From the constitution of the new Reich and Bismarck's Kulturkampf through the Anti-Socialist Laws and the world's first welfare state, the Berlin Conference and the colonial empire, the dismissal of Bismarck and Tirpitz's naval race, the Daily Telegraph affair and the Moroccan crises, the rise of the Social Democrats, the catastrophe of 1914 and the silent dictatorship of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, to the sailors' mutiny at Kiel, the abdication of Wilhelm II, and the armistice in the forest of Compiègne. Slide across the decades to read the major events of the brilliant and catastrophic Wilhelmine Reich.
On 16 April the constitution of the new German Empire is promulgated: a federal monarchy of twenty-five states with the Prussian king as hereditary Kaiser, a Bundesrat of princely envoys, a directly elected Reichstag, and a chancellor — Bismarck — responsible only to the emperor.
From the constitution of the new Reich and Bismarck's Kulturkampf through the Anti-Socialist Laws and the world's first welfare state, the Berlin Conference and the colonial empire, the dismissal of Bismarck and Tirpitz's naval race, the Daily Telegraph affair and the Moroccan crises, the rise of the Social Democrats, the catastrophe of 1914 and the silent dictatorship of Hindenburg and Ludendorff, to the sailors' mutiny at Kiel, the abdication of Wilhelm II, and the armistice in the forest of Compiègne. Slide across the decades to read the major events of the brilliant and catastrophic Wilhelmine Reich.
On 16 April the constitution of the new German Empire is promulgated: a federal monarchy of twenty-five states with the Prussian king as hereditary Kaiser, a Bundesrat of princely envoys, a directly elected Reichstag, and a chancellor — Bismarck — responsible only to the emperor.
The May Laws of 1873 subject Catholic seminaries to state inspection, abolish ecclesiastical disciplinary powers, and require state approval for priestly appointments. Bismarck declares war on the new Centre Party and on Pope Pius IX's claim of papal infallibility (1870).
After two assassination attempts on Wilhelm I that he blames on socialists, Bismarck pushes through the Sozialistengesetz — a law banning the SPD's organisations, meetings, and press for twelve years. The party survives, smuggled from Zurich and London, and elects 35 deputies despite the ban.
On 7 October, Germany and Austria-Hungary sign a secret defensive alliance against Russia. The treaty, expanded in 1882 by Italy into the Triple Alliance, will lock the Reich into a Habsburg partnership that thirty-five years later will draw it into the World War.
Health insurance (1883), accident insurance (1884), and old-age and disability insurance (1889) make Germany the first country in Europe to enact compulsory social protection for industrial workers. Bismarck's aim is candidly political: to dry up the social grievances on which the SPD feeds.
Between November 1884 and February 1885, fourteen European powers and the United States meet in Bismarck's chancellery to regulate the Scramble for Africa. Germany emerges with protectorates in South-West Africa, Togo, Cameroon, and East Africa — a colonial empire of three million square kilometres.
Wilhelm I dies on 9 March at ninety. His son Friedrich III, dying of laryngeal cancer, reigns ninety-nine days before he too is gone on 15 June. The throne passes to his twenty-nine-year-old son, Wilhelm II — mercurial, impulsive, a man with a withered arm and a vast ambition.
On 18 March, after months of mounting conflict over domestic policy and foreign relations, Wilhelm II accepts the seventy-five-year-old Bismarck's letter of resignation. Six weeks later the Reinsurance Treaty with Russia lapses; the diplomatic insurance against the nightmare of a two-front war is gone.
Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz, Wilhelm II's secretary of state for the navy, secures the First Naval Law: a six-year programme of battleship construction that will give Germany a high-seas fleet capable of challenging the Royal Navy. The Anglo-German naval race has begun.
On 1 January, the Civil Code — twenty-six years in drafting — becomes the law of the Reich, unifying private law from Schleswig to Bavaria. With it the Empire becomes a Rechtsstaat in modern shape; the BGB will remain in force, with revisions, into the twenty-first century.
When the Herero people rise against settler land seizures, General Lothar von Trotha issues an Extermination Order: 'Every Herero, with or without a rifle, with or without cattle, will be shot.' Survivors are driven into the Omaheke desert and confined in concentration camps. Within four years 65,000 Herero and 10,000 Nama — perhaps four-fifths of both peoples — are dead.
On 31 March, Wilhelm II rides through Tangier on a white horse and declares Germany's support for Moroccan independence — a calculated affront to French plans of protectorate. The crisis is resolved at the Algeciras Conference of 1906, where Germany finds itself isolated against the new Anglo-French Entente.
On 28 October, the London Daily Telegraph publishes an interview in which Wilhelm II tells the British that 'you English are mad, mad, mad as March hares', boasts of his pro-Boer family's lack of sympathy for the British in the South African war, and confides that the German navy is intended primarily against Japan. A constitutional storm follows; for the first time Wilhelm's personal regime is openly criticised in the Reichstag.
The Reichstag elections of January return 110 SPD deputies — over a third of the chamber — making it the largest single party in the legislature. Bismarck's Reichsfeind has become the Reich's chief political party. The Kaiser's chamberlain calls the result 'an election of Jews and disloyal idiots'.
After the Sarajevo assassination and the July Crisis, Germany declares war on Russia (1 August), France (3 August), and invades neutral Belgium (4 August), bringing in Britain. On 4 August, in a packed Reichstag, Wilhelm II declares: 'I know no parties any more, only Germans.' The Burgfrieden is sealed.
After the failure of Falkenhayn's Verdun offensive, Wilhelm II appoints Field Marshal Paul von Hindenburg as chief of the General Staff, with Erich Ludendorff as his quartermaster-general. The Third Supreme Command rapidly takes effective control of the German war effort — and of the civilian government. A 'silent dictatorship' replaces the Reichstag and the chancellor.
On 1 February, the German navy resumes unrestricted submarine warfare, calculating that the British Isles can be starved into surrender within six months. On 6 April, the United States declares war. The Zimmermann Telegram — Berlin's offer to Mexico of Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico — has helped to make Wilson's cause.
Between 21 March and 18 July, Ludendorff launches five great offensives in the west, hoping to break the Allies before the Americans arrive in strength. Operation Michael cracks the British Fifth Army; the Germans reach the Marne for the second time since 1914. But by mid-July their last reserves are spent.
On 29 October, sailors at Wilhelmshaven refuse to put to sea in a last suicidal sortie. The mutiny spreads to Kiel by 3 November and to Hamburg, Bremen, and Berlin within days. Workers' and soldiers' councils on the Russian model spring up across Germany. On 9 November Prince Max of Baden announces Wilhelm II's abdication; the Kaiser flees to Holland.
At 5 a.m. on 11 November, in Marshal Foch's railway carriage in the forest of Compiègne, the German delegation signs the armistice. Hostilities cease at 11 a.m. After 1,564 days and two million German war dead, the Great War is over. Germany has lost.