When Diplomacy Fails Podcast

Want to skip the queue and access all episodes of BismarckRise right NOW? OF COURSE YOU DO! Click here for moreUnsure of what's going on? Read this blog post for more information on BismarckRise.In this episode, the first of eight, we explore the life of a young Otto von Bismarck, and assess the different events, influences and individuals who moved through his life. It’s a personal story, but it’s also a story about the unassuming, you could even say unremarkable, beginnings, of a man who would one day dominate Europe. At this stage in his life, only those three qualities – intelligence, ambition and energy – were palpable, but there was also something raw within the young Otto that suggested a great potential, if only it could be harnessed…We also see Bismarck living through some incredibly significant events. Born in the final moments of the Napoleonic Wars, Bismarck seemed to come of age during the 1848 revolutions, which to his contemporaries appeared like the beginning of the end of Old Prussia, to be r