The Kaiser

by Virginia Cowles

  The Germans were right to analyse the proposals carefully, even to be suspicious of them; they were wrong to condemn them outright, dismiss Chamberlain as utterly cynical, and to refuse to contemplate the alternative. But Holstein’s twisted mind threw every picture out of focus; and he seemed incapable of grasping the fact that if Germany wished to conclude a bargain she would have to give a quid pro quo. He was so excited by the thought that England might reap some profit from an alliance with Germany that his whole being throbbed with almost hysterical determination to spite her. On January 21st, the day before Queen Victoria died, he deluged London with telegrams. First he wired to Eckardstein to use his influence in preventing the Kaiser from discussing politics or committing Germany in any way. Then he assisted Bülow in drafting a reply to the Emperor which might damp down his ecstatic cry, “So they come it seems.” “Your Majesty is quite right in the feeling that the English must come to us. South Africa has cost them dear; America shows itself uncertain; Japan unreliable; France full of hatred; Russia faithless; public opinion hostile in all countries. At the Diamond Jubilee in 1897 English self-conceit reached its highest point; the English peacock spread its proudest display, and preened itself in splendid isolation… Now it begins to dawn gradually on the consciousness of the English that, by their own strength alone, they will not be able to maintain their world-empire against so many antagonists… English troubles will increase in the next months, and with them the price that we can demand will rise… Your Majesty will execute a master-coup if Your All-Highest can succeed in leaving English personages with the hope of a future firm relationship with us, but without Your All-Highest being at present prematurely bound and committed.”[201]

  The idea that Britain might come to an understanding with Russia and France infuriated Holstein. “The whole threat,” he wired to Count Hatzfeldt, “is just rubbish and humbug. If England makes large concessions in spheres of influence to Russia and France, it will only whet the appetite of its two opponents and make a struggle for life all the more inevitable — a reduced England against reinforced enemies.” He also wired to Count Paul Metternich, who was ear-marked to succeed Hatzfeldt as ambassador in London, and who had accompanied the Kaiser as a member of the imperial suite. “…The threatened understanding with Russia and France is a patent fraud. Concessions [to France and Russia] might postpone Britain’s fight for existence for a few years, but it would only make it the more inevitable by strengthening her opponents and diminishing the power and prestige of the British. We can wait. Time is on our side…”[202] It was tragic that the master mind behind German foreign policy should belong to a man described by his contemporaries, from Bismarck downwards, as “crazy.” And it not only was tragic but remarkable that such an unbalanced intellect could persuade the Wilhelmstrasse that Britain was bluffing when she talked of France and Russia as a possible alternative. The German documents show that no one, with the exception of Count Hatzfeldt and Baron Eckardstein, even questioned this erroneous dictum. Hatzfeldt fought gallantly but he was like a small boat swept aside in a squall. “The English ministers and Chamberlain in particular,” he wrote to Holstein on February 10th, “are not so stupid as not to recognise that Germany cannot and will not give them her help in China without the assurance of compensation elsewhere and above all of protection against the danger of a Franco-Russian attack.” And he begged Holstein not to dismiss the possibility of an Anglo-Russian understanding, adding that he felt it his duty to give this warning “before the door is shut.”[203]

  Meanwhile the Kaiser was growing restless. As he was temporarily annoyed with the Czar, he condemned Russian expansion in the Far East, and responded sympathetically to the British approach. But he shrank from the responsibility of taking matters into his own hands. He had no idea that the negative attitude of his Foreign Office stemmed almost entirely from Holstein’s influence; in fact he was scarcely aware of Holstein’s presence — he had only met him once and believed that with Bülow’s advent he had been relegated to obscurity. Holstein’s telegrams were always signed by the Chancellor or the Secretary of State, and once, when his name cropped up, William commented with relief: “Who ever hears of Holstein now?”

  The Kaiser had often been criticised for flying in the face of his councillors, but the truth was that he made more mistakes by following their advice than if he had trusted his own judgement. At this critical time, instead of imposing his own will, he merely fretted. On the day after the funeral procession, when Queen Victoria’s body was being lowered into the grave, he protested peevishly to Count Metternich: “I cannot wobble forever between Russia and England; I would find myself in the end sitting between two stools.” And on the day of his departure, February 5th, he lost all restraint. In the morning he drove through the streets of London, and the sentimental British public, impressed by his devotion to his grandmother, gave him a rapturous ovation. The crowds were dense and one man delighted the monarch by shouting “Thank you, Kaiser.” “The German Emperor had a noble reception to-day from the citizens of London, who have forgiven him his telegram to Kruger, in consideration of his behaviour during the last ten days,” wrote Lord Esher. “I was in St. James’s Street. The cortege was a pretty sight. The Blues splendid. Very few police. Large crowds. Much cheering. Very hearty. The Kaiser acknowledged the cheers, the King sitting quietly beside him — which showed fine taste. So the new reign starts under good auguries”[204]

  The occasion ended with a large luncheon at Marlborough House, and William annoyed his suite (and German public opinion) by conferring the Order of the Black Eagle upon Lord Roberts, Commander-in-Chief of the British Army; then, still under the emotional impact of the morning drive, he made a speech, forgetful of the German Fleet and Tirpitz’s “real world power,” echoing for once the sentiments so often expressed by his father. “I believe there is a Providence which has decreed that two nations which have produced such men as Shakespeare, Schiller, Luther and Goethe must have a great future before them; I believe that the two Teutonic nations will, bit by bit, learn to know each other better, and that they will stand together to help in keeping the peace of the world. We ought to form an Anglo-German alliance, you to keep the seas while we would be responsible for the land; with such an alliance, not a mouse could stir in Europe without our permission, and the nations would, in time, come to see the necessity of reducing their armaments.”

  Bülow was not worried by the sentiments of his impressionable master. Although members of the Kaiser’s household frequently criticised the nauseating flattery with which Bülow deluged the Sovereign, the Chancellor was adept at mixing the honey and poison that brought him to his own way of thinking. Shortly after returning to Germany the Kaiser began to shift his ground. When Baron von Eckardstein saw what was happening he was in despair. In his ardour to revive the negotiations and secure an agreement — his life’s ambition — he adopted a novel procedure: he told Lord Lansdowne, the British Foreign Secretary, that Germany would be interested in “a defensive alliance,” and at the same time gave Berlin to understand that the suggestion had come from London. Both sides asked the other to state their proposals in writing; after considerable confusion the Wilhelmstrasse made it clear that the only terms Germany would consider was a full defensive pact between the three members of the Triple Alliance and the British Empire. The pact would bind each group to give military aid to the other if an attack were launched by more than one major power — for example, Russia and France. The Treaty would have to be passed by the British Parliament and remain effective for five years.

  The Wilhelmstrasse knew that such terms and conditions were an impossibility. No democratic government could bind its Opposition in such a way. Apart from this, the swing from isolation to such far-reaching military commitments, with no control over actions that might provoke war, stood no chance of being accepted by Parliament. Lord Salisbury more than once had pointed out the liability of guaranteeing the Austro-Hungarian Empire with its discontented, rebelliou
s Slav minorities. However, the very fact that Berlin’s proposition was unacceptable was the reason it was proffered. It did not commit Germany, it left the door open, it kept (in Bülow’s words) “hope shimmering on the surface,” and it put the blame for failure on London.

  Bülow and Holstein were the chief architects of Germany’s refusal to reach an agreement with England. Most historians declare that through the miscalculations of these two men Germany lost an opportunity that might have won her world supremacy by peaceful means. Yet even without their particular personalities, it is questionable whether Germany would have reached an understanding, for Bülow and Holstein merely reflected popular opinion. Jealousy and hatred dominated Germany at the turn of the century. The animosity was almost chronic, for it had been carefully cultivated for twenty-five years, first by Bismarck to crush the influence of the Crown Prince Frederick and his wife, then by the Kaiser to wring concessions from England. But the ill-feeling leapt up like a flame when the Navy League was established in 1897 to persuade the people of the vital necessity for a fleet. A torrent of propaganda was unleashed, and professors, politicians, soldiers, and newspaper editors joined together from one end of the country to the other to depict Britain as wicked, malevolent, and ever watchful for an opportunity to crush Germany because of commercial rivalry. The works of Professor Heinrich von Treitschke, whose lectures had greatly influenced Admiral von Tirpitz, were introduced into German schools as standard works. The professor talked of German world domination and preached that the subordination of the individual to the State, and a mighty navy, were the two main essentials in reducing Britain to submission.[205]

  “The abuse poured on England by the German press day by day about everything and on every occasion is quite extraordinary,” the Empress Frederick wrote to her daughter, Sophie, in the spring of 1898. “I fear that it leads to a distressing conclusion in England, which is that she has no greater enemy than Germany and no more bitter foe than William. This is not the case to that extent, and if it has the effect of making England draw nearer to other powers it will indeed be sad for both our countries.”

  By the time the Boer war broke out and envenomed the situation still further, the German people had become the victims of their own propaganda. They had such a distorted picture of Britain that they were unable to assess correctly her intentions. Even Bülow was worried by the extent of the Anglophobia. In the autumn of 1899 he wrote to Holstein from Windsor: “If the British public clearly realised the anti-British feeling which dominates Germany just now, a great revulsion would occur in its conception of the relations between Britain and Germany.”[206]

  King Edward sampled this animosity himself when shortly after his succession he travelled to see the Empress Frederick. He had received news that she could not live much longer, and her only wish was to see her brother. During the train journey up the Rhine to Cronberg sullen crowds were waiting at almost every station to sing the Boer National Anthem; and several times angry demonstrators shouted personal abuse to the King. Later, when Edward met Bülow at Homburg, he said: “People in this country are mad. Won’t they ever quiet down? They seem to have a crack, they are quite mad.”[207]

  A strange happening occurred during the King’s visit, not altogether irrelevant to the troubled theme of Anglo-German relations. On the third day, Edward VII’s secretary, Sir Frederick Ponsonby, received a message that the Empress would like to see him. He was taken upstairs and found her in bed propped up with pillows, her face shrunken with pain. “There is something I want you to do for me,” she said, “I want you to take charge of my letters and take them with you back to England.”

  Sir Frederick replied that he would be glad to do so and she went on: “I will send them to you at one o’clock to-night and I know I can rely on your discretion. I don’t want a soul to know that they have been taken away, and certainly Willy must not have them, nor must he know that you have got them.” Long after midnight there was a knock on Sir Frederick’s door and to his amazement four men entered carrying three large trunks wrapped in black oilskin. He had expected a few packets of letters, but he learned later that the trunks contained all the letters which the Empress had written to her mother over the years; the Queen had returned them to her daughter so that she could look them over with a view to publication, and now she wanted them taken back to the safety of England. Sir Frederick put labels on the trunks addressing them to himself and marked them “China: Handle with Care.” Although he became nervous when he saw that a party of soldiers had been employed to handle the luggage of the royal suite, the black trunks passed out of the palace doors unnoticed.

  In July, Alfred Rothschild had written to Baron Eckardstein that Chamberlain was “quite disheartened” and would have “nothing more to do with the people in Berlin.” “If they are so shortsighted, says he, as not to be able to see that the whole new world system depends upon it, then there is nothing to be done for them.” However, the British Foreign Office made one last attempt to revive the talks. The Duke of Devonshire was convinced that the Wilhelmstrasse was sabotaging the negotiations behind the Kaiser’s back. Consequently King Edward was persuaded to take the matter up with the Kaiser personally when he visited Homburg in August. Before the talks could take place, however, the Empress Frederick died and the King travelled to Friedrichshof.

  It was obvious that the Kaiser’s mood had changed in the six months since his visit to England. Upon his return from Queen Victoria’s funeral, Bülow had found him “completely under the spell of his English impressions.” “As a rule,” wrote the Chancellor, “he could not change his military uniform often enough, but now he wore civilian clothes as he had done in England. He wore a tie-pin with his deceased grandmother’s initial on it. The officers who were summoned to dine with him were surprised to find their ‘Supreme War Lord,’ as they called him, wearing civilian clothes. They did not seem to be very pleased by his constant enthusiastic allusions to England and everything English that, in his own words, ‘ranked far above German habits and customs.’” However, it did not take Bülow long to alter his master’s mood and soon the Kaiser was fulminating against British designs, and referring to Salisbury and Chamberlain and Lansdowne as “unmitigated noodles” — a remark that was repeated to Edward VII but did not cause him much amusement. “Whatever would the Kaiser say if I allowed myself to call his Ministers such nice names?” the Sovereign complained querulously.

  The King was prepared to do his best with his nephew but the circumstances of his sister’s funeral did not induce kindly emotions. Bitter memories of his brother-in-law’s funeral were revived, for the same circumstances were repeated. Once again the palace was surrounded by soldiers, once again the private rooms were ransacked for papers. Sir Frederick Ponsonby watched the proceedings with a quiet smile, for the Empress’s letters had arrived safely at his house in England. After the funeral Count August Eulenburg came up to him and asked him confidentially if the letters were in the Windsor archives. Sir Frederick obligingly offered to write and ask Lord Esher, the Keeper of the Archives; the latter replied truthfully that he had no idea of their whereabouts.[208]

  The Kaiser’s attitude did not augur success. The two monarchs arranged to meet at Wilhelmshöhe for their political conversations, and just before the King arrived William wrote to Bülow: “The building of our fleet must be expedited as quickly as possible. Who will get a nice surprise are the English, and perhaps it is aimed at them… I am anxious for a sight of the King and Lascelles who are to dine with me on Friday.”

  Everything went wrong. Lord Lansdowne had given the King a memorandum for his own use, outlining the subjects for discussion; Morocco was the chief item, but it also included China, South Africa, and Kuwait. Under a misapprehension the King had handed the memorandum to the Kaiser when they met at the Empress Frederick’s funeral. William immediately sent it on to the Wilhelmstrasse and had a counter-memorandum drawn up which he now gave to his uncle. It was not very encouraging; in China Germ
any desired “to be conciliatory in Kuwait she had” no interest in Morocco she “reserved judgement.”

  However, it was not the memorandum that upset Edward VII. It was the Kaiser’s veiled threats, his jovial but cutting remarks, his frequent reference to “perfidious Albion.” He told his uncle that the Czar’s forthcoming visit to Paris probably would be extended to Berlin and hinted that it might bring unpleasant results for Britain. England could not fail to observe, he said darkly, the strong movement among the countries of the continent towards an economic union to counter British influence, and she would do well to ponder over it.

  Whatever the King felt about the meeting, it proved the last attempt to reach agreement with Germany. From then on things moved from bad to worse. The negotiations had come to an end with Germany’s insistence that nothing less than Britain’s accession to the Triple Alliance was acceptable to them. But Edward VII thought it wiser to inform the Kaiser in writing that the talks were over, so that there could be no misunderstanding if Britain approached other countries. He therefore sent William a message through Sir Frank Lascelles saying that he hoped Germany and England would maintain “a thorough Entente Cordiale,” “but to stipulate this co-operation in a formal treaty would be difficult because of the House of Commons.”

  Germany was not an easy country to deal with. Although Baron Holstein was the chief wrecker of the negotiations, he immediately decided to take umbrage. He told The Times correspondent, Mr. Valentine Chirol, that Germany knew how to express “her thanks for our offer of marriage being rejected.” He then dug up a speech that Mr. Joseph Chamberlain had made several months earlier, defending Britain against charges of cruelty in South Africa. The Colonial Secretary claimed that Britain had never approached the examples set “in Poland, in the Caucusus, in Algeria, in Tongking, in Russia, in the Franco-Prussian war…” Bülow referred to this statement in the Reichstag on January 8th, 1902, accusing Chamberlain of having “a warped mind,” and delighting his colleagues by quoting Frederick the Great’s reply to a criticism of the Prussian Army: “Pay no heed to the fellow and don’t get excited; he is biting on granite!”