Great Britain and Germany pursued alliance discussions through the spring of 1901. Salisbury played no part and was ignored, even scorned, by the Wilhelmstrasse. “Everything from London1 of late makes an impression of the most hopeless sloppiness as though Lord Salisbury’s spirit breathed through it all,” Holstein wrote to Eckardstein on March 9. Chamberlain had largely withdrawn. When Eckardstein called on him on March 18, the Colonial Secretary reaffirmed his view of the value of an Anglo-German alliance, expressed at Leicester sixteen months before, but had “no desire to burn2 his fingers again.” It was, therefore, to Lansdowne that Eckardstein and—when he was well enough—Hatzfeldt brought a succession of messages from Berlin.
First came a proposal initiated by Bülow for an Anglo-German defensive alliance, good for five years, to be ratified by both the House of Commons and the Reichstag. Each power was to remain benevolently neutral if the other was attacked by one foreign state; if it was attacked by two, the ally would intervene. Thus, Britain could fight either France or Russia alone without drawing Germany in, while Germany also could fight either partner in the Dual Alliance without demanding British assistance. “The alliance is moving3 again,” Eckardstein wrote to Holstein on May 23. “Lansdowne, Devonshire and Chamberlain are fully determined.... Salisbury, who no longer has the same animus against us, still raises small objections now and then, as is his way; but is, as I learn from Devonshire and Lansdowne, quite satisfied that the policy of ‘Splendid Isolation’ is over and that something must be done. Anyway, these ministers hold so fast to their point of view that Salisbury cannot help himself. Lansdowne seems to manage him quite cleverly.”
There was some disarray on the German side. Bülow decided that he wished to take the conduct of the negotiations “out of the hands of Eckardstein4 who was dominated by the English point of view and who was dependent upon English money.” Accordingly, Holstein announced to Eckardstein that he was dispatching a more senior diplomat from Berlin to conduct the negotiations. Eckardstein promptly resigned. Although Holstein suspended the resignation, the British developed a sense of Eckardstein’s eroding position: Lansdowne began to refer to him as “that person.”5 The Kaiser intruded with an unfortunate turn of phrase. In a conversation with Sir Frank Lascelles, he referred to the ministers of the British government as “unmitigated noodles.”6 He then repeated the phrase in a private letter to King Edward. The King summoned Eckardstein to his private study, read the Kaiser’s letter aloud, and added, “There, what do you7 think of that?” Eckardstein thought for a moment and replied, “Wouldn’t it be best if your Majesty treated that whole thing as a joke?” The King laughed and said, “Yes, you are quite right. I must treat the thing as a joke. But unluckily I have already had to put up with many of these jokes of the Kaiser.”
When Hatzfeldt had sufficiently recovered his health, he resumed responsibility for the alliance negotiations. To Lansdowne’s surprise, the ambassador brought another new German proposal to the table. The offer of a simple defensive alliance between the two countries vanished and in its place appeared a German invitation for Britain to join the Triple Alliance of Germany, Austria, and Italy. Berlin’s logic, Hatzfeldt explained, was that if the British Empire, including India, Canada, and South Africa, was to be treated as a whole, then the Triple Alliance should be treated as a whole. If, for example, Germany was to be required to march against Russia because of a Russian attack on India, then Britain must fight Russia if the Russian army attacked Austria.
When news of this offer reached Lord Salisbury, the Prime Minister—thought by Holstein to guilty of “hopeless sloppiness,”8 described by Eckardstein as “cleverly managed”9 by Lansdowne—wrote a memorandum so persuasively negative that it had the effect of vetoing any treaty on the spot. Salisbury restated that he was strongly averse to entangling his country in alliances with European countries. He pointed out that Great Britain was required to join the Triple Alliance as, in effect, a junior partner, subordinate to Germany; and guarantee the interests and frontiers of all three of the current members of the Alliance—Germany, Austria, and Italy—against threats from Russia and France. Salisbury was particularly opposed to any commitment of support to the shaky Hapsburg monarchy, “since the liability10 of having to defend the German and Austrian frontiers against Russia was heavier than that of having to defend the British Isles against France.”
Further, he noted that an alliance with Germany would be certain to incur the bitter hostility of France, even if Britain could somehow avoid a German demand that Britain guarantee Germany’s right to permanent possession of Alsace-Lorraine. Any peaceful resolution of the colonial disputes between Britain and France, especially the feud over Egypt, would be made impossible. Finally, the Cabinet would be unlikely to recommend such a treaty to the House; the Commons would be unlikely to approve the treaty if it did. No incumbent British government could commit a future government to declare war over an issue which was not supported by British public opinion at the moment of crisis. In such an instance, the treaty would be repudiated and the government would fall.
Salisbury’s memorandum made any alliance agreement unlikely. In June, Alfred Rothschild, a friend of Chamberlain and Devonshire, wrote to Eckardstein: “Nobody here in England11 has any more use for the fine empty phrases of Bülow. Joe, who dined with me, is quite disheartened. He will have nothing more to do with the people in Berlin. If they are so short-sighted, says he, as not to be able to see that the whole new world system depends upon it, then there is nothing to be done for them.” It was months, even years, before Bülow and Holstein understood that the alliance negotiations were over conclusively. “We ought not12 to show any uneasiness or anxious haste,” Bülow commented to Holstein in October 1901. “We must just let hope shimmer on the horizon.”
Originally, Joseph Chamberlain had sought an alliance with Imperial Germany because British markets in China were threatened by Russian expansionism in Asia. British sea power alone could not counter this threat; Chamberlain believed that only Germany, which could put military pressure on the Tsar’s frontier in Europe, could moderate Russian penetration of China. Chamberlain’s eagerness for an alliance became more urgent when the Boer War revealed the strength of hostility to Britain and the resulting weakness of Britain’s diplomatic position in the world. From these specific needs, the Colonial Secretary molded an Anglo-German alliance, dominating the world, guaranteeing peace and prosperity, perhaps reaching out one day to include the United States.
With all its grandeur, Joseph Chamberlain’s vision of the future was ill informed by history. Had Great Britain and Germany each overcome their hesitations and entered into alliance, then Russia and France inevitably would have been forced to come to terms with the Triple (now Quadruple) Alliance. Germany, the senior, dominant power, would have ruled over Europe. Britain, on all future issues, would have been forced to defer to Berlin. England would have had no choice: the Royal Navy would have been helpless against the aggregation of military and naval power arrayed against it.
In reaching out to Germany, Chamberlain ignored a centuries-old precept of English history: to survive and prosper, England must always ally herself with the weaker power or powers in Europe. Otherwise, allied to the strongest power, England finds herself in a subordinate role, her interests and independence subject to the dictates of the strongest power. Only by rallying the weaker states into a coalition to oppose the strongest power can England prevent Continental hegemony and preserve her own security. This was the lesson taught when England created alliances against Philip II of Spain, Louis XIV of France, and Napoleon Bonaparte. It was a lesson Joseph Chamberlain failed to apply.
Chamberlain’s relationship with Bülow ended in personal bad blood. Their final quarrel had nothing to do with the alliance proposal, now moribund. In Edinburgh, on October 25, 1901, Chamberlain, the Cabinet minister chiefly responsible for prosecuting the war in South Africa, defended the tactics of the British Army fighting the Boer commandos on the veldt. These tactics—rounding up Boer women and children and placing them in concentration camps, burning Boer farms which sheltered the commandos—had set off a storm in England. Chamberlain acknowledged that the foreign press as well as English newspapers had criticized these tactics; he said that the methods might become even more harsh; in justification, he cited the practices of the armies of other countries in fighting irregular resistance. Condemnation of England was unacceptable, he said, from “nations who now criticize13 our ‘barbarity’ and ‘cruelty’ but whose example in Poland, in the Caucasus, in Algeria, in the Tonkin, in Bosnia, and in the Franco-Prussian War, we have never even approached.” Implicit in this list were accusations against Russia, France, Austria, and Germany, but it was from Germany alone that a roar of indignation was heard. German newspapers vilified Chamberlain, “the bloodhound of the Transvaal,”14 for presuming to compare the Prussian heroes of the Franco-Prussian War with Kitchener’s “butchers”15 in South Africa.
Bülow demanded an apology from Chamberlain. Paul Wolff-Metternich, about to replace Hatzfeldt as German ambassador in London, was instructed to make a formal protest at the Foreign Office. Metternich did his best to dissuade Bülow, observing that Chamberlain remained Germany’s best friend in the British Cabinet. Bülow insisted. Metternich called on Lord Lansdowne. The Foreign Secretary saw no prospect of an apology “for a speech16 which in our opinion did not call for one.” Metternich, pressured from Berlin, called again to ask for a lesser expression of regret which Bülow could wave before the Reichstag. Again Lansdowne refused. Chamberlain told the Austrian Ambassador that “there had been no warmer advocate17 than himself of England’s adherence to the Triple Alliance.” Now, he said, he had been “subjected to three weeks of measureless attack and abuse.... Since no insult had been meant, no apology would be given.”
Bülow refused to leave the matter alone. On January 8, 1902, he rose in the Reichstag: “The German Army18 stands far too high and its shield is far too bright to be touched by unjust attacks. This business recalls Frederick the Great’s remark when told that someone had been attacking him and the Prussian Army. ‘Let the man alone and don’t be excited,’ said the great King. ‘He is biting granite.’” The Reichstag thundered applause, and Chamberlain was alienated forever. Three days later, speaking in Birmingham, he hurled defiantly: “What I have said,19 I have said. I withdraw nothing. I qualify nothing. I defend nothing. I do not want to give lessons to a foreign minister and I will not accept any at his hands. I am responsible only to my sovereign and my countrymen.”
Chamberlain was cheered in the streets of London as well as of Birmingham. “Mr. Chamberlain,”20 said The Times, “is at this moment the most popular and trusted man in England.” “You would be interested21 to see the effect created in England by the German treatment of us,” a Foreign Office official wrote to a friend a few weeks later. “The change is extraordinary. Everyone in the [Foreign] Office talks as if we had but one enemy in the world, and that is Germany. It is no good trying to assure us unofficially or officially that they are really our friends. No one believes it now.”
Already, on December 19, 1901, before Bülow’s speech, the British government had moved formally to terminate alliance negotiations. Lansdowne told Metternich that “the temper of the two countries22 was not in a particularly favorable state” and that “while we certainly did not regard the proposal with an unfriendly or critical eye, we did not think that for the moment we could take it up.”
Chamberlain’s dream of an Anglo-German alliance had ended, but his feeling that Britain could no longer afford to stand alone had not changed. On January 30, 1902, Metternich reported to Berlin, “I hear in the strictest confidence23 that negotiations have been going on for the last ten days between Chamberlain and the French ambassador for the settlement of all colonial differences between the two powers....” More evidence followed quickly. On February 8, King Edward invited ministers of the Crown and all foreign ambassadors to Marlborough House, where he continued to live while Buckingham Palace was being refurbished. Eckardstein represented Germany. After dinner, while the company was having coffee and cigars, Eckardstein saw Chamberlain and Paul Cambon, the French Ambassador, go off together into the billiard room. Eckardstein lurked near the doorway. He strained to listen, but managed to pick up only two words: “Morocco” and “Egypt.” As soon as Cambon departed, Eckardstein approached Chamberlain. The Colonial Secretary complained about the Chancellor’s speech to the Reichstag and the German press. “It is not the first time24 that Count Bülow has thrown me over in the Reichstag. Now I have enough of such treatment and there can be no more question of an association between Great Britain and Germany.” As Eckardstein was leaving Marlborough House, an equerry came up and said that King Edward would like to talk to him after the others had left. Eckardstein went to the King’s private study. Fifteen minutes later, the King, having changed into less formal clothing, came in, shook hands, and offered Eckardstein an 1888 cigar and a whiskey and soda. He spoke frankly about British resentment of the abuse of Chamberlain and England in the German press. “For a long time at least,”25 he said, “there can be no more any question of Great Britain and Germany working together in any conceivable matter. We are being urged more strongly than ever by France to come to an agreement with her in all colonial disputes and it will probably be best in the end to make such a settlement.”