Editing German Empire (section)

===Wilhelmine era===

====Bismarck's resignation====
[[File:Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany - 1902.jpg|thumb|upright|[[Wilhelm II]] in 1902]]

[[Wilhelm II]] wanted to reassert his ruling prerogatives at a time when other monarchs in Europe were being transformed into constitutional figureheads. This decision led the ambitious Kaiser into conflict with Bismarck. The old chancellor had hoped to guide Wilhelm as he had guided his grandfather, but the emperor wanted to be the master in his own house and had many sycophants telling him that Frederick the Great would not have been great with a Bismarck at his side.{{Sfnp|Kurtz|1970|p=60}} A key difference between Wilhelm 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 (German Empire)|German Army]] be sent in to crush the strike, but Wilhelm II rejected this authoritarian measure, responding "I do not wish to stain my reign with the blood of my subjects."{{Sfnp|Stürmer|2000 |p=63}} Instead of condoning repression, Wilhelm had the government negotiate with a delegation from the coal miners, which brought the strike to an end without violence. The fractious relationship ended in March 1890, after Wilhelm II and Bismarck quarrelled, and the chancellor resigned days later.{{Sfnp|Kurtz|1970|p=60}}

With Bismarck's departure, Wilhelm II became the dominant ruler of Germany. Unlike his grandfather, Wilhelm I, who had been largely content to leave government affairs to the chancellor, Wilhelm II wanted to be fully informed and actively involved in running Germany, not an ornamental figurehead, although most Germans found his claims of divine right to rule amusing. Wilhelm allowed politician [[Walther Rathenau]] to tutor him in European economics and industrial and financial realities in Europe.{{Sfnp|Kurtz|1970|p=63}}

As [[Isabel V. Hull]] noted in 2024, Bismarckian foreign policy "was too sedate for the reckless Kaiser".{{Sfn |Hull|2004|p=85}} Wilhelm became internationally notorious for his aggressive stance on foreign policy and his strategic blunders (such as the [[First Moroccan Crisis|Tangier Crisis]]), which pushed the German Empire into growing political isolation and eventually helped to cause [[World War I]].

====Domestic affairs====
[[File:Reichstagsgebaeude.jpg|thumb|The ''[[Reichstag building|Reichstag]]'' in the 1890s{{\}}early 1900s]]

Under Wilhelm II, Germany no longer had long-ruling strong chancellors like Bismarck. The new chancellors had difficulty in performing their roles, especially the additional role as [[Prime Minister of Prussia]] assigned to them in the German Constitution. The reforms of Chancellor [[Leo von Caprivi]], which liberalized trade and so reduced unemployment, were supported by the Kaiser and most Germans except for Prussian landowners, who feared loss of land and power and launched several campaigns against the reforms.{{Sfnp|Kurtz|1970|p=67}}

While Prussian aristocrats challenged the demands of a united German state, in the 1890s several organizations were set up to challenge the authoritarian conservative Prussian militarism which was being imposed on the country. Educators opposed to the German state-run schools, which emphasized military education, set up their own independent liberal schools, which encouraged individuality and freedom.{{Sfnp|Kurtz|1970|p=72}} However nearly all the schools in Imperial Germany had a very high standard and kept abreast with modern developments in knowledge.<ref>{{Harvp|Cocks|Jarausch|1990}}.{{page needed|date=May 2025}}</ref>

Artists began experimental art in opposition to Kaiser Wilhelm's support for traditional art, to which Wilhelm responded "art which transgresses the laws and limits laid down by me can no longer be called art".{{Sfnp|Kurtz|1970|p=76}} It was largely thanks to Wilhelm's influence that most printed material in Germany used [[blackletter]] instead of the Roman type used in the rest of Western Europe. At the same time, a new generation of cultural creators emerged.<ref>{{Harvp|Jefferies|2003}}.{{page needed|date=May 2025}}</ref>

[[File:Berlin Unter den Linden Cafe Bauer um 1900.jpg|thumb|Berlin in the late 19th century]]
From the 1890s onwards, the most effective opposition to the monarchy came from the newly formed [[Social Democratic Party of Germany]] (SPD), whose radicals advocated [[Marxism]]. The threat of the SPD to the German monarchy and industrialists caused the state both to crack down on the party's supporters and to implement its own programme of social reform to soothe discontent. Germany's large industries provided significant social welfare programmes and good care to their employees, as long as they were not identified as socialists or trade-union members. The larger industrial firms provided pensions, sickness benefits and even housing to their employees.{{Sfnp|Kurtz|1970|p=72}}

Having learned from the failure of Bismarck's [[Kulturkampf]], Wilhelm II maintained good relations with the Roman Catholic Church and concentrated on opposing socialism.{{Sfnp|Kurtz|1970|p=56}} This policy failed when the Social Democrats won a third of the votes in the [[1912 German federal election|1912 elections]] to the ''Reichstag'', and became the largest political party in Germany. The government remained in the hands of a succession of conservative coalitions supported by right-wing liberals or Catholic clerics and heavily dependent on the Kaiser's favour. The rising militarism under Wilhelm II caused many Germans to emigrate to the U.S. and the British colonies to escape mandatory military service.

During World War I, the Kaiser increasingly devolved his powers to the leaders of the German High Command, particularly future [[President of Germany|German president]], Field Marshal [[Paul von Hindenburg]] and ''Generalquartiermeister'' [[Erich Ludendorff]]. Hindenburg took over the role of commander–in–chief from the Kaiser, while Ludendorff became de facto general chief of staff. By 1916, Germany was effectively a military dictatorship run by Hindenburg and Ludendorff, with the Kaiser reduced to a mere figurehead.{{Sfnp|Cecil|1996|loc=ch. 9–13}}

====Foreign affairs====

{{Further|International relations (1814–1919)}}

=====Colonialism=====
{{Main|German colonial empire}}
[[File:Kongokonferenz.jpg|thumb|[[Otto von Bismarck|Bismarck]] at the [[Berlin Conference]], 1884]]

Wilhelm II wanted Germany to have her "[[place in the sun]]", like Britain, which he constantly wished to emulate or rival.<ref>{{Cite web |title=Wilhelm II (1859–1941) |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/wilhelm_kaiser_ii.shtml |url-status=live |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20180808170841/http://www.bbc.co.uk/history/historic_figures/wilhelm_kaiser_ii.shtml |archive-date=8 August 2018 |access-date=19 April 2014 |publisher=BBC}}</ref> With German traders and merchants already active worldwide, he encouraged colonial efforts in Africa and the Pacific ("[[new imperialism]]"), causing the German Empire to vie with other European powers for remaining "unclaimed" territories. With the encouragement or at least the acquiescence of Britain, which at this stage saw Germany as a counterweight to her old rival France, Germany acquired [[German South West Africa|German Southwest Africa]] (modern [[Namibia]]), [[Kamerun|German Kamerun]] (modern [[Cameroon]]), [[Togoland]] (modern [[Togo]]) and [[German East Africa]] (modern [[Rwanda]], [[Burundi]], and the mainland part of current [[Tanzania]]). Islands were gained in the Pacific through purchase and treaties and also a 99-year lease for the territory of [[Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory|Jiaozhou]] in northeast China. But of these German colonies only Togoland and [[German Samoa]] (after 1908) became self-sufficient and profitable; all the others required subsidies from the Berlin treasury for building infrastructure, school systems, hospitals and other institutions.
[[File:Reichskolonialflagge.svg|thumb|left|Flag of the German colonial empire]]{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}

Bismarck had originally dismissed the agitation for colonies with contempt; he favoured a Eurocentric foreign policy, as the treaty arrangements made during his tenure in office show. As a latecomer to colonization, Germany repeatedly came into conflict with the established colonial powers and also with the United States, which opposed German attempts at colonial expansion in both the Caribbean and the Pacific. Native insurrections in German territories received prominent coverage in other countries, especially in Britain; the established powers had dealt with such uprisings decades earlier, often brutally, and had secured firm control of their colonies by then. The [[Boxer Rebellion|Boxer Rising]] in China, which the Chinese government eventually sponsored, began in the Shandong province, in part because Germany, as colonizer at [[Jiaozhou Bay Leased Territory|Jiaozhou]], was an untested power and had only been active there for two years. Seven western nations, including the United States, and Japan mounted a joint relief force to rescue westerners caught up in the rebellion. During the departure ceremonies for the German contingent, Wilhelm II urged them to behave like the [[Hun]] invaders of continental Europe – an unfortunate remark that would later be resurrected by British propagandists to paint Germans as barbarians during [[World War I]] and [[World War II]]{{According to whom|date=October 2023}}. On two occasions, a French-German conflict over the fate of Morocco seemed inevitable.
[[File:Herero chained.jpg|thumb|Prisoners from the [[Herero people|Herero]] tribe during the 1904-1908 revolt]]

Upon acquiring Southwest Africa, German settlers were encouraged to cultivate land held by the [[Herero people|Herero]] and [[Nama people|Nama]]. Herero and Nama tribal lands were used for a variety of exploitative goals (much as the British did before in [[Rhodesia]]), including farming, ranching, and mining for minerals and [[diamonds]]. In 1904, the Herero and the Nama revolted against the colonists in Southwest Africa, killing farm families, their laborers and servants. In response to the attacks, troops were dispatched to quell the uprising which then resulted in the [[Herero and Nama genocide]]. In total, some 65,000 Herero (80% of the total Herero population), and 10,000 Nama (50% of the total Nama population) perished. The commander of the punitive expedition, General [[Lothar von Trotha]], was eventually relieved and reprimanded for his usurpation of orders and the cruelties he inflicted. These occurrences were sometimes referred to as "the first genocide of the 20th century" and officially condemned by the United Nations in 1985. In 2004 a formal apology by a government minister of the Federal Republic of Germany followed.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}

=====Middle East=====
Bismarck and [[Wilhelm II]] after him sought closer economic ties with the [[Ottoman Empire]]. Under Wilhelm II, with the financial backing of the [[Deutsche Bank]], the [[Baghdad Railway]] was begun in 1900, although by 1914 it was still {{Cvt|500|km|mi}} short of its destination in Baghdad.{{Sfnp|Stürmer|2000|p=91}} In an interview with Wilhelm in 1899, [[Cecil Rhodes]] had tried "to convince the Kaiser that the future of the German empire abroad lay in the Middle East" and not in Africa; with a grand Middle-Eastern empire, Germany could afford to allow Britain the unhindered completion of the Cape-to-Cairo railway that Rhodes favoured.{{Sfnp|Louis|1963|p=163}} Britain initially supported the [[Baghdad Railway]]; but by 1911 British statesmen came to fear it might be extended to [[Basra]] on the [[Persian Gulf]], threatening Britain's naval supremacy in the Indian Ocean. Accordingly, they asked to have construction halted, to which Germany and the Ottoman Empire acquiesced.{{citation needed|date=May 2025}}

=====South America=====
In South America, Germany's primary interest was in [[ABC countries|Argentina, Brazil, Chile]], and [[Uruguay]] and viewed the countries of northern South America—[[Ecuador]], [[Colombia]], and [[Venezuela]]—as a buffer to protect its interest from the growing influence of the United States.{{Sfnp|Fischer|2008|pp=135–160}} Policymakers in Germany analysed the possibility of establishing bases in [[Margarita Island]] and showed interest in the [[Galápagos Islands]] but soon abandoned any such designs given that far-flung bases in northern South America would be very vulnerable.{{Sfnp|Mitchell|1999|p=67}}{{Sfnp|Fischer|2008|pp=135–160}} Germany attempted to promote Chile, a country that was [[German influence in Chile|heavily influenced by Germany]],<ref name="Carlos2011">{{Cite book |last=Sanhueza |first=Carlos |title=Ideas viajeras y sus objetos. El intercambio científico entre Alemania y América austral. Madrid–Frankfurt am Main: Iberoamericana–Vervuert |date=2011 |pages=29–40 |language=es |chapter=El debate sobre "el embrujamiento alemán" y el papel de la ciencia alemana hacia fines del siglo XIX en Chile |chapter-url=http://publications.iai.spk-berlin.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/Document_derivate_00000510/BIA%20146%20Sanhueza.pdf |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20181221182758/http://publications.iai.spk-berlin.de/servlets/MCRFileNodeServlet/Document_derivate_00000510/BIA%20146%20Sanhueza.pdf |archive-date=21 December 2018 |url-status=live}}</ref> into a regional counterweight to the United States.<ref name="Fischer2008">{{Cite journal |last=Fischer |first=Ferenc |date=1 January 2008 |title=La expansión (1885–1918) del modelo militar alemán y su pervivencia (1919–1933) en América Latina |journal=Revista del CESLA |language=es |publisher=[[Uniwersytet Warszawski]] |volume=11 |pages=135–160}}</ref> Germany and Britain managed through Chile to have Ecuador deny the United States a naval base in the [[Galápagos Islands]].<ref name="Fischer2008"/>

Claims that German communities in South America acted as extensions of the German Empire were ubiquituous by 1900 but it has never been proved that these communities acted in such way to any significant degree.{{Sfnp|Penny|2017|pp=519–549}} German political, cultural and scientific influence was particularly intense in Chile in the decades before [[World War I]], and the prestige of Germany and German things in Chile remained high after the war but did not recover to its pre-war levels.{{Sfnp|Sanhueza|2011|pp=29–40}}{{Sfnp|Penny|2017|pp=519–549}}

=====Pre-war Europe=====
{{Main|Causes of World War I|Diplomatic history of World War I}}
Berlin was deeply suspicious of a supposed conspiracy of its enemies: that year-by-year in the early 20th century it was systematically encircled by enemies.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Carroll |first=E. Malcolm |title=Germany and the great powers, 1866–1914: A study in public opinion and foreign policy |date=1938 |pages=485–487, 830} |ol=7014761W}}</ref> There was a growing fear that the supposed enemy coalition of Russia, France and Britain was getting stronger militarily every year, especially Russia. The longer Berlin waited the less likely it would prevail in a war.{{Sfnp|Seligmann|2002|pp=333–355}} According to American historian [[Gordon A. Craig]], it was after the set-back in Morocco in 1905 that the fear of encirclement began to be a potent factor in German politics."{{Sfnp|Craig|1978|p=321}} Few outside observers agreed with the notion of Germany as a victim of deliberate encirclement.{{Sfnp|Geise|1976|pp=121–138}}<ref>{{Harvp|Kantorowicz|1931}}.{{page needed|date=May 2025}}</ref> English historian [[G. M. Trevelyan]] expressed the British viewpoint:

{{Blockquote|The encirclement, such as it was, was of Germany's own making. She had encircled herself by alienating France over Alsace-Lorraine, Russia by her support of Austria-Hungary's anti—Slav policy in the Balkans, England by building her rival fleet. She had created with Austria-Hungary a military bloc in the heart of Europe so powerful and yet so restless that her neighbors on each side had no choice but either to become her vassals or to stand together for protection....They used their central position to create fear in all sides, in order to gain their diplomatic ends. And then they complained that on all sides they had been encircled.<ref>{{Cite book |last=Trevelyan |first=G. M. |author-link=G. M. Trevelyan |title=British history in the 19th century and after 1782–1919 |date=1937 |page=463 |ol=10439924W |orig-date=1922}}</ref>}}

Wilhelm II, under pressure from his new advisors after Bismarck left, committed a fatal error when he decided to allow the "[[Reinsurance Treaty]]" that Bismarck had negotiated with Tsarist Russia to lapse. It allowed Russia to make a new alliance with France. 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. Berlin 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 (1915)|Treaty of London]] in 1915 promised it the frontier districts of Austria and also colonial concessions. Germany did acquire a second ally in 1914 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.{{Sfnp|Craig|1978|pp=302–338, 350}}