World War one might have been avoided, if later chancellors had followed his policies. He obtained from Congress the right to borrow from the people by selling to it the 'bonds' of States and the Government and the nation escaped the plots of the foreign financiers. In power from 1862 to 1890 he engineered three short wars theyre where the word blitzkrieg comes from against Denmark (1863), Austria (1866) and France (1870) to turn Prussia into the Second Reich (1871-1918) the first had been medieval and fatally undermined Germanys fragile liberal institutions at a critical stage of their evolution. For every 'prediction' that comes true, an unknown, yet quite high, number of those that didn't are forgotten/omitted. for(var i=0; i