1.

CITATION: Enter the full citation below and include any page numbers if you are using books Make
sure you are using Chicago Style

Hirschfeld, Gerhard. “Germany | International Encyclopedia of the First World War (WW1).”
1914-1918-online.net, 2017. https://encyclopedia.1914-1918-online.net/article/germany.

2. SUMMARISE or PARAPHRASE the key ideas, opinions or facts that are relevant to your topic. (Make
sure that you don’t copy and paste, but put everything in your own words)

- German foreign policy changed in 1890

- began racing England and France to establish colonies
- established a strong naval fleet
- tension between Britain and Germany continued to increase, despite Germany clearly losing the naval
race in 1910
- by 1913 Germany was the leading global power in terms of exports, rich Germans believed they
deserved and empire to match their economic prowess
- some conservative politicians believed a European war was the only way for Germany to
establish colonies
- Germany had tension with France and Russia (allies)
- created Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary as a defence
- alliances lead to increasingly unstable political conditions in Europe

3. BIGGER PICTURE: what information will help you answer your question/thesis?

The background on Germany’s political state provides useful information pertaining to what drove their quest
for power to begin with.

4. EVALUATE THE AUTHOR who has written this, are they an expert? Why is their information
important? Good academic writing not only includes the evidence, but discusses the relevance of this
through the evaluation of the author.

The author of this article, Gerhard Hirschfeld, is a renowned German historian. He is a professor, author, and
expert in German history.

5. QUOTES only take one or two direct quotes which will add to your argument – if you can’t say it
better than the original, if there are facts or figures relevant.

“Bismarck had declared that Germany was territorially “satisfied”, but now the German Empire entered the
imperial race for colonies together with France and Great Britain…”

“...led the German bourgeois classes to believe that the Empire was more than entitled to an international
political standing in line with its economic power…”