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Example research essay topic: Ruling Classes Germany - 2,476 words

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Describe And Discuss Kehr? s Reasons For Believing Describe And Discuss Kehr? s Reasons For Believing That The Rejection Of An English Alliance Was Due Kehr? s essays are united by the title? Primat der Innenpolitik? since Kehr?

s take on the Wilhelmine and Bismarckian Reich's was that the Ranked ideal of a Primat der Aussenpolitik based on the coordination and common goals of the nation state was not just outdated, but simply a bourgeois illusion. ? Kehr refers to the idea of? objective? and? autonomous?

foreign policy as being absurd and that social stratification and domestic politics were more important in foreign politics. ? The zenith of this idea was the way in which the possibility Anglo-German alliance was handled. ? Claiming that Miquel? s Sammlungspolitik provided the bases for German foreign policy, Kehr points out that the English failure to assess the nature of the war without examining their own foreign policy was as grave a sin as to look at German foreign policy without looking at German domestic policy. ? Foreign policy has adversaries and allies to deal with, but does so in order to meet the needs of its people. ? As a part of his thesis, Kehr says that the?

social conflicts of the nineties set foreign policy on a course that encouraged expansion of the fleet and rejection of the English alliance. ? ? The forces of conservatism that traditionally used the national superstructure to maintain the socio-economic status quo were striving to maintain a more backward state than the type of state advocated by the Burgertum. ? In Germany this had the effect if protecting the interests of agrarian capitalism against the interests of industrial and commercial capitalism. ? Moreover, the need to suppress the massively expanding proletariat, a child of such commerce, was another objective of the forces conservatism. Kehr also saw bourgeois nationalism, the being that constructed the? Nation-State? , as using domestic politics as a defence mechanism against more advanced and capable economic rivals on behalf of the agrarian sector, and as being a means to cut out competition for all of Germany?

s exporters. ? It was this common purpose that created the Sammlungspolitik. The Sammlungspolitik was a stateless collection that sought collaboration between the wealthy classes, now including the Burgertum, that agreed to remain in the state apparatus but never to seek to dominate it. ? Their governing interest was subduing the proletariat and maintaining their own status. ?

The Junkers were not the hard-working farmers of the eighteenth century, but rather high level aristocrats whose tastes needed supporting. ? The social-insurance policy, the Penitentiary Bill and the Subversion Bills were all important anti proletarian domestic policies. ? Not satisfied with the Bismarckian style of use of foreign policy, whereby emergencies could be generated to allow him to better control the situation, the Sammlungspolitik bloc wished to use Weltpolitik to create a grandiose un continental foreign policy to manipulate. ? Weltpolitik, the increased domestic power it would bring in the fledgling Rechtstaat and the prestige it would bring to denigrate Germany?

s socialists and democrats were all issues that would provide the support of the uneasy alliance. Where nationalism had been the antagonist of dynastic feudalism, that is to say, for social development, nationalism came to be turned upon the proletariat as a weapon for social reaction. ? ? Kehr does however seem to forget the rather important issue of forced export to colonies that these exporters might have considered a rather important point. In foreign policy terms, Germany faced two blocs in the nineteenth century. ?

The bourgeois? business as usual? British with their industry and the autocratic Russia? s grain producing power were the opposite sides of the coin and neither were acceptable to the alliance. ? However, despite these two contrasting examples, German agrarian? conservatives still believed that a Machstaat could base itself economically on agriculture and reject the British model. ?

The inability to pay an army in an agrarian society never really seemed to occur to these most determined proponents of the Machtstaat. ? The German conservatives, according to Kehr, were not provoking the Anglo-German antagonism in the name of intellectual values, ? heroes against shopkeepers, ? but were defending their socio-economic position against a more potent economic power even though it would damage the nation as a whole. ?

Once again, the Sammlungspolitik placed self-interest before the national interest. ? Hostility and anxiety regarding the British were multiplied by the defeat of the Boers at Kimberley and the Modder River? a defeat for the agrarians apparently as big as Koeniggratz for Napoleon to the mindset of the agrarians, who came to realise the power of the British industrial machine. To compare Koeniggratz with these events is something of an exaggeration by the revisionist. Taking action against the potential of the British to race across the East Elbian grainfields, as their industrial might apparently had in South Africa, the agrarians stopped opposing the building of a fleet, the ultimate expression of fear of a naval island nation off one? s seaboard.

The fleet was backed by industry as a means of beating off its English commercial rival: the fleet was a sustainable contract for them even if war broke out. ? This was another piece of Sammlungspolitik. The fleet? s building required the agrarians to drop their patriarchal outlook and anti-capitalist attacks on such institutions as the stock exchange. It is highly unlikely that the Transvaal, Sino-Japanese or Spanish-American wars were seen as a portent to an age of conflict as claimed so much as a pretext for preparing for war for class reasons. ?

Given the Anglo-Russian conflicts in the Far East, Germany was in an era of little threat and so the tariffs and the fleet policy can be viewed as they should be? as symptoms of domestic political struggles. ? The Navy Laws brought the only apparent foreign concern of the agrarians to bear. ? Their realisation of the primacy of the world economy, with its Russian Grain Mountains and American grain prairies?

an economy unfavourable to the ramshackle inefficient East Elbian estates? led to attempts to shut off the national economy (which they could dominate) from the outside. ? This shows a subordination of the national state to their interests, in that the economic effects of the tariffs would be beneficial to them alone. Moreover, the proposed Tariff legislation of 1902 was an expression of the Sammlungspolitik? s collaboration; the tariffs were a trade-off for agrarian support in passing the Navy Laws.

The industrial bourgeoisie had no choice but to put up with the grain tariff, a supposed preparation for the potential blockade during a period of no foreign policy concerns, so indicating the power of these ruling classes over the indignant ruled classes. ? Despite a marked decrease in living standards due to the tariffs, the public sentiment had no outlet... No matter their dislike of the state, the conservatives needed to keep the English at arm? s length. ?

Foreign policy, the fleet and Weltpolitik were all means of preserving the Junker class. ? On the other hand, the Baghdad Railway scheme was a manifestation of an anti-Russian sentiment and so long as the conservatives remained entrenched, there could be no choosing between either the agrarian Russians or the dark, satanic mills of England, so forcing the two parties to join forces. ? The Sammlungspolitik created a situation where the alliance of industry and agriculture seconded all other classes of interest. ? It was in the interests of? iron and rye? that Kehr sees the rejection of English attempts at conciliation and alliance, the building of the fleet and the grain tolls. ?

These personal interests governing foreign policy were social and economic, but never once international. This is exemplified by the German voluntary support of Britain? s blockade of Russia just after the collapse of the talks between England and Germany. ? The conflict of a state entirely reliant on its liberal industrialists, yet run by its agrarians forced such an inconsistent action. ?

The blockade on Russian grain was inconsistent with competition with England, yet it was followed through without hesitation to protect the ruling classes. ? The protective tariff proposal, the Penitentiary Bill and the second Naval Law were all policies, as valid, ethical and moderate as the Anglophobic and Anti-Russian sentiments of the Sammlungspolitik. I would generally agree with Kehr? s sentiment, but with the proviso that Kehr in his revisionism is occasionally too radical. ? Although I would agree, in AJP Taylor?

s words that? patriotism is a luxury that only those without private interests can afford? , ? attributing too much significance to the Sammlungspolitik and perhaps forgetting the crime listed in his essay England hass. ? In his haste to condemn the diplomatic historians, Kehr forgets them altogether. ?

Moreover, in his haste to condemn the right, he forgets the corroborative influence of the left. ? More surprisingly, however, he forgets the importance of such blocs as the Reichstag and the Imperial Court. Wilhelm II? s appointment as Bismarck?

s successor, Caprivi, actively sought alliance with England, a policy favoured by the Social Democrats and, in his attempts to further expand the army, he sought war on Russia. War seemed likely as part of a liberal bloc with England, a war conducted with French cooperation. ? The increase of military power was thus welcomed by the left throughout the period as a means to destroying the Russian autocracy. ? Engels wrote?

Rise, therefore, if Russia begins a war? Rise against Russia and her allies, whoever they may be! ? ? Bebel, the SPD leader, said in the Reichstag in 1892? Present-day Social Democracy is a sort of preparatory school of militarism. ? The transfer of influence to Caprivi? s marshalship saw tremendous skill in his handling of the Centre Party (a pair of words one seldom sees used in Kehr?

s work), but through his wrangling, Prussian influence began shrinking in the Reichstag. The populist Caprivi? s democratic leanings started to show through but he was unable? to satisfy Germany without displeasing the Emperor?

as Eulenberg would describe the trick of good Chancellorship, and his successor in 1894, Hohenlowe took it upon himself to be a new Bismarck. ? Whereas Caprivi had believed in the importance of universal suffrage? the junior partner in Bismarck? s reign to the influence private parties? the old order tried, without great success to reassert itself. The Reich wished to return to its old ways, manipulating parties, states and the smaller states, but the days of the Iron Chancellor were passed, especially after Caprivi?

s meddling. ? Hohenlowe did this by copying old Bismarckian tricks and policies. ? No more demagogy, no more encouragement of German Austrians and the bolstering of authoritarian (even anti-German) aristocracy in Austria-Hungary. ? There was no more support for the Habsburgs in the Balkans, nor sympathy for the Poles. ? There was an end to conciliation with England. ?

Colonial ambitions resumed, and in 1895, the Kruger Telegram, a poor imitation of the 1870 Ems Telegram, provoked open conflict with England. ? Weltpolitik was not just an industrialist demand that would require Tirpitz? s fleet, nor just a search for markets, but was also apparently important for the journalists, writers and university professors who wanted to taste the successes of Shadow and Sedan. ? The Prussian bureaucracy who were still trying to reign Germany back to within Bismarckian limits was the only brake on the new incautious nature of the government, swept along on a tide of ambition. ? According to AJP Taylor, the timidity of the German middle class would inflict the punishment of German ambition on the whole world. Wilhelm?

s assertion that Germany? s policy was one of? Full steam ahead! ? was a lie in so many ways. ? Not only were they intending to return to Bismarckian politics, as opposed to pressing forwards, but they were moving at great speed with no real direction. When he told Below to be?

his Bismarck, ? the intention was to? sell? the old order to the German masses. ? Below slipped and slithered through, and became known as the? Eel, ?

he himself joking that he was like hair grease. ? The result was Weltpolitik on the cheap, led by the Chancellor, a figure almost forgotten by Kehr, and encouraged by the Emperor, another cameo role in Kehr? s vision. It seems to me that whilst Kehr lists valid reasons for supporting the Weltpolitik, and explains why support for the Weltpolitik came from certain quarters, the importance of the Reich? s leadership cannot be forgotten. ?

Miquel bought the Junkers for the Reich with inflated grain prices. ? The support of the Junkers was thus tied to the Reich, and they were once more within the Reich. ? The Junkers did not demand the higher prices, they were pre-empted and bought off with them. ? Miquel? s financial policy, culminating in the tariffs of 1902 reminded the old right and the Reich, whilst Tirpitz? s building programme equally bought off the navy. ?

The navy, entirely useless either for defending colonies (as their cruising range was sufficient only for use in the North Sea) or blockade breaking, was purely a weapon of offence that could only be trained on Britain, and so although I would accept that agrarian protection and a great navy were two sides of a single bargain, in their inherent economic benefits and social boons (such as the transformation of Marxist revolutionaries into modern trade unions by the simple property of affluence). Kehr, whose suggestion for his own epitaph was? Yes, he was a Red, but he was a Man too? , forgets the role of the new, moderate SPD in the growing anxiety in Europe. ? The SPD? s doctrine of striking in the event of war led many to believe that Germany would not be allowed to start a war of aggression and so the only war that could be prepare for would be a war of self defence against the un socialist nations of Europe. ?

Thus, Germany which was? practically a Socialist country? had to strive to win any victories possible in order to successfully export Socialism abroad. ? I believe that A. J. P.

Taylor? s assertion that Germany was too? intoxicated? by their own power to accept alliances to be too vague and I would not accept Kehr?

s argument of class interest, but instead look to England to discover? a marked lack of interest. ? Salisbury certainly never showed any great interest in any alliances with Germany and, so we must question whether the English overtures to Germany were never intended to do more than to allow England to seize any moral high ground.


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Research essay sample on Ruling Classes Germany

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