ABSTRACT
Two fundamental problems have dominated the study of German history between 1871 and 1914: first, why did Germany fail to develop into the kind of parliamentary democracy that evidently prevailed in France, Britain, Belgium, Holland and the Scandinavian countries by the end of the nineteenth century? This concern was voiced and explored in a very influential book by H.-U. Wehler, published in its German edition in 1973 under the title Das Deutsche Kaiserreich, 1871-1918 (The German Empire, 1871-1918). The second question, raised particularly by Fritz Fischer in his book Griff nach der Weltmacht (Bid for World Power), published in 1961, examined Germany’s responsibility for the First World War and how far that war resulted from the aggressive policies pursued by German governments in the years leading up to 1914. A third question, arising out of the first two, is whether Germany’s aggressive stance is to be explained by the nature of the imperial regime and the dilemmas she had to face. It has been argued, for instance, that political power continued to rest with entrenched elites in the army, the civil service and the Prussian landowning class, and that it was their interests that took precedence in the making of policy. It has been suggested that Germany’s bid for colonies, whether under Bismarck or under William II, was a form of ‘social imperialism’, designed to wean German workers away from the German Social Democratic Party (SPD). An aggressive foreign policy was pursued, it has been claimed, to unite the country. Von Bülow, foreign secretary at the time, wrote in 1897: ‘only a successful foreign policy can help to reconcile, pacify, rally, unite’ (J.G. Rohl, Germany without Bismarck, London, Batsford, p. 252).
