Both Germany and Britain were predominately Protestant, and the Germans and British saw themselves as being of the same superior Teutonic race and as having a moral fiber stronger than that of the Slavic and Latin peoples of eastern and southern Europe. The royal families of Germany and Britain were linked. The German monarch, Wilhelm II, was the grandson of Queen Victoria, and he visited his grandmother and British family frequently. Britain's wealthy sent their young men to German universities and their daughters to Germany for their final polish (what they called being "finished"), and many successful marriages between the British and Germans had arisen from these contacts. And the British went to Germany for vacations.
Germany's diplomats looked forward to Britain signing an alliance with their nation. Germany had a navy that was weaker than Britain's, but Germany's navy was growing. Germany's diplomats believed that Britain's fear of this growing navy would help inspire it to be a partner with Germany rather than a rival. Germany's diplomats believed that Great Britain had no desire to ally itself with Russia because Britain was in conflict with Russia over Russia's advances against Britain's interests in East and South Asia. And they believed that Great Britain had no desire to ally itself with France because Britain and France were old enemies and recent rivals for empire in Africa and elsewhere.
Germany's diplomats believed that they were bargaining from a position of strength, and they asked Britain to join an alliance that included Germany's ally, Austria-Hungary. Britain refused to be tied to an alliance that would commit it to war on the side of Austria-Hungary. Germany's diplomats were over-confident. They were asking too much from Britain. And Britain began looking elsewhere for allies.
Britain settled its differences with the United States, and in 1902 it entered into an alliance with Japan. Then Britain had talks with France to settle their differences. Having finished carving up Africa and other parts of the world, the British and French wanted an agreement that would make their empires more secure. France recognized Britain's position in Egypt. Britain gave secret recognition to France's willingness to divide Morocco between itself and Spain. And Britain and France settled long-standing disagreements concerning territories in the Pacific and disagreements over Thailand.
France also reached an agreement with Italy. Italy extended France a free hand in Morocco in exchange for Italy exercising its will over Libya. And France had a military alliance with Russia - a defense treaty that had been signed in 1894. France and Russia had promised that should Germany attack the other they would attack Germany. This tie between Russia and France was enhanced by a huge loan from French banks to Russia, money that Russia wanted for building railroads, industry and its military capability. .
German Diplomacy Fails… Again.
The alliance game was not over, at least in the eyes of the Germans. In October 1904, tensions mounted between Russia and Britain after a Russian fleet, at Dogger Bank (a fishing area sixty miles east of the northeastern coast of England) mistook some British fishing vessels for Japanese warships and killed many British fishermen. It seemed that Britain might join its ally Japan in war against Russia. The German monarch, Wilhelm II, wished to take advantage of the war between Japan and Russia to drive as wide a wedge as possible between Japan's ally Great Britain and Russia's tsar, Nicholas II. Wilhelm hoped to convince him to sign a mutual defensive treaty with Germany, to become operative after Russia's war with Japan ended.
Germany's apparent support for Russia while Russia was in crisis with Britain inflamed British opinion against Germany. British newspapers vehemently denounced Germany. With Germany still adding to its navy, suspicion arose in Britain that Germany was aiming toward becoming master of world affairs. Sir John Fischer, Britain's First Sea Lord, proposed sinking Germany's navy. Britain's King Edward VII rejected the idea. Meanwhile, alarm in Britain had created alarm in Germany. In a defensive move, Germany brought its navy into home waters, which, in turn, scared Britain into believing that Germany might be preparing for war. Another incident might have added to the misunderstanding and sparked a war between Great Britain and Germany, making mutual suspicion and fear the cause of Europe's first great war of the century. But nothing happened, and as quickly as the war scare arose, it subsided.
But developments involving empire continued to increase tensions. The French and Spanish signed a treaty in October 1904 that appeared to guarantee Morocco independence - a treaty with secret clauses that anticipated these two powers dividing Morocco between them. An agreement signed in Madrid in 1880 had given Germany the right to be consulted on any change in the status of Morocco. Germans were interested in trade with Morocco, and they were interested in Morocco's iron ore. The Germans preferred an "open door" policy for Morocco. And by ignoring Germany while making an agreement with Spain concerning Morocco, France aroused consternation in Germany.
A mistake was in the making by Germany, compounding France's mistake in not consulting with Germany. Wilhelm was indifferent toward France extending its power in Morocco, and he was hoping that France would see its ties with Britain as useless and move toward conciliation with Germany. He was willing to let France have Morocco, claiming that if Germany opposed France it would only revive hate for Germany among the French (a hatred from Germany's military victory over France in 1871). But Germany's chauvinistic press, its middle class and leading militarists disagreed with Wilhelm. They wanted Germany to stand up for its rightful place in the world. Wilhelm's minister for foreign affairs, Friedrich von Holstein, also disagreed with Wilhelm and argued that friendly gestures would convince the French that Germany was afraid. He and others believed that for the sake of peace Germany had to appear strong and be feared. He argued that the road to conciliation between Germany and France lay with Germany forcing France to have greater respect for German power, by forcing France to bend to German demands concerning Morocco.
It was an opportune time for a move by Germany against France because France's ally, Russia, was at war with Japan. But for the remainder of 1904, Wilhelm refused to sanction any action against France concerning Morocco. Wilhelm's chancellor, von Bülow, and Holstein were, however, able to convince Wilhelm to go along with their policy of trying to scare France into splitting with Britain. On March 31, 1905, Wilhelm II arrived in Tangier and proclaimed Germany's support for the independence of Morocco. This provoked a crisis in Europe, accompanied by another missed opportunity for Germany.
A new government had taken power in France, and France's new democratic leaders disliked their nation's alliance with autocratic Russia. Also, they were uninterested in imperial expansion, and the French were blaming their foreign minister, Delcassé, for annoying Germany with his agreement with Spain concerning Morocco. Delcassé resigned. France was backing down rather than rising to Germanys threatening posture. There would be no war for the time being. But the idea that "respect for German power" would help encourage an alliance proved false - just as fear regarding Germany's navy had helped little in creating an alliance with Britain. Germany's attitude had created more distrust. France's new leaders had been inclined to favor conciliation with Germany, but now that was more difficult. And more distrust for Germany had risen among the British.
Theodore Roosevelt was negotiating an end to the war between Russia and Japan, and German diplomats asked him to negotiate also a settlement between their nation and France over Morocco. The French, feeling assured by U.S. support, agreed to a conference with Germany. That conference took place in Algeciras, Spain, and concluded in April 1906. The stir over Morocco ended peacefully. The agreement signed reaffirmed the independence of Morocco and guaranteed the freedom of nations such as Germany and the United States to trade there. And France had failed to move away from its ties with Britain and closer to Germany as Germany's diplomats had hoped.
And Germany's position in the alliance game would soon grow worse. When the war between Japan and Russia ended, Wilhelm's hoped-for alliance with Russia vanished, and Russia moved close again to its old ally, France. France forwarded a huge loan to Russia to put Russia back on its feet economically and militarily - to the disgust of Russian liberals and leftists who foresaw that this would strengthen Tsar Nicholas and autocracy. Russia still looked upon Germany as a possible adversary because of Germany's alliance with Austria-Hungary. And now, with their distrust of Germany still alive, Great Britain and France sought to strengthen their positions by discussing military and naval issues. Relations between the military staffs of Britain and France grew more intimate. The British refused to make a public promise to support France if France were attacked by Germany, but secretly Britain agreed to a moral obligation to help France should such an attack occur.
Many Germans responded to what they saw of the closer tie between France and Britain not by blaming themselves for bad diplomacy but by finding fault with France and Britain. Germany's chancellor, von Bülow, complained of threats to isolate, disable and encircle Germany. He stated that an understanding between the European powers without maintaining good relations with Germany was creating a danger to peace in Europe.
The Germans soon had more to complain about. In 1907, Britain and Russia settled their differences. With the demise of Russia's military capability that came with Russia's defeat by the Japanese, the British viewed Russia as less a threat to its imperial interests south of Russia. Britain wanted the same kind of agreement with Russia that it had with France, an agreement that would stabilize its imperial gains. Russia agreed that Britain should have controlling influence in Afghanistan and Tibet, and the two powers ended their rivalry in Iran by dividing that land into two zones of influence. The rapprochement between Britain and Russia pleased the French because it increased their security vis-à-vis Germany. And it left the Germans outraged.
Franz Joseph Annexes Bosnia-Herzegovina.
Now came trouble between Russia and Germany's ally, Austria-Hungary. Both Russia and Austria-Hungary were church sponsored monarchies based on divine right. Both were empires and opposed to nationalism - the Russians opposed to the nationalism of Poles and Ukrainians among others. Conservative Russia and Austria-Hungary had been cooperating in matters concerning the Balkans, but this changed in 1908. That year, Franz Joseph shocked Europe by annexing Bosnia and Herzegovina, violating the agreement made in Berlin in 1878. Here was Franz Joseph's first move in taking the world toward war. The Serbs had been hoping for eventual freedom for Bosnia and Herzegovina, and the annexation angered them. And a wave of indignation swept across Russia, for the Russians saw themselves as the protectors of their Slavic, Orthodox Christians in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Serbia.
Turkey, still nominally the ruler of Bosnia and Herzegovina, protested Franz Joseph's annexation, and Turkey offered the people of Bosnia and Herzegovina representation in a new Turkish parliament. Serbia called up its reservists, and it refused to recognize the annexation. Austria-Hungary declared that unless Serbia recognized the annexation there would be war. Russia supported Serbia. Germany did its duty regarding its alliance and massed its troops on Russia's border - to demonstrate its support for Austria-Hungary and to discourage a Russia invasion against its ally. Russia felt unprepared for war and did not want to fight. Wilhelm also did not want war, and he convinced Austria-Hungary to hold back from war against Serbia.
There was no Great War in Europe in 1908. But Russia's long-standing agreement with Austria-Hungary concerning the Balkans was at an end. And despite Wilhelm's efforts at peace, the nearness of war led some Russians in high places to begin viewing Germany as an enemy. And Russia began increasing its defense expenditures.
Meanwhile, two days after the annexation a secret society had formed in Serbia. It was called Narodna Oderana (National Defense) - also known as the Black Hand. It was dedicated to the liberation of Bosnia and Herzegovina from Hapsburg rule. The annexation had also altered the attitude of young Serbians within Bosnia. Before the annexation, Bosnian students were influenced by the Czech nationalist intellectual, Thomas Masaryk, whose strategy for liberation from Hapsburg rule was gradualist and peaceful. With the annexation, Bosnian students rejected Masaryk's approach as too slow. Secret groups were forming among them dedicated to national independence by violence if necessary. Eastern Orthodox Bosnians had a tradition derived from their struggle against the invasion of Turks. They worshiped those who had martyred themselves trying to assassinate enemy conquerors. In Sarajevo (the capital of Bosnia), youths were beginning to consider assassination as the best means of liberation..
Germany's foreign policy was still being driven by the belief in standing up in a manly way for Germany's place in an aggressive, competitive world. And some conservative German politicians had another motive for supporting a belligerent foreign policy: they wished to appeal to what they saw as the patriotism of the common man, a patriotism they hoped would help diminish the growing political power of Germany's labor movement, which was represented in parliament by the Social Democrats.
The First Signs of Confrontation.
In the spring of 1911 came another crisis over Morocco, after Moroccan rebels besieged the sultan, Mulay Hafid, at his palace at Fez. The sultan appealed to the French to rescue him. The Germans feared that if French troops went to Fez they would stay. The German government protested against French intervention, but France sent troops to Fez anyway, and Spain sent troops to occupy that part of Morocco it had been promised in its secret agreements with France in 1904. The Germans claimed that France's move violated the settlement they had agreed to back in April 1906. Germany's hawkish press expressed exasperation with France and demanded that Germany's position in Morocco be maintained and respected, and these demands were widely supported by the German public.
Germany might have been better served by patience, by demonstrating firmness with diplomatic actions and appeals to the hearts and minds of neighboring Europeans. But mere words were seen by many in Germany as weakness. Instead, the German government demonstrated its resolve concerning Morocco by sending a warship "The Panther" to the port of Agadir on Morocco's southern coast.
Germany's show of force was an embarrassment to France's prime minister, Joseph Caillaux, who was a politically progressive, wealthy financier who had desired peace and reconciliation with Germany. Caillaux was pushing for tax reform in France, and French politicians opposed to Caillaux's tax reform used Germany's belligerence to win opposition to his government. Anti-German torchlight parades with displays of patriotic fervor erupted in the streets. Caillaux's government fell, and Caillaux was replaced as prime minister by Raymond Poincaré, who supported and helped inspire a new patriotism in France, a new spirit of confidence and pride. The possibility of reconciliation between Germany and France was lost and a new and aggressive French policy toward Germany was launched. The French, announced Poincaré, did not want war, but neither did they fear it. Poincaré announced that the first duty of a good citizen was to be "a courageous and disciplined soldier." He denounced "internationalists" and pacifists and spoke of the provinces that France had lost to Germany in the war of 1870-71, Lorraine, as "a bulwark" for France. The new belligerence from France excited Germany's military leaders and others concerned with national defense, and, to counter Germany's military might, the French began building up their military forces - a new arms race having begun.
Germany's standing up in a manly way against the French over Morocco had not only stirred up French belligerence it had disturbed the British. A desire for a rapprochement with Germany that had been developing in Britain quickly evaporated. British strategists were frightened into believing that they should stand firmly by their alliances with France and Russia. Britain signed an agreement with France that allowed a more efficient use of both their navies. The agreement held that should war break out, Britain was to defend the waters between it and France and the waters along France's Atlantic Coast, while France's navy was to act in behalf of both nations in the Mediterranean Sea.
Germany had lost good will by threatening war, but it settled its differences with France over Morocco by negotiations - negotiations in which the threat of war were of little help to Germany. In a settlement signed in Berlin in November 1911, Germany agreed to France establishing a protectorate over Morocco. In exchange, Germany received a little strip of land from the French Congo - which gave Germany's colony, Kamerun, access to the Congo River. This agreement outraged Germany's hawks. In parliament they accused the German chancellor, Bethmann-Hollweg, and Germany's secretary of state, von Kiderlen, of unforgivable" timidity. The supreme commander of Germany's armies, Helmuth Johannes von Moltke, saw his country as having crawled away from the negotiations with its tail between its legs.
Preparing for War
Europe was on its way to war because too many people wished for war or had an insufficient fear of it - unlike the latter half of the century, when nuclear war between major powers would be seen as mutually devastating. A few dissident intellectuals in Europe had been trying to warn their nations about how different a war among the great industrial powers of Europe would be from wars of the previous century. They and military strategists had the Civil War in the United States to draw from - a war in which new firepower had made frontal assaults devastating. And they were aware of the new weaponry: faster firing artillery that scattered shrapnel, an increase in range and accuracy of rifles, and the water-cooled machine gun, all of which had made frontal offensives more deadly. But during the early years of the century Europe's military planners, political leaders and heads of state hung on to their old ideas about the nature of war.
Germany's military leaders believed that the next war could be as short and sweet as their last victory - a six months war against France that ended in 1871 with only 28,000 dead. That had been a war in which speed in mobilization was most important, in other words a matter of getting to the battle first with the most. It had been a war in which no stalemate and trench warfare had developed.
Misconception about the next war was prevalent among the French - not only about the duration of the war but also misconceptions about how the war should be fought. A commander-in-chief designate of France's armies, General Michel, correctly anticipated that Germany's drive against France would come through the lowlands of Belgium, and he advocated taking defensive positions against the Germans. The dominant view among France's generals was that the victory could be achieved through morale, through the fighting spirit of their armies. And they believed that Russia's vast army - the "Russian steamroller" - would provide effective help. Michel was ostracized and demoted. The plan thereafter was for an offensive strategy. This included putting aside the machine gun, because the machine gun was then considered a weapon strictly for defense. And they were opposed to discontinuing the use of the army's red trousers and blue jackets, colors they thought matched the army's élan and glory.
Amid all the backward thinking about war, in 1911 a minor war erupted - which can be blamed on empire. A war began with Italy's response to France's gains in Morocco. Italy wished a gain of its own in North Africa: possession of Tripoli and Cyrenaica - now Libya - which were then parts of the Ottoman Empire. War erupted between Italy and the Ottoman Empire (centered in what is now Turkey). The Ottoman Empire lost and appeared weak to neighboring Bulgaria, Serbia and Greece, and these nations, in May 1912, thought it an opportune time to fight the Ottoman Empire for territory they believed was theirs. Germany backed the Ottoman Turks, and France backed Serbia. The Turks lost again, as they had against the Italians. And in October 1912, the Turks were forced to grant independence to Albania. Then, Serbia and Greece began fighting with Bulgaria for the spoils of their victory against the Turks. In 1913, Serbia emerged from these wars triumphant. Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina were elated and encouraged. Serbia and Greece divided Macedonia between them, and Serbia moved to acquire a port on the Albanian coast.
Austria-Hungary feared Serbia's new prestige and disliked the aroused Serbian nationalism, which had spread among the Serbs in Bosnia and Herzegovina. In Bosnia, the Austrian authorities seized local newspapers, expelled student leaders and put schools under direct military rule. Austria-Hungary opposed Serbia's acquisition of a seaport on the Albanian coast, and it threatened Serbia with war. Russia announced its determination to support Serbia militarily. But Serbia wanted no war with Austria-Hungary and withdrew from the Albanian coastline, and Emperor Wilhelm of Germany had refused to give military support to Austria-Hungary. Wilhelm's treaty with Austria-Hungary was defensive, and he felt no obligation to back Austria-Hungary in an offensive against Serbia. Austria-Hungary feared war against Russia without Germany fighting on its side. And so war was avoided for the moment.
But 1913 Europe was already a battleground of distrust and tension – a time bomb ticking faster and faster. And 1914 would bring the beginning of the tragic conclusion to the somewhat misfortunate series of ill-advised decisions flared by nationalism and belligerent spirit.
