Joseph Chamberlain’s second attempt to achieve an Anglo-German alliance was delayed by a squabble over a cluster of volcanic islands in the South Pacific and by a fuss over a birthday party. The Samoan archipelago, lying between the Hawaiian Islands and the northern tip of New Zealand, had been colonized in 1878 by British, German, and American traders. Ten years later, a treaty established a tripartite protectorate over the islands. In the spring of 1899, the King of Samoa died. The succession was contested, violence ensued, and British and American warships bombarded buildings, including, mistakenly, the German consulate. The German government accepted an American apology for an errant American shell, but promptly proposed to Great Britain that Britain join her in asking America to withdraw from Samoa. Lord Salisbury declined. “You ask me1 to put my hand into a wasp’s nest,” he said. Germany then suggested that Britain give up her stake in Samoa in return for compensation elsewhere. Chamberlain, still aggrieved by the rejection of his alliance proposal the year before, rejected the German proposal. “Last year we offered2 you everything. Now it is too late,” he said to Eckardstein. Tempers flared. Suddenly, the distant islands appeared on the front pages of newspapers in London, Berlin, and Washington. “Instead of compliance,3 England has shown us harsh and open hostility,” Bülow complained.
The Kaiser was indignant, not only because of thwarted German ambitions in Samoa, but because he had not been invited to Queen Victoria’s eightieth birthday party on May 24. “I suspect4 that a great deal of His Majesty’s ill-humor is due to the fact that he was not allowed to carry out his cherished scheme of presenting his younger children to the Queen on the occasion of her eightieth birthday,” Sir Frank Lascelles, British Ambassador in Berlin, wrote to Lord Salisbury. Lascelles had mentioned this suspicion to Bülow, who—the Ambassador reported to Salisbury—“said that it was not5 for him to criticize the language of his sovereign, but I, who knew the Emperor so well, must know that his Majesty’s impetuosity sometimes led to exaggeration of expression.... His Majesty was in fact more than half an Englishman and was extraordinarily sensitive to anything which he could regard as a slight either from the Royal Family or from Her Majesty’s Government.”
The Kaiser decided that both his troubles over Samoa and his exclusion from Windsor emanated from the same source: his old enemy, Lord Salisbury. On May 27, three days after the Queen’s birthday, the German Emperor wrote:
Dearest Grandmama:6
...I think it my duty to point out that public feeling [in Germany] has been very much agitated and stirred to the depths by the most unhappy way in which Lord Salisbury has treated Germany in the Samoan business... a way which was utterly at variance with the manners which regulate the relations between Great Powers according to European rules of civility.... This way of treating Germany’s interests and feelings has come upon the people like an electric shock, and has evoked the impression that Lord Salisbury cares no more for us than for Portugal, Chile, or the Patagonians.... If this sort of high-handed treatment of German affairs by Lord Salisbury’s Government is suffered to continue, I am afraid that there will be a permanent source of misunderstandings and recriminations between the two nations, which may in the end lead to bad blood.
I, of course, have been silent as to what I have personally gone through these last six months, the shame and pain I have suffered, and how my heart has bled when to my despair I had to watch how the arduous work of years was destroyed, to make the two nations understand and respect their aspirations and wishes, by one blow by the high-handed and disdainful treatment of [your] Ministers.... Now you will understand, dear Grandmama, why I so ardently hoped to be able to go over for your birthday. That visit would have been perfectly understood over here, as the duty of the grandson to his grandmother, putting ‘Emperor,’ etc., apart.... But a pleasure trip to Cowes, after all that has happened and with respect to the temperature of our public opinion here, is utterly impossible now.... I can assure you there is no man more deeply grieved and unhappy than me! and all that on account of a stupid island which is a hairpin to England compared to the thousands of square miles she is annexing right and left unopposed every year.... Good-bye most beloved Grandmama.
With much love and respect, believe me,
ever your most dutiful and devoted Grandson,
WILLIAM I.R.
Before replying, the Queen sent the Kaiser’s letter to Lord Salisbury for comment. The Prime Minister carefully refuted the Kaiser’s accusations of negligence and disrespect in dealing with Germany. He sent the memorandum to the Queen, noting dryly, “He [Lord Salisbury] entirely agrees7 with your Majesty in thinking that it is quite new for a Sovereign to attack in a private letter the Minister of another Sovereign; especially one to whom he is so closely related. It is not a desireable innovation and might produce some confusion.”
The Queen’s own reply was the angriest letter Queen Victoria ever wrote to her grandson. Her rebuff came from the heights, not of her throne, but of her position in the family. The German Emperor might have been a small boy in short pants standing before an outraged grandparent:
Dear William:8
Your... letter, I must say, has greatly astonished me. The tone in which you write about Lord Salisbury I can only attribute to a temporary irritation on your part, as I do not think you would otherwise have written in such a manner, and I doubt whether any Sovereign ever wrote in such terms to another Sovereign, and that Sovereign his own Grandmother, about their Prime Minister. I never should do such a thing, and I never personally attacked or complained of Prince Bismarck, though I knew well what a bitter enemy he was to England and all the harm he did.... [As to] your visit to Osborne, not to Cowes,... I can only repeat that, if you are able to come, I shall be happy to receive you at the end of July or August. I can have you and two of your sons as well as two gentlemen in the house at Osborne, and you would leave the rest of your suite on board your yacht.
Believe me, always your very affectionate grandmother,
V.R.I.
The Queen left it at that, but not Lord Salisbury. The Prime Minister repaid his assailant with every delay available in his diplomatic drawer. For weeks, he kept the Wilhelmstrasse and the Kaiser on tenterhooks about both Samoa and the Emperor’s desired visit to England. To Eckardstein, pressing for an answer, he declared that he “wouldn’t be dictated to9 by Berlin with a stop-watch.” Holstein, infuriated by the delay, instructed Hatzfeldt to let it be known that, unless a Samoan settlement favorable to Germany was arrived at quickly, the German Ambassador would ask for his passport. Lord Salisbury reacted with sardonic lack of interest. “I am waiting daily10 for Berlin’s ultimatum about Samoa,” he told the Duke of Devonshire. “Unfortunately it has not as yet arrived. For Germany, if it doesn’t send the ultimatum, will miss a splendid opportunity of getting rid respectably, not only of Samoa, but of all the colonies that have cost so much. We English would then be in a position to come to a permanent understanding with France by means of satisfactory colonial concessions.”
The more Salisbury toyed with them, the angrier the Germans became. Chamberlain, still hoping eventually to improve the relationship between the two countries, had proposed that the dispute be settled by Germany abandoning her claims in Samoa in return for compensation in West Africa, adjacent to the German colony of Togoland. Commercially, this offer was favorable to Germany. But German eyes were fixed on Samoa; to the Kaiser it had become a matter of personal honor; Tirpitz, thinking of overseas naval stations for the future German fleet, insisted on Samoa in a letter which Eckardstein described as “a document of frothy flummery11, sauced with bloody tears to suit the Kaiser’s taste.” German national pride had become involved. Eckardstein noted ironically that most Germans knew not “whether Samoa was the name12 of a fish, fowl, or foreign queen” but now that the issue had been raised, they insisted “that this thing was German and for all time German it must remain.” Bülow brought up his master’s favorite project: “What has happened in Samoa13 is a new proof that overseas policy cannot be conducted without an adequate fleet,” he told the Kaiser. “What I have preached14 all through ten years to those blockheads... [in] the Reichstag,” the Kaiser applauded in the margin. William said that he might never set foot in England again.
These German threats, disdained by Lord Salisbury during the summer, were not so pleasant for Joseph Chamberlain when autumn arrived. Over these weeks, the situation in South Africa had deteriorated. War with the Boers seemed imminent. Britain, in the Colonial Secretary’s words, “stood alone.”15 A margin of safety might be secured if German neutrality in South Africa could be established and publicly proclaimed. Nothing would give a clearer signal of this neutrality than a visit to England by the Emperor William, and Chamberlain did everything in his power to ensure that the visit would take place.
The Colonial Secretary prevailed, in part because Lord Salisbury and Count von Hatzfeldt, both skeptical as to the value of Imperial visiting, were ill. In July 1899, Lady Salisbury had suffered a stroke. Lord Salisbury, attending at her bedside, was tired of the Kaiser, tired even of Hatzfeldt. The German Ambassador, whose emphysema was worsening, could no longer stand up to the daily bombardment of demands and complaints from Berlin which had to be communicated to the Foreign Office. When the Samoan crisis was at its peak, weeks passed during which the Prime Minister and the German Ambassador never met. Negotiations were conducted between Eckardstein and Chamberlain. In Berlin, the split in the British government caused the Kaiser further vexation. “Your government in England16 appears to have two heads, Lord Salisbury and Mr. Chamberlain, and the one will not do what the other wants,” he told Lascelles. “With Mr. Chamberlain the negotiations proceed smoothly... but what he agrees to Lord Salisbury refuses to sanction and so the affair is dragged out for months and months. I am not the King of Portugal and this treatment of the subject is evidence of very bad diplomatic manners.... I desire to remain friendly with England, but I have my duties as German Emperor to think of, and I cannot go on sitting on the safety valve forever.”
On November 8 Great Britain and Germany came to terms on Samoa. The Kaiser acquired Western Samoa and a naval base at Apia. The United States kept the islands it possessed with its naval station at Pago Pago. Britain withdrew completely from Samoa and in return received Tonga and the German Solomon Islands (including Guadalcanal). German claims against British territories in West Africa were dropped. Everyone seemed pleased. Eckardstein wrote Chamberlain that the Samoan agreement “abolishes every colonial antagonism17 between the two countries.” William cabled his grandmother that he was content with the settlement and she cabled back, “I AM EQUALLY PLEASED.”18 To Bülow, the Kaiser telegraphed “BRAVO! YOU ARE A REAL MAGICIAN GRANTED TO ME QUITE UNDESERVEDLY BY HEAVEN IN ITS GOODNESS!”19
The way was open for William to visit England.
It would be the Kaiser’s first visit to his grandmother’s country since August 1895, when Lord Salisbury had failed to appear for an audience aboard the Hohenzollern. For four years, although Meteor had continued to race at Cowes, the royal owner had not been present, nor had he been received by his grandmother at Osborne or Windsor. This upset William and, in the spring of 1899, he instructed Count Hatzfeldt to sound the British government about an invitation to the queen’s eightieth birthday at the end of May. Socially, the greatest obstacle was the Prince of Wales. Hatzfeldt asked Eckardstein to assay the current state of the Prince’s feelings towards the “Boss of Cowes.” Eckardstein met the Prince at the Marlborough Club and steered the conversation towards yachting. “Yes, the last few years20 have been quite tolerable at Cowes,” said the Prince. “No more of that perpetual firing of salutes, cheering, and other tiresome disturbances.” When Eckardstein made his appeal, the Prince relented. “Let him come,21 so far as I am concerned. But don’t let him make any bombastic speeches because the public over here won’t have it.” The visit was arranged for August. On July twentieth, the Empress Augusta broke her leg jumping her horse over a water obstacle. “I AM DÉSOLÉ,”22 telegraphed the Kaiser, asking if they might come later in the year. He was reinvited for mid-November.
With the invitation in hand, William seemed to forget that it was he who wanted to visit. At Cowes in August, Meteor again won the Queen’s Cup in the Kaiser’s absence, and the Prince of Wales rose at the Royal Yacht Squadron banquet to congratulate his nephew. The following morning, a quarrelsome telegram from William was posted on the Squadron bulletin board. Addressed to the Race Committee, it complained about the conduct of the race: “YOUR HANDICAPS ARE PERFECTLY APPALLING.”23 The Prince, staying aboard his yacht, sent for Eckardstein, who had a villa at Cowes. “It really is enough24 to make one despair,” said the Prince. “Here I am taking the greatest trouble to put the Kaiser straight with the British public after all that has happened of late years. And here he is beginning to throw mud again at us. You know very well what the effect is on the British of such complaints... how sensitive we are about our national reputation for fair play in sport. Besides... the best proof that our handicaps are fair is that his Meteor won the Queen’s Cup yesterday.” He shook his head and said sympathetically to the German diplomat, “I don’t envy25 that Sisyphus job you have with the Kaiser.”
Before the visit, a second disturbance agitated the Prince and his nephew. Running his eye down the list of German aides-de-camp accompanying the Emperor to England, the Prince found the name of Admiral von Senden, Chief of the Kaiser’s Naval Cabinet. Senden had made occasional trips to England and once, in the company of the Prince of Wales and the Duke of York, he had heard indiscreet remarks about the Kaiser. Senden returned to Germany and reported what he had heard. William wrote immediately to his uncle to complain. The Prince replied diplomatically that nothing of the kind had been said. But Senden the tale-teller became non grata.
Seeing Senden’s name, the Prince informed the Foreign Office that “the Kaiser could not26 possibly be accompanied on his visit by this person; he, the Prince of Wales, would absolutely refuse to receive such a potin.” Eckardstein hurried to Berlin, where the Kaiser answered, “If I go27 to England at all this autumn, I shall take who I like with me.” Eckardstein returned to England and pleaded with the Prince, who said, “I should be awfully glad28 to give way in this matter,” but asked Eckardstein to make a final effort: “Do try to get the Kaiser to leave him at home.” Eckardstein enlisted an ally, the German-born Duchess of Devonshire, who tackled the Prince of Wales at Newmarket. She arranged that the Prince withdraw his veto on condition that Senden apologize and agree not to accompany his master to Windsor or Sandringham. Eventually, Eckardstein was successful, although, he wrote, “It was not until29 shortly before the visit that I was able to forward to... Berlin the treaty concluded between the Prince and myself under which Admiral Senden was to be allowed to visit Windsor.”
The forthcoming Imperial visit was unpopular in Germany. In the press and the Reichstag, there was talk of the scandal of visiting England at the moment when British “Mammonism” was “trying to strangle the brave little Boers.” The Kaiserin, her leg now healed, urged Bülow to do something to prevent the trip: “I hoped...30 that the England visit was falling through. We really cannot go there.... I am afraid it will do the Kaiser any amount of harm in the country if we really go. Britain is only out to make use of us.” Tirpitz, shepherding his Second Navy Bill through the Reichstag, worried about a display of Anglo-German amity just at the moment he needed to characterize the English as enemies to gather votes. Holstein, who ascribed the Kaiser’s wish to make the visit to his unstable craving for the affection of his England relatives, worried what William might say once he was there. On the eve of the Kaiser’s departure, Holstein presented him with an aide-mémoire which, cushioned by flattery, recommended that his royal master say nothing:
“Beyond any question31 your Majesty is more gifted than any of your relations, male or female. Your relations, however, do not extend to you a respect commensurate with the brilliance of your qualities—quite apart from the powerful position held by the German Kaiser. The reason is that your Majesty has always met your relatives openly and honorably, has initiated them into your plans and hopes, and has thus provided them with the opportunity of putting obstacles in your way. This English journey offers your Majesty the opportunity of righting this topsy-turvy situation and winning for your Majesty at a stroke the authority which is properly due to your Majesty’s high qualities and great power. All that your Majesty need do to secure this is to avoid all political conversations.
“This applies above all to any talk with Lord Salisbury.... The impression made on him will be all the greater if your Majesty... at any meeting with him at Windsor or Osborne, merely disposes of him fairly quickly and with immaculate politeness, but with everyday small talk and no more, asking how his wife is and so on.... The same reserve, combined with the utmost graciousness, is desireable with Mr. Chamberlain.... Mr. Chamberlain will try to rush matters.... If your Majesty, finding Mr. Chamberlain irrepressible, will just listen politely to him and then give him the reply that his suggestion merits careful consideration and that your Majesty will give your full attention to it, I have no doubt that the offers which Mr. Chamberlain will be ready to make by way of payment for German’s diplomatic cooperation and even for her firm neutrality, will grow in proportion as your Majesty exhibits quiet indifference.”
At noon on November 20,1899, the Hohenzollern edged alongside the Royal Quay at Portsmouth, where a special train waited to take the Kaiser to Windsor. On the platform at Windsor Station, the Prince of Wales, in a scarlet uniform, welcomed his nephew in the name of the Queen. The following night, Queen Victoria gave a formal banquet for 143 guests in St. George’s Hall. “The entire service32 was gold,” said Chamberlain, who was present. “All the candelabra and decorations [were] of gold, and three huge screens of velvet were covered with platters and every imaginable kind of piece in gold.” The Colonial Secretary estimated the value of this treasure at £2 million and described it as one of the magnificent scenes of his life.
With her guests assembled in the hall, the Queen appeared, borne in a litter by four turbaned Hindus. William walked beside the litter, showing affection and deference to his grandmother. When the Queen was seated, William took his place across from her. Bülow, sitting nearby, found himself curiously touched by the “ruler of the world empire,”33 who reminded him of “some good old soul of Hanover or Hamburg, as she carefully prodded the potatoes to find the softest, or cut the wing of her chicken.” After dinner, the Queen gave each guest her hand to kiss and then retired. The party broke up for conversation. William, ignoring Holstein’s advice, immediately walked up to Chamberlain. The two men talked for an hour. The Colonial Secretary reiterated his hope for an understanding between Britain and Germany. The Kaiser parried that Germany did not wish to disturb her excellent relations with Russia and reminded Chamberlain that Lord Salisbury’s Great Britain had no tradition of formal peacetime alliances. Nevertheless, the Kaiser bubbled with good feelings: the recent agreement over Samoa had been helpful, and further British concessions would win over even greater segments of German public opinion. The average German, the Kaiser explained, was touchy, dogmatic, and sentimental. The best way to deal with him was to avoid trying his patience and show him much goodwill. At the end of their talk, before going off to bed, the Kaiser clapped Chamberlain jovially on the back.
The Kaiser’s reception at Windsor was warm and, in his impulsive way, he responded. Enormously proud of his English family, he showed members of the German party around Windsor Castle, insisting that they admire the power of its massive battlements, the luxury of its appointments, the beauty of the paintings hung in its galleries, the charm of the gardens, the sweeping expanse of the Great Park. “From this Tower,”34 he proclaimed to his retinue, pointing at the Great Tower, “the world is ruled.” To Bülow, he confessed: “This is the finest reception and the most inspiring impression of my life. Here, where as a child I went along holding my mother’s hand and marvelling modestly and timidly at the splendor, I am now staying as Emperor-King.”
One afternoon, William visited the Queen. Alone together, the two—King-Emperor and Queen-Empress, grandson and grandmother—had their last conversation; fourteen months later Queen Victoria was dead. Afterwards, the Queen described their talk:
“William came to me after tea....35 We spoke... of the shocking tone of the German press and the shameful misrepresentations and lies about the war, which he greatly deplores. But he says it is due to the ‘poison’ which Bismarck ‘poured into the ears of the people’ that the latter had hated England and wished for an alliance with Russia. If he had not sent him away, he does not know what would have happened, and he became even worse latterly in his abuse, which his son [Herbert] continued. William himself wishes for a better understanding with us.”
There were notable absentees: throughout the Kaiser’s visit, Lord Salisbury remained at Hatfield. Lady Salisbury had died a few hours after the Kaiser’s arrival at Windsor. Count von Hatzfeldt was kept in Brighton by doctor’s orders. For diplomatic counsel during his visit, William relied on Bülow. In mid-September, Salisbury had told the Queen that Hatzfeldt had asked three times whether the German State Secretary might be invited. “Lord Salisbury has heard36 nothing but good of Monsieur de Bülow,” the Prime Minister told the sovereign, “and the German ambassador has pressed so earnestly that he should be invited that it is probably of some importance.” Bülow came and his satisfaction at having been invited increased when, after tea on the fourth day of the visit, he was received by the Queen in her small private drawing room. Speaking in German, she asked him to sit beside her and told him that she had always strongly desired friendship between England and Germany. She asked Bülow to do something to tone down the attacks on England in the German press. The average Englishman was slow and indolent, she explained, “but if he was blamed too much37 and, as he believed, too unjustly... he might finish by losing patience.” Bülow blamed it on “the immense harm38 that Bismarck had done by using all his influence to promote a bad feeling towards England.”
The key political interview of the visit occurred when Chamberlain called on Bülow in his Windsor Castle bedroom. Bülow had learned that he would not be seeing Lord Salisbury and had received a letter from the Prime Minister asking him to talk to Chamberlain instead, emphasizing that the views expressed by the Colonial Secretary would be his own and not binding on the Prime Minister or the Cabinet. When Chamberlain walked into his room, Bülow was struck by his appearance: “Joseph Chamberlain was39 then sixty-three years old, but I should have taken him for no more than fifty.” The Colonial Secretary impressed him as “an able, energetic, shrewd businessman, capable... of ruthlessness.”40 Chamberlain went straight to the point: England, Germany, and America should collaborate; by so doing, they could check Russian expansionism, calm “turbulent” France, and guarantee world peace. Bülow repeated what Chamberlain had already heard from the Kaiser: by formally aligning herself with England, Germany would antagonize Russia, with whom she shared a long frontier. What good could the British Navy do if the Tsar marched on Königsberg and Berlin? In any case, if eventually there were to be an alliance, it would have to carry specific, detailed guarantees, endorsed by Parliament. Chamberlain, like the Queen, asked that the anti-British expressions of the German press be restrained. Bülow retorted that the Kaiser and government did not control German public opinion. Chamberlain deftly reminded Bülow that, when the Prince of Wales had thanked his nephew for coming to England in spite of anti-British sentiment in Germany, William had loftily proclaimed, “I am the sole master41 of German policy and my country must follow wherever I go.”
In the aftermath, Chamberlain believed that he had achieved an important success; that he had been given a green light to campaign publicly for an Anglo-German alliance and that Bülow would support him in the Reichstag. Bülow afterwards maintained that although expressing a general appreciation of Chamberlain’s idea, he had pointed out the difficulties a German government would have in following a pro-British policy, let alone making a formal alliance. He flatly denied giving Chamberlain assurances that he would promote an alliance in the Reichstag.
The German party departed Windsor for Sandringham, where the Prince of Wales waited to receive his nephew. Bülow, charmed by what he saw, praised England, as “the land par excellence of beautiful manors.” Sandringham, “with its magnificent park...42 its fine oaks and beeches, its incomparably beautiful lawns, the rhododendron shrubs, the neat graveled paths and... hedges... fine stables... magnificent greenhouses... and kennels,” was the examplar. Bülow was astonished at the complete freedom of movement enjoyed by guests, so different from the regimentation imposed on the Kaiser’s guests. “One had only to appear43 at breakfast in the morning and there eat bacon, eggs, porridge and jam,” and on Sunday to “attend Divine Service.” Bülow’s exuberance deserted him, however, as he observed the Prince of Wales in conversation with his own sovereign. The Prince, he said, reminded him of “a fat, malicious tom-cat,44 playing with a shrewmouse.”fn1
While still in England, Bülow wrote his impressions of England and the English and sent them to Hohenlohe and Holstein: “British politicians45 know little of the Continent. Many of them do not know much more of Continental conditions than we do of the conditions in Peru or Siam.... The country exudes wealth, comfort, content, and confidence in its own power and future.... The people... simply cannot believe that things could ever go really wrong, either at home or aboard. With the exception of a few leading men, they work little and leave themselves time for everything.” William, leaving England, was pleased by his reception. “The visit...46 has gone off excellently,” he telegraphed to Berlin. “The consequences for the future will, in all human probability, be very satisfactory and favorable.”
On November 30, the day after the Kaiser and Bülow had sailed, Joseph Chamberlain, suffering a heavy cold, rose at a Unionist luncheon in Leicester to present his British version of the Anglo-German campaign for better understanding. “Any far-seeing English statesman47 must have long ago desired that we not remain permanently isolated on the continent of Europe,” he declared. Further, “It must appear evident to everybody that the natural alliance is between ourselves and the great German Empire.” Enlarging his vision, the Colonial Secretary spoke of “a new Triple Alliance between the Teutonic race and the two great trans-Atlantic branches of the Anglo-Saxon race which would become a potent influence on the future of the world.” Chamberlain’s speech evoked congratulations from Eckardstein. The Kaiser, basking in the glow of Windsor and Sandringham, wired his compliments. Holstein attacked the speech as “an incomprehensible blunder.”48 Bülow, surprised that Chamberlain had made his proposal public so quickly, described the speech as “a gaucherie, I believe unintentional, but still a gaucherie.”49 The Times icily rebuked the Colonial Secretary for using the word “alliance” and wondered why Mr. Chamberlain was trespassing into matters properly managed by Lord Salisbury. The Prime Minister said nothing.
Chamberlain waited confidently for the German State Secretary, in his speech to the Reichstag on December 11, to fulfill the bargain he believed had been struck at Windsor. Chamberlain’s expectations were clear. The day after his Leicester speech, he wrote cheerfully to Eckardstein, “Count Bülow, whose acquaintance50 I was delighted to make... expressed a wish that I might be able at some time to say something as to the mutual interests which bind the United States to a triple understanding with Germany as well as to Great Britain. Hence my speech yesterday which I hope will not be unsatisfactory to him.”
When Bülow rose in the Reichstag, it was to speak in support of Tirpitz’ Second Navy Bill. The future of the Reich, he declared, depended on linking strong naval power to overwhelming military force. “Without power,51 without a strong army and a strong navy, there can be no welfare for us.” He went on to coin a ringing phrase: “In the coming century, the German nation will be either the hammer or the anvil.” There was nothing in Bülow’s speech about an alliance or even an understanding with Great Britain. Indeed, although the State Secretary spoke warmly of Russia, of the United States, and even of France, his references to England were cool. England was presented as a declining nation, jealous of the rising power of Imperial Germany, even vaguely hostile; a state which would oppose Germany’s rightful destiny unless the Reichstag voted money for a fleet which would instill a proper respect.
Chamberlain read Bülow’s speech with astonishment. “I will say no more52 about the way I have been treated by Bülow,” he wrote to Eckardstein. “I consider it advisable to drop every kind of further negotiation as to the alliance question. I am really sorry that all your hard work should seem to have been in vain; but I am also sorry for myself. Everything was going so well and even Lord Salisbury had become quite favorable... to the future development of Anglo-German relations. But, alas, it was not to be.”
Bülow did not completely dismiss his conversation with Chamberlain at Windsor. Through Hatzfeldt, he attempted to repair the damage he had done by having the ambassador stress to Chamberlain “the extreme difficulty53 of Count Bülow’s position in the Reichstag.... The weapon of the Opposition is the repeated insinuation that the Government is carrying on secret political deals with England and sacrificing the true interests of Germany. The attack in the Reichstag has been so violent that Count Bülow has had to take it into account and compose his speech with reference to it.... We no longer live in the days when Prince Bismarck was all-powerful in foreign policy and had nothing to fear even when he took no account of public opinion. The present Chancellor [Hohenlohe] cannot do this and still less can Count Bülow.”
It remained for Hatzfeldt to decipher and clarify for the Wilhelmstrasse the post-Windsor thinking of the British government and especially the murky relationship between the powerful Colonial Secretary and the ailing Prime Minister. “Chamberlain and Arthur Balfour54 are looked upon as the real supporters of a policy friendly to Germany,” the Ambassador wrote, “while Lord Salisbury is credited, if not with a negative, at any rate with a passive part.” Rejecting German speculation that Chamberlain’s alliance proposal might have been an anti-Salisbury political maneuver designed to embarrass or even overthrow the Prime Minister, Hatzfeldt cautioned that Lord Salisbury “must not yet by any means be regarded as a spent political force.” Perhaps, Hatzfeldt suggested, “when Mr. Chamberlain made his speech... he already had in his pocket Lord Salisbury’s consent in principle, or else proceeded in the conviction that—as in the Samoan question—with the help of the majority of his colleagues, he would succeed in inducing the Prime Minister to accede to his wishes.” Whatever Chamberlain’s motivation, and despite his irritation at Bülow’s behavior, the Ambassador concluded, the Colonial Secretary’s interest in a German alliance was not dead. The correct German policy, therefore, was the one chosen by Holstein and Bülow: to encourage Britain to believe that a German alliance might come one day, but only if England continues “to show a spirit55 of accommodation towards us in... colonial questions.”
fn1 William’s visit to Sandringham was a vexation to the Princess of Wales. She poked fun at the three valets and hairdresser brought along to maintain the Emperor and shook with laughter when told that there was an additional person, a hairdresser’s assistant, whose sole function was to curl the Imperial mustache.