That Bülow ultimately depended upon the Kaiser’s willingness to retain him in office and that he was compliant and conciliatory in manner is beyond doubt. But the claim that the Bülow chancellorship amounted to an ‘institutionalized personal rule’ requires some qualification. Even before his appointment as state secretary of foreign affairs, there were tell-tale signs that, once in power, Bülow would not only cajole, but also manage and even manipulate the monarch. In a commentary on the conflict of 1895 over military justice, Bülow observed that the affairs of government would not run smoothly if the Kaiser were given ‘any reason to assume’ that the ministry was trying to manoeuvre him into a position of constraint. ‘The Ministry must not put on airs of a parliamentary cabinet; there must in general be less talk of Ministry and Government as opposed to the Kaiser. His Majesty must get the feeling that Hohenlohe is his representative in the ministry, even, if necessary, against the will of the majority of the ministers.’7 What is striking about these remarks is the – possibly unconscious – emphasis upon impressions and appearances. It was above all a matter of persuading the monarch that he remained personally in control of affairs. In a contemporaneous letter to Eulenburg, Bülow stressed that Wilhelm’s excitability and strength of will made it essential that he be prevented from intervening directly in the sphere of foreign policy: ‘My thoroughly monarchist conviction and my personal love and gratitude for our most gracious ruler have not blinded me to the dangers posed by the primordiality and forcefulness of his individuality.’8
By the time he became state secretary for foreign affairs, Bülow’s critical attitude to the sovereign had hardened. In private notes of April 1897, he observed that Wilhelm’s lack of moderation and inability to recognize the limits of his own knowledge and ability made him politically ‘dangerous’, with the result that people saw in the ministers the only defence against ‘eccentricities from above’.9 In a letter to Eulenburg of 22 August 1897, Bülow pointed out that while Wilhelm was ‘attractive, touching, captivating, adorable’ as a private individual, his ‘moodiness, lack of subtlety and at times of judgement’, and his inability to subordinate ‘will’ to ‘sober reflection’ exposed him to ‘the most serious dangers’ unless he were ‘surrounded by clever and in particular by totally loyal and dependable servants’.10 It was a characteristically Bülowian diagnosis in which an ambition to bind the monarch and place himself at the centre of affairs was thinly cloaked in a language of servility and deference. Bülow was less equivocal in his utterances to like-minded interlocutors such as the diplomat Anton von Monts, to whom he remarked that ‘paralysing as far as possible the great dangers that arise from the individuality of this ruler’ would be the only means of ‘helping Germany over the reign of Wilhelm II’.11
It is thus hardly surprising that, once in power, the 51-year-old Bülow largely succeeded in setting his own agenda. Even before his appointment to the chancellorship, he was already making unauthorized overtures to the leaders of the Centre Party, informing them that he was in favour of a repeal of the Jesuit law, a measure to which Wilhelm (though he had himself toyed with this possibility in the early 1890s) remained hostile. Once in the chancellery, he forced through the appointment of his former deputy and general factotum, Baron Oswald von Richthofen, as state secretary for foreign affairs; Wilhelm was unenthusiastic but acquiesced. To be sure, Bülow retained some of the characteristics of a courtier: he recognized the importance of acquiring Wilhelm’s personal confidence and assiduously cultivated the monarch, demonstratively seeking his advice, fulsomely praising his ideas and providing a sounding board for the monarch’s schemes. A contemporary recalled seeing the two men walking for two hours in the gardens of the royal palace, the emperor gesticulating energetically, the chancellor with his head cocked respectfully to one side, as if deep in thought.12
3. Of all the politicians who took upon themselves the task of ‘managing’ the last Kaiser, none was as cunning and resourceful as Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow, who is seen here walking through Berlin in 1908 with Baron von Mirbach, Lord Chamberlain to Empress Auguste-Viktoria (Wilhelm’s consort).
At the same time, Bülow consolidated his own authority over the Prussian ministry. Shortly after his appointment to the chancellorship, Bülow convened the Prussian ministry of state to inform the ministers that the emperor insisted upon ‘unity of government’. The chancellor/minister president was to have exclusive control over the publication of information relating to ministerial deliberations.13 Bülow also installed a more integrated press management regime to replace the chaotic state of affairs that had been the norm under Caprivi and Hohenlohe. Under the competent control of Otto Hammann, government-inspired press coverage not only supported Bülow’s public actions and amplified his political achievements, but also broadcast selected details about his character, outlook and private life, creating a modest personality cult around the chancellor. A key theme in government press propaganda was the close agreement and absolute personal harmony between the emperor and ‘his’ chancellor.14
In reality, however, it was clear that Bülow’s and Wilhelm’s views diverged on many key questions and that it was Bülow who generally succeeded in imposing his own preferences. This was apparent, for example, in renewed negotiations over grain tariffs in 1900–1901. Bülow was keen to recruit the conservatives and the Centre into an enduring governmental majority and for this reason favoured a compromise solution that would go part-way to answering the demands of the agrarians for raised tariffs. Wilhelm, however, remained vexed over agrarian resistance to his canal plans and was taking advice at this time from the powerful industrialist Albert Ballin; he was thus inclined to oppose concessions to the agrarian lobby. Bülow succeeded in outmanoeuvring Wilhelm by appealing to the federal states for support over the tariff question (a tactic that Bismarck and Wilhelm had earlier deployed against each other). The outcome was the Tariff Law of December 1902, a compromise deal that imposed raised duties on imported grain and was passed with the almost unanimous support of the Centre, the agrarian Conservatives and the National Liberals. This important measure, which substantially raised the price of staple foods in Germany, was Bülow’s work, not Wilhelm’s.15
There were many other initiatives that were clearly not in tune with Wilhelm’s known political preferences. In the autumn of 1900 the chancellor requested an indemnity from the Reichstag in respect of extra-budgetary funds expended in support of the joint expedition to China to suppress the Boxer rebellion. Wilhelm had expressly forbidden Hohenlohe to take such a step on the grounds that it would be perceived as a damaging capitulation by the government to the authority of the Reichstag in a sensitive policy area covered by the imperial prerogative. But suing for an amnesty won Bülow widespread support in the parliament, where it was read as a signal that the new chancellor was a more genuinely ‘parliamentary’ figure than any of his predecessors.16 There was a similar divergence between Bülow and Wilhelm over the question of whether Reichstag deputies should receive allowances (Diäten) in respect of the time they spent attending parliamentary sessions. ‘What! The fellows should get allowances as well?’ was Wilhelm’s incredulous response to this proposal. The Kaiser’s opposition to this measure was well known; it would never have passed into law had Bülow not ‘boxed it’ through a reluctant Prussian ministry.17
Bülow’s concessions to the Catholic interest generated further friction with the monarch. Wilhelm’s preference for a governmental majority recruited from the Protestant middle classes and non-partisan, national-minded ‘enlightened’ Catholics had been apparent since the débâcle over schools policy in 1892, and it was well known that Wilhelm resented the political ‘domination’ of the Centre Party, whose leaders he thought were ‘extremists’ and ‘more popish than the pope’.18 But in the winter of 1900, Bülow declared himself in favour of a Reich bill proposed by the Centre to dismantle some of the restrictions on Catholic religious observance in the federal states. The bill was thrown out by the Bundesrat, bu
t Bülow took the unusual step of appending to his reading of the official Bundesrat rejection a public declaration of his own, in which he stated that he personally sympathized with the intentions behind the bill.19 This gesture was warmly appreciated by the Reichstag Centre Party faction.
A far more controversial concession to Centre interests came in February 1903, when Bülow announced unilaterally that he would use his influence over the Prussian vote in the Federal Council to secure the repeal of paragraph 2 of the Jesuit Law, one of the chief outstanding remnants of the Kulturkampf era. This proposal, which took over a year to massage through a recalcitrant Federal Council, triggered protests from the liberal press, but further consolidated – at least in the short term – the chancellor’s relationship with the Centre faction. All of these moves reflected Bülow’s determination to weld together a coalition of governmental forces that would bridge the damaging confessional divide in German politics. They also reflected a parliamentary orientation that made Bülow quite distinct from his two predecessors and was ultimately bound to place him at odds with the emperor. Well-informed observers noticed a significant novelty in the chancellor’s political style. By contrast with Hohenlohe and Caprivi, Bülow made no effort to conceal the fact that some of the measures he favoured were opposed by the monarch. ‘The manner in which the [sovereign’s] attitude is discussed furnishes the strongest proof that the position of the chancellor must be extraordinarily strong. For this method breaks with the principle according to which the decisions of the Crown are covered and defended both internally and externally by the government.’20
Bülow’s tight control of the Prussian ministry meant that it was now virtually impossible for Wilhelm to counter the influence of the chancellor, as in the Caprivi and Hohenlohe years, by intriguing with a particular minister. Miquel, the powerful and largely independent minister of finance who had consistently opposed Bülow’s policy concessions to the Centre, might conceivably have come to play such a role, but he was sacked, along with the minister of trade, Ludwig Brefeld, and the minister of agriculture, Hammerstein-Loxten, on Bülow’s initiative in May 1901.21 It was widely observed in the aftermath of these dismissals that Bülow had succeeded to a greater extent than either of his two predecessors in creating a ministry ‘according to his own choice’.22 Only Tirpitz continued to enjoy a relatively independent relationship with the Kaiser.23
It is true, as Katherine Lerman has shown, that Wilhelm often played a decisive role in the selection of appointees to the most important offices and that Bülow was sometimes forced to back down. But the emperor could also be outmanoeuvred or persuaded to change his mind; and even when he succeeded in levering his own preferred candidates into ministerial posts, there was little evidence of systematic place-manship. The appointees favoured by Wilhelm reflected the eclectic composition of his personal acquaintance, rather than a consistent preference for individuals with a specific political outlook. When the search was on in 1901 for a new minister of finance to replace Miquel, for example, Wilhelm’s first choice for the post was the liberal industrialist Georg von Siemens, who refused; his second was the reactionary Guido Henckel von Donnersmarck, who also declined. The job eventually went to the conservative former minister of the interior, Georg von Rheinbaben. In any case, there was no guarantee that an imperial favourite, once installed in office, would tailor his policies to Wilhelm’s preferences. Karl von Einem, for example, the Prussian minister of war appointed at Wilhelm’s urging in 1903, disliked interventions from above and soon emerged as an opponent of Wilhelm’s fortification policy in the Rhineland.24 Bülow took great care to conceal from Wilhelm the shift in the balance of power between chancellor and emperor that had taken place since the resignation of Hohenlohe. At every possible opportunity, he sought to persuade the emperor that it was he, Wilhelm, who deserved the credit for the government’s successes in parliament and abroad, and that Bülow’s schemes were all an attempt to realize the Kaiser’s worthy vision of a national policy. The letters he wrote to his ‘master’ when the two were apart were, like those of Eulenburg, light and gossipy, bubbling with risqué banter and catering to the misogyny and prejudices of his inter-locutor.25 As we have seen, Wilhelm was initially delighted with his new chancellor; he particularly appreciated the relative political calm that set in after Bülow took control. ‘I let Bernhard get quietly on with it,’ he told Eulenburg in July 1901. ‘Since I have him, I can sleep soundly.’26
By 1902, however, there were signs that Wilhelm was becoming increasingly perturbed at his own exclusion from the political process, more critical of the direction of policy and more determined to challenge the chancellor on key symbolic issues. He succeeded, for example, in pressuring Bülow to bring legislation intended to suppress Polish nationalist agitation before the Prussian Landtag, at a time when this measure ran the risk of offending the Centre deputies whose support for Bülow’s forthcoming tariff bill was urgently needed in the Reichstag. In September 1902 there was a serious conflict over the question of whether Wilhelm should grant an audience to three Boer generals who were currently touring Germany. Bülow was in favour, but Wilhelm was vehemently opposed, because he feared such a gesture would damage relations with Britain (Holstein ultimately found a technical means of sidestepping the issue without an audience taking place). Although the ill-feeling between the two men had passed by Christmas, it seems that Wilhelm now saw more clearly the extent to which he had been placed under constraint. In this sense, the events of autumn 1902 marked the end of the honeymoon with Bülow.
A dawning awareness of the gaping discrepancy between political realities and his own visionary conception of his role, coupled with anxiety about the continuing success of the Social Democrats and vociferous criticism of Wilhelm’s public statements in the German press (see chapter 6 below) triggered a dramatic deterioration in Wilhelm’s mood during the summer holidays of 1903. During the annual summer cruise, in which Eulenburg took part, Wilhelm was for the first time overtly critical of the chancellor, observing in a conversation with Eulenburg that Bülow had misjudged the impact of a new polling booth law providing for the privacy of the individual voter at the polls and seriously underestimated the threat posed by Social Democracy.27 He grew increasingly jumpy and irascible; during the evening discussions that typically ended a day on the royal yacht, he showed signs of confusion and nervous strain. On one particular evening, after the ship’s company had heard readings from Oncken’s classic account of the revolutions of 1848, he broke into a fit of rage, declaring that he would ‘take revenge for 1848’ and announcing that ‘every person is a Schweinehund; only through very specific orders can he be constrained and directed’.28 Although the remark was prompted by the events reported in Oncken’s narrative, it is hard to escape the impression that they reflected Wilhelm’s sense that he had lost control over the political process.
Crisis of confidence (1905–6)
Despite these tensions, the relationship between emperor and chancellor remained outwardly calm until a clash over German policy vis-à-vis Russia almost brought the Bülow chancellorship to an end. In July 1905 Wilhelm met with his cousin Tsar Nicholas II of Russia near the Finnish village of Björkö and agreed a treaty of mutual defence. A draft text of the treaty had earlier been seen and approved by Bülow, but in the course of his negotiations with Nicholas, Wilhelm made a significant amendment. Bülow refused to accept the ‘treaty of Björkö’ in its altered form, claiming that it no longer served the purposes of German foreign policy, and submitted a letter of resignation. What concerns us here is not the detail or the international context of this dispute (for which see chapter 5 below), but its consequences for the relationship between the emperor and his most powerful minister.
Wilhelm was delighted over his success in acquiring the tsar’s signature to the treaty and deeply shocked by the news that Bülow intended to resign over his amendment to the text. In an anguished reply, he protested that the chancellor was ‘100,000 times more valuable
to me and our Fatherland than all the treaties in the world’, and added that Bülow and he were ‘made for each other, to work and achieve for our dear German Fatherland’. He begged Bülow not to proceed with the resignation and warned that if the chancellor pressed ahead with this plan, the Kaiser himself would not survive to see the following morning: ‘Think of my poor wife and children.’29 Bülow was satisfied and agreed to remain in post; divergent views of foreign policy and how it ought to be conducted certainly played a role here, but Bülow’s chief aim in threatening to resign was to consolidate his position by reminding Wilhelm of how much he depended upon the skills and reputation of his chancellor.
Bülow’s power-play worked in the short term, in the sense that Wilhelm agreed to back down, but it also had adverse consequences for Bülow. Wilhelm emerged from the crisis disaffected with the chancellor and determined to reassert his political authority. During the winter months of 1905–6, there followed in close succession three senior government appointments in which Wilhelm imposed his personal preference. Clemens von Delbrück, former governor of West Prussia, who replaced Möller at the Ministry of Trade, was a personal favourite of the Kaiser. While Bülow was canvassing possible candidates for the office of head of the Colonial Section of the Foreign Office, Wilhelm unilaterally offered the post to his relative Erbprinz Ernst zu Hohenlohe-Langenburg, a man with virtually no experience of colonial policy or administration. When Oswald von Richthofen, Bülow’s faithful secretary of state for foreign affairs, died of overwork in December 1905, Wilhelm overrode Bülow’s advice and appointed Heinrich von Tschirschky, a personal friend and holiday companion, as Richthofen’s successor, a move seen by some contemporaries as a bid to consolidate the emperor’s control over foreign policy. Such was his impatience to regain the political initiative that Wilhelm even summoned a meeting of the Crown Council in February 1906, the third to be convened during Bülow’s chancellorship, but the first to address itself to regular government business (the previous two meetings had been summoned to deal with specific national emergencies).
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