Imperial Germany 1890 - 1918 by Ian Porter Ian D. Armour

Author:Ian Porter, Ian D. Armour [Ian Porter, Ian D. Armour]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: History, Europe, Germany, Modern, 19th Century, 20th Century, General
ISBN: 9781317900863
Google: FdwFBAAAQBAJ
Publisher: Routledge
Published: 2014-06-06T01:23:09+00:00

War aims

It is undeniable that Germany’s enemies also had war aims. Russia wanted control of the Straits; France, the left bank of the Rhine; Italy, large chunks of the Habsburg Monarchy; and Britain and Japan, Germany’s African and Pacific colonies. With the exception of Russia, moreover, the Allies attained these aims in one way or another. Yet German war aims differed fundamentally from those of the Allies in their territorial and economic range; in their dis regard for ethnic boundaries in the pursuit of hegemony; and in their ideological nature, particularly in the East, where the Lebensraum mentality came to fruition (202; 201; 173). German aims, too, were ambitious right from the start, and as the War progressed became more and more extreme. To some extent this was because, as Bethmann Hollweg put it, appetite comes with eating (38), but the fact remains that German appetites were voracious, and demonstrably more so than those of the Allies.

From the outbreak of war, not only the military, but princes of the federal states, political and industrial leaders, and a formidable assortment of academics and pressure groups, began suggesting what Germany should demand. At the core of most of these plans was the concept of Mitteleuropa*, a continent dominated politically and economically by Germany (201; 215). And central to virtually everyone’s idea of Mitteleuropa were annexations, whether for the defensive purpose of safeguarding Germany from future ‘aggression’, or as a springboard for further expansion. The King of Bavaria revived medieval claims to the whole of Belgium, and squabbled with the King of Saxony over who had the better title to be King of a restored Poland (206). None of the major parties, with the exception of the SPD, seemed to find anything fantastic in the annexation of non-German-speaking territory in both East and West; and even some Social Democrats succumbed to the idea of limited annexations as ‘compensation’ (202; 219). The Pan-Germans, acting in concert with leading industrialists’ groups like the CVDI and Bdl, clamoured for western territory to secure industrial resources, and for eastern territory to ensure agricultural self-sufficiency (202; 87). A ‘Petition of the Intellectuals’ in July 1915 made similar demands; the 1,300 signatures in support of this far out-numbered a counter-petition organised by the historian Hans Delbrück, protesting against the unnaturalness of such annexations (223; 192).

The first official expression of war aims, and a clear reaction to some of these demands (162; 225), was the so-called September Programme of 1914. Drafted at a time when victory in France was still confidently expected, it concentrated on what the government hoped to achieve in the West. There was no attempt to outline eastern aims in detail, although the Programme made clear that ‘Russia must be thrust back as far as possible from Germany’s eastern frontier and her domination over the non-Russian vassal peoples broken’. The immediate intention, however, was to leave France ‘so weakened as to make her revival as a great power impossible for all time’ (201, p. 103).

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