Politics and diplomacy
Union sacrée and Burgfrieden
The political truce proclaimed in August 1914: in France the 'sacred union' (union sacrée), in Germany the 'castle peace' (Burgfrieden). Parties, socialists included, backed the government for the duration.
On 4 August 1914 Prime Minister René Viviani read to parliament President Raymond Poincaré's message that France would be defended by all her sons, whose sacred union nothing would break. In late August Viviani's cabinet was broadened to include politicians of various camps, for the first time socialists among them. In Germany, also on 4 August, the Social Democrats voted for war credits in the Reichstag, and Wilhelm II declared that he no longer recognised parties.
The political truce did not last long. In Germany Karl Liebknecht voted against war credits as early as December 1914, and disputes over war aims and reform split the Social Democrats in 1917. In France the socialists left the government in September 1917.
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In the chronicle
(08)8 articles use this term.
1914