The political establishment in Germany succeeded in maintaining the status quo through a policy of moderate reform . How far do you agree with this assessment 1900-1914?

Other moderate reforms included seizing polish lands and in turn helping landless German peasants. The Imperial Insurance code introduced in 1911 consolidated all previous laws and passed laws in Alsace Lorraine giving them a two chamber parliament and universal suffrage.  These examples show that the German government aimed to keep status quo without introducing large scale reforms. This meant that sure that the workers were happier but did not have any greater democracy or voice. For  example, the constituencies remained unreformed from   1871 although this was mainly in conservative dominated areas but nevertheless  helped to maintain the status quo. Overall the workers were not given the opportunity to exert their influence or to even demand more changes since despite the SPD being the biggest party meaning the governments moderate reforms were extremely successful.

On the other hand the army was loyal to the Kaiser and was large enough to neutralise any possible uprisings by the peasants meaning that perhaps the reforms were unnecessary since people would have been afraid to go against the will of the Kaiser because of the army.  In turn this would reduce any demands thus maintaining the status quo. Furthermore since the Kaiser dominated German politics and society he can keep things the same however according to Chris Clark his main aim consisted of “increasing the political neutral middle ground and right thinking majority meaning that he would be unwilling to accept any reforms which would damage the dominant positions of the Junker ruling classes and in turn the middle ground / status quo.  The Kaisers power is emphasized by the fact that most socialist groups acted with great caution  and did not risk demanding any large scale reform , for example despite the SPD growing in strength and having 110 deputies in 1912, they acted to stop confrontation with the Kaiser which again, maintained the status quo.

Another argument is that status quo was in fact not entirely maintained. For example Some reforms may be considered more than moderate such as the annexations of land in Poland and some reforms in the south where some states such as Bavaria and Baden operating as more democratic than central states since there were direct elections meaning reform was only moderate in some areas.  Essentially the power of the Kaiser and the conservative politics as well as the military meant that these reforms essentially could not have led to any significant political change despite things improving in some areas.

In conclusion the political establishment in Germany did succeed in maintaining status quo most importantly through a series of moderate reform but a contributing factor was the strength and obedience of the army to the Kaiser and the strength of the current government although this was the least important factor. This means that although moderate reforms discouraged further reform by appeasing the peasants / working classes so as to make them unwilling to strive towards further reform, possible socialist uprisings were discouraged by the army. This combination maintained the status quo.