“Danke schoen, mein Herr.” The coachman nodded respectfully, taking the banknote handed over his shoulder. The passenger steadied himself in his seat, and the open carriage clattered to a halt on the cobblestones of old Berlin. The horses whickered as they reined up in front of Bendlerstrasse 14, the Naval Ministry.
A government automobile would perhaps have been more fashionable, the lone rider knew. But he personally didn’t mind the jolting informality of a short trip from the government complex in the Kaiser Wilhelmstrasse. A coach trot around the Tiergarten and along the river wasn’t too old-fashioned, not even for the Chancellor of all the Reich, and not even in a time of war.
Bethmann-Hollweg didn’t wait for his cabbie to dismount. Opening the door, he stepped out unaided and waved a hand to dismiss the carriage.
Undoubtedly the man recognized the tall, distinguished Prussian with his Van Dyke beard and trim officer’s uniform. Bethmann-Hollweg habitually dressed in military costume, like most imperial German officials including Der Kaiser himself.
The Chancellor paused to inspect the grand façade before him. The peak-roofed portico of the Naval Ministry jutted forth like a great ship’s prow along the riverfront. Already the giant building was famous as the Bendlerblock. The structure’s size and newness signaled not only the importance of the Kaiserliche Marine, but also the growing power of the agency’s new master, Tirpitz. Now that Bismarck and Von Bulow were gone, dismissed by a fickle emperor, Admiral Tirpitz was seen as Der Kaiser’s oldest and most trusted confidant…though how he could be more cherished than Bethmann-Hollweg himself was a puzzle. Had it not been the ever-loyal Chancellor who, in boyhood, offered Kaiser Wilhelm his own shoulder to steady the rifle that killed the one-handed emperor’s very first stag?
Striding through the front entry, Hollweg breezed past guards and receptionists toward the inner quarters where the Admiral lived and worked. He had pre-arranged the visit by telephone, and not even Tirpitz would dare to make him wait for long. The two of them were old acquaintances, old adversaries.
At the broad desk of the Admiral’s secretary, a busy naval adjutant, Hollweg didn’t need to announce himself. He didn’t bother taking a seat, but remained standing. He was inspecting a model of the fleet’s newest battlecruiser when Tirpitz emerged to greet him.
“Willkommen, Herr Reichskanzler,” his host said. “I’m very sorry to have kept you waiting,” he added, in a way the Chancellor could not help but find patronizing.
The admiral advanced to clasp Hollweg’s hand. To add formality to the meeting, he clicked his heels together and curtly bowed, making his long, and gray, two-forked beard brush against his blue navy lapels.
“Guten Tag, Herr Admiral.” Hollweg responded in kind, maintaining the formal tone. As a patient negotiator, he was willing tolerate this jumped-up naval officer’s show of importance. Had he not always done so in the past?
“Many thanks for coming. I would have been glad to go and see you at the Reichskanzlerei, if not for the harsh maritime demands of this war.”
There it was again, the arrogance of a wartime military leader over a peacetime official. “I understand, Admiral.”
“Come. If you don’t mind, let us walk outside in the courtyard.” Tirpitz led the way toward his office’s exterior door, which stood open on a tree-lined quadrangle. “To what do I owe the honor of this visit?”
“To the same thing as my last visit, I fear,” the chancellor said. “I must ask again that our navy’s actions against neutral commerce vessels be more…restrained. I refer to this recent sinking of an American ship, the Gulflight, on May the first. With three of the neutral vessel’s crew members killed, our foreign office is facing renewed protests from abroad.”
Tirpitz sighed. “I, too, feared as much when I read the press account. But come, Theobald—” his sudden switch to a first-name basis signaled, perhaps, that they had passed beyond earshot of the office staff. “This neutral ship, the Gulflight, was an oil tanker carrying vital fuel to our enemies. The crew was allowed to escape, but two of them panicked, jumped overboard and drowned. Then after being rescued, the tanker’s captain also died of a heart attack. I don’t see how Germany can be blamed for that unfortunate chain of events in wartime.”
“The ship was torpedoed without warning, against naval law,” Hollweg said. “They call us criminals, pirates.”
“So says the English press, as ever,” Tirpitz countered. “But my U-boat captain let his boat be seen first as a very obvious warning. He stayed on the surface a good three minutes before submerging, but the American ship did not stop or turn around.” The admiral paused in the sparse shade of one of the small new courtyard trees. “The very same newspaper account acknowledges that this supposedly neutral American tanker was also being shadowed by a British warship. What are my captains to do?”
“They are to do what you tell them, Alfred,” the chancellor said. “Can you not control your subordinates?”
Tirpitz sighed. “A ship is not a land brigade, Theo. A captain at sea bears, first of all, the responsibility for his vessel and the lives of his crew. He must make instant decisions as conditions dictate. I cannot approve or countermand those decisions, even by the miracle of Marconi wireless.” Pacing again under the linden trees, the Admiral smiled. “A vessel’s captain has more freedom of choice than do I, or you…or even our dear friend the Kaiser, with all his ships and officers.”
“Yes, but these ships are more than just playthings in Der Kaiser’s bathtub,” Hollweg snorted. “These are real vessels with real lives on board. Innocent lives, some of them, and when they perish, we hear about it. God help us if a great passenger liner is sunk, with important Americans on board. Should that happen, Britain will have a strong new ally in her war against us.”
“Britain already has such an ally, but in secret,” Tirpitz retorted. “Her former American colony supports her with food, supplies, fuel, and all manner of weaponry and ammunition. My concern is to stop that traffic. If we do not, all is lost.”
“All is lost…” Hollweg repeated. “That, as I recall, is what you cried out when our great enemy Britain first entered this war.” He scanned the admiral’s bearded face for any sign of embarrassment. “Hardly an expression of confidence in our German armed forces.”
“All of us make ill-considered statements at times, Herr Kanzler,” Tirpitz parried, “…such as when you told the British ambassador that our attack in the west was illegal, and that Belgian neutrality was a mere scrap of paper.” He stopped again in his pacing and turned to Hollweg. “What I saw then, old friend, when Britain entered the war, is that they are above all a naval power. With control of the seas, they have Germany blockaded. We must in turn blockade them from the battle front, using these miraculous new weapons, the U-boat and torpedo, or all will indeed be lost.” The old Admiral smiled at the Chancellor in a direct appeal. “I know navies, and I know these tools, Theo. Years ago I helped perfect the torpedo as a weapon for our Reichsmarine.”
“As did your opposite number in Britain, their Admiral Fisher, for his Royal Navy in the early days,” Hollweg pointed out.
“Yes, he saw the future, as I did,” Tirpitz matter-of-factly said. “That is why he is now Britain’s Sea Lord, and I am Germany’s Secretary of the Navy.”
“Secretary of State for the Navy, you mean,” Hollweg reminded him. “With your increase in authority, to equal mine or the army’s, there comes a broader responsibility. Your decisions now affect diplomacy and foreign affairs, not just Der Kaiser’s battlecruisers and other pet projects.” He turned to face the admiral directly. “In that capacity, I ask you: Can it help Germany if every nation in the world turns against us?”
Tirpitz frowned at last. “The only thing that can help Germany now is to choke off the enemy’s commerce, before they strangle our homeland. In that, the U-boats are vital. Any restriction on submarine warfare threatens our survival as a nation.”