David Kaiser on the role of anti-socialist sentiment

Despite many differences of emphasis and opinion, it is fair to say that a far-reaching consensus of German, British, and American historians now agrees that German foreign policy after 1897 must be understood as a response to the internal threat of socialism and democracy. In 1897 the Imperial government decided to deal with domestic discontent by pursuing an aggressive foreign policy; subsequently it regarded a foreign war as a useful option should domestic problems become intolerable. This in turn has led to the view that Berlin helped unleash war in 1914 because war had become the only way out of Germany’s domestic difficulties. These views have been most specifically advanced by V. R. Berghahn in Germany and the Approach of War in 1914 (New York, 1973) and Hans-Ulrich Wehler in Das Deutsche Kaiserreich 1871-1918 (Gottingen, 1973), both of whom see the introduction of Weltpolitik in 1897 and the decision for war in 1914 as attempts by an aristocratic agrarian elite to escape the political consequences of the industrialization of Germany. Paul Kennedy’s The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism 1860-1914 (London, 1980) also stresses the government’s use of Welt politik as a weapon against the political consequences of industrialization, and agrees that increasing concern with the rise of the Social Democrats contributed to the government’s policies in July 1914. In an essay on the causes of the First World War Arno Mayer suggested that in 1914 elements within the German government-possibly including the chancellor “looked to a smashing diplomatic or military triumph to consolidate the monarchy, to perpetuate Prussia’s three-class franchise, and to check both reformists and revolutionaries.” In July 1914. The Outbreak of the First World War (New York, 1974) Immanuel Geiss endorsed many aspects of these views, although Geiss, like Fischer, is equally interested in ideological and psychological influences on German policy. In Re shaping the German Right. Radical Nationalism and Political Change after Bismarck (New Haven, 1980) Geoff Eley argues that the German government’s manipulation of nationalism has been vastly exaggerated, yet adds that by 1914 the German government was in an “impossible situation.” Wolfgang Mommsen, while supplying many correctives to  more extreme interpretations, has concluded that war broke out largely because the German government failed to function effectively in 1914, leaving Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg unable to resist the influence of the military. In the meantime other historians have shed welcome light on particular crises, institutions, and individuals important to German foreign policy in the years 1897-1914: Dirk Stegmann on the role of interest groups, Klaus Wernecke on the press and public opinion, Heiner Raulff on the first Moroccan crisis, Barbara Vogel on German Russian relations, Raymond Poidevin on Franco-German economic and financial rivalries, Isabel Hull on the emperor and his entourage, Peter Winzen on Bernhard von Bülow, and Konrad Jarausch on Bethmann Hollweg. David E. Kaiser, Germany and the Origins of the First World War. Source: The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Sep., 1983), pp. 442-474