Bismarck’s dismissal signaled that the new Kaiser was unwilling to tolerate such a concentration of power outside the monarchy. Why, then, did William, who wanted to be his own Chancellor, choose a general noted for his independence? And why did Caprivi, who already had left the navy because he didn’t like the Emperor’s interference, accept the assignment? William’s reasons were pragmatic: he needed time to stabilize the state, and an honorable and unambitious Chancellor to administer the government. As the army was the strongest force in the Reich, the new Chancellor must be a general. Caprivi was the general with the most political experience; already, as State Secretary of the Navy, he had appeared before the Reichstag. If he was stubborn, he also was intensely loyal. No one expected the new Chancellor to remain in office long. Waldersee, the new Army Chief of Staff, who was ambitious to become Chancellor, did not envy Caprivi. “First, at least one successor36 to Bismarck must discredit himself,” he confided to a friend. “Then perhaps one could be persuaded.” Caprivi’s reason for becoming Chancellor was simple: his monarch, the King of Prussia, had commanded him. He had no illusions about what it would mean to follow Bismarck. Once, walking past the Chancellor’s Palace when Bismarck was still within, Caprivi had asked a friend, “What kind of a jackass37 would dare to be Bismarck’s successor?” Caprivi left the army reluctantly. On his last evening with his officers in Hanover, he told them, “I know that I shall be covered with mud,38 that I shall fall ingloriously.” His consolation, he said, was his belief that his army comrades would always remember him as a decent fellow.
When Caprivi first took office, he seemed to please everyone. Even Bismarck conditionally approved. “If anything can lighten for me39 the oppressiveness of this moment, it is the fact that you are to be my successor,” he told Caprivi on the day he left the Wilhelmstrasse. “We are getting on well40 with Caprivi,” William wrote to Queen Victoria on Christmas Day, 1890. “He is already adored by friends and revered by the opposition. I think he is one of the finest characters Germany ever produced.” To the Emperor Franz Josef, William wrote that his new Chancellor was, “after Bismarck, the greatest German41 we possess, truly devoted to Me, and with a rock-ribbed character.” Politically, the Kaiser positioned himself behind Caprivi. “If the Chancellor demands anyone’s dismissal... [that person] must go, even if I myself like him.”
Caprivi’s purpose and style in administering the government were different from Bismarck’s. His intention was “to lead the nation back42 to an everyday existence after the bygone epoch of great men and great events.” In Bismarck’s Reich, all the disparate, fractious elements of the state pivoted on the office and personality of the Iron Chancellor. Over the years, Bismarck had created a network of Prussian ministers, imperial state secretaries, and diplomats, subject to his autocratic whim, all instruments for carrying out his will. Now his sudden disappearance threw this balanced machinery into disarray. On his first visit to the capital after Bismarck’s fall, Prince Hohenlohe, Governor General of Alsace, noted that “previously, independent statesmen43 were shriveled and dominated by the authority of Prince Bismarck. Now each personality is conscious of his own value. They have all swelled out like sponges placed in water.”
Caprivi belonged to no political party. As Navy State Secretary, he had been on good terms with all parties in the Reichstag and his approach to that body, now that he was Chancellor, was moderate and conciliatory. He disdained Bismarck’s policy of dividing the deputies into categories of “friends of the Reich” and “enemies of the Reich.” Caprivi promised the deputies that he would “take the good wherever44 and from whomever it may come.” The new Chancellor rescinded Bismarck’s revival of the Cabinet Order of 1852, which forbade any direct contact, personal or written, between the monarch and individual ministers. As Chancellor, Caprivi no longer demanded the right to be present at every meeting between the Kaiser and other ministers. Further, Caprivi wished both the imperial state secretaries and the Prussian ministers to meet collectively and take decisions jointly in the manner of Western cabinets.
Caprivi’s deliberate erosion of the Chancellor’s office disturbed many government officials. They were accustomed to Bismarck’s duplicity; Caprivi’s attempt to introduce straightforwardness and simplicity seemed naïve. His innocence was widely remarked upon: on taking office, he had instructed the Foreign Office to trouble him after five P.M. only in case of real emergency; a few months later, when he announced that he would be working regularly until ten P.M., experienced officials smiled knowingly. Caprivi’s unfamiliarity with the traditional workings of the Reich government extended to matters more serious than the hours of work. He knew little about Germany’s relations with other powers and he did not speak the artful language of professional diplomacy. General of Infantry Caprivi, honest and blunt, wanted everything in plain view. Foreign Ministry officials disparaged him. “Caprivi has an absolutely stupid lack45 of knowledge in non-military matters,” declared one German diplomat. “One might just as well make any good battalion commander Chancellor.” Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter, a counselor in the Political Section of the Foreign Ministry, observed more gently, “A horse which has done well46 out of doors is not one to be stabled.”
Within a week of becoming Chancellor, Caprivi made the most significant foreign-policy decision of his term in office. The cornerstone of Bismarck’s Continental diplomacy had been the isolation of France. To enforce this outcast status on France and to control conflicting Russian and Austrian ambitions in the Balkans, Bismarck had followed the signing of his public treaty with Austria in 1887 with the conclusion of the secret Reinsurance Treaty with Russia. On June 18, 1890, the three-year Reinsurance Treaty was due to expire. Russia had warned that she could not allow herself to be isolated as France had been. If Germany did not wish to continue the alliance, warned Nicholas Giers, the Russian Foreign Minister, the Tsar “would be forced, against his own convictions,47 to ally himself with the French Republic.”
Negotiations for renewal had begun with Bismarck in February 1890. On March 17, the Russian ambassador to Germany, Count Paul Shuvalov, returned to Berlin from St. Petersburg to confront the final Bismarck crisis. On the night of March 20, Count Shuvalov was pulled from his bed to be told that the Kaiser wished to see him early in the morning. At this audience, William assured the ambassador that Bismarck’s departure meant no change in German policies and that he, the Emperor, guaranteed renewal of the Reinsurance Treaty. “I beg you to tell His Majesty48 [the Tsar] that on my part I am entirely disposed to renew our agreement and that my foreign policy will remain the same as it was in the time of my grandfather,” he said. Shuvalov, elated, cabled the news to St. Petersburg, where Alexander III noted on the margin of his Ambassador’s report: “Nothing more satisfactory49 could be looked for.... Entirely reassuring.”
In the meantime, General Caprivi, knowing nothing of either the Reinsurance Treaty or the Kaiser’s assurances to Shuvalov, assumed the office of Chancellor. Caprivi had already admitted that on questions of foreign policy he felt as if he had entered a dark room. No successor to Bismarck would ever inspire the same blend of fear and trust which Germany and Europe had given the Iron Chancellor. His policy, therefore, would be one of openness and he would be guided in practical details by his Foreign Ministry.
This office, however, also was in new hands. Three days after Otto von Bismarck’s resignation, Herbert von Bismarck had resigned as State Secretary for Foreign Affairs. The Kaiser and the new Chancellor desperately needed a replacement. Holstein had been proposed; he had brushed the offer aside, but used the opportunity to present his candidate, Baron Adolf Marschall von Bieberstein, the Ambassador of the Grand Duchy of Baden in Berlin. Marschall, bulky and stooping, his face scarred by saber wounds inflicted in student duels, a lawyer who had no diplomatic experience beyond representing his Grand Duke in the Imperial capital, was appointed.
Because Marschall was new, it was Holstein who turned up at Caprivi’s door bringing a document which he ur
gently advised the new Chancellor to read. It was the Reinsurance Treaty. The Russian Ambassador, Holstein informed Caprivi, was waiting to begin negotiations. Caprivi asked Holstein’s opinion. After having had Bismarck ignore his advice about Russia for five years, Holstein, pleased to be consulted, strongly counselled letting the Treaty lapse. Russia, whether in opposition to Germany or in alliance with her, Holstein explained, posed a continuing threat. In order to oppose this threat, Germany must have the support of Austria. And if Austria were to learn of the Reinsurance Treaty, the Austro-German treaty would be undermined. On the other hand, in alliance with Russia, there was a chance that Germany might be dragged into a war between Russia and England. Marschall, under Holstein’s influence, concurred. The German Ambassador to Russia, General von Schweinitz, who also happened to be in Berlin, was consulted. He supported Holstein, stressing the need to avoid misunderstanding with Austria. If the existence of the Reinsurance Treaty leaked out, Schweinitz said, the alliance with Vienna would not survive. “If Bismarck were still at the helm,”50 Schweinitz said bluntly, “I would advise that the Treaty be renewed. Under the changed circumstances, it would be dangerous to pursue such an ambiguous policy.” Caprivi was not offended by this statement; it was precisely his view. “Bismarck was able to juggle51 with three balls. I can only juggle with two,” he said. The decision of the Chancellor and his advisors was unanimous against renewal of the Reinsurance Treaty and in favor of a “simple and transparent”52 foreign policy.
That afternoon, Caprivi and Schweinitz went to see the Kaiser. Caprivi described the morning discussion and reported that he would be unable to reconcile the Reinsurance Treaty with the treaty with Austria. William asked the Ambassador’s opinion. Schweinitz supported the Chancellor and suggested that so noble a monarch as William II would not wish exposure as being disloyal to his venerable colleague, the Emperor Franz Josef. William listened silently, then stood up and declared, “Well, then, it can’t be done53 whether I like it or not.” He said nothing about his personal guarantee to Shuvalov that the treaty would be renewed.
The following day, Schweinitz called on Shuvalov, still euphoric over the Kaiser’s promise, and told him that the decision had been reversed. Shuvalov, dumbfounded, then described his earlier meeting with William. Schweinitz, astonished in turn, quickly returned to Caprivi, who requested an immediate audience with the Emperor. William, confronting the distressed Chancellor, had created a crisis within a crisis. Rid of Bismarck little more than a week, free to rule as well as reign, he already had created an impossible situation. Either he must rebuff Shuvalov, Giers, and the Tsar and break the secret tie with Germany’s eastern neighbor, or he had to dismiss his Chancellor of one week. William decided in favor of Caprivi and against Russia.
Schweinitz was dispatched to St. Petersburg to soothe the Russians. His task was difficult; Shuvalov could not forget William’s promise: “One thing was said54 and another done,” he complained. Stripped of Russia’s only alliance, the Russian Foreign Ministry began to seek another. The events predicted by Bismarck and by Giers were not long in coming. On July 23, 1890, only four months after Germany’s refusal to renew the Reinsurance Treaty, a French naval flotilla called at the Russian Baltic naval base of Kronstadt. Tsar Alexander III gave a dinner at Peterhof for the commander of the French squadron and stood bareheaded as a band played the “Marseillaise,” the revolutionary anthem which had been prohibited within the borders of the Russian Empire. From Peterhof, Admiral Gervais, the French commander, went to Moscow, where he raised his glass and said, “I drink to Holy Moscow,55 the great Russian nation and its noble Tsar.”
Caprivi knew from the beginning that the key to his Chancellorship would be his relationship with the young Emperor. People spoke “of the difficulties of my situation56... at home and abroad,” he told an acquaintance, “but the problem of which one speaks the least and the one which is the most fearful—not to say insurmountable—is that which comes from On High.” At first, Caprivi managed to satisfy the Kaiser. As William had feared, an angry Bismarck had retaliated by giving interviews and writing articles, denying that he had resigned voluntarily and casting doubts on the Kaiser’s competence. The new Chancellor considered it his duty to defend the monarch. Caprivi, believing that the Kaiser had been completely within his prerogative to dismiss Bismarck, regarded Bismarck’s protests as improper and undignified.
It was as buffer as well as administrator that Caprivi made himself temporarily indispensable. Even when irritated by the unyielding old general, William restrained himself; he could not afford to dismiss a second Chancellor so soon after toppling Bismarck. Nevertheless, friction between the two was inevitable. In 1891, William, without consulting the Chancellor, drew up an Army Bill for submission to the Reichstag. Caprivi, offended by this lack of confidence, immediately wrote out his resignation. William withdrew the bill, but complained of his limited power. In private, William and his confidants, Philip von Eulenburg and Bernhard von Bülow, began to talk of the need for a coup which would strip the Reichstag of its power. (Kinderlen, who accompanied the Kaiser on his summer cruise to Norway in 1891, wondered how much of his master’s bombast could be attributed to the new Imperial beard. “With a beard like this,”57 Kiderlen heard William say on board the Hohenzollern, “you could thump on the table so hard that your ministers would fall down in fright and lie flat on their faces.”)
Caprivi was not frightened. In March 1892, he resigned again, complaining that the Kaiser’s interference made his work as Chancellor impossible. Caprivi’s purpose was not to force William to modify his behavior; the Chancellor wished to leave office. Sensing this, William immediately backed down. “No, I would not dream of it,”58 he scribbled on the Chancellor’s request to resign. “It is not nice to drive the cart into the mud and leave the Kaiser sitting in it.” Privately, William complained to his friends that Caprivi was becoming “a sensitive old fathead.”59
Caprivi’s threats to resign increased the Kaiser’s impatience. He complained to Philip von Eulenburg that he found it hard to deal with Caprivi’s “indescribable obstinacy60 and... his unsuperable feeling that he is dealing with a very young man. He entirely overlooks the fact that I have acquired political judgement through my long association with Prince Bismarck and through my own experience.” By the summer of 1893, William was covering Caprivi’s memoranda with negative comments. “One can’t get anywhere61 with these virtuous, hypocritical old bachelors,” the Kaiser grumbled to a friend. Acknowledging that the Chancellor was completely honest and loyal, William decided the problem was a mismatch of personalities. “Caprivi, you get terribly on my nerves,”62 the Kaiser told him one day. “Your Majesty, I have always63 been an uncomfortable subordinate,” the Chancellor replied.
William persistently infringed on Caprivi’s office. One day in 1893, an army captain, Natzmer, appeared in the Chancellor’s office and announced that he was the newly appointed Governor of the German colony of Cameroon. Caprivi assumed that the man was deranged and attempted to calm him. But, as the officer described the events at a reception at the New Palace the previous night, culminating in the Kaiser’s appointment of him to the vacant position, it became apparent that he was quite rational. Caprivi and Marschall drove together to Potsdam, where the Chancellor again raised the question of his constitutional responsibilities as head of the government. William capitulated and no more was heard of Captain Natzmer.
Episodes of this kind wearied Caprivi and he became increasingly anxious to escape. With every difference of opinion he tendered his resignation (during four and a half years as Chancellor, Caprivi offered or threatened to resign ten times). By early 1894, Eulenburg and Bülow were actively searching for another solution to the problem of the Kaiser’s desire for personal rule. William talked about it openly. “For his successor,64 I shall take a younger man,” he said. “Someone who will be closer to me personally and will not have any past experience to oppose me.” Everyone in Berlin knew that Caprivi’s days w
ere numbered. Holstein remained loyal to the Chancellor to the end, but most politicians ignored Caprivi. At one dinner, the new Prussian Minister of War, General Walter Bronsart von Schellendorf, appointed to office without Caprivi’s consent, publicly insulted, then turned his back on, the Imperial Chancellor. Caprivi understood. “My relations with the All Highest65 have become intolerable,” he told a friend. “You just cannot imagine how relieved I will feel to get out of here.” On October 26, 1894, he resigned. That night, he burned all his private papers in a Reichschancellory fireplace, and the following day he left for Montreux on Lake Geneva, where for many months he remained in seclusion. In the spring he returned to Germany and went to live with a nephew near Frankfurt on the Oder. There, in the midst of a deep pine forest, surrounded by grandnieces and grandnephews, he steadfastly refused all requests to speak or write about his career or his relationship with Bismarck or William II. “Nor would it do any good66... rather harm,” he said. “If unfavorable opinions of me grow out of... [this decision], I must bear it.” Caprivi died in 1899.
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