While Metternich tried to vindicate continuity and to restore a universal idea, that of a European society, Bismarck challenged all the established wisdom of his period. Until he appeared on the scene, it had been taken for granted that German unity would come about—if at all—through a combination of nationalism and liberalism. Bismarck set about to demonstrate that these strands could be separated—that the principles of the Holy Alliance were not needed to preserve order, that a new order could be built by conservatives’ appealing to nationalism, and that a concept of European order could be
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