The German empire, or Kaiserreich, lasted from 1871 to 1918 and was the first unified iteration of a modern Germany. Unwaveringly ambitious in its aims for world domination, the Kaiserreich ultimately led itself into a suicidal war to feed this desire. What was the Kaiserreich and how did this short-lived German empire rise and fall so spectacularly?

Kaiserreich map

The Kaiserreich spanned modern-day Germany and much of modern-day Poland in Europe. It consisted of federal states. The most influential of these was Prussia, the kingdom from which the Emperor or Kaiser came. Berlin was the capital of the German Kaiserreich and had been the capital of the Kingdom of Prussia. The southern German Kingdom of Bavaria was another large federal state. Alsace-Lorraine had been part of France since the 17th century but was incorporated into Germany in 1871, after the Franco-Prussian War. The North German Confederation led by Prussia, with its ally Bavaria, had defeated France and annexed Alsace-Lorraine, and King Wilhelm of Prussia became Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany. Alsace-Lorraine was not given the autonomy to make its own laws, and Germany was forced to return it to France in 1919, following World War I.

Presence in Africa

The unification of the Kaiserreich coincided with the "Scramble of Africa" between Western European powers in the latter half of the nineteenth century. Whilst the British and the French had a large presence on the continent, the Kaiserreich also harboured colonial ambitions and colonised some key countries, as exemplified below. The three main areas of control were German West Africa (modern-day Cameroon and parts of modern-day Togo), German East Africa (modern-day Tanzania) and German Southwest Africa (modern-day Namibia).

Constitution of the Kaiserreich

The Kaiserreich was made up of several power structures. It was a federal constitution whereby local governments and a Prince presided over each state. Each German state could make its own laws, but matters of national interest and real significance lay with the Kaiser. Let's examine some features of the constitution of the Kaiserreich and the issues that they presented to the empire.

Flag of the Kaiserreich

The Kaiserreich employed different flags for different occasions, but the Reich war flag is perhaps the most interesting in providing an insight into the aims and values of the empire.

Fig. 3 - Kaiserreich war flag

A combination of the Prussian coat of arms with the black eagle and the cross and red-white-black colours of the medieval Hanseatic League in the top left corner.

The choice of the Hanseatic League and the Prussian empire is significant and was an early harbinger of the Kaiserreich's intent to expand her empire at all costs. The military strength of the Prussians, who had defeated the French before the German Empire's unification, dovetailed with the enterprise and trading nous of the Hanseatic League. This created the perfect image of a nation with unlimited ambitions.

The Goal of the Kaiserreich

We have just mentioned that the Kaiserreich was ambitious. As the twentieth century began, it was largely a success story. It boasted the largest economy in continental Europe and had gained respect as a scientific hub with many Nobel Prize winners. However, what was perhaps most emblematic of the desire for the Reich to grow even further was its competition with Britain to build dreadnoughts.

Fig. 4 - HMS Dreadnought

The Schlieffen Plan

As a response to the Franco-Russian Alliance in 1894, in 1906, Chief of German General Staff Alfred von Schlieffen drew up a plan to deal with the possibility of attacks from the west and the east. He left office shortly after, and the plan was subtly altered by his successor Helmut von Moltke the Younger (whose father, Helmuth von Moltke the Elder, had won the Franco-Prussian War). It perfectly demonstrated the flawed ambition of the Kaiserreich and was a large factor in Germany's ultimate defeat in World War I. Here is why it failed in 1914:

• The plan specified German attacks on the French first, whose borders would be avoided by marching through neutral Belgium and the Netherlands, but it predicted that the French could be defeated in six weeks.
• They were not as weak as the Germans hoped and were aided by the British, who honoured their 1839 Treaty of London with Belgium and intervened when the Kaiserreich entered Belgium.
• As a result, Allied soldiers outnumbered the Germans, and the Germans got bogged down in trench warfare along the Western Front in France and Belgium.
• The Schlieffen Plan also assumed a slow and unprepared Russia, which was recovering from its military humiliation by Japan in 1905. It predicted that the Russians would take six weeks to mobilise their troops whilst they quickly defeated a weak French army and used the rail network to go to the Eastern border.
• In fact, Russia mobilised its forces and attacked East Prussia in ten days.
• Even though the Russians were forced back, Germany was now outnumbered on two fronts and was fighting a losing battle from the beginning.

As we can see, the Schlieffen Plan was ill-conceived but showed the ambition of the Kaiserreich. It truly wanted to become the biggest colonial power in the world. It would go on to pay the price, and by the end of the war, the Geman Empire went extinct.

The Collapse of the Kaiserreich

Despite the fact that it was doomed from the start, the Kaiserreich continued to fight their miscalculated war for four years until 1918. From 1916, Kaiser Wilhelm II was essentially absent due to his mental state, and the kingdom was effectively under the stewardship of a military dictatorship. Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff ran the German war effort in place of him. By 1918, the country was in disarray. There was a naval mutiny at Kiel, and finally, Ludendorff surrendered in September.

Fig. 5 - Kaiser Wilhelm II

Underlining the lack of autonomy of the Kaiser by the end, his abdication was announced on 9 November 1918 before he had even agreed to it. He fled to the Netherlands, where he lived out his remaining years, sheltered from extradition. The political turmoil that the defeat left behind lasted until the next year. Extremists fought on the street but eventually, the Social Democrats became the dominant force and drew up a new constitution at Weimar. Germany became a republic in 1919, with Friedrich Ebert as the first leader. The Kaiserreich was well and truly over.