Germany

## German Empire

*Kaiserreich*

**Chancellor:**
Franz von Papen (1947–)

**Germany**, officially the **German Empire** or the **Kaiserreich**, is a sovereign country located in Central Europe. It consists of 27 states, each with their own nobility, four constituent kingdoms, seven grand duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory. While Prussia is one of four kingdoms in the realm, it contains about two-thirds of Empire's population and territory, and Prussian dominance has also been constitutionally established, since the King of Prussia is also the Kaiser ('Emperor of Germany).

After the unification of the country in 1871, it has become a great power, boasting a rapidly developing rail network, the world's strongest army, and a fast-growing industrial base. Starting very small in 1871, in a decade, the navy became second only to Britain's Royal Navy. It also established the world's first space agency, that being the Weltraumreich.

It borders Scandinavia to the north,Poland to the east, Austria-Hungary and Switzerland to the south, and France, Belgium, and the Netherlands to the west. The nation's capital and largest city is Berlin, and its financial centre is Frankfurt; the largest urban area is the Ruhr. The government is a unitary parliamentary semi-constitutional monarchy, with its current monarchy being Wilhelm IV, who took the throne in 1951 after the sudden heart attack of his father, Wilhelm III.

## History

### Background

The German Confederation had been created by an act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, after being alluded to in Article 6 of the 1814 Treaty of Paris.

The liberal Revolutions of 1848 were crushed after the alliance between the educated, well-off bourgeois liberals and the urban artisans broke down; Otto von Bismarck's pragmatic *Realpolitik*, which appealed to peasants as well as the traditional aristocracy, took its place. Bismarck sought to extend Hohenzollern hegemony throughout the German states; to do so meant unification of the German states and the exclusion of Prussia's main German rival, Austria, from the subsequent German Empire. He envisioned a conservative, Prussian-dominated Germany. Three wars led to military successes and helped to persuade German people to do this: the Second Schleswig War against Denmark in 1864, the Austro-Prussian War in 1866, and the Franco-Prussian War in 1870–1871.

The German Confederation ended as a result of the Austro-Prussian War of 1866 between the constituent Confederation entities of the Austrian Empire and its allies on one side and Prussia and its allies on the other. The war resulted in the partial replacement of the Confederation in 1867 by a North German Confederation, comprising the 22 states north of the Main River. The patriotic fervor generated by the Franco-Prussian War overwhelmed the remaining opposition to a unified Germany (aside from Austria) in the four states south of the Main, and during November 1870, they joined the North German Confederation by treaty.

#### Foundation

On 10 December 1870, the North German Confederation Reichstag renamed the Confederation the "German Empire" and gave the title of German Emperor to William I, the King of Prussia, as *Bundespräsidium* of the Confederation. The new constitution (Constitution of the German Confederation) and the title Emperor came into effect on 1 January 1871. During the Siege of Paris on 18 January 1871, William accepted to be proclaimed Emperor in the Hall of Mirrors at the Palace of Versailles.

The second German Constitution, adopted by the Reichstag on 14 April 1871 and proclaimed by the Emperor on 16 April, was substantially based upon Bismarck's North German Constitution. The political system remained the same. The empire had a parliament called the *Reichstag*, which was elected by universal male suffrage. However, the original constituencies drawn in 1871 were never redrawn to reflect the growth of urban areas. As a result, by the time of the great expansion of German cities in the 1890s and 1900s, rural areas were grossly over-represented.
*Die Proklamation des Deutschen Kaiserreiches* by Anton von Werner (1877), depicting the proclamation of Emperor William I (18 January 1871, Palace of Versailles). From left, on the podium (in black): Crown Prince Frederick (later Frederick III), his father the emperor, and Frederick I of Baden, proposing a toast to the new emperor. At centre (in white): Otto von Bismarck, first Chancellor of Germany, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, Prussian Chief of Staff.
The legislation also required the consent of the *Bundesrat*, the federal council of deputies from the 27 states. Executive power was vested in the emperor, or *Kaiser*, who was assisted by a Chancellor responsible only to him. The emperor was given extensive powers by the constitution. He alone appointed and dismissed the chancellor (so in practice, the emperor ruled the empire through the chancellor), was supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and final arbiter of all foreign affairs, and could also disband the *Reichstag* to call for new elections. Officially, the chancellor was a one-man cabinet and was responsible for the conduct of all state affairs; in practice, the State Secretaries (top bureaucratic officials in charge of such fields as finance, war, foreign affairs, etc.) functioned much like ministers in other monarchies. The *Reichstag* had the power to pass, amend, or reject bills and to initiate legislation. However, as mentioned above, in practice, the real power was vested in the emperor, who exercised it through his chancellor.

Although nominally a federal empire and league of equals, in practice, the empire was dominated by the largest and most powerful state, Prussia. Prussia stretched across the northern two-thirds of the new *Reich* and contained three-fifths of its population. The imperial crown was hereditary in the ruling house of Prussia, the House of Hohenzollern. With the exception of 1872–1873 and 1892–1894, the chancellor was always simultaneously the prime minister of Prussia. With 17 out of 58 votes in the *Bundesrat*, Berlin needed only a few votes from the smaller states to exercise effective control.

The other states retained their own governments but had only limited aspects of sovereignty. For example, both postage stamps and currency were issued for the empire as a whole. Coins through one mark were also minted in the name of the empire, while higher-valued pieces were issued by the states. However, these larger gold and silver issues were virtually commemorative coins and had limited circulation.

While the states issued their own decorations and some had their own armies, the military forces of the smaller ones were put under Prussian control. Those of the larger states, such as the Kingdoms of Bavaria and Saxony, were coordinated along Prussian principles and would, in wartime, be controlled by the federal government.

The evolution of the German Empire is somewhat in line with parallel developments in Italy, which became a united nation-state a decade earlier. Some key elements of the German Empire's authoritarian political structure were also the basis for conservative modernization in Imperial Japan under Meiji and the preservation of an authoritarian political structure under the tsars in the Russian Empire.

One factor in the social anatomy of these governments was the retention of a very substantial share in political power by the landed elite, the Junkers, resulting from the absence of a revolutionary breakthrough by the peasants in combination with urban areas.

Although authoritarian in many respects, the empire had some democratic features. Besides universal suffrage, it permitted the development of political parties. Bismarck intended to create a constitutional façade that would mask the continuation of authoritarian policies. In the process, he created a system with a serious flaw. There was a significant disparity between the Prussian and German electoral systems. Prussia used a highly restrictive three-class voting system in which the richest third of the population could choose 85% of the legislature, all but assuring a conservative majority. As mentioned above, the king and (with two exceptions) the prime minister of Prussia was also the emperor and chancellor of the empire – meaning that the same rulers had to seek majorities from legislatures elected from completely different franchises. Universal suffrage was significantly diluted by gross over-representation of rural areas from the 1890s onward. By the turn of the century, the urban-rural population balance was completely reversed from 1871; more than two-thirds of the empire's people lived in cities and towns.

### Bismarck era

Bismarck's domestic policies played an important role in forging the authoritarian political culture of the *Kaiserreich*. Less preoccupied with continental power politics following unification in 1871, Germany's semi-parliamentary government carried out a relatively smooth economic and political revolution from above that pushed them along the way towards becoming the world's leading industrial power of the time.

Bismarck's "revolutionary conservatism" was a conservative state-building strategy designed to make ordinary Germans—not just the Junker elite—more loyal to the throne and empire. According to Kees van Kersbergen and Barbara Vis, his strategy was:

Bismarck created the modern welfare state in Germany in the 1880s and enacted universal male suffrage in 1871. He became a great hero to German conservatives, who erected many monuments to his memory and tried to emulate his policies.

#### Foreign policy

Bismarck's post-1871 foreign policy was conservative and sought to preserve the balance of power in Europe. British historian Eric Hobsbawm concludes that he "remained undisputed world champion at the game of multilateral diplomatic chess for almost twenty years after 1871, [devoting] himself exclusively, and successfully, to maintaining peace between the powers". This was a departure from his adventurous foreign policy for Prussia, where he favored strength and expansion, punctuating this by saying, "The great question of the age are not settled by speeches and majority votes – this was the error of 1848–49 – but by iron and blood."

Bismarck's chief concern was that France would plot revenge after its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. As the French lacked the strength to defeat Germany by themselves, they sought an alliance with Russia, which would trap Germany between the two in a war (as would ultimately happen in 1914). Bismarck wanted to prevent this at all costs and maintain friendly relations with the Russians and thereby formed an alliance with them and Austria-Hungary, the *Dreikaiserbund* (League of Three Emperors), in 1881. The alliance was further cemented by a separate non-aggression pact with Russia called Reinsurance Treaty, which was signed in 1887. During this period, individuals within the German military were advocating a preemptive strike against Russia, but Bismarck knew that such ideas were foolhardy. He once wrote that "the most brilliant victories would not avail against the Russian nation, because of its climate, its desert, and its frugality, and having but one frontier to defend", and because it would leave Germany with another bitter, resentful neighbor.

Meanwhile, the chancellor remained wary of any foreign policy developments that looked even remotely warlike. In 1886, he moved to stop an attempted sale of horses to France because they might be used for cavalry and also ordered an investigation into large Russian purchases of medicine from a German chemical works. Bismarck stubbornly refused to listen to Georg Herbert Münster, ambassador to France, who reported back that the French were not seeking a revanchist war and were desperate for peace at all costs.

Bismarck and most of his contemporaries were conservative-minded and focused their foreign policy attention on Germany's neighboring states. In 1914, 60% of German foreign investment was in Europe, as opposed to just 5% of British investment. Most of the money went to developing nations such as Russia that lacked the capital or technical knowledge to industrialize on their own. The construction of the Baghdad Railway, financed by German banks, was designed to eventually connect Germany with the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Gulf, but it also collided with British and Russian geopolitical interests. Conflict over the Baghdad Railway was resolved in June 1914.

Many consider Bismarck's foreign policy as a coherent system and partly responsible for the preservation of Europe's stability. It was also marked by the need to balance circumspect defensiveness and the desire to be free from the constraints of its position as a major European power. Bismarck's successors did not pursue his foreign policy legacy. For instance, Kaiser Wilhelm II, who dismissed the chancellor in 1890, let the treaty with Russia lapse in favor of Germany's alliance with Austria, which finally led to a stronger coalition-building between Russia and France.

#### Colonies

*Main article: German colonial empire*

Germans had dreamed of colonial imperialism since 1848. Although Bismarck had little interest in acquiring overseas possessions, most Germans were enthusiastic, and by 1884 he had acquired German New Guinea. By the 1890s, German colonial expansion in Asia and the Pacific (Kiauchau in China, Tientsin in China, the Marianas, the Caroline Islands, Samoa) led to frictions with the UK, Russia, Japan, and the US. The largest colonial enterprises were in Africa, where the Herero Wars in what is now Namibia in 1906–1907 resulted in the Herero and Namaqua genocide.
By 1900, Germany became the largest economy in continental Europe and the third-largest in the world behind the United States and the British Empire, which were also its main economic rivals. Throughout its existence, it experienced economic growth and modernization led by heavy industry. In 1871, it had a largely rural population of 41 million, while by 1913, this had increased to a predominantly urban population of 68 million.

### Post-Bismark Era

Wilhelm II and his advisers committed a fatal diplomatic error when they allowed the "Reinsurance Treaty" that Bismarck had negotiated with Tsarist Russia to lapse. Germany was left with no firm ally but Austria-Hungary, and her support for action in annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908 further soured relations with Russia. Wilhelm missed the opportunity to secure an alliance with Britain in the 1890s when it was involved in colonial rivalries with France, and he alienated British statesmen further by openly supporting the Boers in the South African War and building a navy to rival Britain's. By 1911 Wilhelm had completely picked apart the careful power balance established by Bismarck and Britain turned to France in the Entente Cordiale. Germany's only other ally besides Austria was the Kingdom of Italy, but it remained an ally only *pro forma*. When war came, Italy saw more benefit in an alliance with Britain, France, and Russia, which, in the secret Treaty of London in 1915 promised it the frontier districts of Austria where Italians formed the majority of the population and also colonial concessions. Germany did acquire a second ally that same year when the Ottoman Empire entered the war on its side, but in the long run, supporting the Ottoman war effort only drained away German resources from the main fronts.

#### Entry

Following the assassination of the Austro-Hungarian Archduke of Franz Ferdinand by a Bosnian Serb, the Kaiser offered Emperor Franz Joseph full support for Austro-Hungarian plans to invade the Kingdom of Serbia, which Austria-Hungary blamed for the assassination. This unconditional support for Austria-Hungary was called a "blank cheque" by historians, including German Fritz Fischer. Subsequent interpretation – for example at the Versailles Peace Conference – was that this "blank cheque" licensed Austro-Hungarian aggression regardless of the diplomatic consequences, and thus Germany bore responsibility for starting the war, or at least provoking a wider conflict.

Germany began the war by targeting its chief rival, France. Germany saw France as its principal danger on the European continent as it could mobilize much faster than Russia and bordered Germany's industrial core in the Rhineland. Unlike Britain and Russia, the French entered the war mainly for revenge against Germany, in particular for France's loss of Alsace-Lorraine to Germany in 1871. The German high command knew that France would muster its forces to go into Alsace-Lorraine. Aside from the very unofficial Septemberprogramm, the Germans never stated a clear list of goals that they wanted out of the war.

#### Western Front

German generals began devising a plan for an invasion of France - one of the generals, Helmuth von Moltke, suggested to use the *Schlieffen Plan*, which was a plan to invade France through Belgium and Luxembourg, although he was fired for the ridiculous suggestion, since invading Belgium would have triggered an immediate involvement from the United Kingdom. Another general, Adolf Wild von Hohenborn. presented the *Hohenborn Betrieb* (Holhenborn Operation), where he suggested to send spies through the border of Luxembourg to create a distraction of the French guards, to then allow the German soldiers to storm through. This plan was agreed on, and Wilhelm II approved the idea.

On 7 August 1914, German spies - Heinrich Albert, Wilhelm Canaris and Anton Dilger - were sent through the borders of Luxembourg to the French border, where they pretended to be French army soldiers. Then, they set up a few gas bombs around the area, and ran off just in time for the explosions to take place - over one hundred French guards had been killed using this method, which was an ultimate success for Germany, since it was their chance to hit France, and a day later, German soldiers stormed through the border. On the

On 19 September 1914, France ordered an offensive that ended up in failure, and from 2 October 1914 to 11 February 1915, both troops fought each other at the Battle of Paris, which became a German victory. Germany fully occupied France the next day, after French President Raymond Poincaré had surrendered on behalf of the now-fallen French Third Republic. Then, British Prime Minister H. H. Asquith - with pressure from the public - declared war on Germany on 21 February. For a few months, there were several battles in France, although the war on the Western Front was finally over when the British Empire surrendered on 9 October after the Battle of Limoges.