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The massive historiography dealing with the problem of Germany's development in the first half of twentieth century has been strongly influenced by the notion that certain peculiar national characteristics led Germany down a Sonderweq, or "special path," which diverged from that of other Western European nations. However, by helping to focus scholarly attention on various political, social and intellectual developments which took place in Germany in the nineteenth century, the Sonderweq thesis has distracted scholars from examining more closely the possible impact which the interplay of international relations had on Germany's development during this pivotal period. The present study examines the extent to which British foreign policy affected the growth of authoritarianism and the decline of liberalism in Prussia during the period 1848-1871, and how certain Intellectual currents in England at the time affected both the formulation and the expression of British policy regarding Prussia. By examining both the policies pursued by British statesmen at certain key points during the period 1848-1871, and the views expressed by a group of highly idealistic British liberal commentators who watched affairs in Prussia closely during this period, I have attempted to demonstrate the following: firstly, that existing interpretations of British policy regarding Prussia have overemphasized the role of liberal idealism in the calculations of British policy-makers, who appear instead to have consistently pursued pragmatic policies aimed at a Prussian-led unification of Germany; and secondly that it was this latter group of British commentators who provided policy-makers with a style of rhetoric which obfuscated the pragmatic considerations underlying British policy. Moreover, it was this same corpus of liberal, "Whig" commentary which laid the conceptual foundations for what was to become the standard interpretative approach to German history, particularly amongst Anglo-American historians writing since 1945 - the Sonderweq thesis. Thus, by separating the rhetoric from the actual practice of British policy, and by identifying the liberal biases which pervaded British liberal discourse on Prussia during this period, I have attempted to clarify Britain's role in the important developments taking place in Germany at this time, while broadening our appreciation of how and why subsequent scholarship on the German question has so readily embraced the notion that German history is "peculiar". / Arts, Faculty of / History, Department of / Graduate

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Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI) / The First World War was a long stalemated war in which millions of men fought and died. Many studies have looked at the reasons soldiers fought and stopped fighting. In this study, the perceptions that Belgian soldiers had of their enemy, Germany, are looked at. The Belgian army was stationed on a small part of the front at the coast, the last part of Belgium that is un-occupied. The war can be divided into three phases: the first phase is the invasion until the Germans were stopped, the second begins with the stalemate and the development of trench warfare on the Western Front, and the third and last phase is the pushing back of the Germans and final victory. In the first phase with the invasion and brutality of the Germans in Belgium, Belgian soldiers formed a view of Germans as barbarians, capable of anything. With the second phase the perceptions started to diverge among the men, depending on experience and surroundings of the soldiers; some get use to their new environment, old and new conflicts resurfaced, Germans faded into the background. On the other hand the war was still going on, violence of war was all around them, and brothers in arms were killed. In the third phase soldiers became enthusiastic again because of the prospect of being able to go home. With the ending of the war old grudges were not settled. The Peace treaty was not what was expected. A lot of memorials built at the time reflected views of Germany that very explicitly highlighted their perceived misbehavior, especially at the beginning on the war. Naturally this led to tensions between Belgium and Germany. Many Belgians never forgot what happened during the war, nor let go of their views that were formed.

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This thesis is an investigation of how United States foreign policy was made in the context of German-American relations in the period between the two world wars. The problem under investigation is whether the United States was using a corporatist approach in dealing with the problems of Germany and ultimately Europe and whether the corporatist model is a good one for analyzing foreign policy development during this period. Corporatism, as it is used in this thesis, is defined as an organizational form which recognizes privately organized functional groups outside the United States government, which collaborate with the government to share power and make policy. In the case of foreign policy, the focus of this investigation is on the role played by autonomous financial experts, especially from the banking community.