BLOOD AND IRON THE RISE AND FALL OF THE GERMAN EMPIRE, 1871-1918

A LUCID REAPPRAISAL OF GERMANY’S SECOND REICH

Author: Katja Hoyer Publisher: The History Press Price: £14.99

Katja Hoyer covers the 47 years from the unification of Germany in 1871 to the November Revolution of 1918 with impressive ease. Her well-illustrated book is based on considerable research and is always lively and readable. It offers a welcome reappraisal of the

Iron Chancellor, Otto von Bismarck, who dominated the fledgling German Empire between 1871 and 1888. Hoyer argues convincingly that it was not Bismarck’s foreign policy that sowed the seeds of World War I, but rather the rash and impulsive ‘New Course’ followed by Kaiser Wilhelm II, from 1890, after engineering Bismarck’s downfall.

Hoyer summarises complex issues with remarkable clarity and moves easily from the political, social and cultural issues affecting Germany to the larger international stage. Bismarck’s careful diplomacy is contrasted with Wilhelm

II’S utter lack of tact, most notoriously in his ‘Hun Speech’ to soldiers being sent to suppress China’s Boxer Rebellion in 1900, which enthusiastically likened them to an army of rampaging barbarians.

Hoyer also finds time for telling vignettes – particularly moving is the depiction of Peter Kollwitz, 18 in August 1914 and killed only ten days after enlisting, through the eyes of his griefstricken mother, drawing upon her diary and art work.

Blood and Iron is an important and highly accessible survey of Germany’s Second Reich.

Emperor Wilhelm II bids farewell to German soldiers in Bremen as they prepare to leave for China to suppress the Boxer Rebellion