German empire

The German Empire (in German: Deutsches Kaiserreich or, in the most generic sense, Deutsches Reich) was the form of State that existed in Germany from its unification and the proclamation of William I as emperor, on January 18, 1871, until 1918, when it became a republic after of the defeat in the First World War and the abdication of William II on November 9 of that year, as a result of the November Revolution.

The German Reich emerged as a result of Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck's "revolution from above", through which he managed to settle the "German question" in the 1860s. He subsequently resolved the question of internal power through conflict Prussian constitutional (1862-1866) against Parliament and in favor of the executive. Later the question of external political power was resolved by the War of the Duchies (1864) and by the Austro-Prussian War (1866) in the sense of "little Germany" - excluding Austria - and in the Franco-Prussian War (1870-1871). The victory of Prussia and its allies in this last conflict led to the founding of the German Empire. The kings of Saxony and Bavaria, the princes, dukes and electors of Brunswick, Baden, Hanover, Mecklenburg, Württemberg and Oldenburg swore allegiance to the king of Prussia, who became Kaiser of the 39 independent states that were thus united.

Bismarck prepared a broad outline, the North German Constitution of 1866, which became the German Constitution of 1871, with some adjustments. Germany acquired some democratic features and in the new Empire there was a parliament with two chambers. The Lower House, or Reichstag, was elected by universal male suffrage. However, the original constituencies drawn up in 1871 were never redesigned to reflect the growth of urban areas. As a result, at the time of the great expansion of German cities between the 1890s and 1900s, rural areas were overrepresented. One of the characteristics of the government was the retention of a very important part of political power by the landowning elite, the junkers.

The legislation also required the approval of the Bundesrat, the Federal Council of Deputies of the Reich States. Executive power resided in the emperor, or Kaiser (after the Roman leader Caesar). The emperor was given broad powers by the Constitution. The chancellor was the supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces and the final arbiter of international relations. Officially, the chancellor was a one-man cabinet and was responsible for the conduct of virtually all state affairs, such as the bureaucracy of senior officials in charge of finance, war, international relations, etc.; he looked like the President of the Council of Ministers. The Reichstag had the power to approve, modify or reject bills and to initiate legislation.

Although de jure all States had the same executive power, practically the Empire was dominated by the Kingdom of Prussia, its largest and most powerful State. It extended in the north and had two-thirds of the Reich's surface and three-fifths of its population. The imperial crown was hereditary to the Hohenzollern Dynasty, the ruling house of Prussia. With the exception of the years 1872-1873 and 1892-1894, the chancellor was always at the same time the minister-president of Prussia. With 17 votes out of 58 in the Bundesrat, Berlin only needed a few small state votes to exercise effective control.

The other States retained their own governments, but were limited only to aspects of sovereignty. For example, postage stamps were issued by the Empire as a whole, as was currency. Some pieces were issued by the States, but they were practically commemorative coins and had limited circulation. In this way, without monetary harmonization and the presence of a central bank, the Empire represented the longest experience of a free banking system during the century XIX in the industrialized countries of the continent. Furthermore, while the States had their own decorations, and some had their own armies, the military forces of the smaller ones were placed under Prussian control. The armies of larger states, such as the kingdoms of Bavaria and Saxony, were coordinated with the main armies of Prussia and in time of war were controlled by the federal government.

Although authoritarian in many aspects, the Empire allowed the development of political parties, freedom of assembly and certain levels of freedom of expression and association. Bismarck intended to create a constitutional mask façade for the continuation of authoritarian policies. In the process, he created a system in which there was a significant disparity between the electoral systems of Prussia and the rest of Germany. Prussia used a very restrictive three-class voting system, in which the richest third of the population could elect 85% of the legislature, ensuring a conservative majority.

In 1871, the German Empire had 41 million citizens. From then on, hundreds of thousands of people headed to the main German cities in search of work in factories. In 1913 there were almost 66 million, an increase of more than half. And more than half of them lived in towns and cities. But it wasn't just a population expansion. The foundations of economic strength at the turn of the century were steel and coal, and Germany made great progress with both. In 30 years, Germany's share of world trade increased by a third. In 1914, Germany was the most powerful industrial nation in Europe. The epitome of its industry could be the firm Krupp, whose first factory was built in Essen. With unity came an extraordinary period of economic expansion. In addition, German workers enjoyed sickness, accident and maternity benefits, canteens and changing rooms, and a national pension plan.

In November 1918, with internal revolution, a stagnant war, Austria-Hungary falling apart from multiple ethnic tensions, and pressure from the German high command, Emperor Wilhelm II, who was then a " shadow", abdicated, along with the head of the German high command, leaving the situation disastrous for the new government led by the German Social Democrats, who asked for and were granted an armistice on November 11, 1918 and marked the end of the First World War and the German Empire, with great territorial losses for the latter, such as most of the Province of West Prussia, the Imperial Territory of Alsace and Lorraine or the Free City of Danzig. The Empire was followed by the democratic and unstabilized Weimar Republic.

During its 47 years of existence, this Empire became one of the most powerful industrial economies in the world, as well as a great power. The evolution of the German Empire is in line with parallel developments in the kingdom of Italy, which became a unified nation ten years before the German Empire. Some key elements of the authoritarian political structure of the German Empire were also the basis for conservative modernization in Meiji imperial Japan and for the preservation of an authoritarian political structure under the tsars of the Russian Empire.

The most important border states were the Russian Empire in the east, France in the west, and the Austro-Hungarian Empire located in the south.

Etymology

The word Reich in German does not have a direct translation, although it is usually translated into Empire with the meaning of a territorial extension that transcends that of a State (similar to realm English). Its use was implemented from the unification of Germany in 1871 under William I, king of Prussia and first Kaiser (emperor) of the Reich, until the defeat of Nazi Germany. in 1945. For this reason, the period between 1871 and 1918 is called in German as Kaiserreich (Emperor's Reich, that is, Empire in the strict meaning of the word), called the "German Empire" in most of languages, including Spanish (having in fact been a form of constitutional monarchy with the Kaiser as head of state). This distinguishes it from the German Reich after the end of the First World War (both the Weimar Republic and Nazi Germany), which did not include the figure of the emperor. The term German Reich (Deutsches Reich), therefore, encompasses the three periods together, while Kaiserreich is the German term used for the Empire until 1918 (although at the time the Kaiser himself rejected its use).

Today the term Second Reich is used as a synonym for the German Empire in circles of nationalist ideology, in history studies and in a derogatory way by some movements. Since the Third Reich is currently linked to the atrocities committed by Nazi Germany, the use of these expressions in the eyes of many does not make sense. Originally, the term was intended to prepare the ground for a third and definitive future German Reich, which would feature the restoration of the monarchical dynasty and not the figure of the Führer (hence the Nazis, after enthusiastically adopting it, quickly moved away from its original meaning), leaving the term First Reich ambiguous (in principle it was not identified with the Holy Roman Empire for political reasons related to hereditary issues in Austria). In other words, the existence of a second Reich only made sense in a futuristic panorama that contemplated the existence of a third, therefore identifying it with the German Empire (1871-1918).

History

Background

German history from the 19th century, until the formation of the nation-state, has been characterized by multiple political changes and territorial disputes that occurred after the collapse of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. The former Empire is increasingly characterized by the conflicting interests of its two great powers: Austria and the rising power Prussia. During the Napoleonic Wars, the Holy Empire was dissolved and replaced in part by the Confederation of the Rhine, supervised by the French Empire. Thus, 'Germany', until its unification in 1871, was only a culture divided between the north (all of Prussia and the independent states where the Holy Roman Empire was located) and the south (part of Austria, all Bavaria and some smaller states).

After the defeat of Napoleonic France by the kingdoms of Europe (which were especially those of the United Kingdom, Spain, Prussia, Russia and Austria), the German princes, however, were not interested in a central power that erode their autonomy. At the Congress of Vienna in 1815, the German Confederation was created, a confederation of the areas that had belonged to the Holy Roman Empire before 1806; From it the German nation will take shape. After the Congress of Vienna, later described in history as the Vormärz, Germany was marked by a policy of restoration, dominated by the Austrian chancellor, Prince Klemens Wenzel von Metternich. As part of the so-called Holy Alliance between Austria, Prussia and Russia, the restoration aimed to reestablish the power relations between the national states of the Ancien Regime, that is, those existing before the French Revolution in 1789.

This policy of opposing the nation and bourgeois-democratic movements led to numerous protests in many parts of Central Europe, which finally led to the March Revolution of 1848 in the German states. Members of the revolution for the newly formed Germany created the first democratic parliament, the National Assembly in Frankfurt. The different factions of the assembly voted to create a unified German state, governed by a constitutional monarchy. Its constitution was implemented on March 28, 1849, resulting in the creation of the short-lived German Empire of 1848/1849, with some institutions, administrative bodies and the Reichsflotte, the first unified German navy. The Prussian King Frederick William IV was chosen to be the monarch of the new state under the title of "Emperor of the Germans". This, however, appealing to his 'divine right', refused to accept the crown, and the majority of the German states decided to unite on a constitutional basis.

After this, the revolutionary movement was suppressed and the assembly was dissolved, putting an end to the first attempt at unification. However, the German federal government continued to exist after the violent suppression of 1848-1849, under the leadership of the Austrian side. A decade of political reaction (Reaktionsära) was suppressed, in which democratic and liberal aspirations were recreated anew. Since the beginning of the 1860s, the first political parties in the modern sense were formed in the German states.

In 1864, the federal government had reached a unified alliance of great importance with Austria, as in the Schleswig-Holstein question of the German-Danish War, in which Prussia and Austria, because of a federal clause, They were next to each other. However, this consensus between the two powers did not last long. In the dispute over Schleswig-Holstein in 1866, it was the Germans who started the Austro-Prussian War, in which the Austrians fought against the armies of Prussia and some northern German states, along with Italy and the southern states, including Baden, Bavaria, Hesse and Wurtemberg. After the defeat of Austria, the North German Confederation was created under the leadership of Prussia.

Triggered by a dispute between Prussia and France over the succession to the Spanish throne, the Franco-Prussian War began in 1870. The declaration of war came from the French side, after Bismarck, the minister-president of Prussia, published an edited version of the Ems Telegram, which politically compromised France. The three wars, which lasted from 1864 to 1871, were also known as the Wars of German Unification.

The founding of the Empire

The era of Bismarck

Bismarck's domestic policies played a large role in creating an authoritarian political culture in the Empire. Less concerned with power politics after continental unification in 1871, Germany's semi-parliamentary government carried out a relatively moderate economic, political and social revolution, led from above, which eventually led it to become the leading power. industrial of the time.

Bismarck's efforts also began the leveling of the enormous differences between the German states, which had been independent in their evolution for centuries, especially with legislation.

Foreign policy

Bismarck's foreign policy after 1871 was conservative and sought to maintain the balance of power in Europe. His biggest concern was France, which was left defeated and resentful after the Franco-Prussian War. Since the French did not have the strength to defeat Germany on their own, they sought an alliance with Russia, which would trap Germany between two fronts in the event of a war (which would finally happen in 1914). Bismarck wanted to avoid this at all costs and maintain friendly relations with the Russians, and he formed an alliance with them and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Dreikaiserbund (League of the Three Emperors).

Bismarck secured a number of colonial possessions for Germany during the 1880s in Africa and the Pacific, but he doubted the real value of an overseas colonial empire. He and most of his contemporaries were conservative-minded and focused their attention on foreign policy with Germany's neighboring countries. Most German foreign investment went to developing nations like Russia, which lacked the capital or technical know-how to industrialize themselves, and Germany's colonies remained poorly developed.

Economy

Industrialization progressed dynamically in Germany driven by government subsidies and legislation. German manufacturers began to capture domestic markets from British imports and also to compete with British industry abroad, particularly in the United States. By the beginning of the Franco-Prussian War, German textile and metal products had surpassed those of the United Kingdom in organization and technical efficiency, and displaced British manufacturers in the domestic market. Germany became the dominant economic power on the continent and its industrialization process focused on heavy industry, to sustain its railway network and support the development of its military forces.

By the turn of the century, the German metallurgical and engineering industries were largely producing for the UK free trade market. By the time of World War I (1914-1918), the German economy had changed its army's supply of the proper equipment needed to fight this war. This included the production of rifles (Mauser 98), pistols (Luger P08), machine guns (Maxim), mortars (Minenwerfer) and various other heavy and light artillery pieces. In addition, Imperial Germany was a leader in the fields of physics and chemistry, so that a third of the Nobel Prizes - Physics, Chemistry and Medicine - were awarded to German inventors and researchers.

Ideology

After achieving unification in 1871, Bismarck devoted much of his attention to the cause of national unity under the ideology of Prussianism. Activist and emancipatory Catholic conservatism, conceptualized by the conservative turn of the Catholic Church under the papacy of Pius IX and its dogma of papal infallibility, as well as the radicalism of the working class, represented by the nascent Social Democratic Party (SPD), reacted in many ways to the concern of dislocation of very different segments of German society, generated by a rapid transition from an agrarian economy to an economy based on modern industrial capitalism under nationalist tutelage. While a firm opposition to Catholics and socialists was considered unsuccessful, Bismarck's approach through "The carrot and the stick" achieved a very calm opposition from both groups.

Bismarck's ideology can be summarized in four objectives: Kulturkampf, social reform, national unification and Kleindeutschland.

Kulturkampf

After the integration of the German Catholic states of the south and some areas of the east, Catholicism, represented by the Center Party, was, apparently, the main threat to the unification process. The Catholic monarchies of the south, coming from a much more agrarian base and answering to the ranks of peasants, artisans, guilds, clergy, and princes of small states more often than their northern Protestant counterparts, had at beginning problems to compete with industrial efficiency and the opening of foreign trade derived from the Zollverein. Catholic institutions were obstructed, and Bismarck's government fought against Catholic influence in society. After 1878, however, the fight against socialism would unite Bismarck with the Catholic Center Party, ending the Kulturkampf, which led to a strengthening rather than a weakening of Catholicism in Germany.

Social reform

To contain the working class and to weaken the influence of socialist groups, during the administration of Chancellor Bismarck the world's first welfare state was implemented. Bismarck realized that these types of policies were very attractive among the population, since the workers were linked to the State and at the same time they adjusted very well to its semi-authoritarian character. The social security systems implemented by Bismarck, such as health care in 1883, accident insurance in 1884, and disability and old-age insurance in 1889, were then the most efficient in the world.

Kleindeutschland

During Bismarck's mandate, two visions of what the German Empire should include territorially were debated. One vision was of a Großdeutschland (Greater Germany), and the other, preferred by Bismarck, was a Kleindeutschland (Lesser Germany). The Großdeutschland, advocated especially by liberals and pan-Germanic German nationalists, was a concept in which Germany should be a state that encompassed all Germanic territories, including Austria (some of them advocated including the entire Germanic territory. Austro-Hungarian and some only wanted the German-speaking lands). The Kleindeutschland was an idea put forward by Bismarck and the conservatives of Prussia. Although the concept of Kleindeutschland included millions of non-Germans (mainly Poles), its followers thought that the incorporation of all the territories of Austria-Hungary would result in the destabilization of the German state due to the large number of ethnic minorities present in the Austro-Hungarian Empire. Furthermore, Prussian supporters of the Kleindeutschland even feared the incorporation of the territories of German Austria, because they thought it would weaken Prussia's control over the leadership of Germany and substantially increase the number of Catholics in Germany. a State that had already had tensions between the Protestants of the north and the Catholics of the south, whom the State wanted to assimilate. Finally, there was skepticism among the Prussians regarding the possibility of exercising dynastic control over the Habsburgs, given account of the great support that they continued to have in the Austrian territories, their history as emperors of the Holy Empire (especially with some nostalgic currents maintaining that the German Reich was in some way the continuation of that entity) and the fact that this lineage already presided over the German Confederation, and this fact was precisely one of the triggers of the war that ended the confederation.

Germanization

One of the effects of the unification policies was to gradually increase the tendency to eliminate the use of non-German languages in public life, schools and academia, with the intention of putting pressure on the non-German population to abandon their national identity or leave the country, in what was called "Germanization". Strict Germanization policies often had the opposite effect, stimulating resistance and greater unity among minority groups.

The Germanization policies attacked in particular the important Polish minority, acquired by Prussia in the partitions of Poland. Laws were passed denying Poles the right to build housing in the territories acquired in the partitions of Poland, restricting the right to speak Polish at public meetings, and in 1908 a law was passed to allow the expulsion of Poles from their houses. This last law was implemented only in 4 cases and served more as a threat, but all these measures led to a distancing of the Poles from the German authorities. In 1885, a government-funded Liquidation Commission was created with the mission of distributing Polish-owned land to German settlers. However, the Poles founded their own organization to defend themselves from the Commission and the German settlements. In the 1880s, German authorities organized the mass expulsion of some 24,000 Poles who did not have German citizenship to Congressional Poland. This act was harshly criticized by left-wing parties and Bismarck himself was skeptical about it, but he was worried about possible 'revolutionary elements'. present among the Poles of Congress Poland. Polish associations tried to fight for their rights, without success, and although Polish deputies were elected to the Reichstag, proportionally representing the Polish minority, the German representatives were much more numerous, the majority hostile to their cause. In short, the anti-Polish laws did not have much effect, especially in the province of Posen, where the German-speaking population fell from 42.8% in 1871 to 38.1% in 1905, despite all the efforts.

Anti-socialist laws

Law

The legal history was completely different and the judicial systems that were proposed generated enormous complications, especially for national commerce. Although the confederation had already approved a common commercial code in 1861 (which was adapted for the Empire and, with major modifications, is still in force today), in other orders there was little similarity in the laws.

In 1871, a common Criminal Code (Reichsstrafgesetzbuch) was introduced, in 1877 common judicial procedures (Gerichtsverfassungsgesetz), civil procedures (ZPO) were established. i>) and criminal procedures (Strafprozessordnung). In 1873 the Constitution was modified to allow the Empire to replace the various and very different state civil codes with a single one; For example, some parts of Germany that had been occupied by Napoleonic France had adopted the French Civil Code, while in Prussia the Allgemeines Preußisches Landrecht of 1794 was still in force. In 1881 the first commission was established to create a common Civil Code for the entire empire, an enormous effort that would produce the Bürgerliches Gesetzbuch (BGB), possibly one of the most impressive legal works in the world, which was It was finally brought to fruition, coming into force on January 1, 1900. Much is said about the conceptual quality of these codifications, which, although with numerous amendments, are still in force today.

The Year of the Three Kaisers

On March 9, 1888, William I died shortly before his 91st birthday.er birthday, leaving his son Frederick III as the new emperor. Frederick III was a liberal and an admirer of the British constitution, while his ties with Great Britain were further strengthened by his marriage to Princess Victoria, eldest daughter of Queen Victoria. With his accession to the throne, many hoped that the reign of Frederick III would lead to a liberalization of the Reich and greater influence of Parliament over the political process. The dismissal of Robert von Puttkamer, the conservative Prussian Interior Minister, on June 8, was a sign in the expected direction and a blow to the Bismarck administration.

However, by the time of his ascension to the throne, Frederick III had developed incurable laryngeal cancer, which had been diagnosed on November 12 of the previous year by the British doctor Morell Mackenzie. Frederick died on the 99th. of his government, on June 15, 1888. The death of Frederick III led to the installation of his son William II as emperor. Due to the rapid succession of these three monarchs, 1888 is known as the Year of the Three Emperors (Kaisers) (German: Dreikaiserjahr).

The Wilhelmina era

The new legitimation of the throne and the resignation of Bismarck

William II sought to once again legitimize the importance of the imperial throne at a time when other monarchies in Europe were gradually handing over effective power to governments with parliamentary support. This decision brought the Kaiser into conflict with Bismarck. Bismarck had hoped to control William II as he had controlled his grandfather, but the emperor wanted to be the master in his own house, and there were numerous flatterers telling him that Frederick II the Great would not have been so great to Bismarck. next to him.

A major difference between William II and Bismarck was their approaches to handling political crises, especially in 1889, when German coal miners went on strike in Upper Silesia. Bismarck demanded that the German army be sent in to crush the strike, but William II rejected this authoritarian measure, responding: I do not want to stain my reign with the blood of my people. Instead of using repression, William II continued negotiations with a delegation sent to the coal miners and managed to end the strike without violence. Bismarck's style of government had always been that only he could save the Reich during a crisis, and now he intended to use the strike to provoke a crisis so serious that he would have to establish himself as dictator. This was the beginning of a rift between William II and Bismarck. Bismarck challenged William II on demands for greater power by forming political coalitions with political parties that William II did not support. The fractious relationship ended after William II and Bismarck had a dispute, and Bismarck resigned days later, in March 1890.

With the departure of Bismarck as chancellor, William II became the dominant leader of Germany. Unlike his grandfather, William I, who had been satisfied with the chancellor's handling of government affairs, William II wanted to be active in German affairs and wanted to be an effective leader, not an ornamental figure. William II became one of the main international actors at the beginning of the XX century, recognized for his aggressive foreign policy and mistakes strategic, which pushed the German Empire into relative political isolation and later into the First World War.

Domestic policy

Under William II, Germany no longer had strong long-ruling chancellors like Bismarck. The new chancellors had difficulties in carrying out their duties, especially in their additional role as minister-president of Prussia that was assigned to them in the German Constitution. The reforms made by Chancellor Caprivi regarding the liberalization of trade caused a reduction in unemployment and were supported by the Kaiser and many Germans, with the exception of the Prussian landowners, who feared losing their power and their lands, who launched campaigns against Caprivi to protest against the reforms.

As Prussian aristocrats challenged demands for a united state of Germany, in the 1890s a number of rebel organizations were created to challenge the authoritarian, conservative and militaristic Prussian politics that were instilled in the country. Some educators acted against state German schools, where military education was taught, and created their own independent, liberal-minded schools that encouraged individualism and freedom. However, the schools of Imperial Germany had a very high standard and modern innovations. Artists began with experimental art in opposition to William II's demands for traditional art. At the same time, a new generation of cultural producers emerged. The most dangerous opposition to the monarchy was represented by the newly formed Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) in the 1890s, which advocated Marxism.

William II, unlike Bismarck, put aside differences with the Catholic Church and directed the government's energies to oppose socialism at all costs. This policy failed when the Social Democrats won a third of the votes in the 1912 elections to the Reichstag (Imperial Parliament) and became the largest political party in Germany. The government was left in the hands of a succession of conservative coalitions supported by right-wing liberals and Catholic clerics, which depended largely on being in favor of the Kaiser.

During the First World War, in 1916, the Kaiser was given powers similar to those of a dictatorship, which he delegated to two men, the leader of the German High Command, and future president of Germany, the field marshal, Paul von Hindenburg, and Generalquartiermeister Erich Ludendorff. Hindenburg had assumed the role of commander-in-chief, appointed by the Kaiser, and Ludendorff was in fact the true Chief of the General Staff. The Kaiser himself was no longer seen by the Germans as a monolithic hero figure, while Hindenburg and Ludendorff were regarded as truly heroic leaders of the nation. The Kaiser remained an iconic figure for the remaining two years of the war until the abdication of him in 1918.

Foreign policy and colonialism

William II wanted Germany to have its 'place under the sun.' With German manufacturers and merchants already active around the world, he encouraged colonial efforts in Africa and the Pacific ("new imperialism"), essentially so that the German Empire was on par with other European powers in the rest of the "unclaimed" territories. Germany acquired German Southwest Africa (present-day Namibia), Kameroon (Cameroon), Togoland, and German East Africa (the mainland of present-day Tanzania). The islands were obtained in the Pacific through international purchases and treaties, as well as a 99-year lease to the Kiautschou territory in northeastern China. Only Togoland and German Samoa (after 1908) became self-sufficient and profitable, the rest of the territories needed subsidies from Berlin, which were dedicated to building an infrastructure with school systems, hospitals and other institutions.

Colonial efforts were initially treated with disdain by Bismarck, he designed a Eurocentric foreign policy as evidenced by the agreements signed during his term in office. Since Germany was a newcomer to colonization, conflicts with established colonial powers occurred on several occasions. Indigenous uprisings in German territories became eventual printing material, especially in the United Kingdom; the powers that be had dealt with their uprisings decades earlier, often brutally, and had installed business controls by then. The Boxer Uprising in China, later sponsored by the Chinese authorities, had its beginning in Shandong province, in part because Germany, as colonizer at Kiautschou, was the only power that had not proven its power and that only He was on stage for two years. When William II spoke during the departure ceremony for the German contingents of the liberation forces of eight countries in China, an impromptu but ill-timed reference to the Hun invaders of continental Europe was later resurrected by British propaganda to mock Germany. during the First World War.

With the purchase of Southwest Africa, German settlers were encouraged to cultivate the land held by the Herero and Nama. The tribal lands of the Herero and Nama were used for various exploitations (as the British had done before in Rhodesia), including agriculture, cattle ranching, and mineral and diamond mining. In 1904 the Herero and Nama rebelled against the colonizers in southwest Africa, killing peasant families, workers and officials. In response to the attacks, German troops were sent to quell the rebellion which later led to a genocide of the Herero and Nama. In total, about &&&&&&&&&&075000.&&&&&075,000 people (70% of the total Herera population and 50% of the total Nama population) were wiped out. The commander of the punitive expedition, General Lothar von Trotha, was immediately relieved and reprimanded for the cruelties committed. These events have sometimes been described as "the first genocide of the XX century" and officially condemned by the United Nations in 1985. In 2004, a formal apology was made by a minister of the government of the Federal Republic of Germany.

On two occasions, a Franco-German conflict over the fate of Morocco seemed inevitable.

Middle East

With the financial backing of Deutsche Bank, the Baghdad Railway was built in collaboration with the Ottoman Empire with the intention of gaining a foothold in the Middle East. In an interview with William II in 1899, Cecil Rhodes had attempted to convince the Kaiser that the future of the German Empire abroad lay in the Middle East and not in Africa. The construction of the Baghdad railway from 1900 to 1911 was initially supported by the United Kingdom. However, as time went by, the British increasingly saw Germany as a vigorous competitor in the region they believed only they should dominate and demanded staff reductions, a block away from the railway expansion in 1911, which It acquiesced to the demand from Germany and the Ottoman Empire.

Eastern Europe

German attitudes and the lack of attention paid to the treaties designed by Bismarck, as well as Germany's support for its ally Austria-Hungary in the occupation of Bosnia and Herzegovina in 1908, caused diplomatic relations to deteriorate with the Imperial Russia and a possible alliance with the United Kingdom would dissipate. In 1914, erratic foreign policy left Germany isolated and with only Austria-Hungary as a true ally. The Kingdom of Italy remained only a pro forma ally, and saw more benefit in entering into alliances. eventually acquire the largely German-speaking territory of South Tyrol from Austria-Hungary in a future conflict, which actually occurred.

First World War and end of the empire

Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria by the Bosnian Serb, Gavrilo Princip, Kaiser Wilhelm II offered the Austro-Hungarian Emperor, Franz Joseph I, full support for Austria-Hungary's plans to invade the Kingdom of Serbia, which was the nation Austria-Hungary blamed for the assassination. In the midst of the July Crisis, this unconditional support was called a "blank check' by historians. The later interpretation, for example at the Versailles Peace Conference, was that this "blank check" gave permission for Austro-Hungarian aggression, regardless of the diplomatic consequences, so Germany was responsible for starting the war, or at least provoking a broader conflict.

Germany began the war affecting its main rival, France. Germany saw France as its main danger on the European continent, since she could mobilize much faster than Russia and surround Germany's industrial core, in the Rhineland. Unlike the United Kingdom and Russia, the French were primarily involved in the war of revenge against Germany, in particular for France's loss of Alsace-Lorraine, which was given to Germany in 1871 by the Treaty of Frankfurt. The German high command knew that France would gather its forces to enter the Imperial Territory of Alsace and Lorraine. Germany did not want to risk long battles along the border with France and instead adopted the Schlieffen Plan, a military strategy aimed at paralyzing France with the invasion of Belgium and Luxembourg, directing troops towards Paris and encircling and crushing the French forces along the Franco-German border, in a quick victory. After defeating France, Germany would make an attack against Russia. The plan required the violation of the official neutrality of Luxembourg and Belgium. At first, the attack was a success: the German army swept from Belgium and Luxembourg, and were almost at Paris, on the nearby Marne River. However, the French army put up strong resistance to defend its capital in the Battle of the Marne, which caused the German army to withdraw.

The aftermath of the Battle of the Marne was a long-standing stalemate between the German army and the Allies, with the use of trenches in warfare. Further attempts to break further into France failed in the two battles at Ypres with huge casualties. The chief of the German general staff, Erich von Falkenhayn, decided to break with the Schlieffen Plan and focused on a war of attrition against France. Falkenhayn led troops to the ancient city of Verdun, because Verdun had been one of the last cities to hold out against the German army in 1870, and Falkenhayn knew that as a matter of national pride, the French would do anything to ensure that they were not lost Verdun. Falkenhayn foresaw that, with proper tactics, French casualties would be greater than those of the Germans and that the continued commitment of the French troops at Verdun would cause the French army to "bleed white" and then allow the German army to enter France with ease. In 1916, the Battle of Verdun began, with the French positions at Verdun under constant bombardment and poison gas attacks and taking heavy casualties from the attacking German forces in overwhelming numbers. However Falkenhayn failed to predict a higher proportion of French dead, which turned out to be wrong. With the replacement of Falkenhayn by Erich Ludendorff and no success at the Battle of Verdun, the German army withdrew in December 1916.

While the Western Front was a dead end for the German army, the Eastern Front proved to be a great success. It was poorly organized and the Russian army's supply failed, causing the Austro-Hungarian and German armies to advance steadily eastwards. The Germans benefited from political instability in Russia and the desire to end the war. In 1916, the German government allowed the Bolshevik leader of communist Russia, Vladimir Lenin, to travel through Germany from Switzerland to Russia. Germany believed that if Lenin could create more political instability, Russia would no longer be able to continue its war with Germany, allowing the German army to concentrate entirely on the Western Front.

In 1917, the Tsar was overthrown from the throne in Russia and later a Bolshevik government was created under the leadership of Lenin. Faced with political opposition to the Bolsheviks, Lenin decided to end Russia's campaign against Germany, Austria-Hungary, the Ottoman Empire, and the Kingdom of Bulgaria in order to redirect his energy to eliminating internal dissent.. In 1918, in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, the Bolshevik government gave Germany and the Ottoman Empire a huge territorial settlement in exchange for ending the war on the Eastern Front. This agreement included all of the modern-day Baltic nations (Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania) that were handed over to the German occupation authority, they were also given Ober-Ost, Belarus and Ukraine. As a result, Germany had finally achieved the land it had long wanted, 'Mitteleuropa', and could now focus fully on the destruction of the Allies on the Western Front.

At the colonial level, German results were mixed. Much of Germany's colonies were reduced by the British and French armies, however, in German East Africa, an impressive campaign was waged by the leader of the colonial army there, General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck, which would last long. time respected as a military commander, and later by the native Askaris, whom he ruled. Lettow-Vorbeck used guerrilla attacks against British forces in Kenya and Rhodesia, as well as Portuguese invaders in Mozambique to give his forces new supplies and to collect more Askaris recruits. Upon his return to Germany in March 1919, Lettow-Vorbeck led his repatriated soldiers through the ornate Brandenburg Gate in Berlin, giving the defeated nation its only victory parade.

Despite success on the Eastern Front in 1918, Germany was not making progress on the Western Front for three reasons. Exhaustion was the first cause, the German soldiers had been on the battlefield constantly, without relief and, after failing to break the British and French armies into offensives in March and April 1918 despite the transfer of a large number of troops of the Eastern Front, had lost hope in the possibility of victory. The second reason was because of civil unrest in the war. The concept of "total war" In the First World War, it meant that supplies had to be redirected towards the armed forces and, with German trade halted by the British naval blockade, German civilians were forced to live in increasingly precarious conditions. Food prices were limited first, and then rationing was introduced. The winter of 1916-1917 was called: "turnip winter". During the war, some &&&&&&&&&0750000.&&&&&0 750,000 German civilians died from malnutrition. Many Germans wanted to end the war and a growing number of Germans began to associate with the political left, such as the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) and the more radical Independent Social Democratic Party. who demanded an end to the war. The third reason was the entry of the United States into the war. With a surprise attack by a German submarine against the ocean liner RMS Lusitania in 1915 carrying American civilians (although the Germans suspected it was carrying supplies to the United Kingdom, which in modern times has been proven true) and the subsequent declaration Germany's unrestricted submarine warfare against the United Kingdom in 1917 caused American public sentiment to shift from neutrality to interventionism. The entry of the United States into the war tipped the balance further in favor of the allies, proving devastating for the German forces.

November Revolution

Structure

State		Capital
Kingdoms
	Prussia	Berlin
	Bavaria	Munich
	Saxony	Dresden
	Wurtemberg	Stuttgart
Great ducats
	Baden	Karlsruhe
	Hesse	Darmstadt
	Mecklenburg-Schwerin	Schwerin
	Mecklenburg-Strelitz	Neustrelitz
	Oldenburg	Oldenburg
	Saxony-Weimar-Eisenach	Weimar
Duchy
	Anhalt	Dessau
	Brunswick	Brunswick
	Saxony-Altenbourg	Altenbourg
	Saxony-Coburg-Gotha	Coburg
	Saxony-Meiningen	Meiningen
Principality
	Lippe	Detmold
	Reuss (Linea menor)	Gera
	Reuss (Big Line)	Greiz
	Schaumburg-Lippe	Bückeburg
	Schwarzburg-Rudolstadt	Rudolstadt
	Schwarzburg-Sondershausen	Sondershausen
	Waldeck-Pyrmont	Arolsen
Free Hanseatic Cities
	Bremen
	Free City of Hamburg
	Free City of Lübeck
Imperial territory
	Alsace-Lorraine	Strasbourg

The constitutional order of Bismarck's constitution was an important framework for the royal power structure. In fact, constitutional institutions such as the Reichstag and the Chancellor were of central importance to the political system.

Member states of the empire

Before unification, the German territory was made up of 26 constituent states. These states consisted of kingdoms, grand duchies, dukedoms, principalities, and free Hanseatic cities in an imperial territory. The Kingdom of Prussia was the largest of the states, covering more than 60% of the territory of the German Empire.

Several of these states had gained sovereignty after the dissolution of the Holy Roman Empire in 1806. Others were created as sovereign states following the Congress of Vienna in 1815. The territories were not necessarily contiguous; many were fragmented as a result of historical acquisitions, or in other cases, by divisions in the ruling family's family tree. The Duchy of Lauenburg, a constituent state of the Empire, governed in personal union by the king of Prussia, was merged with Prussia in royal union in 1876.

Each component of the German Empire sent representatives to the Imperial Council (Bundesrat) and the Imperial Diet (Reichstag). Relations between the imperial center and the components of the Empire were relatively fluid and developed permanently. To what extent the Emperor of Germany could, for example, intervene in the event of succession disputes concerning the estates, was sometimes highly debated, for example with the Lippe-Detmold inheritance crisis.

Constitution

Army

The Army and Navy were kept outside the financial approval required by the Constitution largely under the control of the Prussian king or emperor. Absolutist limits in the style of "commanding power" They were barely defined. Therefore, it was one of the central pillars of the monarchy. Within the framework of the "supreme" warlords; there was the Military Cabinet, the Prussian Ministry and the General Staff, the three institutions that sometimes fought with each other for skills. In particular, the General Staff was under the command of Helmuth von Moltke and Alfred von Waldersee who later tried to influence political decisions. The same applied to Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz in maritime matters.

The army was directed not only against external enemies, but was also deployed by the military command internally to crush strikes. Practically, however, the army used major strikes as barely training. However, the Army was like a potential threat and the national power factor should not be underestimated.

The close ties with the monarchy were reflected again in the bodies marked as aristocratic officers. Later, the nobility maintained a strong leadership position among the ranks, however, there came an expansion of the Army and Navy by the civilian part. The proper selection of socialization and interns in the army but ensured that even the self-image of this group was hardly different from that of their noble companions.

After the victories of 1864 to 1871, the army became a central element of emerging imperial patriotism. Criticism of the military was seen as unpatriotic. The army gained a very strong social prestige during the empire. The officer corps was largely the "first class" in the state. His world was influenced by loyalty to the monarchy and the defense of royal rights, which was characterized by being conservative, anti-socialist and fundamentally anti-parliamentary. Military behavior and the code of ethics spread throughout society. Also for many citizens, the status of a reservist official was a desirable goal. Heinrich Mann's Der Untertan, Wilhelm Voigt and the Zabern Crisis also underlined the importance of militarism in German society. Everywhere in the kingdom, new warrior societies were becoming agents of militarist ideology by the end of 1913. The federal government was therefore the most powerful mass organization in the empire. The state-sponsored club was to maintain military, national and monarchical thoughts and inoculate members against social democrats.

However, the parties supported an increase in the army that was not unlimited. Therefore, the military arrived in 1890 as a peace force of almost &&&&&&&&&0490000.&& &&&0490,000 men, its strength was established by the constitution, it had to be at least one percent of the population. In the following years, the ground forces were further strengthened. Between 1898 and 1911, due to the limitations of expensive naval weapons, soldiers were distributed to the land army. It was notable that what the General Staff had at that time was against an expansion of the number of effective soldiers, because it feared a strengthening of civil rights to the detriment of the noble element in the officer corps. During this period the Schlieffen concept emerged for a possible two-front war against France and Russia, taking into account British participation on the opposition side.

Bureaucracy and administration

For all internal political conflicts, the bureaucratic apparatus guaranteed their continuity. At the same time, those responsible for policy, both the chancellor and the emperor, had to rely on the weight of senior officials. However, the Empire itself had a modest beginning and the chancellor only had assistants to the Secretary of State, who were the ones who presided over the imperial offices. Thus, in the course of time, alongside the chancellor's office, an Imperial Railway Office, an Imperial Post Office, an Imperial Justice Office, an Imperial Treasury, an office for the management of the Imperial Territory of Alsace and Lorraine, the Foreign Office, the Home Office, the Imperial Naval Office and, finally, the Colonial Office.

Prussia's administrative function decreased while the number of people in the imperial administration increased. However, the organic link between Prussia and the empire was of great importance until the end. In the highest and most administrative positions, Protestants were overrepresented members of the nobility. So of a total of 31 secretaries of the empire, twelve belonged to the nobility and in 1909 there were 71% of Protestant denomination. However, politically, these were initially and relatively aligned with liberal politics.

Monarchy and imperial court

The Constitution of the German Empire guaranteed the emperor great freedom of action. The monarch's decisions played into the various advisory bodies, such as the important imperial civil, military and naval functions of the cabinet. They were added to the court and the emperor's close confidant. Already under William I, the monarch had considerable influence over personnel policies, usually without interfering over important decisions. In particular, under Emperor William II and his demand for personal rule, the position of emperor became one of the key power centers of the empire. The position of emperor is hardly different from that of the President of the Confederation in a monarchical kingdom.

Even outside of Prussia, not only were the celebrations of different dynasties, but they also celebrated the Emperor's birthday. The emperor was becoming a symbol of the empire. It is not disputed that imperial influence was limited to 1897, however, while the emperor's importance to 1908 increased significantly, he again lost importance. This contributed to the Harden-Eulenburg Scandal, the emperor's confidant Philipp zu Eulenburg was found having homosexual relations with the journalist Maximilian Harden. These and subsequent Daily Telegraph affairs caused the emperor's prestige, but not an institution of the monarchy, to decline in public opinion.

Linguistic minorities

Due to the multicultural and multilingual history of Central Europe, the population of the German Empire was made up of people with different native languages. However, 92.5% of the population had German as their first language, a figure significantly higher than other large countries of the time (Great Britain, France, Russia). The only linguistic minority with a significant number of speakers was Polish, the mother tongue of 5.45% of the Empire's citizens. The other minority languages were spoken only at the regional level by a few people who were also minorities even in their respective regions.

The linguistic group of languages such as Danish, Dutch and Frisian (0.5%) were located in the north and northwest of the empire. Danish and Frisian were spoken mainly in the north of the Prussian province of Schleswig-Holstein and Dutch in the western border areas of the Prussian provinces of Hanover, Westphalia and the Rhine Province.

Slavic languages (6.28%) such as Polish, Masurian, Kashubian, Sorbian and Czech were found in the east. Polish mainly in the Prussian provinces of Posen, West Prussia and Silesia (Upper Silesia). There were also small islands in Recklinghausen (Westphalia, with 13.8% of the population) and in the Kalau district, (Brandenburg, 5.5%) and in parts of eastern Prussia and Pomerania. Czech was predominantly spoken in southern Silesia; Masurius, in southern East Prussia; the Kashubian in northern West Prussia; and Sorbian in the Lusatia region of Prussia (Brandenburg), Silesia and the Kingdom of Saxony.

The Romance languages (0.52%) were found only on the western border of the German Empire. The largest group was the French-speaking community near the border of France in the Imperial Territory of Alsace and Lorraine, where they formed 11.6% of the total population. There also existed the Italian-speaking minority which made up 9.5% of the population in the district of Diedenhofen. Walloons made up 28.7% in the district of Malmedy (Rhine Province).

The Baltic language group was the smallest and only consisted of Lithuanian-speaking people (0.19%) in the northeast of the province of East Prussia.

Colonialism

Currency

Legacy

The German Empire left a legacy of scattered luck for Germany and Europe. According to Bismarck, a united state of Germany had finally been achieved, however, it remained a dominantly Prussian state and did not contain German Austria as pan-German nationalists desired. The influence of Prussian militarism, the empire's colonial efforts, and its vigorous and competitive industrial prowess caused a negative view of the state. The German Empire enacted a number of progressive firsts, such as establishing a public welfare system (still in effect today), other social reforms, as well as guaranteeing freedom of the press. There was also a modern system of election to the federal parliament, the Reichstag, which represented every adult man by one vote. This allowed the socialists and the Catholic Center Party to play a notable role in the political life of the empire.

The history of the German Empire is well remembered in Germany as a period when academic research and university life, as well as the arts and literature, flourished. Thomas Mann published his novel The Buddenbrooks in 1901. Theodor Mommsen was awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature a year later for his Roman history. Painters such as the groups Der Blaue Reiter and Die Brücke made an important contribution to modern art. Peter Behrens' AEG Turbine Building in Berlin from 1909 can be considered a milestone in classical modern architecture and an outstanding example of emerging functionalism. The social and economic costs, and scientific successes of this Gründerzeit or founding era, have led the Wilhelmine era to sometimes be considered a golden age (Belle Époque).

In the field of the Kaiserzeit economy, it has laid the foundations for Germany to be one of the main economic powers in the world. The iron and coal industry in the Ruhr region, the Saarland and Upper Silesia in particular contributed greatly to this process. The first automobile was built by Karl Friedrich Benz in 1886. The enormous growth of industrial production and industrial potential also led to the rapid urbanization process of Germany, which turned the Germans into an urban nation.

The empire's support for Austria-Hungary's invasion of Serbia against opposition from Russia has been seen by many historians as a major influence in causing the clash of alliances in Europe, which resulted in the massive war later known as World War I. The defeat in the Great War and the territorial and economic losses imposed by the Treaty of Versailles that had enormous ramifications for the new German republic, such as defining what the German state is and how it should function. Conservatives, liberals, socialists, nationalists, Catholics, Protestants and all had their own interpretations, which led to a fractious political and social climate in Germany in the wake of the collapse of the empire.

In addition to today's Germany, a large part of what comprised the German Empire now belongs to other member states of the European Union (EU).

Symbols

The German Empire did not have an official anthem and at first it did not have an official flag. As the national anthem was replaced with Heil dir im Siegerkranz, its melody was the same as the British national anthem, as was also the same as Die Wacht am Rhein. It was first a black-white-red flag of the North German Confederation used as a naval and civil flag. It was not until 1892 that it was finally approved by the Kaiser as a national flag that was determined to be black-white-red, the colors of Prussia (black and white) and those of the Hanseatic flags (white on red together).