William Harbutt Dawson (1860–1948)

History of the German Empire

Although this book is hard going at times, it definitely has its rewards. What makes it difficult is the author 19s style, which was honed in the nineteenth century, and his arrangement of material in a topic by topic approach that has to reset the clock to the 1860s to begin each topic. This is maddening because, for example, internal economic and social policies are related to foreign policy in ways that won 19t become clear until the reader has read all three sections on economics, social policy and foreign policy. For example, in the 1870s and 1880s, the German government was hostile toward the Catholic Church. One of the factors that brought this hostility to an end was that the Pope agreed to instruct the German Centrist Party (which was the Catholic party) to support Chancellor Bismarck 19s Army Bill. Paradoxically, if one reason for the government 19s hostility toward Catholicism was fear that Catholics in Germany would do anything the Pope told them to, the Centrist Party at first balked at the Pope 19s private instruction to party leaders to vote for the bill, instead continuing to oppose it. Only when the Pope 19s message was published for the world to see did the Centrist Party change its votes. But the reader does not get this full picture when the rise and fall of anti-Catholicism is first discussed, but only later in the chapter on foreign policy.

Nevertheless, this history contains lessons for those who may not realize the extent to which history is often an endless back and forth and rounds of tit for tat. To know that the Allies 14including the French 14forced Germany to accept a humiliating defeat at Versailles, near Paris, at the conclusion of World War I and that Germany later forced the French to agree to a humiliating defeat at Versailles in 1941, is not to get the full picture; for in 1870, Germany defeated France in a war and forced the French to accept a humiliating defeat and even used Versailles as the setting for the coronation of King Wilhelm of Prussia as the new Emperor of Germany. During the 1870s, there were noises, especially on Germany 19s part, to renew hostilities, but nothing came of these, and war was not renewed until 1914.

In a striking example of history repeating itself in completely different contexts, Germany underwent its own version of health care reform in the 1880s, which forces upon the present reader an obvious comparison to the health care reform in the United States since 2009. Such comparison and contrast are inevitable, even though this book was written a century ago and the author has no mind to make any comparison. One similarity is that the idea of government intervention in health care was tied to socialism by critics in both cases and denied by proponents. In the German case, however, there was not one comprehensive bill but three separate ones. Proponents of what has come to be called Obamacare strongly rejected this sort of 1Cpiecemeal 1D reform. Also, each German health care reform bill was proposed serially; the next law was not taken up until the previous one had been voted on. Finally, each of the German bills was debated for two years before being voted on. In the case of the United States, the comprehensive bill was rushed to a vote in a short time and not only not debated but not read by the politicians voting on it. The objection of proponents to lengthy deliberation was that the bill would be watered down and lose its effectiveness. In view of this objection, one cannot help noticing that the lengthy comment period and even rewriting of the German reform bills actually helped the laws to win some multi-partisan support and, after it went into effect, to be fiscally solvent and long-lasting. (It remains to be seen whether Obamacare will be able to remain solvent for very long.)

Those who do not study history are not only condemned to repeat it, but they are in danger of meeting with disasters that our ancestors have already shown us the way to avoid.… (més)

A fascinating book from the point of view of hindsight. Dawson wrote much on German history, politics and what was then current affairs in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. So in this book we have an historical perspective on what was then a topical issue - why this country was, at the time of writing, at war with Germany.

Dawson places the blame squarely on the nature and policies of the Prussian state, with its unbending pursuit of primacy above all other considerations. He compares and contrasts the Prussian interpretation of events and Weltpolitik with the Southern German/Austrian viewpoint, which was rather more relaxed; and he emphasises the North/South religious divide as a source of these differing viewpoints.

This book started out for me as an historical curiosity; by the time I had finished it, I was reevaluating my view of the course of European history at the beginning of the 20th century. Whilst I may not accept Dawson's view wholeheartedly, it was a useful exercise in standing back and looking at things from a different viewpoint.… (més)