The Prussian country squire who made Germany with three short wars, against Denmark, Austria and France, and then spent twenty years keeping the peace he had made possible, with a web of alliances so intricate that only he could work it.
The fork
1862. Called in to break a parliament that will not pay for the army, he tells it that the great questions of the day will be decided by iron and blood. Nine years later the King of Prussia is German Emperor.
What they wanted
A Prussian-led Germany first, then a Europe that leaves it alone: France isolated, Russia and Austria kept as friends, colonies kept small. At home he fights Catholics and socialists, and buys off the workers with the world's first state health insurance and pensions.
What it cost
A Germany built without parliamentary control of its army; Alsace-Lorraine taken against French will; and a system that fell apart in the hands of the young Kaiser who sacked him in 1890.
The fight
Genius of restraint, or architect of the state that went to war in 1914? Jonathan Steinberg argues the whole structure rested on one man's temper.