The political system and political conflicts in Germany during World War I should be very specific and detailed. Thank you.

mainstream historians generally believe that Germany during World War I should be a dual constitutional monarchy.

The dual constitutional monarchy is characterized by: although the power of the monarch is restricted by the Constitution and Parliament, the actual power of the country is not in the hands of Parliament, but in the hands of the monarch, who is the real power core of the country. The cabinet is the institution where the monarch exercises political power and governs the country. The Prime Minister is appointed by the monarch, and the cabinet acts according to the will of the monarch, and is only responsible to the monarch and not to Parliament. The parliamentary constitutional monarchy is characterized by: the actual power of the country is in the hands of the parliament and the government, and the government is responsible to the parliament. The monarch is only a symbol of the country, unified but not cured, and the monarch is not the master.

a constitutional monarchy German federal state, centered on the kingdom of Prussia, was established through the dynastic war. It was founded on January 18th, 1871, including 22 German states, 3 free cities (Hamburg, Bremen and Lübeck) and the imperial province of alsace-lorraine.

after the foundation of the empire entered the 19th century, capitalism in various parts of Germany gradually developed. Since 1815, the German people's struggle for national reunification has been on the rise. In 1848, the March Revolution broke out in various parts of Germany, but it was suppressed. After becoming Prime Minister of Prussia, Otto von Bismarck restricted freedom in the name of unification, reconciled the contradiction between monarchy and bourgeoisie, and took advantage of Prussia's economic advantages to defeat Denmark in 1864 and Austria in 1866 (see the Puo-Austrian War) to form the North German Alliance. In 187 ~ 1871, France was defeated in the Franco-Prussian War and the southern German states were annexed. On January 18th, 1871, King William I of Prussia was crowned Emperor of the German Empire at the Palace of Versailles in France, with Bismarck as Prime Minister. Prussia finally achieved the reunification of Germany through the dynasty war.

State system The German Empire was a Junker-bourgeois dictatorship. Germany's unification road determines the characteristics of the country's monarchy, Junker doctrine and militarism. The Imperial Constitution adopted on April 16th, 1871 declared that the German Empire was a federal country with constitutional monarchy. The head of the empire is the emperor, held by the king of Prussia, who has the power to appoint prime ministers and senior officials, convene and dissolve parliament, declare war and make peace, and is also the supreme commander of the army. The Prime Minister of the Empire is the Prime Minister of Prussia, who is only responsible to the emperor. Legislation belongs to the Imperial Parliament and the Federal Parliament, which is composed of 58 representatives appointed by the state governments. Prussia has a decisive vote in the parliament and can veto bills passed by the Imperial Parliament. The imperial parliament is elected by universal suffrage, and its budgetary power and legislative power are restricted by the federal parliament. The emperor and prime minister play a decisive role in the empire, and Junker enjoys privileges in governments and armies at all levels.

The establishment of the economic German Empire has swept away the main obstacles to the development of capitalist economy. In the 197s, the empire promulgated a series of bills that were beneficial to the development of capitalist economy, such as banking law, unified currency law, patent law, unified tariff law and unified measurement law. Through the Franco-Prussian War, it plundered 5 billion gold francs in war reparations from France, iron ore and potash mines in alsace-lorraine, and accepted and applied advanced science, technology and production experience from other countries, which made the economy of the empire develop rapidly. The economic crises in the early 198s and from 189 to 1893 accelerated the concentration of industry and banking, and the industrial revolution was completed in the 199s. Soon, the production of heavy industry surpassed that of Britain, ranking first in Europe.

In the early days of the German Empire, Bismarck was the actual maker of domestic and foreign policies. The starting point of its domestic policy is to safeguard the privileges of Prussia and Juncker and take care of the interests of the big bourgeoisie. In 1872, the cultural struggle against the Catholic Church began. In 1878, the Socialist Law was promulgated, and in 1879, a high protective tariff policy was adopted. Foreign policy is a continental policy with the goal of striving for hegemony in the European continent. For this reason, the alliance of Germany, Russia and Austria was restored in 1873, and the triple alliance of Germany, Austria and Italy was established in 1882. William I died in 1888, and his son Frederick III died after only 99 days in office. His grandson William II dismissed Bismarck in 189 to strengthen his decision-making power. In the late 199s, the bourgeoisie further integrated with Juncker, actively expanded its troops abroad to prepare for war, openly advocated aggression, expansion, power and colonialism, pursued world policies, and demanded a new division of the world. At the beginning of the 2th century, domestic contradictions intensified, and so did the contradictions with established imperialism such as Britain, Russia and France, which finally led to the outbreak of the First World War. Germany was defeated in the war. In 1918, november revolution in germany overthrew the Hohenzollern family in hohenzollern, and the German Empire ended.

Junkers

junkers

originally referred to aristocratic children without knighthood, and later generally referred to Prussian nobles and big landlords. Originated in the 16th century, it basically disappeared after the Second World War. In German literature, Juncker is divided into different types, such as combat Juncker, court Juncker, house Juncker and country Juncker. It was the country Junker who really played a big role in German history.

rural junker refers to the aristocratic manor owner in Prussia, mainly the descendant of the German knight lords who conquered and colonized the area east of Elbe. They combine the power of lords with the power of the countryside. In the 16th century, in order to expand grain production, Junker seized a large number of farmers' land east of the Elbe River, and managed the commodity-producing large manor economy with serf labor. Junker in the countryside is rough, violent and narrow-minded. In 1653, Frederick William, the great elector of Brandenburg, gave Juncker the power to "completely dominate" the peasants, and gave him a lot of economic benefits such as tax exemption. In the Stein-Hardenberg Reform which began in 187, Juncker suffered a heavy blow. The rapid development of Prussian capitalism since the 19th century completely disintegrated Junker's economic base-feudal manor. For this reason, the Prussian dynasty gave Juncker important military and government positions as compensation. After the German Revolution in 1848, Juncker's manor economy gradually transformed into a capitalist farm, and most of Juncker began to be bourgeois, but many feudal remnants remained. In Junker Manor, farm labourers are still in the position of semi-serfs. This way of gradually replacing serfdom exploitation with capitalist exploitation under the condition of retaining feudal land ownership is called Prussian Road.

Junker landlord class is extremely conservative politically, advocating absolute monarchy, advocating force and adopting protectionism for agriculture, and its representative is Bismarck. In 1871, Prussia unified Germany from the top, which marked the last form of Junker's bourgeois rule. Both the German Conservative Party in the Imperial Congress and the peasant alliance outside the Congress represent Juncker's interests, and most of the officers in the army were born in Juncker, thus branding the whole German Empire as Juncker. During Weimar Republic, Junker was hostile to * * * and regime, and supported A. Hitler in power.

first, the historical background of the formation of the Prussian road

Germany is a country with uncertain national division. The Holy Roman Empire is a loose alliance of princes in name only, and at most there are thousands of states in the whole country. After hundreds of years of hard struggle, Germany finally achieved its first national reunification from Prussia in 1871. However, due to the failure of two world wars, the country was once again divided, and it was only in recent years that it was reunified. It can be said that a German history is a history of national division, reunification, re-division and reunification. In this sense, the national issue (or seeking national reunification) has become a main thread throughout the modern history of Germany. Why do we say that the rise of the kingdom of Prussia is of historical significance? It is because the great cause of German reunification was finally completed by Prussia. Then, in the middle of Europe surrounded by a great power and Germany with a lot of princes, Prussia, with a small population and territory, has gradually grown from weak to strong and developed step by step by virtue of what "magical power"?

from 1618 to 1648, the feudal monarchs in continental Europe waged a protracted "Thirty Years' War" on the land of Germany. This war made the British bourgeoisie escape the intervention of European feudal monarchs and win, but it made Germany completely decline. As the main battlefield of this cruel war, five-sixths of Germany's villages were destroyed and its population decreased by more than one-third. Farmers became destitute, struggling with hunger and death. After the war, Germany was still a "country" in name only, which was divided, broken and full of vassals. According to the Peace Treaty of Westphalia, France and Sweden, the victors of the Thirty Years' War, have the right to guarantee the internal and diplomatic independence of German states, and each state has the full right to sign treaties with any European country. In this way, the division of Germany was finally determined. To what extent Germany split after the Thirty Years' War, there is such a set of data that can explain the problem: at that time, there were 36 independent states and 1,5 semi-independent territories in Germany. Most of the states are very small. For example, in Westphalia, each state has an average of only over 2 square miles. However, the monarchs of all these countries are very conceited. No matter the size of their countries, they have established their own complete set of autocratic systems, sound state institutions and armed forces. An army sometimes consists of only 12 soldiers.

In this unprecedented situation of ethnic division, Prussia, with an orderly society, an authoritative central government, an efficient government and an effective army, is very different. It should be noted that in modern Europe, the rise of any country is not a graceful journey with tender feelings and gentle winds and drizzle. In that turbulent era of the law of the jungle in blood shed, Prussia was destined to use with fire and sword to pave the way for its king from the beginning.

Second, the characteristics of Prussia road

(1) Pursuing the politics of the first army and attaching importance to national defense construction

The emerging Prussian kingdom is a small country with a weak family background, dubbed by the great powers as "a clay pot in a tin can pile", and it is in danger of being ruined at any time. Therefore, from the beginning of the founding of Prussia in 171, the rulers of past dynasties regarded strengthening the army as their main means of survival and development.

Prussia's militarism is very prominent. Frederick II ascended the throne in 174. Under his iron-fisted rule for more than 2 years, the number of Pujun troops surged from 7, to 2,, accounting for 9.4% of the national population, and military expenditures cost 4/5 of the total government budget every year. At that time, Prussia ranked 1th in Europe in area and 13th in population, but its army ranked fourth in Europe. And this number has increased to 235, in William II, the successor of Frederick II. Someone once described Prussia's militarism like this: "For other countries, the country has an army; For Prussia, the army owns a country. "

Prussia's militaristic nature is so distinct that its belligerence directly contributed to the introduction of Bismarck's "iron-blooded policy" and then became the distant cause of the two world wars.

(2) Junker has held the state power for a long time, and has become the only class capable of leading the great cause of national reunification

Prussia is a Junker country, and the power of the citizen class here is very weak. On the one hand, due to the destruction of war, the development of workshop handicraft industry is slow, which accounts for less than 1% of the country's total economic output, and their market largely depends on the living consumption of feudal princes and nobles and the expenditure of government troops; On the other hand, when Britain and France had already overcome the traditional shackles of guilds at the end of the 18th century, German handicrafts were still controlled by guilds, ancient laws and regulations were still strictly enforced, and all paths that could promote competition and innovation were ruthlessly blocked by feudal shackles. This dependence on the economy and the inherent deficiency of its own strength have caused the German bourgeois to be timid and servile to feudal power politically.

farmers are also powerless to resist the powerful feudal autocratic monarchy. In 1625, a great peasant war broke out in Germany, but it was finally brutally suppressed. The thirty years' war completely destroyed the last resistance of the peasant class, and the landlord became the only master in the countryside. The serf system that forced farmers to serve hard labor became a universal system in Germany, and this situation was particularly prominent in Prussia.

Marx and Engels intended to unite scattered workers' groups in various parts of Germany into a national political organization in order to promote the revolution. But this condition does not exist in Germany, which is economically backward and politically dispersed. At that time, the German working class was still immature. Most of them were still craftsmen, and they basically followed the bourgeoisie. Moreover, due to the powerful feudal forces and the betrayal of bourgeois liberals, the revolution in 1848 was suppressed throughout Germany, and the workers' movement was at a low ebb for a long time.

Since the bourgeoisie and peasants are unable to complete the great cause of German reunification, and the proletariat, which is still very weak, is far from mature politically, this task has historically fallen on the Prussian aristocratic landlord class (Junker).

(3) The royal power is strong, and at the same time, the capitalist economy is developed on the premise of retaining Junker's feudal privileges.

Junker's economy holds the lifeline of the national economy, and Junker landlords monopolize the grain export, and at the same time, they are exempt from paying export tariffs. In the Prussian army, Junker occupied all the officer positions. The serfdom in Prussia is different from the early serfdom, which is the result of the development of commodity production. With grain and various agricultural products becoming increasingly important commodities and rising prices, agricultural production has become profitable. So Junker landlords began to seize farmers' land, merged into Datianzhuang, and developed capitalist commodity production for the market.

serfdom only reflects one aspect of Prussia's national system, and its deeper significance lies in highlighting the characteristics of Prussia's highly centralized monarchy. The guarantee of this political system is essential for the rise of any modern European power. This is true of Russia under Peter I, France under Louis XIV and Prussia.

after the failure of the revolution in p>1848, although Prussia did not restore the pure monarchy like Austria, but maintained the alliance between the landlord class and the big bourgeoisie, the nobles still maintained their leading position in this alliance, and the king still had supreme authority. Although there is a parliament, the upper house (the House of Lords) is composed of dignitaries appointed by the king, and the lower house (the House of Representatives) guarantees the majority status of the nobility and the big bourgeoisie with the help of the unequal three-level electoral system. Therefore, the autocratic monarchy in Prussia can be continued and even consolidated under the guise of democracy.

III. Reasons for the formation of Prussian Road

(1) serfdom strengthened Juncker's political dominance

From the perspective of social development, serfdom was a barbaric and backward mode of production. Serfs not only serve the landlord for free, but also bring their own livestock and farm tools. Their property is arbitrarily deprived and they have no personal freedom at all. They are imprisoned in the landlord's grange and are not allowed to migrate. It is generally believed that the existence of serfdom will seriously hinder the development of productive forces. However, if we put this system in the historical background of Prussia's rise,