A famous historian, George Dangerfield, thought that the liberal party had been declining in popularity due to how they were not efficient nor equipped enough to handle the agitation of the trade unions, suffragettes and the problems within Ireland. The House of Lords had played a major role in the demise of the Liberal party. The Liberal party had numerous amounts of bills and acts that they had wanted to pass, however due to the house of lords, which predominately consisted of conservative and liberal unionist MP’s, they were able to block them which prevented them being passed. For Example, the lords had blocked Gladstone’s second home rule bill in 1893. The Lords had also blocked a major reform of the Liberals known as the 1909 Budget by 350 votes to 75 for.
“Balfour’s leadership was responsible for the decline in the popularity of the conservative party in the years 1902 – 1906.” How far do you agree? In the year 1902 to 1906, the Conservative party began to lose popularity, causing the Liberal party to beat them in the next general election. There are many reasons as to why the Conservatives began to lose support. Some of the reasons are because of A. J. Balfour, whereas others were not his fault. Balfour’s position as Conservative prime minister after Salisbury’s death in 1902 did not help the Conservative cause.
The Weimar republic was created in 1919 with the abdication of Kaiser Wilhelm ll, it was created at a time of confusion and chaos after Germany had lost the First World War. Between 1919 and 1923 it had to deal with many problems such as extremists’ attacks, the treaty of Versailles and the reparations crisis. Firstly Germany had no tradition of democracy and had always had strong leaders; Germans weren't ready for democracy and did not agree to it. With Germany suffering very badly because of the war it added onto the hatred the democracy had made. The new government was the body that signed the treaty of Versailles, and to many it was a betrayal and most Germans referred to it as the ‘stab in the back theory’.
When Russia entered World War 1 in 1914 to when they left in 1917, they suffered numerous military defeats. They originally had made good progress when advancing into the German Empire, however, this advance stopped when they lost the battle of Tannenberg and the Masurian lakes. These were crushing defeats which brought heavy casualties, 4 million Russian men died in the first year of the war. With such a huge amount of casualties, it is obvious that Russian morale wasn’t at a high level. The low levels of morale weren’t helped by the appalling state of supplies to the armed forces.
However, with widespread political unrest and a crippling economic crisis, was the constitution simply lucky to have survived her infancy years? It is widely believed that the foundations of the Weimar Republic were perilous to the strength of the new government. When the armistice was signed in 1918, the Germany people were shocked and disgraced as they had been led to believe by propaganda that they were winning the war. Ebert had become a hated and disrespected political figure. Not only did the people of Germany feel betrayed by a man of their own country but consequently, had no faith in the new democratic system.
Throughout the Weimar Republic’s first four years in power it suffered a turbulent reign. During its first year, the Weimar Republic was permanently scarred by its hugely unpopular decisions, such as the Treaty of Versailles, and incompetent response to the hyperinflation crisis. The government also faced severe opposition from both left and right wing political parties, having to deal with numerous violent uprisings from the Nazi’s, such as the Munich Putsch. However, these uprisings were relatively easy to crush whereas the ultimate threat to the stability of the Weimar Republic originated from their foundation; the resentment generated by the Treaty of Versailles agreement. On the 20th June 1919, the Weimar Republic signed an agreement which would prove to be the ultimate threat to their stability during their first four-year term; the Treaty of Versailles.
This proves the political instability of Germany in this period as they were the largest party in the Reichstag but still refused to cooperate. This need for the parties to agree cause germanys politics to become unstable yet again because they were unable to agree of unemployment benefits and foreign policy. This led the voter moving to more extremist parties like the KPD who had 10.6% of the vote in 1923. The election of president Hindenburg did not have a positive effect as he was very anti socialists, resulting in him excluding the SPD from the coalition despite their majority and including the DNVP to limit the coverage of the political spectrum in the hope his policies would pass quicker. In terms of economic development, the Dawes and the Young plan definitely helped develop and rebuild Germany’s economy, however there are other factors which counteracted them, making them less effective.
How far was the collapse of the liberal state caused by ww1? Just before World War 1 the liberal state was showing many weaknesses such unstable governments that were only lasting 18 months. They were also struggling to accommodate new social and economic forces which lead to extremist parties taking seats in parliament. Some historians believe that the liberal state was failing before the intervention of ww1 however some believe that it was due to ww1 and because of ww1 it lead to radical groups taking power. When Italy intervened into ww1 it was divided there were two camps.
Were the big three of Versailles very stupid men? Introduction After the First World War, many countries were left behind as losers. And you can’t just leave the losing countries behind and ignore them. You have to decide if they have to be punished or do they have to give away land or colonies that they own? For sure it is hard to decide something like this smoothly, after all the damage and death that happened during the war.
Becoming a governor in his region of Rome wasn’t good enough, he wanted to be crowned king and serve as a dictator for life, something that Rome didn’t have for five hundred years. His need for absolute power, to become greedy and to bring Rome under Monarchy corrupted him and altered his thinking. Instead of thinking about the Roman people, he was thinking about himself, and that made him a bad leader. Another reason that he wasn’t a good leader was that he was weak. Although he appeared to be strong to the commoners, he was seen as weak to his own Senate members, especially Cassius.