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I decided to add the Berlin Conference as a separate update.

Part Fifty-Nine: The Berlin Conference

The Berlin Conference:
The final combat of the European Wars ended when the United Kingdom, France, Belgium, and Spain signed the Great Armistice in November of 1870. All the European powers had suffered from the wars of the 1860s. The Habsburg domain of Austria had completely fallen apart, while Great Britain was experiencing a large amount of unrest from the underground Chartist Societies and pro-Irish organizations disgruntled by the treatment of the Irish during the Great Famine and the seeming use of Irishmen as cannon fodder in the European Wars. However, one power had clearly come out on top in the wars: Prussia. The fall of Austria guaranteed Prussia hegemony over the German states, and Chancellor Otto von Bismarck attempted to capitalize on Prussia's growing position in Europe by hosting the Berlin Conference in 1871 to solidify the new postwar borders in Europe.

The Berlin Conference envisioned by Bismarck was supposed to be a revival and continuation of the Congress system of geopolitics established after the First Napoleonic War with the Congress of Vienna. After the increased competition between European nations in the 1850s that led to the wars, Bismarck felt that peace could be maintained with the same system due to the increased use of the telegraph allowed faster communication between governments and leaders. Privately, however, Bismarck wanted to use the conference to affirm Prussia's consolidation over the German states in the eyes of Europe and entrench Germany as a great power on the European and indeed the world stage.

The conference, which lasted from March into April of 1871, covered three main topics of diplomacy between the attending powers. The first and foremost of these was negotiating the peace treaty and concessions resulting from the Second Napoleonic War. It was decided that the war ended in a French victory, and although the British greatly contested the focus of concessions from them rather than the Belgians at the conference, they reluctantly conceded. The results of the conference saw Britain and Spain cede the Mediterranean islands of Malta and Minorca to France and the return of the Ionian Islands to Greece. Britain's rule over the Mediterranean Sea was thus lessened, although they kept Gibraltar. In Belgium, France gained the department of Namur and the small French-speaking section of West Flanders.

The second major diplomatic session involved in the Berlin Conference was the recognition of parts of the former Austrian Empire that had now stabilized into some form of government. On the Adriatic, several cities had declared independence as free city-states and had formed a league to cooperate against the piracy that had sprung up during the lawlessness. At the Berlin Conference, this league was recognized as being under the supervision of Italy, and the Adriatic League[1] signed a treaty by which Italy had the right to veto any of the league's policies, and that plebiscites would be held at some point to join Italy or not. The independent state of Trent that had been created pending a vote to join Italy or Bavaria in the region ended with the region joining Italy in 1872. Additionally, the newly independent states of Galizien and Moravia were recognized as Russian and German puppets, respectively.

The other matter concerning the German states was the new organization of the German Confederation, now that Austria had collapsed and Prussia had become the most powerful country in Germany. Bismarck attempted to get the powers to agree on reforms which would make Prussia the clear leader of the German Confederation and centralize much of the power of the Confederation in Berlin. Russia and Great Britain initially refused Bismarck's aims on the grounds that it would disrupt the balance of power in Europe, but Russia was placated with a secret non-aggression pact between Germany and Russia. Great Britain still remained the sole dissenter now, but the continental powers agreed to the German goals after the British delegation realized that Germany would simply be replacing Austria as the dominant force in Central Europe. Prussian dominance over the German states was secured and in 1874, the states in the German Confederation were consolidated into a new German Empire. The Dutch provinces that had been part of the Confederation left in order to placate the Dutch and French upon the formation of the Empire. The new German Empire was led by Prussia, while Bavaria and Hanover received special privileges within the new federal government and the smaller German states largely kept their original borders while conceding several functions to the government in Berlin.

[1] The Adriatic League was founded by the cities of Trieste, Fiume, Zadar, Split, Dubrovnik, and Kotor.