title: Unification of Germany

text: Metternich was able to harness conservative outrage at the assassination to consolidate legislation that would further limit the press and constrain the rising liberal and nationalist movements. Consequently, these decrees drove the "Burschenschaften" underground, restricted the publication of nationalist materials, expanded censorship of the press and private correspondence, and limited academic speech by prohibiting university professors from encouraging nationalist discussion. The decrees were the subject of Johann Joseph von Görres's pamphlet "Teutschland [archaic: Deutschland] und die Revolution" ("Germany and the Revolution") (1820), in which he concluded that it was both impossible and undesirable to repress the free utterance of public opinion by reactionary measures.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The period of Austrian and Prussian police-states and vast censorship between the Congress of Vienna and the Revolutions of 1848 in Germany later became widely known as the "Vormärz", the "before March", referring to March 1848. During this period, European liberalism gained momentum; the agenda included economic, social, and political issues. Most European liberals in the "Vormärz" sought unification under nationalist principles, promoted the transition to capitalism, sought the expansion of male suffrage, among other issues. Their "radicalness" depended upon where they stood on the spectrum of male suffrage: the wider the definition of suffrage, the more radical.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Despite considerable conservative reaction, ideas of unity joined with notions of popular sovereignty in German-speaking lands. At the Wartburg Festival in 1817 the first real movements among the students were formed - fraternities and student organizations emerged. The colors black, red and gold were symbolic of this. The Hambach Festival ("Hambacher Fest") in May 1832 was attended by a crowd of more than 30,000. Promoted as a county fair, its participants celebrated fraternity, liberty, and national unity. Celebrants gathered in the town below and marched to the ruins of Hambach Castle on the heights above the small town of Hambach, in the Palatinate province of Bavaria. Carrying flags, beating drums, and singing, the participants took the better part of the morning and mid-day to arrive at the castle grounds, where they listened to speeches by nationalist orators from across the conservative to radical political spectrum. The overall content of the speeches suggested a fundamental difference between the German nationalism of the 1830s and the French nationalism of the July Revolution: the focus of German nationalism lay in the education of the people; once the populace was educated as to what was needed, they would accomplish it. The Hambach rhetoric emphasized the overall peaceable nature of German nationalism: the point was not to build barricades, a very "French" form of nationalism, but to build emotional bridges between groups.


title: Unification of Germany

text: As he had done in 1819, after the Kotzebue assassination, Metternich used the popular demonstration at Hambach to push conservative social policy. The "Six Articles" of 28 June 1832 primarily reaffirmed the principle of monarchical authority. On 5 July, the Frankfurt Diet voted for an additional 10 articles, which reiterated existing rules on censorship, restricted political organizations, and limited other public activity. Furthermore, the member states agreed to send military assistance to any government threatened by unrest. Prince Wrede led half of the Bavarian army to the Palatinate to "subdue" the province. Several hapless Hambach speakers were arrested, tried and imprisoned; one, Karl Heinrich Brüggemann (1810–1887), a law student and representative of the secretive "Burschenschaft", was sent to Prussia, where he was first condemned to death, but later pardoned.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Crucially, both the Wartburg rally in 1817 and the Hambach Festival in 1832 had lacked any clear-cut program of unification. At Hambach, the positions of the many speakers illustrated their disparate agendas. Held together only by the idea of unification, their notions of how to achieve this did not include specific plans but instead rested on the nebulous idea that the "Volk" (the people), if properly educated, would bring about unification on their own. Grand speeches, flags, exuberant students, and picnic lunches did not translate into a new political, bureaucratic, or administrative apparatus. While many spoke about the need for a constitution, no such document appeared from the discussions. In 1848, nationalists sought to remedy that problem.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Several other factors complicated the rise of nationalism in the German states. The man-made factors included political rivalries between members of the German confederation, particularly between the Austrians and the Prussians, and socio-economic competition among the commercial and merchant interests, and the old land-owning and aristocratic interests. Natural factors included widespread drought in the early 1830s, and again in the 1840s, and a food crisis in the 1840s. Further complications emerged as a result of a shift in industrialization and manufacturing; as people sought jobs, they left their villages and small towns to work during the week in the cities, returning for a day and a half on weekends.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The economic, social and cultural dislocation of ordinary people, the economic hardship of an economy in transition, and the pressures of meteorological disasters all contributed to growing problems in Central Europe. The failure of most of the governments to deal with the food crisis of the mid-1840s, caused by the potato blight (related to the Great Irish Famine) and several seasons of bad weather, encouraged many to think that the rich and powerful had no interest in their problems. Those in authority were concerned about the growing unrest, political and social agitation among the working classes, and the disaffection of the intelligentsia. No amount of censorship, fines, imprisonment, or banishment, it seemed, could stem the criticism. Furthermore, it was becoming increasingly clear that both Austria and Prussia wanted to be the leaders in any resulting unification; each would inhibit the drive of the other to achieve unification.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Another institution key to unifying the German states, the "Zollverein", helped to create a larger sense of economic unification. Initially conceived by the Prussian Finance Minister Hans, Count von Bülow, as a Prussian customs union in 1818, the "Zollverein" linked the many Prussian and Hohenzollern territories. Over the ensuing thirty years (and more) other German states joined. The Union helped to reduce protectionist barriers between the German states, especially improving the transport of raw materials and finished goods, making it both easier to move goods across territorial borders and less costly to buy, transport, and sell raw materials. This was particularly important for the emerging industrial centers, most of which were located in the Prussian regions of the Rhineland, the Saar, and the Ruhr valleys. States more distant from the coast joined the Customs Union earlier. Not being a member mattered more for the states of south Germany, since the external tariff of the Customs Union prevented customs-free access to the coast (which gave access to international markets). Thus, by 1836, all states to the south of Prussia had joined the Customs Union, except Austria.


title: Unification of Germany

text: In contrast, the coastal states already had barrier free access to international trade and did not want consumers and producers burdened with the import duties they would pay if they were within the Zollverein customs border. Hanover on the north coast formed its own customs union – the “Tax Union” or Steuerverein – in 1834 with Brunswick and with Oldenburg in 1836. The external tariffs on finished goods and overseas raw materials were below the rates of the Zollverein. Brunswick joined the Zollverein Customs Union in 1842, while Hanover and Oldenburg finally joined in 1854 After the Austro-Prussian war of 1866, Schleswig, Holstein and Lauenburg were annexed by Prussia and thus annexed also to the Customs Union, while the two Mecklenburg states and the city states of Hamburg and Bremen joined late because they were reliant on international trade. The Mecklenburgs joined in 1867, while Bremen and Hamburg joined in 1888.


title: Unification of Germany

text: By the early 19th century, German roads had deteriorated to an appalling extent. Travelers, both foreign and local, complained bitterly about the state of the "Heerstraßen", the military roads previously maintained for the ease of moving troops. As German states ceased to be a military crossroads, however, the roads improved; the length of hard–surfaced roads in Prussia increased from in 1816 to in 1852, helped in part by the invention of macadam. By 1835, Heinrich von Gagern wrote that roads were the "veins and arteries of the body politic..." and predicted that they would promote freedom, independence and prosperity. As people moved around, they came into contact with others, on trains, at hotels, in restaurants, and for some, at fashionable resorts such as the spa in Baden-Baden. Water transportation also improved. The blockades on the Rhine had been removed by Napoleon's orders, but by the 1820s, steam engines freed riverboats from the cumbersome system of men and animals that towed them upstream. By 1846, 180 steamers plied German rivers and Lake Constance, and a network of canals extended from the Danube, the Weser, and the Elbe rivers.


title: Unification of Germany

text: As important as these improvements were, they could not compete with the impact of the railway. German economist Friedrich List called the railways and the Customs Union "Siamese Twins", emphasizing their important relationship to one another. He was not alone: the poet August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben wrote a poem in which he extolled the virtues of the "Zollverein", which he began with a list of commodities that had contributed more to German unity than politics or diplomacy. Historians of the German Empire later regarded the railways as the first indicator of a unified state; the patriotic novelist, Wilhelm Raabe, wrote: "The German empire was founded with the construction of the first railway..." Not everyone greeted the "iron monster" with enthusiasm. The Prussian king Frederick William III saw no advantage in traveling from Berlin to Potsdam a few hours faster, and Metternich refused to ride in one at all. Others wondered if the railways were an "evil" that threatened the landscape: Nikolaus Lenau's 1838 poem "An den Frühling" ("To Spring") bemoaned the way trains destroyed the pristine quietude of German forests.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The Bavarian Ludwig Railway, which was the first passenger or freight rail line in the German lands, connected Nuremberg and Fürth in 1835. Although it was long and only operated in daylight, it proved both profitable and popular. Within three years, of track had been laid, by 1840, , and by 1860, . Lacking a geographically central organizing feature (such as a national capital), the rails were laid in webs, linking towns and markets within regions, regions within larger regions, and so on. As the rail network expanded, it became cheaper to transport goods: in 1840, 18 "Pfennigs" per ton per kilometer and in 1870, five "Pfennigs". The effects of the railway were immediate. For example, raw materials could travel up and down the Ruhr Valley without having to unload and reload. Railway lines encouraged economic activity by creating demand for commodities and by facilitating commerce. In 1850, inland shipping carried three times more freight than railroads; by 1870, the situation was reversed, and railroads carried four times more. Rail travel changed how cities looked and how people traveled. Its impact reached throughout the social order, affecting the highest born to the lowest. Although some of the outlying German provinces were not serviced by rail until the 1890s, the majority of the population, manufacturing centers, and production centers were linked to the rail network by 1865.


title: Unification of Germany

text: As travel became easier, faster, and less expensive, Germans started to see unity in factors "other" than their language. The Brothers Grimm, who compiled a massive dictionary known as "The Grimm", also assembled a compendium of folk tales and fables, which highlighted the story-telling parallels between different regions. Karl Baedeker wrote guidebooks to different cities and regions of Central Europe, indicating places to stay, sites to visit, and giving a short history of castles, battlefields, famous buildings, and famous people. His guides also included distances, roads to avoid, and hiking paths to follow.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The words of August Heinrich Hoffmann von Fallersleben expressed not only the linguistic unity of the German people but also their geographic unity. In "Deutschland, Deutschland über Alles", officially called "Das Lied der Deutschen" (""The Song of the Germans""), Fallersleben called upon sovereigns throughout the German states to recognize the unifying characteristics of the German people. Such other patriotic songs as "Die Wacht am Rhein" ("The Watch on the Rhine") by Max Schneckenburger began to focus attention on geographic space, not limiting "Germanness" to a common language. Schneckenburger wrote "The Watch on the Rhine" in a specific patriotic response to French assertions that the Rhine was France's "natural" eastern boundary. In the refrain, "Dear fatherland, dear fatherland, put your mind to rest / The watch stands true on the Rhine", and in such other patriotic poetry as Nicholaus Becker's "Das Rheinlied" ("The Rhine"), Germans were called upon to defend their territorial homeland. In 1807, Alexander von Humboldt argued that national character reflected geographic influence, linking landscape to people. Concurrent with this idea, movements to preserve old fortresses and historic sites emerged, and these particularly focused on the Rhineland, the site of so many confrontations with France and Spain.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The widespread—mainly German—revolutions of 1848–49 sought unification of Germany under a single constitution. The revolutionaries pressured various state governments, particularly those in the Rhineland, for a parliamentary assembly that would have the responsibility to draft a constitution. Ultimately, many of the left-wing revolutionaries hoped this constitution would establish universal male suffrage, a permanent national parliament, and a unified Germany, possibly under the leadership of the Prussian king. This seemed to be the most logical course since Prussia was the strongest of the German states, as well as the largest in geographic size. Generally, center-right revolutionaries sought some kind of expanded suffrage within their states and potentially, a form of loose unification. Their pressure resulted in a variety of elections, based on different voting qualifications, such as the Prussian three-class franchise, which granted to some electoral groups—chiefly the wealthier, landed ones—greater representative power.


title: Unification of Germany

text: On 27 March 1849, the Frankfurt Parliament passed the "Paulskirchenverfassung" (Constitution of St. Paul's Church) and offered the title of "Kaiser" (Emperor) to the Prussian king Frederick William IV the next month. He refused for a variety of reasons. Publicly, he replied that he could not accept a crown without the consent of the actual states, by which he meant the princes. Privately, he feared opposition from the other German princes and military intervention from Austria or Russia. He also held a fundamental distaste for the idea of accepting a crown from a popularly elected parliament: he would not accept a crown of "clay". Despite franchise requirements that often perpetuated many of the problems of sovereignty and political participation liberals sought to overcome, the Frankfurt Parliament did manage to draft a constitution and reach an agreement on the "kleindeutsch" solution. While the liberals failed to achieve the unification they sought, they did manage to gain a partial victory by working with the German princes on many constitutional issues and collaborating with them on reforms.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Scholars of German history have engaged in decades of debate over how the successes and failures of the Frankfurt Parliament contribute to the historiographical explanations of German nation building. One school of thought, which emerged after The Great War and gained momentum in the aftermath of World War II, maintains that the failure of German liberals in the Frankfurt Parliament led to bourgeoisie compromise with conservatives (especially the conservative Junker landholders), which subsequently led to the so-called "Sonderweg" (distinctive path) of 20th-century German history. Failure to achieve unification in 1848, this argument holds, resulted in the late formation of the nation-state in 1871, which in turn delayed the development of positive national values. Hitler often called on the German public to sacrifice all for the cause of their great nation, but his regime did not create German nationalism: it merely capitalized on an intrinsic cultural value of German society that still remains prevalent even to this day. Furthermore, this argument maintains, the "failure" of 1848 reaffirmed latent aristocratic longings among the German middle class; consequently, this group never developed a self-conscious program of modernization.


title: Unification of Germany

text: More recent scholarship has rejected this idea, claiming that Germany did not have an actual "distinctive path" any more than any other nation, a historiographic idea known as exceptionalism. Instead, modern historians claim 1848 saw specific achievements by the liberal politicians. Many of their ideas and programs were later incorporated into Bismarck's social programs (e.g., social insurance, education programs, and wider definitions of suffrage). In addition, the notion of a distinctive path relies upon the underlying assumption that some other nation's path (in this case, the United Kingdom's) is the accepted norm. This new argument further challenges the norms of the British-centric model of development: studies of national development in Britain and other "normal" states (e.g., France or the United States) have suggested that even in these cases, the modern nation-state did not develop evenly. Nor did it develop particularly early, being rather a largely mid-to-late-19th-century phenomenon. Since the end of the 1990s, this view has become widely accepted, although some historians still find the "Sonderweg" analysis helpful in understanding the period of National Socialism.


title: Unification of Germany

text: After the Frankfurt Parliament disbanded, Frederick William IV, under the influence of General Joseph Maria von Radowitz, supported the establishment of the Erfurt Union—a federation of German states, excluding Austria—by the free agreement of the German princes. This limited union under Prussia would have almost eliminated Austrian influence on the other German states. Combined diplomatic pressure from Austria and Russia (a guarantor of the 1815 agreements that established European spheres of influence) forced Prussia to relinquish the idea of the Erfurt Union at a meeting in the small town of Olmütz in Moravia. In November 1850, the Prussians—specifically Radowitz and Frederick William—agreed to the restoration of the German Confederation under Austrian leadership. This became known as the Punctation of Olmütz, but among Prussians it was known as the "Humiliation of Olmütz."


title: Unification of Germany

text: Although seemingly minor events, the Erfurt Union proposal and the Punctation of Olmütz brought the problems of influence in the German states into sharp focus. The question became not a matter of "if" but rather "when" unification would occur, and "when" was contingent upon strength. One of the former Frankfurt Parliament members, Johann Gustav Droysen, summed up the problem:


title: Unification of Germany

text: We cannot conceal the fact that the whole German question is a simple alternative between Prussia and Austria. In these states, German life has its positive and negative poles—in the former, all the interests [that] are national and reformative, in the latter, all that are dynastic and destructive. The German question is not a constitutional question but a question of power; and the Prussian monarchy is now wholly German, while that of Austria cannot be.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Unification under these conditions raised a basic diplomatic problem. The possibility of German (or Italian) unification would overturn the overlapping spheres of influence system created in 1815 at the Congress of Vienna. The principal architects of this convention, Metternich, Castlereagh, and Tsar Alexander (with his foreign secretary Count Karl Nesselrode), had conceived of and organized a Europe balanced and guaranteed by four "great powers": Great Britain, France, Russia, and Austria, with each power having a geographic sphere of influence. France's sphere included the Iberian Peninsula and a share of influence in the Italian states. Russia's included the eastern regions of Central Europe and a balancing influence in the Balkans. Austria's sphere expanded throughout much of the Central European territories formerly held by the Holy Roman Empire. Britain's sphere was the rest of the world, especially the seas.


title: Unification of Germany

text: This sphere of influence system depended upon the fragmentation of the German and Italian states, not their consolidation. Consequently, a German nation united under one banner presented significant questions. There was no readily applicable definition for who the German people would be or how far the borders of a German nation would stretch. There was also uncertainty as to who would best lead and defend "Germany", however it was defined. Different groups offered different solutions to this problem. In the "Kleindeutschland" ("Lesser Germany") solution, the German states would be united under the leadership of the Prussian Hohenzollerns; in the "Grossdeutschland" ("Greater Germany") solution, the German states would be united under the leadership of the Austrian Habsburgs. This controversy, the latest phase of the German dualism debate that had dominated the politics of the German states and Austro-Prussian diplomacy since the 1701 creation of the Kingdom of Prussia, would come to a head during the following twenty years.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Other nationalists had high hopes for the German unification movement, and the frustration with lasting German unification after 1850 seemed to set the national movement back. Revolutionaries associated national unification with progress. As Giuseppe Garibaldi wrote to German revolutionary Karl Blind on 10 April 1865, "The progress of humanity seems to have come to a halt, and you with your superior intelligence will know why. The reason is that the world lacks a nation [that] possesses true leadership. Such leadership, of course, is required not to dominate other peoples but to lead them along the path of duty, to lead them toward the brotherhood of nations where all the barriers erected by egoism will be destroyed." Garibaldi looked to Germany for the "kind of leadership [that], in the true tradition of medieval chivalry, would devote itself to redressing wrongs, supporting the weak, sacrificing momentary gains and material advantage for the much finer and more satisfying achievement of relieving the suffering of our fellow men. We need a nation courageous enough to give us a lead in this direction. It would rally to its cause all those who are suffering wrong or who aspire to a better life and all those who are now enduring foreign oppression."


title: Unification of Germany

text: German unification had also been viewed as a prerequisite for the creation of a European federation, which Giuseppe Mazzini and other European patriots had been promoting for more than three decades:


title: Unification of Germany

text: In the spring of 1834, while at Berne, Mazzini and a dozen refugees from Italy, Poland and Germany founded a new association with the grandiose name of Young Europe. Its basic, and equally grandiose idea, was that, as the French Revolution of 1789 had enlarged the concept of individual liberty, another revolution would now be needed for national liberty; and his vision went further because he hoped that in the no doubt distant future free nations might combine to form a loosely federal Europe with some kind of federal assembly to regulate their common interests. [...] His intention was nothing less than to overturn the European settlement agreed [to] in 1815 by the Congress of Vienna, which had reestablished an oppressive hegemony of a few great powers and blocked the emergence of smaller nations. [...] Mazzini hoped, but without much confidence, that his vision of a league or society of independent nations would be realized in his own lifetime. In practice Young Europe lacked the money and popular support for more than a short-term existence. Nevertheless he always remained faithful to the ideal of a united continent for which the creation of individual nations would be an indispensable preliminary.


title: Unification of Germany

text: King Frederick William IV suffered a stroke in 1857 and could no longer rule. This led to his brother William becoming prince regent of the Kingdom of Prussia in 1858. Meanwhile, Helmuth von Moltke had become chief of the Prussian General Staff in 1857, and Albrecht von Roon would become Prussian Minister of War in 1859. This shuffling of authority within the Prussian military establishment would have important consequences. Von Roon and William (who took an active interest in military structures) began reorganizing the Prussian army, while Moltke redesigned the strategic defense of Prussia by streamlining operational command. Prussian army reforms (especially how to pay for them) caused a constitutional crisis beginning in 1860 because both parliament and William—via his minister of war—wanted control over the military budget. William, crowned King Wilhelm I in 1861, appointed Otto von Bismarck to the position of Minister-President of Prussia in 1862. Bismarck resolved the crisis in favor of the war minister.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The Crimean War of 1854–55 and the Italian War of 1859 disrupted relations among Great Britain, France, Austria, and Russia. In the aftermath of this disarray, the convergence of von Moltke's operational redesign, von Roon and Wilhelm's army restructure, and Bismarck's diplomacy influenced the realignment of the European balance of power. Their combined agendas established Prussia as the leading German power through a combination of foreign diplomatic triumphs—backed up by the possible use of Prussian military might—and an internal conservatism tempered by pragmatism, which came to be known as "Realpolitik".


title: Unification of Germany

text: Bismarck expressed the essence of "Realpolitik" in his subsequently famous "Blood and Iron" speech to the Budget Committee of the Prussian Chamber of Deputies on 30 September 1862, shortly after he became Minister President: "The great questions of the time will not be resolved by speeches and majority decisions—that was the great mistake of 1848 and 1849—but by iron and blood." Bismarck's words, "iron and blood" (or "blood and iron", as often attributed), have often been misappropriated as evidence of a German lust for blood and power. First, the phrase from his speech "the great questions of time will not be resolved by speeches and majority decisions" is often interpreted as a repudiation of the political process—a repudiation Bismarck did not himself advocate. Second, his emphasis on blood and iron did not imply simply the unrivaled military might of the Prussian army but rather two important aspects: the ability of the assorted German states to produce iron and other related war materials and the willingness to use those war materials if necessary.


title: Unification of Germany

text: By 1862, when Bismarck made his speech, the idea of a German nation-state in the peaceful spirit of Pan-Germanism had shifted from the liberal and democratic character of 1848 to accommodate Bismarck's more conservative "Realpolitik". Bismarck sought to link a unified state to the Hohenzollern dynasty, which for some historians remains one of Bismarck's primary contributions to the creation of the German Empire in 1871. While the conditions of the treaties binding the various German states to one another prohibited Bismarck from taking unilateral action, the politician and diplomat in him realized the impracticality of this. To get the German states to unify, Bismarck needed a single, outside enemy that would declare war on one of the German states first, thus providing a "casus belli" to rally all Germans behind. This opportunity arose with the outbreak of the Franco-Prussian War in 1870. Historians have long debated Bismarck's role in the events leading up to the war. The traditional view, promulgated in large part by late 19th- and early 20th-century pro-Prussian historians, maintains that Bismarck's intent was always German unification. Post-1945 historians, however, see more short-term opportunism and cynicism in Bismarck's manipulation of the circumstances to create a war, rather than a grand scheme to unify a nation-state. Regardless of motivation, by manipulating events of 1866 and 1870, Bismarck demonstrated the political and diplomatic skill that had caused Wilhelm to turn to him in 1862.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Three episodes proved fundamental to the unification of Germany. First, the death without male heirs of Frederick VII of Denmark led to the Second War of Schleswig in 1864. Second, the unification of Italy provided Prussia an ally against Austria in the Austro-Prussian War of 1866. Finally, France—fearing Hohenzollern encirclement—declared war on Prussia in 1870, resulting in the Franco-Prussian War. Through a combination of Bismarck's diplomacy and political leadership, von Roon's military reorganization, and von Moltke's military strategy, Prussia demonstrated that none of the European signatories of the 1815 peace treaty could guarantee Austria's sphere of influence in Central Europe, thus achieving Prussian hegemony in Germany and ending the dualism debate.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The first episode in the saga of German unification under Bismarck came with the Schleswig-Holstein Question. On 15 November 1863, Christian IX became king of Denmark and duke of Schleswig, Holstein, and Lauenburg, which the Danish king held in personal union. On 18 November 1863, he signed the Danish November Constitution which replaced The Law of Sjælland and The Law of Jutland, which meant the new constitution applied to the Duchy of Schleswig. The German Confederation saw this act as a violation of the London Protocol of 1852, which emphasized the status of the Kingdom of Denmark as distinct from the three independent duchies. The German Confederation could use the ethnicities of the area as a rallying cry: Holstein and Lauenburg were largely of German origin and spoke German in everyday life, while Schleswig had a significant Danish population and history. Diplomatic attempts to have the November Constitution repealed collapsed, and fighting began when Prussian and Austrian troops crossed the Eider river on 1 February 1864.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Initially, the Danes attempted to defend their country using an ancient earthen wall known as the "Danevirke", but this proved futile. The Danes were no match for the combined Prussian and Austrian forces and their modern armaments. The needle gun, one of the first bolt action rifles to be used in conflict, aided the Prussians in both this war and the Austro-Prussian War two years later. The rifle enabled a Prussian soldier to fire five shots while lying prone, while its muzzle-loading counterpart could only fire one shot and had to be reloaded while standing. The Second Schleswig War resulted in victory for the combined armies of Prussia and Austria, and the two countries won control of Schleswig and Holstein in the concluding peace of Vienna, signed on 30 October 1864.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The second episode in Bismarck's unification efforts occurred in 1866. In concert with the newly formed Italy, Bismarck created a diplomatic environment in which Austria declared war on Prussia. The dramatic prelude to the war occurred largely in Frankfurt, where the two powers claimed to speak for all the German states in the parliament. In April 1866, the Prussian representative in Florence signed a secret agreement with the Italian government, committing each state to assist the other in a war against Austria. The next day, the Prussian delegate to the Frankfurt assembly presented a plan calling for a national constitution, a directly elected national Diet, and universal suffrage. German liberals were justifiably skeptical of this plan, having witnessed Bismarck's difficult and ambiguous relationship with the Prussian "Landtag" (State Parliament), a relationship characterized by Bismarck's cajoling and riding roughshod over the representatives. These skeptics saw the proposal as a ploy to enhance Prussian power rather than a progressive agenda of reform.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The debate over the proposed national constitution became moot when news of Italian troop movements in Tyrol and near the Venetian border reached Vienna in April 1866. The Austrian government ordered partial mobilization in the southern regions; the Italians responded by ordering full mobilization. Despite calls for rational thought and action, Italy, Prussia, and Austria continued to rush toward armed conflict. On 1 May, Wilhelm gave von Moltke command over the Prussian armed forces, and the next day he began full-scale mobilization.


title: Unification of Germany

text: In the Diet, the group of middle-sized states, known as "Mittelstaaten" (Bavaria, Württemberg, the grand duchies of Baden and Hesse, and the duchies of Saxony–Weimar, Saxony–Meiningen, Saxony–Coburg, and Nassau), supported complete demobilization within the Confederation. These individual governments rejected the potent combination of enticing promises and subtle (or outright) threats Bismarck used to try to gain their support against the Habsburgs. The Prussian war cabinet understood that its only supporters among the German states against the Habsburgs were two small principalities bordering on Brandenburg that had little military strength or political clout: the Grand Duchies of Mecklenburg-Schwerin and Mecklenburg-Strelitz. They also understood that Prussia's only ally abroad was Italy.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Opposition to Prussia's strong-armed tactics surfaced in other social and political groups. Throughout the German states, city councils, liberal parliamentary members who favored a unified state, and chambers of commerce—which would see great benefits from unification—opposed any war between Prussia and Austria. They believed any such conflict would only serve the interests of royal dynasties. Their own interests, which they understood as "civil" or "bourgeois", seemed irrelevant. Public opinion also opposed Prussian domination. Catholic populations along the Rhine—especially in such cosmopolitan regions as Cologne and in the heavily populated Ruhr Valley—continued to support Austria. By late spring, most important states opposed Berlin's effort to reorganize the German states by force. The Prussian cabinet saw German unity as an issue of power and a question of who had the strength and will to wield that power. Meanwhile, the liberals in the Frankfurt assembly saw German unity as a process of negotiation that would lead to the distribution of power among the many parties.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Although several German states initially sided with Austria, they stayed on the defensive and failed to take effective initiatives against Prussian troops. The Austrian army therefore faced the technologically superior Prussian army with support only from Saxony. France promised aid, but it came late and was insufficient. Complicating the situation for Austria, the Italian mobilization on Austria's southern border required a diversion of forces away from battle with Prussia to fight the Third Italian War of Independence on a second front in Venetia and on the Adriatic sea.


title: Unification of Germany

text: A quick peace was essential to keep Russia from entering the conflict on Austria's side. In the day-long Battle of Königgrätz, near the village of Sadová, Friedrich Carl and his troops arrived late, and in the wrong place. Once he arrived, however, he ordered his troops immediately into the fray. The battle was a decisive victory for Prussia and forced the Habsburgs to end the war with the unfavorable Peace of Prague, laying the groundwork for the "Kleindeutschland" (little Germany) solution, or "Germany without Austria."


title: Unification of Germany

text: Prussia annexed Hanover, Hesse-Kassel, Nassau, and the city of Frankfurt. Hesse Darmstadt lost some territory but not its sovereignty. The states south of the Main River (Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria) signed separate treaties requiring them to pay indemnities and to form alliances bringing them into Prussia's sphere of influence. Austria, and most of its allies, were excluded from the North German Confederation. At the same time, the original East Prussian craddle of the Prussian statehood as well as the Prussian-held Polish- or Kashubian-speaking territories of Province of Posen and West Prussia were formally annexed into Germany.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The end of Austrian dominance of the German states shifted Austria's attention to the Balkans. In 1867, the Austrian emperor Franz Joseph accepted a settlement (the Austro-Hungarian Compromise of 1867) in which he gave his Hungarian holdings equal status with his Austrian domains, creating the Dual Monarchy of Austria-Hungary. The Peace of Prague (1866) offered lenient terms to Austria, in which Austria's relationship with the new nation-state of Italy underwent major restructuring; although the Austrians were far more successful in the military field against Italian troops, the monarchy lost the important province of Venetia. The Habsburgs ceded Venetia to France, which then formally transferred control to Italy. The French public resented the Prussian victory and demanded "Revanche pour Sadová" ("Revenge for Sadova"), illustrating anti-Prussian sentiment in France—a problem that would accelerate in the months leading up to the Franco-Prussian War. The Austro-Prussian War also damaged relations with the French government. At a meeting in Biarritz in September 1865 with Napoleon III, Bismarck had let it be understood (or Napoleon had thought he understood) that France might annex parts of Belgium and Luxembourg in exchange for its neutrality in the war. These annexations did not happen, resulting in animosity from Napoleon towards Bismarck.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The reality of defeat for Austria caused a reevaluation of internal divisions, local autonomy, and liberalism. Following adoption of the North German Constitution, the new North German Confederation had its own constitution, flag, and governmental and administrative structures. Through military victory, Prussia under Bismarck's influence had overcome Austria's active resistance to the idea of a unified Germany. Austria's influence over the German states may have been broken, but the war also splintered the spirit of pan-German unity: most of the German states resented Prussian power politics.


title: Unification of Germany

text: By 1870 three of the important lessons of the Austro-Prussian war had become apparent. The first lesson was that, through force of arms, a powerful state could challenge the old alliances and spheres of influence established in 1815. Second, through diplomatic maneuvering, a skilful leader could create an environment in which a rival state would declare war first, thus forcing states allied with the "victim" of external aggression to come to the leader's aid. Finally, as Prussian military capacity far exceeded that of Austria, Prussia was clearly the only state within the Confederation (or among the German states generally) capable of protecting all of them from potential interference or aggression. In 1866, most mid-sized German states had opposed Prussia, but by 1870 these states had been coerced and coaxed into mutually protective alliances with Prussia. If a European state declared war on one of their members, then they all would come to the defense of the attacked state. With skilful manipulation of European politics, Bismarck created a situation in which France would play the role of aggressor in German affairs, while Prussia would play that of the protector of German rights and liberties.


title: Unification of Germany

text: At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, Metternich and his conservative allies had reestablished the Spanish monarchy under King Ferdinand VII. Over the following forty years, the great powers supported the Spanish monarchy, but events in 1868 would further test the old system. A revolution in Spain overthrew Queen Isabella II, and the throne remained empty while Isabella lived in sumptuous exile in Paris. The Spanish, looking for a suitable Catholic successor, had offered the post to three European princes, each of whom was rejected by Napoleon III, who served as regional power-broker. Finally, in 1870 the Regency offered the crown to Leopold of Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen, a prince of the Catholic cadet Hohenzollern line. The ensuing furor has been dubbed by historians as the Hohenzollern candidature.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Over the next few weeks, the Spanish offer turned into the talk of Europe. Bismarck encouraged Leopold to accept the offer. A successful installment of a Hohenzollern-Sigmaringen king in Spain would mean that two countries on either side of France would both have German kings of Hohenzollern descent. This may have been a pleasing prospect for Bismarck, but it was unacceptable to either Napoleon III or to Agenor, duc de Gramont, his minister of foreign affairs. Gramont wrote a sharply formulated ultimatum to Wilhelm, as head of the Hohenzollern family, stating that if any Hohenzollern prince should accept the crown of Spain, the French government would respond—although he left ambiguous the nature of such response. The prince withdrew as a candidate, thus defusing the crisis, but the French ambassador to Berlin would not let the issue lie. He approached the Prussian king directly while Wilhelm was vacationing in Ems Spa, demanding that the King release a statement saying he would never support the installation of a Hohenzollern on the throne of Spain. Wilhelm refused to give such an encompassing statement, and he sent Bismarck a dispatch by telegram describing the French demands. Bismarck used the king's telegram, called the Ems Dispatch, as a template for a short statement to the press. With its wording shortened and sharpened by Bismarck—and further alterations made in the course of its translation by the French agency Havas—the Ems Dispatch raised an angry furor in France. The French public, still aggravated over the defeat at Sadová, demanded war.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Napoleon III had tried to secure territorial concessions from both sides before and after the Austro-Prussian War, but despite his role as mediator during the peace negotiations, he ended up with nothing. He then hoped that Austria would join in a war of revenge and that its former allies—particularly the southern German states of Baden, Württemberg, and Bavaria—would join in the cause. This hope would prove futile since the 1866 treaty came into effect and united all German states militarily—if not happily—to fight against France. Instead of a war of revenge against Prussia, supported by various German allies, France engaged in a war against all of the German states without any allies of its own. The reorganization of the military by von Roon and the operational strategy of Moltke combined against France to great effect. The speed of Prussian mobilization astonished the French, and the Prussian ability to concentrate power at specific points—reminiscent of Napoleon I's strategies seventy years earlier—overwhelmed French mobilization. Utilizing their efficiently laid rail grid, Prussian troops were delivered to battle areas rested and prepared to fight, whereas French troops had to march for considerable distances to reach combat zones. After a number of battles, notably Spicheren, Wörth, Mars la Tour, and Gravelotte, the Prussians defeated the main French armies and advanced on the primary city of Metz and the French capital of Paris. They captured Napoleon III and took an entire army as prisoners at Sedan on 1 September 1870.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The humiliating capture of the French emperor and the loss of the French army itself, which marched into captivity at a makeshift camp in the Saarland ("Camp Misery"), threw the French government into turmoil; Napoleon's energetic opponents overthrew his government and proclaimed the Third Republic. "In the days after Sedan, Prussian envoys met with the French and demanded a large cash indemnity as well as the cession of Alsace and Lorraine. All parties in France rejected the terms, insisting that any armistice be forged “on the basis of territorial integrity.” France, in other words, would pay reparations for starting the war, but would, in Jules Favre's famous phrase, “cede neither a clod of our earth nor a stone of our fortresses". The German High Command expected an overture of peace from the French, but the new republic refused to surrender. The Prussian army invested Paris and held it under siege until mid-January, with the city being "ineffectually bombarded". Nevertheless, in January, the Germans fired some 12,000 shells, 300–400 grenades daily into the city. On January 18, 1871, the German princes and senior military commanders proclaimed Wilhelm "German Emperor" in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles. Under the subsequent Treaty of Frankfurt, France relinquished most of its traditionally German regions (Alsace and the German-speaking part of Lorraine); paid an indemnity, calculated (on the basis of population) as the precise equivalent of the indemnity that Napoleon Bonaparte imposed on Prussia in 1807; and accepted German administration of Paris and most of northern France, with "German troops to be withdrawn stage by stage with each installment of the indemnity payment".


title: Unification of Germany

text: Victory in the Franco-Prussian War proved the capstone of the nationalist issue. In the first half of the 1860s, Austria and Prussia both contended to speak for the German states; both maintained they could support German interests abroad and protect German interests at home. In responding to the Schleswig-Holstein Question, they both proved equally diligent in doing so. After the victory over Austria in 1866, Prussia began internally asserting its authority to speak for the German states and defend German interests, while Austria began directing more and more of its attention to possessions in the Balkans. The victory over France in 1871 expanded Prussian hegemony in the German states (aside from Austria) to the international level. With the proclamation of Wilhelm as "Kaiser", Prussia assumed the leadership of the new empire. The southern states became officially incorporated into a unified Germany at the Treaty of Versailles of 1871 (signed 26 February 1871; later ratified in the Treaty of Frankfurt of 10 May 1871), which formally ended the war. Although Bismarck had led the transformation of Germany from a loose confederation into a federal nation state, he had not done it alone. Unification was achieved by building on a tradition of legal collaboration under the Holy Roman Empire and economic collaboration through the "Zollverein." The difficulties of the "Vormärz", the impact of the 1848 liberals, the importance of von Roon's military reorganization, and von Moltke's strategic brilliance all played a part in political unification. "Einheit – unity – was achieved at the expense of Freiheit – freedom. The German Empire became," in Karl Marx's words, “a military despotism cloaked in parliamentary forms with a feudal ingredient, influenced by the bourgeoisie, festooned with bureaucrats and guarded by police.” Indeed, many historians would see Germany's “escape into war” in 1914 as a flight from all of the internal-political contradictions forged by Bismarck at Versailles in the fall of 1870.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The new German Empire included 26 political entities: twenty-five constituent states (or "Bundesstaaten") and one Imperial Territory (or "Reichsland"). It realized the "Kleindeutsche Lösung" ("Lesser German Solution", with the exclusion of Austria) as opposed to a "Großdeutsche Lösung" or "Greater German Solution", which would have included Austria. Unifying various states into one nation required more than some military victories, however much these might have boosted morale. It also required a rethinking of political, social, and cultural behaviors and the construction of new metaphors about "us" and "them". Who were the new members of this new nation? What did they stand for? How were they to be organized?


title: Unification of Germany

text: Though often characterized as a federation of monarchs, the German Empire, strictly speaking, federated a group of 26 constituent entities with different forms of government, ranging from the main four constitutional monarchies to the three republican Hanseatic cities.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The 1866 North German Constitution became (with some semantic adjustments) the 1871 Constitution of the German Empire. With this constitution, the new Germany acquired some democratic features: notably the Imperial Diet, which—in contrast to the parliament of Prussia—gave citizens representation on the basis of elections by direct and equal suffrage of all males who had reached the age of 25. Furthermore, elections were generally free of chicanery, engendering pride in the national parliament. However, legislation required the consent of the "Bundesrat", the federal council of deputies from the states, in and over which Prussia had a powerful influence; Prussia could appoint 17 of 58 delegates with only 14 votes needed for a veto. Prussia thus exercised influence in both bodies, with executive power vested in the Prussian King as "Kaiser", who appointed the federal chancellor. The chancellor was accountable solely to, and served entirely at the discretion of, the Emperor. Officially, the chancellor functioned as a one-man cabinet and was responsible for the conduct of all state affairs; in practice, the State Secretaries (bureaucratic top officials in charge of such fields as finance, war, foreign affairs, etc.) acted as unofficial portfolio ministers. With the exception of the years 1872–1873 and 1892–1894, the imperial chancellor was always simultaneously the prime minister of the imperial dynasty's hegemonic home-kingdom, Prussia. The Imperial Diet had the power to pass, amend, or reject bills, but it could not initiate legislation. (The power of initiating legislation rested with the chancellor.) The other states retained their own governments, but the military forces of the smaller states came under Prussian control. The militaries of the larger states (such as the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Saxony) retained some autonomy, but they underwent major reforms to coordinate with Prussian military principles and came under federal government control in wartime.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The "Sonderweg" hypothesis attributed Germany's difficult 20th century to the weak political, legal, and economic basis of the new empire. The Prussian landed elites, the "Junkers", retained a substantial share of political power in the unified state. The "Sonderweg" hypothesis attributed their power to the absence of a revolutionary breakthrough by the middle classes, or by peasants in combination with the urban workers, in 1848 and again in 1871. Recent research into the role of the Grand Bourgeoisie—which included bankers, merchants, industrialists, and entrepreneurs—in the construction of the new state has largely refuted the claim of political and economic dominance of the "Junkers" as a social group. This newer scholarship has demonstrated the importance of the merchant classes of the Hanseatic cities and the industrial leadership (the latter particularly important in the Rhineland) in the ongoing development of the Second Empire.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Additional studies of different groups in Wilhelmine Germany have all contributed to a new view of the period. Although the "Junkers" did, indeed, continue to control the officer corps, they did not dominate social, political, and economic matters as much as the "Sonderweg" theorists had hypothesized. Eastern "Junker" power had a counterweight in the western provinces in the form of the Grand Bourgeoisie and in the growing professional class of bureaucrats, teachers, professors, doctors, lawyers, scientists, etc.


title: Unification of Germany

text: If the Wartburg and Hambach rallies had lacked a constitution and administrative apparatus, that problem was addressed between 1867 and 1871. Yet, as Germans discovered, grand speeches, flags, and enthusiastic crowds, a constitution, a political reorganization, and the provision of an imperial superstructure; and the revised Customs Union of 1867–68, still did not make a nation.


title: Unification of Germany

text: A key element of the nation-state is the creation of a national culture, frequently—although not necessarily—through deliberate national policy. In the new German nation, a "Kulturkampf" (1872–78) that followed political, economic, and administrative unification attempted to address, with a remarkable lack of success, some of the contradictions in German society. In particular, it involved a struggle over language, education, and religion. A policy of Germanization of non-German people of the empire's population, including the Polish and Danish minorities, started with language, in particular, the German language, compulsory schooling (Germanization), and the attempted creation of standardized curricula for those schools to promote and celebrate the idea of a shared past. Finally, it extended to the religion of the new Empire's population.


title: Unification of Germany

text: For some Germans, the definition of "nation" did not include pluralism, and Catholics in particular came under scrutiny; some Germans, and especially Bismarck, feared that the Catholics' connection to the papacy might make them less loyal to the nation. As chancellor, Bismarck tried without much success to limit the influence of the Roman Catholic Church and of its party-political arm, the Catholic Center Party, in schools and education- and language-related policies. The Catholic Center Party remained particularly well entrenched in the Catholic strongholds of Bavaria and southern Baden, and in urban areas that held high populations of displaced rural workers seeking jobs in the heavy industry, and sought to protect the rights not only of Catholics, but other minorities, including the Poles, and the French minorities in the Alsatian lands. The May Laws of 1873 brought the appointment of priests, and their education, under the control of the state, resulting in the closure of many seminaries, and a shortage of priests. The Congregations Law of 1875 abolished religious orders, ended state subsidies to the Catholic Church, and removed religious protections from the Prussian constitution.


title: Unification of Germany

text: The Germanized Jews remained another vulnerable population in the new German nation-state. Since 1780, after emancipation by the Holy Roman Emperor Joseph II, Jews in the former Habsburg territories had enjoyed considerable economic and legal privileges that their counterparts in other German-speaking territories did not: they could own land, for example, and they did not have to live in a Jewish quarter (also called the "Judengasse", or "Jews' alley"). They could also attend universities and enter the professions. During the Revolutionary and Napoleonic eras, many of the previously strong barriers between Jews and Christians broke down. Napoleon had ordered the emancipation of Jews throughout territories under French hegemony. Like their French counterparts, wealthy German Jews sponsored salons; in particular, several Jewish "salonnières" held important gatherings in Frankfurt and Berlin during which German intellectuals developed their own form of republican intellectualism. Throughout the subsequent decades, beginning almost immediately after the defeat of the French, reaction against the mixing of Jews and Christians limited the intellectual impact of these salons. Beyond the salons, Jews continued a process of Germanization in which they intentionally adopted German modes of dress and speech, working to insert themselves into the emerging 19th-century German public sphere. The religious reform movement among German Jews reflected this effort.


title: Unification of Germany

text: By the years of unification, German Jews played an important role in the intellectual underpinnings of the German professional, intellectual, and social life. The expulsion of Jews from Russia in the 1880s and 1890s complicated integration into the German public sphere. Russian Jews arrived in north German cities in the thousands; considerably less educated and less affluent, their often dismal poverty dismayed many of the Germanized Jews. Many of the problems related to poverty (such as illness, overcrowded housing, unemployment, school absenteeism, refusal to learn German, etc.) emphasized their distinctiveness for not only the Christian Germans, but for the local Jewish populations as well.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Another important element in nation-building, the story of the heroic past, fell to such nationalist German historians as the liberal constitutionalist Friedrich Dahlmann (1785–1860), his conservative student Heinrich von Treitschke (1834–1896), and others less conservative, such as Theodor Mommsen (1817–1903) and Heinrich von Sybel (1817–1895), to name two. Dahlmann himself died before unification, but he laid the groundwork for the nationalist histories to come through his histories of the English and French revolutions, by casting these revolutions as fundamental to the construction of a nation, and Dahlmann himself viewed Prussia as the logical agent of unification.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Heinrich von Treitschke's "History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century", published in 1879, has perhaps a misleading title: it privileges the history of Prussia over the history of other German states, and it tells the story of the German-speaking peoples through the guise of Prussia's destiny to unite all German states under its leadership. The creation of this "Borussian" myth ("Borussia" is the Latin name for Prussia) established Prussia as Germany's savior; it was the destiny of all Germans to be united, this myth maintains, and it was Prussia's destiny to accomplish this. According to this story, Prussia played the dominant role in bringing the German states together as a nation-state; only Prussia could protect German liberties from being crushed by French or Russian influence. The story continues by drawing on Prussia's role in saving Germans from the resurgence of Napoleon's power in 1815, at Waterloo, creating some semblance of economic unity, and uniting Germans under one proud flag after 1871.


title: Unification of Germany

text: Mommsen's contributions to the "Monumenta Germaniae Historica" laid the groundwork for additional scholarship on the study of the German nation, expanding the notion of "Germany" to mean other areas beyond Prussia. A liberal professor, historian, and theologian, and generally a titan among late 19th-century scholars, Mommsen served as a delegate to the Prussian House of Representatives from 1863 to 1866 and 1873 to 1879; he also served as a delegate to the "Reichstag" from 1881 to 1884, for the liberal German Progress Party ("Deutsche Fortschrittspartei") and later for the National Liberal Party. He opposed the antisemitic programs of Bismarck's "Kulturkampf" and the vitriolic text that Treitschke often employed in the publication of his "Studien über die Judenfrage" ("Studies of the Jewish Question"), which encouraged assimilation and Germanization of Jews.


title: Emily Hampshire

text: Emily Hampshire (born 1979) is a Canadian actress. Her best known roles include Angelina in the 1998 romantic comedy "Boy Meets Girl", Vivienne in the 2006 film "Snow Cake", Jennifer Goines in the Syfy drama series "12 Monkeys" (2015–2018), and Stevie Budd in the CBC comedy series "Schitt's Creek" (2015–2020), as well as the voice role of Misery in the YTV animated series "Ruby Gloom" (2006–2008).


title: Emily Hampshire

text: Hampshire was born in Montreal. She became interested in acting at age 11 after attending a performance of "Les Miserables" with her mother"." Her interests were solidified by the vice principal of her all-girls Catholic school, who praised her performance during a school theatre production. At age 16, she moved to Toronto to pursue roles in TV and film. She was accepted into the American Academy of Dramatic Arts shortly after high school but never attended, as it conflicted with a film opportunity.


title: Emily Hampshire

text: Hampshire has been professionally active in the Canadian film and television industry since 1996. She has starred in the Canadian series "This Space For Rent", "Carl²", and "Northern Town". She played Margaret in "The Life Before This", a feature film directed by Jerry Ciccoritti, which premiered at the Toronto International Film Festival in 1999.


title: Emily Hampshire

text: In 2006, starred alongside Kevin Zegers and Samaire Armstrong in the 2006 romantic comedy "It's a Boy/Girl Thing", in which she played the character Chanel. In 2009, she appeared in "The Trotsky" as Leon Trotsky's love interest Alexandra. In 2010, she starred in the Canadian indie film, "Good Neighbours". Hampshire has also done voice-acting, voicing the character Misery on the animated series "Ruby Gloom", Diana Barry in "", Chloe Crashman in "Carl Squared", Starr in "6Teen", and Alyson Malitski in "Braceface".


title: Emily Hampshire

text: On May 23, 2012, in Cannes, France, Hampshire and fellow actress Sarah Gadon were presented with the first Birks Canadian Diamond award during Telefilm Canada's inaugural Tribute To Canadian Talent press event and reception. Also in 2012, Hampshire starred in David Cronenberg's "Cosmopolis" as Jane Melman, and co-starred in Sean Garrity's comedy film "My Awkward Sexual Adventure", for which she received positive critical notice. The same year she was cast in the futuristic-zombie film "The Returned".


title: Emily Hampshire

text: In 2014, Hampshire was cast in the Syfy series "12 Monkeys" in the recurring role of Jennifer Goines, a reimagined version of Brad Pitt's character from the film on which the series is based; in 2015, she was upped to a series regular for the show's second season. From 2015 to 2020, she played Stevie Budd in the CBC television series "Schitt's Creek".


title: Emily Hampshire

text: In late 2015, Hampshire was cast in Xavier Dolan's independent film "The Death and Life of John F. Donovan", which also stars Natalie Portman, Kathy Bates, and Susan Sarandon.


title: Emily Hampshire

text: In 2021, she appeared in the music video for The Tragically Hip's single "Not Necessary", from their EP "Saskadelphia".


title: Emily Hampshire

text: In 2006, Hampshire married Matthew Smith, a former soccer player turned agent-in-training at the William Morris talent agency. They divorced shortly before she was cast in "Schitt's Creek" in 2014. In September 2018, it was confirmed that Hampshire was in a relationship with singer-songwriter Teddy Geiger; they became engaged in November 2018. They ended their engagement on June 10, 2019.


title: Emily Hampshire

text: In 2007, Hampshire moved to Los Angeles. She became a naturalized U.S. citizen in September 2014 and currently divides her time between Los Angeles and Toronto.


title: Flappy Bird

text: Flappy Bird is a mobile game developed by Vietnamese video game artist and programmer Dong Nguyen (), under his game development company .Gears. The game is a side-scroller where the player controls a bird, attempting to fly between columns of green pipes without hitting them. Nguyen created the game over the period of several days, using a bird protagonist that he had designed for a cancelled game in 2012.


title: Flappy Bird

text: The game was released in May 2013 but received a sudden spike in popularity in early 2014 and became a sleeper hit. "Flappy Bird" received poor reviews from some critics, who criticized its high level of difficulty and alleged plagiarism in graphics and game mechanics, while other reviewers found it addictive. At the end of January 2014, it was the most downloaded free game in the App Store for iOS. During this period, its developer said that "Flappy Bird" was earning $50,000 a day from in-app advertisements as well as sales.


title: Flappy Bird

text: "Flappy Bird" was removed from both the App Store and Google Play on February 10, 2014, with Nguyen claiming that he felt guilty over what he considered to be the game's addictive nature and overusage. Its popularity and sudden removal caused phones with the game installed before its removal to be put up for sale for high prices over the Internet. Games similar to "Flappy Bird" became popular on the iOS App Store in the wake of its removal, and both Apple and Google have removed games from their app stores for being too similar to the original game.


title: Flappy Bird

text: In August 2014, a revised version of "Flappy Bird", called "Flappy Birds Family", was released exclusively for the Amazon Fire TV. Bay Tek Games also released a licensed coin-operated "Flappy Bird" arcade game.


title: Flappy Bird

text: "Flappy Bird" is an arcade-style game in which the player controls the bird Faby, which moves persistently to the right. The player is tasked with navigating Faby through pairs of pipes that have equally sized gaps placed at random heights. Faby automatically descends and only ascends when the player taps the touchscreen. Each successful pass through a pair of pipes awards the player one point. Colliding with a pipe or the ground ends the gameplay. During the game over screen, the player is awarded a bronze medal if they reached ten or more points, a silver medal from twenty points, a gold medal from thirty points, and a platinum medal from forty points.


title: Flappy Bird

text: Dong Nguyen grew up in Vạn Phúc, a village near Hanoi. He discovered video games by playing "Super Mario Bros." as a child and began coding his own at age 16. At 19, while studying programming at a local university, he won an internship at Punch Entertainment, one of the few video game companies in Vietnam. While using the iPhone, he found that its most popular games such as "Angry Birds" were too complicated, and wanted to make a simpler game for people who are "always on the move".


title: Flappy Bird

text: "Flappy Bird" was created and developed by Nguyen in two to three days. The bird character, Faby, was originally designed in 2012 for a cancelled platform game. The gameplay was inspired by the act of bouncing a ping pong ball against a paddle for as long as possible. Initially the game was significantly easier than it became in the final version, however Nguyen said he found this version to be boring and subsequently tightened up the difficulty. He described the business plan of a free download with in-game advertisements as "very common in the Japanese market".


title: Flappy Bird

text: Nguyen believes that contemporary Western games are overly complex. His company, .Gears, describes its games as "heavily influenced by retro pixelated games in its golden age. Everything is pure, extremely hard and incredibly fun to play".


title: Flappy Bird

text: "Flappy Bird" was originally released on May 24, 2013, with support for the iPhone 5. The game was subsequently updated for iOS 7 in September 2013. Although originally unsuccessful, the game received a massive influx of players after being reviewed by the Swedish YouTuber PewDiePie. In January 2014, it topped the Free Apps chart in the US and Chinese App Stores, and later that month topped the same section of the UK App Store where it was touted as "the new "Angry Birds"". It ended January as the most downloaded App on the App Store. The Android version of "Flappy Bird" was released to the Google Play store on January 30, 2014. In early 2014, Nguyen said in an interview with "The Verge" that the game was earning around $50,000 a day in revenue through its in-game advertising.


title: Flappy Bird

text: On February 8, 2014, Nguyen announced on Twitter that the game would be removed from both Apple's App Store and Google Play, writing: "I am sorry 'Flappy Bird' users, 22 hours from now, I will take 'Flappy Bird' down. I cannot take this anymore." He went on to say that taking down the game had "nothing to do with legal issues". The game was removed from both the App Store and Google Play exactly on time, much to the dismay of many fans.


title: Flappy Bird

text: "Tuoi Tre News", the English-language edition of the Vietnamese newspaper , reported from a local technology expert that "Flappy Bird"s removal could have been due to a legal challenge from Nintendo over perceived visual similarities to the "Mario" games. This allegation was denied by a Nintendo spokesman to "The Wall Street Journal". Lawyers in Vietnam also denied allegations that Nguyen had to remove the game due to violation of laws on Internet use in the country.


title: Flappy Bird

text: Following the removal, many media outlets reported that several merchants on eBay were offering phones which had the app pre-installed for US$1,499 or more, with some receiving bids of over $90,000; however, the listings were removed for violating eBay's rule stating that smartphones must be restored to factory settings before being sold.


title: Flappy Bird

text: In an interview with "Forbes", Nguyen cited the game's addictive nature for its cancellation, stating: ""Flappy Bird" was designed to play in a few minutes when you are relaxed. But it happened to become an addictive product. I think it has become a problem. To solve that problem, it's best to take down "Flappy Bird". It's gone forever." Nguyen said that the guilt that he felt over the game was affecting his sleep and that his conscience was relieved after he took down the game.


title: Flappy Bird

text: In a March 2014 interview with "Rolling Stone", Nguyen refused to rule out re-releasing "Flappy Bird", on condition that it would come with a warning to "Take a break". On March 19, he announced via Twitter that the game will be rereleased onto App Stores, but not anytime soon. On May 15, Nguyen told CNBC's Kelly Evans that the game would return in August, with multiplayer capability and will be "less addictive".


title: Flappy Bird

text: As Nguyen had promised, August 2014 saw a revised version of "Flappy Bird", called "Flappy Birds Family", released exclusively through the Amazon Appstore for the Amazon Fire TV platform. The new version also features new obstacles not in the original as well as an additional multiplayer option.


title: Flappy Bird

text: "Flappy Bird" received "mixed or average reviews" from critics, holding a Metacritic score of 52/100, based on seven reviews. The app was criticized by the "Huffington Post", which described it as an "insanely irritating, difficult and frustrating game which combines a super-steep difficulty curve with bad, boring graphics and jerky movement". IGN gave the game a mediocre score of 5.4 out of 10, quipping that the game is as addictive as it was shallow. Despite criticizing its playability and its "no skill" requirement, IGN noted that the gameplay made it "an addictive short-term distraction" for the casual skill and score-obsessed players. The game's difficulty has been a source of ire for many users, with one user stating that it took him half an hour to achieve a score of five points. According to its creator, the game is slightly easier on Android devices than on iOS.


title: Flappy Bird

text: Nolan Bushnell, the creator of the video game "Pong", compared "Flappy Bird" to his own game by claiming that "simple games are more satisfying". John Romero, a co-creator of the classic first-person shooter "Doom", commented that "Flappy Bird" is "a reaction against prevailing design the way grunge was a reaction to metal."


title: Flappy Bird

text: When questioned at the time by Chocolate Lab Apps, a website for app developers, Nguyen claimed to have used no promotional methods in the marketing of "Flappy Bird". He credited the sudden rise in the game's popularity in early 2014 to possibly "luck". However, online marketer Carter Thomas suspected that the developer had used bots to cause its success. When questioned on this by "The Daily Telegraph", Nguyen said that he respected other people's opinions and did not wish to comment, adding, "I'd like to make my games in peace." When "Newsweek" inquired about the matter, Nguyen wrote, "If I did fake it, should Apple let it live for months?"


title: Flappy Bird

text: The game was criticised by Kotaku for what it claimed was open use of "Mario"-style graphics, referring to it as "ripped-off art". It later published a correction, clarifying that the game's green pipe was "a new albeit unoriginal drawing".


title: Flappy Bird

text: According to some Vietnamese newspapers, including "Thanh Niên" and BBC Vietnamese, "Flappy Bird" is very similar to a game released in 2011 (two years before "Flappy Bird") called "Piou Piou vs. Cactus", from the gameplay (by tapping on the screen) to the main character design (a small yellow bird with big red beak) to the obstacles (green cacti and pipes). It is reported that several French newspapers such as "20 Minutes" and "Metronews" accused "Flappy Bird" of being a clone. The reporter from "Thanh Niên" Online tried playing "Piou Piou vs. Cactus" and confirmed that the similarities between the two games are astonishing.


title: Flappy Bird

text: The French developer of "Piou Piou vs. Cactus", known as Kek, told Pocket Gamer that he, too, noticed that "Flappy Bird" is "very similar" to his earlier game, but when he contacted Nguyen about it, Nguyen claimed that he did not know anything. Technology editor Patrick O'Rourke of Canada.com also charged that "Flappy Bird" is "almost a complete ripoff" of "Piou Piou vs Cactus", as well as that its primary gameplay mechanic is a "rip off" from a game called "Helicopter Game", and that it heavily borrowed sound effects from "Super Mario Bros." games.


title: Flappy Bird

text: Since the game's removal, numerous remakes and parodies have been spawned, such as Sesame Street's "Flappy Bert" and Fall Out Boy's "Fall Out Bird". "Flappy Bird" became one of the most cloned games in Apple's App Store. At the peak of its popularity, over 60 clones per day were appearing on the App Store, prompting both Google and Apple to begin rejecting games with the word "Flappy" in the name. CNET reviewed seven "Flappy copycats" for iOS two days after the original game's removal, describing the options as "pretty bleak", but singling out the underwater "Splashy Fish" as the closest approximation of "Flappy Bird".


title: Flappy Bird

text: Shortly after the game's removal, security researchers warned that some versions of "Flappy Bird" and its imitators available on alternative Android app stores have been found to contain malware that can lead to unauthorised charges to a user's phone bills. The number matching game "Threes" has been compared to "Flappy Bird" because of the similarities between how people react to them and by the chain of clones that they are both respectively part of.


title: Flappy Bird

text: In February 2014, the non-profit computer science education organization Code.org unveiled a set of lessons that would allow the student to make their own "Flappy Bird" clone.


title: Flappy Bird

text: Nguyen's other games "Super Ball Juggling" and "Shuriken Block" ranked at 6th and 18th respectively on the App Store during early February 2014 on the back of "Flappy Bird" success. He revealed in March 2014 that he is currently developing three other games, in similar formats to his previous releases. One of those games was released in 2014 as "Swing Copters" and uses similar gameplay as "Flappy Bird".


title: Flappy Bird

text: An Easter egg in Android Lollipop (version 5.0/5.1) allows users to play a modified version of "Flappy Bird", entitled "L Land", involving a flying Android and Lollipops replacing the pipes. It was revamped in Android Marshmallow (version 6.0) as "Marshmallow Land", adding multiplayer support for up to 6 players.


title: Flappy Bird

text: On New Year's Eve in 2014, Google displayed an animated Google Doodle featuring "Flappy Bird" as one of the year's most searched phenomena, alongside the World Cup, the Ice Bucket Challenge and the Philae spacecraft. A similar game featuring Talking Tom was released as a mini-game for "My Talking Tom", called Flappy Tom, and the same game was featured in "Talking Tom and Friends".


title: Siberian tiger

text: The Siberian tiger or Amur tiger is a population of the tiger subspecies "Panthera tigris tigris" native to the Russian Far East, Northeast China and possibly North Korea. It once ranged throughout the Korean Peninsula, but currently inhabits mainly the Sikhote-Alin mountain region in southwest Primorye Province in the Russian Far East. In 2005, there were 331–393 adult and subadult Siberian tigers in this region, with a breeding adult population of about 250 individuals. The population had been stable for more than a decade because of intensive conservation efforts, but partial surveys conducted after 2005 indicate that the Russian tiger population was declining. An initial census held in 2015 indicated that the Siberian tiger population had increased to 480–540 individuals in the Russian Far East, including 100 cubs. This was followed up by a more detailed census which revealed there was a total population of 562 wild Siberian tigers in Russia. As of 2014, about 35 individuals were estimated to range in the international border area between Russia and China.


title: Siberian tiger

text: The Siberian tiger is genetically close to the now-extinct Caspian tiger. Results of a phylogeographic study comparing mitochondrial DNA from Caspian tigers and living tiger populations indicate that the common ancestor of the Siberian and Caspian tigers colonized Central Asia from eastern China, via the Gansu−Silk Road corridor, and then subsequently traversed Siberia eastward to establish the Siberian tiger population in the Russian Far East. The Caspian and Siberian tiger populations were the northernmost in mainland Asia.


title: Siberian tiger

text: The Siberian tiger was also called "Amur tiger", "Manchurian tiger", "Korean tiger", and "Ussurian tiger", depending on the region where individuals were observed.


title: Siberian tiger

text: "Felis tigris" was the scientific name proposed by Carl Linnaeus in 1758 for the tiger. In the 19th century, several tiger specimens were collected in East Asia and described:


title: Siberian tiger

text: The validity of several tiger subspecies was questioned in 1999. Most putative subspecies described in the 19th and 20th centuries were distinguished on the basis of fur length and colouration, striping patterns and body size – characteristics that vary widely within populations. Morphologically, tigers from different regions vary little, and gene flow between populations in those regions is considered to have been possible during the Pleistocene. Therefore, it was proposed to recognize only two tiger subspecies as valid, namely "Panthera tigris tigris" in mainland Asia, and "P. t. sondaica" in the Greater Sunda Islands and possibly in Sundaland.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In 2015, morphological, ecological and molecular traits of all putative tiger subspecies were analysed in a combined approach. Results support distinction of the two evolutionary groups: continental and Sunda tigers. The authors proposed recognition of only two subspecies: namely "P. t. tigris" comprising the Bengal, Malayan, Indochinese, South China, Siberian and Caspian tiger populations; and "P. t. sondaica" comprising the Javan, Bali and Sumatran tiger populations.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In 2017, the Cat Specialist Group revised felid taxonomy and now recognizes all the tiger populations in mainland Asia as "P. t. tigris".


title: Siberian tiger

text: Several reports have been published since the 1990s on the genetic makeup of the Siberian tiger and its relationship to other populations. One of the most important outcomes has been the discovery of low genetic variability in the wild population, especially when it comes to maternal or mitochondrial DNA lineages. It seems that a single mtDNA haplotype almost completely dominates the maternal lineages of wild Siberian tigers. On the other hand, captive tigers appear to show higher mtDNA diversity. This may suggest that the subspecies has experienced a very recent genetic bottleneck caused by human pressure, with the founders of the captive population having been captured when genetic variability was higher in the wild.


title: Siberian tiger

text: At the start of the 21st century, researchers from the University of Oxford, U.S. National Cancer Institute and Hebrew University of Jerusalem collected tissue samples from 20 of 23 Caspian tiger specimens kept in museums across Eurasia. They sequenced at least one segment of five mitochondrial genes and found a low amount of variability of the mitochondrial DNA in Caspian tigers as compared to other tiger subspecies. They re-assessed the phylogenetic relationships of tiger subspecies and observed a remarkable similarity between Caspian and Siberian tigers, indicating that the Siberian tiger is the genetically closest living relative of the Caspian tiger, which strongly implies a very recent common ancestry. Based on phylogeographic analysis, they suggested that the ancestor of Caspian and Siberian tigers colonized Central Asia less than 10,000 years ago via the Gansu−Silk Road region from eastern China, and subsequently traversed eastward to establish the Siberian tiger population in the Russian Far East. The events of the Industrial Revolution may have been the critical factor in the reciprocal isolation of Caspian and Siberian tigers from what was likely a single contiguous population.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Samples of 95 wild Amur tigers were collected throughout their native range to investigate questions relative to population genetic structure and demographic history. Additionally, targeted individuals from the North American "ex situ" population were sampled to assess the genetic representation found in captivity. Population genetic and Bayesian structure analyses clearly identified two populations separated by a development corridor in Russia. Despite their well-documented 20th century decline, the researchers failed to find evidence of a recent population bottleneck, although genetic signatures of a historical contraction were detected. This disparity in signal may be due to several reasons, including historical paucity in population genetic variation associated with postglacial colonisation and potential gene flow from an extirpated Chinese population. The extent and distribution of genetic variation in captive and wild populations were similar, yet gene variants persisted "ex situ" that were lost "in situ". Overall, their results indicate the need to secure ecological connectivity between the two Russian populations to minimize loss of genetic diversity and overall susceptibility to stochastic events, and support a previous study suggesting that the captive population may be a reservoir of gene variants lost "in situ".


title: Siberian tiger

text: In 2013, the whole genome of the Siberian tiger was sequenced and published. Tigers in mainland Asia fall into two clades: the northern clade comprises the Siberian and Caspian tiger populations, and the southern clade all remaining continental tiger populations. A study published in 2018 was based on 32 tiger specimens using a whole-genome sequencing for analysis. Results support six monophyletic tiger clades and indicate that the most recent common ancestor lived about 110,000 years ago.


title: Siberian tiger

text: The tiger is reddish-rusty, or rusty-yellow in colour, with narrow black transverse stripes. The body length is not less than , condylobasal length of skull , zygomatic width , and length of upper carnassial tooth over long. It has an extended supple body standing on rather short legs with a fairly long tail.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In the 1980s, the typical weight range of wild Siberian tigers was indicated as for males and for females. Exceptionally large individuals were targeted and shot by hunters.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In 2005, a group of Russian, American and Indian zoologists published an analysis of historical and contemporary data on body weights of wild and captive tigers, both female and male across all subspecies. The data used include weights of tigers that were older than 35 months and measured in the presence of authors. Their comparison with historical data indicates that up to the first half of the 20th century both male and female Siberian tigers were on average heavier than post-1970 ones. The average historical wild male Siberian tiger weighed and the female ; the contemporary wild male Siberian tiger weighs on average with an asymptotic limit being ; a wild female weighs on average. Historical Siberian tigers and Bengal tigers were the largest ones, whereas contemporary Siberian tigers are on average lighter than Bengal tigers. The reduction of the body weight of today's Siberian tigers may be explained by concurrent causes, namely the reduced abundance of prey because of illegal hunting and that the individuals were usually sick or injured and captured in a conflict situation with people.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Measurements taken by scientists of the "Siberian Tiger Project" in the Sikhote-Alin range from in head and body length measured in straight line, with an average of for males; and for females ranging from with an average of . The average tail measures in males and in females. The longest male measured in total length including a tail of and with a chest girth of . The longest female measured in total length including tail of and with a chest girth of .


title: Siberian tiger

text: A male captured by members of the "Siberian Tiger Project" weighed , and the largest radio-collared male weighed .


title: Siberian tiger

text: A wild male, killed in Manchuria by the Sungari River in 1943, reportedly measured "over the curves", with a tail length of about . It weighed about . Dubious sources mention weights of and even .


title: Siberian tiger

text: The skull of the Siberian tiger is characterized by its large size. The facial region is very powerful and very broad in the region of the canines. The skull prominences, especially in the sagittal crest and crista occipitalis, are very high and strong in old males, and often much more massive than usually observed in the biggest skulls of Bengal tigers. The size variation in skulls of Siberian tigers ranges from in nine individuals measured. A female skull is always smaller and never as heavily built and robust as that of a male. The height of the sagittal crest in its middle part reaches as much as , and in its posterior part up to .


title: Siberian tiger

text: Female skulls range from . The skulls of male Caspian tigers from Turkestan had a maximum length of , while that of females measured . A tiger killed on the Sumbar River in Kopet Dag in January 1954 had a greatest skull length of , which is considerably more than the known maximum for this population and slightly exceeds that of most Siberian tigers. However, its condylobasal length was only , smaller than those of the Siberian tigers, with a maximum recorded condylobasal length of . The biggest skull of a Siberian tiger from northeast China measured in length, which is about more than the maximum skull lengths of tigers from the Amur region and northern India, with the exception of a skull of a northern Indian tiger from the vicinity of Nagina, which measured "over the bone".


title: Siberian tiger

text: The ground colour of Siberian tigers' pelage is often very pale, especially in winter coat. However, variations within populations may be considerable. Individual variation is also found in form, length, and partly in colour, of the dark stripes, which have been described as being dark brown rather than black.


title: Siberian tiger

text: The fur of the Siberian tiger is moderately thick, coarse and sparse compared to that of other felids living in the former Soviet Union. Compared to the extinct westernmost populations, the Siberian tiger's summer and winter coats contrast sharply with other subspecies. Generally, the coat of western populations was brighter and more uniform than that of the Far Eastern populations. The summer coat is coarse, while the winter coat is denser, longer, softer, and silkier. The winter fur often appears quite shaggy on the trunk and is markedly longer on the head, almost covering the ears. Siberian and Caspian tigers had the thickest fur amongst tigers.


title: Siberian tiger

text: The whiskers and hair on the back of the head and the top of the neck are also greatly elongated. The background colour of the winter coat is generally less bright and rusty compared to that of the summer coat. Because of the winter fur's greater length, the stripes appear broader with less defined outlines. The summer fur on the back is long, along the top of the neck, on the abdomen, and on the tail. The winter fur on the back is , on the top of the neck, on the throat, on the chest and on the abdomen. The whiskers are .


title: Siberian tiger

text: The Siberian tiger once inhabited much of the Korean Peninsula, Manchuria and other parts of north-eastern China, the eastern part of Siberia and the Russian Far East, perhaps as far west as Mongolia and the area of Lake Baikal, where the Caspian tiger also reportedly occurred.


title: Siberian tiger

text: During the late Pleistocene and Holocene, it was likely connected to the South China tiger population through corridors in the Yellow River basin, before humans interrupted gene flow.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Today, its range stretches south to north for almost the length of Primorsky Krai and into southern Khabarovsk Krai east and south of the Amur River. It also occurs within the Greater Xing'an Range, which crosses into Russia from China at several places in southwest Primorye. This region represents a merger zone of the East Asian temperate broadleaf and mixed forest and the taiga, resulting in a mosaic of forest types that vary in elevation and topography. Key habitats of the Siberian tiger are Korean pine forests with a complex composition and structure.


title: Siberian tiger

text: The faunal complex of the region is represented by a mixture of Asian and boreal life forms. The ungulate complex is represented by seven species, with Manchurian wapiti, Siberian roe deer, and wild boar being the most common throughout the Sikhote-Alin mountains but rare in higher altitude spruce-fir forests. Sika deer are restricted to the southern half of the Sikhote-Alin mountains. Siberian musk deer and Amur moose are associated with the conifer forests and are near the southern limits of their distribution in the central Sikhote-Alin mountains.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In 2005, the number of Amur tigers in China was estimated at 18–22, and 331–393 in the Russian Far East, comprising a breeding adult population of about 250, fewer than 100 likely to be sub-adults, more than 20 likely to be less than 3 years of age. More than 90% of the population occurred in the Sikhote Alin mountain region. An unknown number of tigers survive in the reserve areas around Baekdu Mountain, on the border between China and North Korea, based on tracks and sightings.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In August 2012, a Siberian tiger with four cubs was recorded for the first time in northeastern China's Hunchun National Nature Reserve located in the vicinity of the international borders with Russia and North Korea. Camera-trap surveys carried out in the spring seasons of 2013 and 2014 revealed between 27 and 34 tigers along the China-Russian border.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In April 2014, World Wide Fund for Nature personnel captured a video of a tigress with cubs in inland China.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Camera trap surveys between 2013 and 2018 revealed about 55 Siberian tigers in four forested landscapes in northeastern China: Laoyeling, Zhangguangcai Range, Wandashan and Lesser Khingan Mountains. Feces, urine and hair was used to genetically identify 30 tigers in this region. However, only Laoyeling is thought to support a breeding population.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Siberian tigers are known to travel up to over ecologically unbroken country. In 1992 and 1993, the maximum total population density of the Sikhote-Alin tiger population was estimated at 0.62 tigers in . The maximum "adult" population estimated in 1993 reached 0.3 tigers in , with a sex ratio of averaging 2.4 females per male. These density values were much lower than what had been reported for other subspecies at the time.


title: Siberian tiger

text: In 2004, dramatic changes in land tenure, population density, and reproductive output in the core area of the Sikhote-Alin Zapovednik Siberian Tiger Project were detected, suggesting that when tigers are well protected from human-induced mortality for long periods, the adult female population density increases significantly. When more adult females survived, the mothers shared their home ranges with their daughters once the daughters reached maturity. By 2007, population density of tigers was estimated at 0.8±0.4 tigers in in the southern part of Sikhote-Alin Zapovednik, and 0.6±0.3 tigers in in the central part of the protected area.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Siberian tigers share habitat with Amur leopards ("P. pardus orientalis"), but in the Changbai Mountains have been recorded more often in lower elevations than leopards.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Prey species of the tiger include ungulates such as Manchurian wapiti ("Cervus canadensis xanthopygus"), Siberian musk deer ("Moschus moschiferus"), long-tailed goral ("Naemorhedus caudatus"), moose ("Alces alces"), Siberian roe deer ("Capreolus pygargus") and sika deer ("Cervus nippon"), wild boar ("Sus scrofa"), and even sometimes small size Asiatic black bears ("Ursus thibetanus") and brown bears ("Ursus arctos"). Siberian tigers also take smaller prey like hares, rabbits, pikas and even salmon. Scat was collected along the international border between Russia and China between November 2014 and April 2015; 115 scat samples of nine tigers contained foremost remains of wild boar, sika deer and roe deer.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Between January 1992 and November 1994, 11 tigers were captured, fitted with radio-collars and monitored for more than 15 months in the eastern slopes of the Sikhote-Alin mountain range. Results of this study indicate that their distribution is closely associated with distribution of Manchurian wapiti, while distribution of wild boar was not such a strong predictor for tiger distribution. Although they prey on both Siberian roe deer and sika deer, overlap of these ungulates with tigers was low. Distribution of moose was poorly associated with tiger distribution. The distribution of preferred habitat of key prey species was an accurate predictor of tiger distribution.


title: Siberian tiger

text: Results of a three-year study on Siberian tigers indicate that the mean interval between their kills and estimated prey consumption varied across seasons: during 2009 to 2012, three adult tigers killed prey every 7.4 days in summer and consumed a daily average of ; in winter they killed more large-bodied prey, made kills every 5.7 days and consumed a daily average of .


title: Siberian tiger

text: Following a decrease of ungulate populations from 1944 to 1959, more than 32 cases of Amur tigers attacking both Ussuri brown ("Ursus arctos lasiotus") and Ussuri black bears ("U. thibetanus ussuricus") were recorded in the Russian Far East, and hair of bears were found in several tiger scat samples. Tigers attack black bears less often than brown bears, as the latter live in more open habitats and are not able to climb trees. In the same time period, four cases of brown bears killing female tigers and young cubs were reported, both in disputes over prey and in self-defense. Tigers can tackle bears larger than themselves, using an ambushing tactic and jumping onto the bear from an overhead position, grabbing it by the chin with one forepaw and by the throat with the other, and then killing it with a bite in the spinal column. Tigers mainly feed on the bear's fat deposits, such as the back, hams and groin.


title: Siberian tiger

text: When Amur tigers prey on brown bears, they usually target young and sub-adult bears, besides small female adults. Predation by tigers on denned brown bears was not detected during a study carried between 1993 and 2002. Ussuri brown bears, along with the smaller black bears constitute 2.1% of the Siberian tiger's annual diet, of which 1.4% are brown bears.