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I wish to offer heart-felt congratulations to this government, which is surely blessed by God himself.
It is truly the best we could have hoped for. Social reform, though it is a shame it will not come to pass just yet, will certainly come with time and the end of the Kulturkampf and unjust taxation were worth a sacrifice.

It is good that the Kaiser and the military did not intervene. Hopefully this threat will be lessened in the future by the weight of our new navy.
 
If the DFP ever assent to the repeal of the anti-socialist laws, I will never even consider voting for the SPD or any future left of centre socialist or communist party.
 
If they were to repeal the anti-socialist law, there would be no party BUT socialist. :p

Aye, it'd probably be best for the AAR if the anti-socialist laws were never repealed. :p
But hurrah! A truly progressive government for Germany. And peace!
 
I am slightly confused as to why DZP chose to cooperate with DFP over NLP. I have a sneaking suspicion that the party leadership got swept away by built-up animosity rather than substantive policies, though perhaps the agreement as to colonial policy made the coalition-negotiations easier than they would have been with NLP; the distance appears to me to be smaller, but it can't be denied that they were more pervasive.

Regardless, I am pleased with the political platform, and I certainly hope that the coalition will prove to be efficacious. We are taking important steps for our future; federalism shall cast away the anachronistic feudal institutions that is dividing Germans, whilst respecting the all important principle of subsidiarity; mitigating the effects of liberalism by a more equitable and charitable approach to taxation and struggling industries is necessary to avoid further radicalisation among disenfranchised workers that might be persuaded by Socialisms false solutions; and our burgeoning colonial empire will surely bring a new dawn to the poor unenlightened natives of the Dark Continent.
 
I am slightly confused as to why DZP chose to cooperate with DFP over NLP. I have a sneaking suspicion that the party leadership got swept away by built-up animosity rather than substantive policies, though perhaps the agreement as to colonial policy made the coalition-negotiations easier than they would have been with NLP; the distance appears to me to be smaller, but it can't be denied that they were more pervasive.

Regardless, I am pleased with the political platform, and I certainly hope that the coalition will prove to be efficacious. We are taking important steps for our future; federalism shall cast away the anachronistic feudal institutions that is dividing Germans, whilst respecting the all important principle of subsidiarity; mitigating the effects of liberalism by a more equitable and charitable approach to taxation and struggling industries is necessary to avoid further radicalisation among disenfranchised workers that might be persuaded by Socialisms false solutions; and our burgeoning colonial empire will surely bring a new dawn to the poor unenlightened natives of the Dark Continent.

The DZP would never work with the NLP. They are virtual opposites. NLP is the most enthusiastic supporter of the Kulturkampf and is a jingoistic, Laissez Faire party. Far from pacifistic, interventionist Christian Democracy. A DZP-SDP coalition would be interesting.
 
The DZP would never work with the NLP. They are virtual opposites. NLP is the most enthusiastic supporter of the Kulturkampf and is a jingoistic, Laissez Faire party. Far from pacifistic, interventionist Christian Democracy. A DZP-SDP coalition would be interesting.

I have to be honest, if a DZP-SDP happens, i will abandon this AAR. :I
 
I have to be honest, if a DZP-SDP happens, i will abandon this AAR. :I

People! Do not listen to siren voices from outside form those who have given up the fight from within! Vote [insert non-socialist party (if any) here]!
 
I have to reluctantly agree with Atomicsoda on this one. The Centre does not believe that socialism is anything but trouble, sweeping up the lower classes with godless rather than god-fearing talk as it is.
But in terms of proposed policies I cannot ignore that a DZP-SDP government would have allowed, very nearly, for full implementation of the christian democratic goals.

Truly, it would seem that the centre can work with just about anyone and still remain true to its loyal voters.
 
The DZP would never work with the NLP. They are virtual opposites. NLP is the most enthusiastic supporter of the Kulturkampf and is a jingoistic, Laissez Faire party. Far from pacifistic, interventionist Christian Democracy. A DZP-SDP coalition would be interesting.

See, this is what I find confusing. "the most enthusiastic supporter of the Kulturkampf and is a jingoistic, Laissez Faire party" is a perfect description of DFP, who even sought to extend the Kulturkampf and demand Heligoland from Britain. DFP and NLP's economic policies are identical. Both DZP and NLP saw France as the greatest threat and wished to keep them isolated, and neither had a policy for dealing with a war against Austria-Hungary. NLP's policy of aggressive expansion of the navy may not be pacifist, but would be necessary to demand Heligoland, and one might therefore assume that the DZP would pursue similar aims.

I'm definitely not entirely sure if I see DFP being any closer to DZP than NLP would be, though I suppose being in opposition might have made them more eager to make concessions in return for power. In any case, it shall be interesting to see what happens in future elections, especially in light of Khalep's observations that DZP looks posed to get support as the least palatable alternative from both Conservatives and Socialists, as well as being clearly capable of working with liberals.
 
AAR too fun and interesting win or lose to give up on! Anywho, interesting result. Didn't imagine that outcome in particular, was thinking more they would coalition with the conservatives but I wasn't 100% on the vote count and yeah its been steady decline for them that has yet to level out or reverse.
 
1873-1878
A Place in the Sun



Perhaps the area of greatest success of the Windthorst administration was in the economy. As the worldwide economy began to enter into a slump German industrial growth remained stable at a strong level with a low of 6.1% (during 1877, a year in which instability rocked the Empire) and a high of 8% (the growth rate in both 1874 and 1876). In comparison, amongst the Great Powers only Italy and Austria-Hungary had a high rate of economic growth – these countries being far behind the most developed economies and experiencing the first ecstatic throws of industrialisation. Even then Italy and Austria-Hungary only grew at around one and a half times the rate of Germany. The real competitors of the German economy – Britain, the USA and France all suffered badly from the worldwide economic slump with Britain and America managing a growth rate half that of Germany, France faring only slightly better. By 1878 the German economy was well ahead of Britain and bearing down on America fast, the increased use of state expenditure in the latter part of the Windthorst administration to supplement private investment (something that caused horror on the part of the Centre Party’s allies) was widely credited for allowing Germany to weather the worst of the worldwide economic storm.


As German industry continued to grow at pace the society and the economy of the Empire was being deeply altered. In was during this period that the population of industrial workers overtook that of artisanal workers – the industrial craftsmen population rising by almost 300,000 to make up 10.1% of the population as compared to 8.1% in January 1874. Yet these national growth rates hid deep regional disparities in growth. In the North-West along the North Sea Coast and in the former Kingdom of Hannover industrialisation had scarcely begun whilst on the whole the former territories of Prussia were far more developed than the rest of the country. With the exception of the Munich region, which had been the only part of Southern Germany to have an industrial base of any significance at unification, and to a lesser extent Alsace Lorraine German industrial was dominated by old Prussia – the Rhineland, Silesia and the area around Berlin. Indeed, the Brandenburg region was by far the most developed region with the industrial workers making up 24.2% of the population whilst industrial workers contributed no more than 15% in any other region. Berlin alone was home to around ¼ of the nation’s industrial workers. As growth in the prosperous regions continued to outpace the less developed areas there was growing concern that regional inequalities would soon begin to threaten the stability of the Empire.


The first thing the new government set out to accomplish following the elections was to sign a peace treaty with France. This goal was made somewhat more difficult by the absence of a clear central authority in France. As his army was destroyed Napoleon III had been ‘overthrown’ by a provisional Republican government based in Bordeaux during the election campaign in Germany. At the same time loyalists to the Emperor continued to claim to be the rightful government in the besieged city of Paris. The Germans opened up channels to both ‘governments’ during December 1873 and found both willing to negotiate the transfer of colonial possessions to Germany in exchange for peace. Following the capture of the Emperor in December 29th as he attempted to flee Paris the Germans looked to the Republicans as the most legitimate regime and signed a treaty on January 4th. The electoral promises of the government to secure the beginnings of a colonial Empire had been secured.


The Centre and Progress Parties had been elected with a commitment to quite wide sweeping internal reforms. The first, and most significant, of these changes was the end of the Kulturkampf – it was for this reason above any other than the results of December 1873 had been greeted by delirious celebrations across Germany. As the imprisoned clergymen were granted a blanket amnesty, as religious schools were given their independence, national minorities were granted rights and freed of suspicion alongside Catholic Germans and indeed the Church. The DFP was forced to alarmedly sit back and watch as their allies proclaimed that the Catholic Church was an ally rather than an enemy of the German Empire. It was not to be the end of the Kulturkampf that would first bring the government into conflict with the Kaiser; many traditionalists like the Emperor had been uncomfortable with the policy from the outset, but the attempts made by the Centre and DFP to reform Germany along federal lines. With both parties enthusiastic about the idea that could protect regions from the power of the centre on one hand and undermine the power of the aristocracy and feudal leaders on the other they hit a brick wall in the face of the Kaiser’s opposition. In the past Wilhelm had been happy to take a backseat, ceremonial position, but the threat to the integrity of Prussia (the government had hoped to divide Prussia into at least three different ‘states’) and his fellow aristocratic leaders across the Empire forced him into the political sphere. The Kaiser demanded that any legislation calling for federalisation be thrown out immediately, even threatening to appoint a new government after the coalition parties protested. Democracy is Germany was not absolute by any means.

Internationally Germany’s position faltered noticeably during 1874 and 1875. First the newly formed French Third Republic forged a mutual defence treaty with Austria-Hungary – a pact clearly aimed against Germany and to a lesser extent her Italian allies. The pact was a catastrophe for both parties of the government. The Centre had placed an alliance with Austria-Hungary as its highest priority in international affairs whilst, contrastingly the DFP had long pursued a more hostile stance towards the Habsburg in hope of uniting German speaking lands with the Empire. At a stroke both parties’ desires over Vienna were crushed, at once damaging the parties individually but bringing the alliance between them closer together. Elsewhere an official visit by a German delegation headed by the Chancellor Ludwig Windthorst that same year caused a degree of frustration as the Chancellor insisted on visiting the Vatican. Seen in Germany as proof that the Centre received its orders directly from the Pope, and by the Chancellor’s Italian hosts as a slight – the Pope being an enemy and rival of the Italian state – Windthorst’s actions were undiplomatic at best.


The following year a troubling incident caused further harm to Germany’s international position, whilst also causing strain at home. The small German populated but British ruled island of Heligoland had grown in significance in recent years as German nationalists had started to openly demand its transfer over to German control. In March 1875 a group of German nationalists on the island, associated with various liberal groups on the mainland including both the DFP and NLP, staged a demonstration on the island that culminated on a small attack on the British naval base. The fighting was incredibly small scale but three Germans were killed – sparking outrage across the water as the German nationalist press flung into overdrive. The jingoistic frenzy that ensured gave the government little choice but to formally request the transfer of the island to the German Empire – a move that angered the British and threatened to undermine a longstanding friendship between the two nations.


During the Spring and Summer of 1876 Europe was rocked by the Gambia Crisis in West Africa. Since the loss of Senegal and its holdings in the Ivory Coast (since massively expanded by the Germans) the French had made a concerted effort to rebuild its strength in the region through the colonisation of the Gambia. However, the British had maintained, admittedly very limited, interests in the area since before the French arrival and ramped up their involvement as the French arrived. With West Africa the centre of a territorial scramble amongst competing German, Dutch, British, Italian and French interests the region was highly charged and clashes between the troops of the various powers were not uncommon. However in the Gambia tensions escalated further than in any region before as the British government entered into a showdown with France following a demand that the French disassemble a recently constructed fort and withdraw from the region. As Germany and Italy gave Britain their full backing, and the Austro-Hungarians lined up behind France there was every chance that another major European war might break out – especially as Spain flirted with the idea of supporting France. Ultimately the French Republic did not have the political will to repeat the mistakes of Napoleon III and hurl the country into yet another major war, backing down and surrendering the Gambia to Britain.


The mid to late 1870s saw the scramble for Africa get well and truly underway. The age of New Imperialism took its first tentative steps in the early 1870s when the Spanish invaded Morocco, and both the British and French began to make attempts to expand their holdings in West Africa. Yet it was not until 1874 that the scramble really got underway. Moving quickly to expand its newfound colonies in West Africa the Germans carved out a substantial portion of the richest lands in the area, even bringing Liberia under their domination. The Italians carved out a huge swathe of largely empty desert while the Dutch expanded their holdings in West Africa significantly. Defeating the French over the sovereignty of the Gambia the British proceeded to attempt to conquer Sokoto – failing to defeat the African Kingdom entirely but establishing control both to the North and South of it. In the dark heart of Africa Spain, Western Europe’s most backward power, conquered a vast and boundlessly wealthy Empire. The counter to Spanish power in Africa was provided by the arrival of the Germans in East Africa in 1876-77 as Zanzibar was conquered before the Germans began to drive Westward into the interior. In late 1877 the Spanish and Germans began to meet each other as completion over the Great Rift Valley ensued. The greatest loser of the scramble for Africa in the 1870s was France, all but forced out of West Africa the French found themselves facing fierce competition from the Dutch in Togoland and the Germans in both Gabon and Somalia as they attempted to join into the division of Africa.


Within Germany the country began to move towards an increasingly stark division in the ‘Socialist Crisis’ that began in the unlikely setting of a local election in Silesia in June 1876. Whilst in some parts of Germany elections were more open than others, rural local elections tended to be dominated by corruption, harassment and outright fraud – especially in the Prussian provinces that lay East of the Elbe. In one such part of the world an incident in which supporters of the DKRP candidate (who also happened to be the leading local Junker) attempted to prevent a farmer from voting for a Socialist candidate. In the scuffle that followed the man was arrested and thrown in jail. However the incident sparked off a national debate over the continued suppression of the socialist movement – especially in light of the fact that the Anti-Socialist Laws required renewal in January 1877.

As talk of the future of the Anti-Socialist laws mounted the coalition was deeply divided. The Centre adopted the line that the suppression of democracy and the oppressive measures taken against the Socialists was an even greater ideological threat than the Socialists themselves, whose popularity could be combatted far better through more open and democratic means. The DFP, on the other hand (flying in the face of traditional liberal ideas) saw the laws as the only thing holding Germany back from the rapid expansion of a militant Socialist movement that would first destroy the German economy through industrial action and then German society through Revolution. In January 1877 the Centre stood with Socialist members of the Reichstag, and were defeat by 162 votes to 142 with 78 abstaining. It was a humiliation for Windthorst as even a large part of his own party had voted against him. The vitriolic campaigning on both sides in the run up to the vote had also done lasting damage to the always strained working relationship between the Centre and their liberal allies.


If the failure to repeal the Anti-Socialist Laws had been bad for the Chancellor it was seen as an utter disaster by the SPD. With hopes of legality having been raised the movement had been cruelly rejected once again. However, the party refused to take this defeat lying down. Demanding the full repeal of the Anti-Socialist Laws – granting Germans the freedom to organise in labour unions, to hold any political beliefs they wish and the freedom to organise based on those beliefs and the legalisation of all political parties – as well as deep reforms to Germany’s democracy the party called for a General Strike. This phenomenon had never before been witnessed in Germany and had taken upon a semi-mythical status as an all powerful weapon with which the workers could instantly bring their enemies to their knees; the incredible response to the party’s call would come close to realising those ambitions. For two weeks in February 1877 anywhere between 1,000,000 and 2,000,000 Germans in various fields of work from agriculture through heavy industry and office work took part in the General Strike of 1877. The strike near enough crippled German society, many believed that what had so recently been regarded as the most stable state in Europe might go the way of revolution. Instead the militancy of groups of Socialist sympathisers in several Saxon cities sparked off a series of conflicts that brought sparked off a chain of events that would bring the strikes to an end.

Seeing the state teeter before the abyss many Socialists had sought to go beyond the SPD’s official demands – which had in essence been for the democratisation of the Empire. Instead these radicals moved towards more ambitious and revolutionary slogans, alienating great masses of sympathisers and providing justification for the use of the mighty German Army. As clashes between police and strikers grew increasingly violent, and to the horror of the Chancellor, the Kaiser called upon the Reichstag to support a motion for the suppression of the General Strike. Over the course of several days martial law reigned across significant parts of Germany, but by its end the strike was over, the Socialists had been crushed, the order remained and the Anti-Socialist Laws appeared more justified than ever.

The relationship between the DFP and the Centre would never recover from 1877, in the face of violence and the threat to the existing order that the Socialists had provided the Progress Party began a drive towards collaboration with the NLP and even the DKRP. With the DFP appearing to be functioning in both the opposition and the government through 1877 the liberals continued to tolerate the Centre government, perhaps fearing than an outright rebellion would force early elections – potentially seeing a surge in Socialist support.


Whilst the DFP was growing increasingly certain that it no longer wished to work with the Centre it had no desire to give up on government. Their exit strategy was to pursue a union with their fellow liberals in the NLP, potentially creating Germany’s leading political force. The driving force behind this unity from the NLP side of the divide would come from the unlikely source of former Prime Minister of Prussia Max von Forckenbeck. Almost a decade since being shunted aside by his own party having been at the centre of the formation of the DFP and then the NLP, von Forckenbeck endured a period in the wilderness during 1870s before returning to prominence as a rallying point for liberal unity. In June 1877 both the DFP and NLP dissolved themselves into the Liberal Union of Germany (LVD), at once overtaking the Centre to become the largest party in Germany and providing an alternative government to Windthorst as the DFP slammed the door shut on the coalition.

Peculiarly the creation of a unified liberal party did not bring about the immediate fall of the Centre Party government but instead left the Conservatives, the second smallest faction in the Reichstag, with a commanding position. As neither Liberals nor the Centre held a majority (even with the SPD frequently supporting the Centre) the DKRP had the power to give either party the support necessary to rule. For the last few months of 1877 the Conservative would tolerate the continuation of the Centre’s government, all the while leaving it crippled through its ability to turn to the Liberals at moment’s notice, before pulling the plug on it for good in January 1878 in the hopes that elections might bring about a Conservative revival. For better or worse Germany would enter its third election since unification with its three main parties all hopeful of forging a stronger political position and dominating any future government at a time when the international economic and geo-political situation was more volatile than it had been for decades.
 
You guys really hate socialists :p, now you have a strong in AAR reason to do so though! The big story here is how well Spain did, benefiting from the fall of the OE from GP status the GP with the worst economy (a lower industrial score than Russia!) and most unimpressive army has taken the greatest slice of Africa out of anyone. The lands they have taken are not just large but populous and resource rich. They've turned themselves into a genuine contender.

Also, I'm having a problem in the game with what I suppose is a bug. For some reason my military score I am getting for my land army has plummeted from well over 100 to 0.3 with my mil score coming solely from leaders. I checked the saves and it seems this occurred after I had saved in the middle of the last war with France. It doesn't seem to have any in game effect (aside from unjustly knocking me off number 1 spot!), but I was wondering if anyone knew what this problem might be and how to get my mil score back? I also worry that this might make other powers more willing to attack me in the future as they assume I have some third rate tinpot army, when that is clearly not the case.
 
To be more accurate, I think most of us are sick of socialist dominance in these sorts of AARs rather than opposed to socialism on any ideological grounds. I mean hell, we've already had one AAR devoted entirely to a socialist Germany. Been there, done that, so to speak.