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Place In The Sun
''Weltpolitik'' (, "world politics") was the imperialist foreign policy adopted by the German Empire during the reign of Emperor Wilhelm II. The aim of the policy was to transform Germany into a global power. Though considered a logical consequence of the German unification by a broad spectrum of Wilhelmine society, it marked a decisive break with the defensive ''Realpolitik'' of the Bismarckian era. The origins of the policy can be traced to a Reichstag debate on 6 December 1897 during which German Foreign Secretary Bernhard von Bülow stated, "in one word: We wish to throw no one into the shade, but we also demand our own place in the sun." (''Mit einem Worte: wir wollen niemand in den Schatten stellen, aber wir verlangen auch unseren Platz an der Sonne''). Nancy Mitchell says that the creation of ''Weltpolitik'' was a change in the appliance of German foreign policy. Up until Wilhelm's dismissal of Otto von Bismarck, Germany had concentrated its efforts on stopping the pos ...
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Imperialism
Imperialism is the maintaining and extending of Power (international relations), power over foreign nations, particularly through expansionism, employing both hard power (military and economic power) and soft power (diplomatic power and cultural imperialism). Imperialism focuses on establishing or maintaining hegemony and a more formal empire. While related to the concept of colonialism, imperialism is a distinct concept that can apply to other forms of expansion and many forms of government. Etymology and usage The word ''imperialism'' was derived from the Latin word , which means 'to command', 'to be sovereign', or simply 'to rule'. It was coined in the 19th century to decry Napoleon III's despotic militarism and his attempts at obtaining political support through foreign military interventions. The term became common in the current sense in Great Britain during the 1870s; by the 1880s it was used with a positive connotation. By the end of the 19th century, the term was use ...
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Carl Peters
Carl Peters (27 September 1856 – 10 September 1918) was a German explorer and colonial administrator. He was a major promoter of the establishment of the German colony of East Africa (part of today’s Tanzania) and one of the founders of the German East Africa Company. He was a controversial figure in Germany for his views and his brutal treatment of native Africans, which ultimately led to his dismissal from government service in 1897. Early life Peters was born on 27 September 1856 at Neuhaus an der Elbe in the Kingdom of Hanover, the son of a Lutheran clergyman. Peters studied history and philosophy at the universities of Göttingen and Tübingen, and at the Humboldt University of Berlin as a student of Heinrich von Treitschke. In 1879, he was awarded a gold medal by the Frederick William University for his dissertation concerning the 1177 Treaty of Venice and habilitated with a treatise concerning Arthur Schopenhauer. Career German East Africa Company After h ...
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Venezuelan Crisis Of 1902–1903
The Venezuelan crisis of 1902–1903 was a naval blockade imposed against United States of Venezuela, Venezuela by United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Great Britain, French Third Republic, France, German Empire, Germany, and Kingdom of Italy, Italy from December 1902 to February 1903, after President of Venezuela, President Cipriano Castro refused to pay foreign debts and damages suffered by European citizens in recent Venezuelan civil wars. Castro assumed that the American Monroe Doctrine would see Washington intervene to prevent European military intervention. However, at the time, United States president Theodore Roosevelt and his United States Department of State, State Department saw the doctrine as applying only to European seizure of territory, rather than intervention ''per se''. With prior promises that no such seizure would occur, the U.S. was officially neutral and allowed the action to go ahead without objection. The blockade saw Venezuela's small navy quick ...
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Kruger Telegram
The Kruger telegram was a message sent by Kaiser Wilhelm II to Paul Kruger, president of the South African Republic, on 3 January 1896. It congratulated Kruger on repelling the Jameson Raid, a botched raid against the Republic carried out by British colonial administrator Leander Starr Jameson. The raid, conducted by 600 men from the Cape Colony, was intended to trigger a rebellion against the Republic by British migrant workers, but resulted in a fiasco when the raiders were defeated by the Republic's forces. The telegram caused huge indignation in the United Kingdom, and led to a deterioration in Anglo-German relations. The telegram On receiving news of the Jameson Raid on 31 December 1895, the Kaiser reacted furiously, approving decisions to order a landing party of 50 marines to proceed to Pretoria to protect the Germans there and to dispatch a cruiser to Delagoa Bay. At a meeting on 1 January 1896 his behaviour towards his own Minister of War was so violent that the latter ...
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Neukamerun
Neukamerun was the name of Central African territories ceded by the Third French Republic to the German Empire in 1911. Upon taking office in 1907, Theodor Seitz, governor of Kamerun, advocated the acquisition of territories from the French Congo. In 1911, the Agadir Crisis broke out over the question of French influence in Morocco. France and Germany agreed to negotiate on 9 July 1911, and on 4 November, they signed an agreement. In exchange for German recognition of France's rights to MoroccoDeLancey and DeLancey 200. and a strip of land in northeastern Kamerun near Fort Lamy between the Logone and Chari rivers, France agreed to cede part of the French Congo to Germany. Germany's only major river outlet from its Central African possessions was the Congo River, and the Germans hoped that more territories to the east of Kamerun would allow for better access to that waterway. Accordingly, Kamerun gained a connection to the Congo centered on the Sangha River and another to ...
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Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory
The Kiautschou Bay Leased Territory was a German leased territory in Imperial and Early Republican China from 1898 to 1914. Covering an area of , it centered on Kiautschou Bay (Jiaozhou Bay) on the southern coast of the Shandong Peninsula. The administrative center was at Tsingtau (Qingdao). It was operated by the East Asia Squadron of the Imperial German Navy. The Russian Empire resented the German move as an infringement on Russian ambitions in the region. Background of German expansion in China Germany was a relative latecomer to the imperialistic scramble for colonies across the globe. A German colony in China was envisioned as a two-fold enterprise: as a coaling station to support a global naval presence, and because it was felt that a German colonial empire would support the economy in the mother country. Densely populated China was viewed as a potential market to be exploited, with thinkers such as Max Weber demanding an active colonial policy from the government. I ...
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Scramble For Africa
The Scramble for Africa was the invasion, conquest, and colonialism, colonisation of most of Africa by seven Western European powers driven by the Second Industrial Revolution during the late 19th century and early 20th century in the era of "New Imperialism": Belgian colonial empire, Belgium, French colonial empire, France, German colonial empire, Germany, British Empire, United Kingdom, Italian Empire, Italy, Portuguese Empire, Portugal and Spanish Empire, Spain. In 1870, 10% of the continent was formally under European control. By 1914, this figure had risen to almost 90%; the only states retaining sovereignty were Liberia, Ethiopian Empire, Ethiopia, Egba United Government, Egba, Sultanate of Aussa, Aussa, Senusiyya, Mbunda Kingdom, Mbunda, the Dervish State, the Darfur Sultanate, and the Ovambo people#History, Ovambo kingdoms, most of which were later conquered. The 1884 Berlin Conference regulated European colonisation and trade in Africa, and is seen as emblematic of t ...
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Pan-German League
The Pan-German League () was a Pan-German nationalist organization which was officially founded in 1891, a year after the Zanzibar Treaty was signed. Primarily dedicated to the German question of the time, it held positions on German imperialism, antisemitism, the Polish question, and support for German minorities in other countries. The party embraced Völkism, expansionism, pangermanism, militarism, nationalism, and racial ideas. The purpose of the league was to nurture and protect the ethos of German nationality as a unifying force. By 1922, the League had grown to over 40,000 paying members. Berlin housed the central seat of the league, including its president and its executive, which was capped at a maximum of 300. Full gatherings of the league happened at the Pan-German Congress. Although numerically small, the League enjoyed a disproportionate influence on the German state through connections to the middle class, the political establishment and the media, as well a ...
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German Nationalism
German nationalism () is an ideological notion that promotes the unity of Germans and of the Germanosphere into one unified nation-state. German nationalism also emphasizes and takes pride in the patriotism and national identity of Germans as one nation and one people. The earliest origins of German nationalism began with the birth of romantic nationalism during the Napoleonic Wars when Pan-Germanism started to rise. Advocacy of a German nation-state began to become an important political force in response to the invasion of German territories by France under Napoleon Bonaparte. In the 19th century, Germans debated the German question over whether the German nation-state should comprise a " Lesser Germany" that excluded the Austrian Empire or a "Greater Germany" that included the Austrian Empire or its German speaking-part. The faction led by Prussian Chancellor Otto von Bismarck succeeded in forging a Lesser Germany. Aggressive German nationalism and territorial expansion ...
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Schlieffen Plan
The Schlieffen Plan (, ) is a name given after the First World War to German war plans, due to the influence of Field Marshal Alfred von Schlieffen and his thinking on an invasion of France and Belgium, which began on 4 August 1914. Schlieffen was Chief of the General Staff of the German Army from 1891 to 1906. In 1905 and 1906, Schlieffen devised an army deployment plan for a decisive (war-winning) offensive against France. German forces were to invade France through the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium rather than across the common border. After losing the First World War, The German official historians of the and other writers, described the plan as a blueprint for victory. (Colonel-General) Helmuth von Moltke the Younger had succeeded Schlieffen as Chief of the German General Staff in 1906 and was dismissed after the First Battle of the Marne (5–12 September 1914). German historians claimed that Moltke had ruined the plan by tampering with it, out of timidity. Th ...
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Geoff Eley
Geoffrey Howard "Geoff" Eley (born 4 May 1949) is a British-born historian of Germany. He studied history at Balliol College, Oxford, and received his PhD from the University of Sussex in 1974. He has taught at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in the Department of History since 1979 and the Department of German Studies since 1997. He now serves as the Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor of Contemporary History at Michigan. Eley's early work focused on the radical nationalism in Imperial Germany and fascism, but has since grown to include theoretical and methodological reflections on historiography and the history of the political left in Europe. Eley is particularly well known for his early study, ''The Peculiarities of German History'' (first published in German as ''Mythen deutscher Geschichtsschreibung'' in 1984), co-authored with David Blackbourn (a fellow Briton, who now teaches at Vanderbilt University), which challenged the orthodoxy in German social ...
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Social Imperialism
As a political term, social imperialism is the political ideology of people, parties, or nations that are, according to Soviet leader Vladimir Lenin, "socialist in words, imperialist in deeds". Some academics use this phrase to refer to governments that engage in imperialism meant to preserve the domestic social peace. Political use The term "social imperialism" is a Marxist expression, typically used in a derogatory fashion. The phrase was first used in Marxist circles during the early 20th century discussions on the position of the international workers' movement towards the impending European war and particularly in regard to the Social Democratic Party of Germany. In this context it is very similar to, but not interchangeable with, the terms social chauvinism and social patriotism. In the later decades the most significant use of the phrase has been in the Maoist critique of the Soviet Union. Mao Zedong argued that the Soviet Union had itself become an imperialist ...
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