King Wilhelm I became King of Prussia and he appointed Otto von Bismarck on 23 September 1862, Minister President and Foreign Minister, who favoured a 'blood-and-iron' policy to create a united Germany under the leadership of Prussia.
The Treaty of Prague formally dissolved the German Confederation and Prussia created the North German Confederation to include all Germanic states except the pro-French, southern kingdoms of Bavaria, Baden and Württemberg.
When the French emperor, Napoleon III, demanded territories of the Rhineland in return for his neutrality amid the Austro-Prussian War, Bismarck used the Spanish Succession Question and Ems Telegram as an opportunity to incorporate the southern kingdoms. Napoleon III declared war against Prussia.
In 1871 the Franco-Prussian War ended with Prussian troops capturing Paris, the capital of the Second French Empire. Bavaria, Baden, and Württemberg were incorporated into the North German Confederation in the Treaty of Frankfurt. Bismarck then proclaimed King Wilhelm I, now Kaiser Wilhelm I, as leader of the new, united Germany (German Reich), excluding Austria. With the German troops remaining in Paris, Napoleon III dissolved the French Empire and a new republic, the Third French Republic, was created under Adolphe Thiers.
The formation of German Empire shattered the balance of power in Europe. Before that the main powers were always Britain, France, Austria and Russia. With Russia rarely exerting their influence on the European continent the other three powers had significant influence. Entire Poland came under German rule after the formation of the empire.
France becoming a republic hardly changed its attitude in the outside world. They continued their practice of colonialism and frequently competed with British empire.
French politics revolved around the humiliation of the treaty of Frankfurt. They saw Germany as their greatest enemy. Naturally Britain recognised this hatred that they had for each other. Seeing this and also to ensure the German reich stayed firmly a friend of British empire a dynastic alliance was made. In 1858 Princess Victoria of Britain married Frederick lll of the German empire.
Germany's growth was alarming to all European powers. The Berlin Conference of 1884–85, regulated European colonization and trade in Africa during the New Imperialism period and coincided with Germany's sudden emergence as an imperial power. The conference was organized by Otto von Bismarck, first Chancellor of Germany and its outcome, the General Act of the Berlin Conference, can be seen as the formalisation of the Scramble for Africa.
Most of the African continent became divided by the colonial powers of Europe. But Russia stayed out of colonising Africa instead they concentrated on regulating the European powers in the Mediterranean and through the Suez canal, exerting trade influence in the Baltic nations, Japan and America. With Russia being a prime target for migration America lost much of its educated population and significantly reduced its powers in the future. While Germany, Britain, France and many other European powers faced political instability and social unreast Russia enjoyed a moderate progressive and stable society. This was mainly due to many social reforms introduced periodically over the years like public health care, universal suffrage, equal distribution of land and many more.
But in 1888 everything changed. Wilhelm ll of German empire ascended the throne. His first act as Kaiser was to dismiss the country's long time chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, in 1890 before launching Germany on a new course to cement its status as a respected world power. However, due to his temperamental personality, he frequently undermined this aim by making tactless, alarming public statements without consulting his ministers beforehand. He also did much to alienate other Great Powers from Germany by initiating a massive build-up of the German Navy.
The power of the British Empire lay in the seas. So long as Britain has the strongest navy in the world its position as a world power will remain unchallenged. There was only one nation in the wirld that could challenge the British dominion in the seas and that was the Russia Navy. Fortunately for Britain, Russians never participated in colonial expansion and thus they never used their Navy for conquests but rather for trade. Not only that, whenever Britain came under crisis Russia always helped them without asking much in return. There was a long standing relationship between Britain and Russia so they never came into conflict.
But with Wilhelm ll as the emperor of Germany, they began a fast paced Naval expansion which directly threatened the power of Britain. This forced Britain to be paranoid and they began to do all they can to limit German expansion in any field. France used this rift between Germany and Britain to bring Britain into their camp.
France desired a war with Germany to retake the lost lands of Alsace-Lorraine. For this they needed Britain and Russia. They tried there hardest to woo Russia against Germany. But the same neutrality Russia employed when dealing with Europe helped them to never commit to anything. But France was able to secure long term loans, weapons, planes, ammunition and a guaranty of Russian neutrality in any conflict with Germany.
As European powers sharpened their knifes in preperation for war, Stephen infiltrated the OKB. He worked as a scientist under the OKB. He used his knowledge and quickly rose ranks as his discoveries and modifications in military equipments like automatic guns, armoured vehicles and artilleries made him into the head of research wing of OKB.
Using this position he introduced Vibranium. He sent a delegation of miners to Perm. It was there the miners found a very different metal. This discovery was kept a tight secret and Perm was closed down and came under the protection of Army and OKB. With the discovery of Vibranium, a detailed team was assembled for further testing of the super metal. As the properties of Vibranium began to be discovered the use of Vibranium became strictly restricted to OKB. Not even the Army knew about it's existence. Further mapping of land resources led to further discovery of Vibranium metal across the land mass of Russia. By 1900s a functioning power plant was built inside a secret OKB facility using Vibranium. This was a major discovery as now Russia had the means to produce unlimited clean energy which could power the entire nation. Bit this was kept a secret.
On 28 June 1914, Gavrilo Princip, a Serb Yugoslav nationalist, assassinated the Austro-Hungarian heir Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo, leading to the July Crisis. In response, on 23 July Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia. Serbia's reply failed to satisfy the Austrians, and the two moved to a war footing.
Germany gave full support to Austria which led them to invade Serbia. In redponse to this France mobilised across the German border. This in turn made the German army to mobilize as well. The war in Serbia for Austria became a meat grinder. Serbia was a client state of Russia and they gave military training and equipments to Serbia through Romania and Bulgaria. This led to the Austrian and Hungarian armies to be defeated in the field by a numerically weaker army of Serbia. Still Austria threw all it's army upon Serbia.
While the Eastern front made no improvement Germany attacked France through Belgium. French army reeled back from this attack as they were consistently being pushed back towards Paris. With Belgium invaded, Britain declared war on Germany and Austria-Hungary.
Germany expected a short war but the initial success they enjoyed began to slow down and the Western front grinded to a halt. They began to look for allies to continue the war outside Germany. Italy remained strictly neutral and Russia was not friendly so they began to draw in the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman navy targeted the Suez canal so as to disrupt troop transport from Asia to the aid of Allies. But this became a monumental supid decision as the canal was owned by Russia and hence they protected it with their navy. The Ottoman and Russian navy came into direct conflict and just like every battle they fought since the 1200's, the Russians won easily. Seeing the opportunity France, Britain and Portugal declared war on Ottoman empire in support of Russia. The end result was the end of sick man of Europe. Ottoman Empire collapsed in the wake of the Great war.
Russian emperor Alexander lll decided enough was enough and decide to completely tear down the Ottoman empire. So he declared war on the Ottomans and at the same time began to arm and support Polish rebellion against German rule.
This was an effective tactic as Poland rose up in rebellion and engaged German troops in battle. Germany accused Russia of enciting rebellion. Rather than denying it Russia wholeheartedly accepted that they were responsible and said this is a warning to Germany for pushing Russia into a war with Ottomans.
Germany began sending troops into Poland. This caused Russia to mobilise its armies to attack Germans in Poland. Before the end of 1914 Russia had joined the Allied powers. Up until then Germany had won in almost all battles and achieved most of their strategic objectives except the fall of Paris.
German colonies on the other hand did not fair well. Japan took all of German colonies in the Pacific while France and Britain assulted their African possessions.
Russia began its attack from Romania against Hungarian forces. Hungary was already at a tipping point as they desired to split from Austria. Hungarian soldiers had to face the full burnt of Russian machine guns, Tanks and Artillery shells. The death toll was massive for the Hungarian army. The Austrian army in Serbia got a special new year gift by the Russians as they bombed their positions using aircrafts thereby enabling the Serbian army to knock back Austrian army across the border.
On 3rd July 1915 Hungary surrundered to Russian Empire and made a separate peace with Allies. Hungary also announced their independence from Austria and allowed Russian army passage to Austria.
Up until then Italy had remained neutral throughout the war. But now that their main rival, Austria is in a losing war they mobilised their armies and attacked Austria. A two front war was a death blow to Austria and the country simply disintegrated as Monarchists and Socialists openly fought in the streets. Finally socialists took power in Austria in September 1915 dethroning Franz Joseph and signed a declaration of surrender with the Allies and only Germany now remained in the field.
The high seas fleet of Germany began using unrestrictive naval warfare upon the Baltic sea and North sea. The U boat menace represented a grave threat to RN. But in the Baltics the German subs became the hunted instead of the Russian Navy because they posessed advanced SONAR which was able to pinpoint the location of enemy subs. Because of this in 1916 the Baltic sea became dominated by the Russian Navy.
By 1916 most of East Prussia came under the occupation of Russian troops. This along with the static western front, shortages of food supplies and huge losses of life forced the Kaiser to sign an armistice in June 7, 1916.
27th July of 1916 saw the signing of Versailles treaty and in the East, Germany was to recognize the independence of the KIngdom of Bohemia and Moravia and to cede a small part of the province of Upper Silesia. Germany had to recognize the independence of Poland and renounce all rights and title over the territory. Portions of Upper Silesia that were ethnically Polish were to be ceded to Poland. The province of Posen was also to go partly to Poland along with parts of Pomerania. The sovereignty of part of southern East Prussia was to be decided via plebiscite. An area of 32,100 square kilometres was granted to Poland at the expense of Germany. Thus creating a trip wire between Germany and Russia. Finally the Great War ended but not as harsh as what it could have been.
