The Unification of Germany 669Prussian troops move to cut a French railway line in the Franco-Prussian War.
cratic political structure of Prussia, dominated by Prussian nobles and
military officers. For their part, industrialists and merchants trusted that
unification would provide a boost to large-scale industrialization in the
new Germany. Hamburg merchants thus traded the traditional indepen
dence of their city for the economic advantages of operating within a cen
tralized state. Bismarck had harnessed economic liberalism to the goals of
conservative political nationalism. Although many Germans remained
indifferent to unification and others preferred the particularism of their
region, over the long run, most Germans came to accept with growing
enthusiasm the politically unified state that had been forged by Bismarck’s
spectacularly successful statemaking. The result was a critical shift in the
balance of power in Europe.
The empire had a parliament, but the Reichstag had little real authority.
Its members, elected by a franchise system that in Prussia grossly over
represented landed interests, could not hold cabinet posts. The chancellor
was responsible not to the Reichstag, but rather to the emperor. The
Reichstag could not propose legislation. Foreign policy and military affairs
remained in the hands of the emperor and the chancellor. The Reichstag’s
control over the budget could not limit the prerogatives of the throne.
Each of Germany’s twenty-five states sent a delegate to a federal council
(Bundesrat), over which the chancellor presided. Although each German