Deutsches Reich

The second German Reich, proclaimed at Versailles after the Franco-Prussian War under Chancellor Otto von Bismarck. Rapid industrialisation made Germany Europe's leading economy, while the Kleindeutsche Lösung excluded Austria. Internal tensions between liberal nationalism and Prussian authoritarianism, combined with Wilhelm II's aggressive Weltpolitik, set the structural conditions for WWI and the subsequent collapse into the Weimar Republic.