The Kaiser's dashed hopes: the failure of Bülow's mission, the Moroccan heat and the icy shower of Algeciras
In the 1880s, an unprecedented situation arose. Germany had become too powerful to remain on the sidelines, as this would have led to the unification of all of Europe against it.
G. Kissinger.
G. Kissinger.
Spring on the eve of the cold
In the article "Germany between Leviathan and Behemoth: Hohenlohe's Short Chancellorship"We have crossed the threshold of a new century. For now, a calendar one. We still have historical The 19th century, which began with the storming of the Bastille and the nation born in the din of revolutionary wars.
To the sounds of the "Marseillaise," the French seemed to trigger an avalanche, giving impetus to the "Springtime of Nations," without which Otto von Bismarck and his pragmatic "Iron and Blood" would be unthinkable. Well, pragmatists always replace romantics.
The other side of spring was the autumn that preceded the cold of two world wars – the proclamation of a new Reich on the ruins of the empire of Napoleon III, defeated by the twilight Prussian military genius.
In 1871, Europe stepped towards the abyss of World War I. The second milestone on this path, as noted in the aforementioned article, was 1898, when the Reichstag approved a large-scale program for the construction of an ocean-going fleet.
Wilhelm II
However, back then, Grand Admiral A. von Tirpitz and Wilhelm II, I believe, could not have imagined even in their worst nightmares that the short history of their beloved brainchild would end with the opening of the seacocks in Scapa Flow, hated by every German sailor, on June 21, 1919. But that would come later.
Meanwhile, the world was hurtling toward a global war over the redistribution of colonies and spheres of influence. This progress, paradoxically, was accompanied by peace-loving rhetoric and even corresponding steps, one of which was the Hague Disarmament Conference, convened in 1899 at the initiative of Nicholas II. Incidentally, its opening took place on his birthday. The conference gave the Tsar's apologists an opportunity to credit him with his peaceful intentions.
However, I believe the issue isn't with them, but with the significant strain on the military budget. It's not surprising that the leading imperialist powers—Great Britain, France, and Germany—were cool to the Russian initiative, while the second-tier countries—Austria-Hungary and Italy—were quite receptive. Their budgets were also strained.
The Italians had their eye on Abyssinia and looked longingly at Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, which belonged to the Porte.
As expected, the conference did not have a significant impact on the processes taking place in the world, but was remembered for two aspects: the desire to give the war a legal character and to stop the arms race, limiting the use in the course of a future war of what would soon be called weapons mass destruction.
The reaction to Wilhelm II's St. Petersburg initiative is curious. In a letter to his royal cousin, he made no secret of his irony:
Imagine a monarch personally commanding his army, disbanding his regiments, sacred for a century of history, and handing over his cities to anarchists and democracy.
However, the problem lay deeper:
The European nations, Kissinger noted, had turned the balance of power into an arms race, not realizing that modern technology and universal conscription would transform a general war into the greatest threat to their own security and to European civilization as a whole.
In other words, the technologically leading world powers entered the 20th century, but from the point of view of the mentality of the ruling elites, they remained in the last century, never fully realizing the extent of the threat looming over the Europe born in Westphalia in 1648.
The Chancellor's Mistake
Hohenlohe's successor, B. von Bülow, was no exception. Unlike his predecessor, he was in his political prime—he was 52 years old when he assumed office—and had a quarter-century of diplomatic experience under his belt, including stints in leading European capitals: Vienna, Paris, St. Petersburg, and Rome. Bülow was also known as an Anglophile.
Accordingly, one of the main foreign policy tasks set by the Kaiser for the new chancellor was expressed in maintaining what seemed to Wilhelm II to be friendly relations with England.
B. von Bülow
Bülow pursued a similar strategy, the only one acceptable in Germany's geographical realities: maintaining stable relations with Russia while simultaneously developing them with Great Britain.
But to implement such a strategy in practice, Berlin required maximum tact and diplomatic skill, neutralizing London’s concerns about the large-scale naval construction program and growing colonial expansion.
This was Bismarck's geopolitics. However, unlike the Iron Chancellor, Bülow was more distrustful of Russia.
Kissinger rightly noted on this matter:
The prince (Bülow's title - I.Kh.) adhered to the point of view of Frederick the Great, who claimed that "of all Prussia's neighbors, it is the Russian Empire that is the most dangerous both in terms of strength and its location."
Nevertheless, Bülow also tried to prevent a rapprochement between Russia and France. Consequently, Great Britain could have become a significant weight in the balance of the emerging German-Austria-Hungary and Russian-French blocs. Its benevolent neutrality or role as arbitrator played into Germany's hands in its difficult relations with France.
And in 1901, Berlin had a chance to play the English game, in part because the British side, namely Colonial Secretary D. Chamberlain, initiated negotiations for closer rapprochement. Why?
We discussed Anglo-French colonial tensions and London's concerns about the Third Republic's growing naval power in a previous article. There, we also discussed the British displeasure with what they perceived as St. Petersburg's excessive activity in the Far East. Therefore, their rapprochement with Tokyo, motivated by anti-Russian sentiment, began at that time.
Thus, the new balance of power on the world stage, caused by the ever-increasing role of Japan and Germany, forced Great Britain, if not to openly abandon its traditional policy of splendid isolation, then to adjust it based on new geopolitical realities.
What, exactly, did Chamberlain want? A rapprochement with Germany on anti-Russian grounds, but more on Far Eastern than European grounds. Berlin didn't see this as advantageous, and as a counter-initiative, Bülow, with the Kaiser's approval, began to insist on Great Britain joining the Triple Alliance created in 1882, playing a game that was too simple compared to Bismarck's diplomatic conundrums, in the style of, as Kissinger rightly noted, "all or nothing."
But conducting a dialogue with the British within the framework of such an approach was counterproductive, as subsequent events demonstrated, since it is one thing, from London’s point of view, to adjust its foreign policy course, and another to tie it to German continental ambitions.
Let us not discount the telegram from Wilhelm II to the President of the Transvaal, P. Kruger, mentioned in the previous article, which damaged relations between Germany and Great Britain.
Having failed to secure England's accession to the Triple Alliance, Berlin was surprised to learn of the conclusion of another – the Anglo-Japanese Alliance – in 1902, which was essentially anti-Russian in nature. The British took a step toward abandoning their policy of splendid isolation, but not in the way the Germans envisioned.
A couple more years passed, France and England concluded a treaty of "cordial entente", and the latter began to test the waters with a view to concluding a similar treaty with Russia.
There is no contradiction with the Anglo-Japanese alliance here: the Mikado had to restrain the Tsar's ambitions in Korea and China, but regarding the delimitation of spheres of influence in Central Asia and a joint limit to Germany's growing appetites in Mesopotamia, London and St. Petersburg could well agree.
The heat of Tangier and the political cold of the Pyrenees
In 1905–1906, Germany had the opportunity to test the strength of the emerging Anglo-French alliance, as well as to become familiar with new geopolitical realities in Europe. The first Moroccan crisis erupted.
The gist of it is this: Beginning in the second quarter of the 19th century, the French actively penetrated North and West Africa, step by step, with money and weapons, bringing it under their control.
Along their thorny colonial path, they encountered conflicts with England—disputes over control of the Niger River basin and the strategically important Egyptian Empire. Ultimately, at the end of the 19th century, Paris and London agreed to divide spheres of influence in these regions, including the Sultanate of Morocco.
And then Italy began to push into Africa, laying claim, as mentioned above, to Tripolitania and Cyrenaica, which lay beneath the dilapidated vaults of the Porte. Paris, interested in rapprochement with Rome, did not object. After all, France's move to accommodate Italian interests in Africa was beneficial to both sides.
Let me remind you that Italy was a member of the Triple Alliance. However, its territorial disputes with Austria-Hungary over Tyrol had not sunk into oblivion. At the same time, the formal alliance of Vienna and Rome under the auspices of the more powerful Berlin made Paris nervous. And the latter could not resist the opportunity to weaken the bonds linking Rome to Berlin and Vienna. A far-sighted move, given Italy's gradual drift toward the Entente.
In short, everyone was playing out complex combinations on the chessboard, except for Wilhelm II. Seeing France's desire to take Morocco under its control by establishing a protectorate over it, the Kaiser suddenly showed up in Tangier, an important Moroccan economic and political center, and promised the Sultan his protection.
Wilhelm II during his visit to Tangier, 1905
This was a rash move, akin to the Kruger telegram, when everyone had already agreed with everyone else on the delimitation of spheres of influence in Africa north of the equator.
Wilhelm II was likely under pressure from his own General Staff: there was no better opportunity to implement the Schlieffen Plan. Russian troops were tied down in Korea and Manchuria and would not come to the French aid. Now was the time to loosen the Franco-Russian shackles on Germany.
But the impulsive Kaiser, for all his bellicose rhetoric, was not a decisive man. Instead of military success, he decided to pursue diplomatic success.
After posing for photos in Tangier, he backed down and, to resolve the crisis, initiated the convening of an international conference in Algeciras, Spain, in January 1906. To diplomats from the world's leading powers, the Kaiser's intentions were quite clear: a German protectorate over Morocco instead of a French one.
It must be said that, at first glance, German diplomacy might have expected success: the French, still fresh in their memories of the Sedan disaster and the tread of Prussian soldiers on the cobbles of Paris, were frightened by the Kaiser's Moroccan voyage. French Foreign Minister Théodore Delcassé, a proponent of a hardline approach toward Germany, resigned.
But Wilhelm II's abrupt change in rhetoric from bellicose to diplomatic was seen in European capitals as a sign of insecurity, and German ambitions found no support in Algeciras.
Let me remind you of something I've written about many times in previous articles: Germany was a superfluous state on the map. Yes, in Europe, it could still hold the weaker Austria-Hungary by the scruff of the neck and grab Italy by the sleeve, but in terms of the colonial division of the world, I repeat, by 1906, everyone had already come to an agreement behind Berlin's back, and no one was going to indulge German ambitions, especially when expressed in such a crudely aggressive manner.
On the contrary, the colonial empires were prepared to unite against Germany. In his "Morphology of Russian Geopolitics," V.L. Tsymbursky cited the very precise words of Russian Foreign Minister S.D. Sazonov:
Germany was dangerous for the peace of Europe not as a European power, but as a world power, which had set itself goals incompatible with the political existence of the great powers that had embarked on the path of imperialism several centuries before it and no longer threatened the peace of Europe.
The Kaiser's Tangier adventure had only negative consequences for him. The British expressed concern that Wilhelm II would follow Morocco with his plans to seize Gibraltar.
The Italians were preparing for war with the Turks over Tripolitania and Cyrenaica and had reached an agreement with the French. But what would the Germans do if they were given Morocco and the Porte granted Germany the concession for the construction of the Baghdad Railway? The Kaiser and the Sultan were now friends—in this regard, Tsymbursky's remark about the "Berlin Caliphate" motif heard in Sazonov's speeches is noteworthy.
Russia was not interested in Morocco at all, but was interested in French loans.
In general, the Germans found themselves in predictable isolation at the conference.
Algeciras Conference, 1906
The only thing Berlin's opponents did in Algeciras was postpone the question of Morocco's political future, although de facto it remained within France's sphere of influence. This was a diplomatic defeat for Germany, the visible result of which was the Anglo-Russian Treaty of St. Petersburg, which put an end to the rivalry between the two countries.
The division of Europe into two military-political blocs, as a consequence of the diplomatic mistakes of Wilhelm II and Bülow, became a reality.
On the way to the abyss
In 1909, the fourth German chancellor resigned, and a couple of years later, the second Moroccan crisis erupted again, due to German fault. By then, the Balkans were already stirring, on the eve of their own wars. The German abscess on Europe was swelling and pushing it toward the abyss.
As Kissinger rightly noted, the German Empire imposed a kind of overload on the European balance of power. At the beginning of the 20th century, it was already felt in London, Paris, and St. Petersburg, forcing them to increasingly consolidate their forces against Berlin.
Использованная литература:
Wilhelm II. Memoirs. Events and People. 1878-1918 / Translated by D. Trius. — Moscow-P.: L. D. Frenkel Publishing House, 1923
Kissenger G. Diplomacy: [Trans. from English] / Henry Kissinger; [Afterword G. A. Arbatova, p. 824-828]. - M.: Scientific publishing house. Center "Ladomir": LLP "VRS", 1997
Liddell Hart, G. The Truth about the First World War. Moscow: Yauza, EKSMO, 2009
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
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
Ropp T. Creating a Modern Navy: French Naval Policy 1871–1904. Military Literature, 2004
Tirpitz A. Memories. – Moscow: Voenizdat, 1957
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