R151870

While Germany was broken up into the Northern Confederation and the southern states, Bismarck, chancellor of Germany, believed that the only way to get the southern states to join north Germany was through war with France. Using the excuse of controversy over the Spanish throne, Bismarck quickly provoked war with France. On July 1870, Napoleon III declared the Franco-Prussian war and by that September, the French forces were completed defeated. Alsace and Lorraine were given to Germany and as a result, the nationalists of southern Germany voted to join the Northern Confederation. Nationalism had started out in Germany as just the people’s hope for unification, but in the end, due to the overwhelming love for their country, the southern states come together with the northern states. McKay, John P. __History of Western society__. Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 2003.