The Kaiser

by Virginia Cowles

  In August 1910, William II made a rash and defiant speech at Konigsberg, aimed at his critics of November 1908, declaring that he ruled by “divine right.” He told his audience that his grandfather, William I, had “set the Prussian crown on his head with his own hands.” He had done this to emphasise that it was accorded to him by the will of God alone, and not by Parliament or by any assemblage of the people or by popular vote. Therefore he, William II, regarded himself as the chosen servant of Heaven and as such performed his duties as regent and sovereign. “Looking upon myself as the instrument of the Lord,” he said, “without regard for daily opinions and intentions, I go my way, which is devoted solely and alone to the welfare and peaceful development of the Fatherland.”

  This was the true William speaking; the emotional mystic, the instrument of the Almighty, the passionate believer in the monarchical system. With these convictions it is not surprising that when he learned in May 1910 that the uncle he hated so much, Edward VII, had died, he immediately made plans to attend the funeral. His reverence for kingship transcended all likes and dislikes; the death of a sovereign called for prayers from his royal colleagues, no matter how disturbed the personal relationship.

  Thus once again William found himself riding through the streets of London, the centre of all eyes; and once again he found himself moved by the pageantry and continuity of his mother’s land. In a letter to his new Chancellor, Herr Bethmann-Hollweg, he described the “lying in state” at Westminster, “the great old Hall,” “the sunbeams falling on the dead figure and glittering crown,” “the ride through solemn crowds.” “It was the most impressive demonstration of the grief of a whole people for its beloved sovereign that I have ever seen.”[309] He laid a wreath on the coffin, and impulsively grasped the hand of the new King, George V, as they both stood beside the catafalque. Later one of his relations said to him: “That handshake of yours is all over London; people are deeply grateful and impressed.” He told this to Bethmann too, and went on to say that when he reached Windsor and spent a night at the Castle the associations “awakened the old home feelings which link me so fast with this place, and which have made these last years on the political side especially hard to bear. I am proud to call this my second home and to be a member of this Royal House — and as such I am treated with the warmest kindness.” Even Buckingham Palace evoked childhood nostalgia. “I still remember a place where I was frightfully sick from eating too much plum pudding.”[310]

  When William II returned to Berlin he suddenly felt forlorn. The death of King Edward had marked the end of an era, for now almost all the great antagonists and friends who had been on the stage when William II ascended the throne had taken their bows and departed. Bismarck had died long ago, the evil Holstein had died in the spring of 1909, and now the treacherous Edward VII lay in state. Eulenburg was in exile, so was Count Kuno Moltke, Count Hulsen-Haeseler had dropped dead, and Bülow had been dismissed. Life seemed a little flat. King George V was not nearly so exciting an adversary as the wicked uncle, Bethmann-Hollweg not nearly so stimulating as Bernard Bülow, Prince Fürstenburg not nearly so witty as Philip Eulenburg. But if life was more boring, William consoled himself that, at least, it might be less harassing. It was a good thing that the wily, hostile Edward had been replaced by a dull, plain-spoken sailor, for although the Kaiser did not believe that the new king would have much influence on policy, or be able to alter England’s course in any way, events would not be inflamed by deliberate “intrigue.” On the letter of condolence which the Chancellor sent him William wrote: “The system of intrigue which kept Europe on tenterhooks will come to an end… I believe that European policy as a whole will be more quiescent; even if that were all it would be something.”[311]

  More quiescent? Herr Bethmann-Hollweg had not inherited a happy situation from Prince Bülow. “The atmosphere,” he wrote, “was chilly and clouded with distrust.” So chilly that almost every new political event sent a shiver of alarm across Europe; so cloudy that most of them became blurred and distorted. The Germans claimed that England had thrown a noose around their necks and was only waiting for the right moment to pull it tight. England, on the other hand, feared that Germany’s repeated threats of war had started her along a path from which there might be no return. To many people the resplendent figure of the Kaiser in his eagle-crested helmet and his wonderful cloaks epitomized the bellicose spirit of the new Germany. He seemed to be a man of inordinate ambition; not content with the greatest army in the world, he now wished to rival the greatest sea-power in the world. They could not believe that the field-grey columns that defiled before him each year would be content to march forever within the boundaries of Prussia; or that the ships that slipped down the runways at Kiel, at such ruinous cost, would fulfil their purpose by remaining within the confines of the North Sea. They suspected that William II was only biding his time before making a bid for the supremacy of Europe.

  Even the unskilled Bethmann-Hollweg could not fail to appreciate the perils of the situation. He was an honourable, well-intentioned man who genuinely desired to bring about an easement of the tension. His most ardent wish was to re-establish friendly relations with England. He would have liked to curtail Germany’s shipbuilding in return for a genuine rapprochement, but he did not dare to raise the subject with the Kaiser. The naval programme not only remained the one constant factor of William’s reign but had become dangerously interwoven with the Sovereign’s personal pride. More than once he told the Chancellor that the German Navy would serve as an enduring monument to the House of Hohenzollern. However, just before his departure, Bülow had persuaded him to consider a slackening of the building schedule in return for a pledge from England of unconditional neutrality in the event of war. Bethmann-Hollweg tried to negotiate on this basis, but as such a promise would have meant nothing less than handing Germany the dominance of Europe, the British Foreign Office refused to look at it.

  The Kaiser saw nothing contradictory in turning out dreadnoughts and maintaining close ties with his English relations. He told his Chancellor not to heed Count Metternich’s gloomy warnings from London, and assured him that feeling between the two countries would improve automatically once the German Navy was strong enough. This peculiar reasoning was based on the belief that when England saw that she could not deter Germany, she would seek her as a partner. Consequently, when cousin George V wrote to William early in 1911 inviting him to attend the unveiling of a monument to Queen Victoria, which was to be installed in front of Buckingham Palace, he accepted with genuine delight. “Let me thank you most cordially,” he replied on February 15, 1911, “for the very kind letter in which you invite Dona and me to be present at dear Grandmama’s unveiling. You cannot imagine how overjoyed I am at the prospect of seeing you again so soon and making a nice stay with you. You are perfectly right in alluding to my devotion & reverence for my beloved Grandmother, with whom I was on such excellent terms. I shall never forget how kindly this great lady always was to me & the relations she kept up with me, though I was so far her junior, she having carried me about in her arms! Never in my life shall I forget the solemn hours in Osborne at her deathbed when she breathed her last in my arms! These sacred hours have riveted my heart firmly to your house & family, of which I am proud to feel myself a member. And the fact that for the last hours I held the sacred burden of her — the creator of the greatness of Britain — in my arms, in my mind created an invincible special link between her country & its People & me which I fondly nurse in my heart… You kindly refer to the fact of my being her eldest grandson, a fact I was always immensely proud of and never forgot.”[312]

  The Kaiser’s visit was fixed for May: before it could take place, however, the exhausting problem of Morocco once again raised its unwelcome head, and gave the Kaiser’s journey an unexpected twist. Widespread Arab insurrections had prompted the Sultan to appeal to the French for help. Early in April M. Jules Cambon informed the German Government that France was planning to send an expe
ditionary force to occupy Rabat, restore order at Fez and carry out a punitive expedition in the Shawia area. The Kaiser was in Corfu when he received the report, and immediately wired his approval to the Wilhelmstrasse. “It will suit us very well if the French commit themselves thoroughly with troops and money in Morocco, and in my opinion it is not in our interest to hinder them,” he telegraphed to his new Foreign Secretary, Herr von Kiderlen-Wachter. “If the French violate the Act of Algeciras we can leave it to the other powers, specially Spain, to protest first. Probably people at home will again want to send a warship. But we can do nothing useful with warships, as Tangier is not threatened, and the field of action is in the interior. I beg you will, therefore, make a stand at once against warships.”[313]

  The Kaiser had correctly gauged the mood, not of “the people” at home, but of Kiderlen-Wachter himself. The Kaiser loathed his Foreign Secretary. Long ago this brash diplomat had been part of the backroom trio, along with Eulenburg and Holstein, which was lampooned in the press as the power behind the throne. Kiderlen was witty, loud-mouthed, and drank too much. He was nicknamed “Cocksparrow,” but when his self-assurance led him to mimic the Kaiser, and the stories were repeated to the Sovereign, he found himself banished to Bucharest as Minister of Legation. There he lingered for many years. Bülow sent for him when Foreign Secretary Schoen collapsed as a result of the Daily Telegraph interview; and he was believed to have played a decisive part in composing the disastrous ultimatum to Russia over the annexation of Bosnia. When Bethmann-Hollweg became Chancellor he requested the Kaiser to appoint Kiderlen as Foreign Secretary. William II protested strongly, but Bethmann argued that his own inexperience compelled him to ask for someone with expert knowledge. In the end the Kaiser agreed. “Well then, take Kiderlen,” he grumbled. “But you won’t know what a louse you’re taking until you’ve got him.”

  If Kiderlen had been no more than a louse, his appointment would not have been so catastrophic. But he was longing to make up for his long years of exile by achieving a dramatic diplomatic coup that would make his name ring through Germany. Even more ominous, he had been trained in the Holstein school. “He considered that the only proper and successful way to conduct politics,” wrote Erich Brandenburg, the distinguished German historian, “was to negotiate with a pistol in your hand or at least bulging out of your pocket.”[314]

  Bethmann-Hollweg was too naive to appreciate these finer points, and when the Kaiser returned from Corfu asked permission to bring Kiderlen to an audience so that the Foreign Secretary could outline his plan for Morocco. Kiderlen told the Kaiser that he was in full accord with the imperial view that France should be allowed to absorb Morocco; it was obvious that the Sultan could only assert his authority with French bayonets, therefore independence, as envisaged by the Algeciras Act, was a myth. But Germany must obtain compensation in return for waiving her rights. And in order to ensure that the compensation was sufficiently generous, it might be necessary to send warships to Mogador and Agadir under the pretext of protecting German nationals; just as the French “protect their subjects at Fez,” he explained. The ships would help to accelerate Germany’s negotiations with France; and they would show the world that she could not be fobbed off with a mere bagatelle. Indeed, Kiderlen explained that what he had in mind was the whole of the French Congo. The Kaiser was startled by the magnitude of his Foreign Secretary’s scheme and pointed out, very rightly, that England might take umbrage at being excluded from this struggle of wills. He could not give an answer, he said, until he had raised the matter with King George on his forthcoming trip to England.

  The visit therefore assumed an unexpected importance. Socially it was an unqualified success. As King Edward was no longer about to outrage the Kaiserin’s sense of moral values, Dona consented to accompany her husband and was delighted by the warmth of their reception. The capital blazed with flags, the crowds were dense, bands played, people cheered, and hospitality flowed in every direction. King George did not share the antipathy of his father and mother towards the German Emperor and there were no irritating pin-pricks, only kindness and goodwill. Just before his departure William II raised the subject of Morocco. “I asked him,” he wrote in his memoirs, “if he considered that the French methods were still in accordance with the Algeciras Agreement. The King remarked that the Agreement, to tell the truth, was no longer in force, that the best thing to do was to forget it; that the French, fundamentally, were doing nothing different in Morocco from what the English had previously done in Egypt;… that the only thing to do was to recognise the fait accompli of the occupation of Morocco and make arrangements for commercial protection with France.”[315] According to a note made by Bethmann-Hollweg upon the Emperor’s return, William also told his cousin that Germany would “never wage a war for the sake of Morocco” but that she might seek compensations in Africa. “To this obervation,” wrote Bethmann, “the monarch made no reply.”[316]

  The Kaiser had a childish faith in the power of kings, even constitutional kings such as George V. The fact that the English sovereign was warm and friendly apparently led him to the assumption that England would not mind if Germany bullied France into giving her what she wanted. For when Herr Kiderlen-Wachter travelled to Kiel to see William II on June 26th (where he was about to depart on his Norwegian cruise) he gave the Foreign Secretary permission to send a warship to Morocco. Kiderlen explained that he was holding talks with M. Cambon, and that the negotiations were nearly complete; the French Ambassador had suggested ceding part of the French Congo to Germany in return for Togoland. A little pressure in the shape of a German ship, Kiderlen explained, was all that was needed to bring the talks to a successful conclusion. Consequently, on July 1st, the Panther, a small gunboat with a complement of 150 men, anchored outside the harbour of Agadir.

  The Kaiser had followed his usual pattern of behaviour; first a strong, clear impulse, then doubt, then capitulation. It seems astonishing that neither he nor Bethmann recognised Kiderlen’s action as a replica of Tangier; nor foresaw that Holstein’s legacy of blackmail would produce the same unfortunate result. This method of doing business was particularly stupid in 1911, for in the Spring the French Foreign Secretary, M. Cruppi, was talking about German participation in the Congo-Cameroon railway project; and the French Prime Minister, M. Caillaux, who took office in June, not only was known to be in favour of generous compensations but was rumoured to be an enemy of the entente.

  The moment Count Metternich informed the British Foreign Office that the gunboat Panther had arrived at Agadir to protect German nationals Whitehall recognised the advent of a new crisis. The Permanent Under-Secretary pointed out that Germany had no nationals at Agadir; and the Foreign Secretary, Sir Edward Grey, explained in forcible language that British financial interests were larger than Germany’s in Morocco and that England was not prepared to recognise any arrangement without being consulted. She demanded to know why Germany had dispatched a gunboat.

  Kiderlen declined to answer. He believed that a long, brooding silence was the best way to conduct a war of nerves. He hoped that French morale would crack under the tension, and that Britain, puzzled by the situation, would not know what attitude to adopt. Just as he had envisaged, all sorts of rumours began to sweep London and Paris. “Was Germany looking for a pretext to war with France, or was she merely trying by pressure and uncertainty to improve her colonial position?” wrote Winston Churchill, the Home Secretary. “It was difficult to divine from the long string of telegrams which day after day flowed in from all the European Chancelleries what was the real purpose behind the German action.”[317]

  The first nerves to break were those of the Kaiser. Kiderlen had given William II to understand that the negotiations with France were nearly complete; yet when M. Cambon and Kiderlen met on July 9th the Congo and Togoland were only touched upon lightly, for the German Foreign Secretary was determined to make the Frenchman speak out first. “What the devil are they at?” the Kaiser wrote angrily. “They neg
otiate and negotiate but no one speaks out! If we go on losing precious time like this, the Britons and Russians will stiffen the backs of the frightened Gauls, and dictate to them what is the best they can graciously concede us!! At the beginning of May in Karlsruhe the Chancellor developed to me the whole programme for our negotiations about Morocco, I said I AGREED, and now at the end of July we are exactly in the same place! This kind of diplomacy is too high and subtle for my brain!”[318] The Kaiser’s reaction forced Kiderlen-Wachter to put his cards on the table, and when he met M. Cambon on the 15th and the latter began to talk about the Congo-Cameroon railway, the Foreign Secretary drew out a map, pointed to the Congo, and said that Germany would like the whole of it. M. Cambon was so surprised that for a moment he was speechless. He said flatly that no country could give away a whole colony, but that France might be willing to cede part of it in exchange for Togoland or part of the Cameroons. Kiderlen saw that the moment for strong action, privately anticipated, had arrived. “We shall only obtain a satisfactory settlement,” he wrote to Bethmann-Hollweg, “if we are prepared to face the worst, i.e. if the others feel and realise that. Those that declare in advance that they will not fight cannot expect success in politics… We must have the whole French Congo…”[319]