hey guys,
This is my first post on this board so please be gentle with your feedback and comments, lol.
I'm trying to imagine a plausible alternative history scenario where the assassination attempt on the life of Otto von Bismarck was assassinated in 1866 by Ferdinand Cohen-Blind and one of the four attempts on Wilhelm I were successful.
I think politically on an international level, Bismarck was instrumental in instigating the alliance between Prussia and Italy, which precipitated the Austro-Prussian war. The conflict was largely a contest, to decide which regime would go on to dominate the German States and eventually lead to the German Unification. Would his death reduced the impetus for Prussia's drive to unite the German States into a union under its sway, making way for Grossdeutschland, dominated by Austria? Did the regime of Franz Joseph I have the capacity to govern these disparate States who were often at odds with each other? His track record after Austria's defeat doesn't bode well for the longevity of such a union.
On a domestic front, in OTL Bismarck had used the assassination attempts on Wilhelm I as a pretext to suppress the socialists and enact the anti-socialist laws. With Bismarck not surviving until the first, let alone second attempt on the life of Wilhelm I, would there have been a potential successor strong enough to attempt to suppress the radicalized element of the newly emerging socialist movement? Would anyone else had have been able to enact the welfare reforms which Bismarck instigated in order to sideline the radicals and bring the moderates into the Establishment?