lution in Germany entered its decisive phase. New factories were built at a breath-taking rate, the production of textiles and iron soared, railroads grew and started to connect many distant regions, and coal production and export reached record levels every year. These advances profited from a high level of education, the result of an advanced school and university system. For a long time Prussia had the highest literacy rate and exemplary schools.Economic progress was most powerful in Prussia and less impressive in Austria. Through the Vienna peace settlement Prussia had received areas that turned out to be enormously precious for industrialization (the Ruhr district, the Rhineland, and parts of Saxony - all with rich coal deposits). Prussia now started to dominate many of the smaller German states economically, and the smaller states -- often hesitantly -- adapted their economies to Prussia. Decisive for this inconspicuous economic unification of Germany was the foundation of a customs union (Zollverein) already in 1834, which excluded Austria and Bohemia. Railroad building followed the lines of trade after 1837. To put it in a nutshell, Germany -- roughly in the borders of the later Second Empire -- was economically and, to a lesser degree, culturally united before 1871. Bismarck thus adopted universal and equal suffrage in his constitutional settlements of 1867 and 1871; but this step, demanded by democrats and many socialists, was dictated by political needs: Bismarck hoped to win support from the lower classes and to use universal suffrage as a weapon against the liberal bourgeoisie, conservative aristocrats, and the Austrians. This strategy was inspired by the French Emperor Napoleon III, who had established an autocracy which often resorted to plebiscites (Bonapartism). By granting universal male suffrage while limiting the power of parliament, Nalopleon III had in opportune moments appealed to the people - with success. Bisma...
