“Metternich should give that sort of fanatic a kick in the ass; he is too soft!”
Despite the Kaiser’s anger, Metternich remained at his post. He continued to report his observations and opinions, attempting to explain the British perspective to Berlin: “The English are afraid14 of our fleet because we are their nearest neighbors and we appear to them more efficient than other people....” The Kaiser growled: the English “will just have to get used to15 our fleet. And from time to time, we must assure them that it is not directed against them.”
The Kaiser did not wish to fight the Royal Navy and he never dreamed of invading the British Isles. He was building a fleet to proclaim Germany’s Imperial grandeur, to make the world listen respectfully to the German Emperor, and, above all, to earn England’s approval and reduce German independence on England’s favor on the oceans of the world. Because the British Navy was so much stronger, he regarded British complaints about the size of his fleet as impertinent and offensive. In August 1908, William forcefully expressed these feelings to Sir Charles Hardinge, Under Secretary of the Foreign Office, who was traveling with King Edward VII in Germany. After lunch at Kronberg, Hardinge’s conversation with the Kaiser turned to naval limitation. Because, up to that point, the Kaiser had been so amiable, Hardinge forgot himself and said, “But you must build slower.”16 Instantly, William drew himself up, and announced that no one could use the word “must” to a German Emperor. If England insisted on German limitation, he said, “then we shall fight.17 It is a question of national honor and dignity.” Later, William reported the scene to Bülow: “I looked him straight in the eye.18 Sir Charles became scarlet, made me a bow, begged pardon for his words and urged me expressly to forgive and forget and treat them as remarks made inadvertently in a private conversation.” After dinner, the Kaiser continued, “when I gave him the Order of the Red Eagle, First Class, he was ready to eat out of my hand.... My frank words, when I had showed him my teeth had not failed in their effect. You must always treat Englishmen thus.”
Bülow, as Chancellor, had the constitutional right to have final say about the foreign policy of the Empire. He had supported the building of the fleet; he owed his appointment as State Secretary and Chancellor to his acceptance of William’s conviction that Germany’s future lay on the water. He had embraced the Risk Theory, the Danger Zone, and the argument that once the Danger Zone was passed, the German Fleet would be a means of putting diplomatic pressure on Great Britain. Bülow also was aware of the political invulnerability of Tirpitz’ relationship with the Kaiser. Any challenge to the Navy Minister would be hazardous; Bülow sensed that the one figure in the Reich government the Emperor would choose over him was Tirpitz. Accordingly, in the summer of 1908, when William was complaining bitterly about Metternich, Bülow repledged his faith in the fleet: “I beg Your Majesty19 not to doubt that I support Your Majesty’s naval plans with heart as well as head,” he wrote. “I know that the creation of the fleet is the task which history assigns Your Majesty.”
Nevertheless, Bülow was impressed by Metternich’s views. He respected the Ambassador’s warnings that the acceleration in German dreadnought building was frightening the Liberal government and alienating English public opinion. He worried that the British Cabinet, goaded by Sir John Fisher, might authorize a preemptive attack on the young German Fleet. In November 1908, emboldened by his triumphant Daily Telegraph speech in the Reichstag, the Chancellor questioned Tirpitz. The English government and people were apprehensive about the German Fleet, he said, and the idea of preventive war was widely mentioned in the English press. Thus, “I must ask Your Excellency20 whether Germany and the German people can look forward to an English attack with quiet confidence.”
Tirpitz waited three weeks to reply, before admitting that in view of the overwhelming superiority of the British Fleet, Germany would lose a naval war. But this, in Tirpitz’ opinion, was an argument for increasing, not diminishing, the size of the German Fleet: “Our duty is to arm21 with all our might.... Every new ship added to our battlefleet means an increase in the risk for England if she attacks us.” Besides, Tirpitz continued, Metternich misunderstood the root of British anxiety and antagonism: it was not the building of the fleet, but German economic competition. Naval concessions would not remove this rivalry and lessen resentment. Tirpitz scorned talk of British attack: “The possibility of a preventive war22 is a scarecrow and a fiction of our diplomats [i.e., Metternich] to make people who resist them pliable.” From London, Metternich contradicted Tirpitz: “The cardinal point23 of our relations with England lies in the growth of our fleet. It may not be pleasant for us to hear this, but I see nothing to be gained by concealing the truth.”
This internal debate at the highest level of the German government continued through the winter and early spring of 1909. In Britain, the new German Navy Law with its four dreadnoughts a year, the fear that Germany was secretly accelerating, led to the celebrated Navy Scare. The result: Asquith’s ingenious compromise of four ships now, four later if necessary. In Berlin, the Kaiser gradually recovered from his nervous collapse after publication of the Daily Telegraph interview. Bülow’s reputation, at a peak after his Reichstag appearance on November 10, was in the descendant. “Feeling that24 [he] might soon cease to be Chancellor,” he summoned a conference in the Chancellor’s Palace on June 3, 1909. The subject was the naval question and the possibility of reaching an understanding with England. Metternich was summoned from London; Moltke, Chief of the General Staff; Bethmann-Hollweg, Vice Chancellor and future Chancellor; and Schoen, State Secretary for Foreign Affairs, were present along with Tirpitz. Bülow began with a defense of Metternich: the first duty of a representative abroad, he announced, is to report the truth. The Ambassador and the Navy Minister then traded familiar arguments, with Metternich asserting that the building of the German Fleet was the only cause of British annoyance and Tirpitz protesting that the cause was commercial rivalry. Bülow asked whether any shipbuilding ratio between Germany and England would be acceptable to Tirpitz. Tirpitz suggested three German dreadnoughts for four British. Metternich interjected that this would quickly lead to war. Bülow asked Tirpitz what Germany’s chances would be in case of war. The Admiral replied that “our Navy25 [is] not at present in a position to come out of a fight with England as victors.” Moltke declared that, in that case, it seemed wise to try for an understanding based on slowing construction. Bethmann-Hollweg agreed. Bülow attempted to mollify Tirpitz by narrowing the scope of any potential agreement. He was not thinking of a permanent agreement with England, he said, only one long enough to get Germany through the Danger Zone without a preventive war. Asked how long the Danger Zone would last, Tirpitz replied, “Five to six years26... say, in 1915, after the widening of the Kiel Canal, and the completion of the fortifications of Heligoland.”
When Bülow reported the conference to the Kaiser, William “pooh-poohed my fears,”27 said the Chancellor. “The English will never attack us alone,” the Kaiser elaborated, “and at the moment they will not find allies.” Nevertheless, on June 23, Bülow sent instructions to Metternich in London to begin to work towards “an entente on the Naval Question28... provided it is combined with a general orientation of English policy in a sense more favorable to Germany.” The following day, the Reichstag defeated Bülow’s death-duties bill. Two days later, on board the Hohenzollern, the Chancellor offered his resignation, and on July 14 it was accepted.
The new Imperial Chancellor, Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, was a tall, gaunt, broad-shouldered man of fifty-two with a high forehead, a Vandyke beard, and a pensive, professorial air. To relax he read Plato and played Beethoven sonatas on the piano. His life had been spent in the Civil Service of Prussia and the Empire, where he was known for thoroughness, fairness, pragmatism, and perseverance. His rise through the bureaucracy had made him few enemies. He benefitted from a close family connection with Kaiser William II, nourished by his own respect for the Crown and Prussian traditions and his
enthusiasm for German unity. Unlike his clever, ambitious predecessor, Bethmann was regarded as a man unconcerned with advancement; his moves up the ladder were attributed to obedience to duty.
Bethmann lacked Bülow’s cleverness, adroitness, and facility as a speaker. He had no experience in foreign affairs. Because of his tendency to brood and procrastinate, his decisions were often delayed. Bülow, in recommending him to the Kaiser for an earlier promotion, had said that Bethmann was neither a thoroughbred nor a jumper, but a good plowhorse who would proceed steadily and slowly. Albert Ballin, the shipowner who was the Kaiser’s friend, said that Bethmann had “all the qualities29 which honor a man and ruin a statesman.” For this reason, Ballin also sometimes referred to the new Chancellor, whose appointment had been endorsed by his predecessor, as “Bülow’s revenge.”30
Bethmann-Hollweg’s father, Felix, was a maverick. Descended from a wealthy Frankfurt banking family ennobled in 1840, as a young man he abandoned his urban Rhineland origins and became a gentleman farmer in Prussia. With his inheritance he purchased Hohenfinow, a run-down 7,500-acre estate of forests, meadows, and ponds thirty miles from Berlin. For thirty-five years, he poured his energy into restoring the estate to prosperity. He planted wheat fields, imported cattle, installed a sawmill and a trout hatchery. He tried but abandoned operating his own small steel mill. A three-story seventeenth-century brick manor house at the end of an avenue of majestic linden trees was refurbished with tapestries and hand-carved furniture. Gruff and headstrong, Felix Bethmann-Hollweg ruled the countryside as District Magistrate. His opinions were Conservative, pro-Bismarck, and antidemocratic. In 1865, he deplored the fall of Richmond and the defeat of the Confederacy in the American Civil War. “I do not know31 whether I am more repelled by the depravity of slavery or that of the Northern democracy,” he said. He married a French-speaking Swiss, Isabella de Rougemont, an elegant and sophisticated woman who secretly longed for the life of her sister in Paris. Together, they had two sons and three daughters. Theobald, the second son, was born in 1856.
Felix’s sons were awakened at five A.M. and plunged into cold baths. They were educated by tutors and rigorously trained to ride. Theobald, intense and idealistic, absorbed his father’s passionate belief in the splendor and destiny of the Prussian monarchy. In Berlin, at ten, he witnessed the spectacular torchlight homecoming parade of the victorious Prussian Army after its defeat of Austria. “I cannot believe32 that our beloved German people is incapable of being one people and one state,” he wrote in adolescence. A few years later, he stood “late at night,33 at the open window, looking from the castle to the river flowing majestically in the moonlight” and decided that “my whole being and life are more and more determined and uplifted by my Germanness and by my desire to be a true and brave son of Germany.”
In 1877, eighteen-year-old Prince William of Hohenzollern, a lieutenant in a Guards regiment quartered near Hohenfinow, was invited to shoot deer in the Bethmann-Hollweg park. William arrived in uniform and was forced to borrow a shooting jacket from Theobald, who was three years older and six inches taller. “[The jacket] looked like a summer overcoat,”34 William recalled. William, because his left arm was useless, had never shot a deer. “Are the bucks close enough for me to shoot?” he asked anxiously. Though semi-tame deer had been provided, William missed his first three shots. Finally, as dusk approached, William rested his rifle on Felix’s shoulder, fired, and brought down a buck. “This little episode35 provided the impetus for a lasting friendship,” the elder Bethmann-Hollweg recorded. Felix marked the spot where the buck had fallen with a boulder and a newly planted tree. William frequently returned. “I spent many happy hours36 in their congenial, happy circle,” he said. And this contact led to his “esteem for the diligence,37 ability and noble character of Bethmann.... These qualities clung to him throughout his career.”
The elder brother, Max, was a disappointment. Handsome and affable, he plunged so deeply into the pleasures of riding and drinking that he did poorly on his first law exam. Rather than face a second, he fled to America. Provided with 150,000 marks by his father, Max failed on Wall Street and moved to Texas, where he speculated in land which he hoped to sell to German immigrants. Too few immigrants arrived. In 1897, in his mid-forties, the future Chancellor’s brother died of stomach cancer.
Theobald’s rise, although unspectacular, was steady. He did brief service in an elite cavalry regiment, studied at Bonn University and took a doctorate in law from Leipzig, then returned to Hohenfinow and succeeded his father as district magistrate. In 1889, at thirty-three, he married a tall, cheerful young woman from the Prussian aristocracy. Four years later, in recognition of Theobald’s services as magistrate, the Kaiser presented him with the Order of the Red Eagle, Fourth Class. “One day I’ll make a minister38 out of your son,” William told Felix. Two years later, Theobald became a Provincial Counselor and in 1899 he was installed as Oberpräsident (Governor) of the Mark Brandenburg. Bülow promoted him in 1905 to Prussian Minister of the Interior. He had begun to be mentioned as a possible successor to Bülow despite his wife’s protests: “It disconcerts me39 whenever I hear it, since at the bottom of his heart, Theobald does not aim for it at all.” Bethmann-Hollweg continued to be promoted. When in 1907 he was named Imperial Secretary of the Interior and Vice Chancellor, the usually critical Die Zukunft called him “a man of strong gifts.”40 In the spring of 1909, rumors of Bethmann’s succession were everywhere. At first, the Kaiser resisted. “I know him well,”41 he said of Bethmann. “He is always lecturing me and pretends to know everything.” Besides, Bethmann’s loyal support of Bülow during the November Reichstag debate appeared to have soured the Kaiser. “I cannot work with him,”42 William announced. Nevertheless, when Bülow failed in the death-duties vote and offered his resignation, the Kaiser seized the opportunity. On July 8, 1909, Bethmann was told that he would be appointed. With “grave doubts”43 he accepted. “Dear Theo,44 you cannot do that,” his wife exclaimed. Bethmann-Hollweg explained to a friend: “Only a genius45 or a man driven by ambition and lust for power can covet this post and I am neither. An ordinary man can only assume it when compelled by his sense of duty.”
During the Daily Telegraph crisis, as the Reichstag had demanded that the Kaiser abide by the constitution and leave foreign policy to the Chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg had urged Bülow to defend the authority of his office. “Your Excellency is not only46 the Kaiser’s Chancellor,” he had told Bülow, “but also the Chancellor of the empire.” Now Chancellor himself, Bethmann hoped to implement this view. He faced an uphill battle. The office had been weakened since Bismarck, enjoying the silent, unquestioning support of Emperor William I, had wielded unchallenged power. Bülow, spinning out nine years of sycophancy, had dissipated the Chancellor’s powers in favor of the Crown. The Reichstag had gained in relative strength. Although constitutionally a Chancellor was responsible only to the Emperor, to be successful he needed money from the Reichstag. When Bülow lost the Kaiser’s confidence, he quickly lost control of the Reichstag. The Kaiser in 1909 was a diminished figure, but he retained, independent of the Reichstag, the power to appoint and dismiss chancellors and ministers. Bethmann therefore had to be wary of William’s volatile tendency to barge into delicate political and diplomatic arrangements. The Daily Telegraph affair had somewhat curtailed these tendencies, but the Kaiser still required constant vigilance.
At first, Bethmann and the Kaiser behaved politely towards each other. William resumed his daily visits to the Chancellor’s Palace, walking in the garden, discussing political events and issues as he had with Bülow. He dined frequently with the Chancellor. “It was a pleasure for me47 to visit Bethmann’s house since Bethmann’s spouse was the very model of a genuine German wife,” he said. William sometimes complained about the Chancellor’s pedagogical manner—“He laid down the law48 as dogmatically as a schoolteacher”—but Bethmann always gave William the deference due a German Emperor and King of Prussia. Behind the Kaiser’s ba
ck, the Chancellor complained: “The idea that he will ally himself49 with the [other German] princes in order to chastise the Reichstag and eventually to abolish it, or that he will send one of his Adjutant Generals [with soldiers] into the Reichstag if I am not tough enough constantly crops up in conversations with me. I do not take these things too seriously, although they increasingly prevent mutual trust and agreement on the policies to be followed. They personally demand much strength or nerve.”
Bethmann was handicapped in dealing with other ministers within the government. He was a civilian who had worked his way up through the domestic civil service. His lack of experience in foreign affairs meant that he did not personally know either Germany’s ambassadors in other countries or foreign ambassadors in Berlin. He was unable thoroughly to control the Foreign Office; it was not Bethmann-Hollweg who provoked the 1911 crisis at Agadir. The other ministry partially beyond Bethmann’s reach was the Navy Ministry. Under the constitution, the armed forces were the Kaiser’s to command. Tirpitz, as Navy Minister, had only to please this single constituent. As long as William stood behind him, Tirpitz was more or less independent of both Chancellor and Reichstag. Bethmann’s communications with Tirpitz took the form not of instructions, but of irritated appeals: “If you cannot avoid50 conversations with foreign diplomats, I would appreciate your making sure that your statements do not go beyond the outlines of the foreign policy of the empire, directed by me.”