Michaela Scharf

The aim of the peace conferences held in the suburbs of Paris between January 1919 and August 1920 was to create a new international order.

The 1890s saw an increasing surge of the nationalities struggle and hence also of German nationalism. The national camp was boosted by the school dispute in Celje in 1895 and the language regulation for Bohemia and Moravia issued by Minister Presisdent Badeni in 1897.

Although the German National movement made only very slow progress in the 1870s, its significance increased in the following years, driven by the Alliance (Dual Alliance) concluded between the Habsburg Monarchy and the German Reich in 1879 and the pro-Slav policies of the Minister President Graf Eduard Taaffe.

The defeat of Austria by the Prussians at the Battle of Königgrätz in 1866 and the subsequent withdrawal of the Habsburg Monarchy from the German Federation led to a major regrouping within the German National camp.

The German National camp was made up of different competing groups and parties that referred to themselves, depending on ideological position, as "Greater German", "Pan-German", "Smaller German", "Nationalist", "German Nationalist", "German-Austrian" etc.

After the outbreak of the First World War, which the Christian Socials regarded as an unavoidable "war of atonement", there were high hopes of a rapid victory of the Central Powers and the preservation of the status quo.

Following the first general, equal, direct and secret Imperial Diet elections held in 1907, the Christian Socials entered the House of Deputies as the strongest party.

In the elections to the Imperial Diet of 1891, the Christian Socials emerged ahead of conservative-clerical groupings, making its first appearance as an autonomous political movement.

The beginnings of the Christian Social Party are to be found firstly in the Catholic Social Reform movement of a certain Freiherr Karl von Vogelsang, and secondly, in the Vienna small trades movement, whose aim was to maintain the competitiveness of small businesses against large-scale industry.

During the First World War, the mental mobilisation of the population reached an unprecedented level. Propagandist actions included the production and distribution of sound recordings broadcasting the encouraging words of the emperor and leading generals in the Imperial-Royal Army.