Never had William II been so worried and depressed as he was during the years 1912 and 1913. Agadir had made it plain that his fleet was not yet strong enough to prevent Britain from interfering in a continental war. Peace, therefore, was essential; and yet the Balkan situation was so menacing and insoluble he feared that Germany might be dragged into a conflict by accident.
He did not know how to handle the Balkans. Bismarck, by refusing to aid Austrian expansion, had been able to maintain a treaty with Russia as well; and with his two horses in double harness had safeguarded himself, for he was able to pull first on one, then on the other, and keep them both in step. Although Baron Holstein had committed the error of refusing to renew the Russian Treaty, and Russia, as a consequence, had formed the Dual Alliance with France, Germany nevertheless had taken care to remain on a friendly footing with the Czar. The Bosnian crisis was the first instance in which Berlin had sided with Austria against Russia; and since that time the Kaiser had done his best to dispel the unfavourable impression by meeting Nicholas in person. His personality always dominated the Czar, the conversations were warm and friendly, and the Kaiser believed that he had re-established confidence.
But would events allow Germany to remain on good terms with both countries, or would Austria and Russia come to blows, and make a choice inescapable? This is what worried the Kaiser. The
situation was not at all what it was in Bismarck’s day, for Pan-Slavism, encouraged by Russia, had become a real force; and a League of Balkan states had sprung into being with the backing of St. Petersburg. France’s tightening of her hold over Morocco inspired Italy to seize Turkish-owned Tripoli, and this, in turn, soon prompted the Balkan confederation to fall upon the dying Turkish Empire in an attempt to wrest away its European possessions.
War began in the autumn of 1912 and lasted, intermittently, for a year, ending with success for the Slavs and their allies. The Bulgarians reached the defensive forts outside Constantinople, the Greeks occupied Salonika, and the Serbs flowed into the upper valley of the Vardar and the northern part of Albania. Serbia then announced that she intended to incorporate Albania into her own kingdom in order to gain a precious outlet into the Adriatic. Instantly Austria sprang to the fore. This would mean a Greater Serbia, and a Greater Serbia with its appeal to the Slav elements in the Austro-Hungarian Empire would lead to the disruption and collapse of the nation. Austria was not alone in believing that her existence was threatened; for years the Serbian Radical party had been preaching that the “liberation and union of all southern Slavs can only be attained through the destruction of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.” M. Sasanov, the Russian Foreign Minister, voiced the same view to his ambassador at the Serbian capital, Belgrade, on May 6th, 1913. “Serbia’s promised land,” he said, “lies within the boundaries of the present Austria-Hungary… It is a vital interest for Serbia… to prepare herself by stubborn and patient work for the unavoidable future conflict.”[332] But as soon as Serbian troops began to swarm over Albania, Austria announced that she would oppose a fusion of Serbia and Albania even if it meant war.
William saw the danger and recoiled. When the German Ambassador in Vienna reported that the Emperor Franz Joseph considered the situation “worse than in 1866” the Kaiser scribbled on the margin “For us all!” “I shall not march against Paris and Moscow for the sake of Albania and Durazzo,” he appended. And in a longer dispatch to his Foreign Office he argued that Austria was exaggerating the danger to herself and that Germany was not bound to support her in a Balkan dispute. “I see absolutely no risk for Austria’s existence or even prestige in a Serbian port on the Adriatic Sea. I think it objectionable to oppose Serbia’s wishes needlessly. I admit that there are many changes in the Balkans, caused by the war, which are very awkward and unwelcome for Vienna, but none are so desperate that we should be exposed to the risk of war for her sake; I could not be responsible for that either to my people or to my own conscience.”[333]
However, neither the Archduke nor the Czar nor the Kaiser wanted a war, and a few weeks later they agreed to attend an Ambassadors’ Conference in London, called by Sir Edward Grey. In the early summer of 1913, while the Conference was still sitting, Bulgaria fell upon Serbia; then Romania and Greece came to Serbia’s defence in order to force Bulgaria to disgorge the “Eon’s share” of the Turkish spoils. When peace finally was restored the map was unrecognisable. Turkey had lost almost all her European territory; Bulgaria was prostrate; Serbia and Greece were greatly enlarged; and Romania looked likely to become the most powerful state in the Balkans. The problem of Albania, however, was still unsettled. Although the London Conference had endorsed Albanian independence, Serbian troops stubbornly remained in occupation of the northern part of the country. Austria finally decided to take matters in her own hands, and in the autumn threatened Serbia with war unless she withdrew within eight days. Russia was not prepared to intervene, and once again Serbia was obliged to retreat. The Ambassadors’ Conference was criticised for its lack of firmness but Europe remained at peace.
The Kaiser was tormented by doubt as to the role England would play if Germany became embroiled in a war with Russia, and France came to Russia’s aid. Sir Edward Grey repeatedly assured the House of Commons that Britain had no commitments on the continent; that if a catastrophe occurred she could be free to consider neutrality in the light of her own interests. Sometimes William II professed to believe in Britain’s cool detachment; sometimes he declared that she was playing a double game and trying to entice him into a trap, so that the entente could fall upon him. In the autumn of 1912 the Kaiser asked his brother, Prince Henry, who was about to visit England, to sound King George on the matter. “Prince Henry… asked me point blank,” the King wrote to Sir Edward Grey, “whether, in the event of Germany and Austria going to war with Russia and France, England would come to the assistance of the two latter powers. I answered ‘undoubtedly, yes… under certain circumstances’ He expressed surprise and regret, but did not ask what the certain circumstances were. He said he would tell the Emperor what I had told him. Of course Germany must know that we would not allow either of our friends to be crippled…” [334]
Prince Henry tried not to ruffle his brother’s feelings, and softened the message by saying that Germany could reckon “perhaps on English neutrality, certainly not on her taking the part of Germany, and probably on her throwing her weight on the weaker side.”[335] However, that same week Prince Lichnowsky, the new German Ambassador to London, disturbed the Emperor by declaring that Sir Edward Grey had told Lord Haldane that he desired a strictly non-partisan solution to the Balkan problem; but that if war broke out Britain might find herself obliged to go to the aid of France. “He is nevertheless a partisan of the Gallo-Slavs against the Germanic race,” wrote William heatedly. “Since England is too cowardly to drop France and Russia publicly in this case and hates and envies us too much, the other powers [Austria] are not to defend their own interests with the sword because England means to go against us… A real nation of shopkeepers! They call it a policy of peace! Balance of Power! The final struggle between the Slav and Germanic races finds the Anglo-Saxons on the side of the Slavs!” And to the Foreign Office he wrote: “We must make a military agreement with Bulgaria and Turkey, also with Romania. Any power we can get is good enough to help us. This is Germany’s ‘to be or not to be.’”
The Kaiser began to look upon Sir Edward Grey as a villain of the deepest dye. “Liar,” “Hypocrite,” “Sanctimonious ass,” he wrote on dispatches from London. The Foreign Office were more polite but no less critical, deploring the Foreign Secretary’s “false position.” Grey was a humbug but not a conscious humbug. He was one of those Englishman that foreigners find impossible to understand. A high-minded man of scrupulous principle, he managed to be intellectually dishonest because he was intellectually lazy. Liberal sentiment did not like the Triple Entente. The Manchester Guardian loudly condemned supporting French interests to defeat German imperialism, and the Westmi
nster Gazette championed an Anglo-German alliance to counter the reactionary Russian regime. Although the Foreign Office upheld the opposite point of view, and Sir Edward minuted his approval of the powerful anti-German theme running through diplomatic dispatches, he did not care to subject his liberal impulses to a douche of cold reason, so he simply kept the two apart. In his memoirs he seeks to justify his action with the distressing argument that “momentous British decisions are not to be found in the far-sighted views, or large conceptions or great schemes,” but in the “immediate interest of this country without making elaborate calculations for the future.”[336]
A reappraisal of the position, and an effort to alter Liberal opinion, would have required considerable mental exertion, and Grey was not a man who liked hard work. He loved his country house and his birds and spoke fretfully of his high position as “a duty.” Foreign ambassadors were always puzzled by the time he spent in official interviews, discussing his favourite relaxation, fishing. Some diplomats felt that it must be a subtle British pose. They could not believe that a man whose decisions affected nations all over the world could so easily slide away from stirring political events into the delights of the countryside. But it was not a pose. In the middle of the Balkan crisis of 1913 Sir Edward simply disappeared for a few days. He wrote to Sir Arthur Nicolson: “There is some prospect of rain and if so the sport will be very good. It seems almost too much to expect that everything including both Balkan crises and salmon should go well simultaneously, but things seem to prosper so well in my absence that it would not be in the public interest for me to curtail it. I am in rude health with an appetite for everything except office work.”[337]
Despite the Kaiser’s dislike of Grey, Anglo-German relations began to improve, and on the surface were better in the last months of 1913 and the first half of 1914 than they had been for many years. This was mainly due to Chancellor Bethmann-Hollweg’s friendliness and co-operation throughout the London Conference. Although Mr. Winston Churchill several times suggested that the two countries take “a naval holiday” for one year, the fleet-building question had reached such an impasse that it ceased to be an issue. The Kaiser did not reply to Churchill’s invitations and the matter was dropped. In December 1913 Bethmann told the Reichstag of the “improvement of our relations with England which is progressing so satisfactorily” and held out hope “of a permanent rapprochement between nations of the same stock.” The Prime Minister, Mr. Asquith, spoke in the same vein, Sir Edward Grey described Anglo-German co-operation as “excellent,” and Mr. Winston Churchill referred to a “thoroughly peaceful basis” of understanding. Professor Hans Delbrück said that neither economic competition nor shipbuilding made any difference in the relationship between Germany and England, and Admiral Tirpitz declared that the growing German Fleet had “improved the prospects of peace.” The Kaiser did not know what to think. He swung from one mood to another, sometimes confident and flamboyant, sometimes gripped by deep despair. “He was quite cordial,” wrote Bishop Boyd Carpenter after a visit to Berlin in June 1913. “But he spoke with a note which was new to me. He seemed apprehensive. He spoke of the dangerous position in which Germany was placed between two powers which might prove hostile. When I left him I felt that he was under the influence of a great fear.”[338] “From the beginning of 1913,” declared Bethmann-Hollweg, “he spoke to me of the coalition which, like that of Kaunitz, was joining against us and could fall on us.”[339]
William II did not want a war. Germany was more prosperous than at any time in her history. Although the population had increased during the twenty-six years of the Kaiser’s reign from 41 to 66 million, Germany’s wealth had risen far more rapidly. Her manufacturing output had trebled and her national income doubled. She led all Europe in chemistry and applied science; her railway system was the best in the world; she had surpassed Britain in the production of pig-iron, was close behind her in coal and had beaten all competitors in the supply of potash. Her emigration had become a mere trickle, and as the Kaiser had informed Haldane in 1912, many German firms were importing labour from abroad. The pressure for colonies, once believed to be a necessity in order to absorb the rising population, was now solely a question of prestige. Germany was rich and powerful, justly proud of the brains and energy that had given her people such golden years. The Kaiser was certain that Germany could achieve the supremacy he coveted for her by peaceful means; but would the peace be kept?
Russia was the danger, as William II saw it. Whereas Anglo-German relations had improved, Russo-German relations were worsening each month. In December 1913 the Russians were furious when Berlin announced that General Liman von Sanders would re-organise the Turkish Army — in response to a request from the Turkish Sultan — which was in sad disarray since its defeat at the hands of the Balkan Confederation. M. Sasanov, the Russian Foreign Minister, saw the move as an effort to thwart Russia’s “historic mission” of obtaining control of the Straits, and raised a violent protest. The German Government pointed out that General von Sanders’s position was no more dominant than that enjoyed by Admiral Limpus, the English instructor to the Turkish Navy. Although this argument was unanswerable, M. Sasanov tried to make the appointment an international issue, and told the British that “this question must be the test of the value of the Triple Entente.” But the British refused to play; and the Kaiser made an effort to pacify Russian feeling by transferring von Sanders from his command of the First Corps, an operational position, to that of General-Inspector of the Turkish Army.
This did little to diminish Russian excitement. On New Year’s Day, 1914, an article appeared in a Russian military paper expressing views that had become widespread among Russian officers. “We all know we are preparing for a war in the west. Not only the troops, but the whole nation must accustom itself to the idea that we arm ourselves for a war of annihilation against the Germans…” However, the German General Staff did not believe that Russia would be ready to fight before 1916; and the German Ambassador in St. Petersburg, Count Pourtales, clung to the opinion that Russia’s talk was mainly boastfulness and that, even then, her role would be defensive. The Kaiser disagreed. “As a soldier,” he wrote on March 11th, “I feel, from all the information received, not the slightest doubt that Russia is systematically preparing war against us and I shape my plans accordingly.”[340]
Relations with Russia continued to deteriorate, and in May 1914 a new crisis threatened the Balkans. Once again William II displayed the strictest caution. Serbia, still financed by Russia, still the spearhead of the Czardom’s Pan-Slav ambitions, was talking of a fusion with Montenegro which would give her an outlet to the sea. Austria intervened with a peremptory “no.” When the Kaiser read the dispatch he wrote on it angrily: “Unbelievable! This union is absolutely not to be prevented, and if Vienna attempts it she will commit a great stupidity, and stir up the danger of a war with the Slavs, which would leave us quite cold.”[341] The leader of Austrian intransigence was the rich, aristocratic Austrian Foreign Secretary, Count Berchtold, a man of charm but limited ability, who was dominated by the fire-brand Chief of Staff, Field-Marshal Conrad von Hotzendorf. “It is absolutely necessary,” the Kaiser cabled to Count Berchtold and the Emperor Franz Joseph, “that the people of Vienna should face the possibility of union (of Serbia and Montenegro) seriously… There must be found a modus vivendi with the Dual Monarchy which will be attractive to Serbia.”1 Talk of the fusion died down, but William II was still nervous. In June 1914 he wrote: “The III chapter of the Balkan war is coming soon, in which we shall all be involved, hence the active and colossal Russ.Fr. preparations. Find out how we stand with England.”[342]
Was the Kaiser in any real doubt about England? Despite Sir Edward Grey’s ambivalent position, the Foreign Office left no German Ambassador in confusion as to where England stood. Sir Arthur Nicolson, the Permanent Under-Secretary, declared repeatedly — perhaps deliberately to counteract Grey’s vagueness — that if a European war broke out Britain was bound t
o range herself beside France and Russia. For years Count Metternich had reported faithfully these sentiments; and when he retired in 1911 Baron Marschall began to echo the same views, and after Marschall, Lichnowsky, who took up his post in 1913.
The new German Secretary of State, Herr Jagow, who had succeeded Herr Kiderlen-Wachter upon the latter’s death in 1912, asked Prince Lichnowsky in May 1914 how he reconciled his belief that Britain would intervene in a European war with Grey’s assurances that Britain was not committed to any definite line of action. “England’s principle in her foreign policy, as far as European Powers are concerned,” the Prince replied, “is too well known and transparent for there to be any doubts about it. It rests first and foremost on the balance of power between the groups. It is as little to England’s interests that a single Power should be predominant on the Continent as that a group should prevail… As most questions in politics have not one but several sides, the development of our sea-power had undoubtedly helped on the desire in England to live at peace with us, but it has also helped them to realise that it is to British interests to support the group opposed to us. It is obvious therefore that any further weakening of France, especially by defeat in war — which would moreover free us from the future necessity for great armaments on land and enable us to spend even more on our sea-power — is not to the interest of England…”[343] Bethmann-Hollweg was not disturbed. He believed implicitly that he, personally, had changed the atmosphere and established such close relations with England that the latter was no longer to be feared. If war broke out in the Balkans, he wrote to Lichnowsky on June 16th, 1914, Germany and Britain must “stand resolute as guardians of the peace of Europe” which “neither the obligations toward the Triple Alliance nor the Entente will prevent us from doing, if from the start we pursue this aim according to a concerted plan.”[344]
The Kaiser Page 35