German Second Empire

I

Introduction

German Second Empire (1871-1918), European and colonial Empire ruled by Prussia. The German Empire was established at Versailles on January 1, 1871, when 22 formerly independent German principalities agreed to form a permanent union, transferring most of their sovereign rights to the new Empire. The king of Prussia became German Emperor. Presiding over the new Empire was the Imperial Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, the architect of German unity, who was also Prussian Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs. While the compliant Emperor William I survived, Bismarck controlled the domestic and foreign destinies of the new Germany. Germany was an autocracy—the Reichstag, or Parliament, of 400 deputies elected by universal male suffrage, was a mere talking shop with few powers. The real power in the empire was wielded by the traditional ruling class in Prussia, the Junkers, who allied themselves with the wealthy industrialists to safeguard their privileges in the empire against the new forces of socialism and progressivism spawned by the industrialization and modernization of Germany.

II

William II becomes German Emperor

William I died in 1888, and after the Emperor Frederick III's brief 90-day reign, the young and ambitious William II became Emperor. The Kaiser wanted to be the real ruler of Germany, untrammelled by the aged Chancellor, and in 1890 he secured Bismarck's resignation. By then Germany had become the most industrially advanced country in Europe, and the pace of its economic development increased rapidly during the 1890s. William shared the aspirations of many of his generation in wanting to capitalize on Germany's new-found strength to assert Germany's primacy as a major world power. However he was temperamentally incapable of adapting himself to the task of leadership: he was restless and impatient, and unwilling to apply himself conscientiously to the daily routine of government. Nor were the successive chancellors he appointed capable of filling the vacuum at the top.

III

Internal Difficulties on the Road to War

After 1890 German society became ever more polarized between the privileged classes and the proletariat, whose party and trade union representatives were denied any useful role in the system of government. The army itself was a “state within a state”, sealed off from Reichstag and ministerial interference by a series of imperial ordinances. To add to Germany's difficulties Admiral von Tirpitz, minister of the navy from 1897 to 1916, embarked on the construction of a large German fleet, which the Kaiser intended to be the means by which Germany secured an overseas empire. By the mid-1890s this led to a bitter and expensive naval arms race with Britain, who regarded the German navy as a potential threat to her security and was determined to maintain her naval supremacy. Naval expenditure strained the empire's finances to the limit, and bore hard on the standard of living of the working class, since the bulk of the money was raised by indirect taxation. The privileged classes resisted any attempt to introduce a progressive income tax. By 1912 Germany faced serious crises at home and abroad. After the 1912 Reichstag elections the Socialist party became the largest party in the Reichstag and their clamour for reform and democratization unnerved the ruling elite. Abroad, Germany's flawed and capricious diplomacy had alienated practically all the great European powers and left her virtually isolated, with the ramshackle Austro-Hungarian Empire as her only reliable ally.

IV

Germany Goes to War

Germany's decision to support Austria against Serbia in the summer of 1914 has been partially ascribed to the frustration of the governing classes with the growing intractability of the internal situation, which suggested that a resort to war and conquest might rally the working classes to the empire. She succeeded in this aim, in that her decision to go to war in July 1914 did temporarily unite most Germans behind the empire.