Bismarck and Europe

From Prussia to Germany, the diplomacy of Minister Otto von Bismarck was marked more by continuity than by change. Although the crises he strove to provoke did not degenerate into global war during his time, his politics nevertheless contributed to the deterioration of the Concert of Europe in its classical sense: rise of unilateralism, formation of permanent alliances that grew increasingly rigid, as states were prompted to seek their own security through belonging to opposing blocks.