Dear Reader,
In the Imperial Order of the German Reich, the people and lands are governed by two linked but occasionally squabbling authorities: the Kaiser, who dreams up grand visions of glory; and the Chancellor, who tries to clean up the diplomatic mess. These are their power struggles.
Prior to 1914, the Kaiser sought to resolve his issues. Kaiser Wilhelm’s chance to unite Europe and end the encirclement of Germany was dashed by Russian officials who influenced the feckless Tsar. The Kaiser had worked for a decade to woo the Tsar and neutralize the threat of a Franco-Russian alliance, which could attack Germany from the west and east.
German Kaiser Wilhelm II, King of Prussia, ascended to the German and Prussian thrones on June 15, 1888, at the age of 29, following the death of his father, Frederick III, after a 99-day reign. It was the year of the three emperors, as Wilhelm I had died earlier in the year. The death of Frederick III was seen as a tragedy by German liberals, as he was a reformer and constitutionalist, but he had an aggressive cancer that soon killed him. Less than two years later, the German Chancellor - the prime minister - Otto von Bismarck was out of a job as the new Kaiser Wilhelm II forced his resignation in March 1890, when Wilhelm was 31 years old and could have benefited from elder counsel. The two clashed due to Wilhelm's desire to assert his own authority, but he did not have the personality to endure Bismarck’s status, and so he got rid of him.
Then, youthful arrogance ruined the game and killed the chance to recover from the end of the Three Emperors’ League. The League was a mutual understanding among the imperial crowns of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Russia, and was Bismarck’s diplomatic vaccine against French revanchism. He envisioned the resurrection of the post-Napoleonic Holy Alliance of Russia, Prussia, and Austria, which appealed to Tsar Alexander III (reigned 1881-1894), known for his conservative, reactionary views and deep suspicion of liberalism. This left France with few options. France needed allies to exact revenge for its defeat in the Franco-Prussian War, which was the obsession of the leaders of the French Third Republic. But if Germany had a safe relationship with Austria to the south and Russia to the east, who would France get to threaten Germany? Were they going to enlist Denmark? The Netherlands? Little Belgium? There was no one left because the British were not going to do it. Hence, as long as Bismarck’s plan was in place, there was very little chance for a war in Western Europe because the outcome would not be in doubt. The only problem was the Russian obsession with the Balkans and the fact that Austria blocked their ambitions there.
But in 1887, the league was not renewed because Russia and Austria-Hungary were divided over the Balkans. Bismarck had tried to get them to split the territory, but Russia wanted more, and even Bismarck was willing to support Russian ambitious in the Black Sea and Bulgaria, but the Russians continued to press. Bismarck had a solution for that too: the 1887 Reinsurance Treaty. It was simple: if Germany or Russia were attacked, the other would stay out and not help the attacker. However, if Russia attacked Austria, Germany would not remain neutral. And if Germany attacked France, Russia would not be obligated to remain neutral. This was perfect for Germany because it did not want to attack France for any reason, but the French government wanted to attack Germany. But if Russia was neutral or on Germany’s side, while Germany was still allied with Austria and Italy in their separate Triple Alliance deal, then France would not dare. France would have to fight Germany, Austria-Hungary, and Italy with zero support from Russia. C’était perdu d’avance. It kept peace in the East while allowing Berlin to preserve its alignment with Vienna. And this also suited Tsar Alexander III just fine. To sweeten the deal, Bismarck promised German neutrality and diplomatic support if Russia tried to seize the Straits of Constantinople, which everyone knew was the ultimate Russian dream. The path to the Great War was closed because Bismarck saw that he had to keep the two likely instigators - France and Russia - on a leash. Then the Kaiser cut the collar.
In 1890, just weeks after dismissing Bismarck, the 31-year-old Wilhelm II let the Reinsurance Treaty expire. His new chancellor, Leo von Caprivi, claimed it conflicted with Germany’s obligations to Austria-Hungary. This was a half-truth at best. The Foreign Ministry did not like Bismarck’s deft diplomacy, which bound Europe in a web that benefited Germany, and Chancellor Caprivi was not a nuanced thinker. They thought Bismarck gave Russia too much, but they did not realize that nothing he gave Russia mattered to Germany. It does not matter if you give away the farm if it is not your farm and you do not want or need it anyway. Tsar Alexander III, however, did not want to end the Reinsurance Treaty; he saw the benefits clearly, and the pretext of favoring Austria-Hungary was an insult. The consequences were immediate and grave: Russia turned to France for security in the west, and in 1894, the Franco-Russian Alliance became a reality. France was overjoyed, and Bismarck’s nightmare of encirclement by France in the West and Russia in the East happened. Mad vanity in Berlin with a young Kaiser and an obtuse Foreign Ministry broke Germany’s momentum and Europe’s equilibrium. Too late, Wilhelm realized he had messed up. And then Caprivi botched relations with the British when they reached out for a deal. He was fired in 1894 after falling out with the conservative aristocracy, but the damage had already been done.
Wilhelm overestimated his ability to make deals and charm individuals rather than focusing on institutional support, stable interests, and reliability. Kaiser “Willy” tried to woo the Russian heir, his dear cousin “Nicky,” who became Nicholas II in 1898. Wilhelm sent many letters to his cousin; he helped set Nicky up with their cousin, “Alicky,” aka Princess Alix of Hesse, who became Tsarina Alexandra, the one associated with Rasputin. Wilhelm kept up the charm offensive. He wanted to make a deal with his cousin, whom he praised lavishly.
He flattered Nicholas with weird appeals to racial and spiritual leadership. Now it was Wilhelm who envisioned the restoration of the Holy Alliance by creating a new one that combined the dual alliance of France and Russia with the triple alliance of Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Kingdom of Italy. Together, these five European powers would combine to dominate the world. The Kaiser insisted that Nicholas had a divine mission to protect Christendom and the white race against what he called the “Yellow Peril,” referring to Japan, and encouraged Russian expansion into Chinese Manchuria. He wrote that his dear Nicky could have the Pacific, and he would hold the Atlantic. In this vision, Europe would rally around their two thrones. The threat of democracy, socialism, and liberalism would be contained by imperial solidarity between the five continental European powers. Together, they would support one another to stop Anglo-American liberalism from spreading. In particular, the rising might of the United States of America. Thus, the Kaiser egged the Tsar on, and Nicky walked right into the samurai’s katanas in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904.
In July 1905, aboard the imperial yacht Hohenzollern in the Gulf of Bothnia, Kaiser Wilhelm II, overlord of the German Reich, secured what seemed to be the diplomatic coup of his reign. The Treaty of Björkö, signed by Nicholas II, Emperor and Autocrat of all the Russias, in his own hand, promised to remake the balance of power in Europe. Wilhelm, believing in personal diplomacy backed by divine right and racial destiny, had wooed his cousin for nearly a decade to break the Franco-Russian alliance and instead bind Russia to Germany. At Björkö, Willy seemed to succeed. But it was all undone within days.
Article I of the treaty pledged mutual military aid in the event either empire was attacked in Europe. (Check) Article II bound them to forgo any separate peace with mutual adversaries. (Check) Article III scheduled its activation after Russia's peace with Japan, and since Russia was in the process of losing, this meant that Russia would enter the agreement from a position of temporary weakness and likely be grateful for German support. (Check) And finally, the big one, Article IV:
The Emperor of all the Russias, after the entry into force of this treaty, will take the necessary steps to initiate France to this agreement and engage it to join as an ally. (Checkmate)
That was the killshot. If Russia was formally obligated to make France either an ally of Germany or an adversary of Russia, then all dreams of recovering Alsace-Lorraine were done. It was over. And if France did not give it was ultimately doomed to isolation because, and if it did swallow its pride and join then the UK’s Royal Navy lost its ability to threaten the German Navy because it would have to contend with Russian and German forces in the Baltic, and French, Italian and Austrian in the Mediterrean. Russia would also be secure from war in the West and could focus on the Turks. In this sense, it was more than what Bismarck had ever attempted, but the same logic held. This plan made sense. Which is why it should never have been tinkered with in 1890.
Grand as this all was, it was completely undone by the Tsar’s ministers, who refused to support the treaty, even after Nicholas II had signed it in person with the Kaiser. Nicholas did not have the strength of character to see where his interest lay or to stand his ground and defend his own name. He was an absolute monarch without an absolute spine. Russian officialdom compelled the feckless Nicholas II to withdraw his signature and so betray his word to the German Kaiser. Upon returning to Russian soil, Nicholas was besieged by his ministers. The Chairman of the Council of Ministers, Count Sergei Yulyevich Witte, and Foreign Minister, Count Vladimir Nikolayevich Lamsdorf, had no intention of abandoning France because by this point, French loans were underwriting Russian industrialization and modernization. Nicholas could have overruled them and sought financing from Germany, but he gave in and continued on the course with France, whose armies did not border Russia, and kept a rift open with Germany, which did.
Wilhelm was furious and blindsided. He had believed that familial ties and old ideas of princely honor would smooth over the diverging ideas of national interests between Berlin and St. Petersburg officials. However, it was the Russian establishment, not the Tsar, that was running foreign policy. The one time the blood ties between the crowned heads of Europe should have ensured peace, it was the bureaucrats who got in the way because the last officially absolute ruler did not know how to act independently. Thus, Willy’s plans came to naught. Between the two grandsons of Britain’s Queen Victoria, there was no inherent animosity, rather it was the Pro-French clique in St. Petersburg that sought to maintain their alliance with France, even though in a strategic sense, it was more logical for Russia to ally with Germany, and therefore to secure its own western flank, that is, of course, unless those same Russian officials really had aggressive designs on central and southern Europe, meaning the Habsburg Empire and the Balkans.
I really enjoined this article especially understanding why Wilhelm3 made so many blunders.