Im Siegerkranz

Well, this is my first attempt at a TL, so any criticisms or advice will be much appreciated. Hopefully the premise hasn't been done to death already; I know there are a number of timelines with similar PODs, but here goes, anyway...

85px-Imperial_Coat_of_arms_of_Germany_%281889%E2%80%931918%29.svg.png

Im Siegerkranz

Introduction

The night of Christmas Eve that year was by all accounts no different from that of any other December day. Smoke rose from the dark buildings of Berlin as families settled in for the night, and the outside air was cold and crisp. The dome of the Berliner Stadtschloß stood black against the dimming lights of the city. Inside its baroque façade, the German Emperor lay in his bed, pondering the future of his realm as he looked through the windows at the deep, clouded sky.

1911, indeed, had been no uneventful year. The events of the Panthersprung still burned clear in his mind, as they did for many of the bureaucrats and generals who looked - with varying confidence - toward the future, formulating and reformulating the tactics and strategies which would surely bring the Reich the glory it deserved, not to mention themselves. There were a hundred thousand miniature Bismarcks, all wishing to leave their own legacy in the building of the Empire.

In those July days, Germany had set a challenge to France - with some success. Though the British had made clear that peace would be preserved not at any cost, but with sober national dignity in mind, Germany had still won for itself the Treaty of Fez, freshly brought into action in November, and had secured another step toward its destined "place in the sun". But the widening rift with Britain could not be ignored...

Thoughts drifted through Wilhelm's mind, fading into the tranquility of sleep.

But it was not a sleep from which he would wake.

*

Kaiser Wilhelm II (27 January 1859 - 25 December 1911; reigned 1888 - 1911), was the third German Emperor, succeeding the short reign of his father Friedrich on 15 June, 1888. He is principally remembered for his break with the "Iron Chancellor", Otto Fürst von Bismarck, and his attempts to initiate a bellicose new foreign policy. The perceived aggression of his government fostered the growing alienation of the other European powers from Germany and an increasingly tense international situation, while the internal politics of the Empire drifted ever further toward the popular preponderance of socialism. He was succeeded by his son, crowned Kaiser Wilhelm III.

*

Deutsches Tageblatt
January 13, 1912

... Emperor Wilhelm III has issued a proclamation to the German people on his accession to the throne, declaring that his loyalty lies with Germany and with God, and that his reign depends upon the trust and good will of all Germans. Separate notices have been issued to the army and navy, underlining the Emperor's personal commitment to the military and its central role in the glory of the Empire. The Emperor also exchanged frank words with the British ambassador ...

*

5114719630c09b9172b1.jpg


Kaiser Wilhelm III acceded to the throne after
his father's death in 1911, inaugurating another era
in the history of the Reich.

 
Nice start! This is a very interesting time period in history, but too many people do repetitive WWI tls. I am glad you have chose a different POD that could lead to a very different 20th century.
I look forward to more,
Scipio
 
The Reconfiguration of German Politics

*

With a tide of patriotism buoyed by the installation of a new and hugely popular Kaiser, the prospect of change and Wilhelm's refreshing appeals to German popular sentiment, the SPD was dealt a crushing blow in the elections in January - an insult through faint praise. For though they increased their share of the vote marginally on their dismal 1907 result, the SPD failed to make any significant gains. The moderate social democracy trumpeted by Haase and Scheidemann seemed to be a spent force, and those who had argued that the elections of 1907 were an aberration were thoroughly discredited. One might reasonably point out that the exceptional circumstances of the 1912 election were an aberration in themselves - but to the vast majority of Social Democrats, two defeats in a row were two defeats too far. Many activists who had hitherto been prepared to follow the machinations of the party's political "mainstream" turned to the solid radicalism of Liebknecht and Luxemburg to assuage their concern at the apparent failure of the two-faced rhetoric of the Party leadership, who had sung the praises of Marxist revolutionary politics while slowly putting into practice the revisionism of Eduard Bernstein.

The internal debates which characterized the party most strongly at the end of the 19th century had erupted once again in full force. The Social Democratic mainstream was put under the dual pressure of the dominance of the right in the Reichstag and the rise of the radical left within the Party itself, leaving the conservatives and right liberals to capitalise on their weakness. Dr Bethmann Hollweg was left for now by the new Kaiser to continue in his ministry, satisfied by the turn in the fortunes of the conservative ruling class.

Fig. 1 - Reichstag Election Results, 1912

Party ---------------------------- Seats
Centre Party --------------------------- 89
German Conservatives -------- 67
National Liberals ------------------- 56
Social Democrats ----------------- 55
Progressives -------------------------- 33

While the Chancellor remained the same for now, however, it was clear that the government had changed substantially in quality. One central innovation was that the new Kaiser preferred to let his statesmen do the business of government. The disinclination of the youthful Wilhelm III to continue the authoritarian petty-mindedness of his father was not due to high-minded social concerns with the constitutional role of the monarchy. Wilhelm III was surely not his father, but neither was he his grandfather - with a martial Prussian upbringing, he was no "British liberal". What the new Wilhelm did contribute was an affable interventionism and an apparent shift in rhetoric, aimed at bringing together the whole of German society - the whole of the German Volk, whom Wilhelm held close to his heart - rather than an appeal to one or another social class. Though similar to the policy attempted by Bülow, the younger Wilhelm's appeals, which began with his first proclamation dem Volk, were substantiated by a remarkable consistency and a demonstrable sobriety which contrasted starkly with his father's eccentricity.

Hanna, F. M. (2005) Glory, Iron and the Smell of Blood: A History of the German Empire. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

*

The Reichskanzler knew that the new Kaiser shared many of his father's beliefs, yet he seemed a world away from the tiring pomposity of the late Emperor. Theobald eyed the young man who sat on a wooden chair gazing plaintively out of the window, his head resting on his clenched fist. He was merely 29 years of age, only recently returned from his posting in Danzig to take up the responsibilities of the sovereign. Yet he had already accumulated ample political experience, and he was surely far more popular than the Chancellor could aim to be.

"Herr Dr Kanzler." Wilhelm acknowledged him without turning, and continued without further hesitation.

"I wish to make it clear to you in the first place, that is not my intention to sit in the background while mediocrities busy themselves with meaningless political struggles. Nor is it to undertake to manage all the affairs of the entire Empire with my own two hands. I hope you understand." He turned, finally, to look at his Minister.

"Yes, Eure Majestät."

"I do apologise for my forthrightness, Herr Kanzler, but one can't afford to be taciturn when the duties of Empire suddenly fall on one's shoulders." He smiled. "But we have much to discuss, do we not?" He waved his hands over the papers scattered on the desk in front of him. "We are building, after all, a bold new era for the Germans..."

Theobald nodded.

*
220px-Bethmann_Hollweg_Brant.jpg

Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg remained
German Chancellor after the accession of Wilhelm III,
supported by the strong results of the 1912 election.


*

Emil slammed the door shut behind him as he entered the cramped Party office. "What in hell's name are we supposed to do now?" He threw himself heavily into a tattered chair. "No one can figure out what's happening in the Party, let alone anything else in the country. This is a disaster!"

"We gained -"

"Gained what!" He sat back wearily, gesticulating as he spoke. "The right is in charge, Bismarck's ghost is stalking the Reichstag - the people have lined up behind their beloved Kaiser. A Pan-German! He's as crazy as his father. No good can come of this, not for us or for Germany."

"So what do you propose instead?" His bespectacled colleague watched him steadily.

Emil sighed. "I don't know. How can I?"
 
This has my interest. There seem to be multiple potential ways in which this could go, and all of them are quite interesting.
 
Bremer Bürgerzeitung
March 18, 1912

... Not only is it obvious on the grounds of firm ideological reasoning - it is clear from a political perspective, that the future of Social Democracy cannot lie in the revisionism which has permeated the thought even of the likes of Comrade Kautsky. It is sad that the Party which was at the forefront of opposing the stifling oppression of Bismarck's Reich has now fallen into ridicule, but it is only to be expected when we have drifted so far from the principles agreed at Erfurt. What is more, Erfurt was not enough! ...

R.

*

Seeing the continuation of electoral defeat as his opportunity to strike out at the "revisionist" Party leadership which he had increasingly come to despise, the left-wing luminary Karl Radek launched a vitriolic political campaign against the leaders of his own Party, first mounting up his attacks in his own newspaper, the Bremer Bürgerzeitung, and then, in the summer, spilling them over into the Göppingen Freie Volkszeitung which he had been provisionally given the authority to edit. Combining a devastating critique of Kautsky's foreign policy with a vicious dissection of the failure of the Party's practical politics since the Erfurt Programme, Radek soon rallied not only his traditional supporters in the left wing, but many of the disillusioned activists thrown up in the wake of the "Kaiserwahl" election. The Party seemed to the outside eye to be collapsing at the seams, and its internal figures were embroiled in desperate internecine struggles, coming to a head as the November Congress drew nearer. Radek's campaign, or the "Göppingen Affair" as it was known, was disastrous internally for the Party leadership - for even those who opposed Radek's hardline politics felt uncertain in the increasingly weak leadership of Bebel and Haase.

Radek's campaign had attracted the support and attention of not only Luxemburg and Liebknecht, but the bulk of the Party's radical to moderate left wing, and they soon came to comprise an alternative platform within the Party. The Congress itself, which was held at Chemnitz, proved to be the battleground which had been expected. Radek himself was expelled from the Party at the Chemnitz Congress, with the anti-revisionist motions he instigated being narrowly defeated after an extremely vicious counter-campaign waged by the mainstream of the Executive Committee against his supporters. But Radek was not cowed, and his expulsion was followed by the extremely public resignations of Liebknecht and Luxemburg. Vowing to continue the fight against "revisionism," they brought together a number of the delegates at the Congress and proclaimed a new vanguard in the fight for true socialism. This was to be the so-called "Chemnitz Front," a loose group of radicals and left-leaning moderates who comprised a number of minor political factions. An organized "orthodox" party of the left was, for now, precluded by internal disagreements. The right wing delighted in what they perceived as the slow-motion collapse of organized socialism.

Lerner, W. (1972) Socialism and the Germans. Stanford: Stanford University Press.


*

Memorandum to the Chancellor.
16 November 1912

Herr Dr. Chancellor,

It seems clear to me that with the disarray of the left in the Reichstag and outside of it, that it is opportune for us to press plans for an internal reorganization to reinforce the nation against class sectarianism. I am sure that such plans would have the sanction of the Emperor, who has made himself out to be highly interested in effecting a number of beneficial internal changes to this effect.

... I have spoken with Moltke myself, but I must say that I do not believe that now is the time to set in motion a plan for war ... I am certainly more of the opinion that biding our time would be the more fruitful option, particularly given the opportunity which has opened for us to set the interior in order ...

- Delbrück

 
Last edited:
Top