I'm not sure of the context here- could you explain this comment?
1. Bismarck didnt plan for Geman unification. What he wanted was to strengthen Prussia, and to that end his politics were successfulyl aimed at destroying the Austria-dominated German Confederation and creating a Prussia-Dominated North German Confederation. The German unficiation thing just sort of happened as consequence of the German-French War which...
2. Bismarck did NOT provoke. Lets remember France delcraed the war, and that over a banality! Theres no way Bismarck couldve foreseen that, and furthermore, already 1867 he avoided going to war with France (Luxembiurg Crisis) and in 1869 he turned down Badens wish for joining the NGC in order not to provoke Badens neighbour France. And...
3. With or without Nappy-3, why would Britain sympathise with France? Thats this anti-German iconography created by British WW1 propaganda that sees Germany as the eternal evil of Europe that the other powers would rally to check. But as a matter of fact, France was seen as THE continental great power of the time, not Prussia. The victory of the German state sin the German-French War was a surprise to most of the world, and as said it was France who was the aggressor anyways, so why would any European state sympathise with it even sans Napoleon III?
What was his plan again? Help Prussia defeat Austria and annex the entire (or just Prussian) rhineland?
Yeah. He thought Prussia would that mnassively lose (not
that unrealistic, basically teh war was Prussia versus Germany...) that France coudl be Prussias life saver and hence demand about everything from it...That didntq uite work out when Prussia won, and that was the reason why Prussia made no demands on Austria - because Bismarck wanted a quick peace so as to not give Napoleon III a chance to get out of his confusion.