Room 9

THE GERMAN EMPIRE IN EUROPE

In terms of population, area, economic strength, and military power, the German Empire surpassed neighboring France and Austria-Hungary. Germany was, as Bismarck stated many times, "satiated." Whereas the policy of Germany was concerned with maintaining and securing her new borders, France strove to win back Alsace and Lorraine. This irreconcilable antagonism gave rise to the most important maxim of Bismarckian foreign policy isolate France. As he explained in June 1877, he wanted to create a situation in a Europe "in which all powers except France need us and, if possible, are kept by their mutual relations from forming coalitions against us."

To prevent a coalition between the losers of 1866 and 1870-71 and simultaneously gain freedom of maneuver in relations with Russia, Bismarck sought an alliance with Austria-Hungary and Russia. In September 1872, William I, Francis Joseph I, and Alexander II met in Berlin and announced their mutual interest in preserving the monarchical form of government. In June of the following year, Francis Joseph I and Alexander II signed a military convention, which was expanded into the Three Emperors' Treaty (Drei-Kaiser-Abkommen) when the German emperor joined on 22 October 1873. Fears in England and France that the treaty between the three emperors could lead to a revival of the Holy Alliance were dissipated when, during the "war-in-sight crisis" of 1875, Russia and England responded to France's request for support by making clear despite their global political differences that they would tolerate no further loss of French power.

The Balkans were a highly volatile source of danger for European peace. In June 1875 a revolt against Turkish domination broke out in Bosnia, spread to Bulgaria in May 1876, and soon engulfed the entire Balkan peninsula. England, Austria-Hungary, and Russia saw their interests especially threatened. If Russia had hitherto seen herself as the protector of orthodox Christians in the territory ruled by the Ottoman Empire, it was now also the nationalist, Pan-Slav movement that pushed her to military intervention. On 14 April 1877 Russia declared war on Turkey, and by the end of January 1878 Russian troops stood before Constantinople. At the beginning of March, Turkey had to sign a harsh peace treaty in San Stefano. Serbia, Montenegro, and Rumania were enlarged with territory ceded by Turkey and became autonomous; Bulgaria, which was enlarged into a Greater-Bulgarian principality by the addition of Eastern Rumelia and Macedonia, gained access to the Aegean Sea and came under Russian influence, thereby opening Russia's door to the Mediterranean Sea. Immediately after learning of the conditions of the peace treaty, England and Austria-Hungary sharply protested the expansion of Russian power. When units of the British fleet steamed into the Sea of Marmara and a clash with Russia seemed imminent, the Austro-Hungarian foreign minister, Count Andrássy, proposed that a European congress be held to address all "Near-Eastern questions." Because Germany had no interests at stake in the Balkans, which Bismarck said "were not even worth the healthy bones of a single Pomeranian musketeer," the German chancellor announced to the Reichstag in February 1878 that he was prepared to hold a peace congress as an "honest broker" (ehrlicher Makler). At that, the Great Powers agreed on Berlin as the site.

On 13 June 1878 Bismarck opened the Congress of Berlin, the most important outcome of which was the Russian willingness to divide "Greater Bulgaria." Demanding nothing for Germany at the congress, Bismarck earned high regard from the British delegation under Lord Beaconsfield (Disraeli) and Robert Salisbury. Prince Gorchakov and the Russian public had a different view: They blamed Bismarck for compromising their "victorious peace." The decision of the Congress to leave many of the details to international commissions and to suppress the aspirations of the Balkan peoples for national autonomy had serious consequences. As described by a member of the French delegation, "they were assigned or divested of territories without anyone giving a thought to the wishes or objections of the one side or the other, which were met with a serene indifference." For Bismarck, however, Germany's security was paramount. In November 1878 he wrote to the Prussian Crown Prince: "It would be a triumph of our statecraft if we succeeded in keeping the Oriental sore open and thereby prevented the unity of the other Great Powers and ensured peace for ourselves."

Russo-German relations continued to deterioriate when Prussia and Austria announced in February 1879 that they had revoked Article 5 of the Peace of Prague of 1866, which had provided for a plebescite in northern Schleswig (see room 6). In the justified expectation that a plebescite would block German aspirations in Schleswig, Alexander II had been waiting for just such a settlement of the German-Danish border issue as thanks for Russian backing during the three wars of German unification. The Russian press reacted to the repeal of Article 5 by commenting that "the honest broker" had just had himself paid a "handsome commission" for disadvantaging Russia. Mounting Russian reproaches about the conduct of the German delegates on the border commissions in the Balkans, along with a German ban on imports of Russian cattle and meat after an outbreak of cattle plague in Russia, finally provoked Alexander II to write a highly indignant letter to the German emperor on 15 August 1879 - his "slap in the face" (Ohrfeigenbrief). The czar named Bismarck as the one responsible for the poor relations between Germany and Russia. While William I tried to eliminate the ill feelings in personal conversations with Alexander II, Bismarck and Andrassy negotiated a secret defensive alliance against Russia. Putting the emperor under massive pressure by threatening to resign, Bismarck managed to have him commit himself to this Dual Alliance (Zweibund). William gave his consent to the Dual Alliance with Austria-Hungary on 5 October 1879, reportedly saying that "those who have made me take this step will have to answer for it up there some day."

After protracted negotiations William I, Francis Joseph I, and Alexander III resumed their cooperation and formed the Three Emperors' League (Drei-Kaiser-Bündnis). In 1884 the agreement was extended for three years, but then collapsed because of the friction between Austria-Hungary and Russia over the Balkans. This breakdown in cooperation between the two powers had been in the making for some time. In 1879 the Bulgarian National Assembly elected the twenty-two-year-old Alexander von Battenberg as the monarch of Bulgaria. Originally more like one of Russia's "governors," Alexander von Battenberg had been pursuing a reformist, anti-Russian policy since 1883 and united Bulgaria with Eastern Rumelia in 1885. After he was toppled by a Russian-oriented group of conspirators in August 1886, the "Bulgarian Question" rekindled the feud between Austria-Hungary and Russia. Neither Great Power was willing any longer to renew the alliance between the three emperors.

The danger of war seemed to grow in the west as well when the brief Franco-German "colonial entente" ended with the fall of the Ferry government and the elevation of General Georges Boulanger to the post of Minister of War in January 1886. The French press stepped up calls for a war of vengeance, and the Pan-Slavists in Russia called for joint action with France against the Dual Alliance. Faced with the possibility of a two-front war, Bismarck advocated reinforcing German military strength and called for what became known as the Mediterranean Agreements (Mittelmeer-Entente) between England and Italy, which Austria-Hungary also joined in March 1887. On 18 June 1887 Bismarck also concluded a Reinsurance Treaty (Rückrersicherungsrertrag) with Russia in Berlin, whereby Bismarck pledged to support Russian desires for control over the straits between the Mediterranean Sea and the Black Sea. The primary purpose of the treaty, which remained top secret, was to prevent an alliance between Russia and France.

The deep gulf between the German Empire and Russia could not be bridged by the Reinsurance Treaty of 1887. Part of the reason was Germany's turn to protectionism and the concomitant renunciation of free trade, which had been discredited since the depression of 1873 (Gründerkrach), that legacy of the financial speculation indulged in immediately after the German Empire had been founded. Imports from Russia and the United States of America in the mid-1870s led to a steady decline in grain prices, prompting the large German grain producers to demand protective tariffs. They were supported especially by the Central Association of German Industrialists (Centralverband deutscher Industrieller, founded in 1876), whose members saw tariffs on pig iron and iron products as an effective means of "promoting and protecting national enterprise" (Schutz der nationalen Arbeit). Acting against the interests of the export-oriented electrical and chemical industries, which became international leaders by 1914, the Reichstag decided on 12 July 1879 to place protective tariffs on the imports of products for agriculture and heavy industry. As Germany closed the doors on Russian grain and exports of wood, Russia shifted her foreign trade to France.

The economic conflict worsened after approximately 30,000 of Russia's Polish subjects were expelled from Prussia. In May 1887 Alexander III responded by prohibiting all foreigners from acquiring land in Russia's western territories. This measure, which was decreed while the Reinsurance Treaty was still being negotiated, became the target of a German press campaign that began to undermine the value of and confidence in Russian government securities. On 10 November 1887 the Reichsbank forbade all German banks to accept Russian securities as collateral for loans (Lombardverbot). Only a few months after the signing of the Reinsurance Treaty, this pecuniary ban drove Russia into the arms of France. In the spring of 1888 French bankers in St. Petersburg negotiated a loan, which was floated on the Paris stock exchange in the fall. A few days after Bismarck's dismissal in March 1890, the Reinsurance Treaty was not renewed. The cracks in the European system of alliances could no longer be denied.

Burkhard Asmuss