The German Empire – also commonly known as Imperial Germany or the Second Reich – was founded in January 1871, when the south German states, with the notable exceptions of Austria, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, joined the Northern German Confederation. This changed the federal state to the German Empire and proclaimed King Wilhelm I of Prussia as the German Emperor.
Initially, its territory was contained to lands in Europe, but since the 1840s there had been a desire by some Germans for a colonial overseas empire. Although Chancellor Otto Von Bismarck, who orchestrated the unification of the German states, had expressed little interest in such colonies – seeing how it could bring Germany into conflict with the other great powers – the German people, and more importantly Kaiser Wilhelm II, desired a “place
