ABSTRACT
The problems which Bismarck attempted to solve after 1871 were largely problems which he had himself brought into the realms of policy; and from the purely diplomatic point of view the particular ways in which these problems posed themselves were certainly of his making. Bismarck himself summed up his problem by saying that he suffered from a nightmare fear of coalitions. Contemplating the only historical precedent Prussian history provided for the situation after 1871 he found himself fearing a repetition of the situation of 1760. Before 1866 the Habsburgs were a German and an Italian power. By his own war he had driven the Habsburgs out of both Germany and Italy. The implication of Russia's patronage of Bulgaria in 1877 was Russian control of all south-eastern Europe. German acceptance of the task of defending Austria-Hungary was not matched by a corresponding responsibility on part of Vienna to defend Germany.
