Dreadnought

by Robert K. Massie

  It was the same in almost every category and statistic by which economic strength is measured. The disappearance of customs barriers, the growth of railways, rapid urbanization, development of the chemical and electrical industries, the rise of the world’s second-largest merchant fleet, booming overseas trade, extensive foreign investments—all added to a massive army of unique efficiency—created a state which dominated the European continent. With surging strength came a sense of national destiny. Young, self-confident, ambitious, the German Empire set out to follow the path taken by other powerful states.fn1 Expansion became a matter of prestige and a measure of prosperity. By 1897, leading figures in the government, industry, the press, and the professions agreed that Germany’s population explosion and industrial growth demanded colonies as sources of raw materials and markets for finished products. Unless the Reich acquired trading ports, naval bases, and coaling stations around the globe as Britain and, to a lesser extent, France, had done, her economy would atrophy and her greatness diminish. Thus the policy of Weltmacht, world power, was born. Bernhard von Bülow, with Admiral Alfred Tirpitz an architect of Weltmacht, expressed the issue in everyday terms. “The question is not1 whether we wish to colonize or not, but that we must colonize whether we want to or not. To say that Germany should cease its Weltpolitik is like a father telling his son, ‘If only you would not grow, you troublesome youth, then I would not need to buy you longer trousers.’” Tirpitz was blunter: German overseas expansion, he said, was “as irresistible as a law of nature.”2

  There were objections. The leaders of the German Social Democratic Party, Wilhelm Liebknecht and August Bebel, argued that Germany’s future should rest on the solution of social problems at home rather than on expansion overseas. Their objections only added incentive to the imperialists: the forward policy was designed, at least in part, to divert the attention of the German public and German workers from social and political problems at home. Another argument, that the colonies already possessed by Germany brought neither prestige nor profit to the Empire, was discounted. Even poor colonies, it was said, added territory to the German flag and might lead to something better. A further objection, that most of the areas of the world suitable for settlement already belonged to other European powers, failed to deter. Ernst Hasse, founder of the Pan-German League, whose program was the union of all members of the German race wherever they lived, declared: “One of the conventional lies3 of history is that the world is already divided. History, on the contrary, is merely the record of the partition and repartition of the world.... We want territory even if it belongs to foreigners, so that we may shape the future according to our needs.” A corollary to this doctrine was that if direct exchanges of territory or revisions of colonial boundaries were made without German participation, then Germany had the right to demand territorial “compensation” from the powers involved.

  A majority of Germans, convinced of the justice of their country’s claims, believed that the world should and would accommodate German demands. If other powers—Britain, for example—were troublesome, Germany had the strength to deal with this. On January 6, 1897, Professor Schiemann, a member of the faculty of Berlin University, wrote in a newspaper: “England is still the state4 which has least adjusted to the fact that Germany is the strongest power on the continent and that she is prepared, if necessary, to compel this recognition.”

  Across Germany, professors proclaimed the glory of the Hohenzollern monarchy, the necessity for patriotic obedience, the historical inevitability of German expansion. No academic figure was more influential than Heinrich von Treitschke, Professor of History at the University of Berlin. In his History of Germany in the Nineteenth Century, published in five volumes, and in his university lectures through the 1880s and 1890s, Treitschke preached the ideology of power and the supremacy of the State. Born into the Saxon nobility, unable to follow a military career because of deafness, he considered war the instrument of the Divine Idea. “Only in war5 a nation will become truly a nation,” he said. “Only common great deeds for the idea of a Fatherland will hold a nation together.... Social selfishness must yield.... The individual must forget himself and feel part of the whole; he must realize how insignificant his life is compared with the whole....” The highest duty of the State, Treitschke said, was to develop and wield power. “The State,” he not Holstein shouted in his lecture hall, “is not an Academy of Art.6 It is Power!” These words, delivered in a near-feverish howl, provoked roaring applause and chanting, foot-stamping adulation. Treitschke’s rhetoric, intoxicating and mesmerizing, cloaked the new policy of the German Empire with philosophical purpose.

  In 1896, Admiral Georg von Müller, Chief of the Kaiser’s Naval Cabinet, translated Treitschke’s philosophy into practical, contemporary terms. Writing to Prince Henry, the Kaiser’s brother, Müller said: “General Caprivi believed7 that Germany had no chance at all of becoming a World Power and consequently his policy was designed only to maintain our position on the European continent. He was therefore acting quite logically in working at home for the strengthening of the Army, limiting the Navy to the role of defending the coastline... and seeking good relations with England as the natural ally against Russia, the country which threatened Germany’s position in Europe.” By 1896, Müller continued, Caprivi’s policy was discredited and “widely ridiculed.” “The German people... [are] coming to accept an entirely different opinion of their ability and indeed their duty to expand.... Our motto must be all or nothing. Either we harness the total strength of the nation quite ruthlessly, even if this means accepting the risk of a major war, or we confine ourselves to continental power alone.” This choice, Müller said, would initially provide comfort and security but would eventually and inevitably lead to economic strangulation, decay, and backwardness. Weltpolitik realized that “world history is now dominated by the economic struggle, that Central Europe is getting too small and that the free expansion of the peoples who live here is restricted... by the world domination of England.... The war which could—and many say, must—result... would have the aim of breaking England’s world domination so as to lay free the necessary colonial possessions for the Central European states who need to expand.” Müller urged caution against any immediate challenge to England—the German Navy was insignificant—and he thought that Germany should first acquire some colonial possessions in alliance with England. Ultimately, however, Müller predicted that these “two Germanic world empires would... with absolute inevitability have to go to war to determine which of the two should dominate.”

  Above the philosophers and historians, the ministers and diplomats, the steel magnates, bankers, and shipping managers stood the leading advocate of Weltmacht, Kaiser William II. William saw his role in mystical as well as political terms: World Power became an extension of his Divine Right to rule. William I and his servant Bismarck had created a German Empire and a German Kaiser; now William II and his servants would transform the German Empire into a World Empire ruled by a World Kaiser. Germany, William II told the Austrian ambassador in 1898, “has great tasks to accomplish8 outside the narrow boundaries of old Europe.” On January 18, 1896, at a celebration of the twenty-fifth anniversary of the establishment of the German Empire,9 William II had proclaimed: “The German Empire has become a world empire.”

  In December 1901, William wrote to his uncle, now King Edward VII, “I am the sole arbiter10 and master of German foreign policy and the Government and country must follow me.... May your Government never forget this....” This was neither wholly accurate nor entirely hyperbole. The German constitution gave the Emperor sole responsibility for choosing a chancellor; the chancellor, assisted by the Foreign Ministry, was responsible for the administration of foreign policy. A Kaiser unhappy with a particular foreign policy could always dismiss one chancellor and select another. William’s private opinion was that foreign policy was best handled directly between sovereigns. “I am at my very best,”11 he said, “when I talk straight out to my
colleagues,” meaning the heads of the other ruling houses of Europe. Nevertheless, William accepted that on a day-to-day basis even the most gifted sovereigns required assistance from chancellors, prime ministers, foreign ministers, and diplomats. He wanted, as chancellor, a man who would transform his own ideas and inspirations into working policy—an able executor and faithful servant of his Imperial will. The obstinate Caprivi and the elderly Hohenlohe had disappointed him. Now, with the help of Philip Eulenburg, he had found the right man. “Bülow will be my Bismarck,”12 William said. Bülow did everything to encourage this prophecy. If appointed, he wrote to Eulenburg in 1896, he would regard himself as no more than an executive instrument, an administrative assistant, to the monarch. “With me,” he told Eulenburg, “personal rule13—in the good sense—would really begin.”

  It was said of Bernhard von Bülow that he possessed every quality except greatness. Chancellor of the German Empire for nine years, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs for the three previous years, he was the most elegant, cosmopolitan political figure produced in Imperial Germany. Bülow was a consummate diplomat, urbane and polished, a man of wide culture who spoke several languages flawlessly and moved effortlessly in international society. As a politician, he dazzled even his political opponents with an endless outpouring of classical quotations, discreet jokes, and polished, charming repartee. He was a patriotic German who loved Paris and preferred Italy to most parts of Germany, especially Berlin. “Bülow,” it has been written, “seemed more Latin than German,14 like some fabulous, many-colored bird in the Prussian aviary... always making new friends, nobody’s enemy, captivating, graceful....”

  The façade was splendid. Behind lay the driving forces of Bülow’s life: vanity and ambition. The characteristics of his work were laziness and cynicism. He grappled ruthlessly for power, but once it was in his possession, he ignored his duties, despised details, and left his subordinates to find their own way. A brilliant debater who won flashy triumphs in the Reichstag, he stepped down from the podium with his eyes glittering contemptuously as he spoke of those who had supported as well as opposed him. He practiced flattery as a high art, lathering and coating with layers of charm, but as soon as the back was turned, he let his malicious tongue dart forth to lacerate and ridicule the object just flattered. In the short term, Bülow had his way; as one observer noted, he was able to catch many mice by laying out for each its favorite kind of cheese. For twelve years, German foreign policy lay in the hands of a man who lacked purpose, scruples, courage, and a vision of his own. Power, which gravitates into the hands of men who know what they want, flowed out of Bülow’s hands. It was wielded by Holstein, by the Kaiser, and by Alfred von Tirpitz.

  People close to Bülow, watching his slippery passage through life, were fascinated and repelled by what they saw. Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter, Political Counselor at the Foreign Office, called Bülow “an eel”;15 on hearing this, Tirpitz snorted that compared to Bülow “an eel is a leech.”16 Holstein said that Bülow had read more Machiavelli than he could digest. Another contemporary declared that “underneath the shiny paint,17 there was nothing but plaster.” Even Bülow’s relatives admitted to Bernhardt flaws: “He would be quite a fellow18 if his character could only attain the height of his personality,” said his younger brother Adolf. Bülow’s aristocratic Italian mother-in-law ridiculed his absurdly exaggerated confidences. “Bernhard makes a secret19 of everything,” she declared. “He takes you by the arm, leads you to the window and says, ‘Don’t tell anyone but there’s a little dog down there who’s pissing.’” The full range of Bülow’s qualities, bright and dark, came out in his Memoirs. Four volumes, whose publication he deliberately postponed until after his death, attempted to enshrine his own reputation by ruining all others. Instead, these pages, brimming with vanity and malice as well as with brilliant scenes and sparkling dialogue, irreparably damaged Bülow’s reputation. Kaiser William II, the object of much of Bülow’s public flattery and target of much of his private venom, made one of his own few witty remarks when he declared that Bülow was the only case he knew of a man who first had died and then committed suicide.

  From the first, this slender young man with his round, friendly face, his smiling blue eyes, and his carefully trimmed mustache had seemed destined for a golden life in Imperial Germany. He was born May 3, 1849, at Klein Flottbeck near Altona on the Elbe. His mother was a Hamburger, his father a Mecklenburg nobleman who had entered the Danish diplomatic service and represented the duchies of Holstein and Lauenburg at the Federal Diet in Frankfurt. Bismarck was in Frankfurt representing the King of Prussia. At the age of seven Bernhard von Bülow played with Bismarck’s sons, and later described Herbert Bismarck as “the closest friend of my life.”20 Bülow’s introduction of Herbert is typical of his technique: in the same breath in which he describes Herbert as “the closest friend of my life,” he tells an unpleasant little story: “My earliest memory of Herbert21 is of playing with him in the pretty garden of our house in the Neue Mainzerstrasse in Frankfurt with his brother Bill and a little girl named Christa.... There was a streak of German brutality in both brothers. Herbert and Bill both wanted to make Christa kiss a fat toad....” As a child, Bernhard also visited Rumpenheim Castle near Frankfurt, where the Danish Prince Christian visited with his family. There he played with Princess Alexandra, who later married the Prince of Wales and became Queen of England. She was, Bülow remembered, “a beautiful girl,22 with a wonderful waist and a light, airy, swinging gait.” When they met as adults, the Princess remembered his visits and that he had cuffed and scratched her in their games.

  When Bernhard was thirteen, his father resigned his post in Frankfurt and left the service of Denmark to become Chief Minister of the Grand Duke of Mecklenburg. The family moved to Neustrelitz. Bernhard, fluent in French and English thanks to governesses, went to the local gymnasium and then to universities in Lausanne, Leipzig, and Berlin. During the Franco-Prussian War, he volunteered and put on the blue tunic, leather breeches, and yellow boots of a lance corporal in the King’s Hussar Regiment. In December 1870, his squadron charged fifty French riflemen near Amiens. Bülow rode down a French soldier, slashed him on the head with his saber, and watched while his enemy “wavered and swayed,23 tottered, collapsed, gave a death rattle, and was dead.” By the end of the war, Bülow was a lieutenant, but had turned down the plea of his colonel to make his career in the army. Greater opportunities beckoned.

  In 1873, Bismarck installed his former Frankfurt colleague, Bernhard von Bülow the elder, as Imperial Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, a post Bülow held for six years until he died in office in 1879. Bülow père was stern, punctilious, and tireless. Bismarck valued him for his loyalty and his clear understanding that he and the Foreign Office were no more than instruments of the Chancellor’s will.

  In the year in which his father became State Secretary, young Bernhard von Bülow entered the German Diplomatic Corps. Naturally, all doors at court, in society, and in the foreign embassies in Berlin were open to the charming young man who had fought bravely in the war and whose father was Foreign Minister of the Reich. Bülow’s first assignments were brief. He went to Rome—with which he fell in love—St. Petersburg, Vienna, and Athens. In 1876, he began six years in Paris as Second and then First Secretary of the German Embassy. In 1884, he hoped for assignment to London, but to his dismay, was sent instead to a second term in St. Petersburg. Before he left Germany, he was invited to spend two days at Varzin with the Bismarcks. He sat at the table, which he described as that of a German farmer, while Princess Bismarck plied him with delicacies and pressed him to drink more of the Prince’s heavy Kulmbach beer. After dinner, the family sat around the table and gossiped unpleasantly about personalities in Berlin. The following morning, the Chancellor came to see Bülow about his assignment in St. Petersburg. “As I sat next morning24 in my room, eating a very large and excellent breakfast, the Prince entered. He sat down opposite with the words: ‘Don’t let me distur
b you. Go on eating your eggs. I hope they have been boiled properly.’” Bismarck said that he understood Bülow’s disappointment at being sent to the Russian capital rather than to London. “But the pivot of our position, and with that of our whole policy, the pivot on which things turn, is our relationship to Russia.... For us, therefore, St. Petersburg is now the most important diplomatic post. That is why I have transferred you there.” Bülow listened carefully, but did not interrupt his breakfast of eggs, toast, and smoked herring. That afternoon, Bülow went for a walk with Bill Bismarck, who told him: “My father said25 some nice things about you. It pleased him especially that you went on calmly eating your eggs. ‘He had good nerves. He pleases me altogether.’”

  Along his smooth upward path, a second reputation began to form about Bernhard von Bülow. Ambition and careerism were seen behind the façade. Too often in private letters to influential people, Bülow took credit for the successes of his chiefs and detached himself from their failures. From St. Petersburg, where he was First Secretary and Counselor under General von Schweinitz, Bülow delivered a litany of complaints to the Foreign Office. Ambassador Schweinitz was denounced as touchy, devious, egotistical, and unsophisticated in his analysis of Russian affairs. Unfortunately for Bülow, both Kaiser William I and Bismarck liked Schweinitz. Bülow’s progress and tactics were observed from the beginning by one especially keen and suspicious eye in the Wilhelmstrasse: “Bernhard Bülow is clean-shaven and pasty,26 with a shifty look and almost perpetual smile,” noted Friedrich von Holstein. “Intellectually plausible rather than penetrating. Has no ideas in reserve... but appropriates other people’s ideas and skillfully retails them without acknowledging the source.” Himself a master of intrigue, Holstein gave Bülow credit for his technique: “When Bülow wants to set27 one man against another, he says with an insinuating smile, ‘He doesn’t like you.’ A simple and almost infallible method.” Holstein noted another tactic: “A few days ago,28 Bülow sent me a letter to Herbert, unsealed, to be passed along to Herbert, sealed.” In 1885, Bülow was intriguing for Prince Hohenlohe’s removal from his post as Ambassador to France so that he could have the position himself. “The beauty of it,”29 Holstein noted with cynical admiration, “is that all the while Bülow keeps up a continuous and friendly correspondence with Hohenlohe....”