Dreadnought, Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War

by Robert K. Massie

  Bismarck still was not satisfied: the link with Russia was still too weak. Tension in the Balkans continued to mount, with Russia and Austria usually in opposition to each other. The League of Three Emperors, renewed in 1884, was allowed to expire in 1887. Bismarck then negotiated his final diplomatic masterpiece: a secret treaty with Russia against his ally Austria. Called the Reinsurance Treaty, it was defensive and promised only neutrality, not military assistance, if either party were attacked (German neutrality if Austria attacked Russia, Russian neutrality if France attacked Germany). Despite this limitation, it violated, as Bismarck well knew, the trust, if not the wording, of Germany's treaty with Austria. Bismarck obviously insisted on secrecy. The new Tsar Alexander III was no less anxious to hide the existence of the Reinsurance Treaty. Himself a pan-Slav, he could predict the reaction of other pan-Slavs. Alexander signed the treaty only because it gave him a promise of German neutrality in case Austria provoked a war with Russia. Russia did not wish to fight Germany; certainly the Russian Army was not prepared to fight Germany and Austria together.

  The Bismarckian system was now in place, a network of interlocking alliances, carefully balanced and kept in order by the master diplomat in Berlin. In Holstein's metaphor, Bismarck was the ultimate railway yardmaster: "Our policy with its criss-cross of commitments… resembles the tangle of tracks at a big railway station," he wrote in 1887. "[Bismarck] thinks he can click everything into its proper place and hopes particularly that the greater the confusion, the more indispensable he is."

  Britain, the fifth of Europe's Great Powers, stood outside Bismarck's Continental system. This satisfied the Chancellor; he had no fear that England would engage itself in a Continental alliance which would upset his alignment of Germany a trois. Britain, he was convinced, never would enter into an alliance with Russia and the possibility of her siding with France seemed almost as unlikely. Nevertheless, before he signed the Austro-German Treaty of 1879, Bismarck considered offering England a German alliance. He proposed it to Benjamin Disraeli, Earl of Beaconsfield and British Prime Minister, one evening after dinner during the Congress of Berlin. Disraeli, surprised, said that he was favorably disposed, but needed time to prepare Parliament and British public opinion. After returning to London, Disraeli discussed the matter with Count Munster, the German Ambassador, who wrote to Bismarck, "I am convinced that he is sincere."

  When, in March 1880, Disraeli's Conservative government was replaced by a Liberal cabinet headed by W. E. Gladstone, talk of an alliance evaporated. Bismarck detested Gladstone. The Chancellor was always suspicious of the manner in which the English conducted diplomacy; its dependence on public opinion seemed to him absurd. When; Disraeli and Salisbury were in power, this nervousness was soothed; they were practical, conservative men who would find a way for realism to triumph. But Gladstone, a hero to German liberals, was a moralist who preached that conscience had a role in domestic politics and international affairs. The Chancellor referred to the Prime Minister as "Professor Gladstone" and "that big Utopian Babbler." Bismarck believed that Gladstonian morality, carried into diplomacy, led to murkiness, miscalculation, and bumbling, exemplified by England's confusion during the Gladstone years as to whether her enemy in the east was Russia or Turkey. To defend Turkey, England had stood against Russia in 1877 and at the Congress of Berlin. But in the 1880 election campaign which led to victory, Gladstone had passionately denounced the Turks for their atrocities against the Bulgarian Christians. Turks, Gladstone had thundered, were "that inhuman exception to the human race." Britain's swing back and forth on issues like this made it harder for Bismarck to maintain his delicately balanced European system.

  In addition, the Chancellor considered Gladstone's government indecisive and ineffective in the overseas policy which most concerned, Great Britain in the early 1880s: the occupation of Egypt. France!, whose history in Egypt encompassed Napoleon's disastrous campaign on the Nile and Ferdinand de Lesseps' triumphant building of the Suez Canal, refused to give up its claims in Egypt despite the British occupation. The ensuing situation, in which England was embroiled in colonial conflict with France, was precisely the kind of confrontation on which Bismarck's European system was based. England and France opposed each other; neither possessed an ally; one or both would turn to Germany for support.

  In September 1882, Herbert Bismarck arrived in London to establish contact with prominent Liberal politicians and attempt to discover Britain's ultimate purpose in Egypt. He was warmly received by British ministers and by London society; the Prince of Wales went out of his way to be cordial to the Chancellor's son and proposed him for honorary membership in the Marlborough Club.

  Herbert was invited by Lord Granville, the Liberal Foreign Secretary, to Walmer Castle, Granville's country seat, where the visitor spent several "very pleasant days discussing Egypt." Although Herbert said that annexation by Britain "would be compatible with German interests," Granville replied that England did not wish to possess Egypt and had not yet decided what to do. When the talk turned to alliances, Granville told Herbert: "England does not need an alliance with a European power and we do not pursue a policy of alliances. Even quite different circumstances than the present ones would never lead me to establish an alliance with a European Power." Wherever he went, Herbert received thanks for German support in Britain's Egyptian involvement. Sir William Harcourt, the Liberal Home Secretary, told Herbert, "We are uncommonly grateful to Prince Bismarck. Our being left a free hand in Egypt we owe… to Germany's good will. We are all aware that at a particular moment Prince Bismarck could have upset the coach if he had chosen to."

  Encouraged by the talks with Herbert Bismarck, the Gladstone Cabinet was astonished by the next twist in Anglo-German relations. The German Empire in 1883 had no colonies. Most of the desirable regions of the globe had been seized before the Empire was founded. Now, only marginal territories were left, in the barren regions of South Africa and in the South Seas.

  Believing that German security lay in a favorable balance of power in Europe, Bismarck had previously rejected all arguments in favor of colonies. Recognizing that a German drive for colonies could upset his carefully calibrated equilibrium, Bismarck had encouraged French colonialism to distract France's attention from Alsace-Lorraine. If Germany were to compete with France for colonies, French hostility towards the Reich would be violently restimulated. Nor did Bismarck have any desire to compete with England in the colonial sphere. The British and German empires were fundamentally different political organisms. One was a cluster of states in Central Europe, welded into a powerful Continental empire. The other was a global scattering of people and territories, knit together by trade and sea power, with limited influence in peacetime on the continent of Europe, but unchallengeable on the seas. German trade flourished under the protection of the British Fleet; if colonial competition led to war with England, every German colony would be gobbled up in the first few weeks.

  In the summer of 1884, to the bewilderment of British statesmen, Bismarck suddenly changed direction. For a short period, less than two years, colonies assumed importance and he wielded against England all the intimidating power of German diplomacy. Colonies were; the usual symbol of international prestige; Britain, France, and Russia-all weaker in Europe than Germany-had colonial empires: To some Germans, colonies were more than a matter of pride. German merchants, bankers, and entrepreneurs sought markets for their capital and products outside Europe; shipowners and trading firms in Hamburg and Bremen argued that colonies would provide markets for goods and sources of raw material. Yet wherever they looked, they found a French or British flag. In 1882, the German Colonial League (Kolonialverein) was formed to lobby, through the press and public opinion, for acquisition of German colonies. Newspaper editors, professors, industrialists, and middle-class Germans in general enthusiastically supported the movement. The clamor for colonics rose in the Reichstag, and the Imperial Chancellor yielded, not because of a shift in his private belief, but because he sa
w an opportunity to quiet the pan-Germans and the Colonial League by taking; advantage of Britain's weakness in Egypt. And so, in the summer of 1884, the price was named: German support of Britain's involvement in Egypt was to be paid for by British acquiescence in German colonial expansion.

  In the spring of 1883, a Bremen tobacco merchant, F.A.E. Luderitz, established a small factory and trading post at Angra Pequena, a coastal bay 150 miles north of the Orange River, which marked the northern boundary of Britain's Cape Colony. Seeing no Europeans about, Luderitz raised the German flag and, hoping for support, informed Berlin. The German government moved cautiously. In November, Count Minister, the German Ambassador in London, was instructed to ask whether Great Britain claimed to exercise sovereignty in that region. If the answer was yes, would Britain accept responsibility for protecting the lives and property of German subjects in the territory, thus exempting the Imperial Government from that obligation? The British government left the German inquiry unanswered for six months, first irritating, then infuriating Bismarck.

  The cause of the delay in London lay in procedure and personalities. The German inquiry, an official communication from one European state to another, was properly addressed to the Foreign Office, where it came to the desk of the Foreign Secretary, Lord Granville:. George Leveson-Gower, Second Earl Granville, was a gentleman who wished to give offense to no one. Although he was Leader of the Liberal Party in the House of Lords as well as Foreign Secretary, he was, in 1884, well past his prime. Nearly seventy, he suffered from severe gout, complained frequently that he had too much to do, and gave the impression to those around him that his memory was slipping. Granville, thus, was not a man to reach a quick decision. Furthermore, Granville and the British government had no idea that Bismarck was seriously interested in colonial expansion and considered the note merely a request to protect German settlers. The German Chancellor's public pronouncements had opposed German colonies; he had communicated nothing in private to correct them. Once Granville focussed on the matter, he wished to accommodate Count Munster, but his path was obstructed by bureaucracy. Within the British Cabinet colonial matters were decided at the Colonial Office. Granville, therefore, had to consult Lord Derby, the Colonial Secretary. Derby was not at liberty to make a decision, for he in turn was required to consult the self-governing Cape Colony in South Africa. London might have no objection to a German foothold on the west coast of southern Africa, but Cape Town might have a different view. Indeed, a delegation of South Africans had already told Lord Salisbury, "My Lord, we are told that the Germans are good neighbors, but we prefer no neighbors at all." Granville explained these intricacies to Munster, adding his "sincere regrets." Bismarck impatiently sent Herbert to see the Foreign Secretary. Again, Granville turned up his palms, pleading goodwill and asking for time: "Neither my colleagues nor I have the slightest intention of obstructing German colonial aspirations and I beg you to say so plainly to Prince Bismarck… If Germany pursues a colonial policy and opens barbarian lands to civilization and commerce we should rejoice at it… The only representation which you can make against us is the slow progress of the negotiations; this happens owing to the independent position of our colonies which we cannot get over with the best will in the world." Candidly, Granville grumbled to Herbert about the extra burden the matter had imposed on him. "It is very hard for me as I have so much to do that I cannot well enter into these colonial questions." One solution, Granville suggested, would be for Herbert to discuss Angra Pequena "in my presence with Lord Derby since Derby is new at the Colonial Office. I will include his predecessor, Lord Kimberley." Herbert, appalled at this confused, casual way of handling business, wrote to his father, "I replied to the noble Lord that I cannot attend a ministerial conference."

  Bismarck had already instructed Count Munster to demand of Lord Granville "why the right to colonize, which England uses to the fullest extent, should be denied us?" Now the excuses for delay seemed intolerable. London's claim that the Cape Colony was an independent government was incomprehensible to a mind accustomed to orders flowing from the top. Colonies were colonies, not independent governments. "So long as they remain under the Queen's sceptre and under the protection of the Mother Country… the game of hide and seek with the Colonial Office… is merely an evasion." The Chancellor ordered Munster and Herbert not to speak to Derby at all on the subject, but to confine all their discussions to Granville. He began to think in terms of threats. "Our friendship can be of great help to British policy," he reminded Munster, alluding to Egypt. "It is not a matter of indifference for England whether she has the good wishes and support of the German Empire or whether it stands coldly aloof." He became more fierce: "If we fail to push our rights with energy," he wrote to Munster, "we shall risk, by letting them sink into oblivion, falling into a position inferior to England's and strengthening the unbounded arrogance shown by England and her colonies in opposition to us. We may be driven to contemplate a complete rupture." Warned that he risked pushing Britain too far, he scoffed, "The English… have no reason at all for attacking us even if they are beginning to envy our industrial and commercial progress. The Englishman is like the dog in the fable who cannot bear that another dog should have a few bones, although the overfed brute is sitting before a bowl filled to the brim. An English attack would only be thinkable if we found ourselves at war with both Russia and France or did anything so utterly absurd as to fall upon Holland or Belgium or block the Baltic by closing the Sound."

  In March 1885, on his father's instructions, Herbert pushed harder. The Liberal government was split and tottering, its prestige ruined by its failure to save Gordon at Khartoum. Accordingly, when Herbert went to see Granville, he felt empowered to be rude. It was his impression, he told Granville, that England deliberately stirred up trouble among her Continental neighbors and might even encourage war in order to "profit England by leaving her free to pursue her trading activities." These words, Herbert gleefully reported to his father, "produced violent gesticulations and exclamations of annoyance from Lord Granville." Herbert had gone too far. Sir Charles Dilke, a younger Liberal minister who was critical of Granville, was even more critical of the younger Bismarck: "Herbert Bismarck has come over again," he wrote. "He wanted us to dismiss Lord Granville and Lord Derby… [a] gross and unwarranted interference in our home politics, thoroughly Bismarckian in character."

  Eventually, Britain acquiesced in Germany's colonial acquisitions, not because of Herbert's skill, but because Gladstone was determined not to quarrel. During a twenty-minute conversation with Herbert after dinner at Lord Rosebery's mansion, Gladstone said that he was willing to go any lengths to meet Germany's legitimate claims. He went further: "Even if you had no colonial aspirations, I should beseech you to go forward in this direction. I rejoice at your civilizing aspirations." Such innocence and idealism were almost too much for Herbert; his report to his father was filled with contempt: "There is no point in discussing the foreign policy of a great country with Mr. Gladstone as he has no comprehension of it whatever." Gladstone blandly assured the House of Commons that Britain welcomed with joy "the extension of Germany to these desert places." Nevertheless, the heavy-handed behavior of the Bismarcks, father and son, made an unfavorable impression on Gladstone and his colleagues. When Gladstone returned a year later for a brief third term as Prime Minister, his Foreign Secretary, Lord Rosebery, warned the German Ambassador that "they must take care in Berlin of their style of communication which is apt to savor distinctly of menace."

  On June 8, 1885, the second Gladstone Cabinet resigned and Lord Salisbury formed a new Conservative government. Once more, British policy was in the hands of a man Bismarck trusted. The two statesmen quickly exchanged friendly messages. Salisbury wrote of his "lively… recollection of the kindness which your Highness showed me in Berlin in the years 1876 and 1878." Bismarck replied, describing his pleasure in seeing "by your own words that our former personal intercourse, which I am glad to renew, has left with both of us the s
ame sympathetic recollection." Bismarck signalled his approval to everyone. "I value Lord Salisbury's friendship more than twenty swamp colonies in Africa," he said. The Chancellor's new rejection of colonialism was as swift and absolute as his pounce on the issue had been a year before. "Here is Russia and here is France, with Germany in the middle," he said to an African explorer. "This is my map of Africa." In one of his final speeches to the Reichstag, he declared, "I am not a colonialist."