39 Facts About German Empire

1.

German Empire, referred to as Imperial Germany, the Kaiserreich, the Second Reich, as well as simply Germany, was the period of the German Reich from the unification of Germany in 1871 until the November Revolution in 1918, when the German Reich changed its form of government from a monarchy to a republic.

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2.

German Empire consisted of 25 states, each with their own nobility, four constituent kingdoms, six grand duchies, five duchies, seven principalities, three free Hanseatic cities, and one imperial territory.

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3.

The success of German Empire industrialization manifested itself in two ways since the early 20th century: the German Empire factories were larger and more modern than their British and French counterparts.

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4.

In 1879, the German Empire consolidated the Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary, followed by the Triple Alliance with Italy in 1882.

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5.

In October 1918, after the failed Spring Offensive, the German armies were in retreat, allies Austria-Hungary and the Ottoman Empire had collapsed, and Bulgaria had surrendered.

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6.

The consequential economic devastation, later exacerbated by the Great Depression, as well as humiliation and outrage experienced by the German Empire population are considered leading factors in the rise of Adolf Hitler and Nazism.

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7.

German Empire Confederation had been created by an act of the Congress of Vienna on 8 June 1815 as a result of the Napoleonic Wars, after being alluded to in Article 6 of the 1814 Treaty of Paris.

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8.

The war resulted in the partial replacement of the Confederation in 1867 by a North German Empire Confederation, comprising the 22 states north of the river Main.

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9.

On 10 December 1870, the North German Confederation Reichstag renamed the Confederation the "German Empire" and gave the title of German Emperor to William I, the King of Prussia, as Bundesprasidium of the Confederation.

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10.

Second German Empire Constitution, adopted by the Reichstag on 14 April 1871 and proclaimed by the Emperor on 16 April, was substantially based upon Bismarck's North German Empire Constitution.

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11.

German Empire alone appointed and dismissed the chancellor, was supreme commander-in-chief of the armed forces, and final arbiter of all foreign affairs, and could disband the Reichstag to call for new elections.

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12.

Evolution of the German Empire is somewhat in line with parallel developments in Italy, which became a united nation-state a decade earlier.

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13.

German Empire became a great hero to German conservatives, who erected many monuments to his memory and tried to emulate his policies.

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14.

German Empire once wrote that "the most brilliant victories would not avail against the Russian nation, because of its climate, its desert, and its frugality, and having but one frontier to defend", and because it would leave Germany with another bitter, resentful neighbor.

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15.

The construction of the Berlin–Baghdad railway, financed by German banks, was designed to eventually connect Germany with the Ottoman Empire and the Persian Gulf, but it collided with British and Russian geopolitical interests.

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16.

German Empire workers enjoyed health, accident and maternity benefits, canteens, changing rooms, and a national pension scheme.

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17.

Industrialisation progressed dynamically in Germany, and German manufacturers began to capture domestic markets from British imports, and to compete with British industry abroad, particularly in the U S The German textile and metal industries had by 1870 surpassed those of Britain in organisation and technical efficiency and superseded British manufacturers in the domestic market.

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18.

German Empire factories were larger and more modern than their British and French counterparts.

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19.

Creation of the Empire under Prussian leadership was a victory for the concept of Kleindeutschland over the Großdeutschland concept.

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20.

German Empire succeeded, and only after his departure from office in 1890 did the diplomatic tensions start rising again.

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21.

German Empire opposed Catholic civil rights and emancipation, especially the influence of the Vatican under Pope Pius IX, and working-class radicalism, represented by the emerging Social Democratic Party.

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22.

German Empire came to realize that this sort of policy was very appealing, since it bound workers to the state, and fit in very well with his authoritarian nature.

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23.

In 1873 the constitution was amended to allow the Empire to replace the various and greatly differing Civil Codes of the states.

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24.

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.

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25.

German Empire's 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.

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26.

At first the attack was successful: the German Empire Army swept down from Belgium and Luxembourg and advanced on Paris, at the nearby river Marne.

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27.

German Empire expected that he could take strong defensive positions in the hills overlooking Verdun on the east bank of the River Meuse to threaten the city and the French would launch desperate attacks against these positions.

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28.

German Empire predicted that French losses would be greater than those of the Germans and that continued French commitment of troops to Verdun would "bleed the French Army white.

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29.

Falkenhayn was replaced by Erich Ludendorff, and with no success in sight, the German Empire Army pulled out of Verdun in December 1916 and the battle ended.

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30.

German Empire invaded Portuguese Mozambique to gain his forces supplies and to pick up more Askari recruits.

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31.

Concept of "total war" meant that supplies had to be redirected towards the armed forces and, with German Empire commerce being stopped by the Allied naval blockade, German Empire civilians were forced to live in increasingly meagre conditions.

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32.

Units of the German Empire Navy refused to set sail for a last, large-scale operation in a war which they saw as good as lost, initiating the uprising.

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33.

German Empire's legislation was based on two organs, the Bundesrat and the Reichstag.

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34.

Several of these states had gained sovereignty following the dissolution of the Holy Roman German Empire, and had been de facto sovereign from the mid-1600s onward.

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35.

Each component of the German Empire sent representatives to the Federal Council and, via single-member districts, the Imperial Diet (Reichstag).

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36.

Relations between the Imperial centre and the German Empire's components were somewhat fluid and were developed on an ongoing basis.

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37.

The German Empire enacted a number of progressive reforms, such as Europe's first social welfare system and freedom of press.

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38.

Era of the German Empire is well remembered in Germany as one of great cultural and intellectual vigour.

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39.

The German Empire was for Hans-Ulrich Wehler a strange mixture of highly successful capitalist industrialisation and socio-economic modernisation on the one hand, and of surviving pre-industrial institutions, power relations and traditional cultures on the other.

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