Suggest me an essay topic!

[Jolt]

The translation errors were annoying, but it was a good piece overall.

Having just finished by then two essays, with all the related effort of researching french and english books and writing it in Portuguese, coping with deadlines plus having to limit my essay to 10 pages (minus apendices), I hadn't really the mood to translate my essay into English. Phreaps in August when I have plenty of free time, I'll translate it into understandable English.

- When Frederick William (FW) was threatened, Bismarck actually appeared and hoped that FW would launch the army against the rebels.

Yeah, Bismarck always leaned onto the army to crush any popular opposition to the King or any policy. One of the first conflicts between Bismarck and Willhelm II came exactly from that. There was a strike somewhere in Germany (I think it was Rheinland or something), and Bismarck wanted to use the army to crush the strikees (Or whatever you call them), while Willhelm was more open to a compromise solution.

- I assumed this was a translation error, "iron and blood".

Actually it wasn't. We have an expression here in Portugal which is "Fire and Iron", which necessarily means "violence" (An example would be a sentence like "Portugal on fire and iron", meaning it was suffering in a war against Spain, for instance. Regardless, in the end it was a mistake as after the essay, I read later that the Blood and Iron sentence actually had other specific meanings other than through violence, something I didn't know.

I think the key missing aspect of this was the mention of the treaty that prevented Denmark from annexing the two provinces, which would've tied the Austrians and Prussians together more easily than what you wrote.

Indeed, that was the casus belli behind the war. But the Contextualization suffered from extreme generalization and condensation to make the essay fit the page limit. I had originally written a bucketload about the conflictuality between the German Confederation and the Frankfurt Assembly, but had to scrap all of it for a couple of phrases. Still, I should have mentioned the treaty of the First Schleswig war at least.

I would've included in here the reluctance of Prince Leopold to apply for the Spanish throne candidacy.

I also think that you should've, in this paragraph, given a little to how Bismarck created the entire German constitution ensuring that Bismarck was made Chancellor by the King or his invulnerability to any actions by the Reichstag.

Unfortunatly, both wouldn't fit.

As I understand it, the Treaty of Reinsurance was a secret treaty (the next Chancellor Caprivi(?) only found out about the treaty when the Tsar asked for it to be re-instated!)

It was indeed secret. I don't recall reading that though, but it is quite probable that any sane Chancellor would wish to prolong the Treaty of Reinssurance, considering that fact that Willhelm was raising concerns in all Great Powers with his measures.

First I've heard of this!

Actually I picked it from a World War I paperback (I suppose that is how it is called.) Which had a section to German-French banking-colonial cooperation sanctioned by both governments, even while both these cabinets hated each other.

This is ironic since Bismarck practically created Wilhelm II and all his political ideas (along with stroking his ego to prevent the liberal-overthrow by his father who died of throat cancer)

Well, there's a thing I didn't know about. Bismarck was Willhelm's mentor? How cute and Star Wars-like.

This was more difficult not because Germany was intervening directly (they had a right based on the treaty which governed Morocco years before) but that they were not only intervening after they gave their acceptance of the French intervention but they also sent Delcasse to the pits and pissed off both the Brits and French.

Didn't read about such a treaty. *sigh* Unfortunatly, for the same sake of finishing within parameters I had to cut off a lot of the personalities which shaped the Foreign Policy during that period, as explaining the connections and motivations of them would bring a lot more pages into the essay.

I would say this was the primary fault. The next 3 ministers to William II (WII) were all unable to correctly handle the volatile and childish WII, especially Bulow (a total sycophant who actually turned down the British alliance that was offered by Chamberlain). Had the Chancellor been both capable of handling WII and also realizing the situation at hand more clearly (and limiting the influence of Tirpitz on WII) Plus, Bismarck built the role of "Imperial German Chancellor" too much around his personality, unlike the role of Prime Minister in the UK or US President which was built on a responsibility to run the country and such based on popular decision. Bismarck was capable and powerful. If the successor had been capable and powerful enough he could've also led the German Empire to peace, but what can ya do?

To be honest, I read very little about the Willhelm II period, as I was already wrapping up the essay, and was already quite tired, from the essays. So I wrote the basic guidelines to the conflictuality between Bismarck and Willhelm, and expanded on how his conduct was without the supervision of Bismarck. And that was the end of that.

Still, it was awesome to read your review about my works. Cheers! :)

[Ariovistus Maximus]

All in all, a very insightful work. I knew the causes of WWI were deap-seated, but WOW!

And all that from Portuguese!!! A lot of work for sure!

Truly, your work deserves a balloon, if you permit: