ShmoopTube

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And here's your shmoop du jour brought to you by the

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balance of power which states that no single stage should be powerful enough [Big brother picking up younger brother]

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to dominate all the others try explaining that to your older brother

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here's our question the German Prime Minister who instituted the balance of

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powers the prevailing mode of diplomacy in Europe was who and here's the potential

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answers..... well the key word to focus on

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this question is instituted meaning that we're dealing with the beginning of

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Germany's role as a major player in European politics knowing that we can [Person in cloak]

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eliminate a couple of answers outright on the chopping block first is Max Von

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Baden well Maxi was the last chanecellor of the German Empire before he saw

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transform into a democratic parliamentary system during the end of [Soldiers laying on the ground]

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the First World War seeing as this wasn't until the tail end

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of 1918 he was way too late to the party so we can knock C off the list but hey

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you're not alone scoot on over Max, there's a new German on the chopping

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block Friedrich Ebert.... well Ebert took over for Von Baden and [Friedrich and Max's head on chopping block]

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became the first president of Germany from 1919 until 1925 but if Max was too

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late to Institute the balance of power then Friedrich definitely wasn't in the

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running.... We're left with Kaiser Wilhelm and Otto von

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Bismarck if we're talking early beginnings of

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Germany's role was a major player Wilhelm might seem like the right choice [Wilhelm holding the German flag]

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after all he was the first emperor of the German Empire as well as the King of

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Prussia until 1888 unfortunately in this case being the first emperor wasn't

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quite first enough as Otto here helped a pre-unified Germany turn into the very

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Empire Wilhelm got to rule asserting the notion of balance of power in the

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process Bismarck was a conservative Prussian politician who was appointed [Bismarck standing with politicians]

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the minister-president of Prussia by Wilhelm in 1862 he helped form the

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German Empire and appointed himself as Chancellor because well who wouldn't

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tactful as he was Bismarck politic'd Germany out of harm's way by employing

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the balance of power diplomacy a concept that stated no one should have enough [Balance of power in a fire]

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power to dominate all the rest... whenever a state

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looked to be getting too strong Bismarck alerted the rest of Europe and convinced [Bismarck with European flags]

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them to bandwagon for the sake of preserving a balance of power, sneaky

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right looks like B Otto von Bismarck is our

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correct answer off to the chopping block you go Wilhelm snuggle in guys, one of you [Wilhelm, Freidrich and Max on a chopping block]

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has to be the big spoon.

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