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| 1892 |
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| Cholera spread north from France into Germany—hitting Hamburg particularly hard because of poorly treated water from the Elbe. | 1 |
| Count Zedlitz-Trützschler, Prussian minister of education, introduced an education bill that sought to stop the growth of socialism by increasing the influence of Christian education. It proposed school segregation along denominational lines and unlimited expansion of private schools. The bill was opposed by the Liberals, and the bitter contest that ensued caused Zedlitz-Trützschler to resign. | 2 |
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| 1893 |
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| The Army Bill failed (May 6) and then passed after elections (July 8). Caprivi introduced a bill designed to increase the size of the military and especially to increase the numbers of the draft. After its failure, he dissolved the government and called for elections. The elections led to losses for the Liberals, partially because the Conservatives adopted anti-Semitism as part of their platform for the first time. | 3 |
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| 1894, Oct. 26 |
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| Caprivi resigned and was replaced by Prince Chlodwig Hohenlohe. Caprivi's support for a subversion bill, which targeted socialists, failed in the Reichstag, and Caprivi considered attempting to enforce it through a revision of the constitution. This led to a break with William II. | 4 |
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| 1896 |
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| Friedrich Naumann founded his National Social Association. Influenced by Max Weber, who called for true participation in politics by the bourgeoisie and the working classes, Naumann attempted to get the Liberal and Social Democratic Parties to work more closely together to ensure the rights of the working classes. In doing so, he countered the lack of social legislation in Germany during the 1890s. | 5 |
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| 1897 |
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| Count Bernhard von Bülow became foreign secretary. Foreign policy began to isolate Germany in Europe. German support of the Boers in the Boer War helped to alienate Britain as well as fuel naval buildups in Germany (See Oct. 9). Britain exploited French fears of Germany to establish stronger ties with France. As a result, Germans began to talk about the encirclement of Germany by hostile powers. | 6 |
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| 1898, March 28 |
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| The First Naval Bill passed. This bill was drawn up by Adm. Alfred von Tirpitz and called for the increase of the navy by seven battleships, two heavy cruisers, and seven light cruisers. A second naval bill, passed in 1900, doubled these estimates and thus began to threaten British naval supremacy. Tirpitz argued that the German navy must be in a position to engage the British in a decisive battle that would allow the Germans to continue international trade. Such a battle would destroy enough of the British fleet to eliminate that fleet's supremacy. | 7 |
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| 1902, Dec. 14 |
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| The Bülow tariff protected both grain production and heavy industry, despite higher costs to consumers, as part of a growing European protectionism. It was also a sign of the new German upper-class coalition of Junkers and industrialists, who made use of nationalist rhetoric. | 8 |
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| 1905 |
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| The Schlieffen Plan reached its classic form. The brainchild of Count Alfred von Schlieffen, Prussian chief of staff (1891–1906), this plan provided the basic strategy for fighting a war on two fronts—Russia and France. Schlieffen argued that the victory would go to the most rapidly mobilized force and reckoned that French logistics and the size of France would make it easier for the French to mobilize along their northern border than for the Russians to mobilize along their western one. The Schlieffen Plan called for mobilization and invasion of France through Belgium, followed by concentration on the Russian front. It also denied the validity of any international treaties in the event of war. The Schlieffen Plan became the strategy used during World War I. Gen. Helmuth von Moltke (chief of general staff (1906–1914)), merely modified it by leaving troops on the Russian border, rather than mobilizing the entire force through Belgium. | 9 |
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| 1908, Oct. 28 |
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| William II was interviewed by the London Daily Telegraph. In the interview, he posed as a friend of England. The interview led to severe attacks on William II's personal regime and admonitions for William to observe his constitutional roles more closely, which marked support for the chancellor. However, Bülow failed to maintain the support of the Reichstag by passing an income and capital tax to help fund growing expenditures, including those caused by military buildup. Bülow resigned his position. | 10 |
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| 1909, July 14 |
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| Bethmann-Hollweg became chancellor. He appointed Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter as foreign secretary. Bethmann-Hollweg tried to appease the British but failed given German refusal to offer concessions on the navy. | 11 |
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| 1912 |
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| The Army Bill allowed for a substantial increase in the size of the army. Spurred by pressure from organizations such as the Defense League, the Reichstag expanded the army further in 1913 and passed a special capital bill designed to finance these increases. | 12 |
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| Jan |
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| Elections to the Reichstag. The Socialists polled 4,250,000 votes and, with 110 deputies, became the strongest party in the Reichstag. By this time the movement had become much modified through the “revisionist” tendency introduced by Eduard Bernstein. The revisionists sought to divert interest from the “ultimate goal” of socialism and to fasten attention on the importance of gradual advancement, through parliamentary reforms, toward a new social world. This theory was denounced as a heresy at the Lübeck congress (1901, especially by Karl Kautsky and Rosa Luxemburg), but it nevertheless colored the outlook of the party, which was further influenced by the rapid progress of the trade union movement, dominated by moderate views. After the serious setback of the Socialists in the election of 1907, revisionism became more and more generally accepted. The party began to take an active part in work for social reform and collaborated with the Progressives in organizing the Reichstag in 1912. In 1914 the Social Democrats voted for the war credits, defending their action as necessary for the defense of the fatherland against autocratic Russia. Nevertheless, the socialist rise frightened German conservatives. (See Germany) | 13 |
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