Germany and The Origins of The World War I

Germany and the Origins of the First World War
Author(s): David E. Kaiser

Source: The Journal of Modern History , Sep., 1983, Vol. 55, No. 3 (Sep., 1983), pp. 442-
474
Published by: The University of Chicago Press
Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1878597
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Germany and the Origins of the First World War
David E. Kaiser
Carnegie-Mellon University
Twenty-two years ago Fritz Fischer's Griff nach der Weltmacht (Dius-
seldorf, 1961) reopened the question of Germany's responsibility for the
First World War. Germany, Fischer argued, had purposely brought about
a European conflict in 1914 in an effort to become a world power. Equally
significantly, he suggested that the sources of Germany's conduct must
be sought in her domestic political, economic, and social structure. Fischer
later elaborated his thesis in another work, Krieg der Illusionen (Diis-
seldorf, 1969). No postwar historian has been more influential; a steady
stream of monographs has elaborated Fischer's thesis during the last two
decades. In the long run Fischer's methodological emphasis on the need
to focus on the interaction of imperial domestic and foreign policy-a
near-heresy in Germany in 1961 despite the earlier pioneering work of
Eckhart Kehr-has been at least as influential as his substantive conclusion
that the German government was primarily responsible for the First World
War. Most subsequent literature has focused upon the influence of domestic
factors on German foreign policy, paying particular attention to the in-
auguration of Weltpolitik in 1897 and the outbreak of the war in 1914.
It is perhaps the emphasis of Fischer and his successors upon the
connections between internal and external policies that has made German
responsibility for the war one of the very few European diplomatic ques-
tions to excite such widespread interest over the last twenty years. Yet
the results of their attempt to broaden the focus of diplomatic history
have been disappointing; the fascinating and critical problem of relating
German society and politics to the conduct of the Imperial government
has not been solved. Fischer himself has been frequently and rightly
criticized for merely concatenating discussions of the political and ideo-
logical climate of pre-1914 Germany-liberally spliced with quotations
from extreme polemicists -with more traditional analyses of the German
government's major decisions, while failing to explain exactly how the
former influenced the latter. Other historians have developed much more
I would like to thank Lamar Cecil, Thomas Childers, Timothy J. McKeown,

Ernest R. May, and Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., for their comments on earlier
drafts of this work.
[Journal of Modern History 55 (September 1983): 442-474
C 1983 by the University of Chicago. 0022-2801/83/5503/01$01.00
All rights reserved.

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Germany and the Origins of World War 1 443
explicit models relating German foreign policy to domestic structures,

but these have generally been too unsubtle to uncover the real motives
of the German government.
Despite many differences of emphasis and opinion, it is fair to say that
a far-reaching consensus of German, British, and American historians
now agrees that German foreign policy after 1897 must be understood
as a response to the internal threat of socialism and democracy. In 1897
the Imperial government decided to deal with domestic discontent by
pursuing an aggressive foreign policy; subsequently it regarded a foreign
war as a useful option should domestic problems become intolerable.
This in turn has led to the view that Berlin helped unleash war in 1914
because war had become the only way out of Germany's domestic dif-
ficulties. These views have been most specifically advanced by V. R.
Berghahn in Germany and the Approach of War in 1914 (New York,
1973) and Hans-Ulrich Wehler in Das Deutsche Kaiserreich 1871-1918
(Gottingen, 1973), both of whom see the introduction of Weltpolitik in
1897 and the decision for war in 1914 as attempts by an aristocratic-
agrarian elite to escape the political consequences of the industrialization
of Germany.1 Paul Kennedy's The Rise of the Anglo-German Antagonism
1860-1914 (London, 1980) also stresses the government's use of Welt-
politik as a weapon against the political consequences of industrialization,
and agrees that increasing concern with the rise of the Social Democrats
contributed to the government's policies in July 1914. In an essay on
the causes of the First World War Arno Mayer suggested that in 1914
elements within the German government-possibly including the chan-
cellor "looked to a smashing diplomatic or military triumph to con-
solidate the monarchy, to perpetuate Prussia's three-class franchise, and
to check both reformists and revolutionaries."2 In July 1914. The Outbreak
of the First World War (New York, 1974) Immanuel Geiss endorsed many
aspects of these views, although Geiss, like Fischer, is equally interested
in ideological and psychological influences on German policy. In Re-
shaping the German Right. Radical Nationalism and Political Change
after Bismarck (New Haven, 1980) Geoff Eley argues that the German
government's manipulation of nationalism has been vastly exaggerated,
yet adds that by 1914 the German government was in an "impossible
situation."3 Wolfgang Mommsen, while supplying many correctives to
I See also Wehler's "Probleme des Imperialismus," Krisenherde des Kais-

erreichs 1871-1914 (Gottingen, 1970), pp. 133-134.
2 "Domestic Causes of the First World War," The Responsibility of Power,
ed. Leonard Krieger and Fritz Stern (New York, 1967), p. 297.
3 Eley, Reshaping the German Right: Radical Nationalism and Political Chang
after Bismark (New Haven, 1980), p. 351.

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444 Kaiser
more extreme interpretations, has concluded that war broke out largely
because the German government failed to function effectively in 1914,
leaving Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg unable to resist the
influence of the military.4 In the meantime other historians have shed
welcome light on particular crises, institutions, and individuals important
to German foreign policy in the years 1897-1914: Dirk Stegmann on the
role of interest groups, Klaus Wernecke on the press and public opinion,
Heiner Raulff on the first Moroccan crisis, Barbara Vogel on German-
Russian relations, Raymond Poidevin on Franco-German economic and
financial rivalries, Isabel Hull on the emperor and his entourage, Peter
Winzen on Bernhard von Biulow, and Konrad Jarausch on Bethmann
Hollweg .5
Unquestionably the German government in the years 1897-1914 care-
fully considered foreign policy initiatives in light of their domestic con-
sequences. Yet on the whole recent literature has distorted the domestic
aims which foreign policy was designed to achieve before 1914, rnis-
understood the goals of Weltpolitik as originally adopted in 1897, and
obscured the real reasons for the 1914 decisions that helped unleash a
world war.6 Insufficient attention has also been given to the critically
different approaches of the last two prewar chancellors, Billow and Beth-
mann Hollweg.
Thus, although the government did adopt Weltpolitik in 1897 largely
for domestic reasons, both its intended domestic function and its actual
4 Wolfgang Mommsen, "Domestic Factors in German Foreign Policy Before

1914," Central European History 6: 1 (March 1973): 11-43.
5 Dirk Stegmann, Die Erben Bismareks. Parteien und Verbande in der Spdtphase
des Wilhelminischen Deutschlands 1897-1918 (Cologne and Berlin, 1970); Klaus
Wernecke, Der Wille zur Weltgeltung. Aussenpolitik und Offentlichkeit im Kais-
erreich am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges (Dusseldorf, 1969); Heiner Raulff,
Zwischen Machtpolitik und Imperialismus. Die deutsche Frankreichpolitik 1904-
05 (Dusseldorf, 1976); B. Vogel, Deutsche Russlandpolitik. Das Scheitern der
deutschen Weltpolitik unter Bulow (Diusseldorf, 1973); Raymond Poidevin, Les
relations economiques etfinancieres entre la France et l'Allemagne de 1898 a
1914 (Paris, 1969); Isabel V. Hull, The Entourage of Kaiser Wilhelm II 1888-
1918 (New York, 1982); Peter Winzen, Bulows Weltmachtkonzept (Boppard am
Rhein, 1977); Konrad Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor. Bethmann Hollweg
and the Hubris of Imperial Germany (New Haven, 1973). Another important
addition to the literature is Kaiser Wilhelm II. New Interpretations. The Corfu
Papers, ed. John C. G. Rohl and Nicolaus Sombart (New York, 1982).
6 Since our concern is with alternative explanations of German foreign policy
before 1914 the question of Germany's responsibility for the war relative to that
of other powers is momentarily being left open. Few historians would now deny
that Germany bore substantial responsibility for the conflict; whether Berlin was
principally responsible will be discussed later.

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political effects have been vastly exaggerated. Biulow, Alfred von Tirpitz,
and the other originators of this policy never believed that it could maintain
the conservative aristocracy in a position of unquestioned political
preeminence and never intended to use it in this way. The umbrella of
Weltpolitik covered a series of bargains among a wide spectrum of interest
groups, and the new foreign policy did not make the task of satisfying
the empire's different constituencies much easier. Nor did the government
regard war as a useful means of dealing with Germany's domestic dif-
ficulties; Bulow on the contrary realized that war was more likely to
exacerbate these problems than to solve them, even if Germany woni.
Billow's foreign policy goals were also moderate. The vagueness of the
stated aims of Weltpolitik reflected a real lack of any specific goals; the
German government generally contented itself with modest overseas gains,
desiring only to show that Germany was keeping up in the continuing
worldwide struggle for territory and influence. No pro-war consensus
developed in Berlin in any of the major pre-1914 crises. Billow encouraged
the ideal of Weltpolitik, but never allowed it to carry him away.
Under Bethmann Hollweg Weltpolitik was of considerably less domestic
use; after 1909 new cleavages within German society and politics made
it impossible for the government to use foreign policy to increase its
domestic support. Bethmann too feared the domestic consequences of
war, and knew in 1914 that a conflict was likely to weaken Germany's
political structure rather than strengthen it. But Bethmann in 1914 risked
war because of a mistaken belief that Germany's international position
demanded it. Sharing the widespread conviction that German expansion
was necessary and estimating that Germany's chances for success were
diminishing, the chancellor made decisions that led directly to war.
Undoubtedly the adoption of Weltpolitik in 1897 did grow out of a
crisis in domestic policy, and the men who assumed control of the German
government in that year-Billow and Tirpirtz, the Imperial Secretaries
of State for Foreign Affairs and for the Navy, and Prussian Finance
Minister Johannes Miquel- certainly took that crisis most seriously. Yet
the crisis had relatively little to do with the consequences of industrial-
ization in Germany, and still less to do with any imminent Social Dem-
ocratic threat to the structure of German society and government. Rather
it involved a breakdown of confidence among institutions and individuals
whose cooperation was necessary if the government of the empire was
to function: the parties in the Reichstag, the south German states, the
chancellor and his state secretaries, and above all, the emperor himself.
Conservative agrarian anger over Caprivi's trade treaties threatened the
government far less seriously than the attitude of William II, who resented
Chancellor Hohenlohe's subservience to the Reichstag and the Center

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446 Kaiser
Party, demanded the construction of a much larger fleet, and called for
a stronger line against the Social Democrats. William's frequent attempts
to conduct foreign policy over the heads of the Foreign Office were
making the government's situation untenable. More serious yet, William's
extravagant utterances, including his statement to fellow princes in early
1897 that Bismarck had been a pygmy beside William I and his discussion
of a coup d'etat with the Grand Duke of Baden, had alarmed the south
German states to the point that the Prussian minister to Bavaria regarded
the disintegration of the Reich as a real possibility.7 William's behavior
had also led some Center Party leaders to suggest that it was high time
for Germany to become a parliamentary regime.8
How was this crisis to be dealt with? Some of the Kaiser's more extreme
advisers like General Alfred von Waldersee and Philipp Eulenburg called
for a coup d'etat, and William himself seems at the very least to have
wanted to increase the government's authority over the Reichstag. The
context of his late 1895 remark, "Bulow will be my Bismarck," indicates
that he had in mind the Iron Chancellor's role in bringing the Prussian
Landtag in line during the constitutional conflict.9 But the more sensible
bureaucrats -who as we shall see never surrendered control of German
policy before 1914-realized that Germany had to retain its limited con-
stitutional government. "You instinctively incline to an autocratic regime,"
wrote Friedrich von Holstein to Eulenburg in 1896. "I am in favor of a
moderate use of a practicable system of constitutional cooperative gov-
ernment which, with the exception of St. Petersburg and Constantinople,
is in operation in the rest of the European and civilized world."' 0 And
although Billow himself argued in 1897 that the chancellor must serve
the emperor rather than the Reichstag, he clearly intended to reconcile
the upper and middle classes and the emperor within the framework of
the existing regime. Not only did he too oppose a coup d'etat, he also
refused to become excessively alarmed by the rise of socialism."1
7 Winzen, Bulows Weltmachtkonzept, pp. 36-38, shows that Bulow during the
1890s was also seriously concerned by the danger of the disintegration of the
empire.
8 See J. C. G. R6hl, Germany without Bismarck. The Crisis of Government
in the Second Reich, 1890-1900 (Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1967), pp. 156-
175, 212-222. Eley, Reshaping the German Right, and David Blackbourn, Class,
Religion and Local Politics in Wilhelmine Germany. The Center Party in Wurt-
temberg before 1914 (New Haven, 1980), have both argued that increased mass
participation in German political life also helped produce a crisis in the late
1890s.
9 Quoted in R6hl, Germany Without Bismarck, p. 158.
10 Ibid., p. 170.
1 Kathy Lerman, "The Decisive Relationship: Kaiser Wilhelm II and Chancellor
Bernhard von Billow, 1900-05," Kaiser Wilhelm II, pp. 221-47; Winzen, Bulows
Weltmachtkonzept, pp. 38-40.

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The construction of a fleet and the inauguration of a more active foreign

policy had been demanded for some time by radical nationalists, many
academics, and the emperor himself, all of whom believed that a state
of Germany's size and wealth required a larger navy and empire.'2 But
from the standpoint of the government the Navy Law's most important
function was to reconcile the emperor, the government, the Reichstag,
the south German states, and public opinion. Biilow, who had shown
little interest in a large fleet before his appointment as state secretary for
foreign affairs in 1897, quickly discovered that Wilhelm would insist
upon one; by the following year he could write that the new Navy Law
"would be a tremendous triumph and would benefit our trade, our security,
our future and above all the person of our dear Kaiser."13 By securing
the passage of the law Bulow and Tirpitz bolstered the emperor's confidence
in themselves and in the Reichstag. Even their continuing dependence
on the Center seemed less reprehensible after the 1898 bill passed with
the support of two-thirds of the Center deputies.'4 Its passage showed
that the emperor, the government, and the parties could work together,
and thereby eased the immediate crisis.
When however one asks whether Weltpolitik involved a basic change
in the power base upon which the government relied or even strengthened
the government's electoral base, the answer must be in the negative.
Weltpolitik was not a magic wand capable of making the government's
problems disappear. Instead it served as a patriotic umbrella underneath
which Bulow bought off all the major parties and interest groups with
other concessions. Johannes von Miquel's Sammlungspolitik brought to-
gether agrarian Conservatives and heavy industry behind a program of
high tariffs. Biulow also wooed the Conservatives with a more strenuous
anti-Polish policy, while heavy industry profited from the construction
of the fleet. But these measures did not turn industrialists and landowners
into reliable government supporters. The Prussian Conservatives defeated
the government's canal bill in 1899 after a bitter struggle, and heavy
industry was complaining about the government's liberal social policy
by 1901.15 Billow in any case never dreamed that he could rely on such
a narrow political base.16 The support of the Center remained critical,
and the new state secretary of the interior, Arthur von Posadowsky-
12 Winzen, Billows Weltmachtkonzept, pp. 62-64, 69-73.

1' Rohl, Germany Without Bismarek, p. 253.
14 Winzen, Biilows Weltmachtkonzept, pp. 83-86. For its part the Center was
more than willing to collaborate with the government in an effort to improve the
social and economic lot of German Catholics; see Blackbourn, Class, Religion
and Local Politics in Wilhelmine Germany, pp. 23-60.
'S Stegmann, Die Erben Bismarcks, pp. 131-39.
16 Winzen, Bulows Weltmachtkonzept, p. 428.

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448 Kaiser
Wehner, worked closely with the Center in designing new social legislation
during the next ten years.17 The south German states also had to be
conciliated, and the Bavarian Max von Thielmann became Reich state
secretary of the treasury. Alfred Krupp, a major beneficiary of the Navy
Law, started the newspaper Siiddeutsche Korrespondenz to help increase
patriotic feeling outside Prussia.18 The electoral effects of Weltpolitik
were limited indeed. In 1893 the four major Reichstag parties that had
supported the Navy Law-Conservatives, Free Conservatives, National
Liberals, and the Center-had won 249 seats. They won 227 seats in
1898 and 226 in 1903. Many leaders of extraparliamentary organizations
such as the Navy League and the Pan-German League had higher hopes
for Weltpolitik; they wanted the fleet and other national issues to override
the various sectional, religious, and political cleavages that still divided
the empire. But although the German government's adoption of Weltpolitik
enabled the Navy League in particular to form and flourish, the government
did not share its visionary goals. To Biulow's government Weltpolitik
was the occasion for a new series of bargains among entrenched interests
and institutions which left the Reich government-the chancellor, the
secretaries of state, and the emperor-in a significantly stronger position
than hitherto.'9
More important to the issue of the origins of the First World War is
the question of whether Weltpolitik made war more likely. Given that
William, Biulow, Tirpitz, and Miquel had decided upon a more active
world policy largely for domestic reasons, was war part of their plan?
This question can be answered in two ways: by delving into the foreign
policy goals of the German leadership at the time Weltpolitik was intro-
duced, and by studying their behavior during the decade after the intro-
duction of the First Navy Law. Both approaches-and especially the
second-suggest that the originators of Weltpolitik looked forward to a
series of small-scale, marginal foreign policy successes, not to a major
war.
It is highly significant that the exhaustive researches of the last twenty
years have not made it possible to say just what the foreign policy goals
of Weltpolitik were. Billow in particular seems to have avoided putting
any specific ideas about Germany's future on paper,20 and Tirpitz had
17 Tirpitz also made significant concessions to win the Center's assent to the
second Navy Law of 1900; ibid., pp. 108-126.
18 R6hl, Germany without Bismarek, pp. 223-251.
19 Eley, Reshaping the German Right, pp. 167-84, shows that Bu
efforts of extreme Navy League nationalists to turn the navy into a weapon
against the "anti-national" Center.
20 Winzen, Bulows Weltmachtkonzept, pp. 431-32.

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only slightly more to say. In the late 1890s both argued that Germany's
population and industrial growth required both a fleet and a larger colonial
empire. Most educated Germans seem to have shared this belief. During
the 1890s, when recovery from the great depression was by no means
secure and France and the United States were raising tariffs, the problem
of foreign markets seemed serious. Even Caprivi, an opponent of Welt-
politik, had believed it necessary to secure a larger industrial market for
Germany, though he preferred to look for it in Central Europe. Still, the
extremely limited economic significance of the territories the Germans
actually tried to acquire after 1897 suggests that the government did not
regard new colonial markets as a really urgent necessity, and as Germany's
foreign trade grew steadily during the 1900s this need undoubtedly seemed
even less acute.
Recent work has emphasized the Anglophobic character of Weltpolitik,
arguing that Bulow and Tirpitz were preparing for an eventual trial of
strength with Britain. Certainly the decision to build the fleet immediately
affected Anglo-German relations. Peter Winzen and Paul Kennedy have
shown how Bulow decided that in the short run British feelers for an
Anglo-German alliance had to be rejected, since Germany could not yet
secure favorable terms.21 Yet whether Tirpitz or Billow actually envisioned
an eventual war with Britain is much more difficult to say. In order to
justify the expense of the fleet Tirpitz had no choice but to speak in terms
of an eventual clash with Britain; otherwise his beloved battleships would
have no real use. We shall see that he sang another tune when war with
England loomed as a real possibility. Nor must Biilow's diplomatic tactics
necessarily have harbored sinister intentions. While rejecting an alliance
with Britain he did not exclude cooperative arrangements. In 1900 he
was more than ready to join London in a partition of the Portuguese
empire.22 His reserve towards London can just as easily be regarded as
an attempt to make a virtue of necessity. The state of German public
opinion in the era of the Boer War probably made an alliance with England
impossible anyway.
Billow's policy excluded either an alliance with Britain or an imminent
clash; no evidence suggests that he aimed at an actual diplomatic or
military victory over the United Kingdom. His speeches and private
remarks during the early years of Weltpolitik do tend to cast England as
both the leading world power and the principal obstacle to German world
policy, yet they do not in any way deny the legitimacy of the British
21 Ibid., pp. 80-81, 293-353; Kennedy, Anglo-German Antagonism, pp. 226-

27.
"Winzen, Biilows Weltmachtkonzept, pp. 265-77.

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450 Kaiser
Empire or imply that its size should be reduced. His principal concern,
as expressed in a December 1899 Reichstag speech introducing the Second
Navy Law, was that Germany not be left behind in the division of the
world's weaker empires. He frequently referred to the Spanish-American
War as the event which had exposed Germany's weaknesses most clearly;
had we been stronger at sea, he seems to imply, we might have profited
from the conflict ourselves. The fleet, one might infer from the speech,
was not designed to challenge the British Empire directly but to make
sure that Germany secured its rightful inheritance when some of Lord
Salisbury's "dying nations"-the Portuguese, Ottoman, and Chinese
empires probably figured most prominently in Biilow's mind-finally
expired.23 In this and other speeches Bulow also tended to place the
government midway between those who argued that Berlin had done too
much to protect Germany's overseas interests and those who asked that
they be pursued with greater zeal.24
The conduct of the German government in the years after 1897 suggests
that Bulow sought relatively cheap successes that would impress the
emperor and German opinion without carrying any real risk of war. The
actual colonial territory which Billow seized at Kiaochow and in the
Pacific lacked great strategic or economic significance, yet helped focus
public opinion upon "the world-shaking and decisive problems of foreign
policy." "This gain will stimulate people and navy to follow your Majesty
further along the path which leads to world power, greatness and eternal
glory," Billow wrote William publicly on the occasion of the seizure of
the worthless Caroline Islands.25 Russia, he wrote Holstein in August of
1901, could receive a share of the Baghdad railway, but "anything which
might look like a retreat, or worse, a defeat for German policy in Asia
Minor must be carefully avoided in this. On the contrary the matter
should be dressed up as renewed proof of the skill with which the men
in charge of our foreign policy furthered Germany's world interests without
endangering our good relations with our neighbors."26 Appearances, in
23 For the speech and some very interesting commentaries see Rhetorik und
Weltpolitik. Eine interdiszeplindre Untersuchung politischer Reden von W. E.
Gladstone, J. Chamberlain und B. v. Biilow, ed. Helmut Wiebrock (Wiesbaden,
1974), pp. 145-192.
24 See his confidential remarks to the Reichstag budget committee on March
27-28, 1900, quoted in Winzen, Biilows Weltmachtkonzept, pp. 120-22, and
his Reichstag remarks of March 3, 1902, Winzen, "Prince Builow's Weltmacht-
politik," Australian Journal of Politics and History 22: 2 (August 1976): 239.
25 Kennedy, Anglo-German Antagonism, pp. 365, 236.
26 Norman Rich and M. H. Fisher, eds., The Holstein Papers (Cambridge,
1963), 4: 784.

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short, were more important than realities. Tirpitz was even more cautious.
While eager to stress the long-term threat from England in order to justify
the fleet, he opposed the seizure of Kiaochow on the grounds that it
involved an excessive risk of a conflict with Russia.
The real nature of Billow's policy definitely emerged during the years
1904-06, when the Russo-Japanese War, the Anglo-French entente, and
French moves into Morocco threatened to transform the international
situation. Recent monographs have stressed Germany's efforts during
these years to bring about a dramatic change in the European balance of
power, and specifically to conclude a Russo-German alliance and break
or weaken the Anglo-French entente.27 The German government, however,
pursued these aims without losing sight of important constraints. Berlin's
more aggressive policies sometimes seemed to increase the danger of a
European war, but no consensus in favor of war ever emerged within the
Imperial government. Weltpolitik remained a policy of limited risks and
limited aims.
With respect to the Russo-Japanese War, Bulow clearly welcomed the
conflict and hoped to benefit from it even before it had begun. "From
the point of view of our internal politics and to counteract the general
dissatisfaction in Germany," he wrote Holstein in January 1904, "it
would of course be a good thing if 'somewhere far away' the nations
came to blows."28 The war would also sharpen the conflict between
Russia and "England-America," which Bulow clearly regarded as an
advantage, and could break up the Dual Alliance, since France would
not join Russia in a war against England. When in October 1904 the
Dogger Bank incident threatened to bring England into the war Billow
decided the time was ripe for an actual Russo-German alliance which
France would subsequently be forced to join. German offers of an alliance
in October of 1904 and July 1905 got nowhere because only the tsar
among the responsible Russian officials seemed interested. Yet the re-
sistance within the German government to such a drastic reorientation
of policy is equally significant. When Bulow put the question of the
alliance before a council of ministers on October 26, 1904, Tirpitz,
despite his support of an eventual Russo-German alliance, argued that
at the present moment it would only provoke an English attack against
which Russia would be no help whatever. Chief of the General Staff
Count Alfred von Schlieffen also doubted the military benefits of such
an alliance; should England attack Germany he regarded a Russian move
against India as unlikely. Holstein supported Billow's suggestion, but
27 Vogel, Deutsche Russlandpolitik; Raulff, Machtpolitik und Imperialis

28 Holstein Papers, 4: 818.

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452 Kaiser
State Secretary for Foreign Affairs Oswald von Richthofen agreed with
Tirpitz.29 Bulow himself came to share the view that such an alliance
would not be worth the risk of war. "One thing is certain," he wrote
Holstein on December 13: "while an agreement with Russia safeguarding
the peace and raising our position in the world would be a great success
for our foreign policy and would be welcomed in wide and in the best
circles as a return to the traditions of Bismarckian policy, a bond with
Russia which would in contrast to this draw England's hostility upon us
would certainly be condemned unanimously by the whole nation, by the
German Princes first of all."30 Neither the chancellor, nor the Foreign
Office, nor the army, nor the navy were in the least anxious for war.
German policy during the Moroccan crisis also shied away from any
risk of war. Having failed to weaken England's position by concluding
an alliance with Russia, the German government-led irn this instance
by Holstein-decided to strike a blow at the new Anglo-French entente
by showing the French that they could not rely upon British support to
realize their colonial aims. They did not, it is clear, act on behalf of
German commercial interests in Morocco, who had no objection to working
with the French.31 Nor did they want concrete territorial gains. While
William and certain Foreign Office officials had toyed with the idea of
asking for compensation in the Canary Islands should France and Spain
partition Morocco, Holstein and Billow simply wanted to bring France
in line by forcing the French to submit the Morocco question to a con-
ference.32 As usual, prestige-both domestic and foreign-remained the
key consideration. Significantly, after Delcasse resigned in June 1905
and Rouvier agreed to a conference the following month, both Billow
and William concluded that they had achieved their aims. Holstein dis-
agreed, believing that France must be forced to make major concessions,
but he could not carry the day, and his failure to convince his superiors
to hold to an uncompromising policy helped lead to his resignation.33
No one within the German government pushed for a war over Morocco.
Though neither Raulff nor Kennedy has discovered any specific statement
of Tirpitz's opinion, the latter reasonably assumes that his attitude towards
a war involving England-in which the Imperial Navy would have no
chance-was no more favorable than in the fall of 1904.34 Count von
29 Vogel, Deutsche Russlandpolitik, pp. 206-212.

30 Holstein Papers, 4: 867.
31 Raulff, Machtpolitik und Imperialismus, pp. 123 -25.
32 Ibid., pp. 54-55.
33 Ibid., pp. 105-106, 123; see also Norman Rich, Friedrich von Holstein
(Cambridge, 1965), 2: 696-745.
34 Kennedy, Anglo-German Antagonism, p. 276. Tirpitz's failure to express
a written opinion could also be interpreted as evidence that the question was
never seriously raised.

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Schlieffen noted that this would be a favorable moment tor a war with
France, but this was not much more than a statement of the obvious, and
Prussian War Minister Karl von Einem argued on the contrary that German
artillery was not ready for war.35 William characteristically ran hot and
cold; his threats sometimes frightened the French, but his eagerness for
a settlement frequently showed through. And while Holstein continually
insisted on securing real concessions from France, his letters in June
1905 show that he wanted a successful conference, not a Franco-German
war which he suspected England of trying to bring about.36 He had earlier
given another reason for a reserved policy: that the emperor, in case of
European complications, would unconditionally reserve for himself the
military command, "which, since he is entirely incapable militarily,
must lead to horrible catastrophes."37 Bulow favored a settlement with
France as early as July 1905, and in February 1906 he summarized his
position. "Everything depends on our seizing the right moment for an
acceptable compromise," he wrote Holstein. "We cannot tolerate a hu-
miliation. The failure of the conference would be, no matter how one
looked at it, a diplomatic setback for us. Neither public opinion, Parlia-
ment, Princes, or even the army will have anything to do with a war over
Morocco. "38
Of particular interest in light of recent historiography is the general
agreement that a war over Morocco would not be popular. The concurrent
colonial war in southwest Africa had not been a public relations success
and the German press did not regard Morocco as a proper casus belli.
Even conservative papers pointed to the Russian Revolution as evidence
that war must not be undertaken without a firm patriotic basis, and War
Minister Einem noted that the Morocco issue lacked the necessary "in-
tegrating power."39 Under the circumstances the outcome of the crisis
was virtually a foregone conclusion. After the government avoided a
breakdown of the Algeciras conference by making substantial concessions
to the French, Bulow painted the outcome in rosy colors for the press
and parliament.
During his remaining three years in power Billow continued to exploit
Weltpolitik domestically while abandoning any attempt to transform the
international situation. In late 1906 he faced a dilemma similar to that
of 1897; the emperor had again become angry at the government's de-
pendence upon the Reichstag, and especially upon the Center Party.
3 Raulff, Machtpolitik und Imperialismus, pp. 130-33.

36 Holstein Papers, 4: 891, 897.
37 Raulff, Machtpolitik und Imperialismus, p. 73 n.
38 Ibid., pp. 123-25; Holstein Papers, 4: 936.
39 Raulff, Machtpolitik und Imperialismus, pp. 80, 133-44.

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454 Kaiser
When the Center suddenly joined the Social Democrats in opposition to

the war in southwest Africa Billow dissolved the Reichstag and turned
the ensuing election into a referendum on Weltpolitik. Critical to the
government's success were the left liberal parties, which adopted a pro-
government stance in foreign policy and generally refused to support
Social Democrats in the second round of the Reichstag elections. As a
result the Social Democratic representation fell from eighty-one seats to
just forty-three, and Bulow formed a government majority that entirely
excluded the Center.40 The elections reaffirmed the country's support for
Weltpolitik and the government's independence of any particular party.
Despite this brilliant success, the weaknesses of Weltpolitik both as a
foreign and as a domestic strategy began to emerge during the remaining
three years of Billow's chancellorship. By the time he left office in 1909
Billow had decided that naval construction, in particular, had to be cur-
tailed. He had also become even more convinced that war could never
serve either the domestic or the foreign policy interests of the German
government. The chancellor had questioned whether the fleet program
would ever improve Germany's external situation as early as 1907, but
new English construction, popular pressure, and the enthusiasm of the
emperor forced him to endorse new increases in the navy in the following
year. By 1908-09 he had definitely decided that the naval game was not
worth the candle. In August of 1908 he made clear in letters to Holstein
that he favored an eventual naval agreement in order to avoid a hopeless
war with England, although as always he emphasized that Germany must
never seem to yield to foreign pressure. Bulow's warnings to William
against closing the door to naval conversations, which V. R. Berghahn
interprets simply as a ploy to reassure London that Germany did not plan
war, actually reflected his intention of making a deal when agitation had
died down.41
Significantly, Bulow now regarded a naval slowdown as essential for
domestic as well as foreign policy reasons. The financial burden of naval
armaments had become intolerable. In the midst of drawing up the financial
reform, including an inheritance tax, which was eventually to destroy
his coalition and lead to his fall, Bulow repeated again and again that
Germany could not afford the world's largest army, a huge navy, and
the world's most expensive social policy. He clearly intended to reduce
naval expenditures by insisting on the priority of the army. The German
40 George Dunlap Crothers, The German Elections of 1907 (New York, 1941),
passim. The Socialists' recent discussions of a mass strike probably frightened
away some voters as well.
41 Berghahn, Germany and the Approach of War, pp. 64-69.

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government's perennial deficit had to be eliminated; while the fleet itself

insured the antagonism of England and increased the danger of war, the
loans necessary to finance it robbed Germany of an important means of
extending its influence peacefully. "It is increasingly clear to me," he
wrote Holstein in September 1908, "what this reform of our finances
will mean not only economically and militarily, but also purely diplo-
matically. The undiminished enormous influence of France, her unshakable
prestige, is not only the result of her military strength nor even of her
culture and language, but is to a great extent the product of her wealth
of capital and its liquidity. That is the primary reason for the French
influence in Spain, Italy, Russia, and many other countries. Now the
French are trying to find a financial wedge in Hungary. That will emerge
more clearly the longer we continue our miserable economic dependence
on loans and contributions from the individual German states."42
Billow, then, had set upon a course of financial reform at home, naval
limitation and improved relations with Britain to reduce the danger of
war, and a gradual expansion of German influence in the world at large.
The question of war and peace arose once again in early 1909 as a result
of the Bosnian crisis. Helmuth von Moltke, the new chief of the general
staff, regarded the European situation as propitious for war, and some
army officers apparently felt that a war might provide the occasion for
a coup d'etat. Knowing, as did all Europe, that Russia could not fight a
war, Billow characteristically scored a cheap diplomatic success by issuing
his March 1909 ultimatum. Only a year later he admitted that this was
more a triumph of style than of substance: "I considered," he wrote,
that we would break the net of encirclement which existed more
in imagination than in fact."43 Yet his attitude towards war had not changed
In October 1908, during a minor crisis over Morocco which eventually
concluded with a new Franco-German agreement, the crown prince re-
proached Bulow for an insufficiently vigorous defense of German interests
and an excessive love of peace, adding that "a great part of the nation
thinks as I do, and the whole army is longing to 'get at 'em.' " Billow's
reply deserves to be quoted at some length.
I entirely agree with Your Imperial and Royal Highness that it is inadvisable
too frequently to express one's love of peace, since this gives others too great a
feeling of self-assurance. I too am convinced that, if a case involves one's country's
honor, it is necessary to strike, coute que coute, and whatever the chances may
seem to be. But, unless our honor is engaged, we should always ask ourselves
what is to be expected from a war. No war in Europe can bring us much. There
42 Holstein Papers, 4: 1128; see also pp. 1117 and 1120.

43 Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor, p. 62.

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456 Kaiser
would be nothing for us to gain in the conquest of any fresh Slav or French
territory.44 If we annex small countries to the Empire we shall only strengthen
those centrifugal elements which, alas, are never wanting in Germany....
In 1866 and 1870 there was a great prize to be won. Today that is no longer
the case. Above all, we ought never to forget that nowadays no war can be
declared unless a whole people is convinced that such a war is necessary and
just. A war, lightly provoked, even if it were fought successfully, would have
a bad effect on the country; while if it ended in defeat, it might entail the fall of
the dynasty. History shows us that every great war is followed by a period of
liberalism, since a people demands compensation for the sacrifices and effort
war has entailed. But any war which ends in a defeat obliges the dynasty that
declared it to make concessions which before would have seemed unheard of....
In affairs of this kind the opinion of the army cannot be decisive. It is excellent,
no doubt, that the army should not feel its sword has rusted in the scabbard: it
is necessary even that soldiers should be bellicose. But the task of a leader of
policy is to get a clear view of consequences. Quidquid agis, prudenter agas et
respicefinem! [Whoever would act, act prudently and consider the consequences.]45
This letter addresses every motive for war that historians have ascribed
to the Imperial German governmental elite. To the claim that democra-
tization might thereby be checked Billow replied that even a victorious
war would result in more concessions to the people, while a defeat might
lead to something much worse. While noting that the military generally
tended towards war, he stressed the responsibility of the political au-
thorities. Responding implicitly to suggestions that Germany should ex-
pand in Europe, he argued that new subjects would be as troublesome
as the Alsace-Lorrainers and Poles. If he did not mention colonies, it
was because, as he did say, England would be among Germany's enemies,
and none would be acquired. Diplomatic successes and colonial acqui-
sitions might help the government; war would not. Weltpolitik was simply
one aspect of a broad strategy to hold the German Empire together and
govern it effectively, and Billow correctly estimated that war would
exacerbate Germany's domestic difficulties without winning any worth-
while prizes.
By 1909 Tirpitz had also shown himself deeply averse to war, certainly
in the short run and probably in the long as well. Tirpitz never tired of
discussing the foreign and domestic benefits that his fleet was certain to
bring to Germany; only in this way could he justify its cost. Yet it became
clear-as he repeatedly stated during one crisis after another that the
fleet was not yet ready for war and ignored the evidence that Germany
could never overcome British numerical superiority-that for him the
44 Winzen, "Prince Billow's Weltmachtkonzept," p. 238, states that Bulow

never showed any interest in continental expansion.
45 Memoirs of Prince von Builow (Boston, 1931), 2: 458-61.

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navy was not a means, but an end.46 A true cold warrior, he continually
stressed England's supposed threat to Germany's world position to justify
the fleet's existence while pushing the date of any clash of arms further
and further into the future.47 From time to time the grand admiral sought
new pretexts for the construction of the fleet, including a proposed law
to make all overseas Germans citizens of the empire.48 The real goal of
his policy was not a victory over England, but a naval law that would
guarantee him three new ships a year forever and release the navy from
the effective control of the Reichstag.49 He consistently opposed war in
every crisis from 1897 through 1914, refused to risk the fleet against the
British when war did come, and, after the war, blamed Bethmann Hollweg
bitterly for provoking the conflict that had destroyed his life's work.50
By the time of Billow's resignation in 1909 the idea of the necessity
of German expansion had become so deeply embedded among large seg-
ments of the German population that his government's moderate Weltpolitik
was being seriously challenged. Thus in 1907-08 Tirpitz, bowing to the
agitation of August Keim and the Navy League, had to introduce a new
naval law calling for the construction of four capital ships annually through
1911, abandoning his original plan which would simply have guaranteed
the construction of three ships annually for all time.51 Undoubtedly Bulow
and Tirpitz had fostered the expansionist climate within Germany by
embracing and implementing Weltpolitik, and in this sense they bear
some responsibility for the eventual outbreak of war. Yet as Paul Kennedy
has recently suggested, the need for German expansion was so widely
accepted by the 1 890s that it is almost inconceivable that any government
46 This was clearly grasped by Bethmann, who in 1914 remarked, "For

Tirpitz the Navy is an end in itself" (Kurt Riezler, Tagebucher, Aufsdtze, Dok-
umente, ed. Karl Dietrich Erdmann [Gottingen, 1972], p. 188).
47 V. R. Berghahn, Rustung und Machtpolitik. Zur Anatomie des "Kalten
Krieges" vor 1914 (Duisseldorf, 1973) draws several interesting analogies between
the Anglo-German and postwar Soviet-American arms races.
48 Holstein to Bulow, August 25, 1908, Holstein Papers, 4: 1121. According
to Holstein, only Bethmann Hollweg of all the other ministers supported this
law.
49 V. R. Berghahn, Der Tirpitz-Plan. Genesis und Verfall einer innenpolitischen
Krisenstrategie unter Wilhelm II, passim. Berghahn in my opinion overemphasizes
the significance of Tirpitz's professed domestic political goals.
50 Kennedy, Anglo-German Antagonism, p. 422.
51 Berghahn, Der Tirpitz-Plan, pp. 505-591. Tirpitz especially regretted the
new law because it left a five-year gap, beginning in 1912, during which con-
struction would drop to two ships annually, and would therefore necessitate yet
another naval law. Keim and the Navy League did not share his overriding
interest in freeing the navy from parliamentary control once and for all.

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458 Kaiser
could have forsaken such policies entirely.52 In this context Billow deserves
credit for recognizing that the gains of expansion had to be balanced
against the possibly disastrous consequences of precipitate action, never
forgetting the essential strength of Germany's international position, and
contenting himself with cheap successes. Builow's successor lacked his
understanding of the subtleties of Weltpolitik and of the impossibility of
Germany's gaining anything meaningful from a new war.
The German government did not help precipitate a world war in 1914
because Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg regarded war as a
useful solution to his domestic difficulties, or because the 1912 elections,
in which the Social Democrats became the largest party in the Reichstag,
left the governing elite with no option but to embark upon a risky foreign
adventure. The record of Bethmann's chancellorship shows that he was
not especially concerned by any Social Democratic threat, that he was
no longer able to use foreign policy to solve domestic political problems,
that his government became more rather than less effective as a result of
the 1912 election, and that he anticipated that war would tend to overturn
the status quo rather than maintain it. Yet despite all this, in 1914 Bethmann
knowingly pursued policies carrying with them a substantial risk of world
war. He did so because he believed more deeply than his predecessor in
the inadequacy of Germany's international position, and because he failed
to understand the chancellor's critical role within the Imperial German
government.
Like Bulow in 1897, Bethmann in 1909 assumed power during a domestic
political crisis. Yet Bethmann's problems, like Billow's, had little to do
with Social Democracy; they stemmed from right-wing attempts to maintain
the status quo rather than left-wing attempts to overturn it. Tension had
begun building up after the formation of the Bulow bloc of Conservatives,
Free Conservatives, National Liberals, and Progressives in 1907. The
National Liberals, led by Ernst Basserman and Gustav Stresemann, set
the tone of the bloc's domestic policy. They had no wish to overturn or
democratize the political structure of the empire, but they deeply resented
the exclusion of the upper bourgeoisie from the leadership of the gov-
ernment, the civil service, and the army, and fought for a more equal
distribution of both the burdens and rewards of Imperial life.53 Bulow
did little to broaden his administration's social base, but he clearly agreed
52 Paul Kennedy, "The Kaiser and German Weltpolitik: Reflexions on Wilhe

II's Place in the Making of German Foreign Policy," Kaiser Wilhelm II, pp.
148-152.
5 See especially Theodor Eschenburg, Das Kaiserreich am Scheideweg. Bas-
sermann, Biilow und der Block (Berlin, 1929), pp. 20-25, and Beverly Heckart,
From Bassermann to Bebel (New Haven, 1974), pp. 124-134.

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that the Conservatives must pay more Imperial taxes. Thus in 1909 he
made the introduction of a lineal inheritance tax a question of confidence
and submitted his resignation when the Center and Conservatives managed
to defeat it.
As Bulow had already predicted,54 the rest of the nation immediately
turned bitterly against the Conservatives. The Center-Consefvative de-
cision to rely on indirect taxes to close the imperial deficit-including
taxes on securities transactions-led to a liberal resurgence. In 1909
industry, commerce, and finance formed the Hansabund to press for
more equal taxation. Although heavy industrialists regarded this merely
as a temporary maneuver and preferred their old alliance with the Con-
servatives, the success of the Hansabund showed that its demands had
struck a responsive chord among the German middle classes. The question
of a new tariff also divided conservatives and liberals. As Billow's trade
treaties neared expiration the agrarians and heavy industry asked for new
increases, while financial and commercial interests committed themselves
to current levels. For the time being the political leadership of the
bourgeoisie unquestionably regarded the Conservatives and their Center
allies as more serious enemies than the Social Democrats.55 In these
circumstances the government could not use foreign policy to build an
anti-Socialist front.
Though forced temporarily to rely upon a Conservative-Center coalition,
Bethmann Hollweg saw which way the political wind was blowing. Like
his predecessor, Bethmann was only a very moderate reformer. He regarded
the Conservatives as a critical though irresponsible pillar of the state,
he defended the emperor in public even when he completely disagreed
with him, and he resolutely opposed the parliamentarization or democ-
ratization of the empire. Still, he conceived the reconciliation of the
National Liberals, Center, and Conservatives as his principal task, to
"make possible the concrete cooperation of all bourgeois [semble bur-
gerlichl parties," and he recognized that it was the Conservatives who
were standing in his way.56 His 1910 proposals for the reform of the
Prussian suffrage reflected these aims perfectly: in no way democratic,
they aimed at manipulating the existing system so as to give the middle
class more representation. The obstinacy of the Conservatives, which
brought even these minor changes to grief, confirmed Bethmann's prejudice
against them: "Perhaps they will first have to pass through the hard
54 Eley, Reshaping the German Right, p. 315.

55 See Stegmann, Erben Bismarcks, pp. 176-95.
56 Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor, pp. 71-73, 84-88.

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460 Kaiser
school of Reichstag elections," he commented, before they would see

reason.57
In 1911 Alfred von Kiderlen-Wachter, the Secretary of State for Foreign
Affairs, revived the idea of using a foreign policy success to benefit the
government electorally, but his attempt was a disastrous failure. When
France's intention to establish full political control over Morocco became
clear he suggested the dispatch of warships to secure compensation,
adding in conclusion that such a step could have favorable domestic
effects: "With the sole exception of the Social Democratic Party public
opinion at home would seriously blame the Imperial government if it
allowed events in the Sharif Kingdom merely to take their course whereas
we may assume without a doubt that tangible results will change the
views of many dissatisfied voters and will have a not inconsiderable
effect on the outcome of the pending Reichstag elections." 58 Yet the
preconditions that would have promised success for such a strategy were
entirely absent.
In the election years in which the Imperial government had used foreign
policy to secure a pro-government majority-1884, 1887, 1893, and
1906-issues like colonies and army bills had served to bring together
parties essentially in agreement anyway while isolating parties like the
Center, Progressives, or Social Democrats, who took an antinational
stand. In 1911 the parties whose support Bethmann coveted-the Con-
servatives, Free Conservatives, National Liberals, and the Center-could
be counted on to support a forward policy over Morocco. Yet in the
aftermath of the breakup of the Bulow bloc such an issue could not bridge
the chasm between National Liberals and Conservatives. In addition, the
left-wing parties had learned their lesson. During the crisis the Social
Democrats and Progressives carefully avoided any position that could
be characterized as antinational.59 Worst of all, when the government
decided to accept limited gains rather than risk war with England, the
right-wing parties condemned its pusillanimity. Rather than putting aside
their domestic complaints the National Liberals blamed the aristocrats
at the Foreign Office for a policy which in their view took insufficient
account of Germany's real national interests.
Foreign policy played virtually no part in the 1912 elections. The
various indirect taxes upon which the Conservatives and Center had
insisted in 1909 had seriously affected the cost of living, and the National
Liberals, Progressives, and Social Democrats used this issue against the
57 Ibid., p. 79.
58 Fischer, War of Illusions, pp. 71-73.
59 Wernecke, Der Wille zur Weltgeltung, pp. 88-92.

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Blue-Black bloc with devastating effect. Almost without exception these

three parties joined with one another in the second round of Reichstag
elections.60 The Blue-Black bloc, which had won 219 seats in 1907, won
just 167 in 1912.61 The big winners, of course, were the Social Democrats,
who went from 43 seats to 110.
Recent work has assigned critical importance to the 1912 elections,
arguing that they led to an important right-wing reaction, left the gov-
ernment in a difficult if not impossible position, and renewed interest in
war as a solution to the empire's domestic problems. Undoubtedly certain
right-wing interest and pressure groups were sufficiently frightened by
the Social Democratic victory to consolidate their forces and make new
demands upon the government. The Agrarian League, the Central As-
sociation of German Industrialists, and the Imperial League of the Middle
Classes formed a new Cartel of the Productive Classes of 1913. These
and other right-wing groups including the Pan-German League called
for new measures against strikes and picketing, restrictive changes in
Reichstag suffrage, radical anti-Semitic measures, and a cutback of the
influence of the Reichstag within the government. The Pan-German leader
Heinrich Class's popular pseudonymous book, Wenn ich der Kaiser war,
linked these demands to calls for expansion abroad, and Eley has argued
that a new alliance between the Cartel and the Pan-Germans now began
to emerge.62 In late 1913 Class and the Pan-German General Konstantin
von Gebsattel felt sufficiently emboldened to submit a memorandum
embodying these views to the crown prince, who in turn passed it along
to the chancellor and his father the emperor.63
Some have argued that the Socialist victory and right-wing reaction
worsened Bethmann's position and that it seriously affected his policies.64
Yet in fact the election was neither a surprise nor a great disappointment
to Bethmann, and the composition of the Reichstag allowed him to break
the deadlock of 1907-11 and pass an extraordinary amount of important
new legislation. Naval construction was slowed, the army was greatly
expanded, and in 1913 Bethmann finally succeeded in passing a direct
60 Jurgen Bertram, Die Wahlen zum Deutschen Reichstag vom Jahre 1

(Dusseldorf, 1974), pp. 167-251.
61 These figures include the anti-Semitic and other fringe conse
62 Stegmann, Erben Bismarcks, pp. 277-304, 360-68; Eley, Reshaping the
German Right, p. 318.
64 Thus Berghahn on the 1912 elections: "The situation which Bethmann Hollweg
had been dreading since 1909 had come about" (Germany and the Approach of
War, p. 103). Eley, Reshaping the German Right, p. 351, argues that new right-
wing alliances "placed the government in an impossible situation."

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462 Kaiser
Imperial property tax despite the opposition of the Conservatives. This

did not in the least disturb him: "The tax compromise reached by the
majority of the bourgeois [semble biirgerlich] parties," he commented,
"may portend a gradual leveling of our political antagonisms."65 Now
that the National Liberals' main grievance had been assuaged the chancellor
might reasonably look forward to a gradual renewal of cooperation among
the buirgerlich parties and to a decline in Socialist representation at the
next election. Despite the increasing right-wing hysteria Bethmann's
moderate constitutional course had served him well, and the fate of the
Gebsattel memorandum indicates that he still enjoyed the emperor's es-
sential support. In letters to the crown prince both the chancellor and
the emperor blasted Gebsattel's proposals as irresponsible fantasies.66
In the Zabern affair Bethmann appeared to have learned from Billow's
experience in the Daily Telegraph affair. Recognizing that only the emperor
retained the power to dismiss him, he bowed to William's wishes and
defended the army's conduct in the Reichstag in complete contradiction
to his real views. And although the Reichstag passed a motion of no
confidence as a result, the vote did not really threaten his position. When
the Social Democrats argued that the vote required Bethmann to resign,
the National Liberals, Progressives, and the Center all contested this
interpretation 67
Thus during the years 1912-14 the Imperial chancellor, while rejecting
any radical solutions to Germany's internal political problems, had suc-
cessfully implemented several major reforms: a much larger army, slower
increases in the navy, and even a role for the parties of the left in passing
the new financial reforms. At home Bethmann had accomplished most
of what Bulow had hoped to achieve in 1908.
In foreign policy, however, the new chancellor's policies showed a
critical difference in emphasis. Perhaps because Bethmann had risen
through the ranks of the domestic Prussian bureaucracy historians have
tended to discount his own views on foreign policy, generally stressing
only his desire for better relations with Britain. Konrad Jarausch's bi-
ography shows however that Bethmann had strong views on foreign policy
and that his emphasis on an agreement with Britain was merely one
65 Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor, pp. 98-99.

66 Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor, p. 104; Hartmut Pogge-von Strandmann,
"Staatstreichplane, Alldeutsche und Bethmann Hollweg," H. Pogge-von Strand-
mann and Immanuel Geiss, Die Erforderlichkeit des Unmoglichen. Deutschland
am Vorabend des Ersten Weltkrieges (Frankfurt am Main, 1965), pp. 18-26,
32-39.
67 Heckart, From Bassermann to Bebel, pp. 250-257.

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Germany and the Origins of World War I 463
aspect of a far-reaching strategy for German expansion. Bethmann, in

fact, was more concerned with German expansion than Builow, who by
1909 had realized that Germany had every reason to be pleased with its
position in the world and no longer felt any great urgency about improving
it. Perhaps because Bethmann was not a foreign policy specialist, he
accepted rather uncritically the prevailing view that Germany's world
position did not correspond to its strength or interests.
Bethmann believed that Germany "must expand" in the world, spe-
cifically in central Africa and Asia Minor.68 "For forty years," he told
French Ambassador Jules Cambon in early 1914, "France has followed
a grandiose policy. She has acquired an immense empire. . . . During
this time an inactive Germany has not followed her example and today
she needs a place in the sun. Germany, her unity established, sees her
population grow enormously every day, her navy, her industry and her
commerce show a development without equal and she is in a sense con-
demned to spread outwards."69 Rejecting Tirpitz's argument that such
expansion would only be possible when the German fleet was strong
enough to deter the English, Bethmann shared Billow's view that it was
impossible to alter the naval balance of power and counted on persuading
London that German and British interests need not clash. In early 1912
he commented to Admiral von Muller that an alliance with Britain would
allow Germany to form "a great colonial empire (Portuguese colonies,
Belgian Congo, Dutch colonies)."70 By then he had begun a complex
series of negotiations with London designed to precipitate the partition
of the Portuguese colonies, acquire at least part of the Belgian Congo,
and arrange the construction of the Baghdad railway and the corresponding
division of spheres of influence in the Ottoman Empire.
But while working wholeheartedly for a colonial entente with Britain,
Bethmann was willing to limit the German navy only if Germany's leverage
over France and Russia could thereby be increased. The price of an
Anglo-German naval agreement was a guarantee of British neutrality in
a Continental war. Bethmann had sought such terms as early as 1909.
In that year he had resisted Kiderlen-Wachter's suggestion that London
and Berlin simply agree not to take part "in an unprovoked attack upon
the other" and had insisted that Britain's neutrality obligation should
68 Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor, p. 1 10.

69 Ministere des Affaires Etrangeres. Commission de Publication des Docum
Relatifs aux Origines de la Guerre de 1914, Documents diplomatiquesfrancais,
3rd ser. (Paris, 1929-36), 9: 177 (Cambon to Doumergue, July 28, 1914). Beth-
mann warned Cambon not to thwart Germany in Turkey.
70 Fischer, War of Illusions, p. 259.

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464 Kaiser
cover any case in which Germany had acted under the Triple Alliance.
He went even further in 1912, insisting that Britain and Germany pledge
one another neutrality should either "become entangled in a war with
one or more powers." 71 The British refused to consider this proposal in
1912, but we shall see that Bethmann reverted to it at the height of the
July crisis in 1914.
Bethmann's armaments policy closely reflected his foreign policy goals.
As Billow had planned as early as 1908, Bethmann in 1912 successfully
reduced the tempo of naval construction after a long struggle with Tirpitz,
pleading both financial necessity and the need for a massive expansion
of the army. The slowdown in naval construction kept the chances for
an agreement with England alive; the army was vastly expanded for the
first time in many years partly as a means to reduce naval spending,
partly because of a decision within the army finally to accept more bour-
geois officers, and partly because of a growing fear of French and Russian
strength which Bethmann very definitely shared.72 But the new emphasis
on the army did not reflect any renewed interest in Continental expansion.
Both Bethmann's prewar statements and his war aims policy indicate
that he fully appreciated the difficulties of any extension of Germany's
frontiers.73 The increases in the army seem instead to have been designed
to extort or conquer a colonial empire on the battlefields of Europe. Once
British neutrality had been purchased by naval limitations, the enlarged
German army would leave France and Russia no choice but to give in in
any future crisis over Asia Minor or African colonies.
The German government's determination to share in new colonial ex-
pansion brought war significantly nearer during the second Moroccan
crisis, but the cautious attitudes of a few key officials still kept the peace.
Kiderlen's strategy in 1911 resembled Holstein's in 1905, but with the
difference that Kiderlen wanted substantial colonial gains. War, he initially
argued, would not be necessary, but the French would be willing to
surrender the whole French Congo as compensation if convinced that
71 Ibid. pp. 64-65, 124-26. In the spring of 1909, shortly before Billow'
resignation, the chancellor had discussed a possible naval and political agreement
with various high officials. Curiously a draft of an Anglo-German neutrality
agreement prepared in the German Foreign Office at that time included an escape
clause releasing either party from its obligation to remain neutral should the
other party attack a third country; see J. Lepsius et al., eds., Die Grosse Politik
der Europdischen Kabinette 1871-1914 (Berlin, 1924-28), 28: nos. 10302-03,
10306. Bethmann refused any such escape clause.
72 Martin Kitchen, The German Officer Corps 1890-1914 (Oxford, 1968),
31-36.
73 Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor, pp. 192-93, 206.

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Germany was ready to fight. This in turn would ultimately enable Germany
to walk off with much of the Belgian Congo and create a unified central
African empire from the Atlantic to the Indian Ocean.74 Later a drunken
Kiderlen appeared to Bethmann to aim at war, but agreed that it was not
strictly necessary.75 Moltke also believed that Germany could only secure
a favorable outcome if it remained willing to unsheath the sword. But
William drew back from the prospect of war, and while the army felt
ready for action, the navy did not. "As regards the war at sea," Tirpitz
wrote, "the timing is as unfavorable as possible. With every year that
passes we shall be in a much more favorable position. Heligoland, the
canal, dreadnoughts, submarines etc."76 Bethmann hardly seems to have
been determined to avoid war; he agreed with Kiderlen that the possibility
must be reckoned with, and according to his assistant Kurt Riezler agreed
"that the people need a war."77 In the end the government decided to
settle for a slice of the French Congo as compensation, partly, it seems,
because its Triple Alliance partners seemed unwilling to join in a war
unleashed by Germany.78 Outrage in the Reichstag and much of the press
showed that the government lagged well behind Conservative and National
Liberal opinion in this regard. "It is false that in Germany the nation is
peaceful but the government bellicose," wrote French Ambassador Jules
Cambon, " the exact opposite is true."79
The question of war and peace did not directly arise during the first
Balkan War because the government of Austria-Hungary did not wish to
intervene against Serbia and risk a European war.80 Still, William II
bluntly raised the issue of war with England, France, and Russia at the
now-famous "War Council" of December 8, 1912. William's interlo-
cutors including Moltke, Tirpitz, and Admiral Georg von Muller, the
chief of his naval cabinet probably realized the emperor called the
council in a temporary rage provoked by reports that Britain would join
74 This is the import of his letter of resignation in July; see Fischer, War of
Illusions, pp. 76-77.
75 Riezler, Tagebiicher, pp. 178-180.
77 Riezler, Tagebiicher, p. 180.
80 Luigi Albertini, The Origins of the War of 1914 (London, 1952-57), 1:
364-402, is much more convincing on this point than Fischer, War of Illusions,
pp. 153-59, 209-16, who argues that Germany had to restrain Austria. See also
F. R. Bridge, From Sadowa to Sarajevo. The Foreign Policy ofAustria-Hungary,
1866-1914 (London, 1972), pp. 344-47, and Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., "In-
fluence, Power, and the Policy Process: The Case of Franz Ferdinand, 1906-
1914," Historical Journal 17: 2 (1974): 417-34.

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466 Kaiser
France in a war with Germany even if the war began in Eastern Europe.
Probably Bethmann was not invited to emphasize the bankruptcy of his
attempts to conciliate England. At the council Moltke again argued for
war sooner rather than later, although as Muller noted, he did not suggest
that war be immediately provoked. Tirpitz on the contrary argued that
war should be postponed for eighteen months. By this time Tirpitz's
colleagues had grasped the real nature of his policy; Moltke at this con-
ference correctly anticipated that "the Navy would not be ready even
then." The conference, as Muller concluded, had no real result.81 In
subsequent months Vienna became more bellicose, but no one in the
German government-not even Moltke-showed much enthusiasm for
a war over the Balkans.82
The crisis of July 1914 was not unleashed by the German government.
Serbian nationalists within and outside the Serbian government planned
the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, and most of the Austro-Hungarian
leadership had already decided upon drastic action against Serbia before
Count Hoyos went on his mission to Berlin.83 The chronic paralysis over
questions of war and peace within the German government makes it
unlikely that Berlin ever would have provoked a war out of the blue; to
a certain extent the Germans had to be pushed into the war by exogenous
impulses. Yet the chancellor's reactions to the crisis reflected his own
longstanding foreign policy goals. If Vienna made the initial decision to
fight, Berlin followed for its own reasons.
Bethmann Hollweg in 1914 felt dissatisfied with the results of his
policy. Although in July he finally concluded the Baghdad Railway
Agreement with London, his attempts to make a new agreement regarding
the Portuguese colonies had proven embarrassing. In 1913 he had an-
nounced that such talks were underway, only to find that London insisted
that any new agreement be public, and that it be accompanied by the
publication of the Windsor Treaty, under which Britain guaranteed the
Portuguese colonies, as well. Talks on the future of the Belgian Congo
had gone nowhere, not least because the French had already been promised
a say in its eventual disposition.84 And in place of his vaunted neutrality

82 Ibid., pp. 213-219.
83 See Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., "Vienna and July 1914: The Origins of the
Great War Once More," in Essays on World War I: Origins and Prisoners of
War, ed. Samuel R. Williamson, Jr., and Peter Pastor (New York, 1983), pp.
23-24; and the protocol of the Austro-Hungarian Council of Ministers for Common
Affairs, 7 July 1914, reprinted in Immanuel Geiss, July 1914. The Outbreak of
the First World War: Selected Documents (New York, 1974), no. 9.
84 Fischer, War of Illusions, pp. 310-320; see also G. P. Gooch and Harold
Temperley, eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War (London, 1926-
38), vol. 10, pt. 2, nos. 266, 351, 370.

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agreement, Bethmann faced rumors of an Anglo-Russian naval conven-

tion 85
On July 7 one day after Bethmann had assured Hoyos of German
support in all eventualities the chancellor unburdened himself to Riezler
at his Hohenfinow estate. Extraordinarily pessimistic, he clearly regarded
his attempts at detaching Britain from the entente as a failure. He described
the rumored Anglo-Russian naval agreement as "the last link in the
chain" and characterized the anglophile German Ambassador Lichnowsky
as too trusting and too easily led by the British. He reported Austria's
determination to act, adding that an action by Austria against Serbia
"could lead to world war" that is, to a war including Britain. The next
day he noted that the current situation was not without advantages: "If
war comes from the east, so that we must fight for Austria-Hungary and
not Austria-Hungary for us, then we have a chance of winning. [The day
before he had said that Austria was incapable of fighting for German
interests; he was probably thinking of the second Moroccan crisis, when
Vienna had not stood up for Berlin.] If war does not come, if the Tsar
does not want it or a dismayed France counsels peace, then we have a
chance to divide the entente over this question." Russia's growing strength
still obsessed him; new Russian railways in Poland, he remarked, would
render Germany's strategic position untenable.86
Bethmann, then, viewed the crisis as an opportunity drastically to
improve Germany's international position-in peace if possible, by war
if necessary.87 If the entente refused to fight, Germany's political su-
premacy would be secure and the path to future overseas expansion open;
if war did come, better that it come now rather than later, since the
balance of forces could only become less favorable for Germany.
Throughout the July crisis Bethmann insisted upon confronting Russia
and France with a choice between a humiliating diplomatic defeat and
war. As for his war aims, Bethmann made them entirely clear on July
29, while extending his "neutrality bid" to British Ambassador Sir Edward
Goschen. Alluding to the possiblity of a general war should Russia "attack
Austria," he expressed his hope that Britain would remain neutral. Be-
85 While it is true that naval talks were planned they would not appar
have led to any real result. Sir Edward Grey wrote in late April that there was
no real possibility of combined operations. Such conversations would "amount
simply to letting Russia know that our naval forces would be used outside the
Baltic, and that Russia could put her own naval forces to the best use inside the
Baltic" (British Documents, vol. 10, pt. 2, no. 541 [Grey to Bertie, May 1,
1914]).
86 Riezler, Tagebuicher, pp. 182-84.
87 Fischer goes much too far in arguing that the above-quoted passages show
a preference for war; see War of Illusions, pp. 479-480.

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468 Kaiser
lieving that Britain would never allow France to be crushed, he assured

the British government that if London remained neutral a victorious Ger-
many would respect the territorial integrity of France. In reply to Goschen's
question he declined to give such an assurance regarding the French
colonies. He pledged to respect Dutch neutrality but clearly foreshadowed
the invasion of Belgium, adding that if Belgium did not takes sides
against Germany, her integrity would be respected after the conclusion
of the war. "Finally, His Excellency said that he trusted that these as-
surances might form the basis of a further understanding with England
which, as you well know, had been the object of his policy ever since
he had been Chancellor."88
The war, then, was not designed to conquer European territory or at
the very least, not Western European territory but to establish German
military supremacy on the Continent and secure a much larger colonial
empire, including the entire French Congo and possibly Morocco as
well. The occupation of Belgium under the Schlieffen Plan would also
offer excellent chances for the extension of German influence over the
Belgian Congo, the prize which Berlin had long coveted above all others.
Such aims had evidently been under discussion in Berlin for at least a
week; the shipping magnate Albert Ballin had arrived in London on July
20 and had made a similar offer to Winston Churchill on July 25.89 They
reflected the policy Bethmann had followed since becoming chancellor:
by assuring London that he had no designs upon the British Empire itself,
he hoped to win Britain's sanction for expansion at the expense of others.
As Bethmann told the Reichstag several months later, he had hoped that
"Germany's growing strength and the growing risk of war would compel
Britain to realize that [the principle of the balance of power] had become
untenable and impracticable and that a peaceful settlement with Germany
was preferable."90 If Britain would not accept this bargain it would be
as well to begin war now. The basic principle of Bethmann's policy was
his conviction that Germany had to expand. Because of this conviction,
and because of his belief that Germany's chances were slipping away,
he'regarded his risky policy in July 1914 as "a leap in the dark and a
most difficult duty."91 The war Bethmann unleashed was indeed a grasp
at world power; in that essential sense Fischer is entirely correct.
Bethmann seems to have made the decision to risk war on his own;
the argument of Wolfgang Mommsen and Konrad Jarausch that the military
88 Geiss, July 1914, no. 139.

89 Lamar Cecil, Albert Ballin. Business and Politics in Imperial Germany,
1888-1918 (Princeton, 1967), pp. 206-7.

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forced Bethmann into a compromise policy likely to lead to war is not

supported by the evidence. Certainly the military had long pressed for a
preventive war, and Helmuth von Moltke, the Chief of the General Staff,
favored one in the spring of 1914.92 But only a few weeks before the
assassination of Franz Ferdinand, Bethmann had agreed with the Bavarian
minister to Berlin that the moment for a preventive war had passed and
added that the emperor would never consent to one.93 More significantly,
the military seems to have played no role whatever in the July decisions
that actually led to the conflict. Moltke was taking a cure when Hoyos
visited Potsdam. When War Minister Erich von Falkenhayn wrote Moltke
on July 5 he expressed doubts that Austria really intended any serious
action. When Moltke finally returned to Berlin on July 28 the memorandum
he sent Bethmann was most temperate in tone.94 Bethmann was as willing
as Moltke to allow matters to come to war with Russia; as early as July
23 Bethmann told Riezler that if Russia mobilized Germany would strike.95
Furthermore, war took place only because Bethmann circumvented
the decision-making structure of the German government. Had the chan-
cellor felt after the Hoyos mission that he had been coerced into a dangerous
policy he would have had ample opportunity to save the situation and
preserve peace. Tirpitz, who was also taking the waters during the Hoyos
mission, would surely oppose a risky policy on the grounds that the navy
was not yet ready for war; only two months earlier he had told Admiral
von Muller that the fleet needed six to eight years of additional prepa-
ration.96 More important was William, who was bound to turn tail as
soon as danger came near. Yet Bethmann refused to summon Tirpitz to
Berlin the grand admiral returned on his own initiative on July 28-
and encouraged William to take his North Sea cruise. When on July 27
William finally did return, Bethmann effectively circumvented his attempts
to preserve peace by forcing the "Halt in Belgrade" plan upon Vienna-
a plan which in Tirpitz's opinion removed all pretext for war.97 The
92 Egmont Zechlin, "Motive und Taktik der Reichsleitung 1914," Der Monat
209 (February 1966): 91-95; see also Isabel V. Hull, The Entourage of Kaiser
Wilhelm II 1888-1918 (New York, 1982), pp. 236-65.
93 P. Dirr, ed., Bayerische Dokumente zum Kriegsausbruch und zum Versailler
Schuldspruch (Munich, 1922), no. 1 (Lerchenfeld to Hertling, June 4, 1914).
94 Geiss, July 1914, nos. 7, 125.
96 J. C. G. Rohl, "Admiral von Muller and the Approach of War, 1911-14,"
Historical Journal 12: 4 (1969): 667.
97 Walter Gorlitz, The Kaiser and His Court. The Diaries, Notebooks and
Letters of Admiral Georg Alexander von Muller, Chief of the Naval Cabinet,
1914-18 (London, 1961), p. 10; Albertini, Origins of the War of 1914, 2: 446-
527.

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470 Kaiser
pressures that had kept Germany out of war in 1905, 1911, and 1912
failed in 1914 because the chancellor did not allow them to make themselves
felt.
And what of the argument that the German government in 1914 chose
war as a means of dealing with the growing Social Democratic threat?
Here the evidence is unequivocal: whatever the views of the military and
the Pan-German extremists, the chancellor regarded any attempt to use
war in such a way as both futile and unwise. In June 1914 he told the
Bavarian minister that a new war would not turn Germany rightward:
"On the contrary a World War with its incalculable consequences would
strengthen tremendously the power of Social Democracy, because they
[sic] preached peace, and would topple many a throne."98 On July 7 he
told Riezler that he expected from a war "a revolution of everything
existing"; the Conservative Heydebrand's view that war might strengthen
the patriarchal order and spirit he viewed as "nonsense."99 Nor of course
did he make the slightest attempt to use the war to crack down on Socialism.
Thwarting the military's plans to arrest all Socialist leaders at the outset
of hostilities, he instead assured himself of the SPD's loyalty personally,
and made it clear from the beginning of the war that the people, as Bulow
had predicted, would have to be rewarded for their tremendous sacrifices.
Some evidence does suggest that Bethmann thought a war might have
favorable domestic consequences of a more general character. During
the second Moroccan crisis Riezler wrote that Bethmann shared "the
truly German, idealistic conviction that the people need a war."10 Ad-
dressing the new Reichstag in February 1912 he had voiced his belief
that the German people and the parties had a "deep longing . . . for aims
which are worth fighting for."101 In July 1914 he was deeply disturbed
by Germany's internal condition: to Riezler he referred to the "miserable
decline of the political leadership. Individuals as such become smaller
and more meaningless, no one says anything great or true. The failure
of the intelligentsia, the professors." Unlike Riezler he was not certain
what the German people's response to war would be, though he was
moved by the determination of public opinion late in the crisis. 102 While
extremely important, these vague statements certainly do not suggest
that he regarded Socialism as the chief threat to Germany. Rather they
98 Geiss, July 1914, p. 47.

100 Riezler, Tagebiicher, p. 180. Having originally written "idealistic and
correct conviction (richtige Uberzeugung), Riezler crossed out "richtige" and
put a question mark in the margin of his diary.
102 Riezler, Tagebiicher, pp. 183, 185, 193.

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reflect the distaste of the idealist Bethmann for the political fragmentation
and selfishness characteristic of his time qualities for which he criticized
all the German parties, and above all the Conservatives.
As the chancellor in 1914 Bethmann still controlled German foreign
policy, far more so indeed than he had in 1911 when he had had to
contend with the formidable figure of Kiderlen. He remained subordinate
to the emperor, but could easily have seized upon William's eagerness
for a peaceful solution to the July crisis had he wished to do so. Despite
Austria-Hungary's determination to punish the Serbs, war was not in-
evitable. Unable to begin military operations until August 12, the Vienna
government could not possibly have held out against united pressure to
accept some variant of the "Halt in Belgrade" plan.103 Furthermore,
during the crisis Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Sazonov made it clear
again and again that he was more than willing to see Serbia severely
chastised if only Vienna would agree to modify its ultimatum and treat
its quarrel with Serbia as a European question. 104 A solution to the crisis
along these lines might not have solved Austria-Hungary's fundamental
problems, but it would have substantially increased the prestige of the
Triple Alliance. Certainly it could not have been construed as a humiliation
to Germany, especially since no direct German interest was at stake.
Bethmann held to a more dangerous course because he, unlike Builow,
believed that Germany's need for expansion justified the risks, particularly
since he believed that Germany's chances were slipping away. In that
sense Bethmann was a victim of the idea of Weltpolitik an idea which
by 1914 had outgrown its relatively modest origins. Historians must
trace more precisely the diffusion of the belief in the inadequacy of
Germany's international position; clearly it was not merely a tool used
by the government to increase its support. Even before 1897 expansionist
ideas had a broad following, and by 191 1, if not 1908, extragovernmental
opinion had become far more bellicose than the Imperial government
103 See Albertini, Origins of the War of 1914, 2: 466-527 and 651-673
3: 232-36. It is difficult to accept the argument of Andreas Hillgruber, Germany
and the Two World Wars (Cambridge, Mass., 1981), pp. 26-32, that Bethmann
had planned to have the powers step in and negotiate a settlement of the crisis
all along.
104 See for example Geiss, July 1914, no. 90, 100, 141a. On July 27 the
Austro-Hungarian Ambassador, Friedrich Szapary, reported Sazonov's statement
that "He had no feelings for the Balkan Slavs. They were actually a heavy burden
on Russia and we could hardly imagine how much trouble they had already given
Russia. Our [Vienna's] aims, as described by me, were perfectly legitimate but
he thought the way we had chosen to attain them not the safest" (Albertini,
Origins of the War of 1914, 2: 404-05).

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472 Kaiser
itself.105 German statesmen could hardly ignore public opinion, but to

them fell the responsibility to balance the pressure for expansion with a
more realistic calculation of Germany's national interests. In this task
Bethmann Hollweg failed dismally.
Germany's situation in 1914 justified neither the general belief in its
need for colonial expansion nor the increasing doubts as to its future
security. Her growing population and industry did require increased foreign
commerce, but German trade statistics gave no cause for alarm. German
exports, which had been increasing steadily since the early 1890s, had
grown even more rapidly in the immediate prewar years. Total exports
had increased more than 50 percent since 1909, and Germany's negative
trade balance had shrunk dramatically in 1912 and 1913. Nor did the
statistics show any great need for colonial expansion. 82 percent of
German imports came from European and American countries; 91 percent
of German exports went to these countries.106 High German officials
occasionally admitted the somewhat mythical character of the need for
German expansion-Gottfried von Jagow admitted to a British diplomat
in 1913 that Germany did not really know what she wanted107 but seeme
incapable of acting upon that realization. "The imperialism, nationalism,
and economic materialism, which during the last generation determined
the outlines of every nation's policy," Bethmann wrote in August 1914,
"set goals which could only be pursued at the cost of a general confla-
gration."108 Himself unschooled in foreign affairs, he never challenged
the assumption that these goals could justify such a conflagration.
Furthermore, the chancellor's fear of Russian power which the war
showed to be groundless was not shared by those in the best position
to know. In early 1914 neither the German nor the Austro-Hungarian nor
the French Ambassador to Russia believed that Russia had any aggressive
designs upon Germany. "I cannot agree with the view that we must
reckon with aggressive plans from our eastern neighbor within a few
years," German Ambassador Friedrich von Pourtales wrote Bethmann
on March 11. In January Friedrich Szaipairy predicted that economic cir-
105 Stegmann, Eley, and Wernecke provide many valuable insights about the
movement of German opinion, but a more systematic study is needed. Another
suggestive book is Roger Chickering, Imperial Germany and a World without
War (Princeton, 1975).
106 Kaiserliches Statistisches Amt, Statistisches Jahrbuch, 1914 (Berlin, 1914),
pp. 253-258.
107 "The desire for expansion had grown up concomitantly with [her] commercial
development, but there had been no preconceived scheme of expansion" (Rodd
to Grey, January 6, 1913, British Documents, vol. 10, pt. 2, no. 454).
108 Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor, p. 180-81.

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cumstances would incline the Russians "toward political detente," and

that those elements who wanted a war to divert attention from Russia's
internal problems "should hardly be given serious consideration." He
confirmed this view in April. On April 14 Maurice Paleologue reported
that despite a heated Russo-German press campaign none of the top
Russian civilian or military leaders expected a real crisis, and that Russian
rearmament simply aimed at making Russia secure. 109 And although
some aspects of Russian rearmament were impressive, some observers
understood the real lesson of the Russo-Japanese war that Russia's
immense population masked fundamental weaknesses that would take
many years to correct.110 European observers differed over the questio
of Russia's military, economic, and political preparedness for war, but
Bethmann's view of a powerful colossus with designs upon Germany
was certainly an extreme one.111
Just as Bethmann overestimated the overseas benefits of war, so he
understimated its domestic dangers. During its brief history Imperial
Germany never overcame a host of serious regional, religious, political,
and class antagonisms. Such divisions did not make Germany ungov-
ernable, but they severely restricted the government's freedom of move-
ment. To govern successfully the chancellor continually had to mediate
among various governmental institutions, political parties, and social
groups. Bulow played this role well until 1908-09, when he antagonized
the emperor over the Daily Telegraph affair and the Conservatives over
taxation. More importantly, he understood that Germany's delicately
109 See the Grosse Politik, vol. 39, no. 15844, and also nos. 15843 and 1585
Ludwig Bittner et al., eds., Oesterreich-Ungarns Aussenpolitik von der Bosnische
Krise 1908 bis zum Kriegsausbruch 1914 (Vienna, 1930), 7: nos. 9219, 9411,
9417, 9573; Documents diplomatiquesfran ais, 3rd ser., 9: 105. British Am-
bassador Sir George Buchanan had great respect for Russia's growing strength
but did not address the question of Russia's intentions; see Buchanan to Grey,
March 18, 1914, British Documents, vol. 9, part 2, nos. 528, 529.
11 Both the French and German military attaches in St. Petersburg still saw
serious weaknesses in the Russian army in late 1913 (Risto Ropponen, Die Kraft
Russlands [Helsinki, 1968], pp. 280-81). British and German naval attaches
were even more critical (see Commander H. G. Grenfell to Ambassador Sir
George Buchanan, March 19, 1914 [British Documents, vol. 9, part 2, no. 531]).
I I I See Ropponen, Die Kraft Russlands, especially pp. 196-296, for an excellent
survey of views of Russia. Hillgruber, Germany and the Two World Wars, p.
25, notes that Bethmann's fears "can only partially be explained by incredible
ignorance about Russia," but suggests no further explanation (Fritz Stern,
"Bethmann Hollweg and the War: The Limits of Responsibility," in Krieger and
Stern, eds., The Responsibility of Power, pp. 271-288, also wrestles inconclusively
with the issue of Bethmann's remarkable pessimism).

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474 Kaiser
balanced political structure was unlikely to survive a major war-even

if Germany won-and tailored his foreign policy accordingly. In an age
of imperialism crises were inevitable, but Billow steered a careful course.
He consoled himself with the observation that Germany's strength was
increasing, both absolutely and relatively, and that the government faced
no serious domestic or foreign threats. All this was perfectly true. In
retrospect the common contemporary criticism of Billow-that he con-
cealed the failures of his policy with fine words seems heavy with
irony.
By contrast, Bethmann seems more fatalistic about the international
situation and less willing to accept the limitations of Germany's domestic
structure. He continually complained about the disunity and selfishness
of German political life without apparently recognizing the limitations
these factors must inevitably impose upon his freedom of action. More
than once Riezler railed at "this damnably confused modern world . . .
so complex that it can neither be grasped nor predicted," and Bethmann
frequently wished that the parties would put their particular interests
aside for the common good.112 The chancellor underestimated the dan
Germany's fragmented structure might pose in a real crisis; indeed, several
of his remarks suggest that he hoped that selfishness would make way
for a new unity in a great struggle. The result was the reverse. The war
provoked new quarrels over war aims and the internal future of the empire,
and domestic divisions became so bitter that the chancellor's role as a
mediator became impossible. Eventually all shades of opinion united in
seeking his dismissal, and with his chancellorship perished the system
that had ruled Germany since 1871.
Since the late nineteenth century the enormous potential power of the
modern state has fascinated statesmen, publicists, and historians. Yet
the exercise of that power has frequently been thwarted by other char-
acteristics of modern states and societies: the difficulty of coordinating
their numerous institutions, the inevitable fragmentation of authority
from which they suffer, the tendency of bureaucratic routine and inertia
to undercut changes in policy, and the enormous political strains that
inevitably accompany any drastic reallocation of resources either at home
or abroad. In subsequent years the dilemmas of Bulow, who recognized
bureaucratic inertia and political conflict as useful checks upon unrea-
sonable ambition, and Bethmann, whose attempt to cut an imaginary
Gordian knot ended in disaster, have proven to be characteristic of the
twentieth century. Imperial Germany was the first but not the last modern
state to succumb to the fascination of its power while ignoring the con-
ctr i n tc i lnnn i tc il ct

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Germany and The Origins of The World War I

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Germany and the Origins of the First World War

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I would like to thank Lamar Cecil, Thomas Childers, Timothy J. McKeown,

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explicit models relating German foreign policy to domestic structures,

I See also Wehler's "Probleme des Imperialismus," Krisenherde des Kais-

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4 Wolfgang Mommsen, "Domestic Factors in German Foreign Policy Before

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The construction of a fleet and the inauguration of a more active foreign

12 Winzen, Billows Weltmachtkonzept, pp. 62-64, 69-73.

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21 Ibid., pp. 80-81, 293-353; Kennedy, Anglo-German Antagonism, pp. 226-

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27 Vogel, Deutsche Russlandpolitik; Raulff, Machtpolitik und Imperialis

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29 Vogel, Deutsche Russlandpolitik, pp. 206-212.

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3 Raulff, Machtpolitik und Imperialismus, pp. 130-33.

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When the Center suddenly joined the Social Democrats in opposition to

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government's perennial deficit had to be eliminated; while the fleet itself

42 Holstein Papers, 4: 1128; see also pp. 1117 and 1120.

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44 Winzen, "Prince Billow's Weltmachtkonzept," p. 238, states that Bulow

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46 This was clearly grasped by Bethmann, who in 1914 remarked, "For

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52 Paul Kennedy, "The Kaiser and German Weltpolitik: Reflexions on Wilhe

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54 Eley, Reshaping the German Right, p. 315.

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school of Reichstag elections," he commented, before they would see

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Blue-Black bloc with devastating effect. Almost without exception these

60 Jurgen Bertram, Die Wahlen zum Deutschen Reichstag vom Jahre 1

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Imperial property tax despite the opposition of the Conservatives. This

65 Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor, pp. 98-99.

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aspect of a far-reaching strategy for German expansion. Bethmann, in

68 Jarausch, The Enigmatic Chancellor, p. 1 10.

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81 Fischer, War of Illusions, pp. 161-62.

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agreement, Bethmann faced rumors of an Anglo-Russian naval conven-

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lieving that Britain would never allow France to be crushed, he assured

88 Geiss, July 1914, no. 139.

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