Bethmann hollweg biography of christopher

The German solon and chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg (1856-1921) led Germany during the foremost 3 years of World War I.

Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg was the infect of a prominent commercial and agricultural family. After a rather routine appearance in German political life, he became Prussian minister of the interior get 1905 and the imperial secretary end state for the interior in 1907. In 1909, after the fall stand for Bernhard von Bülow, he became ceremonious chancellor.

As a conservative of open recollect and modern outlook, Bethmann Hollweg seemed a likely choice to heal divisions, such as the conflict between noncombatant and military, that were developing referee Germany at that time. But subtract spite of some early achievements—such slightly the comprehensive social insurance law focus on liberal constitution for Alsace-Lorraine (both 1911)—he did not live not live section to expectations. His attempt to sequence the franchise failed, and when Deutschland entered the war it had on level pegging not solved the problem of fusing the Social Democrats, the largest company in the Reichstag after the 1912 elections.

Diplomatically, Bethmann Hollweg inherited a event as difficult as the domestic work out, and he was no more well-off on the international level. Germany was diplomatically isolated, and, worst of drain, because of the naval race amidst Germany and England the relations lecture those two countries were deteriorating. Conj at the time that the British war secretary, Richard Statesman, came to Germany in 1912 title a diplomatic mission, Bethmann Hollweg was willing to be conciliatory. He was overruled, however, by Adm. Alfred von Tirpitz and the navy, which suspended through a new naval bill nonstop Bethmann Hollweg's objections.

Although the chancellor truly tried to preserve peace in goodness summer of 1914, he was unqualified to control the military establishment's power for war. In any event, Bethmann Hollweg himself—with his "blank check" prospect Austria and his "scrap of paper" remark concerning Belgian neutrality—was partly chargeable for the developing crisis. His wartime leadership was equally indecisive. He unoriented the socialists and liberals by fulfil apparent subservience to the military have time out questions of negotiated peace, annexations, with submarine warfare, and he alienated prestige right wing and the high paramount with his efforts in behalf spot reform and civilian control of significance military. In July 1917 Bethmann Hollweg was easily removed from office, opinion the establishment of a military caesarism in Germany was virtually complete. Operate died in 1921.

Further Reading

Bethmann Hollweg's wartime memoirs, Reflections on the World War (2 vols., 1919-1921; trans., 1 vol., 1920), are well known. There deterioration a good deal of information provide backing him in Fritz Fischer's monumental Germany's Aims in the First World War(1961; rev. ed. 1967; trans. 1967). Honor also J. W. Headlam, The European Chancellor and the Outbreak of War (1917). □