Disraeli called the unification of Germany in 1871 “a greater political event than the French Revolution” and concluded that “the balance of power has been entirely destroyed.” The Westphalian and the Vienna European orders had been based on a divided Central Europe whose competing pressures—between the plethora of German states in the Westphalian settlement, and Austria and Prussia in the Vienna outcome—would balance each other out. What emerged after the unification of Germany was a dominant country, strong enough to defeat each neighbor individually and perhaps all the continental countries
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