The main reasons I will be looking at for why the revolutions failed are The Pope’s Allocution, they didn’t have a common goal, France, lack of foreign support and also the power of Austria. With the appointment of the new Pope, Pope Pius X1 in 1846, the states of Italy believed they would have a better chance of unification. Pope Pius was the first liberal pope Italy had seen and he gained support by ending censorship, telling Austrians to leave a town in the Papal States and he also released 2000 political prisoners. These actions had Metternich scared. He even quoted ‘we were prepared for anything, except a liberal Pope.
The reason why the League of Nations was idealistic was because Britain and France would be forced to accept Germany’s induction. Britain and France would be the last countries to come to Germany’s aid after the war and now Wilson was asking them, in a way, to simply forgive and forget. Actions such as these have caused historians to debate whether the TOV was killed because Wilson was a man too ahead of his time, and his Fourteen Points were to idealistic for the other World Powers to accept, or it was Wilson himself that prevented the Treaty from being truly effective in preventing future wars because of his unwillingness to yield to even a single compromise. Wilson was indeed a visionary idealist, made evident by his assumption that nations had the ability to simply get along after the war. He saw the best in men, mostly due to his inexperience with foreign affairs and the fact that he was a progressive.
How successful was Bismarck in unifying the German state during the period 1871 - 1890? It is argued that Bismarck was both successful and unsuccessful in unifying the German state. In the period of 1871 - 1890, Bismarck faced many factors that both hindered and helped in unification, such as the nature of the constitution, his relationship with the national liberals, his relationship with the Catholics and the creation of the new working class. The North German Confederation was mainly Protestant however when the southern states joined, the population became nearly a third Catholic. Bismarck did not help to make the Catholics feel welcome in the Confederation.
One of the major events that assisted the fall of the Holy Roman Empire was Thirty Years’ War. The event that started the Thirty Years’ War was “defenestration of Prague.” Two of Ferdinand’s officials were thrown out a window. The Lutherans violated the Peace of Augsburg by acquiring German Bishops, Calvinists converting princes, and Jesuits reconverting princes to Catholicism. The Calvinists and Catholics had many advantages because of that which made the Lutherans fear the Peace of Augsburg would be negatively impaired. The Lutheran Princes felt it necessary to create the Protestant Union and in retaliation the Catholics formed to Catholic League.
However, the nature of their victory incited bitter indignation from the French and unsettled the European balance of power. Because of this, the act of 'German Unification' is credited widely as the cause of the First World War. Due to the economical excellence of the Zollverein, Prussia (who were first to abolish the domestic tariff
France thought the war would not only help by stopping Germany’s increase in power. It would also help Napoleon III to regain his popularity after some of his failures after the commencement of his dictatorship, such as the Mexican adventure of 1867. I will now go onto the short term reasons. Firstly, Spain needed a king and Bismarck saw his chance to send Prince Leopold to become king there. France protested because they thought that having German influence on both sides would be too much if conflict would have occured.
This meant that the government had back up from the army if anything were to up rise. But this came at a cost, Ebert promised to stop the spread of revolutionary socialism (which the army hated) and too preserve the authority of the current army officers, this basically meant the army were controlling Ebert. This was a significant change that could have led to a revolution because Ebert would NOT have been able to hold onto power without the support of the army. Ebert hoped to maintain Stability throughout Germany by introducing an Act called ‘Stinner-Leigien Act’ which represented real progress and reform. Both Ebert and the Army simply wanted to ensure that there would be no Left Wing Revolution.
Finally, in a United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, Roman Catholics would no longer be seen as the overwhelming and threatening majority but rather as cooperating fellow citizens, thus transforming Protestant views of fear and loathing. Indeed as Lord Castlereagh stated "Strength and confidence will encourage liberality". Indeed, following the passing of the Act of Union, Prime Minister Pitt was expected to come forward with the proposal of Catholic Emancipation (which finally passed in 1829). Yet the union between the two countries was not as evident as it should have been. Ireland was still being treated as a separate country and a 'half-alien dependency'.
Schlieffen’s plan aimed to counter a joint attack and then later in the Great War the Schlieffen Plan was used as a strategy to ensure a swift victory and avoid fighting two-fronted war. In 1914 as war broke out the Schlieffen Plan was put into action but the results were not as hoped, instead the plan failed miserably. Many questioned why Schlieffen had opted to attack a powerful France first instead of a weaker, less mobile Russia which could have been defeated quickly before turning on the more threatening French army. The
From “War of Movement” to “Stalemate” The Schlieffen Plan: * Germans believed they could win the war quickly. 1905, General Chief of Staff Alfred von Schlieffen planned a way of preventing Germany from fighting a war on two fronts. He believed that it was a priority to defeat France quickly, forcing them to surrender before Russia had a chance to mobilise her armed forces * Helmuth von Moltke revised/modified the plan, less prepared to take risks than Schlieffen – lacked faith in elements of the original plan. * Execution of Schlieffen Plan led to Britain declaring war on Germany and honouring alliance/agreement guaranteeing protection of Belgian neutrality and territory against invasion, 4th August 1914. * Moltke changed ratio of number of troops in right wing to left wing from 7:1 to 3:1 as he thought the left wing were too small and might be over-run and forced back by French forces; weakened the main strike force by diverting more German troops reinforcing Eastern Front from right wing to support Austria-Hungary * Right wing (main attack force) of the German army would mobilise in massive strength (north) and invade France through neutral Belgium * Smaller left wing (decoy/diversion) would hold French army on Rhine border against unexpected attack through Alsace-Lorraine * French Plan 17 went to German hands.