Bismarck, Prince Otto von

(1815-1898) Prussian statesman who unified Germany. A conservative royalist, he was elected to the Prussian Diet in 1847. He was contemptuous of the middle-class Frankfurt National Assembly (1855) and hostile to Austria. He became chief minister in Prussia and saw victory in the Schleswig-Holstein War (1864), Austro-Prussian War (1866) and Franco-Prussian War (1870-71). Chancellor of the North German Confederation (1867-71) and of the second German empire (1871-90), he devised a system of alliances to isolate France: the Dual Alliance (with Austria, 1879); the Triple Alliance (with Austria and Italy, 1882); the Reinsurance Treaty (with Russia, 1887). He secured a German colonial empire and enacted social reforms: workers' sickness and accident insurance, old age pensions and manhood suffrage. He was dismissed in 1890 after quarrels with Kaiser Wilhelm II.