Dreadnought, Britain, Germany and the Coming of the Great War

by Robert K. Massie

  On August 18, the Emperor received Waldersee and his staff to say good-bye. A few days later, news arrived in Germany that the Allied troops in China had relieved Peking and that the Boxers and Manchu Court had fled. "Naturally, this was a great disappointment for the Emperor," Waldersee wrote later. "He had got it firmly fixed in his head that… the Allied advance on Peking… would begin under my supreme command and mine would be the glory of capturing Peking." Privately, the Kaiser was furious, declaring that, by relieving the Legations too soon, Great Britain and Russia had deliberately "betrayed him." Nevertheless, William insisted that the German expedition proceed, impressing on Waldersee that "as big a war indemnity as possible should be imposed on the Chinese as he was heeding money urgently for the Fleet."

  Waldersee sailed on the North German Lloyd steamer Sachsen, proceeding via Naples, Suez, Colombo, Singapore, Hong Kong, and Shanghai. These ports were British, and the local authorities delighted the World Marshal by instructing all ships and forts to render a nineteen-gun salute whenever he passed. In Singapore harbor, She came on two French troop transports filled with soldiers bound for China. The commanders, he reported to the Kaiser, "were extraordinarily polite and… [said] that it would give them great! honor and pleasure to fight under my command… As I left the harbor and passed slowly by the two French ships at a distance of scarcely forty yards, the entire crews, numbering over 2,000, manned the rigging and played the Prasentiermarsch and then Heil Dir im Siegerkranz, the officers standing together on the bridge at the salute. I then had the Marseillaise played and they all broke out into loud cheers and the officers waved their tropical helmets."

  Waldersee arrived in Peking in mid-October, making an entry which other foreigners present found "farcical" and "absurd." The troops were goose-stepping and wearing large straw hats; "This must be some Berlin tailor's idea of an appropriate headdress for a summer and autumn campaign in the East." Waldersee himself went everywhere wearing his cordon of the Order of the Black Eagle and carrying his Field Marshal's baton. He had brought along an experimental asbestos hut to use as field headquarters, but with no battles to be fought, he moved into the palace of the Dowager Empress; the palace burned down soon after, killing his German Chief of Staff. His relations with the French remained good. "Different staff officers with whom I have conversed, among them Lieutenant Colonel Marchand, famous in France in connection with the Fashoda affair, have openly proclaimed themselves friendly to Germany and admirers of our army organization," he wrote to the Kaiser. William was pleased. "I rejoice that the French and our men get on so nicely together," he replied to the Field Marshal. "Campaigns lived through together are a strong bond. They will get to know and appreciate each other, [and] the other nations, when they observe our men and our officers carry things through, will recognize the superiority of our system and be less inclined for a belligerent attitude towards us."

  What most foreign soldiers and civilians observed, once the German troops arrived, was a resurgence of raping and looting, which had died down. A British officer was not surprised by this behavior. "They say that the Kaiser, in his farewell speech told the men to act this way. They are strictly obeying orders." Indeed, William's demand that "the name of Germans resound through Chinese history" for a thousand years was on Waldersee's mind. Determined to prove the mettle of German troops and to make the Chinese pay for the murder of Ketteler, the Field Marshal threw himself into the organization of punitive expeditions. There were no battles, but there was plenty of bloodshed. Waldersee, declared a member of his staff, wanted "to shoot all the headmen of every village for hundreds of miles around Peking." Before long, all North China trembled at the sight of German field-gray uniforms. Waldersee claimed that his men were "exerting a moral influence of far-reaching importance" and sent back to Berlin enthusiastic reports of the performance of his Krupp field artillery. The Kaiser was pleased. William was less pleased about the efficiency of German cannon when they were in the hands of the Chinese gunners. Hearing that a German gunboat sent from Shanghai to bombard Chinese forts on the Yangtze* had itself suffered seventeen hits by shells from the latest Krupp cannon, the Kaiser sent an angry telegram to Fritz Krupp: "This is no time, when I am sending my soldiers to battle against the yellow beasts, to try to make money."

  * The German Admiralty explained the bombardment to the German Foreign Ministry by saying, "It was not a proper position for the Imperial German Navy to lie for whole weeks before Shanghai without doing anything."

  While foreign soldiers burned villages and shot headmen, foreign diplomats argued with Chinese officials about the size of the indemnity to be paid for the Boxer outrages. The sum was finally fixed at £67,5000,000,* which China agreed to pay over a term of thirty-nine years. The Americans felt that the sum was too large; America, Waldersee crossly observed, "seems to desire that nobody shall get anything out of China." Once the agreement was signed, the Dowager Empress Tz'u-hsi returned to Peking and Allied soldiers began to think of returning home. The Russian Foreign Ministry circulated a note to all the powers in China suggesting a withdrawal timetable. The Kaiser did not want to withdraw. With much trumpeting, he had dispatched thirty thousand men to the Far East: they had arrived too late to win glory and there were no additional territories to acquire; now they were to return home with no more than a share of a thirty-nine-year indemnity. The Russians, he noted, would be withdrawing only to their Far Eastern provinces and Port Arthur, from which they could continue to exercise powerful influence over the Dragon Throne. The French would support their Russian allies. The Americans, entangled in a war in the Philippines, wished to leave China as quickly as possible. Only the British, wishing to check Russian influence in North China, had reasons to delay withdrawal. To avert further humiliation, it was important to Berlin that the other powers reject the Russian demand. The Germans had plunged in; now a rapid, wholesale withdrawal would make them a laughingstock. Yet if everyone else withdrew, they could not remain. Their position and prestige thus depended upon Britain. "At all costs, keep the British in Peking," Holstein telegraphed to Eckardstein.

  In June 1901, Waldersee left Peking and sailed for home. He did so with regret. He had not been able to win the glory that the Kaiser so keenly desired. The World Marshal left behind in Peking a romantic partner, the wife of a former Chinese diplomat who had served in Berlin. He brought home with him from China an intestinal disease which eventually killed him in 1904 at the age of seventy-two.

  * About $335,000,000 at the 1900 rate of exchange.

  CHAPTER 16 The "Khaki Election" and the Death of Queen Victoria

  In September 1900, the government, riding the crest of South African victory, announced an election. Explaining his plans to the Queen, Lord Salisbury did not stress that the government intended to capitalize on the emotions generated by the war. Instead, he pointed out that "the Parliament is in its sixth year and precedents are in favor of a dissolution in the sixth year… A critical period [has been] reached in the South African War and the Government will have more effect if they are fully acquainted with the views of the electors and are assured of their support." The Queen was happy to acquiesce in any measure likely to keep Lord Salisbury in office. Liberals complained about the unfairness of trying to translate pride in a military victory into votes for a party. The Unionist reply came from the Duke of Devonshire: "We all know very well that the captain of a cricketing eleven when he wins the toss, puts his own side in, or his adversaries, as he thinks most favorable to his prospects. And if there is not supposed to be anything unfair about that, then I think the English people would think it very odd indeed if the Prime Minister and leader of a great political party were not to put an electoral question to the country at a moment he thinks will be most favorable to his side."

  The dissolution of Parliament was announced on September 18.

  From the beginning, it was Chamberlain's campaign. (Salisbury's health was poor; he returned from four weeks of rest and mountain air in the Vosges at the
outset of the campaign; he made no platform appearances.) Chamberlain roamed the land, hammering on a single issue: the conduct of the war. His purpose was to convince the electorate that a Liberal victory would mean the political defeat of British! arms in South Africa. His theme became, "A vote for the Liberals is a vote for the Boers!" This charge was shouted from platforms, proclaimed by billboards and placards. Posters depicted prominent Liberals kneeling in tribute to President Kruger, helping hint to haul down the Union Jack, even urging him to shoot British soldiers. One Liberal M.P. attacked in this fashion had lost two sons in the war and was actually visiting their graves in South Africa when the election was held.

  The result of the "Khaki Election" was never in doubt. On October 6, the Queen wrote in her journal: "The elections are wonderfully good." The government was returned with a majority of 134 in the Commons. Salisbury and Chamberlain had a mandate to continue in power for another seven years. The vote did conceal weaknesses, since only one issue-the war-was put before the public. Unionist sloganeering had convinced the electorate that, with British troops still in the field, only an experienced government could be trusted to carry through its policy and win peace. But beneath concern about the war, other issues and resentments existed. The government's majority had been drifting downward. The number of Unionist votes in the Khaki Election was 2,400,000, but 2,100,000 voters had cast their votes for the Liberals. The truth was that the Unionist government was not generally popular and, as the journalist U. L. Garvin observed, many voters, "while marking their ballot papers in its favor, [vowed] never to vote for it again."

  J The election was followed immediately by a Cabinet shuffle. Mr. Goschen resigned as First Lord and was replaced by Lord Selborne, the Prime Minister's son-in-law. Other ministers packed up [their papers in one office and walked across the street into another. Sir Henry Campbell-Bannerman, the Liberal leader, described the changes: "The stable remains the same, but every horse is in a new stall." The triumvirate at the top remained: Lord Salisbury was Prime Minister, Arthur Balfour was Leader of the House of Commons, and Joseph Chamberlain was Colonial Secretary.

  There was one significant change: Lord Salisbury gave up the Foreign Office. Although only seventy, the Prime Minister, never physically strong, was aging. His eyesight grew worse, his girth became massive, and his bronchitis, stimulated by the smoke and fog of industrial London, drove him often to the milder climate and fresher air of the Riviera or the Vosges. His colleagues wondered how long he could last. Goschen, while still First Lord, had written to Chamberlain that Salisbury's reply to a letter sent from the Admiralty "makes one despair… I do not know that more can be done. If some policy is forced on Salisbury which he disapproves of, it breaks down in execution."

  Knowing that he had to curtail his responsibilities, Salisbury, a week after the election, raised the question of leaving the Foreign Office. Speaking to the Queen's private secretary, he confided that "his doctors had advocated his having less work… but that he was is ready to do whatever is most agreeable to the Queen." The Queen hated the thought of another man at the Foreign Office, but could not ask him to continue at the risk of his health. Her decision was ensured when she was shown a letter to the private secretary from Arthur Balfour: "I do very earnestly hope that the Queen will not insist upon Lord Salisbury keeping both offices. It requires no doctor to convince his family that the work, whenever it gets really serious, is too much for him. I have twice had to take the Foreign Office and three times, if I remember rightly, he has been called to go abroad at rather critical moments in our national affairs. He is over seventy and not an especially strong man." The Queen bowed. The new Foreign Secretary was to be Lord Lansdowne, who had been Secretary of War for five years. On October 23, the Queen sadly accepted Salisbury's resignation-but only conditionally. "Lord Salisbury thought the only person fit to take the Foreign Seals was Lord Lansdowne," she wrote that night in her journal. "But I said it must be on the strict understanding that it must be entirely under his personal supervision… and that no telegram or dispatch should be sent without first being submitted to him."

  Salisbury's resignation as Foreign Secretary raised Joseph Chamberlain to an even higher level of importance. Winston Churchill, first elected to the House of Commons in the Khaki Election, later recalled his own contemporary view of the Colonial Secretary: "At the time when I looked out of my regimental cradle and was thrilled by politics, Mr. Chamberlain was incomparably the most live, sparkling, insurgent, compulsive figure in British affairs. Above him in the House of Lords reigned venerable, august Lord Salisbury, Prime Minister since God knew when. Beside him on the Government Bench, wise, cautious, polished, comprehending, airily fearless, Arthur Balfour led the House of Commons. But 'Joe' was the one who made the weather. He was the man the masses knew. He it was who had solutions for social problems; who was ready to advance, sword in hand if need be, upon the foes of Britain; and whose accents rang in the ears of all the young peoples of the Empire and lots of young people at its heart."

  I Lansdowne now was Foreign Secretary, but Chamberlain took charge of renewing the alliance proposal to Germany. Again, he made the initial proposal to Eckardstein. The German diplomat had a powerful ally in London society in Louise, Duchess of Devonshire. The Duchess was German, born Countess Alten of Hanover. Devonshire was, in fact, her second English duke; she had first come to England as the bride of the Duke of Manchester and, while still a young wife, had become the mistress of the future Duke of Devonshire, then titled Lord Hartington. The discreet liaison continued for twenty-four years, until Manchester died, leaving Louise free to marry Devonshire. London promptly dubbed her the "Double Duchess." Attached to both the country of her birth and the country of hjsr marriages, she did all she could to assist Eckardstein in dealing with Chamberlain and the Cabinet. On January 9, 1901, Eckardstein and his wife received an invitation to a house party at Chatsworth. "Pray come without fail as the Duke has several urgent political questions to discuss with you," the Duchess wrote. "Joseph Chamberlain will also be here. As we shall have a large party of about fifty guests, you will easily get a chance for a quiet talk with the Duke and Jos, without attracting any notice. It is true, Asquith [the Liberal leader, Henry Herbert Asquith] and some other leading members of the Opposition will be with us too, but that will not matter for there are in the Schloss plenty of rooms where you will be able to talk without being noticed by anyone."

  When Eckardstein arrived at Chatsworth, the holiday season was at its height. The Prince of Wales and Arthur Balfour had left, but Mrs. Keppel still was there, and amateur theatricals were presented every night. The conversation between Chamberlain, Eckardsiein, and the Duke of Devonshire took place in the Duke's library after dinner on January 16. Eckardstein returned to London the next day and assisted Count Hatzfeldt in drawing up a telegram to Berlin: despite his earlier disappointment, Chamberlain's long-term; aim remained the adherence of Britain to the Triple Alliance. "The Colonial Minister… and his friends had made up their minds that the day of… 'splendid isolation' was over for England," said the telegram. "England must look for allies for the future. The choice [is] either Russia or France or the Triple Alliance… He [Chamberlain] was convinced that a combination with Germany and an association with the Triple Alliance was preferable… His advice was that matters should be taken up as soon as Lord Salisbury left for the south and that the details should be negotiated with Lord Lansdowne and himself. So long as he is convinced that a lasting partnership with Germany is possible, he will resist to the utmost, the idea of an arrangement with Russia. Nevertheless, should it become evident that a permanent junction with Germany is not practicable, then he too would advocate a settlement with Russia." Later that day, Hatzfeldt dispatched to Holstein a private message making more explicit his and Eckardstein's impression that senior members of the British Cabinet were now prepared to deliberately circumvent the Prime Minister: "It is particularly noteworthy that Chamberlain almost undisguisedly expresses the h
ope that he will soon be rid of Salisbury and thereby become master of the situation. It seems certain that Salisbury is leaving for the South for several months and that then Chamberlain and his friends, of whom Lansdowne is very much one, will be in control here."