In 1879, Bismarck followed up the diplomatic triumph of Berlin with the Dual Alliance between Germany and Austria, the latter having finally succumbed to having to play second fiddle to Berlin. Henceforth Austria was to become increasingly dependent on its Prusso-German ally. This alliance became the model for all that followed. It was a formal written and published treaty of defensive alliance, pledging to support each other if either were attacked by Russia, and neutrality if attacked by a third power. Bismarck had once famously said, ‘I should be alarmed if we sought protection from the approaching storm by tying our neat seaworthy frigate to Austria’s worm-eaten old galleon.’(20) Yet here he was making a populist treaty with Austria, ostensibly to redress the balance of Russia’s recent advances in the Balkans, but from which Germany derived no direct benefit. What is more, it was an agreement that would not win Germany any favour with Moscow. The reasons for his decision were publicly hailed as being manifest. They included reviving the ‘organic union’ of all Germans now that the Austrians had accepted their new station within German Europe. It was also proclaimed by pan-Germans as marking the establishment of a ‘Greater Germany’ by other means. But Bismarck’s motivations were more convoluted and included reversing his own deep-seated belief in the ‘national principal’, which would inevitably have seen the break-up of the multinational Austro-Hungarian Empire. Instead, he now sought to prop up the nation he had done more than any other to rent asunder, believing the break-up of the Austrian Empire would lead to chaos from which only Russia could benefit, and from which she would emerge too strong. To consolidate Austria, Italy was later persuaded to join what became the ‘Triple Alliance’, whereby Italy promised to remain neutral if Austria was attacked by Russia.cxiv To redress the balance of this outwardly defensive alliance against Russia, Bismarck revamped the Three Emperors’ League in 1881, knowing full well that the key to Germany’s security lay in keeping Russia on side. This time the Emperors solemnly agreed to each remaining neutral if any one of them found themselves at war with a fourth state. These alliances were becoming ever more convoluted since the only war Austria was likely to fight was with Russia, and in practice this meant Russia promised to remain neutral if Germany found herself at war with France. Furthermore, Austria and Germany were promising to remain neutral if Russia found herself at war with England.
What Bismarck had perhaps not foreseen were the growing tensions that would come from an alliance between Russia and Austria. Mutual trust was already in short supply and they were both determined on expansion into the Balkans — Austria as the traditional European bulwark against the Turks whom they had gradually pushed ever further south, and Russia as the protector and sponsor of all Slavic movements in the Balkans — or so she was increasingly portraying herself. In an age when all the European powers sought opportunities for expansion, a conflict in the Balkans was all the more likely. And since France had closed the door on Austria’s expansion in Italy, and Prussia had done the same in Germany, there was really nowhere else for Austria to go.
At this stage, Britain saw Russia as her main rival in Persia and the Middle East, and France as her main rival in Africa and the Mediterranean. Germany had been viewed as ‘a natural ally’, or at least not a nation with which Great Britain had any strategic quarrels. But when, through a rapid process of industrialisation, Germany began to challenge British industry for markets across the globe, tensions inevitably grew. As we have seen, Bismarck had never been interested in colonies or great naval power. It had not crossed his mind to make an issue of France’s colonies after the fall of France in 1870. He was a typical East Elbian and only had his eye on the horizon of the wide-open plains that stretched in each direction; east and west of the north German plain. When the first half of the 1880s saw the first tensions arise between Great Britain and the German Reich, he could not wait to pull back. He had only reluctantly conceded to entry into the European ‘Scramble for Africa’, and he soon realised that Germany’s growing economic power, coupled with a growing navy and a desire for colonies, could only bring her into direct confrontation with Great Britain. He felt it was better to maintain an empire on your doorstep than risk all on far-off dominions whose long-term tenure was in any case of questionable sustainability. No sooner had Germany established a substantial overseas empire than Bismarck rued the fact that he had acceded to the demands of the Hamburg merchants, shipping lines, and the naval and colonial lobbies for new overseas markets and dependencies in the form of German colonies. The whole process had undermined his commitment to the fact that the German Reich did not seek any further territorial expansion. His life’s work had become the avoidance of international rivalries. More significantly, the African colonies that Germany had acquired immediately proved to be a drain on resources and a downright economic liability. To add insult to injury, no one wanted to go there, even as late as the First World War only 20,000 Germans had emigrated to the German colonies. Bismarck steered straight back for a safe harbour. In his last years in office, Bismarck and Lord Salisbury, the British Prime Minister, were slapping each other on the back and making pronouncements of fraternal friendship between ‘natural allies’. Bismarck made a speech in 1887 in which he depicted Germany as a ‘saturated state’ with no warlike intentions or territorial needs. He underscored this by telling Salisbury that he wanted no more colonies and was prepared to offer the ones Germany already had to Britain. But Britain didn’t want the dog ends of German colonies that the Reich had obtained, at least not for now. And in any case Britain would rather Germany have them than France.(22)
When elements within the military establishment railed at the alliance with Russia, and her growing industrial and military strength vis-à-vis the German Reich, Bismarck described their talk of a pre-emptive war as ‘wanting to commit suicide for fear of death’.(23) He pushed their concerns aside and went straight on to pull off his last masterstroke in foreign policy as Germany’s ‘Iron Chancellor’. In 1887, Germany and Russia also signed the Reinsurance Treaty, which reiterated that Germany would remain neutral in case of war unless Russia attacked Austria-Hungary, and Russia in turn promised to remain neutral if France attacked Germany.cxv
To the end of his ‘reign’ Bismarck kept Germany safe, kept France isolated, and kept friendly with both Russia and Great Britain. He spent twenty years working for peace and stability in Europe. Had his successors continued his work, the German Empire in Europe might still be standing, whilst those of other great powers in far-flung corners of the earth would have long faded away. But as is the case with all such constructions, nothing lasts forever and lesser men squander the achievements of the generations that preceded them.
lxvi See map of The Order’s Baltic conquests.
lxvii The term ‘Russia’ had not yet come into use at this time.
lxviii Also known as Pruzzes, the Prussians were a pagan Baltic not Slavic people, with a language related to Latvian.
lxix There was another religious undercurrent at play in these battles, namely the struggle between Western Roman Catholicism and Eastern Byzantine (Greek) Orthodoxy. During the Fourth Crusade, in 1204, the crusaders had brutally conquered the capital of Byzantium, Constantinople, briefly re-establishing a Latin Empire in the region and deepening the antagonism between Roman and Greek Orthodox Byzantine Christianity. Further expansion of the German knights into the Slavic principalities would have represented a further major loss for the Orthodox church. It was no coincidence, therefore, that the Orthodox church canonised Alexander Nevsky after his death.(4)
lxx The Order, who as soldiers of Christ were forbidden to marry, had to recruit their successors from across the empire. The Junkers differed vastly from the Order in that they had families, laid down roots, and started building their own genealogies. They also grew to be an adaptable caste, as land was worth a great deal but could sometimes generate very little. Thus, they would sell their services as soldiers and later as bureaucrats, functionaries and administrators — binding them ever
closer to the interests of their state. In time, they were granted tax exemptions and had their privileges guaranteed in return for their services in defence of the Kingdom of Prussia.
lxxi The firebrand ‘German monk’ and outspoken critic of the Roman Catholic Church had castigated the Church for selling its indulgences, including; ‘Coins for Christ and passports to Heaven’. He was under the protection of the Elector of Saxony but his ‘incitement against Christendom’ earned him the wrath of the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V, who pronounced a Reichsacht against him and ordered him to be delivered to his court. Should that have happened his fate would undoubtedly have been the same as that of his books — he would have been burned.
lxxii Monasteries were robbed, monks killed and nuns raped, such was the anger at the corruption of the Catholic Church. Luther was however stunned and appalled by the chaos of revolt from below and urged the German princes to crush the rebellious mob — over 100,000 peasants were killed.
lxxiii Albrecht would go on to found what would later become one of Europe’s great universities at Königsberg.
lxxiv As one old East Prussian said upon returning to the Marienburg, after the fall of the wall, and while trying to dodge the über nationalist Polish tour guides, ‘If this place is ur-Polish then I’m a negro!’(9) (The prefix ‘ur’ in German translates as ‘primordially’.) The southern part of East Prussia along with the crusader’s fortress was ceded to Poland at the end of the Second World War, after much of its population had either been massacred, fled or been forcibly removed.
lxxv The dynastic links in the chain that came to bind Prussia to Brandenburg are complex and took nearly a century to come to fruition.
lxxvi The dynastic claims to the territories of East Prussia in particular, and Prussia in general, are relevant to those who are interested in the roots of later conflicts between Germany and Poland and their claims to these territories. When Albrecht von Hohenzollern seized the assets of the Order of the Teutonic Knights in East Prussia, the Duchy of East Prussia was still a vassal of the Polish crown. Albrecht was the cousin of the Elector of Brandenburg, Joachim I (Nestor), who had his eye on the province and wanted to increase his domains by dynastic marriage. To that effect he had his son, Joachim II (Hector), marry Princess Hedwig of Poland in 1535. Her brother then became King of Poland in 1564. Joachim II, succeeded in getting his wife’s brother, the King of Poland, to name Joachim II and Hedwig’s sons as secondary heirs to the Duchy of East Prussia, a decision that was confirmed by the Polish parliament in Lublin. However Joachim II and Hedwig’s plans were not yet to be realised. After Albrecht had seized the property of the Order, he married and had a son, Albrecht Friedrich who became ruler of the Duchy of East Prussia. Joachim II and Hedwig’s grandson, Joachim Friedrich (the latest in the line of Brandenburg-Hohenzollerns) in 1594 married his son, Johann Sigesmund, to Albert Friedrich’s daughter, Anna of Prussia. In 1603, Joachim Friedrich was granted powers of regent over the Duchy by the Polish crown, due to Albrecht Friedrich’s poor mental health and because he was prepared to pay the Polish crown 300,000 Gulden (Guilders) for the privilege. When Joachim Friedrich died in 1608 and the time came for his son, Johann Sigismund, to take over his father’s rights to East Prussia, the Polish king demanded a further 30,000 Guilders, the introduction of the Gregorian calendar and the building of a Catholic church in Königsberg. The request to build a Catholic church, in a now staunchly Protestant East Prussia, was flatly refused by the good burghers of Königsberg. Johann Sigesmund ultimately had to build a Catholic church outside the old town at his own expense. It is not till 1618 that the secondary rights achieved by Joachim II and his wife Hedwig from the Polish crown to East Prussia, came to fruition with the death of Albrecht Friedrich. The Duchy of East Prussia now fell through inheritance to the Brandenburg Hohenzollerns in the form of Johann Sigismund. However only with the birth of a son, Georg Wilhelm, by Johann Sigismund (Brandenburg Hohenzollern) and Anna of Prussia (Prussia) was the union between the House of Brandenburg-Prussia complete. It took nearly 100 years of carefully arranged marriages, bribery and a great deal of patience for the Brandenburg Hohenzollerns to acquire East Prussia — a territory which remained physically separated from Brandenburg by Royal Polish West Prussia. Georg Wilhelm was thus the first to combine the ancestry of both the houses of Brandenburg and Prussia.
lxxvii In the city of Potsdam, the beautiful Dutch quarter is living testimony to the contribution of the Dutch during Friedrich Wilhelm’s reign.
lxxviii Friedrich Wilhelm became the unencumbered sovereign over a territory outside the Holy Roman Empire that was beyond the control of the Emperor. The Hohenzollerns were the first German princes in this position, and the first to demonstrate that they had outgrown the empire.
lxxix Friedrich was known as Friedrich III Kurfürst of Brandenburg, but later became Friedrich I, the first King in Prussia.
lxxx The Royal Berlin Stadtschloss (palace) was the Buckingham Palace of Berlin, the official residence of the Prussian and the then German royal family. It was the centre of many historical events from the revolution of 1848, to the place where Kaiser Wilhelm II proclaimed the outbreak of the First World War, and where the communists declared the 1918 revolution. Badly damaged in the Second World War, its remains were dynamited by the Soviets only to be replaced by a monstrous asbestos box to house the parliament of the GDR (German Democratic Republic) — this in turn has now been demolished and the Schloss is being rebuilt with a view to hopefully being completed in 2017.
lxxxi As it was, King George I didn’t speak a word of English when he became King of England. He was the last King of England not to speak English and the penultimate to lead his troops into battle. For a list of Prussian and German kings see the end of the book.
lxxxii Prussia is often said to have come late to the game of great power politics in Europe. Yet, if it is compared to sixteenth and seventeenth century Britain, there are some interesting parallels. Up until Henry VIII’s father’s accession to the throne, England had been in the throes of dynastic disputes in the Wars of the Roses, about as complex a period in history as it gets. Henry VIII’s persecution of Catholics and Dissolution of the Monasteries filled the landscape with ruins and created deep divisions in Britain that endured for the next two centuries. Britain was certainly not a united nation in this period: Wales and Ireland were subject colonies, while Scotland was still an independent state. While Prussia proclaimed religious tolerance from 1614, England spent the next seventy-five years tearing itself apart over religion, resulting in two bitter civil wars. Only after the final defeat of the Jacobites and the accession of William of Orange did the country bed down and focus on increasing its power and influence. The act of Union with Scotland that created Great Britain did not occur until 1707 and wars in Ireland continued into the twentieth century. It was only in the eighteenth century that both Britain and Prussia were able to aspire to new heights.
lxxxiii ‘Sans Souci’ literally translates as ‘without worries’.
lxxxiv Küstrin was always an important crossroads and a military town. In the final offensive of 1945 on Berlin it was at the centre of bitter fighting and was destroyed. Today, nothing much remains of this ancient Prussian garrison town, which was once home to the Great Elector during the Thirty Years War and also to Frederick during and after the time of his incarceration. In 1946, along with most of Prussia, it became part of Poland.
lxxxv Sitting in the bunker under the Reich Chancellery in April 1945, one of the few personal possessions Hitler still clung to in his private chamber was a portrait of Frederick the Great, which he spent many hours gazing at for inspiration and praying that ‘Providence’ would save him as it had Frederick. On 12th April, Goebbels, whilst cracking open a bottle of champagne, telephoned to congratulate the Führer telling him that history was repeating itself and that his arch-enemy Roosevelt had died. Truman however, was no great admirer of Hitler as Tsar Peter had been of Frederick and the war went on unchecked, to e
nd less than a month later in Germany’s total capitulation.
lxxxvi Frederick prophetically wrote Russia is ‘a terrible power, which will make all Europe tremble’.
lxxxvii Stettin was the main supply port for Berlin, which, along with a slab of territory to the west of the city was seized by the Poles after the Second World War in an act of highly dubious legality, occupying a region whose future remained uncertain until 1950, and from which the last expulsions of its German population were made in 1951.
lxxxviii Frederick the Great had no offspring to succeed him.
lxxxix See images of Berlin’s landmarks in colour plates.
xc It was ironic that one of the least capable monarchs to sit on the Hohenzollern throne, Friedrich Wilhelm II, should gain the largest territorial expansion of his state, largely through the grace of Russia with the Second and Third Partitions of Poland and with minimal effort, even surpassing the territorial additions made by his illustrious uncle, Frederick the Great. Prussia increased its territory by over one third to a total of over 300,000 square kilometres.(2) Poland would not emerge as an independent nation again until 1918.
xci Kolberg now lies over a hundred miles east of the post-war German frontier, well inside Poland (Kolobrzeg). Joseph Goebbels used Prussian resistance against Napoleon at Kolberg in his last Babelsberg propaganda film of the war, a colour extravaganza exhorting the Germans to resist the Russians, as the Prussians had once resisted Napoleon. A huge cast and resources were expended on the film, which few would ever see, whilst the Reich was collapsing and the Russians were past Kolberg and advancing on Berlin.
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