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I'm not sure how you relate this article to an unrelated book on being childless. Nevertheless, it is true that Prussian imperialism ultimately was a disaster

• hef19898 3y ago
  Well, Prussian Imperialism went well until 1918. Quite a run, if you ask me. Not saying it was a good thing, but at the time it achieved Prussias goals. There is a tendency to paint one beligerent of any given war as evil and the other(s) as good. That didn't even work for WW1, it does for WW2, the evil side clearly is the axis. When looking closer so, no side in WW2 was truely good. On the allied side there was Stalins USSR, bombing of civilians and the like. On the Axis nothing to defend so, especially the Germans started a world war with a planned and intentional mass tenocide at its core fornno other reason than murdering all jews in Europe. 1870, and in 1914, things were different. War was still an accepted way of conducting state business. And those used to be way less devastating than WW1 turned out to be.
  • tristramb 3y ago
    Prussian imperialism was failing from 1914 when they failed to reach Paris and force France to surrender. Moltke the Younger recognised this at the time, but it took 4 years for rest of the German High Command to see it, and for the Allies to get their act together. Even if the German spring offensive in 1918 had succeeded, it would have only pushed the British Army back across the Channel, it wouldn't have stopped the British naval blockade which was crippling Germany, nor would it have stopped the build-up of US troops in France.
    • hef19898 3y ago
      Agree, Germany lost WW1 when they failed to capture Paris and kick France out of war. And they lost WW2 when the same happened with the USSR at Moscow. That being said, the Entente got their act together as fast as Germany and Austria did in WW1. Without means to break static defenses, the stalemate at the Western and Italian fronts was a certainty, in hindsight. Wars of movement, in the East during WW2 went rather well for Germany. Especially after the shipped Lenin there, but this isba whole bunch of different cans with different worms.
      • hef19898 3y ago
        Too late to edit: The mobile war in the east in WW1 went well for the Germans. When they tried again in WW2, not so much.
  • pyrale 3y ago
    It's a long discussion, but in my opinion, Imperial Germany suffered the same failure as the Napoleonic empire: a failure to acknowledge that their imperialism caused diplomatic tensions, and that they could not eat their lunch and keep their neighbours happy. Bismarck tried to freeze Europe in that situation, but that was unsustainable, and ultimately it failed and left Germany in a bad diplomatic situation when WW1 started. It's not about judging whether that particular was evil or not, it's about acknowledging that its diplomatic policy was doomed to fail.
    • hef19898 3y ago
      It took a different Emperor, and chancellor and different treaties dor the Bismarck system to fail. And decades. For the time, it worked fine. The Bismarck had no sqy in adapting it, and there is no way to tell if would have been able to do so if he were allowed, can hardly be blamed on Bismarck. But I agree, Europe most likely was bound to blow up anyway. Bismarck at least tried to prevent that. Sure, most likely until he thought Prussia could win, but try, and succeed, he did. As much as he was a non-democrat, people got the Nobel Peace Price for less. I honestly have no idea why people paint Napoleon as a proto-Hitler (mostly Brits, which is strange since Britain defeated him) and Bismarck as some kind of either incompetent idiot or yet another stepping stone that got to WW2. I don't know, maybe those people mix up Bismarck and Hindenburg in their imagination, because the actually did put Hitler and the Nazis in power.
      • pyrale 3y ago
        > It took a different Emperor, and chancellor and different treaties dor the Bismarck system to fail. And decades. Bismarck left power in 1890, the Russian alliance officially died in 1891. That's not exactly a decade.
        • hef19898 3y ago
          But it took until 1914 for war to break out, didn't it?
    • panick21_ 3y ago
  • JetSetWilly 3y ago
    It works pretty well for WWI if you ask me. The axis powers were the aggressors invading their neighbours, that in itself is hugely significant - there's a massive difference between being a french soldier (fighting to stop an invader) and being a german one. On top of that, the axis powers committed huge atrocities in places like Belgium - murdering entire villages and so on. I genuinely don't understand this "moral relativist" outlook that has been applied since - it is pretty clear to me that the axis side were the evil ones, being both the aggressors and committing the major atrocities of the war.
    • ginko 3y ago
      There were no axis powers in WWI. That's a WW2 term.
    • hef19898 3y ago
      The Axis didn't exist in WW1, that was the Central Powers Germany, Austria and the Ottomans. You see how two of those didn't exist anymore during WW2? And the Entente, there were no Allies neither during WW1, included Japan and Italy. Go figure. And there is nothing morally relativist about stating the fact that the "guilt question" of WW1 is very, very different from WW2. The Versaille Treaty made that answer very simple, too simple and too one sided. Understably at the time for sure, but it doesn't hold up to proper analysis. Once the Balkan powder keg blew up, everyone declared war. Which at that time was custom, ever since people tend to just send armies right away. So whether or not you are a soldier fighting an enemy on his or your soil is an academic question, when you are officially at war. Do no, it doesn't even work remotely for WW1. Unless of course, you oversimplify things and have your judgement clouded by WW2.
      • panick21_ 3y ago
        If anything Versaille was to weak and the answers not clear enough. German/Austrian alliance were clearly the aggressors and the German/Austrian were very aggressive unleash the armies into Serbia and Belgium. One can argue that Russia partially mobilized first (in the border region), but unlike in the German case, they were still willing to do diplomacy for a lot longer. Britain in fact did try to use diplomacy and Germany was the power preventing any such settlement.
• woodpanel 3y ago
  It‘s a problematic logic. These kinds of causality creations usually only work if you - like i said - leave out details, which is the moment when someone leaves the historical factual and enters the creation of histography, something that has always flourished around the french revolution. By this logic we get a clear causality by which Napoleon gave us Hitler.
  • hef19898 3y ago
    Why stop at Napoleon? Unless you are British, for them Napoleon is the devil. I'd say Cesar gave us Charlemagne, who gave us Napoleon who gave us Hitler! And Cesar was clearly manipulated to do so by Cleopatre. In that scenario you can even blame a woman for everything. /s
    • woodpanel 3y ago
      Exactly. In the end, according to the field of genomics we’re all children of rapists anyways.
      • hef19898 3y ago
        Even worse, we all have mothers!
    • watwut 3y ago
      >Unless you are British, for them Napoleon is the devil. I mean, Napoleon is the devil everywhere except France. It is not like the other countries would enjoy being attacked and pillaged by marching army.
      • hef19898 3y ago
        Really? Napoleon gave Europe his civil code, formed the various German noble ruled entities into modern, by its day, kingdoms and proto nations, some that do exist in some form till today. He was ultra expensionist, and militarily very, very successful. And come on, every army back then pillaged when marching, including the various coallition armies. Heck, the German states, excluding Prussia, were actually really happy with Napoleon, until the wind changed after Napoleons defeat in Russia. No idea why Brits are still but hurt by Napoleon, first they win, then they fight two world wars as close allies of France and they still don't like them because Napoleon came close to bring the Empire down centuries ago...
• panick21_ 3y ago
  > Nevertheless, it is true that Prussian imperialism ultimately was a disaster for Germany. As long as Germany had a competent leader, they could engage in smart offensive moves and improve its standing. And they could have continued doing so. The problem was strategic leadership fell into the hands of idiots and they backed the Austrians without a clear strategy beyond 'our armies smash'. > In fact, the 2nd reich was illiberal, with a parliament which was mostly powerless. Not really. Bismark had to spend huge amount of effort on managing the parliament. And they were constantly pushing into things and increasing their own power. Even during WW1 the importance of the parliament is underestimated. Adam Tooze has some good research on that.
  • pyrale 3y ago
    > The problem was strategic leadership fell into the hands of idiots and they backed the Austrians without a clear strategy beyond 'our armies smash'. Germany backing Austria-Hungary against Russia dates back to the Berlin conference, and back then, it was still Bismarck at the helm.
    • panick21_ 3y ago
      Here is the deal. Good diplomacy you have to back and forth. Make both feel like you want to support them if only they did X/Y. But what Germany did was not even trying to preserve the relationship. There is a balance there. Not allowing the Austrian to make war in the Balkans is pretty basic, and that's all that was needed. What was Austria gone do, not like they have other options. Worst case Austria and France make a deal, but given the terrible state of the Austrian army this isn't a thread, and it would open up better relations with Russia. German had all the cards and simply played them in a bad way.