The Birth of Germany

In the 19th century, many German in small German speaking states wanted to unite together as they were defend less against the other empires that posed a threat of invasion to them but it wasn't until Otto Von Bismark, Albrecht von Roon and Helmuth Moltke stepped in the 1860s was when German unification got into full swing. Prussia already had the Rhineland (yes, that same Rhineland that was demilitarised by the Allied Powers after World War 1 until Nazi invasion in the 1930s) but following the Seven Week War, Austrian defeat saw Holstein being transferred over to Prussia. Although there were some difficulty with the Catholic German states in the south as the majority of the German states were protestant, Bismark and the Prussians (as well as Roon and Moltke) managed to successfully win them over. The Franco-Prussian war saw another victory and on 18 January 1871, the German Empire AKA the Second Reicht (The Holy Roman Empire was the first) AKA Germany was established!