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

by Robert K. Massie

As managing director, Ballin was in a position to open Hamburg-America's lead over the competition. Other companies and other nations did not give up. In 1902, the British government, distressed to see the mercantile trident passing into German hands, awarded Cunard an annual subsidy of £150,000. In the years that followed, Cunard began to build two 32,000-ton transatlantic express liners, Mauretania and Lusitania. The British White Star Line countered by launching the Olympia, the Titanic, and the Gigantic. Ballin refused to be outbuilt. Three new Hamburg-America liners were ordered from the Vulcan Works in Stettin and Blohm and Voss in Hamburg. Imperator came down the ways in 1912; Vaterland followed in 1913 and Bismarck in 1914. The most famous of these ships was Vaterland, a mammoth 54,000 tons, not only the largest vessel in the world, but-as the steamship company proudly pointed out-the largest moving object ever created by man. She was designed to carry over five thousand people (a crew of 1,234 and 4,050 passengers) at twenty-four knots across the Atlantic in less than a week. The first-class passengers would travel in unparalleled luxury. Ladies could bathe in the indoor Pompeii-style "swimming bath," which extended through three decks and offered water eight feet deep. Gentlemen, after dining in the Ritz-Carlton restaurant, where tables were set with flowers produced in the ship's own greenhouse, could retire to sit in high-backed chairs before the glowing hearth of an enormous fireplace in a high-beamed, oak-paneled smoking room which smacked more of a Bavarian castle than an ocean liner. For those who could afford it, the ship supplied extravagant space; the largest suites aboard the Vaterland each contained twelve rooms.

  Ballin's first meeting with the Kaiser was in 1891, when the young Emperor brought his wife to inspect the new Auguste Victoria, which Ballin had named after her. William first took Ballin's measure, however, at a conference at the Berlin Castle in 1895, called by the sovereign to discuss the celebrations which were to surround the opening of the Kiel Canal. It was arranged, the Kaiser announced, that the Hohenzollern would steam down the Elbe to the mouth of the canal followed first by a North German Lloyd steamship, then by a vessel of the Hamburg-America Line. Ballin asked to speak: as the ceremonial voyage was to commence in Hamburg he said, perhaps it would be more appropriate for a Hamburg-America steamer to have the place of honor behind the Imperial yacht. Frostily, the Kaiser replied that he had already promised the place to the Bremen company. Ballin declared that, then of course, the matter was settled "and that he would withdraw his suggestion, although he considered himself justified in making it."

  The development of a great merchant marine was closely connected in William's mind with the rise of the Imperial Navy, and he was proud of the success of HAPAG. He took a proprietary air toward the steamship line, frequently sending Ballin suggestions and even drawings concerned with equipment and design. On every occasion when the company made news-when launching a new ship or adding a new route-a congratulatory Imperial telegram arrived on Ballin's desk. William liked Ballin personally; they shared a fascination for ships and the sea, an itch to travel, and a desire for German greatness. The Kaiser sent Ballin Christmas cards and dropped him postcards from his travels. When Ballin suffered neuralgic pains, William recommended doctors and even proposed sending a court official to Ballin's office to help diminish the workload on his overburdened friend.

  Beginning with an invitation from Ballin in 1899, the Kaiser and his entourage began attending the annual HAP AG dinner every June before the Lower Elbe Regatta and Kiel Week. Ballin understood his sovereign's weakness for pageantry and elegance, and he had the means to play upon it. His ships, floating palaces, were always at the Emperor's disposal. Every year, Ballin dispatched one of his finest ships to serve as a floating hotel for guests of the Kaiser, the Court, or the government. Rising up behind the lines of gray warships and the flocks of steam and sailing yachts anchored in the fjord, the great black-hulled HAPAG liner with its white superstructure and blue trim added a touch of splendor. On several occasions, the Kaiser himself chose to cruise aboard HAPAG liners rather than on board the Hohenzollern. (One such cruise occured in 1905 when William descended over the side of the Hamburg-America's Hamburg to make his famous landing at Tangier.) For many years, all HAPAG liners kept several cabins ready to be used by any persons designated by the Emperor. In 1905, during his visits to Hamburg, William began to dine at Ballin's house. In time, these visits became so frequent that Ballin's house was called Klein Potsdam (Little Potsdam). But when he accepted Ballin's hospitality, the Kaiser did not bring his wife. The Kaiserin Augusta Victoria did not approve of her husband's friendship with the steamship owner. Ballin was a Jew.

  Heinrich von Treitschke at the University of Berlin helped give respectability to German anti-Semitism. In his writings and lectures, he warned against the growing power of the Jews and their subversion of German ideals. Jews who wished to enjoy the full privileges of German citizenship should give up their religion and embrace Christianity, Treitschke argued. Otherwise, Jews should be barred from service in the institutions of the state. In practice, this was largely the case. There were no practicing Jews in the Imperial Diplomatic Service and very few in the officer corps of the army; those who did get in were assigned to inferior posts and never promoted. Jews unwilling to give up their faith and be baptized were barred from the Imperial Navy; the official excuse was "dietary difficulties."

  The German Jew who rose highest in German society during the Imperial years was Gerson Bleichroder, Bismarck's banker. His rise dramatized the power of money. He was the richest man in Berlin, possibly the richest in Germany. He managed the Chancellor's fortune and made the Chancellor rich. He was the first German Jew to be ennobled without converting to Christianity. Bleichroder hungered for acceptance into Prussian society. In his huge Berlin mansion, he gave lavish balls, inviting the cream of society, persuading even Princess von Bismarck to attend. But many stayed away, including the young officers whose presence graced every other ball. Bleichroder's daughter was left in her chair at balls in her own house because no young man would ask her to dance. No Jews, not even relatives, were invited to these parties lest the other guests be offended.

  Bismarck's anti-Semitism was bland, but ingrained. He gave Bleichroder a von but never allowed the banker to forget his origins. Referring to Harden, the editor of the Zunkunft, the Chancellor said that he was "a quiet unpretentious man of great tact, not at all like a Jew." Commenting on the qualities of two Prussian officials whose German fathers had married Jewish women, Bismarck observed that "the pairing of a German stallion with a Semitic mare occasionally did not produce bad results." Other Prussian aristocrats expressed themselves bluntly. "I am no friend of Jews," Eulenburg announced. Holstein wrote in his journal, "I heard a few days ago that Bleichroder wants to get his son into the diplomatic service. He will not succeed."

  William II’s attitude toward Jews was that of many of his countrymen. Bulow considered the Kaiser "in no way prejudiced against Jews" but William's conversation and correspondence belied this absolution. With wealthy Jews, successful in business and finance, William's relations were good, even cordial; to Jewish press lords and socialists he was vindictively, sneeringly hostile. Once, in the middle of a diatribe, William was reminded that his friends Ballin and the banker Franz von Mendelssohn were Jews. The Kaiser paused, then declared that he did not consider them to be Jews at all. Being received by the monarch did not mean, however, that these Jewish financiers and industrialists were admitted into Prussian society. They saw the Emperor during the day at luncheons at the Schloss or Potsdam or even in hunting parties at Romintern. Very rarely did a Jew receive an invitation to one of the formal Court evenings which were the pinnacle of Berlin society. Nor was the Prussian aristocracy enthusiastic about the Kaiser's friendship with certain Jews. The old accusations bubbled up: the ancient supremacy of the land was being undermined by money; the Jews were acquiring too much influence and social respectability; too many Jews were marrying off their daughters to poor aristocrats and government officials. Princess Da
isy of Pless spoke of "the Jewish peril." The Kaiser's title "Seine Majestat" (His Majesty) was sneeringly twisted into "Siegfried Meyer."

  Ballin did his best to ignore anti-Semitism. He was not a religious man. He rarely attended synagogue, preferring to work on weekends through the Jewish and Christian sabbaths alike. He considered himself a Hamburger; he ate, drank, smoked, and spoke as a Hamburger. He was aware that there was anti-Semitism in Hamburg, but the lines were clearly defined and, in the cosmopolitan atmosphere of the old port city, there was no animosity. His business colleagues and his employees were mostly Christian, yet when he took coffee at a table in the Alster Pavilliorfi, his companions usually were Jews. His greatest friend was Max Warburg of the dynasty which had presided over one of Europe's great international banking houses since the eighteenth century. Most of Ballin's vacations were taken on board his own ships; when he went to a sanatorium at Kissingen to relax by reading detective thrillers, the other guests at the sanatorium were exclusively Jewish. Ballin's view was that this was the world and he accepted it. He disdained the efforts of some wealthy Jews to break into the upper reaches of German society; these efforts, he believed, increased anti-Semitism.

  Although Ballin had little in common with the Prussian aristocracy, he shared its fervent belief in maintaining order and upholding the rights of property. He was a dedicated monarchist- "The essential thing is the throne," he wrote to Harden in 1909, "the republicans… are loathsome"-and vociferously supported the government's policy of promoting Germany's economic role in the world. He despised Social Democrats and worried about the growing power of socialists in the Reichstag. The German Foreign Office he considered "very largely a special preserve for aristocratic incompetents" and the bureaucracy in general petty and obtuse. But on a day-to-day basis it was predictable and efficient, and this was good for business. Ballin believed that the role of government was to clear the path for the real pioneers of Germany's future, the great financiers and industrialists. In this sense, his building of the Hamburg-America Line with the Kaiser's enthusiastic support was an example of how things should work.

  When Tirpitz proposed the First Navy Law in 1898, Ballin was among his firmest supporters. Hamburg-America was a shipping line whose operations and viability depended on keeping the sea lanes open and world markets available to its ships. The huge fleet of passenger liners and freighters which Ballin had built up could not be left unprotected by warships. In 1898, HAP AG informed the Emperor that the "strengthening of the war fleet necessary for Germany's welfare" gave the company "great pleasure." By 1900, Ballin's support had become grandiloquent: "The fleet is… the embodiment of the national purpose of a 'greater Germany' and of imperial power… In the brutal struggle of nations for light and air, strength alone counts… Germany has an incomparable land army, but beyond the seas only its warships can create respect for it. Without the support of a strong fleet, whose iron core can only be made up of battleships, Germany has no real power against the tiniest exotic state." Ballin assisted Tirpitz in practical ways, sending the Admiral a constant stream of information on matters of naval interest, gleaned from his own reading and the reports of his ship captains and engineers. He served on the governing board of the Hamburg chapter of the Navy League, and when the League convened in Hamburg he invited hundreds of members to cruise on the Elbe aboard HAP AG steamships.

  As the High Seas Fleet continued to grow, it was obvious that it was not being built to deal with "tiny exotic states." Ballin had known that it was being built against England and he had publicly expressed his agreement with Tirpitz's Risk Theory. Eventually, however, his German national pride and his common sense as a shipowner came into conflict. Ballin knew England as well as any foreigner. He visited frequently in London, had many English friends, and was a regular reader of the London papers. As a businessman, he saw the British as competitors, not enemies. Over the years, despite overwhelming naval supremacy, Great Britain had done nothing to prevent Germany from acquiring colonies or creating the largest merchant steamship company in the world. In Singapore, Hong Kong, and dozens of other British colonial ports, German merchant ships had been welcomed and serviced as quickly and efficiently as British competitors. Where there was a threat from pirates or exotic potentates to the ships or citizens of any European nation, the Royal Navy had stepped in as an international police force. It would be better, of course, if this overwhelming world sea power were German, but since Britain would do whatever was necessary to maintain her naval supremacy, Germany was unlikely to overtake her. Once the German Fleet had reached respectable size, why not stop at a point which the British found unthreatening?

  It was this kind of reasoning, and his growing awareness that German fleet-building was stirring British fears and forcing England into anti-German diplomatic alignments, that led Ballin in 1908 to turn against Admiral von Tirpitz. After the war began, Ballin wrote to Harden about the Admiral's obsession with ships. By implication, he was admitting his own failure to recognize this obsession earlier, when he might have done something to combat it:

  "Tirpitz… did not wish to negotiate. He wanted no settlement, he wanted only to build ships. He put obstacles in the way of every understanding with England, even though at the time [Ballin was speaking of 1908-1909] every intelligent man had to admit that limitless construction on the part of both sides was a race which England was always destined to win because of much greater resources."

  In June 1908, Max Warburg introduced his Hamburg friend Albert Ballin to his London friend Ernest Cassel. The two men spoke of the deterioration in Anglo-German relations. Cassel said frankly that his friend King Edward was worried about the menace posed to Britain by the rapid increase in the strength of the German Fleet. Ballin retorted that the British Navy with its overwhelming numbers had nothing to fear from Germany. He reported the conversation to the Kaiser, to Bulow (still Chancellor), and to Schoen, the State Secretary. A year later, in June 1909, Ballin met Cassel again. By then, the atmosphere had been disturbed by William's letter to Lord Tweedmouth and by his Daily Telegraph interview. Cassel had written to Ballin earlier in the spring that German shipbuilding was the "Alpha and Omega of English mistrust." At Kiel Week, just before he left for London, Ballin had proposed to the Kaiser that he sound out Cassel about the prospect of direct Anglo-German talks on naval arms limitation. Ballin's idea was that Tirpitz meet Fisher. Cassel confided in Ballin that the Liberal government felt burdened by the arms race and wanted to shift its focus to social programs. Britain would insist on maintaining naval supremacy, but was not averse to seeking some mutually acceptable ratio of naval strength. The government, he had ascertained, would be ready to hold discussions. "Such a meeting," Ballin reported to the Kaiser, "would have to be kept absolutely secret and both parties should agree that there should be no victor and no vanquished if and when an agreement was concluded." William congratulated Ballin on the skill with which he had conducted his mission.

  This private effort by the two businessmen was sidetracked by a political event four days after Ballin's report to the Kaiser: on June 14,1909, Bulow resigned. Bethmann, new to his office and untried in diplomacy, was disturbed by the concept of private citizens holding diplomatic discussions, even with the approval of their governments. The Imperial Chancellor and the Foreign Office were the proper institutions for conducting foreign policy, Bethmann believed, and he meant to take Anglo-German relations firmly into his own hands. Relations with England were "his department" and "his specialty," the Chancellor declared. It was the end of the first mutual effort of Ballin and Cassel to stop the armament race.

  Bethmann's efforts were unsuccessful, and by the beginning of 1912 the Agadir Crisis and the proposal for a new German Supplementary Navy Law had made the prospects for arms limitation even more bleak. Neither Ballin or Cassel had given up hope, however, and the appointment of Winston Churchill as First Lord seemed to open a new path to negotiations. Early in January, Ballin wrote to Cassel suggesting that on his next vis
it to Germany he bring Churchill along. If this could be arranged, Ballin would endeavor to produce Admiral von Tirpitz so that the two navy ministers could sit down face to face in the manner of businessmen and iron out their differences. Cassel spoke to Churchill, who demurred from travelling with him but said that he might come in a party with King George V if the Kaiser could be persuaded to invite his English cousin to Berlin. In those circumstances, and providing Asquith and Grey agreed, Churchill said, he would "feel highly honored" to sit down with Tirpitz. Cassel enthusiastically endorsed Ballin's sentiments about the new First Lord:

  "His friendly sentiments towards Germany are known to you. I have been acquainted with him since he was quite a young man and he has never made a secret of his admiration of the Kaiser and of the German people. He looks upon the estrangement existing between the two countries as senseless and I am quite sure he would do anything in his power to establish friendly relations.

  "The real crux of the situation is that Great Britain regards the enormous increase of the German Navy as a grave menace to her vital interests. This conviction is a deep-rooted one and there are no two opinions in London as to its significance. If it were possible to do something which, without endangering the safety of Germany, would relieve Britain of this nightmare, it is my opinion that people over here would go very far to conciliate German aspirations."

  Through Churchill, the Ballin-Cassel proposal that negotiations be reopened by a backdoor route was brought before the British Cabinet. Lloyd George and Churchill warmly supported the unusual idea. In the end, the Cabinet authorized Cassel to go to Berlin to determine whether Ballin was speaking only for himself or whether his views were shared.

  On the morning of January 29, 1912, Ballin appeared at the Berlin Castle and asked for an audience with the Emperor. William assumed that his friend was paying a simple birthday visit and was surprised when Ballin told him that Sir Ernest Cassel was in Berlin on a secret mission from the British government and wished to be received at the highest level. In fact, Ballin continued, Sir Ernest had told him that the Cabinet in London had given explicit instructions that he was to evade all diplomatic officials, British and German. William was intrigued and sent for Cassel. When the Englishman arrived, he handed over a document which, he told the Kaiser, had been "prepared with the approval and knowledge of the British Government." The memorandum contained three proposals, which, if accepted by the German government, could lead to a reduction of tension. In the Kaiser's own words, these proposals were, first, "Acceptance of British superiority at sea; no augmentation of the German naval program-a reduction as far as possible of this program"; second, Great Britain would offer "no impediment to our colonial expansion" and "discussion and promotion of our colonial ambitions"; third, the memorandum proposed "mutual declarations that the two powers would not take part in aggressive combinations against each other."