World History: The First World War

The First World War, the Great War, has earned itself as one of the darkest parts of modern history. It is estimated that 40 million people were killed by the First World War, both military and civilian, through a mixture of conflict, genocide, disease, and starvation. The First World War was not the first global war, nor was it the first total war, but it was the conflict which shaped how we view both global and total wars. This war broke the old world, and set the stage for a new one - however bleak. As the First World War has been so thoroughly discussed we cannot cover everything, and bear in mind what we will discuss today is more of an overview. The origins of the war are so hotly debated that the books written about it available in the University of Edinburgh's library cover at least three shelves. Also, as I am not a military historian, we will not focus as much on the battles and fighting, although we will discuss them regardless.

Origins

As already mentioned, the origins of the war has been hotly debated, and these debates range from who 'started' it, and are the long or short term factors more important in the outbreak. James Joll, for example, holds that more short term factors were more important, whereas Christopher Clark holds that the long term factors were more important. Regardless, we have to discuss both. Following the defeat of France by the Prussians in 1871 it left France isolated diplomatically, so they made an alliance with another diplomatically isolated state - the Russian Empire. This would begin the treaty system where European states made alliances with the intention of these alliances deterring war. By 1900 two alliance blocks had formed: the Entente, (consisting of France, Russia, and Britain), and the Central Powers, (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy). Other alliances meant that when war broke out more states became involved. Britain's treaty with Japan and vow to protect Belgium, as well as Germany building ties with the Ottoman Empire, were just some examples. The rise of nationalism was spelling disaster for the multi-ethnic Austro-Hungarian Empire, something especially troubling with its neighbour Serbia adopting Pan-Slavic ideas, supported by Russia who saw itself as 'the defender of the Slavic peoples'. This was exacerbated by two events: in 1903 a coup in Serbia brought to power a more expansionist government, and in 1908 Austria-Hungary annexed Bosnia enraging nationalists. The crumbling Ottoman Empire led to two wars in the Balkans, the first in 1912-3 to kick the Ottomans out of the Balkans and the second in 1913 to reduce the size of Bulgaria. The Balkans were a powder keg, but it was not the only powder keg in Europe. Since coming to the throne in 1888 German emperor Wilhelm II wanted to put Germany on equal footing with the British and French Empires. Not only did Germany challenge France's claim to Morocco so Germany could get 'a place in the sun' there was also a rapid increase in naval power. Overseen by Alfred von Tirpiz Germany's navy greatly expanded influencing Britain to expand its navy in an arms race. Although ended by Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg in 1911, the arms race was decided in 1906 when the British launched HMS Dreadnought giving them the technological advantage.

Franz Ferdinand and Sophie

These long term factors then fed into one event, which Christopher Clark compared to 9/11 in its importance. On 28 June 1914, while visiting Bosnia's capital of Sarajevo, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne Franz Ferdinand, and his pregnant wife, Sophie, was assassinated by Gavrilo Princip, a pan-Serbian nationalist part of the group Mlada Bosna. The assassination not only sparked anti-Serbian riots in Sarajevo, but also what is now known as the July Crisis. The July Crisis was the event which allowed war to break out, but it was all behind the scenes. This was such the case that Austria's main paper ran a headline about the growing conflict in Ireland the day before war broke out! Although Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph was glad that his more progressive nephew would now not inherit the throne, he could not stand that Serbian nationalists, likely supported by the Serbian government, had struck at Austria. At the start of July Wilhelm threw his support behind Austria stating that they would back whatever Austria did in the now infamous 'blank check', and Chief of General Staff Moltker wrote that 'Austria must beat the Serbs'. Meanwhile, states began mobilising their armies and navies as diplomats went to work. On July 23 Austria-Hungary issued an ultimatum to Serbia - accept all ten points or war will be declared. Serbia accepted all but one, that Austro-Hungarians would lead the investigation into the assassination, and even then it was very last minute. You can see on the ultimatum prime minister Nikola Pasic had ticked each demand, but hastily crossed out the investigation demand. Even Wilhelm conceded that Serbia's response 'eliminates any reason for war'. Regardless, July 28 Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia starting a domino effect as European states became involved - by August 6 Britain (and the Empire), Russia, France, Serbia, Germany, and Austria-Hungary were at war. As British foreign secretary, Edward Grey, said 'The lamps are going out all over Europe. We shall not see them lit again in our lifetime'.

The War Begins

An army recruitment line in London, 1914

Fighting began quickly and, contrary to accusations that it was a European war until American entry, it was immediately global. British and German troops clashed first, not in Europe, but in Africa when the British and French invaded Togo and Kamerun on August 6. Japan allied with the Entente and began invading German territories in China and the Pacific, and New Zealand occupied what would become the Solomon Islands. German and British ships further fought one another off the coast of the Falkland Islands early in the war. Germany intended to use the Schlieffen Plan, first created in 1907, to solve the issue of fighting a war on two fronts; it was a bad plan, but it was their only usable plan. The Schlieffen Plan involved invading France through the Netherlands, Luxembourg, and Belgium to bypass French defenses; quickly knock out France by taking Paris before they could mobilise their forces and colonial strength; and then turn their attention to Russia, hopefully being pinned down by Austria in the meantime. Despite streamlining the plan by leaving the Netherlands neutral the plan failed. For one, Austria invaded Serbia leaving the Eastern front unguarded, and Germany was hoping that Britain would not want to defend Belgian neutrality, but they did. France and Russia further mobilised faster than expected, and British expeditionary forces managed to land in France by early-August. In what would come to characterise warfare in this period, the fronts soon became bogged down in trench warfare. However, France and Britain quickly hoped to strangle the economies of Austria and Germany, and successfully blockaded them with their navies. Frightening the powers was Ottoman entry on the side of the Central Powers - distrustful of Britain and France's exploitation of the empire, allying with their enemy Russia, and overtures from Wilhelm meant they sided with the Central Powers.

German troops on the way to Belgium

Although there was some resistance to the war, populations were positive towards it being swept along in nationalism and jingoism. Of course, there were splits in society. The Second International saw a split between the Marxists and democratic socialists over support for the war - while members of the German Social Democratic Party voted in favour of war credits, others in the party, like Karl Liebknecht, opposed this and were imprisoned. Generally, the mood was in favour of the war. Many suffragette movements dropped their militancy in favour of supporting the war effort - several in the Women's Social and Political Union advocated giving white feathers to men who weren't fighting in order to shame them into enlisting. Most states did not have to bring about conscription for several years due to the initial wave of support for the war - in British popular memory boys under the age of sixteen were told to have a walk around the street and come back older. Even minorities were willing to enlist, seeing that engagement in the war would prove their worthiness of rights. A 500-strong Maori Contingent, the Te Hokowhitu A Tu, originally tried to join, but were initially rebuked as 'the Maoris should not take part in the wars of the White Race against a White Race'. They were eventually shipped out to Europe in February 1915. The general consensus was that the war 'would be over by Christmas', largely as people looked to European wars over the last century which were short, such as the Franco-Prussian War and the Crimean War. As stated by Eric Hobsbawm, the American Civil War should have been the war which showed the face of modern warfare.

WW1 and Warfare

Entente troops at Gallipoli

The First World War can be seen as the first 'modern' war, and the last war of, what Hobsbawm describes as, the 'Long Nineteenth Century'. Although the often used phrase, 'lions led by lambs', to describe the leaders and soldiers is simplistic, and quite ahistorical, there is some truth to it. It took too long in many fronts of the war for tacticians to adapt to new warfare. New developments in the form of barbed wire and machine guns meant that tactics had to change, and this led to trench warfare. Particularly in Britain and France, trench warfare is what we think of when we think of the First World War, although it was prominent in other fronts. Guarded by barbed wire and machine gun nests it emerged as a way for Entente forces to hold the German lines as they took Amiens and started towards Paris, and for the Germans to hold the territory they took while being attacked. Trench warfare was brutal. Erich Maria Remarque in his famous novel All Quiet on the Western Front, based off of his own experiences in the Western front, shows the drudgery of trench warfare - stuck in squalid conditions and facing shelling from enemy artillery. Disease spread rapidly throughout the trenches - it is no surprise that disease killed more people than actual fighting. In 1915 First Lord of the Admiralty Winston Churchill hoped to avoid trench warfare and take the Central Powers from below. He hoped that landing at the Dardanelles allied forces could move up the Turkish coast and take Istanbul, hopefully knocking out the Ottoman Empire. The Gallipoli Campaign is most famous for the birth of Australian and New Zealand national identity as ANZAC first appeared, and the death of 8,000 Australians alone inspired a national myth to emerge. Indians also fought at Gallipoli, 3,000 fought and around half were killed. The Ottoman forces still had many casualties, again largely through disease, as trench warfare erupted instead of Churchill's desired push to Istanbul. Future Turkish president, and 'father of the Turks', Mustafa Kemal Bey made his mark at Gallipoli by fending off the Entente forces. In January 1916 the campaign was called off as the Entente forces were ravaged by war and disease. The Ottoman forces also suffered, but their connection to supply lines managed to mitigate some of the poor conditions. Although, the Gallipoli Campaign, and the promise of Austrian land, influenced Italian intervention on the side of the Entente - similarly trench warfare broke out on the Italian front.

Troops in German East Africa

The First World War was not simply a case of bringing in new weaponry and failing to adapt. We regularly see innovations being developed, and tacticians working around it. Although it is also due to these innovations that the First World War became so destructive. As early as 1914 tear gas was used to slow down enemy troops, the Germans tried and failed to use bromide against Russian forces outside of Warsaw in January 1915, and at the Third Battle of Ypres in 1917 mustard gas managed wreck havoc on soldiers. Similarly, tanks and planes were first utilised in the war - planes were first used for reconnaissance and later for battles. All Quiet on the Western Front depicts the characters betting on who would win a dog fight, and one of Germany's 'ace-of-war' with 80 confirmed victories was the pilot Manfred von Richthofen, the famous 'Red Baron'. Transport and communication meant that the line between the front and home, in areas unoccupied that is, became increasingly blurred. Soldiers could get access to newspapers and letters from home quickly, and mostly had access to a supply of food - often though at the expense of the civilian population. Even 'backwards' Russia managed to use railways to move around troops and send orders, although German and Austrian advances following the Battle of Tannenburg did hinder this by threatening the railway connections. Guerrilla warfare was even utilised. Although causing great casualties and inspiring his African forces to go AWOL, General Paul von Lettow-Vorbeck in German East Africa (modern Tanzania) led a guerrilla campaign hoping this would tie down Entente forces. Called 'Safari ya Bwana Lettow' by his troops, the East African Schutztruppe managed to last until 1918.

Domestic Fronts

With so many states taking part across the world we cannot talk about one singular domestic front. During the First World War we see the entire blurring of civilians and militaries as entire societies and economies went towards the fighting of the war. Propaganda was produced to bolster national unity and support the war effort - the image of Lord Kitchener saying 'We need you' became one of the most famous propaganda posters, which in turn inspired the Uncle Sam variant. Unfortunately, propaganda was also used to demonise minorities within the nation. German propaganda encouraged Germans to avoid Japanese businesses, and many were interned in Ruhleben camp outside of Berlin. Similarly, after US entry propaganda demonised its sizeable German population which, in turn, encouraged Prohibition - many breweries were German-owned so drinking alcohol became a way to help the enemy. Russian Tsar Nicholas II renamed St. Petersburg to Petrograd to make it sound less German, and the British monarchy changed their name to Windsor for this reason as well. Propaganda was also used to encourage buying war bonds, to fund the war effort, and even donate cutlery to be turned into bullets. Even Daylight Savings Time being implemented was a result of the war - states needed to maximise food production, especially Germany and Austria suffering thanks to the naval blockades.

Women in an artillery factory

Where you were in the world determined how the war affected you. If you lived in a German or Russian city you would experience famines due to food shortages as what little food was diverted to the frontline - these shortages were caused by blockades in Germany, and the loss of arable land to invading forces in Russia. Meanwhile, in Japan, life would largely go on unaffected, while you might be occupied by foreign forces in Belgium. The war further caused great demographic shifts. With men off to war suddenly huge areas of the economy became vacant, so women filled in the roles. Female employment skyrocketed during the First World War as many middle and upper class women entered positions which were traditionally barred women - this ranged from bus conductors to armament factory workers. Leading feminists, like Emmeline Pankhurst, encouraged women to enter the workforce and support the war effort based on a mixture of nationalism, and the hope that entering work would dispel notions of female inferiority. Similarly, with the industrial boom to fund the war effort, and racism in the South, encouraged African-Americans to begin moving to the North, which began the 'Great Migration' changing the demographics of American cities. This was not limited to the US. European powers relied heavily on colonial troops, and people rapidly moved across the world. Throughout the war the people of Flanders met troops from the German, American, British, French, Portuguese, and their own empire, and their accounts show bewilderment of the diversity of people from the empires. Jane de Launoy's diary presents a racist depiction of North African and Arabic troops. 

Brutality of War

In popular memory we are left with stories of how brutal the war was on all fronts, ranging from All Quiet on the Western Front to even The Lord of the Rings. J.R.R. Tolkien fought at the Somme, and the destruction he saw made him romantic for a pre-industrialised age where this level of destruction was impossible. It is no surprising, as shown by Irina Davidian, why so many Russian soldiers resorted to drink to cope with the war. To try and break the British naval blockade, and also to starve out the British, Germany would order its U-boats to undertake 'unrestricted naval warfare' which involved sinking all ships around Britain. Land battles were also brutal. We have already discussed Gallipoli, but it was just one of many drawn out battles to claim thousands of lives. The first day of the Battle of the Somme on July 1 1916 was the most devastating day for the British Army in all of its history where it sustained 57,470 casualties, of which 19,240 were killed. Most of those killed in the war were working-class, and a staple of the conflict was that colonial forces would more likely be killed. In Britain, the thousands killed became known as the 'Lost Generation'; and this legacy still impacts Britain today. Consequently, you often see the leaders of the armies - such as Alexander Haig, Erich von Ludendorff etc. - presented as bumbling fools leading thousands to their deaths.

The Enemy Within, and the War against Humanity

Sinking of the Lusitania

It is a myth that until recent wars that civilians were never considered a target, but the First World War meant that whether it was an intention or not, they would be affected. As stated by Eric Hobsbawm, during the Napoleonic Wars Jane Austen could write novels which make no reference to the conflict, but in World War One this was far from the case. Even though propaganda dramatised the 'Rape of Belgium' to turn America against Germany - former president Theodore Roosevelt said that for this the US had to seek justice for them - but there was a serious war against the population. In response to resistance German battalions responded by executing potential offenders. Famously, in 1915 German submarines sank the British cruise liner the Lusitania which caused outrage for the civilian casualties - especially in the US as 128 of those killed were American citizens. However, Germany was not the only state to commit atrocities. British Lieutenant Godfrey Herbert in 1915 had the survivors of the U-27 submarine summarily executed, and the blockade of German ports meant that vital food and medicine supplies were stropped. Somewhere between 400,000 and 700,000 people died of disease and starvation as a result of the blockade. All sides were willing to execute civilians deemed untrustworthy. States were further keen to watch 'the enemy within'. The earlier mentioned cases were just some examples. Minorities deemed to have 'foreign ties' were placed under surveillance, and even colonial forces were treated with distrust. For helping 200 soldiers escape German-occupied Belgium meant that British nurse Edith Cavell was shot by a German firing squad to international condemnation in 1915. Opponents of the war were also imprisoned internationally, many of whom were socialists. Among those arrested for advocating an end to the war including George Bernard Shaw in Britain, Eugene V. Debs in the US, and Rose Luxemburg in Germany.

An Armenian death march

A fear of betrayal and war against humanity intersected in the form of genocide against Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks in the Ottoman Empire. The embracing of a particularly Turkish and Islamic identity in the 1800s meant that Christians within the Empire became increasingly mistrusted, and this became exacerbated by the outbreak of war. Due to Russian, with its Armenian populace, and Greek entry Christians were seen as having sympathies with those outside the Empire, and a domestic threat. The Young Turks themselves fought the Armenian armies raised by the Russian Empire, so this inspired the implementation of the Deportation Law following the Gallipoli Invasion. Armenians, Assyrians, and Greeks were uprooted from their homes, including 200 prominent Armenians in Istanbul from 15 April 1915, and marched to guarded villages in the Syrian desert. This soon became a death march with many being killed via abuse from their Ottoman guards, or they died thanks to a lack of food, water, rest, and medicine. Those who were lucky found refuge in the multi-religious and multi-ethnic Beirut and wider Lebanon, but most were not as lucky. It is estimated that over a million Armenians; 250,000 Assyrians; and over 350,000 Greeks were killed in these death marches. Even today, Turkey, the successor to the Ottoman Empire, denies that a genocide took place, arguing instead that it was simply a 'massacre'. Many Armenians fled to the United States thanks to the genocide where they still live today. Unfortunately, this would not be the last instance of ethnic cleansing to happen in the First World War.

The End of the War

The Arab Revolt

On the centenary of the end of the war we wrote a post about it which I highly recommend reading here. By 1917, all combatants were desperate, and the strain of war was taking its toll. In 1916 Irish revolutionaries rose up in Dublin in the Easter Rising tired of Britain's rule; the ensuing British brutal retaliation destroyed Dublin and started turning Ireland against Britain. With the amount of people volunteering to join the military drying up many states after 1916 started introducing conscription causing a public backlash - a railroad strike organised by the Industrial Workers of the World in Australia brought New South Wales to a standstill. Desertion became prominent, especially in Russia, and executions for desertion turned more people against the war; in April 1917 there was a wave of mutinies within the French army. Empires began crumbling. As early as 1915 the Amir of Mecca Sharif Husayn made contact with British high commissioner in Egypt Henry McMahon offering an alliance - for Ottoman Arabic land he would fight the Ottomans for the Entente. This was difficult because by 1917 the British and French had vowed to carve Ottoman possessions between the two of them, and also promising to open up Palestine to Jewish settlement. Regardless, in June 1916 Husayn's son Faysal attacked the Ottoman garrison at Mecca sparking the Arab Revolt. Aided by Captain T.E. Lawrence, 'Lawrence of Arabia', swept across the Arabian peninsula, through Gaza, and up to Damascus. Meanwhile, discontent following the death of the elderly Franz Joseph meant that the disparate parts of Austria-Hungary started becoming increasingly independent, and a Czech legion was even formed in France. Finally, a strike by women over bread in Petrograd spiralled into the February Revolution in 1917 which deposed Nicholas II, a topic for next time, and issued in a provisional government under Alexander Kerensky which tried to continue the war. German generals, who now ran the government, Erich von Ludendorff and Paul von Hindenburg wanted to see Russia out of the war thanks to the earlier success of the Brusilov Offensive, so they spirited Marxist revolutionary Vladimir Lenin into Russia. The ensuing October Revolution resulted in the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk taking Russia out of the war. However, a new power had just entered: the United States.

Signing the November Armistice

US president Woodrow Wilson had wanted to keep neutral, but German submarine warfare and Entente propaganda made the American public sympathetic to the Entente. A desperate Germany, wanting any ally they could find, sent a letter from Foreign Secretary Arthur Zimmerman to the Mexican government offering to help Mexico in a war against the US to seize lost Mexican land. British spies managed to get the Zimmerman Telegram, and leaked it. In reality, with Mexico having no clear way to fight the Entente, and being in the midst of a revolutionary period, it would not have sided with the Central Powers. However, it, and the resumption of unrestricted submarine warfare, infuriated the American population, and Wilson declared war. Wilson was hostile to European diplomacy, and was determined for a lasting peace so created his now famous 14 Points calling for an end to secret treaties, self-determination for (European) peoples, peace, free trade, freedom of the seas, and an association of nations. He thought this would make a stable world, and oppose Lenin's recently issued call for peace. Ludendorff and Hindenburg rightly feared that they would lose the war if America managed to mobilise their economy. In an effort to finally knock out the French, and managed to push their way through northern France. However, it did not have the desired consequences. The German supply lines were stretched, so that when the Entente undertook their 100 Days' Offensive their lines folded. Meanwhile, Faysal's forces swept up to Damascus and the Italian navy managed to wipe out the Austrians. In October German sailors mutinied at Kiel sparking the end of the German Empire. An armistice was signed on November 11 1918 bringing the war to an end.

Aftermath

Hitler on the far-right during WW1

The following peace treaties, including the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, shaped the world. From the aftermath of the war various new states came into being including Poland, Hungary, Czechoslovakia, and Finland. Wilson's desire for the 14 Points were cast aside at Versailles as the victorious Entente wished to punish Germany - France and Belgium both seized German land, Germany was forced to accept war guilt, and had to pay 132 billion gold marks in reparations. Much to the anger of Japan, and the young Vietnamese nationalist who would become Ho Chi Minh, imperialism and Wilson's own racism meant that racial equality was ignored. The remnants of the German and Ottoman Empires were annexed as 'mandates' - a euphemism for colonies. Wartime censorship, and the movement of peoples thanks to the war, allowed the spread of Spanish Influenza which killed up to three times as many people as the war did itself. Similarly, many states were dissatisfied with the aftermath of the war. The German far-right would claim that they were 'stabbed-in-the-back' by Jews and socialists, this myth would help propel Hitler to power in later years. Japan, angered at being treated as a secondary power, would also go down a path towards militarism. The seeds for the Second World War would be planted during the First. Erwin Rommel, Hitler, Tojo Hideki, Mussolini, Charles de Gaulle, Rudolph Hess, and Churchill were just some of the main figures of the Second World War who would fought in the First. A generation of writers and artists, including a key figure of the Harlem Renaissance Langston Hughes, would continue to reflect on their experiences of the war. Finally, in the aftermath of the war it was widely described as 'the war to end all wars', but, as we have seen, wars have continued to devastate lives over the last century. Echoing the somber words of Eric Hobsbawm, the First World War was not the end of wars, it was instead the beginning of the short and bloody Twentieth Century.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Extremes, 1914-1991, (London: 1994)

-Martin Gilbert, First World War, (London: 1995)

-Christopher Clark, The Sleepwalkers: How Europe went to War in 1914, (London: 2012)

-Santanu Das, (ed.), Race, Empire and First World War Writing, (Cambridge: 2011)

-Hugh Cecil and Peter Liddle, (eds.), Facing Armageddon: The First World War Experienced, (London: 1996)

-David Stevenson, 1914-1918: The History of the First World War, (London: 2004)

-James Joll, The Origins of the First World War, Second Edition, (London: 1992)

-Samuel Hynes, A War Imagined: The First World War and English Culture, (London: 1990)

-Eric Foner, Give Me Liberty! An American History, Fourth Edition, (New York: 2014)

-William Cleveland and Martin Bunton, A History of the Modern Middle East, Sixth Edition, (Boulder: 2016)

-Erich Maria Remarque, All Quiet on the Western Front, Trans. A.W. Wheen Fawcett Crest, (Berlin: 1929)

Next time, we will be looking at the Russian Revolution and the formation of the Soviet Union. Thank you for reading, and I hope you found it interesting. For other World History posts we have a list here, for other blog posts please check our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

‘Deutschland’ by Rammstein: A Look at Cultural Memory in Germany

This article was first published by Retrospect Journal on 20/10/2019 here.

French sociologist Maurice Halbwachs described memory as being owned by both the individual and society. One can have different recollections of an event, but societal memory can greatly impact an individual’s own memories. Cultural memory has become especially important in Germany as it tried to come to terms with its dark twentieth century; ranging from division during the Cold War to the horrors of genocide during Nazi rule. In March 2019, German heavy metal band Rammstein released their new, and controversial, song ‘Deutschland’. The lyrics and music video to this song gives us an insight into memories of German history, the politics of national identity, and the controversies which accompany it.

     Due to Rammstein often using cryptic lyrics and imagery in their songs we can only look at a snapshot of the song just as Rammstein looks at a snapshot of German history. The song opens referencing the Battle of Teutoburg Forest: a Roman squadron sees their comrades hanging from a tree as Germania, the personification of Germany played by Afro-German actress Ruby Commey, decapitates a dead soldier. This event was later adopted by German nationalists as the forging of Germany: Arminius uniting the Germanic peoples against Rome halted their expansion, and delineated what was Rome and what was Germania. The rest of the song flashes through snapshots of German history ranging from the very literal, with the Hindenburg disaster to the Red Army Faction (RAF) attacks, to the more metaphorical, the political violence of the 1920s being represented through a boxing match. Naturally, being Rammstein, the video is full of controversial imagery. Monks gruesomely eat a meal over the body of Germania (possibly referencing the Reformation and Wars of Religion) and the band, to show the hypocrisy of the leaders of East Germany, go from drinking champagne to having an orgy. Lead singer Till Lindemann, dressed to resemble East Germany’s premier Erich Honecker, re-enacts the famous ‘socialist fraternal kiss’ with Soviet Premier Leonid Brezhnev in that scene. Even the end credits reference Germany; over the credits their song ‘Sonne’ is played, and its music video features a twisted version of Disney’s Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs. Originally this was a German fairy tale, so the band has linked their own personal history with wider German culture.

     The most controversial part of the video concerns the concentration camp scenes. The band wear a Star of David, a pink triangle (signifying homosexuality), and a red triangle over the Star of David (signifying that they were a socialist Jew) while awaiting execution on the gallows. Germania is now dressed as an SS-officer and in the background V-2 rockets fire into the sky. Accompanying these images are the words 

Überheblich, überlegen, Übernehmen, übergeben Überraschen, überfallen, Deutschland, Deutschland über allen (Overbearing, Superior, Take Over, Surrender, Surprising, Assault, Germany, Germany, Over Everyone).

 By the end of the video the inmates take their revenge on the Nazis, in typical Rammstein fashion, by bloodily shooting them in the face. Rammstein purposefully chose Mittelbau-Dora concentration camp, Nordhausen for this scene for several reasons. Over 350 inmates were hanged and up to 20,000 more were worked to death to build Wernher von Braun’s V-2 rockets. In a great injustice, von Braun never saw justice as he was one of many Nazi scientists taken to the US to work on the rocket project and was never brought to trial for mass murder. 

     In ‘Deutschland’, Rammstein wanted to look at German history through a very particular lens. Despite the initial view that the song is nationalistic, ‘Deutschland’ instead paints German history as a grim and violent one. The Golden Age of Weimar is replaced by political violence and brutality, Germany’s ‘origin’ of defeating the Romans is shown as a gruesome affair and past intolerances are linked to contemporary ones. As witches are being burnt at the stake the Nazis are burning books. Curiously, for a song about German history, the events depicted do not show any recognisable historic figures: Honecker and van Braun somewhat appear through parody, and Karl Marx appears via the giant head which can be found in Chemnitz. Otto von Bismarck, Frederick the Great, Martin Luther, Hitler, and even Arminius are absent. This links us back to Rammstein creating an ‘anti-patriotic’ song, and their own politics. German history is presented as being driven by the masses where the ‘Great Men’ become great only thanks to the agency of the people. The band further tries to highlight a marginalised history of Germany. Germania is represented by an Afro-German woman; Lindemann at one time plays a beaten political prisoner, and the band become Jews and homosexuals being persecuted by the Nazis, who later get violent retribution. Rammstein’s own politics and contemporary issues impact why this version of German history is created.

     History does not exist in a vacuum; it is constantly shaped by future generations to fit new narratives or ideas. Rammstein’s version of history is one part of this constant rewrite of history and is a direct critique of rising xenophobic nationalism in Germany. The band have been very open about their own politics and opposition to fascism; in a 2011 interview with Rolling Stone Lindemann said that he is a socialist and that ‘We used to be either punks or goths – We hate Nazis!’. This is highlighted by their song ‘Links 2,3,4,’ which is a direct reference to the labour movement song Einheitsfrontlied. The far-right has seen a resurgence in Germany over the last decade – the rise of Pegida and the AfD shows that, despite the trauma of Nazism, fascism is exploiting conditions in Germany. On 9 October 2019 a far-right Holocaust denier attacked a Turkish kebab shop and a synagogue in Halle. It is against this backdrop that Rammstein re-evaluates Germany’s history. Rammstein tries to argue that German history is full of darkness which nationalists overlook:

Deutschland, deine Liebe, Ist Fluch und Segen, Deutschland, meine Liebe, Kann ich dir nicht geben, Deutschland! (Germany, your love is a curse and a blessing, Germany my love I cannot give you, Germany!). 

   ‘Deutschland’ becomes a way to fight the rising far-right through its lyrics and its symbolism, and it is no coincidence that an Afro-German actress is purposefully chosen to represent Germania. In a Germany where resurgent fascism attacks anything that is not white, Christian, or cis-heterosexuality, Rammstein aims to directly challenge this.

     However, by making this statement it links back to German cultural memory and what is missing from this history loudly echoes in the video. Antisemitism was rife throughout European history and Germany is one of the many countries to have a long, sordid history of persecution. This ranges from the pogroms during the People’s Crusade to the state-sponsored antisemitism during Bismarck’s Kulturkampf, however, German antisemitism is boiled down to just the Nazi camps. The Holocaust did not simply start with the rounding up of Jews and other so-called untermenschen into camps; it instead built on years of intolerance towards those marginalised in society. This has been a constant tension in German cultural memory; while Germany has started coming to terms with the horrors of the Holocaust there has been little state sponsored memory of pre-Nazi antisemitism. Berlin’s Tiergarten still boasts a large statue honouring Bismarck despite his anti-Jewish and anti-Catholic policies. The inclusion of an Afro-German Germania also raises these issues. Germany’s black population, and its history in colonialism, have regularly been overshadowed by other narratives of trauma. In 1904, the German empire enacted the first genocide of the twentieth-century when, in Namibia, over 100,000 Herero, Nama, and San were murdered by colonial forces. Furthermore, the Nazi sterilisation of the so-called ‘Rhineland Bastards’, mixed-race children born by colonial French and even German troops, has been forgotten in cultural memory of Nazi eugenics. As cultural memory is blind to empire and colonialism, so is Rammstein’s ‘Deutschland’.

     Finally, controversy sparked up when Rammstein released the teaser for the video. This was partially expected thanks to the band’s long history of controversy; BDSM imagery in their concerts has created hysteria, in 1998 during a concert in Massachusetts they threw a dildo into the crowd, and in July 2019 they kissed on stage during a St. Petersburg concert to protest Putin’s homophobic laws. The particular scene they chose to release was the one set in Mittelbau-Dora which caused accusations of antisemitism for trivialising the Holocaust. When the context of the scene was revealed these accusations were retracted, but Felix Klein, Germany’s commissioner for antisemitism, stated it best; that it was ‘a tasteless expression of artistic freedom’. Rammstein could have used any scene from the video; after all, the violence in each scene could have generated the wanted publicity, but instead they chose to use images of genocide to do this. Although Rammstein are firmly against fascism and anti-Semitism, their willingness to use the trauma of the Holocaust shows that cultural memory does not touch everyone equally. While the Holocaust is, and should be, remembered as a horrific event, even in Germany it can still be used as a cynical way to garner publicity. This is at the expense of the 16 million Jews, Roma, Slavs, and other ‘undesirables’ who perished under Nazi rule.

    To conclude, Rammstein’s ‘Deutschland’ offers an interesting snapshot into how history, memory, and contemporary politics comes into play. History and memory are always being shaped by those in the present, and ‘Deutschland’ shows how it can be used to fight resurgent intolerance in society. It also shows how it can be manipulated for publicity. To quote Rammstein, ‘Germany, your breath cold, so young, and yet so old, Germany, your love is a curse and a blessing’.

Image: Single cover of ‘Deustchland’.

Bibliography

Rammstein, ‘Deutschland’, YouTube, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NeQM1c-XCDc, (28/03/2019), [Accessed 13/10/2019].

‘Rammstein video: German rock band causes outrage with Nazi clip’, BBC News, bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-47745071, (29/03/2019), [Accessed 13/10/2019].

‘Rolling Stone: Exclusive Interview with Till Lindemann and Flake Lorenz’, Rammstein Press, https://www.rammsteinpress.com/2014/04/02/rolling-stone-exclusive-interview-with-till-lindemann-and-flake-lorenz/, (02/04/2014), [Accessed 13/10/2019].

Cesarani, David. Final Solution: The Fate of the Jews, 1933-1945, (London: 2015).

Fulbrook, Mary. A Concise History of Germany, Second Edition, (Cambridge: 2004).

Hobsbawm, Eric. The Age of Capital, 1848-1875, (London: 1975).

Judt, Tony. Postwar: A History of Europe since 1945, (London: 2010).

Stone, Dan. Histories of the Holocaust, (Oxford: 2010).

World History: Nationalism

Germania, the symbol of German nationalism

Through many of our recent World History posts, we have a list down below, the topic of nationalism has crept up repeatedly. Nationalism has evolved and changed over the years, and differs greatly where you like at it - German nationalism in 1870 will look very different from Indian nationalism in 1900. In this post today we're looking at the forms of nationalism which emerged in the 1800s until the early-1900s; during this period states in Europe, the Americas, and Asia began a drive to forge the idea of a nation state. Today we will look at these varieties, and how they evolved from largely minority pressure groups to widespread movements. 

Imagined Communities

One of the most influential works on the evolution of nationalism and the forging of 'nations' is Imagined Communities (1982) by Benedict Anderson. Of course, Anderson's theory does fall into universalising nationalism across the world, and when we look at nationalism and decolonisation in the future we will definitely see this with African nationalism. The basis of Anderson's theory is that nations - a state encompassing of a people sharing the same identity - are 'imagined communities'. Practically, nothing connects a labourer in Calais to an artist in Paris, but they can feel connected thanks to the idea of a nation - this connection is imaginary forming an imaginary community. Anderson explains the nation with three terms: limited, sovereign, and community. There are issues with this, different regions experienced different and evolving versions of nationalism which didn't fit into Anderson's model. Anderson argues that the nation is limited as 'no nation imagines itself as coterminus with mankind'; sovereign as it is not divinely-ordained and controlled by an absolute monarch claiming divine rule; and community, the perception that it is a horizontal comradeship, 'not so much to kill, as willingly to die for such limited imaginings'. In particular, selective readings of history, national anthems, statues, military conscription, and shared language are often used to forge this imagined community. Anderson writes that we imagine the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier without issue, but we have difficulty imaging the 'Tomb of the Liberal' or 'Tomb of the Marxist'. 

The Rise of Nationalism

Forms of nationalism have existed for centuries before the 1800s, Eric Hobsbawm described this as 'proto-nationalism'. Many of them were based on religious identity, for example the Russian tsars tried to portray Russia as 'Holy Russia' where the 'Russky' became interchangeable with 'krestianin-christianin' (peasant-Christian). Even earlier the Jewish Revolt against Roman rule began thanks to Roman persecution of Jews. The Jews of Palestine, based on their religious identity, saw themselves as a community against an alternate community trying to destroy their way of life. Furthermore, several states had what can be described as a 'homogeneous population' leading to some form of national identity. It should be noted that none of these cases were truly homogeneous, even in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries so-called 'homogeneous nations' are not in fact that homogeneous. The ancient Greeks used 'barbaroi' to describe non-Greek speakers and China regularly referred to non-Han peoples as barbarians. As we saw when we looked at racism, Ming China had the book Luochong Lu which tried to catalogue 'naked creatures'; in reality this othered non-Han peoples. Japanese were described as 'dwarf bandits', and Huns as having different 'breeds'. In Europe the French Revolution inspired the rise of modern nationalism across Europe. With the emphasis on rationality and the guillotining of the French monarch French nationalism took two forms. The first, was that the French borders were wrong being based on arbitrary and irrational lines drawn by dynastic negotiations. They argued, instead, that the French borders should be 'natural' being based on mountains and rivers. At the same time, French nationalism could be inclusive. Enlightenment ideas of universal liberty made many French Revolutionaries to open nationhood to people previously not viewed as French. If you could speak French then you became French, but, on the other hand, the French state (even to this day) instituted rigid French linguistic uniformity. Dialects were discouraged in favour of the French spoke in Paris. 

One of the major reasons why nationalism emerged was the othering of different communities. The French Revolution spread across Europe, and later Napoleon continued the revolutionary trend. While supporters of the revolution implemented the reforms of the revolutionaries, opponents became solidified in their opposition to French occupation. Napoleon planted his family members and close allies on the thrones of various European states which inflamed local elites, and local peoples became enraged by heavy-handed rule and forced conscription. After Napoleon's defeat local elites reversed reforms based on opposition to the French; a good example was the rise in antisemitism in Germany after Napoleon's defeat. French Revolutionaries had emancipated Jews, so Jewish emancipation became associated with the foreign French. Elsewhere, conflict and the other influenced the rise of nationalism. Misrule by British and Spanish Empires in the Americas led to their respective revolutions, and in Spanish America the fear of the subaltern influenced their revolutionary movements. Although Simon Bolivar had admiration for the Haitian Revolution it made others fearful, and elites became nationalists to oppose a possible subaltern revolutionary movement. This is seen in Mexico. The initial War of Independence was led by indigenous and mestizo communities, when they were crushed, and Spanish misrule continued, creole elites became nationalists.

From Elite to Mass Movements

Women in the swadeshi movement

Nationalist movements largely did not emerge as mass movements - instead it took years to develop. Miroslav Hroch identified three stages of the nationalist movement. These stages are far from universal, but they are useful to imagine the development of nationalism. The first, an elite movement looking at cultural and linguistic revival emerges. Elites begin thinking, what makes us different? Educated elites have easier access to histories and languages, as well as the ability to communicate with other intellectuals, and begin attempts to revive their culture. During the 1848 Revolutions Czech nationalists gathered in a Prague theatre, and leading Czech nationalist Frantisek Palacky joked that 'Gentlemen, if the roof collapsed on us now Czech nationalism would be destroyed'. The second, a minority starts to agitate for cultural revival and national emancipation. These were wide and varied in nature. In 1893 the Gaelic League in Ireland directly tied Irish independence, or Home Rule, to Gaelic restoration, and in 1886 the Can Vuong in Vietnam was made of scholars campaigning for restoration of Vietnamese traditions and the monarchy. The rise of readily available print media greatly influenced the development of nationalist movements - despite press censorship hundreds to thousands of nationalist papers were published. Italian nationalist Count Cavour after 1848 published Il Risorgimento to campaign for Italian independence, unification, and economic reforms. Finally, elite movements give way to mass movements which are the ones who bring about independence. The example of India is a good example of this. The Indian National Congress, formed 1885, quickly grew from an elite movement to one of the largest movements in history thanks to the swadeshi movement after 1918. A British officer reporting on the Egyptian Revolution in 1919 said 'Street boys, lower-class natives and seed vendors chanted songs in colloquial Egyptian which insulted British officials and called for the British to leave.' 

Forging a Nation

Disbanded Waverley by J. Pettie (1893)

As we have already mentioned, several ideas and imagery are used to help forge the idea of national communities. Thanks to the rise of capitalist press and media these images could be widely distributed so two individuals on the other side of a state could view themselves as being part of a nation. A key part of this is language. Post-revolutionary France tried to enforce a strict form of the language to silence regional, or possibly separatist, languages in Normandy, Brittany, and Corsica. For 'nationalities without nations' language revival became a way to unite disparate peoples. The Irish Gaelic League was a good example - Irish nationalists united around learning their language which had been ruthlessly suppressed by the British state. Romanticism of individuals and histories was integral to nationalism. Scottish revivalism, not full nationalism, relied on the romanticism of the Highlands and Jacobites - kilts, Gallic, and tartan had been previously banned and limited to the Highland Scots. In the late-eighteenth century and early-nineteenth century Scottish writers reinvented these images to be universal to all of Scotland. Walter Scott is a good example whose novels like Waverley (1814) and Rob Roy (1817) romanticised the Scottish past to turn it to a point of pride. In the 1880s and 1890s Japan romanticised the samurai as noble warriors honouring bushido as a way for Japan to find a unified past, despite the fact that the samurai for two hundred years were bureaucrats and had been demonised just twenty years prior. Figures, both alive and dead, became integral to national identity. Uniting several South American countries was Simon Bolivar, who helped lead them to independence, and after his death his image was used to unite Latin Americans. Despite his dream of a united Gran Colombia territorial nationalism broke the state apart and Bolivar became despised, but with his death and the uncertainty of the future the several states banded together over his image. While still living Giuseppe Garibaldi became the romantic image for Italy. A key figure in the 1848 Revolutions, a dashing fighter in Latin America, a romantic marriage with Brazilian revolutionary Anita Garibaldi, and a humble image of being a farmer he was perfect to unite Italian nationalists. His landing in Sicily in 1860 to begin the fight to unite Italy had become central to Italian nationalism despite the fact that he would only land when he was sure that the expedition had little chance of failure. 

Women were integral to nationalism, despite being subjected to intense misogyny. It is in the nineteenth-century that ideas of the 'Motherland' came into being, and Spain and Latin America started using patria. This means 'homeland' but is a feminine word. The nation was seen as birthing the people, so patriots were seen as honouring the mother. This was not the case everywhere - Germany specifically used 'Fatherland' and Japan made the emperor as the fatherly figurehead of the nation. Furthermore, women became the symbols of nations - quite ironic considering many nations barred women basic rights. Germany was represented by Germania, Britain by Britannia, France had Marianne, and India had Mother India. On the other hand, Mexico used women in a negative way to build national identity. When Hernan Cortes invaded Mexico in the 1520s he used an indigenous woman called Malintzin, (she was also called Malinche, Dona Marina and Marina), as his negotiator, translator, and sexual slave. After independence in the 1820s Mexican intellectuals portrayed Malintzin as the betrayer of the nation and a sexual seducer; this image lasts to this day although since the 1960s feminists have tried to challenge this view. This was done as Mexico tried to romanticise the pre-Conquest Aztec Empire - the Aztecs, in this narrative, only fell because of betrayal from a wilful woman. Finally, women were involved deeply in nationalist movements. We have already mentioned Anita Garibaldi, but there were many others. By looking at history from below we can see the importance of women. British officials in 1919 reported how Egyptian women were at the forefront of the anti-British protests, and several women were leaders in the anti-French resistance in Vietnam. Two peasant women, Co Bac and Co Giang, even led peasant resistance in 1873.

German and Italian Unification

Giuseppe Garibaldi

We're going to quickly look over some various forms of nationalism as a case study. Germany and Italy largely represent 'nationalism from above' or uniting historical regions. Italian and German nationalism had long been divided, and had been dominated by foreign powers. Germany was divided between two major power blocks - Prussia in the north and Habsburg Austria in the south. Meanwhile, Italian states were subjected to division by other European states - most notably the Spanish, French, and Austrians. Nationalist movements had largely been limited to elites, albeit progressive elites like Giuseppe Mazzini who founded the Young Italy movement in 1841. The Revolutions of 1848 sparked the first attempts to unify the two nations, but both failed. The Frankfurt Assembly collapsed over the issue of non-Germans (Palacky famously rejected the Czech invitation to the Assembly), and other whether to include Austria in a future Germany (Grossdeutschland) or not (Kleindeutschland). The Italians, including Mazzini's and Garibaldi's attempts to form the Roman Republic, were soon crushed by conservative monarchs and the Austrians. From 1848 nationalism became a firmly elite and top-down movement. Mazzini's attempts to foster uprisings were collapsed and the German National League reached only 25,000 members. Instead local conservative leaders began using nationalism to disrupt popular movements. Prussia used an economic quasi-union called the Zollverein to attempt to unite the economies of the various German states, and Count Cavour, the Piedmontese prime minister, began a series of reforms making it the strongest of the Italian states. When Austria became isolated following the Crimean War Cavour sought an alliance with Napoleon III of France to oust the Austrians. When Garibaldi led his anti-Bourbon revolt in Sicily Cavour managed to secure control over him to prevent mass movements when nationalists started flocking to Garibaldi. In 1861 enough of Italy was under Piedmontese control that the King of Italy was declared, and when Austria and France were defeated by the Prussians over the 1860s they used it to seize control the rest of the peninsular. Otto von Bismarck became Prussian chancellor in 1862 and he started building up the Prussian army to dominate Central Europe. Nationalists debated which state German unification should happen under - Protestant Prussia or Catholic Austria. Through a series of wars Bismarck defeated the Austrians and French crowning the Prussian king as the German Emperor in 1870.

Nationalism did not end with unification in 1861 and 1870. Italy remained deeply divided on regional lines with Venice, Sicily, Sardinia, and the south remaining culturally different to the north. The south in particular remained poor and distant from the centre of power in the north, and the veneration of Mazzini, Cavour, and Garibaldi we see in the north does not exist in the south. This was similar in Germany. The newly founded empire was dominated by Prussia, and Catholic regions remained disgruntled over unification. Bavaria disliked Prussian political domination as well as Protestant domination over the largely Catholic region. This was made worse by Bismarck's Kulturkampf. Some parts nationalist policy, some parts over power the Kulturkampf aimed to limit the power of the Catholic Church in the German state. Bismarck was keen to make Germany a Protestant power, so the power of the Church had to be curbed - enraging the Bavarians. Furthermore, with the Kulturkampf Bismarck whipped up antisemitism to build German nationalism. As racial thinking made Judaism a race Jews were seen as aliens polluting Germany. Jews, Roma, and Poles were seen as infecting the German nation, and would therefore be seen as potential subversives. 

Zionism

Theodor Herzl

This is a curious form of nationalism as it was a nationalism among a diaspora. Religious Zionism had existed for centuries, but political Zionism is a much more recent identity - in contemporary Israel there is a sect of Zionists who oppose Israel for being made by secular forces and not the divine. Modern Zionism has been seen as originating with Theodor Herzl whose pamphlet Der Judenstaat is seen as popularising Zionism. Herzl was inspired by the rise of antisemitism in Central Europe, and the Jewish Enlightenment reinvigorating Jewish culture. The premise of Zionism was that Jews had to build their own state in Palestine, they had to recreate the old state of Israel. Initially, Zionism was not widely received among Jews. For one, Herzl only managed to communicate with Jews in Western and Central Europe - Jews in Eastern Europe, the Americas, Egypt, Ethiopia, and Palestine were largely disinterested at this moment in time. There were also the issues of the Jewish community being a diaspora. Unlike the Indian or Irish diaspora who had recent contacts with the 'homeland', the Jewish community had not been united for almost two thousand years creating a very diverse community. In Western and Central Europe Jews spoke national languages and only spoke Hebrew in prayer - Prague's Jews spoke German, and sometimes Czech, day to day. In Eastern Europe Yiddish was more widely spoken. Especially in Germany and France, to Herzl's anger, most Jews disliked the idea of Zionism as they saw themselves as citizens of the nations they lived in. There was also a major issue - people, including Jews, already lived there. What made Zionism a popular movement was the Dreyfus Affair, which we discussed when we looked at racism. As Dreyfus was an Alsatian Jew he was seen as the perfect scapegoat, and a natural traitor. France, thanks to the legacy of the French Revolution, had been seen as a country safe for Jews, but the Dreyfus Affair shattered this view. A view emerged that Jews needed their own state to be safe from persecution.

Indian Nationalism

Elphinstone College

We will look in greater detail at Indian independence movements when we look at decolonisation, but we will make a start here. In order to better run their administration the British started opening educational institutions, like Elphinstone College, to raise a new generation of administrators. By doing so it exposed elite Indians to liberal and nationalist writings from across the world - ranging from Japanese reformers to John Stuart Mills. Figures like Dadabhai Naoroji, who taught for Elphinstone, would use this to criticise British misrule. His 'drain theory' criticised Britain for draining the wealth from India to profit the UK. However, the main nationalists were those who wanted to reform religion - such as improving the rights of women, ending child marriage, and challenging caste. As a result, Indian nationalism largely became divided along the lines of religion thanks to this. Syed Ahmad Khan's Aligarh University aimed to reform Indian Islam which resulted in the creation of the Muslim League in 1906. Meanwhile, elite Hindu reformers formed the Indian National Congress in 1885. Under Mahatma Gandhi and Jawaharlal Nehru the Congress would become a much larger movement not specifically for Hindus, but the legacy of this would cut deep. The nationalist movement became divided about what the language should be - sectarian splits meant that Hindus chose Hindi and Muslims Urdu. Today, India's main national language is Hindi and Pakistan Urdu.

Conclusion

Nationalism was one of the key driving movements in the 1800s - only socialism or industrial capitalism can possibly rival it. It shook up the world, and set the stage for more destructive forms of nationalism of the twentieth century. Most importantly, looking at nationalism explains why we have to study history. History and imagery is regularly used, or misused, to construct national identities, but this could be to the detriment of marginalised groups. For example, today in Britain Winston Churchill has been vaulted as a national symbol despite his genocide in Bengal - this paints an image that British Indian experiences are less important than nation building. These debates occurred in the 1800s and still are relevant today.

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Eric Hobsbawm, The Age of Empire, 1875-1914, (London: 1987)

-Kumari Jayawardena, Feminism and Nationalism in the Third World, (London: 1986)

-Liah Greenfeld, Nationalism:Five Roads to Modernity, (Cambridge, MA: 1992)

-Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities, (London: 1983)

-Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and Nationalism since 1780: Programme, Myth, Reality, (Cambridge: 1990)

-Sumit Sarkar, Modern India, 1885-1947, (London: 1983)

-Mary Fulbrook, (ed.), German History since 1800, (New York, NY: 1997)

-Stuart Woolf, (ed.), Nationalism in Europe, 1815 to the Present, (London: 1996)

-Christopher Duggan, The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy since 1796, (London: 2007)

Thank you for reading. Our next World History post will look at feminism, and for other World History posts we have a list here. For other posts please see our Facebook or catch me on Twitter @LewisTwiby.

Left-Wing and The 'Other' History: Introduction and The Spartacist Uprising

A Spartacist militia in Berlin during the Uprising

This is a new series which I have wanted to do for a long time. I have a great interest in the far-left and looking at history from below - present-day subaltern studies has its origins with the Marxist Antonio Gramsci so there is some overlap. Just like World History we will be looking at and explaining the history of the Left including individuals, movements, events, books, and ideas. However, I also want to look at the history of 'The Other': groups marginalised in society and how they managed to find their voice, or survive in human history. As my own speciality is 'early modern' and 'modern' history - and modern Left/Right concepts are just over two hundred years old - we will mostly look at history since the 1600s. To also avoid confusion I will delineate between which posts cover Left-wing history, 'the Other', or both. This post will look at Left-wing history.

As of writing, it has just been the centenary of the Spartacist Uprising. Coming at the end of the First World War as various socialist and working-class revolts broke out in Germany, partially inspired by the Russian Revolution, and the Spartacists led one in Berlin. Led by the ideas of Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht, among others, the Spartacists hope to bring socialism to Germany, but they were crushed by the Freikorps - a far-right militia allied to the newly formed government. 

Luxemburg and Liebknecht

Rosa Luxemburg

Rosa Luxemburg is perhaps one of the best known German Marxist thinkers since the death of Marx and Engels themselves. She has been celebrated by individuals across the world and history: in 2003 Dr Zweledinga Pallo Jordan of the ANC in South Africa quoted her when commemorating the murder of anti-Apartheid activist Chris Hani; the People's Republic of China has hosted several international conferences on her; and Dr Sobhanlal Datta of the University of Calcutta has broken from traditional Indian leftism to honour Luxemburg. Born in 1871 in Zamosc, Russian Poland to Jewish parents growing up speaking Yiddish, and her liberal and well-read parents ensured that she got a good education. Most likely thanks to intense antisemitism in 1874 the family moved to Warsaw where the anonymity of a city could offer Jews some measure of safety. However, thanks to antisemitism they lived close to the former Jewish quarter and started making themselves appear 'less Jewish': the parents started 'assimilating' at a faster rate, began speaking less Yiddish, and started wearing clothes from Western Europe. Many other Jewish families also began this process. At the age of ten she managed to enter the Russian Second Gymnasium for Girls in spite of the harder entrance exams which Jews had to take. Quoting Paul Frolich she had to face the triple 'yoke of oppression': a Jew facing antisemitism, the shackles of tsarism, and living in Poland facing Russian imperialism. Furthermore, society was very patriarchal adding a fourth form of oppression. This installed in her a strong sense of oppression and justice, a poem she wrote stated: I want to burden the conscience of the affluent with all the suffering and all the hidden, bitter tears. In 1886, while still in school, she joined the Proletariat Party and even helped organise a strike, but the party was banned in 1887 so she continued at meetings in secret. With the young Rosa immersed in socialist politics the began a lifelong career of activism.

She would later move to Zurich to attend university there, obtaining a doctorate in Public Law and Political Science in 1898, where she became immersed in Marxist literature. Many Marxists and socialists had fled, or were exiled, to Switzerland, including Georgi Plekhanov, an individual whom Lenin credited with helping form Russian socialism. As a result, it was very easy for Luxemburg to come into contact with far-left theories, and she soon became noted for her strong criticisms of not only capitalism but also fellow Marxists. Her criticism of Lenin's What is to be Done? (1902) found its roots in her time criticising other Marxists. While in Zurich she wrote consistently for the German journal Die Neue Zeit and helped form the Social Democracy of the Kingdom of Poland and Lithuania (SDKPiL) with fellow expatriate (and lover) Leo Jogiches. Luxemburg had Germany on her mind. Europe's continental political and economic powerhouse with a strong labour movement, despite the attempts to crush it by Otto von Bismarck. The Social-Democratic Party of Germany (SPD) was one of the largest parties in Europe with a million members, and, quoting J.P. Nettl, 'German trade unionism was the creature of the political party'. By 1898 Germany was attracting Marxists from across Europe, however, Rosa faced discrimination: a woman, a Polish Jew, short, and she walked with a limp. She had to fight hard to be respected in the SPD's ranks and managed to become one of the party's main thinkers. Her speeches won her respect from miners and workers at Konigshutte, Katscher, and Gleiwitz, and her later speeches attracted mass crowds in 1905 and 1914.

Karl Liebknecht

Karl Liebknecht is often overlooked when discussing the Spartacists, largely thanks to the presence of Luxemburg: she had to overcome so much more, wrote much more, and was very active in working-class strikes stemming from her time in school. Nevertheless, Liebknecht was highly influential in the German Marxist movement. Born to one of the SPD's founders, Wilhelm Liebknecht, in 1871 he grew up heavily influenced by Marxist theory. The SPD was regularly under attack from conservative governments and was actually banned, and Wilhelm had taken part in the failed Frankfurt Assembly during the 1848 Revolution. Like his father Karl started exposing Marxist ideas when he started studying law and political economy at Leipzig and Humboldt University in Berlin. Eventually, in 1897, he earned his doctorate from Wurzburg becoming a lawyer with his brother when they moved to Berlin in 1899. Karl proved essential to the German Marxist movement defending fellow SPD members in court when they were charged for translating and exporting leftist material to Russia. He was also active in the international left-wing movement. One reason why Karl was so eager to defend SPD members for sending Marxist literature to Russia was due to him also sending the literature. Karl got involved in the Second International, an attempt to unite labour and Marxist movements, and helped found the Socialist Youth International.

The German Left before 1917

SPD activists in 1919

To understand the Spartacists we have to understand how the German Left functioned before they were formed. When the SPD first entered the German Reichstag it already terrified the ruling classes - revolutionary language evoked imagery of 1848 and SPD co-founder August Bebel in 1871 openly praised the Paris Commune in the Reichstag. Russian anarchists assassinated Tsar Alexander II in 1881 which made the radical Left seem much more than utopian idealists speaking revolution with no intention of bringing it about. Originally, Bismarck's anti-socialist bill was rejected by other parties, but an attempt on the life of the German emperor ensured a bill was passed by 221 votes to 149. Despite officially banning socialist parties and meetings the movement continued on - as did Catholic meetings who also faced persecution under Bismarck's rule - and thrived underground. Although the socialist vote dropped from 493,000 in 1877 to 312,000 in 1880 it soon rose again to 550,000 in 1884. Socialism's emancipatory rhetoric also attracted minorities - such as Jews and Poles - but the SPD largely remained Christian German dominated. Being driven underground had made the SPD a well-organised, mass party and the envy of the international Left - the socialists were so popular that Bismarck had to plant the seeds of today's welfare state in order to try and undercut them. Nevertheless, German working-class agitation remained strong and this would be essential in years to come. Meanwhile, the SPD remained divided between radicals and moderates, as well as between Germans and non-Germans. 

Clara Zetkin (left) and Rosa Luxemburg (right) in 1910

Among the radicals included Luxemburg, Liebknecht, and Clara Zetkin. In 1907 Liebknecht published his best known work, Militarism and Anti-Militarism, where he argued that war is used to profit the capitalist classes so by maintaining the military it retains their power, and the harsh actions against dissenting soldiers and anti-war activists are related to the threat to this power. Due to this he was imprisoned - thanks to Bismarck German nationalism placed much emphasis on the military - and was actually elected to the Reichstag while still in prison. Luxemburg, meanwhile, wrote extensively on the need to support mass strikes, and how Marxists (and the SPD) should not abandon revolutionary struggle as advocated by Eduard Bernstein in Reform or Revolution (1899). Due to alienation thanks to her being a Jewish woman from Poland Luxemburg had to fight to be heard, and formed close friendships with fellow Marxist women including Zetkin, Sonya Liebknecht, and Luise Kautsky - the wife of the SPD's chief theoretician Karl Kautsky whom Rosa often clashed with. Fearing marginalisation in a male dominated party Luxemburg and Zetkin spoke little on 'the women question' - women's suffrage - but they made their viewpoint clear: the current suffrage movement sidelined working-class women. In a 1912 speech she urged class and gender to come together, 'Fighting for women's suffrage, we will also hasten the coming hour when the present society falls in ruins under the hammer strokes of the revolutionary proletariat.' Luxemburg is particularly known for her critiques of what would become Marxism-Leninism - in her view Lenin's advocacy of a vanguard party leading the working-class was the antithesis of a proletariat revolution. While in prison (later published in 1922) she wrote that 'the rule of the Bolsheviks in Russia is a distorted expression of the dictatorship of the proletariat.' Although Lars Lih has argued that Luxemburg never actually read What is to be Done? her writings regardless shows her idea of what a socialist state should be compared to Lenin's: less focus on centralised leadership in favour of a classless democracy. 

Freedom only for the supporters of the government, only for the members of one party – however numerous they may be – is no freedom at all. Freedom is always and exclusively freedom for the one who thinks differently. Not because of any fanatical concept of "justice" but because all that is instructive, wholesome and purifying in political freedom depends on this essential characteristic, and its effectiveness vanishes when "freedom" becomes a special privilege... But socialist democracy is not something which begins only in the promised land after the foundations of socialist economy are created; it does not come as some sort of Christmas present for the worthy people who, in the interim, have loyally supported a handful of socialist dictators. Socialist democracy begins simultaneously with the beginnings of the destruction of class rule and of the construction of socialism.

In 1914 the First World War broke out and it divided the German Left as it did elsewhere. Despite the Second International opposing the war - seeing it as a war between empires costing the lives of the working-class - the SPD voted in support of war bonds. Radical members abstained and despite also abstaining Karl Kautsky angered radicals by suggesting that, although deplorable, the war was a defensive one against tsarist Russia. Ten months later he changed his mind, but his initial stance offered a mark against his name. With the SPD even suggesting that it would prevent strikes Luxemburg came close to suicide feeling that all her ideas had been prevented from occurring. Using his position in the Reichstag Liebknecht virulently denounced the war effort. Opposing the war Liebknecht, Luxemburg, Zetkin, and Franz Mehring formed Die Internationale to push back against the support for the war in August which evolved into the Spartacist League in January 1916. The Spartacists were named after the famed Roman gladiator 'Spartacus' who led a slave uprising. Both Die Internationale and the Spartacists were made illegal for their criticisms of the war in pamphlets signed off as 'Spartacus' or 'Junius' (for Luxemburg) after a founder of the Roman Republic. The German government ignored its own laws about preventing politicians from conscription by sending Liebknecht to the eastern front for his criticisms. He refused to fight, opting to bury bodies, and was soon removed from the front due to ill health. The SPD kept its words - strikes were prevented, but it really did not need to do so, the war was genuinely popular in the early years. Radicals did protest the war resulting in their imprisonment - while in prison Liebknecht and Luxemburg wrote some of their best work. Despite this, the Spartacist League continued underground and aligned with the Independent Social Democratic Party (USPD) who were pacifists, like Hugo Haase, angered by the SPD's continued support of the war so split in 1917. Then in November 1917 the Bolsheviks took power in Russia which would change everything.

The November Revolutions

An image of sailors during the Kiel Mutiny

Although the November Revolution in Russia soon devolved into a brutal Civil War it offered a symbol: one of hope for the downtrodden, one of despair for the ruling classes. At the same time the war was going badly for Germany: thousands had died fighting with little results to show for it, rationing was constricting everyday life, and the British blockade was preventing the importation of much needed food and medical supplies. The Spanish Influenza epidemic was so severe in Germany as rationing and the blockade weakened immune systems the flu turned extremely deadly. As support for the government dropped Spartacist and USPD pamphlets started to get a larger audience. A conference on 7 October 1918 called for an end to the compulsory labour laws, release political prisoners, nationalise major industries, democratise the military, transfer food to workers, and annul war loans. Die Rote Fahne (The Red Flag) published an issue on 5 November 1918 which caused the Workers' and Soldiers' Council of Stuttgart demanding a peace obtained from a government ran by the proletariat. When Chancellor of Germany, Prince Maximilian of Baden in October issued an amnesty releasing political prisoners a crowd of workers supposedly led Liebknecht directly to the Soviet assembly. He immediately started advocating revolt, such as in a speech in November saying:

 Lay down your weapons, you soldiers at the front. Lay down your tools, you workers at home. Do not let yourselves be deceived any longer by your rulers, the lip patriots, and the munitions profiteers. Rise with power and seize the reins of government. Yours is the force. To you belongs the right to rule. Answer the call for freedom and win your own war for liberty.

The spark for revolt came from the navy. A naval order on October 24 ordered the navy to set sail to clash with the Royal Navy in the English Channel. On the night of October 29 sailors revolted at Schillig Roads, but on November 3 the larger Kiel Mutiny began. Mutinying sailors made alliances with the local unions, SPD, and USPD and took over Kiel. An SPD politician, Gustav Noske, was sent by the government (which was in the coalition) to take control of the mutiny, but he was welcomed regardless. Seeing that around 40,000 had took over Kiel revolt spread across Germany inspired by both Kiel and the Bolsheviks in Russia. Local princes fled as on November 7 and 8 workers' and soldiers' councils were established in Dresden, Leipzig, Chemnitz, Magdeburg, Brunswick, Frankfurt, Cologne, Duesseldorf, Hanover, Nuremburg, and Stuttgart. A socialist state was even declared in Bavaria under Kurt Eisner. Seeing his empire crumble around him Kaiser Wilhelm II fled and a fragile republic declared.

The Spartacist Uprising

At the end of December revolution was in the air and several leftist politicians and societies formed the Communist Party (KPD). The SPD was in power under Friedrich Ebert who became Germany's first president, and he was no radical. Ebert's politics were set very much against more radical socialism - he believed reform could bring about socialism. In the last few years Bernie Sanders (in the US) and Jeremy Corbyn (in the UK) have been described as representing Ebert's side of the SPD - it is an oversimplification but it is useful for a basic understanding. Emil Eichhorn, a USPD member, was dismissed as Chief of Police due to his support for Berlin radicals. The Prussian SPD (the state which Berlin belonged to) had issued a campaign in the papers calling for his dismissal beforehand. This made radicals fearful that the SPD would soon move against them. Eichhorn's successor, Eugen Ernst, after the Uprising said to the Manchester Guardian: a success of the Spartacists was a priori impossible; we forced them to resort to force prematurely because of our preparations. They had to fight before they were ready and therefore we were in a position to challenge them successfully. On Sunday 5 January a mass, and armed, demonstration protested outside the police headquarters at the Alexanderplatz, and occupation of SPD papers, including Vorwärts. Leaders of the Spartacists soon gathered at the Alexanderplatz and Liebknecht demanded a revolution, much to the disagreement of other leaders, including Luxemburg, who viewed a revolution as being premature due to the KPD only being recently formed. 

A Spartacist poster from 1919 - a Spartacist slays a hydre of Kapitalismus (capitalism), Junkertum (Junkers, Prussian landed nobility), and Neuer Militarismus (new militarism)

Liebknecht and several others the next day declared that the government was deposed by 'the representatives of the revolutionary socialist workers and soldiers (USPD and KPD)'. On January 7 the KPD and USPD called for a general strike, which attracted 500,000 participants, and key buildings were soon seized. The strike leaders, the Revolutionary Committee, remained divided between revolutionaries wanting the government deposed and reformers wanting to negotiate. The Committee soon found that the military, unlike in Kiel, remained loyal to the state and the KPD resigned in protest to the USPD inviting Ebert to negotiate. Soon enough the Uprising was soon crushed. In Vorwärts a flyer proudly declared 'The hour of reckoning is coming soon!' as the USPD started negotiating with Ebert. The SPD had made an alliance with the conservatives in Germany and struck an alliance with the Freikorps - this was a far-right paramilitary organisation made of veterans wanting revenge on those blamed on causing their defeat in the war. They disliked the SPD but loathed the communists. Many of their members would later fill up the ranks of the Nazis and their paramilitary force, the SA. Freikorps forces wiped out the Spartacists, and murdered Luxemburg and Liebknecht on January 15 - their bodies were dumped in the Landwehr Canal. The Spartacist Uprising had been crushed.

Legacy and Conclusion

Although the Spartacists were crushed socialist uprisings continued until 1920 where most were crushed by the SPD's alliance with the Freikorps. With the execution, exile, or imprisonment of the KPD's, and the success of Lenin, Marxist-Leninist's took over the party, although some of the older members remained like Clara Zetkin. The socialist uprisings were just one event which fed into the 'stab-in-the-back-myth' - Right-wing Germans argued that Germany didn't lose the war, subversives had stolen victory from them. Due to Jewish presence in the KPD anti-socialism and antisemitism came together with this myth. Despite the Spartacist defeat their legacy lives on - particularly with Luxemburg. Managing to become a driving force in a misogynistic, antisemitic, and ableist world earns respect, and her death at a young age (47) made her a martyr. Her ideas also offered valuable insight into democratic Marxism and intersectionality (between class and gender), and I would consider her one of the biggest contributors to my own politics. Today, at the sight where she was murdered there is a memorial to her (although sadly not Liebknecht), and there are streets in Berlin named after both - albeit that is thanks to the post-war East German state. Liebknecht's Militarism and Anti-Militarism found a new audience in 2003 with the Iraq War as what he wrote a century prior was still found to be true. Although the Spartacists were quickly crushed their legacy and ideas live on.

The Luxemburg Memorial in Berlin from when I visited in August 2018

The sources I have used are as follows:

-Eric Waldman, The Spartacist Uprising of 1919, and the Crisis of the German Socialist Movement: A Study of the Relation of Political Theory and Party Practice, (Milwaukee: Marquette University Press, 1958)

-Paul Le Blanc and Helen C. Scott, (eds.), Socialism or Barbarism: The Selected Writings of Rosa Luxemburg, (London: Pluto Press, 2010)

-William Carr, A History of Germany, 1815-1985, Third Edition, (London: Edward Arnold, 1987)

-Elzbieta Ettinger, Rosa Luxemburg: A Life, (London: Boston, 1987)

-J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, Vol. 1, (London: Oxford University Press, 1966)

- J.P. Nettl, Rosa Luxemburg, Vol. 2, (London: Oxford University Press, 1966)

-Karl Liebknecht, 'Call for Revolution', (1/11/1918), Marxists.org, [Accessed 10/01/2019]

-Rosa Luxemburg, Karl Liebknecht, Klara Zetkin and Franz Mehring, 'A Call to the Workers of the World', (25/11/1918), Marxists.org, [Accessed 10/01/2019]

-Karl Liebknecht, Militarism and Anti-Militarism, (Cambridge: Rivers Press Limited, 1973)

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