The Revolution, The Second Reich, And The First War

As Europe began to adopt imperialism and its need for industrial resources increased, Germany grew, as well, and ultimately came out on the forefront of the movement with its prospects of a railway connecting central Europe with the middle east, allowing for greater military transportation and investment opportunity. Due to the rising competition over oil and the threat it posed to British imperialism, the concept of a Berlin-Baghdad Express railway increased tensions throughout Europe and was a contributing factor to the outbreak of WWI. With a transcontinental express, Germany would have tremendous potential in new oil fields and open markets, it would go on to establish a land profile significant enough to pose a threat to the British empire,

Many historians believe that due to the Wilhelmine Era and the expansion of the German nation, led to the outbreak of World War One. During the Bismarck era, Bismarck 's main goal was to keep France isolated and stay in good relations with Austria and Russia so that it would prevent a war. Although Bismarck 's foreign policy was creating cooperation, it did not last very long. The spark of World War one came from the Wilhelmine era, which turned away from everything Bismarck’s foreign policy represented. The expansion of the military scared Europe, the industrialization of the railroad was a suspicion to other countries, and the expansion of domestic supporters led to the alliance of the France, Britain, and Russia known as the Triple Entente.

Before World War 1, Otto Von Bismarck had to Otto-matically unite the German states. World War 1, known as the “Great War” before 1940 was the world's first global conflict which lasted from 1914-1918. Ten million soldiers had died in the battle fields and another twenty million soldiers had been wounded by the end of the war in November of 1918. The war contented the Central Powers of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire against the Allied forces of Great Britain, United States, France, Russia, and Italy. This raises the question, “What were the underlying causes of World War I?”

1. After expanding his territory, people regarded Otto Van Bismarck as someone who was great with expansion, but he refused to take part in any more wars so as not to shatter his land, and because he preferred peace over war. He did not want to establish a naval force because he considered himself to be a hero on land, and he did not want to have a bitter relationship with England. Additionally, after conquering Alsace and Lorraine from France, Bismarck knew that France would be plotting to get him back, so he wanted to isolate France from having any allies in order to keep them from revolting against Germany. He did this by becoming friends with other

The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich was a summary of Adolf’s journey from his boyhood to his final decision to end his life. Shirer successfully made his case as he laid down many points that proved the foolishness of the German citizen in becoming aroused by Hitler’s power and not reacting to stop him from getting any more powerful. The point of view must be addressed. Based on the author’s choice of words and writing, it was clear that he had found Hitler distasteful as he uses the words restless, bitter, demonic, and ruthless to describe the Fuhrer throughout the book. Therefore the writings in the book could have been influenced by the fact that he lived and worked in the Third Reich and witnessed Adolf Hitler’s rise of power first hand. The audience of the book, based on the difficulty of reading and the content, should be for young adults and older, historians, and for anyone interested in this topic. The book could be used for further research into this subject or simply for the pleasure of new information that have never been seen before in other famous Holocaust stories such as The Diary of Anne Frank. This book will definitely stimulate further conversation among historians and history lovers and historiography on this subject as the author’s thesis is quite controversial. Overall, I have liked the thoroughness of this book and all the interesting insights in which I have never come upon with other books talking about the Third Reich, I don’t recommend taking this

The most important affair dealing with the colonial policy was that of the Berlin-Baghdad Railway. In 1882 the Turkish government gave its approval for the first stage of the project, form Constantinople to Ankara, which Germany built by 1892. An intense competition between the European powers for the right to build the next section followed. Again Germany was granted the concession and by 1896 the section from Eskis Ehir to Konya was built. Once more there was competition for the right to build the following part. With the help of France and despite Russian opposition Germany won the concession once again for the section between Konya and Baghdad. However the building proved to be less easy as the British and French government refused to cooperate. The control of this railway became an international issue between Germany and Britain and added to the list of conflicts and misunderstandments (such as the naval build up) between these two countries.

Females of every age group, whether it was minimal or considerable, were treated differently during the Third Reich compared to during the Weimar Government. Throughout the Weimar Government, there had been movements to increase the rights of women. Under the constitution, women had complete equality with men. This incredible step was entirely erased once Hitler came to power. In Hitler’s mind, the natural role for women was domestic, they were best equipped to look after the home, care for the husbands and raise children so that’s what they should do. Life under the Nazi’s control had many changes, most impacting for the worse for women however, despite this, the support for Hitler from women increased and remained strong.

The Second Reich lasted from 1871 until 1918. The first era was known as The Era of Bismarck where Germany started to become a powerful economic and political force in Europe. However, due to Bismarck’s authoritarian rule causing political and social tensions, he was removed from office. William I reined as emperor since the founding of the Second Reich but died in 1888. His son Frederick III then took over only to die of throat cancer months later. This string of events led to William II taking office in 1890. William had his own ideas about both the domestic and foreign policy that

The Weimar Constitution was a genuine attempt to create a perfect democratic country. In his book The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich (1960), American historian William L. Shirer described the Weimar Constitution as "on paper, the most liberal and democratic document of its kind the twentieth century had ever seen ... full of ingenious and admirable devices which seemed to guarantee the working of an almost flawless democracy.” The constitution guaranteed equal rights to the German people, yet also contained the fundamental structural flaws that would play a major part in the Republic 's downfall (and thus the Nazi Party’s rise). Two clear examples of such weaknesses were the use of an excessively proportional electoral system and the

German historian Fritz Fischer argues that Germany 's desire for world power was the reason that for the outbreak of WWI. Germany had plans for a war before the crisis that occurred during 1914 and used the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand as an excuse to put the plans into effect. Germany also encouraged Austria and its war plans to provoke a crisis in which it can solve the problem that Germany would face if they went to war. This problem is called "encirclement" and Germany would face this problem if it went to war with France and Russia. By having Austria doing so it would allow Germany to dominate and expand its territories. France and Russia signed a full military defensive alliance in 1892-1895 which allowed the possibility of a two-front war. With Germany 's geographical position being between these two great powers, it would cause Germany to lose the war at an instant. In addition to this, France felt bitterness towards the defeat of 1870-1871 and the taking

In 1871, Realpolitik was at its height when Otto von Bismarck of Prussia formed Germany. Bismarck was appointed as the prime minister of Prussia to crush the growing power of the liberals. It was his job to instill conservative values while avoiding progressive thinking with Western Europe. Bismarck used war as a political tactic by getting into wars he knew could win for Prussia. He lured Denmark and France into war to beat them and add to a growing sense of pride and nationalism within the German states. Two houses of government formed with the aristocracy having more power than the lower house. The biggest downside of Bismarck getting into wars with surrounding countries was that Germany was not industrializing over this period of time. Although, once Germany unified, Bismarck was able to jumpstart the economy by implementing a series of laws that would help businesses

Otto Von Bismarck had plans for Germany to become more stable by unifying the other colonies to Prussia. When Kaiser Wilhelm II became in power of Germany his aspiration was to expand the country and be able to own colonies all over the world.

The first world war was not the result of one assassination, but rather it was a mixture of long term causes and more immediate strategic decisions. In the nineteenth century in Europe, the long term factors to world war one had been building, Imperialism and Industrialisation were radically changing the balance of power internationally and political stability domestically. The rise of radical nationalism created influential groups such as the Black Hand and the Pan-Germans and the decline of the Habsburg, Hohenzollern, Romanov and Ottoman empires left power vacuums and created challenges to the traditional order. Germany created an arms race, by expanding its navy which forced itself into a direct challenge to the British. Alliances tied countries together, but also created deep rifts and the secretive diplomatic dealings and incidents like the Moroccan crisis, the Balkans war and the July crisis heightened tensions. All of these factors interwove together, precipitating the inevitable action from Germany, to declare war.

It ended up with a conference, in which the German Kaiser humiliated and tensions were built. In 1911, France tries to take over Morocco again, so Morocco requests support. What happens is because the British did not want German ships in the Mediterranean, and was afraid that Germany would going to build a fort on the coast, another conference was called, and France takes over Morocco, but as compensation, Germany was given land in central Africa. This creates animosity in Germany towards the French and the British, because Germany lost against the French, failing to protect Morocco. German imperialism, the Kaiser’s ambition of over sea empire, and nationalism, the thought of Germany being the world power, has caused militarism, expansion of her army and navy. The three elements were the causes of World War 1 but what has made the war inevitable was the alliance system that existed at that time.

Since the great powers of the time feared each other, they formed alliances and ententes that brought them safety in case of attack and provided diplomatic support. When the German Empire starts its rise to power after victory in the Franco-Prussian War in 1870 and 1871, German Chancellor Otto von Bismarck skillfully leads his country to power through diplomacy. Chancellor Bismarck’s political knowledge of Europe and skillful negotiation leads to many treaties, from developing an alliance with the Austria-Hungary (the Dual Alliance, signed in 1879) to improving relations with Russia. His motivation to negotiate treaties with these countries stemmed from a fear of the two-front war (which doomed Germany