The relationship between Russia and Germany was quite deep, especially between the royal family, and the six Tsarist monarchs before Alexander III all had German blood, and from Alexander III, the Russification process of the Tsarist court and nobility began. Relations between the two sides began to cool and became increasingly hostile, and most of the reason for this fell on the wife of Alexander III, Empress Maria.

The Empress's father was Christian IX, known as the grandfather of Europe.

His eldest son was King Frederick VIII of Denmark, married Princess Lovisha, daughter of King Carl XV of Sweden, and had four sons and four daughters, Christian IX, the eldest grandson of whom inherited the Danish throne as Christian X, and the second grandson who inherited the Norwegian throne as Haakon VII.

His eldest daughter, Alexandra, was married to Queen Victoria's eldest son, Edward, who became known as Edward VII, and their descendants ruled England until the time of the queen's life.

After many twists and turns, the second son later became the king of Greece, known as George I, who reigned for more than 50 years, established a relatively democratic constitutional monarchy, expanded the territory of Greece through the war with the Ottoman Empire, and successfully hosted the 1896 Summer Olympics. After the end of the First Balkan War, when the Balkan League formed by Greek Prime Minister Eleftherios Venizelos was about to triumph, George I was assassinated in Thessaloniki, a newly acquired Greek territory, and Greece gradually fell into turmoil.

The second daughter was the wife of Alexander III, now renamed Maria Fedorovna.

In addition, Christian IX had a younger son named Waldemar, who was the least active in the family. Although Christian IX is the ninth great-great-grandson of King Christian III of Denmark and Norway, history has been marked by countless twists and turns in the more than 300 years from Christian III to Christian IX. The glory of the family was no longer what it once was, and Christian IX's original domain was nothing more than a small duchy called Schleswig-Holstein, consisting of two states. It was also later that he had good luck and married a Danish princess, and his life began to flourish. In 1863, he officially became King of Denmark.

Perhaps it was his own experience that inspired Christian IX, and when his children came of age, he began to marry European royalty, and as time went on, the family branched out, and he also gained the title of European grandfather.

But nine times out of ten, life is unsatisfactory.

It stands to reason that Christian IX became king of Denmark, and his territory naturally included Denmark and the lands of Schleswig-Holstein, which he had originally ruled. But someone objected to this, and firmly opposed it, and this person was Otto von Bismarck!

It is said that in 1861 Wilhelm I had just succeeded the mad Frederick Wilhelm IV from the throne and became the king of Prussia. As soon as Wilhelm I came to power, he began to build up his armaments, but then came into conflict with Parliament. As a last resort, he had to accept Bismarck's fate to become the prime minister, but Bismarck was stubborn, as long as he was the prime minister, so he was not suspended. In desperation, in 1862, William I made him ambassador to France.

Later, in the general election of the House of Representatives, the liberals won an absolute victory, and their political ideas were completely contrary to those of the Put-king, and as soon as they came to power, they stopped all appropriations for military reform. Under the boycott, the government and the parliament were at an impasse, and with such a heavy contradiction, Bismarck became the only possible candidate for the post of prime minister.

On September 23, 1862, Wilhelm I finally recalled Bismarck and appointed him Prime Minister and Foreign Minister.

On September 26, Bismarck, in his first speech to the House of Commons, told the parliament firmly: "The contemporary question of gravity cannot be solved by a guò speech or a majority resolution...... Rather, it is to be solved with iron and blood! ”

Because of such a sentence, Bismarck was given the nickname of "iron-blooded prime minister". Then Wilhelm I said to Bismarck: "I know very well the end, they will cut off your head in front of my window in the opera square, and then I will cut off my head later." ”

Bismarck responded: "If sooner or later you have to die, why die undignifiedly?" …… There is no difference between dying on the gallows or dying on the battlefield...... We must fight to the end! ”

William I deeply agreed with this, so the monarch and the ministers sympathized with each other and formed a strong relationship, which sounded a bit like Liu Bei and Zhuge Liang.

Of course, Bismarck was also a mortal, and there was actually no good way to solve the conflict between the government and the parliament, and this problem was rotten at the root. Therefore, he retreated to the next best thing, and adopted a great shift to attract the public's attention through external contradictions, thus putting the problem on hold for the time being. To put it bluntly, it's the same trick as magic.

At this time, Prussia was far from having the strength of the First and Second World Wars decades later, and it was to challenge the strongest in the world, and to push the Eurasian and African continents was to die. So the persimmon picks a soft pinch, which is the best choice. Unfortunately, Denmark became this soft persimmon.

Speaking of Prussia's actions against Denmark, it is not for no reason, because of the division of Prussia, Denmark, as its northern neighbor, often interfered in Prussia's internal affairs and interfered in internal affairs. The two sides were already full of contradictions, and the lack of armament of Prussia was just an excuse to send troops.

In 1861, Denmark was preparing to annex Schleswig and Holstein to its territory, but Bismarck began to stir up trouble, leaving a pretext for war. All that was done afterwards was to communicate with the rest of Europe and prevent them from interfering in the matter. Then, as a result of the Austrian alliance, Denmark was sent together.

In the Treaty of Vienna of 30 October 1864, Denmark renounced both places. On August 14, 1865, Prussia and Austria concluded the Treaty of Gastein, which placed Holstein under Prussian rule and Schleswig under Austrian rule. But this was actually a deliberate conspiracy by Bismarck, because the Schleswig acquired by Austria was not only small in size, but also surrounded by Prussia. Austria could easily have come into conflict with Prussia, so it was a trigger that pushed Austria to war with Prussia, and there was indeed a war afterwards.

A few years after Christian IX took over as King of Denmark, his small principality was divided between Prussia and Austria. But he did not dare to fight, so he could only complain to his children with anger, and it was his second daughter, the Russian Empress Maria Feodorovna, who was going to his father. After blowing a bunch of pillow wind in her husband's ear, she finally broke up the blood relationship between the Tsarist Russian royal family and the Prussian royal family, and became increasingly hostile.

In order to better confront Germany, which is now in the limelight in Europe, Tsarist Russia has developed relations with France, Germany's sworn enemy, which is also an important reason why France sent an envoy to St. Petersburg.