The Short Chancellorship of Leo von Caprivi: Between Friendship with England and Imperial Ambitions
L. von Caprivi; portrait by Wilma Lvov-Parlaga
The Emperor as a Problem
In conclusion of the article "The German Empire on the Road to Disaster, or Two Fateful Years", we stopped at the resignation of O. von Bismarck and the appointment of L. von Caprivi to the post of Chancellor by Wilhelm II.
To a certain extent, his problem as a politician was the Emperor himself, who, in the words of the Germanist A. I. Patrushev, sought to “take over the role of the Iron Chancellor and single-handedly determine Germany’s foreign and domestic policy.”
This wasn't just about foreign policy. Wilhelm II took a keen interest fleet, and his passion was of a practical nature – for example, the emperor took part in the design of the Nassau-class battleships.
But in both cases, the monarch's indifference sometimes did more harm than good. Why? It seems that Max Weber provided the correct answer, characterizing Wilhelm II's style of rule as "Boulangist-Bonapartist, conducted in the manner of a guards lieutenant seeking to be known as an original."
To be fair, such a characterization, when speaking of European monarchs, applies not only to the last Hohenzollern on the throne.
For my part, I'll reiterate what I said in the previous article: Wilhelm II viewed his power in a religious context, having no doubt that it was entrusted to him by Providence. Hence his conviction of his own righteousness in matters of domestic and foreign policy.
Wilhelm II's cousin, Nicholas II, held similar views on the essence of royal service. Only it was expressed in a less eccentric manner.
Accordingly, having emerged from under the shadow of the Iron Chancellor's authority, the Emperor had to choose as his successor a man who, although not entirely accommodating, was not inclined to engage in unnecessary discussions and, if we draw analogies with the Russian history, reminiscent of N.K. Girs during the reign of Alexander III.
In this sense, Wilhelm II's choice of Caprivi might have seemed a little odd to his contemporaries. Why?
From General to Admiral
Born into the family of a royal Prussian privy councilor, the future chancellor chose a military career, taking part in the Austro-Prussian and Franco-Prussian wars. During the latter, he assumed the post of chief of staff of the 10th Army Corps before turning 40. But Field Marshal Hermann von Moltke considered Caprivi a highly gifted officer.
In the Imperial Army, Caprivi commanded a division. A sudden turn in his career occurred in 1883, when the then-lieutenant general, who had no passion for the sea, was appointed head of the Admiralty and promoted to vice admiral. In this new position, Caprivi demonstrated his administrative talent.
I noted above Wilhelm II's love for the navy and the rudeness he sometimes displayed toward his subordinates. He committed something similar toward Caprivi. The response was a resignation.
Wilhelm II loved the navy with all his heart; portrait by Robert Hahn
The reason for the disagreement: the Emperor already dreamed of an ocean-going navy. Caprivi, like most German military men, had a continental mindset and believed that naval strategy should not extend beyond coastal defense.
Wilhelm II accepted the resignation and sent Caprivi to command a corps. Perhaps, in time, he would have headed the General Staff; in any case, from the perspective of Grand Admiral A. von Tirpitz—incidentally, a relative of Caprivi's—he was perfectly suited for the position.
But a new turn in his career was marked by the departure of Bismarck.
And as his replacement, the Emperor chose Caprivi. Why? On the one hand, although he was younger than the Iron Chancellor, he had developed as a military leader during the same era and enjoyed well-deserved authority in military circles. This meant that, in a certain sense, Caprivi would not be overly burdened by his predecessor's authority.
The monarch also hoped that the appointment of a new chancellor would not encounter fierce opposition in the Reichstag. This could arise for reasons more psychological than political: the new chancellor would be compared with his predecessor, and this would hardly be in the successor's favor. Caprivi's authority should have partly mitigated this problem.
On the other hand, with the appointment of a new chancellor, who was not particularly experienced in the field of foreign policy – Bismarck believed that Caprivi had no understanding of it at all – Wilhelm II counted on a certain degree of independence in the international arena.
Let's talk about what came out of this.
Unfinished game
Let's begin with European affairs. In previous articles, I have already expressed the view that the proclamation of the Second Reich destroyed the balance of power and interests established by the Peace of Westphalia of 1648.
And therefore, in my view, a united Germany was an unnecessary entity in Europe, one that predetermined the war. I believe Bismarck understood this and did everything he could to prevent the formation of an anti-German coalition.
While he remained at the helm of German foreign policy, he managed to find a balance of checks and balances on the continent, without bringing contentious issues in international relations to a boiling point, although the idea of a preventive war against Russia was already beginning to circulate in the General Staff, in order to then, after its defeat, defeat France, which, in turn, was not going to accept the loss of Alsace and Lorraine, either for economic reasons or based on notions of national prestige.
The military—still on the map—was trying to cut the Gordian knot of geography around the Reich's neck. Last time, we already found out that this was fundamentally impossible to achieve in the long term.
Bismarck, unlike Caprivi, was a master of complex diplomatic games; portrait by Franz von Lenbach.
In any case, Bismarck was opposed to a military solution to the problem posed by the looming prospect of a Franco-Russian alliance. However, Wilhelm II, at the beginning of his reign, was also against it:
To plunge Germany into the inferno of war, even a victorious one, is incompatible with my understanding of the duties I have undertaken as Emperor of the German people.
It was precisely for this purpose that Bismarck concluded a reinsurance treaty with Russia, playing a game aimed at smoothing the consequences of the increasingly looming Russian-French rapprochement on the political horizon, but while maintaining the Austro-German alliance.
How did Bismarck generally view the role of Russia and Austria in Europe, taking into account the context of German interests?
In my opinion, his vision was brilliantly reflected in his fundamental work, “The Morphology of Russian Geopolitics and the Dynamics of International Systems in the 18th – 20th Centuries,” by V. L. Tsymbursky:
Bismarck's memoirs are pervasive in his fear that Austria would be drawn to Russia within the framework of a new Franco-Russian-Austrian "coalition of the Seven Years' War." He was equally terrified of the Russian Pan-Slavists' dreams of Austria's disintegration. While gravitating toward an "organic" German-Austrian alliance that would guarantee Austria's support against Russia, Bismarck feared making Germany a victim of anti-Russian adventurism: he did not want to fight Russia, but to keep it outside of Europe and, to this end, constantly tie it to Austria. Russia as Germany's rearguard could mean the suppression of France, but in exchange for this would demand or implement the de facto liquidation of Austria. Russia, supporting France's survival, pushed Germany toward an alliance with Austria and, sooner or later, would emerge as a rival claimant to the Austrian succession in Europe, both a rival to Berlin and an ally of France.
How did Bismarck expect to extricate himself from the complex tangle of growing Austro-Russian contradictions?
Tsymbursky gave the following answer:
Bismarck envisioned handing over the Straits, and perhaps even Constantinople, to Russia, with the Balkans divided into Russian (Romania, Bulgaria) and Austrian (Bosnia, Serbia) zones. Russia, holding Constantinople and openly antagonistic to England, would become completely dependent on Austria and Germany and would be barred from any serious intervention in European affairs. Russia would focus entirely on fighting England along the Eurasian arc from the Balkans to the Pacific Ocean. Austria would loom over Russia's southwestern flank as a German outpost, while Germany would dominate the Baltic and emerge as a European leader.
A difficult game with no guarantee of success: for example, it's unlikely Russia would have entered into an armed conflict with the Ottoman Empire, backed by Great Britain and France, over the Straits. It's not certain that such a division would have satisfied Austria, just as Russia's willingness to recognize Serbia as part of Austria's sphere of influence is questionable.
Caprivi, however, saw an alliance with Austria as more important than the delicate balancing of Romanov and Habsburg interests in the Balkans, and he chose not to continue Bismarck's scheme, deciding not to renew the reinsurance agreement. And here he gained the emperor's support.
Bismarck, however, hoped to keep St. Petersburg from sliding into Parisian embrace. Caprivi, apparently, considered this unnecessary and, as history has shown, was mistaken.
Heligoland instead of Zanzibar
Now about colonies. The Germans began establishing them in Africa in the mid-1880s, especially at the intersection of British (Zanzibar) and French (Cameroon) spheres of interest. Bismarck, with his notorious nightmare of coalitions, did not want to exacerbate relations with Great Britain, including in the colonies.
We remember from the previous material how the Iron Chancellor, through his son Herbert, who served as ambassador in London, assured the British that the Second Reich had no intention of expanding the borders of the empire at the expense of colonies.
Berlin also attempted to exploit the differences between London and Paris on the Dark Continent—the Niger River basin—though to no avail. The shadow of the growing German threat forced the British to seek rapprochement not only with the French but also with the Russians, by resolving tensions in Central Asia.
Like Bismarck, Caprivi was aware of the dangers of German colonial ambitions, which required an expensive navy.
Plus, the new chancellor did not hide his sympathies for England and concluded with it the Heligoland Pact mentioned in the previous article, which caused discontent among the German public with concessions in Africa and the supposedly unequal acquisition of the island of Heligoland in the North Sea.
Even Bismarck criticized the pact. However, I'd venture to suggest that the old man's criticism was motivated by psychological factors: Caprivi had committed a certain tactlessness by occupying part of the former Chancellor's official apartment almost immediately after his appointment. In fact, it seemed to me that Bismarck wrote about Caprivi in his memoirs with a certain degree of bias.
The problem was not so much political as psychological: German pride was wounded by concessions in Africa and prevailed over geopolitical arguments.
Something similar happened in Russia after the Congress of Berlin, when Bismarck, truly acting as an honest broker, resolved the problem that Lieutenant General Count N. P. Ignatiev had created with the Armistice of San Stefano, nearly pushing the Balkans into a new war. But the public didn't quite understand this and was outraged. See the article series on the Congress of Berlin for more details. Beginning: "On the Road to the Congress of Berlin, or Passions for Bulgaria."
The pact took into account Germany's capabilities and, to a certain extent, reflected its interests, as Caprivi said, parrying attacks directed at him and responding with the words of Bismarck:
England is more important to us than Zanzibar and East Africa.
The Chancellor rightly pointed out that Germany lacked sufficient resources to conduct an active colonial policy on the Black Continent and rightly advocated for the development of relations with Great Britain.
The ceremonial handover of the island of Heligoland by the British to the Germans; 1890
Moreover, the pact served Germany's military interests, something I don't think the colonists settling in Africa realized, since the seemingly unremarkable Heligoland was the key to the mouth of the Elbe, and, based on the island, the British fleet could neutralize the German fleet in the event of a conflict with the Second Reich. Like the reinsurance treaty, the pact was supported by the Emperor.
In his memoirs, Wilhelm II argued the need to exchange territories in Africa for Heligoland as follows:
Lord Salisbury (then head of the British Foreign Office – I.Kh.) agreed to give up the "barren rock" (actually Heligoland – I.Kh.) in exchange for Zanzibar and Bitu (more correctly, Vitu – a sultanate dependent on Germany before the pact – I.Kh.) in East Africa. From trading circles and from reports from the commanders of German cruisers and gunboats stationed there and cruising off the coast of Germany's newly acquired East African colonies, I knew that with the rise of Tanga, Dar es Salaam (a strategically and economically important port in East Africa, which remained under the control of the Second Reich – I.Kh.), and other colonies off the coast of Africa, Zanzibar's importance as a major trading port would decline.
The Franco-German agreement on Cameroon in 1894 also met, to a certain extent, the interests of Paris more than those of Berlin.
However, the Chancellor could not consistently oppose the expansion of German colonial possessions for reasons that, I repeat, were not at all political in nature.
As paradoxical as it may sound in the context of discussions about the German Empire, the public mood reflected on the rostrum of the Reichstag and in the press influenced the decisions made by Caprivi and the policy as a whole, which was of a half-hearted nature.
As an example, I will cite the words spoken by the Chancellor from the rostrum of the Reichstag:
The period of hoisting flags and concluding treaties must end in order to make previously acquired possessions useful.
That is, we are not abandoning previous acquisitions after the Heligoland Pact, but we are refraining from new ones.
Pan-Germanism, which had agitated German minds, including the Emperor's, weighed heavily on Caprivi. A public increasingly imbued with the spirit of militarism demanded that he seek a place for the Reich in the sun, including in Africa.
At the same time, Caprivi was accused of excessive extravagance, paradoxically enough, in his colonial policies. In other words, blows rained down on him from left and right.
Hostage to militarism
As a result, he "found himself," writes historian E. Yu. Pukhovskaya, "a hostage to the political situation that had developed in Germany. Opponents of the colonial idea accused him of wasteful and unprofitable spending of state funds on a dubious colonial policy. Proponents of the colonial idea accused the government of insufficient attention to the colonies, of inaction, of ignoring the promising opportunities for their territorial expansion and development, and of stagnation in the economic and administrative life of Germany's overseas possessions."
It seems Caprivi's problem lay in overestimating the Russo-Anglo tensions and underestimating the growing Anglo-German tensions. This made Berlin's hopes of working with London to curb St. Petersburg's ambitions in the Balkans and Central Asia illusory. Apparently, Wilhelm II also held a similar view at the time.
However, what kind of rapprochement could Berlin expect with London when German goods were displacing English goods from the traditionally English-controlled markets of Russia, Austria-Hungary, Scandinavia, and the Ottoman Empire in the 19th century, and German banks were competing with British ones in Latin America.
Plus, Berlin's ambitions in Western Asia, which at the turn of the century would take shape in the project to build the Baghdad Railway, also worried London.
Finally, the excessive nurturing of Vienna at the expense of St. Petersburg, out of fear of the former's retreat into the arms of Paris, is also difficult, in my view, to call Caprivi's correct political move on the European chessboard. Another point is that the situation for Berlin was largely characterized by the slogan from MMM advertising in the 1990s: "Wherever you look, there's a wedge."
Perhaps Caprivi should have more actively exploited the pro-German sentiments of some of the Russian elite and made every effort to prevent a rapprochement between Russia and France. However, this would have delayed the conflict rather than prevented it.
The matter was complicated by the Triple Alliance concluded in 1882, which pushed France and Russia towards rapprochement.
I believe Caprivi's miscalculation was his hope of keeping Britain within its traditional policy of splendid isolation. And perhaps he even hoped for more:
"In Caprivi's time," Tirpitz wrote in his memoirs, "the attitude of British naval officers toward their German comrades still bore no trace of envy. The then-prevailing political notion of the British fleet as an adjunct to the Triple Alliance meant that our relations were almost as friendly as those between the Allies, although England always shied away from drawing practical conclusions from them."
In any case, faced with criticism, Caprivi resigned in 1894. Three years earlier, the German General Staff was headed by a man whose name is familiar to every European schoolchild: Lieutenant General A. von Schlieffen.
In 1898, the second milestone on the road to World War I, following 1871, occurred, marked by Berlin's adoption of a program to build an ocean-going navy. The challenge to Great Britain had been thrown down. A German stoker, crowned king, threw coal into the firebox of a German locomotive, accelerating the European train, unaware that he was derailing it.
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References
Bismarck, O. Thoughts and Memories, Vol. 3. - OGIZ - Gospolitizdat, 1941
Wilhelm II. Memoirs. Events and People. 1878-1918 / Translated by D. Trius. — Moscow-P.: L. D. Frenkel Publishing House, 1923
Marchenko M.M. Anglo-German relations at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries through the eyes of Wilhelm II and Chancellor B. von Bülow
Pukhovskaya E. Yu. The colonial idea in Kaiser's Germany: plans and implementation Abstract of dis. for a candidate of scientific degree, Doctor of Historical Sciences, Specialist 07.00.03 / Pukhovskaya Elena Yuryevna; [Irkutsk State University]. – Irkutsk: B.I., 2001
Patrushev A.I. German chancellors from Bismarck to Merkel. – M.: Publishing house Mosk. University, 2009
Patrushev A.I. German history: through the thorns of two millennia. – M.: Publishing house of the International University in Moscow, 2007
Tirpitz A. Memories. – Moscow: Voenizdat, 1957
Tsymbursky V.L. Morphology of Russian Geopolitics and the Dynamics of International Systems in the 18th–20th Centuries. Moscow: Knizhny Mir, 2016
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