Dissertation: The lost intermediaries of 1870? Dynastic networks and international ambitions of the monarchs of Bavaria, Hesse-Darmstadt, and Saxe-Weimar-Eisenach in the period of the German Empire (1871-1918)
My thesis examines the international relations and ambitions of three German ruling houses in the period of the German Empire (1871-1918) and places the development of German federalism in a transnational context. It questions Paul W. Schroeder’s famous thesis that the international significance of the German states and their monarchs as intermediary bodies in the European states system became obsolete when they entered the German Empire and permanently allied themselves with Prussia in 1870. Schroeder asserts that, after their entry into the Empire, the German states and their crowned representatives lost their value as intermediaries for Austria, France, and Russia during international crises. But how valid is this assumption? Until now, there exists hardly any research, let alone a comparative study, that focuses on the international position of the Reich’s federal monarchies in the post-1870 era. Indeed, there is no study to confirm or refute Schroeder’s thesis based on archival sources. My thesis aims to fill this gap. In doing so, it contributes to recent strands of literature on transnational German history, modern monarchy, and the diplomacy of non-state actors and non-central governments.