Dreadnought

by Robert K. Massie

  But in one area of foreign policy, relations with England, Bethmann moved immediately to take control. In his memoirs, the new Chancellor described the circumstances in the summer of 1909: “England had firmly taken51 its stand on the side of France and Russia in pursuit of its traditional policy of opposing whatever continental power for the time being was the strongest;... Germany held fast to its naval program.... If Germany saw a formidable aggravation of all the aggressive tendencies of Franco-Russian policy in England’s pronounced friendship with this Dual Alliance, England on its side had grown to see a menace in the strengthening of the German Fleet.... Words had already passed on both sides. The atmosphere was chilly with distrust.” On July 26, less than two weeks after Bethmann-Hollweg became Chancellor, the British government announced that the second four dreadnoughts of the 1909 Estimates would be laid down. The Danger Zone which Tirpitz had said would last until 1915 was now extended. Bethmann concluded that with three Great Powers united against Germany, and the main irritant to Britain the German Fleet, his duty was to negotiate with England and, if he could obtain firm commitments, attempt to limit the Fleet.

  Bethmann acted authoritatively. He had been in office only three weeks when, on August 3, he heard Albert Ballin propose a meeting on naval matters between admirals Tirpitz and Fisher. “I respectfully protest,”52 Bethmann said to the Emperor, who had just returned from his annual cruise to Norway. “I consider as my particular province and the principal object of all my efforts, the establishment of confidential and really friendly relations with England. In Your Majesty’s absence, I have been studying the matter in depth with all the documents. It is my special field and I cannot allow it to be encroached upon.” The Chancellor was so vehement that, after he left, William turned to Ballin and said, “Your proposal won’t work.53 You see how vexed he was. I cannot afford a Chancellor crisis just a few weeks after appointing him.” On August 17, Bethmann circulated a directive to all department heads, including Tirpitz, that naval discussions with England would be supervised by him.

  On August 21, Bethmann informed Sir Edward Goschen, the British Ambassador, that he was prepared to open naval talks with Britain. On October 15, the Chancellor gave Goschen his plan. The basic German Navy Law would have to be carried out, he said; the Kaiser, Admiral Tirpitz, the Reichstag, and the German people would not permit a reduction in the ultimate number of ships. But for two or three years, to gratify England, the government was prepared to build fewer ships annually. The new supplementary program of four dreadnoughts a year might, he suggested, be reduced to three. But this concession by Germany would require something from Britain. Pressed by Goschen, the Chancellor specified that, in return for a naval agreement, Germany wanted assurance of British neutrality if Germany became involved in war.

  Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter, whom Bethmann had chosen as his new Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, supported the Chancellor’s proposal: If British sea power were neutralized, Germany would not need as large a navy. “It would be almost incomprehensible54 to serious opinion in Germany that we should lose the advantage of a friendly rapprochement with England for the sake of a few ships more or less, as long as the defense of our coasts is assured,” Kiderlen said. On October 20, Metternich was instructed to emphasize to Sir Edward Grey that a general assurance of friendship would be insufficient; there must be an explicit pledge of British neutrality. Germany further insisted, Metternich was told, that Britain give this pledge before Germany would agree to slow the building of her fleet.

  Grey was skeptical. From the beginning, he had been wary of Bethmann-Hollweg’s “political agreement.” “I want a good understanding55 with Germany,” Grey said, “but it must be one which will not imperil those we have with France and Russia.” Foreign Office professionals worried that Britain might be asked to accept the status quo in Europe, including recognition of Germany’s annexation of Alsace-Lorraine. Although the 1904 Entente agreement had said nothing about Alsace-Lorraine, these diplomats realized that a formal guarantee to Germany on this politically charged issue would have powerful repercussions in France and could mean the end of the Entente. Grey had a deeper concern. In his view, a British guarantee of absolute neutrality would ultimately lead to German hegemony in Europe. France and Russia, estranged from Britain, would face Germany alone. Either they would come to terms with her and swing into her orbit or, if war were declared, they would be defeated. In either case, an isolated England would face a German-dominated Continent. Faced with a choice between even a crushingly expensive naval race or a pledge of neutrality that would lead to German hegemony, Grey, Asquith, and their Liberal colleagues chose the first course. Metternich understood this. “The English friendship with France56 would be almost worthless,” he told Berlin, “if England were to say plainly that under no circumstances would she help France against us.” Grey also refused to negotiate any political agreement, even a vague one, unless naval limitation had first been accepted. How could he defend a political agreement before the House of Commons, he asked Metternich, when British taxpayers still were being asked to pay enormous sums for dreadnoughts?

  The issue was never resolved. For the remainder of 1909, all of 1910, and part of 1911, the two powers sparred with each other. In Bethmann-Hollweg’s mind, naval concessions depended upon a binding political agreement. British statesmen, eager though they were to limit the German Fleet and reduce their own shipbuilding costs, refused any agreement that made it impossible to assist a beleaguered France and prevent German dominance. The armaments race continued. In the spring of 1910, the First Division of the High Seas Fleet, made up of the four latest German dreadnoughts, shifted home port from Kiel on the Baltic to Wilhelmshaven on the North Sea. Simultaneously, the Reichstag voted funds for four additional dreadnoughts, bringing the total ordered to seventeen. The German Navy League warned against the “siren song”57 of a naval agreement with England which “represents a policy of diminishing our forces at sea... in the vain hope of composing an antagonism which lies in the conditions of existence of the two peoples.” In Britain, First Lord Reginald McKenna asked Parliament for five new dreadnoughts, raising the Naval Estimates by £5.5 million pounds to over £40 million. Within little over a year, the Admiralty had been given fifteen dreadnoughts: eight from the four-plus-four; two colonial ships; and now five more. The Liberal press was dismayed. “The appetite of this monster58 of armaments grows by what it feeds on,” warned the Daily News. “Give it four dreadnoughts and it asks for eight, eight and it asks for sixteen, sixteen and it would still be undiminished. It is an appetite without relation to needs or facts. It is the creation of irrational hates and craven fears.” Within the Cabinet and in the House of Commons the point was made by Lloyd George. In July, Asquith replied to his colleagues:

  “I see quite as clearly59 as my Right Hon. friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer that every new dreadnought that you build postpones the achievement of some urgent work of social reform; but national security, national insurance, after all, is the first condition of social reform. You may say ‘Is it not possible to come to some kind of arrangement between the nations of the world, particularly between ourselves and the great friendly Empire of Germany, by which this kind of thing might be brought to a close?’ I wish it were. The German Government told us—I cannot complain, I have no answer to make—their procedure in this matter is governed by an act of the Reichstag under which the program automatically proceeds year by year.... If it were possible even now to reduce the rate of construction, no one would be more delighted than His Majesty’s Government. We have approached the German Government on the subject. They have found themselves unable to do anything. They cannot do it without an Act of Parliament repealing their Navy Law. They tell us, and, no doubt, with great truth, they would not have the support of public opinion in Germany to a modified program. These are the governing and unalterable facts of the situation for the moment.”

  On August 14, 1910, the British government made a part
ial shift in its position. Previously, Grey and Goschen had shown no interest in the German offer to slow the tempo. Britain had wanted an outright reduction in the number of ships; the Germans had refused. Now, Goschen reported to Bethmann, England was willing to negotiate the original German offer: a reduction in the tempo without alteration of the basic Navy Law.

  Grey made an additional suggestion. It would lessen anxiety, he contended, if the two navies could make periodic exchanges of technical information: the dimensions of ships being built, their armament, armor, speed, and completion dates. To verify this information, he suggested that the naval attachés of the two powers be permitted periodic visits to the shipbuilding yards to examine the building. Two months later, on October 14, Bethmann formally accepted this proposal, but reiterated that a political agreement was “an indispensable preliminary condition60 for any naval agreement.”

  The British General Election in January 1911 delayed negotiations, but in February, Goschen was instructed to open discussions on an exchange of information. The German government was coolly receptive. The Kaiser disliked the idea and, on March 3, announced publicly that an exchange of naval information would have no value; a political understanding was crucial: “England and Germany together61 would ensure the peace of the world.” Bethmann-Hollweg refused to abandon his own objective. “He reminded me,”62 Goschen told Grey, “that he had always said that the atmosphere must be thoroughly cleared and a good understanding secured before any reduction in naval armaments could be made.” On March 30, Bethmann gave a pessimistic speech in the Reichstag: “I consider any control63 of armaments as absolutely impracticable.... Who would be content to weaken his means of defense without the absolute certainty that his neighbor was not secretly exceeding the proportion allowed to him?... No, gentlemen, any one who seriously considers the question... must inevitably come to the conclusion that it is insoluble so long as men are men and states are states.”

  Despite the Chancellor’s pessimism, talks continued on the subject of an exchange of naval information. On July 1, 1911, the British Embassy in Berlin telegraphed London that the German government had agreed to exchange information on the number of ships to be laid down in the coming year and to provide additional technical data on each ship when its keel was laid.

  That same day, another message reached the Foreign Office in London. The German gunboat Panther had appeared and dropped anchor in the harbor of the Moroccan port of Agadir. France protested the Panther’s presence and, by the terms of Britain’s 1904 agreement with France, the British government was bound to support France’s position in Morocco. Before the month was over, British and German statesmen were talking of war.

  Part 5

  The Road to Armageddon

  Chapter 39

  Agadir

  Alfred von Kiderlen-Waechter, Germany’s most significant Imperial State Secretary for Foreign Affairs after Bernhard von Bülow, was born in Stuttgart in 1852. His father, a banker, became a senior official at the Württemberg Court and was about to be ennobled when he died unexpectedly; the honor was given posthumously and Kiderlen, his mother, and his siblings acquired the “von.” At eighteen, Alfred volunteered for service in the Franco-Prussian War. After the war, he finished University and law school and entered the Foreign Service. His first foreign assignment was to St. Petersburg, where he arrived in 1881. A large, florid, fair-haired young man whose face was slashed with student duelling scars, he became known as a heavy drinker and troublemaker. Young bachelors from the embassies of several European nations gathered nightly at a regular table in a French restaurant to gossip, laugh, and carouse. Much ribbing passed back and forth, but none of it in Kiderlen’s direction. Any teasing pointed at him was likely to provoke growls and perhaps a threat of swords or pistols.

  Kiderlen spent four years in St. Petersburg, two in Paris, and two in Constantinople. He attracted Holstein’s attention. Holstein’s first impression was that Kiderlen was “a typical Württemberger1 with a gauche exterior and a crafty mind,” but in time the suspicious older man came to trust and value the younger. Bülow, who always disliked other men of talent in the diplomatic service, declared that Kiderlen was “a tool of Holstein,”2 but he admitted that Kiderlen had useful qualities. “Kiderlen was to Holstein3 what Sancho Panza was to Don Quixote,” Bülow announced. “He was incapable of enthusiasm and of any idealistic conceptions. His feet were always firmly on the ground but he had a very strong feeling for the prestige and advantages of the firm and he watched the competitors with great vigilance.” During the Caprivi Chancellorship, when the inexperience of both the Chancellor and State Secretary Marschall left Holstein supreme at the Wilhelmstrasse, Kiderlen flourished as head of the Near Eastern Section. By 1894, his prominence and his close ties to Holstein had been noted by Kladderadatsch, a satirical journal favorable to Bismarck and hostile to his enemies. When the paper attacked Holstein, Eulenburg, and Kiderlen, bestowing on each an unfavorable nickname (Holstein was the “Oyster-fiend,”4 Eulenburg the “Troubadour,” and Kiderlen “Spätzle”—Dumpling—after the South German dish of which the Württemberger was fond), Kiderlen challenged the editor to a duel, pinked him in the right shoulder, and was sentenced to four months in the fortress of Ehrenbreitstein. He was released after two weeks, his career undamaged. In 1895, as Ambassador to Denmark, he artfully deflected a riot from the German Embassy. Slipping out into the crowd, he pointed to a harmless storehouse, shouted at the top of his lungs, and began hurling stones at the storehouse windows.

  In 1888, Bismarck selected Kiderlen to accompany the Kaiser as the Foreign Ministry representative on board the Hohenzollern cruises to Norway. William liked the rough, intelligent Württemberger, who told good jokes and seemed to enjoy the exuberant pranks and crude horseplay that characterized those nautical holidays; the invitation to Kiderlen was renewed every year for a decade. Then, in 1898, his participation in the Imperial cruises—and very nearly his career—terminated. In fact, Kiderlen had been appalled by the false heartiness and schoolboy intrigue practiced on board the yacht and he wrote of his feelings, privately, to State Secretary Marschall. When Marschall departed Berlin for Constantinople in 1897, he failed to clean out his office and the new State Secretary, Bülow, discovered the letters in the files. They found their way to the Emperor, who read Kiderlen’s biting descriptions of behavior on board the yacht, of rudeness to the Prince of Wales, of boorishness at the Royal Yacht Squadron at Cowes. Kiderlen was banned from the yacht and the Kaiser’s presence and, as soon as a place could be found for him, exiled from Berlin. For the next ten years—from the age of forty-eight to the age of fifty-eight—he labored at the Embassy in Bucharest. One after the other, less able men—first Tschirschky, then Schoen—went to the top of the Foreign Ministry while one of the most vigorous and experienced men in the diplomatic service, trained by Bismarck and Holstein, was stuck in a Balkan cul de sac.

  In Romania, Kiderlen had no difficulty expressing his contempt for the post he held. Every year on New Year’s Eve, King Carol held a reception for diplomats, followed by a court ball, the most important diplomatic event of the year in his country. Every year, Kiderlen departed on Christmas leave before the ball, declaring to any Romanians who would listen that the King was unwise to make plans which so seriously conflicted with his own holiday arrangements.

  In Kiderlen’s time, the principal social gatherings at the German Legation in Bucharest were rowdy “beer evenings” during which male members of the German colony gathered to carouse and sing in a manner reminiscent of student days. Ladies of the German Colony and the diplomatic corps never visited the German Legation because of the private life of the German Minister. Kiderlen had a mistress, Frau Hedwig Krypke, a widow two years younger than himself with whom he lived the last eighteen years of his life. She was handsome and discreet; she lived with him in Copenhagen and Bucharest and when he was State Secretary, but he never showed any intention of making her his wife. As a result, she—and to some extent, he—
was ostracized in Berlin and in the foreign capitals in which he served; the Kaiserin was particularly incensed that this unrepentant sinner should rise so high in the Imperial government. Nevertheless, Kiderlen robustly defied convention and managed to maintain both his career and his liaison with Frau Krypke.

  The Wilhelmstrasse was not so rich in talented diplomats that it could afford permanently to ignore Kiderlen’s qualities. Twice during his long exile in Bucharest Kiderlen was temporarily transferred to the larger post at Constantinople to substitute for Marschall when Marschall was on leave. In 1908, when Baron Schoen, the State Secretary, fell ill, Kiderlen was summoned to Berlin to fill in. “I am to pull5 the cart out of the mud and then I can go,” grumbled the Württemberger. Kiderlen remained unforgiven by his sovereign; when he went to the Palace to pay his respects, the Kaiser shook hands without a word. Kiderlen’s brief tenure as a substitute was crowded with significant events. He arrived at the peak of the Bosnian Crisis and helped to force a Russian retreat without war. With Jules Cambon (Paul Cambon’s brother), the French Ambassador in Berlin, he negotiated a new Franco-German agreement on Morocco, reinforcing guarantees to German commerce and investments in that country. He stumbled when Bülow, heavily criticized in the Reichstag for his handling of the Daily Telegraph affair, put the Acting State Secretary in front of the deputies to distract attention from himself. Kiderlen’s speech was not a success and his attempt to explain the working of the Foreign Ministry, along with his proposal to increase efficiency by increasing staff, provoked “a general outburst of hilarity.”6 Bülow later mocked his lieutenant’s distress, comparing the Reichstag’s contemptuous mirth to that of a band of students or young regimental officers baiting an awkward new colleague. “Kiderlen’s debacle,” Bülow noted, was helped along by “his pronounced Swabian accent7 and... the extraordinary yellow waistcoat he wore.” Kiderlen himself was serene throughout; he did not care what either the Chancellor or the Reichstag thought of him. In his view, Bülow was finished as Chancellor and parliament had neither the competence nor the right to participate in the making of foreign policy.