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Y314: The Challenge of German Nationalism 1789–1919

Depth study: Wilhelmine Germany and the growth of Nationalism 1884–1914 — the army, domestic politics and the July crisis

  • 1 thing to know
  • Unit group 3

Overview

Recall questions on the Daily Telegraph and Zabern affairs, the army’s privileges, economic growth and its politics, the 1912 election, Germany’s role in July 1914, the Fischer thesis and its critics.

What you need to know

Answer each one before you reveal it.

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Key term

How have other historians answered Fischer?

Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

  1. 1

    What was the Daily Telegraph affair of 1908?

    Model answer

    The publication of a rambling interview in which Wilhelm II claimed the English were mad as March hares and that he had supplied a plan for use against the Boers caused an international storm and a savage Reichstag debate, after which he promised to observe his constitutional obligations, though no institutional change followed.

  2. 2

    What did the Zabern affair reveal about civil-military relations?

    Model answer

    When officers insulted and illegally detained Alsatian civilians, the Chancellor defended the army and the Kaiser backed the officers despite an overwhelming Reichstag vote of no confidence, showing that the army answered to the monarch alone and that parliamentary censure had no effect.

  3. 3

    How privileged was the army within German society?

    Model answer

    It swore loyalty to the Kaiser rather than the constitution, was administered through a military cabinet and general staff outside ministerial control, was exempt from civil jurisdiction in disputes with civilians, and a reserve commission was a mark of social arrival for the middle classes.

  4. 4

    How large was German economic growth before 1914?

    Model answer

    Germany overtook Britain in steel production and in electrical and chemical manufacture, became the largest industrial economy in Europe with a population approaching sixty-eight million, and built a merchant fleet and export trade second only to Britain's.

  5. 5

    What were the political effects of economic growth?

    Model answer

    It funded the army and navy and fed the conviction that a country of such strength deserved world power, but it also produced the largest socialist party in Europe, sharpened conflict over tariffs and taxation, and left the empire's finances dependent on indirect taxes that the Reichstag resented.

  6. 6

    Why was the election of 1912 significant?

    Model answer

    The Social Democrats became the largest party in the Reichstag, so any government majority now depended on combinations that excluded them, deepening the deadlock between an unreformable executive and a parliament the state could not control.

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