Squire Otto von Bismark, the diplomatically brilliant Ministerpräsident (chief minister) of far less astute, often unwilling Prussian king Wilhelm, survived an attempt on his life and conceived a cunning strategy to unite Germany, some thirty independent monarchies since the Napoleonic era, under Prussia's Hohenzollern dynasty. First a war against Austria, the imperial Habsburg rival for predominance in the former Holy Roman Empire, allowed uniting the Northern League states. Soon after, he and the proud French emperor Napoleon III headed for a Franco-German war, in which the reluctant Southern monarchs has to take the Prussian side. After the 1870 Sedan victory, the French empire collapsed and Bismarck arranged for gay king Ludwig of Bavaria, the major southern state, whose wasteful romantic castles Bismarck financed as blackmail base, to offer Wilhelm the crown of a new German Empire. It got an elected diet (parliament), which despite a generous social policy ended up left-wing, against conservative Bismarck. Shortly after Wilhelm was succeeded by his grandson Wilhelm II, the loyal statesman, was dismissed, and rightly predicted the empire would soon crumble.