not build an answer on either side of one.

• The first shooting in Berlin. One mark scheme dates the craftsmen at the palace square and the troops opening fire to 13 March 1848. Another dates the clash with the military to 14 March 1848, with the crowd at Berlin Castle on 18 March. Write "in mid March 1848" and move on.
• How long the North German Confederation lasted. One scheme says it was formed in 1867 and "lasted for three years". Another says it "lasted from 1867 to 1871". Say it was formed in 1867 and was replaced by the German Empire in 1871, which both schemes support.
• A Prussian constitution dated to 1840. One scheme lists, at the lowest credited level, "the new Prussian constitution of 1840". No other scheme in the corpus dates a Prussian constitution to 1840, and several place the constitution Frederick William granted squarely in the 1848 to 1850 revolution and counter-revolution. Do not quote 1840.

A note on typography

Cambridge prints year ranges with an en dash, so the syllabus focus point reads as "1848" then a dash then "50". It also sets Minister-President, Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian with an en dash rather than a hyphen, and it separates "March exam" from "India only" with a dash. This site's style uses "to" for ranges, an ordinary hyphen in those compounds and a comma in that last case. No word of the syllabus wording has been changed.

Not verified from the corpus, and therefore left out

The following are standard in textbooks but were not confirmed in the Cambridge materials read for these notes. Check them against your own textbook before quoting them as precise:

• the year Frederick William IV became King of Prussia, and the year William became regent
• the exact number of member states of the Zollverein at any given date
• the date the Frankfurt Parliament first met and the date it was dispersed
• the exact month of the Convention of Gastein and of the Treaty of Prague
• the size of the armies at Koniggratz, and Austrian and Prussian casualty figures
• the wording of Bismarck's blood and iron speech, and the date he gave it
• the exact date of the proclamation at Versailles in January 1871
• the conversion of 5 billion francs into any other currency

None of them is needed for a top answer, which is why they are not in the body above.

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