sep 9, 1914 - Septemberprogramm

Description:

The Septemberprogramm was the plan for the territorial expansion of Imperial Germany, prepared for Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, at the beginning of World War I (1914–18). The Chancellor's private secretary, Kurt Riezler, drafted the Septemberprogramm on 9 September 1914, in the early days of the German attack in the west, when Germany expected to defeat France quickly and decisively. The extensive territorial conquests proposed in the Septemberprogramm required making vassal states of Belgium and France and seizing much of the Russian Empire. The Septemberprogramm was not affected because France withstood the initial German attack, and the war devolved into a trench-warfare stalemate, and ultimately ended in German defeat.