Fateful Transitions. Daniel M. Kliman

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      “The Emperor Is a Very Odd Man”

      An autocratic system lent additional uncertainty to Germany’s ascendance by placing the kaiser at the epicenter of foreign policy. Kaiser Wilhelm of Germany was a mercurial monarch. His instability concerned Great Britain as early as 1895, the year perceptions of Germany’s rise became widespread. Reporting to London, the British Embassy in Berlin warned that the kaiser’s mind was “subject to hallucinations.”⁸⁹ Prime Minister Salisbury, in response to the report and other information about the kaiser, noted: “The conduct of the German Emperor is very mysterious and difficult to explain. There is a danger of his going completely off his head.” Moreover, Salisbury perceived the kaiser as the source of extreme German behavior. He believed that “outrageous” German demands for territory in Africa could only reflect the kaiser’s decision to go against the wishes of more responsible statesmen.⁹⁰

      In January 1896, the kaiser’s impulsiveness directly fueled British mistrust of Germany’s rise. After the Jameson Raid—a botched attempt by British citizens from the Cape Colony to overthrow the Transvaal Republic—the kaiser, in a fit of rage, dispatched a congratulatory telegram to the Boer president. What became known as the Kruger telegram directly challenged British interests in the Transvaal by implying recognition of the Boers’ independence. Through rumor, the British government discerned that Wilhelm had disregarded the advice of the chancellor and others when sending the telegram.⁹¹ This episode demonstrated to British leaders that German intentions could rapidly change due to the kaiser’s erratic nature.

      The kaiser remained a key point of uncertainty as German power expanded. In the midst of the Anglo-German alliance negotiations, Balfour observed: “The Emperor is a very odd man.” The first lord of the treasury worried that failure to fulfill the expectations of “so impulsive a being” might produce an abrupt turnabout in German foreign policy—the kaiser would seek an arrangement with France and Russia, then Great Britain’s chief adversaries.⁹² Negotiating with Germany over the fate of Samoa in 1899, Salisbury complained: “It is a great nuisance that one of the main factors in the European calculation should be so ultra-human.”⁹³ On reading a description of the kaiser’s talks with the czar in 1905, Foreign Secretary Lansdowne echoed his colleagues: “the Kaiser’s language and demeanor fills me with disquiet. What may not a man in such a frame of mind do next?”⁹⁴ Lansdowne’s successor, Grey, on meeting the kaiser, concluded that he was “not quite sane.”⁹⁵ Centralization of authority in the hands of the kaiser rendered German intentions doubly opaque and compounded British concerns arising from Germany’s colonial assertiveness and naval buildup.

      Friendless in Berlin

      As the power transition with Germany moved forward, British leaders had few avenues for the shaping of strategic behavior. In a political system that centralized authority, only one point of access existed: the kaiser and his closest advisers. However, this point of access was unfriendly toward Great Britain. During his posting in Berlin, Spring-Rice noted: “the Emperor and his people are actuated by feelings of hostility against England which are only limited by the German regard for law and by the practical fear of reprisals.”⁹⁶ Later reports from the British Embassy in Berlin confirmed the kaiser’s animosity toward Great Britain. In 1904, the British ambassador informed Lansdowne: “I hear from other sources that the Kaiser has been generally letting out against England.”⁹⁷ This message, along with news that Wilhelm had become convinced that Great Britain was planning a surprise attack, led Lansdowne to wonder whether the center of political power in Germany was not actively hostile: “They cannot seriously believe that we are meditating a coup against them. Are they perchance meditating one against us?”⁹⁸

      Keenly aware of their inability to shape Germany’s foreign policy from within, British elites gravitated toward a theory of “two Germanies.” The kaiser and his advisers were dangerous and warlike, while the majority of the German people were peace loving.⁹⁹ This view made inroads among even some of the pro-German members of the Liberal Cabinet. Lloyd George came to espouse the “two-Germanies” theory after a visit to Berlin in 1908. The chancellor of the exchequer was “gravely disturbed by the expressions of distrust and suspicion I had encountered…. It seemed to me to be ominously significant of what must be the general opinion at the time in leading German circles.”¹⁰⁰

      If democratic rule had prevailed in Germany, the kaiser’s antipathy would not have deprived Great Britain of friends in Berlin. The British government could have cultivated groups empowered by democracy such as the Reichstag and thereby offset the kaiser’s malign influence over German foreign policy. Countering one domestic actor with another was in fact Great Britain’s approach to the United States, where according to the logic of a “two Americas” theory, elites were sympathetic but the masses Anglophobe. This approach was impossible to carry out in Germany, where the constitution stripped the Reichstag of any role in foreign affairs. With the kaiser and his advisers unfriendly, the British government had nowhere else to turn for access.

       Great Britain Embraces Containment

      During the first decade of the twentieth century, a rising Germany was prickly and assertive yet unwilling to press international disputes to the brink of war. In 1905, the diplomatic crisis Germany triggered over Morocco worried British elites but did not fundamentally shake their faith in the utility of integration. After 1910, however, frequent conflict accompanied Germany’s rise. The British became disillusioned with integration and increasingly convinced of Germany’s unremitting antagonism, and steadily shifted to containment.

      The Second Moroccan Crisis

      In July 1911, Germany sparked a crisis that raised the specter of the first large-scale European war in forty years. The epicenter of the crisis was Morocco. Eager to receive compensation for what appeared to be an impending partition of Morocco, Germany dispatched the gunboat SMS Panther to Agadir. The Panther’s presence was intended to convince France and Great Britain that Germany ought to receive concessions for any changes in Morocco’s status. Moreover, the German government hoped that pressing its claim to compensation might bring about tensions that would weaken or even fracture the Anglo-French entente.¹⁰¹ But Great Britain and France remained united. The crisis escalated, and foreshadowing the events of August 1914, Germany deployed troops to the Belgian border. Ultimately, all parties stepped back from the precipice and reached a settlement whereby France occupied all of Morocco and Germany received territories previously part of the French Congo.

      For Great Britain, the second Moroccan crisis was a watershed moment. It compelled the civilian leadership in London to become intimately involved in war planning against Germany. While still at the Home Office, Churchill pressed for information concerning the army’s strength and mobilization time frame. Foreign Secretary Grey urged the Admiralty to go on heightened alert. Richard Haldane, the civilian head of the War Office, cancelled military exercises scheduled for September because British troops might soon be needed in Europe.¹⁰² Most important, Asquith convened a meeting of the Committee on Imperial Defence to examine “actions to be taken in the event of intervention” in a Franco-German conflict. Adjudicating between plans put forward by the Admiralty and the War Office, this select group fatefully chose sending troops to France over naval attacks against the German coast. Never before had British leaders confronted the possibility of war with Germany in such a tangible way.¹⁰³ Their faith in integration as a tool for moderating German behavior was badly shaken.