Politics

Burgfrieden

German for a "castle truce", the medieval rule that forbade quarrels inside the walls of a besieged castle. In 1914 it came to mean the political truce in which the parties of the Reichstag, including the Social Democrats, suspended their conflicts for the duration of the war.

Mentioned in

• Chapter II Thirty-Seven Days to War §9 Belgium, Britain and the Scrap of Paper, 2–4 August
• Chapter III The War of Movement §1 Mobilization: Trains, Horses and Millions
• Chapter XII The Home Fronts §1 Total War and the Rise of the State