The War that Ended Peace

by Margaret MacMillan

  Even a more decisive man than Bethmann would have had trouble with the position of Chancellor. The problems inherent in the German governmental system were, if anything, worse than before. The Kaiser, his various entourages, and his favoured ministers, were independent actors and frequently worked at counter-purposes to the Chancellor. The Reichstag was increasingly polarised and the Social Democrats were winning more seats almost every time there was an election. The taxation system badly needed reforming to produce the tax revenue the government needed for the armed forces and its social programmes. In the wider German society the old conservative classes fought a determined rearguard action to defend their powers and position while the middle and working classes pushed for a greater share. Bethmann tried to cope with the demands coming at him from all directions, from the Kaiser, his own colleagues and the Reichstag. It did not help that, with the growth of the Social Democratic Party, especially after 1912, he had more trouble than Bülow with the Reichstag and nor did he enjoy a close relationship with his difficult master. He found it harder than his predecessor had to manage the impetuous Kaiser, which led to repeated difficulties and tensions.15

  Bethmann filled his position, said Bülow maliciously, ‘neither as a thoroughbred nor a jumper, but as a good plow-horse, plodding along slowly and steadily, because there are no hurdles in sight’.16 The remark contained a dig at Bethmann’s background, which was not as noble as that of Germany’s previous Chancellors although he had married well, to the daughter of a neighbouring, old aristocratic family. The Bethmann Hollwegs had started out in the eighteenth century as prosperous Frankfurt bankers and moved, generation by generation, into the landed upper classes. Bethmann’s grandfather was a distinguished jurist and scholar who was ennobled by Wilhelm I, and his own father used his considerable fortune to buy Hohenfinow and so become, by style if not by birth, a Prussian Junker. Under the elder Bethmann’s management, Hohenfinow became a prosperous estate with some 1,500 inhabitants. The future Chancellor grew up in a large seventeenth-century manor house and was educated by private tutors until he was sent off to a boarding school which saw its mission as preparing the children of the nobility for government service either as soldiers or civil servants. Bethmann absorbed many of the prejudices of his class, its distaste for commerce or for Jews, for example. ‘You know that I am not of noble blood,’ he explained to a fellow student, ‘but when all external life functions move in a privileged circle it is imprudent and false to step out of line with even one foot.’17

  Although Bethmann, like his father, frequently found the diehard Prussian reactionaries of his own world absurd, he remained firmly conservative in his views. He disliked much about the modern world, such as its materialism, but attempted to find ways of bridging traditional and new values. A teenager when Germany was united, he became then and remained a passionate nationalist. In 1877, when a fanatic tried to assassinate Kaiser Wilhelm I, Bethmann wrote to a close friend of his shock: ‘I cannot believe that our beloved German people is incapable of being one Volk and one state.’ He regretted the divisions in German politics and deplored ‘despicable socialists and unclear doctrinaire liberals’.18 As a civil servant and statesman he worked for unity and social peace, hoping that by making modest reforms and improving the lot of the poorer classes he could win their allegiance to the state.

  On foreign policy, Bethmann’s underlying views were straightforward: that peace was preferable to war but that Germany must be prepared to fight, if diplomacy failed, to defend its interests and its honour. Germany, he told the Kaiser, in the summer of 1911 as the second Morocco crisis worsened, could not afford to back down because ‘our credit in the world will suffer unbearably, not only for the present, but for all future diplomatic actions’.19 That winter, before the Panther made its spring to Agadir, Harry Kessler had a long conversation with Bethmann at a dinner party in Berlin. The Chancellor was moderately optimistic about the international scene: he felt that Germany’s relations with Russia were improving. There was indeed some evidence for this: Nicholas had visited Wilhelm in Potsdam the previous year and their two countries had come to an agreement over railways in the Ottoman Empire, thus removing a cause of tension, and the Germans had also promised that Germany would not join any more aggressive moves on the part of Austria-Hungary in the Balkans.20 And, Bethmann told Kessler, Britain might well come round to a more reasonable frame of mind about Germany. Russia still posed a threat to the British in India and elsewhere, and that fact in the long run could only benefit Germany: ‘They must feel quite uncomfortable, then they will approach us. That is what I am counting on.’21 Bethmann, unlike many of his compatriots, did not hate Britain (indeed, he sent his son to Oxford) but he saw its entente with France and Russia as a threat to Germany and hoped to break it apart. During the Morocco crisis, Rathenau, the distinguished and thoughtful German businessman, had dinner with Bethmann at his Hohenfinow estate. The Chancellor was sure that Germany had been right to confront France: ‘the Morocco Question welds England and France together and must therefore be “liquidated”’. He was depressed, though, and worried about the prospect of a war. ‘I tell you this confidentially,’ he said to Rathenau as he walked him to his car. ‘It is somewhat for show. We cannot yield too much.’22

  Bethmann had in fact had misgivings about sending the Panther on its mission but had allowed himself to be persuaded by the Foreign Office and its forceful secretary, Alfred von Kiderlen-Wächter.23 Bethmann usually left foreign affairs to him and Kiderlen was more than happy to take charge. Big, blond, and brutally blunt, his face marked by duelling scares, Kiderlen was afraid of no one, not even the Kaiser, and nothing, including war. He was known equally for his wit, his sarcasm, his indiscretions and his rudeness. When there was talk of sending him to London as ambassador, Grey reportedly exclaimed: ‘More dreadnoughts and the bad manners of Kiderlen – that would be too much!’24 Initially he had been a favourite of the Kaiser, who liked his risqué jokes and stories, but, typically, he had gone too far and his rude comments about his master had got back to him. As punishment Kiderlen had been sent off to languish as Germany’s ambassador in Rumania. The empress, among his other enemies, also disapproved of his way of life; he lived openly for years with a widow who kept house for him. When Bülow raised this with him, Kiderlen replied ungallantly: ‘Excellency, if I were to produce the corpus delicti for your inspection I think you would find it rather hard to believe in any illicit relationship between me and a fat old woman like that.’25

  The Kaiser had initially resisted Bethmann’s wish to bring Kiderlen back to Berlin as Foreign Secretary but gave way, saying only that his Chancellor would find he had a louse in his fur. Kiderlen showed little gratitude or respect for Bethmann whom he called the Earthworm (Regenwurm) and Bethmann for his part discovered he had been dealing with a stubborn and secretive man whom he nicknamed the Mule (Dickkopf).26 Part of the reason German foreign policy frequently appeared to be erratic and incoherent during Kiderlen’s tenure of office was that he refused to communicate with either his ambassadors abroad, his subordinates or his colleagues. At one point, Bethmann told friends, he had to get his Foreign Secretary drunk to find out what he was up to.27 Kiderlen may not have known himself. As a senior general in the War Ministry complained at the height of the Morocco crisis, the dispatch of the Panther was all too typical of the incoherent nature of German foreign policy.

  There was no understanding whatsoever of what might arise from it and of how all these possibilities were to be dealt with; the order is said to have taken shape in a few hours one afternoon, without precise knowledge of local conditions, the anchorage and the like. It is hardly surprising that we now find ourselves more or less at a loss in the face of the resulting political difficulties.28

  In creating the crisis, Kiderlen seems to have intended to force the French to negotiate in earnest over Morocco and, like Bethmann, he hoped that Britain could be detached from the Triple Entente. Kiderlen did not make clear from the first
either to his own colleagues or to the French what he had in mind as compensation for Germany, either in Morocco or elsewhere, perhaps as a deliberate tactic.29 He assumed, with some reason, that the French were not prepared to fight and so he was prepared to engage in brinkmanship and bluff.30

  Jules Cambon, who had worked so hard for a better understanding between his country and Germany, found Kiderlen exceedingly difficult to negotiate with. The two men were talking in Berlin about the Morocco issue in June when Kiderlen suddenly took six weeks off to go to a spa. Cambon visited him there towards the end of the month to suggest that France might be prepared to offer some form of compensation. Kiderlen, who had already dispatched the Panther, said only, ‘Bring us something from Paris.’31 His talks with Cambon started up again on 8 July, after the news of the Panther’s arrival had become public, with discussion of Germany’s position in Morocco and the possibility of compensation somewhere in Africa. A week later Cambon demanded point blank what exactly Germany wanted; Kiderlen called for a map of Africa and pointed to the whole of French Congo. Cambon, so Kiderlen later claimed, ‘nearly fell over backwards’. The demand, which leaked out, gave rise to much worried speculation in France and Britain, that Germany intended to build a vast empire across Africa, eventually taking in the huge Belgian Congo and the Portuguese colonies of Angola and Mozambique.32 In fact neither Kiderlen nor Bethmann had any interest in Africa but they wanted to show that Germany could not be ignored.33

  What could also not be ignored, and this made it more difficult in the end to settle the crisis, was public opinion in Germany itself. Kiderlen, who encouraged the colonial lobby and the nationalistic Pan-German League to take a hard line in order to scare the French, found that he had stirred up something that was difficult to contain. Jules Cambon observed after the crisis had ended: ‘It is false that in Germany the nation is peaceful and the government is bellicose – the exact opposite is true.’34 Bebel, the leader of the Social Democrats, was so concerned about the heated state of German public opinion that he asked the British consul in Zurich to warn London: ‘A horrible ending seems inevitable.’35 Across Europe in those last years of peace, from Russia where the Duma was increasingly active in foreign and military affairs, to Britain which had a long tradition of an informed public opinion, governments were finding that their ability to manoeuvre was increasingly circumscribed by their publics’ emotions and expectations.

  In France, where the reaction to the German moves was one of shock and anger, the crisis came at a bad time. At the end of May, an accident at an air show had killed the Minister of War and seriously wounded the Prime Minister. The government had struggled on only to collapse a month later. A new Cabinet was sworn in on 27 June, four days before the news that the Panther was at Agadir reached it. The new Foreign Minister had absolutely no experience in foreign affairs. The Prime Minister, Joseph Caillaux, a rich man with a shady reputation and a scandalous marriage to a divorced woman, intended to manage them himself. Caillaux had one great virtue and that was realism. When the crisis broke, he consulted Joffre, who had just become chief of staff, about France’s chances in a war. The odds, Joffre told him, were not good so Caillaux decided that France had no option but to negotiate and instructed Jules Cambon, who had been wanting to settle the Morocco issue for months, to work with Kiderlen.36 Like the Germans, the French were to find that their own press and public opinion added constraints to their negotiations.37 The Foreign Ministry officials at the Quai d’Orsay also put up furious objections and did their best to undermine Cambon. ‘They do not know what they want’, he complained to a trusted colleague, ‘they are constantly putting spokes in my wheels, getting the press excited and playing with fire.’38 Cambon was reduced that summer to using the French military attaché in Berlin to send his reports to Caillaux through the Ministry of War.39 As a result of such difficulties Caillaux himself undertook secret negotiations through the German embassy in Paris, something which later earned him accusations of treason.40

  To complicate France’s response to Germany, its ally, Russia, made it clear that it was not interested in being dragged into a war over Morocco. Izvolsky, who had now become Russia’s ambassador in Paris, reminded the French that they had been lukewarm in supporting his country over the Bosnian crisis three years earlier. ‘Russia of course’, he said, ‘remains faithful to its alliance, but it would have difficulty making its public opinion accept a war over Morocco.’ And the Russians were not particularly clear about whether they would come to France’s aid if it were attacked. Russia’s army, Izvolsky claimed, would need at least two years before it was ready to fight. The tsar gave a mixed message to the French ambassador in St Petersburg: he would honour his word to France if necessary but it would be sensible of the French to come to terms with Germany.41

  Britain, France’s other key ally, initially took the position that France and Germany could sort matters out between them without its involvement. Apart from labour unrest, other domestic issues were preoccupying the government: the coronation of George V that June, renewed trouble over Irish Home Rule, increasingly large and sometimes violent demonstrations by suffragettes demanding votes for women, and the culmination of the struggle between the House of Commons and the House of Lords over parliamentary reform. On the international scene, Britain was having problems with both its entente partners. ‘How difficult it is to work with the French,’ said a member of the Foreign Office, ‘who never seem to act in a straightforward manner.’42 And Britain’s relations with Russia were taking a downturn again, especially in Persia where the two continued to vie for influence.43

  By contrast, relations with Germany had been improving somewhat in spite of the stalemate over the naval race. That May, before the crisis started, the Kaiser came to London for the unveiling of a memorial to his grandmother and the visit seemed to go off well (although as he was leaving he complained loudly about Britain to Louis Battenberg, a German prince who happened to be a senior British admiral).44 In the Ottoman Empire German and British financial enterprises were cooperating in projects such as railways.45 Radical and moderate members of the Cabinet and their supporters in Parliament were attacking the high expenditure on the navy and were putting pressure on Grey to improve relations with Germany, demanding among other things that a Cabinet committee be set up to oversee foreign policy, especially where Germany was concerned.46

  Grey himself liked the idea of Britain acting as it had in the past as an arbiter among the powers and was not concerned at the prospect of Germany expanding its colonies in Africa. He urged the French to be moderate while hinting to the Germans that Britain might have to support France. What was important, he told both sides, was that British interests were respected in any new settlement on Morocco. The Foreign Office, which was now under the direction of Sir Arthur Nicolson, who was strongly anti-German, and the pro-French ambassador in Paris took a darker view from the start: the crisis was a rerun of the first Morocco affair and Grey must support the French strongly and visibly or the Entente was finished. Grey and his Prime Minister Asquith resisted the pressure until word reached London in the middle of July that Germany was demanding the whole of the French Congo.47 ‘We begin to see light,’ Eyre Crowe, known for his deep suspicions of German foreign policy, wrote on a Foreign Office memorandum:

  Germany is playing for the highest stakes. If her demands are acceded to either on the Congo or in Morocco, or – what she will, I believe, try for – in both regions, it will mean definitely the subjection of France. The conditions demanded are not such as a country having an independent foreign policy can possibly accept. The details of the terms are not so very important now. This is a trial of strength, if anything. Concession means not loss of interests or loss of prestige. It means defeat, with all its inevitable consequences.

  Nicolson agreed: ‘If Germany saw the slightest weakening on our part her pressure on France would become intolerable to that country who would have to fight or surrender. In the latter case German hegem
ony would be solidly established, with all its consequences immediate and prospective.’48 The Cabinet approved a message from Grey to the Germans that, as a result of the arrival of the Panther, the British were now more deeply concerned about the crisis and that they were obliged to stand by France. The Germans, and it may have been an indication of their clumsy handling of the whole affair, did not bother to reply for over two weeks, which only further deepened British suspicions.

  It was an uncomfortable summer for Grey. He had suffered another personal tragedy earlier that year when his beloved brother George was killed by a lion in Africa and the Morocco crisis was keeping him in London, far from the respite of his estate at Fallodon. The Cabinet was divided over how firm to be with Germany and how much support to offer France. In the country, the wave of strikes went on and the heatwave was breaking records. (In the evenings Churchill would collect Grey and take him for a swim at his club.) On 21 July, after considerable discussion, the Cabinet decided to tell Germany that Britain would not accept any settlement over Morocco in which it did not participate. That evening Lloyd George spoke at a formal dinner at the official residence of the Lord Mayor of London. Britain, he claimed, had traditionally used its influence to support liberty and peace,

  But if a situation were to be forced upon us in which peace could only be preserved by the surrender of the great and beneficent position Britain has won by centuries of heroism and achievement, by allowing Britain to be treated where her interests were vitally affected as if she were of no account in the Cabinet of nations, then I say emphatically that peace at that price would be a humiliation intolerable for a great country like ours to endure. National honour is no party question.49

  The Mansion House speech caused a sensation in part because it came from a man who had been known for his moderate views towards Germany. The German ambassador protested against the belligerent tone.