"God favors drunkards, fools and Americans." Why did Bismarck say that?

"God favors drunkards, fools and Americans" comes from Bismarck's total contempt for Americans at that time, and he thought that America was a bunch of rubbish.

Bismarck is a famous figure in German history. Under his mastermind, Prussia finally completed the unification of Germany. Bismarck once said two famous words, one is that major contemporary problems should be solved through iron and blood, and Bismarck was therefore crowned as the iron and blood prime minister. The second sentence is that God favors three kinds of people: drunkards, fools and Americans. The first sentence is easy to understand, which means to clear the stumbling block of German reunification with iron and blood. The literal meaning of the second sentence is also very simple, that is, God cares for three kinds of people, but obviously the focus is on Americans. Bismarck juxtaposes Americans with fools and drunkards, which is enough to show his disdain for Americans, but he also said that God favors Americans and seems to be a little jealous. So why did Bismarck say that?

First, Bismarck looked down on the United States: the ancestors of the Germans were Germans who lived in Central Europe in ancient times and once overthrew the Western Roman Empire. And in the tenth century, the Holy Roman Empire was established. Although it soon split, it had an earlier history and was brilliant for a while. The United States is an immigrant country, and before the 17th century, it was Indian territory.

second, the gap between Germany and the United States is obvious: when the United States became independent in 1776, Germany was still in ruins, and neither Prussia nor Austria was able to unify Germany. In 18, when Napoleon crisscrossed Europe, the French army entered Berlin as a conqueror and took down the goddess of peace symbolizing Germany at the Brandenburg Gate as a trophy, but the United States did not waste any effort to buy Louisiana from France and realized its territorial expansion. These gaps have made the Germans deeply feel the injustice of fate.

Schiller, a German poet, once sighed helplessly: "Germany? Where is it? I can't find that place. " Goethe said more simply that there is not a city or even a place, which makes us firmly point out that this is Germany. If we ask this question in Vienna, the answer is that this is Austria; If we ask this question in Berlin, the answer is that this is Prussia. So where is Germany? This historic question has been torturing the hearts of Germans. It was not until 1871, almost a hundred years after the United States became independent, that Germany was unified. So what has the United States become at this time?

as early as 1848, the territory of the United States has expanded to the Pacific Ocean and become a country with two oceans. In 1867, the United States bought Alaska and extended its territory to the Arctic Ocean. Therefore, when Germany was reunified, the United States had become a big country with more than 9 million square kilometers of land, and the geographical environment was extremely superior. There were no strong neighbors between the north and the south, and there were two oceans, not only large areas of land suitable for farming, but also two long and unconstrained coastlines.

Almost all of these advantages are innate, and the United States has easily gained them. On the other hand, Germany, although it has completed reunification with great pains, is still surrounded by powerful enemies, with France in the west, Russia in the east and only the northern coast of the country, and the result is still restricted by Denmark and Britain. Seeing such an international environment, even Bismarck, the bloody prime minister, could not help sighing that Germany was too difficult. Therefore, it is not surprising that Bismarck will say that God favors Americans by comparing Germany with the United States.