Even though Germans living under Bismarck did not have much
power when it came to government, I still would have rather lived in
Germany than in France during the Third Republic.France had another
bloody revolution in 1871 that was suppressed in may of that same
year.Throughout the Third Republic not much changed: The government
was weak; No really important bills were passed; No formal
constitution was drawn up; People of the lower class and minorities
were persecuted, i.e., the Dreyfus affair and the failure to pass an income tax law. However, in Germany at this time, life could not have been better for the average German. Bismarck had united their country and then he kept the peace with neighboring countries to
secure Germany s borders. He introduced social legislation which gave the people sickness and unemployment insurance, and an old age pension scheme. He introduced free trade and managed to make Germany a great and powerful nation not twenty years after its birth in 1871
after Prussia s defeat of France. By the end of his reign as Chancellor of Germany, Bismarck had accomplished what France had taken hundreds of years to do, and still France was off the
mark. For these reasons I would have rather lived in Bismarck s Germany than in France under the Third Republic.
