'Colonies,' said Bismarck in 1873, 'would only be a
cause of weakness, because they could only be defended by
powerful fleets and Germany's geographical position did
not necessitate her development into a first-class maritime
Power.
cause of weakness, because they could only be defended by
powerful fleets and Germany's geographical position did
not necessitate her development into a first-class maritime
Power.
Robertson - Bismarck
'Ne parlez jamais de la
guerre,' Gambetta had said, 'mais pensez-y toujours. '
Gambetta's radical republicanism quenched the ardour of
Russian autocracy for a Franco-Russian entente.
After 1882 Ferry's policy in Egypt and the Far East
steadily estranged France from Great Britain. The Nile
and Tonkin, Madagascar and Siam, caused the French to
forget their hostility to Germany in their hostility to
Great Britain. And Bismarck took care to hold open the
fissure between Great Britain and France. Encourage-
ment to England in Egypt was balanced by encouragement
to France in the Far East and the Pacific. The Foreign
Office in Berlin and the German Embassy in Paris were
prolific in their hints of 'the great man's' sincerity in
wishing France well, while his magisterial experience
was readily placed at French disposal. The French
consulted the oracle freely. The Ferry Ministry in 1884
could say publicly that not for two decades had the re-
lations of France and Germany been so friendly. Such
friendship with good reasons disquieted the Cabinet at
London.
Bismarck certainly hoped that a few years of this con-
ciliation by diversion would wring from a French govern-
ment a stammering renunciation of revanche. A great
and magnanimous speech in the Reichstag from the
Chancellor could then have proclaimed that a generous
and brave nation had wisely closed the account and hence-
forward with Germany's unqualified goodwill and assist-
ance would march in a common work of civilisation--in
which Great Britain must be compelled to yield to the
legitimate rights of the new entente. But, instead of
the stammering renunciation came Ferry's fall (April 2,
1885): a colonial failure sharply awakened France to the
truth that colonies might be colonies, but Alsace and
Lorraine remained the monument of German victory and
French defeat. French ministries henceforward grew
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? 412
BISMARCK
like grass in the green spring and fell like leaves in chill
October; and in the place of the great and unspoken
speech that Bismarck desired to make, we have the
Bismarckian orations of 1887 and 1888, in which France
was held up to Germany as the hereditary, irreconcilable,
and malignant foe in whose vile heart justice and con-
ciliation only whetted the impotent lust of revenge.
Worse still, the colonial movement, Egypt and the diver-
sion of Russia to the Middle East brought on a severe
Anglo-Russian crisis and involved Germany in sharp and
dangerous friction with Great Britain. The year 1884
was a momentous one in French history. It was a far
more momentous one in the history of Great Britain, of
Germany and of Bismarck.
The relations of Great Britain and Germany after 1871
and Bismarck's policy are susceptible of various and contra-
dictory interpretations. Bismarck's dislike of Gladstone
and Gladstonianism is beyond question, for Gladstone's
principles of foreign policy and theory of international
relations, no less than his system of home politics,
represented everything that Bismarck regarded as danger-
ous, detestable or futile,1 and Gladstone's noted radical
distrust of Bismarckianism, which was very apparent
from 1880 to 1885, and was largely, if not mainly, re-
sponsible for the refusal of Great Britain to enter the
German net, was no less strong. Bismarck seems to have
held the view, adopted by many continental statesmen,
that Great Britain as essentially a naval, maritime, and
colonial Power was not, and ought not to be, concerned
with the Continent of Europe. If, therefore, Great
Britain actively intervened in 'purely continental affairs,'
she was taking upon herself matters not properly sui juris,
as well as introducing an unwelcome and incalculable
element into a situation, already sufficiently complicated.
Her very disinterestedness could be disconcerting:
because it made it difficult to conclude material bargains
by material bribes. British Liberalism, in particular,
1 'It is very apparent in the Sabouroff memoirs,' writes Professor Simpson,
who has seen these unpublished papers, 'how uneasy Bismarck was at the
prospects of a Liberal England. '--Nineteenth Century, December iji7,
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
introduced also into international relations ' cant' phrases
and formulae--humanity, the Concert of Europe, the
unity of European moral interests, arbitratior, moral
responsibility, Blue Books, amenability to public opinion,
and 'nations rightly struggling to be free '--and had
always done so from Canning onwards. Great Britain's
intervention in 1875 had been more than disconcerting--
it had led to a serious rebuff: and even more serious had
been the sharp action of the Beaconsfield ministry in the
crisis of 1877-8. A war between Great Britain and Russia
over Constantinople and the Balkans would create an in-
soluble dilemma for Austria, and therefore for Germany.
The steady insistence of'Mr. Gladstone's ministry in 1880
on fulfilling the pledges and terms of the Treaty of Berlin
was very annoying. A Concert of Europe, manipulated by
the Wilhelmstrasse, was one thing--a Concert of Europe
led by Great Britain was another, and did not make for
German hegemony and for peace as Bismarck under-
stood it.
But for all his gibes or snarling innuendoes Bismarck did
not underrate British strength. The British fleet, unlike
the British army, could not be dealt with by ' calling in the
police. ' And Great Britain in some mysterious way had
an uncanny gift for provoking the jealousy yet attracting
the support of European Powers. Bismarck, therefore,
after 1871, aimed mainly at encouraging British goodwill
to Austria and Italy, at keeping France and Great Britain
apart and Russia and Great Britain in strained tension, in
which German good offices could be effectively employed
to maintain the tension, yet prevent a complete rupture.
Down to 1884 Germany and Great Britain could maintain
in theory and phrase the friendliest of relations, for no
direct or serious cause of quarrel between the two Powers
existed. The two Powers might indirectly have divergent
interests in many European questions in which these
European States were largely concerned, but a direct
antagonism in which Great Britain and Germany were
the chief actors had not so far arisen.
The Egyptian question, with all the embarrassments
arising out of the tangle or created by ministerial policy in
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? 4H
BISMARCK
Great Britain, was just what Bismarck could have wished.
It made Great Britain more dependent on German good-
will, and, properly handled with the requisite air of im-
partiality, could separate France and Great Britain and
prevent an Anglo-French alliance. The evidence that
Bismarck would have welcomed a loose Anglo-German
alliance or entente between 1880 and 1890 is suggestive,
but neither precise nor conclusive. Such an 'alliance'
would have been a triumphant codicil to the Triple
Alliance, would have been warmly welcomed in Italy, and
need not have damaged a separate understanding between
Germany and Russia. The interests of Great Britain and
Russia in many respects were not more divergent than
those of Austria and Italy; and it would have been a
powerful aid in emphasising German arguments at
Petersburg. But if Bismarck went so far as to make
direct or indirect overtures, they broke down on
Mr. Gladstone's radical distrust, and no less on the direct
conflict of interest in colonial policy that came to a head
in 1884. In that year Germany was caught up in the
colonial movement.
It was inevitable after 1871 that Germany should begin
to take an interest in colonial expansion, if for no other
reason than that the most powerful of the Continental
States had no colonies, and that colonial possessions were
a proof and a guarantee of strength. German Nationalism,
after 1815, as has been emphasised earlier in these pages,
had found its deepest conviction and most stimulating
nourishment in the consciousness of German impotence
relatively to other great national States. The feeling that
a united Germany could and ought to stand in the world
as a Power, able to stand and speak for Germans as a whole
in the gate of its rivals, and on terms of equality face
France, Austria, Russia, and Great Britain, was overwhelm-
ing and reasonable. Germany had now accomplished
her unification, and the power of the German Empire
after 1871 was an indisputable fact which satisfied to the
full the passionate craving of the once impotent Germany
of the Federal Diet. After 1871 the German nation, like
its Emperor had ' drunk of the chalice of victory and would
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 415
not break it. ' It now desired to be an Empire like other
great Empires--and the Empires with a future had colonies
because the future lay with colonies. Leroy Beaulieu's
remark, that colonies may not be signs of strength to-day,
but that they hold the strength of the future, sums up the
inarticulate German ambition. Just as a man who has
made himself a millionaire by his own efforts desires motor
cars, a fine picture gallery, or historic castles in the country,
not for their intrinsic value, but because they prove that
he is as rich and as powerful as other millionaires, so the
German nation also desired colonies as the appurtenances
and apparatus of Empire--to give them the external
position and framework in the world enjoyed by other
imperial nations.
After 1871 a decade was spent in completing unification
into which the best energies of the German nation were
thrown with enthusiasm. By 1880 the increase in popula-
tion, wealth, commerce, and maritime trade, no less than the
stability and strength of the administrative and military
fabric was remarkable. The industrialisation of Germany
proceeded by leaps and bounds. A still greater future
awaited a further expansion. It was inevitable that the
German trader should seek outlets for capital and markets
outside Europe. He found them and developed them with
the same energy and thoroughness that marked the work
done by Germans at home in science, the army, civil ad-
ministration and trade. But there was one humiliating
disadvantage. The German emigrant was lost to Germany
because there was no Germany outside Europe. The
German trader had to explore and develop his trade either
under the protection of a foreign flag or at his own risk.
In Europe he could say 'civis Germanus sum'--a claim
that no European State was likely to underrate--but in the
Pacific or on the coast of East or West Africa the claim
lost its force. The German found the white ensign of
Great Britain everywhere; the tricolour of a France
which he had defeated and despised was being planted
steadily outside France; but the German flag did not fly,
even where trade was in German hands or the unknown
spaces of the earth had been explored by German effort.
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? 416
BISMARCK
Germany had obliterated, since 1815, the ' injuries of two
centuries' in Europe. Unless she now girt up her
puissant loins the world would be closed and time would
have inflicted fresh and irremovable injuries.
The conversion to Protection at home clinched con-
clusively the sentimental and the political argument.
That conversion, as has been pointed out, was a renaissance
of seventeenth-century mercantilism interpreted in the
terms of the later nineteenth century. The Bismarckian
doctrine of power, developed from the renaissance theory
of Reason of State, joined hands with the mercantilist
doctrine of power, founded on a specific economic analysis
of national power, of which F. List in his masterpiece The
National System of Political Economy, a generation earlier,
had given a penetrating and reasoned exposition. Cobden-
ism and Manchesterism, the disciples of List in Germany
argued, had failed. The belief of the Cobdenites and the
builders of the Zollverein that the future of the great
economic and industrial States lay with Free Trade had
proved a delusion. The world had slowly turned not to
Free Trade but to Protection, to tariffs and tariff treaties,
and Germany had now turned with it. The economic
future lay with a new and scientific Protection, which was
the basis of economic and political Power. The essential
and logical corollary to the reservation of the home-market,
and the home industries to the natives of the State, was the
opening of the maritime markets to the products of modern
industry on the grand scale. Germany as a workshop of
the world--protected by a scientific tariff--required
expanding markets and the reservation of the requisite
raw materials which could not be provided in Europe.
Unless these were secured beyond dispute German trade
would either be mutilated in its upward expansion or be
left dependent on the precarious goodwill and the certain
jealousy of her European rivals. Her most serious
economic competitors were also her most formidable
political rivals. Markets and raw materials could, in
short, only be secured by colonies and a fleet. Without
colonies, the expanding mercantile marine and the nerves
and sinews of German industry were exposed to an in-
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 417
creasing jeopardy. Colonies, therefore, on this argument,
the cogency of which was strengthened by every increase
in economic efficiency and prosperity, were not a luxury,
but an absolute necessity of power. In the early eighties
the argument was being driven home by professors, news-
papers, the industrial magnates and the increasing scramble
for colonies, so notable after 1871. In 1887 Die Deutsche
Colonial Gesellschaft, the union of two separate colonial
organisations, was a significant proof of the solidarity of
the movement; and the formation of a' Colonial group' in
the Reichstag as early as 1883, to press the demand, was
the political expression of the forces at work.
Bismarck was not convinced. Like most men who have
grown up and achieved great things under the influence of
one set of conditions--men whose characters, convictions,
and principles of action are strong because they are so set
in their fibres and their blood that they are the men them-
selves--Bismarck was never very sensitive to new ideas
and new forces which were the result of wholly new con-
ditions and a new age. He was hostile to ' colonialism,'
also, because it was not his own idea, the product of his
own original and creative gifts. Unlike many statesmen,
and most of his own countrymen, Bismarck had, with all his
devouring ambition and pride of, and trust in, power, a
fine and moderating sense of limits. Between the ideal
and the practicable he continually drew a distinction that
is the marrow of his statecraft. He was like Gustavus
Adolphus or Richelieu energy indeed, but energy under
restraint. And he. never forgot what he wrote to his wife
after Ktmiggratz--' we must not think that we have
conquered the world nor forget that we have to live with
three neighbours. ' He recognised that the success of the
German Empire had stirred the deepest jealousies and
resentment; it might and could be overthrown by
coalitions; Germany was not able, for all her strength, to
defy the world.
His intuitional dislike of colonialism went deeper than
mere sentiment, temperamental indifference to principles
not his own, or a practical calculation of the limits of
German Power. He was and he remained to his death
R. 2D
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? BISMARCK
essentially a continentalist; that is, he held as the core of
a true system of German policy that the German Empire
must be based on the complete mastery of the continental
conditions of supremacy. Germany must control Central
Europe; without that control the Empire would either
be dissolved or be reduced to the second rate position of
his youth and early manhood. And the control of Central
Europe imposed the absolute necessity of an invincible
army, superior to that of any likely coalition of forces--
an army in fact on a two-Power or three-Power standard--
together with a foreign policy carried out by a vigilant
and invincible Higher Direction, concentrating on the
keys of power in Europe. The German army involved
a severe tax in manhood and money. Any dissipation of
strength on objectives outside the main theatre would
mean a proportionate reduction in the army; and, no less
pernicious, a dualism in the higher strategy of the Wilhelm-
strasse. No one realised more completely than Bismarck
the task that the maintenance of German hegemony in
Europe after 1871 laid on the Chancellor. Only by
prestige and a sleepless diplomacy had the successive
phases of the European situation been successfully met,
manipulated, and worked into the broad plan. The task
of watching and controlling Austria, France, Russia, Italy,
Spain--of anticipating the complications in the Near East,
in Poland, and the Mediterranean--became harder, not
easier, as the European Powers grew, penetrated or copied
Bismarckian principles and methods. The invitation
therefore to break out on a new objective--a great colonial
campaign--must be resisted. It was excentric to the
central issues, which in the nature of things constituted
the essentials of a true German policy.
Moreover, Bismarck foresaw that a successful colonial
campaign inevitably involved rivalries outside Europe
that would react on the European position. There were
two chief Colonial States in Europe--France and Great
Britain. Was Germany to compete with France, stop the
policy of diversion which dissipated French strength and
drive her back on concentrating on Europe ? ? And Great
Britain? Competition here would not drive Great Britain
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
back on Europe--it was competition with a Power essen-
tially colonial and only secondarily continental. At sea
Great Britain was supreme. What if Great Britain replied
by building up a European coalition against Germany? The
antagonism of Great Britain was not lightly to be provoked.
Bismarck predicted that a really serious German challenge
to Great Britain in the colonial and extra-European
sphere would end in a Franco-British alliance and a deep
penetration of Great Britain into the continental situa-
tion--precisely the one object that he desired to prevent.
Bismarck had studied history as a great statesman should
study it--to learn from it the secrets of statecraft. History
was for him a study in statesmanship: precisely as to all the
great commanders from Caesar to Moltke the study of military
history--the great things in war done by the great soldiers
--is the indispensable apprenticeship in the principles of
their science. And he saw, as his speeches and obiter dicta
prove, in modern European history that Great Britain had
always, and only, been formidable, when, in the task of
building and consolidating the British Empire, and in the
pursuit of British ends, she had been driven by the facts
and forces of a given situation to be the backbone and
the reservoir of a European combination. William in. ,
Marlborough, Chatham, Castlereagh--did not these prove
that no European coalition had ever succeeded of which
Great Britain was not the backbone and the reservoir?
Thus, indeed, had Louis xiv. , Louis xv. , Kaunitz, and
Napoleon been overthrown. The Great Britain of Lord
North and George in. , or of the ministries of 1864, 1866,
and 1870, without European allies, and either refusing to
find them or wilfully rejecting them--sulking or ignorantly
rejoicing in a splendid isolation--had brought disaster or
impotence on itself. Put Great Britain, Bismarck virtually
argued, with her back to the wall, because her imperial
interests are threatened, and if she had a statesman to
direct her policy, she would make a European coalition
and keep it going until her British ends--outside Europe
--were achieved. A Concert of Europe directed by Great
Britain spelled the end of German supremacy in Central
Europe. Germany would be not the first amongst equals,
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? 420
BISMARCK
but an equal among equals. Could Germany ever hope
to have an army of a continental three-Power standard
and also a navy equal or superior to that of Great Britain?
The first was the essential of Continentalism, the second
the essential of Colonialism. Which was Germany to
choose?
'Colonies,' said Bismarck in 1873, 'would only be a
cause of weakness, because they could only be defended by
powerful fleets and Germany's geographical position did
not necessitate her development into a first-class maritime
Power. Many colonies have been offered me. I have
rejected them. ' This repeated what he had said in 1871:
'For us in Germany this colonial business would be just
like the silken sables in the noble families of Poland, who
have no shirts to their backs. ' In 1884, in the Reichstag,
Bismarck openly said he was 'no colonial man' (Kein
Kolonial-mensch) and in 1885 (January 10) he pronounced:
'The last speaker has told us that we must either abandon
our colonial policy or increase our naval strength to such
an extent that we need not fear any naval Power, or, to
speak more clearly, that our navy should rival that of
England herself. However, even if we should succeed
in building up a navy as strong as that of England, we
should still have to fear an alliance of England and France.
These Powers are stronger than any single Power in
Europe is or ever can be . . . from my diplomatic ex-
perience, I cannot see any reasons which can make
hostilities possible between Germany and England, unless
a Cabinet of inconceivable character should be in power
in England, a Cabinet which neither exists nor which
is ever likely to exist, and which criminally attacks us. '
And again (January 26, 1889): 'I absolutely refuse to act
towards the Sultan of Zanzibar in opposition to England
. . . . English colonial interests compete with ours in
numerous places . . . the preservation of Anglo-German
goodwill is, after all, the most important thing. I see in
England an old and traditional ally. No differences exist
between England and Germany. I am not using a
diplomatic term if I speak of England as our ally. We
have no alliance with England. However, I wish to remain
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 421
in close contact with England also in colonial questions
. . . if I should discover that we might lose touch with
England I should act cautiously and endeavour to avoid
losing England's goodwill. ' It is asserted on good
authority that German diplomatic agents were in the
Bismarckian epoch instructed to ' Do all in your power to
keep up good relationship with the English. It is not
necessary to cable in cipher. We have nothing to conceal
from the English, for it would be the greatest possible folly
to antagonise England. '
Such an antagonism Bismarck foresaw jeopardised the
Triple Alliance--the basis of his Continental system
and the German control of Central Europe. In 1890
(January 13) an article written under Bismarck's inspiration
laid down the following: 'Italy must be able to rely on
the assistance of the English fleet, for the Triple Alliance
cannot protect the Italian coasts. Hence Italy has to
think of England, and consideration of England may con-
ceivably limit Italy's freedom of action. As long as
Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy are united in the
Triple Alliance, and as long as these three States may
reckon on the assistance of English sea-power, the peace
of Europe will not be broken. '
So far general principles. Active German intervention
in the acquisition of colonies in 1884 was due to the pres-
sure of a combination of forces. German relations with
France were good; Great Britain was gravely embarrassed
in Egypt; British relations with France were strained:
Ireland and the Franchise question were additional burdens
on an administration, the credit of which was gravely
undermined, and the internal unity of which was sapped
by ministers themselves; a quarrel with Russia in the
Middle East was brewing. The British government was
not in a position to resist dexterous pressure. Great
Britain was not able in 1884 to quarrel with Germany, unless
she were prepared to abandon important commitments in
her policy elsewhere. Public opinion in Germany was
vociferous. It represented powerful material interests.
The government was not too strong in the Reichstag;
a general election was imminent and the internal measures
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? 422
BISMARCK
of State Socialism had stirred severe criticism in some,
and bitter opposition in other, quarters. The govern-
ment had to convince Germany that its policy was based
on true German interests. The closer Bismarck's policy
is studied the more apparent is the vital connection
between a stroke in foreign policy and the home situation.
Bismarck might affect to despise or ignore public opinion
in Germany--he frequently did, when it was essential to
his aims to do so--but he watched its course and weighed
its volume with vigilant care, and he always found a safety
valve to let the steam out and ease the pressure on the
ministerial boilers. As with the Kulturkampf and the
Vatican Decrees, so now with the colonial movement, he
saw the opportunity and gripped it with characteristic
firmness and dexterity. In the spring of 1884 he had been
able, as is indicated below, to secure an important under-
standing with Russia, endorsed in the autumn of the same
year. The embarrassment of Great Britain was the
Chancellor's opportunity to satisfy public opinion at
home, achieve what was necessary to satisfy public opinion
without sacrificing the essentials of his system, and do it
before the fall of Ferry's administration and the renaissance
of the inveterate hostility between France and Germany
made the opportunity no longer available.
It is not necessary or possible here to trace in detail the
swiftly developed plans by which Germany between 1884
and 1890 acquired Togoland, the Cameroons, South-
West Africa (but without Walfish Bay), the framework of
German East Africa, a third of New Guinea, and a share
of the Samoa group. The Anglo-German agreement of
July 1, 1890 (which brought Heligoland to Germany, but
ceded German claims on Zanzibar and Witu to Great
Britain) falls outside Bismarck's period of office, and was
concluded by his successor, Caprivi. The initial and
most characteristic stages in German colonial policy and
the Anglo-German conflict are described at length, and
from authoritative sources, in Lord Fitzmaurice's Life of
Lord Granville. It must suffice here to note that after
1885 a Conservative, not a Liberal, ministry in Great
Britain was responsible for the ' concessions' and conven-
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 423
tions; that the German colonial party was by no means
satisfied with the achievements of their government; that
in 1885 the attempt to secure the Caroline Islands was
abandoned when Bismarck referred the dispute to the ar-
bitration of Pope Leo xin. , in order to conclude the
Kulturkampf and secure the Clerical Centre; and that
Bismarck bitterly criticised the agreement of July I, 1890,
which may be partly due to his determination to condemn
as a blunder everything done after he ceased to be Chan-
cellor. But the broad fact remains that the foundations
of Germany's Colonial Empire were laid by Bismarck, and
that unless we are to regard all his public utterances on
the subject as deliberate insincerity, he accomplished a
limited programme under pressure, with considerable mis-
giving and much reluctance. 1 He was severely criticised
in the Reichstag and in the press, inspired by the Colonial
Society, for being so apathetic, hesitating, and absurdly
considerate of Great Britain, no less than for sacrificing
Germany's future across the water to an obsolescent
Continentalism.
In 1883 and the spring of 1884 Lord Ampthill warned
our government that the pressure of powerful parties in
Germany was greatly influencing Bismarck ' whose interest
(in colonial policy) was increased by the prospect of a
general election this autumn' (March 15, 1884). The
German government was also indicating with unmis-
takable emphasis that German goodwill in Britain's
Egyptian policy was dependent on British goodwill in
German colonial policy. This plain hint was continually
repeated in the next two years. 'I am in perfect despair,'
Ampthill wrote (August 2, 1884), 'at Prince Bismarck's
present inclination to increase his popularity before the
general election by taking up an anti-English attitude.
Compelled by the colonial mania . . . he has discovered
1 'For the sake of two million marks I cannot throw myself against the
great impulse of the nation, or offer opposition to the will of the whole country.
To this day I am not "a colonies man," and I entertain the gravest apprehen-
sion on the subject ; but I was compelled to decide upon yielding to the general
demand of the nation. . . . If the locomotive of Empire has struck out a track
for itself, I shall not be the one to throw stones in its way. '--(Bismarck in the
Reichstag, January 26, 1S89. )
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? 424
BISMARCK
an unexplored mine of popularity in starting a colonial
policy, which public opinion persuades itself to be anti-
English: and the slumbering theoretical envy of the
Germans at our wealth and our freedom has awakened
and taken the form of abuse of everything English in the
press. ' The remark apart from its special reference is
deeply significant, for it confirms the trend in the develop-
ment of German public opinion, emphasised (p. 275)
earlier in these pages. The alienation of Germany from
England, which was in truth the gravest feature for the
future of both countries, had proceeded with great
rapidity since 1870, and though Bismarck regarded it with
misgiving, as he well might, he would have abandoned
all the principles and methods of his statecraft had he not
utilised it to the full when his policy required it.
The colonial chapter in his Chancellorship is, therefore,
of deep interest, for it reveals all the secrets of his statesman-
ship--his eye for realities, his extraordinary mastery of his
own peculiar technique, his recognition that a genuine
and deep-seated German public opinion must not be
ignored, together with an inflexible determination to
maintain his Continental system and not to push the anta-
gonism with Great Britain to measurable distance of a
rupture. Great Britain could be harried and badgered;
she must understand that international relations were the
result of bargains; she must make concessions that could
be represented as diplomatic victories for Germany; but
she must not be driven into the enemy's camp. And as
the situation developed from 1884 to 1890, Bismarck
relaxed or increased the pressure on the successive Cabinets
in London, not thinking so much of the Colonies them-
selves, as of the prestige- of his government, German
relations with France or Russia, and the Triple Alliance,
in which Italy's continued inclusion was not too certain.
The more clearly that the Anglo-German negotiations
are studied in detail, the more clearly stand out those
methods which this biographical study has continuously
emphasised as truly Bismarckian. The German demand
for colonies and the German movement towards expan-
sion outside Europe were not intrinsically indefensible and
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 445
were the product of forces beyond the control even of an
Iron Chancellor. The supposition which underlay much
1884-90 that Great Britain could have peremptorily vetoed
all German colonial acquisitions, and could have done so
without sacrificing British interests in Egypt or in the
Middle or Far East--in a word, that Great Britain was
strong enough between 1884 and 1890 to defy France,
Russia, and Germany, or should have embarked on a
which can be sustained by a careful study of a very compli-
cated and critical European situation, combined in those
years with a very critical situation at home. Great Britain
had to choose between France and Germany, and France
was practically under German direction. In these pages
we are not primarily concerned either with explaining
the origins and development of British policy, or with
drawing up a balance-sheet based on a critical survey of
mistakes, alternations and successes; for the complete
British balance sheet cannot be adequately set out here,
nor the verdict based on the necessary cross-examination
of the very copious evidence.
One conclusion, however, seems fully justified. It
would have been easy for Bismarck, had he chosen to do
so, to have picked a very formidable quarrel with Great
Britain. Such a choice could have been made really
popular in Germany. Bismarck, indeed, in a month, could
have lashed Germany into a frenzy over colonies, at any
moment after 1884 to 1890. His prestige savoured of the
miraculous: his knowledge of his countrymen's passions
was unrivalled and Germany's military strength was
beyond question. It would have been no less easy to have
lashed Great Britain and colonial sentiment, particularly
in Australia, into the temper that makes either a complete
diplomatic victory or war the only alternatives. The
Pendjeh incident in 1885 proved the readiness of the
country to respond to a strong lead against Russia. 'The
Colonies' would have been a far more formidabL appeal
to national passion than an obscure place on the Afghan-
violent criticism
Salisbury from
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? 426 BISMARCK
istan frontier. But neither Bismarck nor the successive
British governments embarked on a course so fraught with
peril. Bismarck deliberately refused indeed to push
Great Britain against the wall and the inference from his
refusal is irresistible. For reasons, that may be bad or
good, but to which he attached the greatest weight,
he was ready to badger, even to insult, while insisting
on concessions, but not to 'antagonise' Great Britain.
German critics then and since have questioned the accuracy
of his judgment and the validity of his reasons. In this
country we can appreciate the reason for, and ratify the
wisdom of, his decision. For Bismarck was convinced his
policy secured the best interests of Germany. He was
not concerned with the question whether it also made for
British interests. But it made for peace in Europe--and
peace he held was a supreme German interest in those
years. That it was also a British interest, not lightly to be
sacrificed, is demonstrable.
But if Bismarck's ends were and remain defensible, his
methods were and remain' quite indefensible. British
ministers must plead guilty to lack of vigilance and errors
of judgment; the Colonial governments cannot escape
severe criticism; but whatever their mistakes, our Foreign
and Colonial Offices acted in a straightforward and honour-
able manner; and in the beginning they credited, quite
wrongly, the German government with similar intentions
and methods. It would be, on the facts before us, im-
possible to pronounce but one verdict on German diplo-
macy. From the negotiations about Angra Pequena to
the annexation of part of New Guinea, Bismarck's methods
were marked by duplicity and a demonstrable intention
to deceive the British government as . to the true aims of
the German government, to present our government
with faits accomplis, snatched in defiance of soothing
assurances or virtual pledges, and thus to make the whole
situation doubly difficult. The German White Books
were an incomplete, misleading, and, in places, positively
inaccurate version of the negotiations; our Blue Books,
which threw a very different light on what had happened,
roused Bismarck's deepest wrath, and we can understand
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 447
the reasons for his anger. The Chancellor utilised his
unique position in Germany to work up carefully prepared
explosions in the Reichstag, even publicly to suggest that
the British government was hostile to, and jealous of, any
German colonial acquisitions--which he knew was not true
--and to make charges against both Lord Granville and
Lord Derby which he was quite unable to sustain. 1 The
public statements of the Chancellor were intended for a
credulous German public opinion and an invitation to draw
its own (and quite false) conclusions; the withdrawal of
the charges was either privately made or slurred over, after
the poison ha*d been allowed to inflame German feeling.
The missions of Count Herbert Bismarck, whose reception
in England by ministers and society deeply gratified a
sensitive father's heart, were intended to do more than
effect an amicable settlement. 'Count Herbert Bismarck,'
wrote Sir C. Dilke, 'came over again. If at his former
visit he had only tried to get us to dismiss Lord Derby,
on this occasion he wanted us to dismiss Lord Granville
and Lord Derby. ' He failed. So gross and unwarranted
an interference in our home politics, thoroughly Bis-
marckian in character, was calculated to produce precisely
the opposite effect to that which Bismarck desired. All
through this trying period Lord Granville, who acted as
an honourable gentleman towards a great statesman, who
in his diplomacy was never a gentleman, suspected that
the cession of Heligoland was at the bottom of Bismarck's
tortuous and dishonest methods. The possibility of the
concession had been confidentially mentioned more than
once to Lord Granville, but no formal or open suggestion
on the subject was made, though Lord Granville was
1 I. t. the charge that Lord Granville had betrayed confidential communica-
tions of . Bismarck's to the French government (Granville's Life, ii. p. 370), and
that the British government had failed to reply to an important dispatch of
May 5, 1884, when as a matter of fact the dispatch had, by Bismarck's instruc-
tions of which he was well aware, not been communicated to our Foreign Office.
'I had a talk with Munster,' Lord Granville wrote privately to Mr. Gladstone,
'he was frightened out of his wits. He found the famous dispatch, but a
telegram not to act upon it. He begged me to keep this secret. ' And this
our government did, to their honour (op. at. , ii. p. 428). Munster was grate-
ful. But Bismarck never repudiated his statement, and to this day it is believed
in Germany--along with many other innuendoes and allegations, derived from
Bismarck's speeches which were untrue in fact.
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? 428
BISMARCIt
aware ' it was the intention of Germany to open a canal
into the Baltic . . . for the security of which it would be
necessary to give a good and fortified harbour to Heligo-
land. ' The concession was ultimately made by Lord
Salisbury on July I, 1890, as part of the general Anglo-
German agreement of that date.
It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Bismarck
threw away a great opportunity between 1883 and 1885,
and threw it away deliberately. Had he frankly and
openly approached the British government in 1883 with
an explanation of the difficult position the German
government was in, placed all the cards loyally on the
table, invited our goodwill while emphasising the neces-
sity of concessions on grounds of policy, and his readiness
in return for such concessions to support us against Ferry
and the French government, whose policy was to em-
barrass Great Britain everywhere by subservience to
Germany, all that Germany subsequently obtained might
have been gained and more, without endangering the good
relations of both countries. Bismarck pursued a very
different course: partly because such methods were not
his idea of diplomacy, partly because he could not resist
this opportunity to utilise the difficulties of Great Britain,
partly because he conceived it necessary to mislead Ger-
many by representing Great Britain as hostile, while
representing that her hostility was only broken down by
the skill and force of an invincible German diplomacy.
guerre,' Gambetta had said, 'mais pensez-y toujours. '
Gambetta's radical republicanism quenched the ardour of
Russian autocracy for a Franco-Russian entente.
After 1882 Ferry's policy in Egypt and the Far East
steadily estranged France from Great Britain. The Nile
and Tonkin, Madagascar and Siam, caused the French to
forget their hostility to Germany in their hostility to
Great Britain. And Bismarck took care to hold open the
fissure between Great Britain and France. Encourage-
ment to England in Egypt was balanced by encouragement
to France in the Far East and the Pacific. The Foreign
Office in Berlin and the German Embassy in Paris were
prolific in their hints of 'the great man's' sincerity in
wishing France well, while his magisterial experience
was readily placed at French disposal. The French
consulted the oracle freely. The Ferry Ministry in 1884
could say publicly that not for two decades had the re-
lations of France and Germany been so friendly. Such
friendship with good reasons disquieted the Cabinet at
London.
Bismarck certainly hoped that a few years of this con-
ciliation by diversion would wring from a French govern-
ment a stammering renunciation of revanche. A great
and magnanimous speech in the Reichstag from the
Chancellor could then have proclaimed that a generous
and brave nation had wisely closed the account and hence-
forward with Germany's unqualified goodwill and assist-
ance would march in a common work of civilisation--in
which Great Britain must be compelled to yield to the
legitimate rights of the new entente. But, instead of
the stammering renunciation came Ferry's fall (April 2,
1885): a colonial failure sharply awakened France to the
truth that colonies might be colonies, but Alsace and
Lorraine remained the monument of German victory and
French defeat. French ministries henceforward grew
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? 412
BISMARCK
like grass in the green spring and fell like leaves in chill
October; and in the place of the great and unspoken
speech that Bismarck desired to make, we have the
Bismarckian orations of 1887 and 1888, in which France
was held up to Germany as the hereditary, irreconcilable,
and malignant foe in whose vile heart justice and con-
ciliation only whetted the impotent lust of revenge.
Worse still, the colonial movement, Egypt and the diver-
sion of Russia to the Middle East brought on a severe
Anglo-Russian crisis and involved Germany in sharp and
dangerous friction with Great Britain. The year 1884
was a momentous one in French history. It was a far
more momentous one in the history of Great Britain, of
Germany and of Bismarck.
The relations of Great Britain and Germany after 1871
and Bismarck's policy are susceptible of various and contra-
dictory interpretations. Bismarck's dislike of Gladstone
and Gladstonianism is beyond question, for Gladstone's
principles of foreign policy and theory of international
relations, no less than his system of home politics,
represented everything that Bismarck regarded as danger-
ous, detestable or futile,1 and Gladstone's noted radical
distrust of Bismarckianism, which was very apparent
from 1880 to 1885, and was largely, if not mainly, re-
sponsible for the refusal of Great Britain to enter the
German net, was no less strong. Bismarck seems to have
held the view, adopted by many continental statesmen,
that Great Britain as essentially a naval, maritime, and
colonial Power was not, and ought not to be, concerned
with the Continent of Europe. If, therefore, Great
Britain actively intervened in 'purely continental affairs,'
she was taking upon herself matters not properly sui juris,
as well as introducing an unwelcome and incalculable
element into a situation, already sufficiently complicated.
Her very disinterestedness could be disconcerting:
because it made it difficult to conclude material bargains
by material bribes. British Liberalism, in particular,
1 'It is very apparent in the Sabouroff memoirs,' writes Professor Simpson,
who has seen these unpublished papers, 'how uneasy Bismarck was at the
prospects of a Liberal England. '--Nineteenth Century, December iji7,
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
introduced also into international relations ' cant' phrases
and formulae--humanity, the Concert of Europe, the
unity of European moral interests, arbitratior, moral
responsibility, Blue Books, amenability to public opinion,
and 'nations rightly struggling to be free '--and had
always done so from Canning onwards. Great Britain's
intervention in 1875 had been more than disconcerting--
it had led to a serious rebuff: and even more serious had
been the sharp action of the Beaconsfield ministry in the
crisis of 1877-8. A war between Great Britain and Russia
over Constantinople and the Balkans would create an in-
soluble dilemma for Austria, and therefore for Germany.
The steady insistence of'Mr. Gladstone's ministry in 1880
on fulfilling the pledges and terms of the Treaty of Berlin
was very annoying. A Concert of Europe, manipulated by
the Wilhelmstrasse, was one thing--a Concert of Europe
led by Great Britain was another, and did not make for
German hegemony and for peace as Bismarck under-
stood it.
But for all his gibes or snarling innuendoes Bismarck did
not underrate British strength. The British fleet, unlike
the British army, could not be dealt with by ' calling in the
police. ' And Great Britain in some mysterious way had
an uncanny gift for provoking the jealousy yet attracting
the support of European Powers. Bismarck, therefore,
after 1871, aimed mainly at encouraging British goodwill
to Austria and Italy, at keeping France and Great Britain
apart and Russia and Great Britain in strained tension, in
which German good offices could be effectively employed
to maintain the tension, yet prevent a complete rupture.
Down to 1884 Germany and Great Britain could maintain
in theory and phrase the friendliest of relations, for no
direct or serious cause of quarrel between the two Powers
existed. The two Powers might indirectly have divergent
interests in many European questions in which these
European States were largely concerned, but a direct
antagonism in which Great Britain and Germany were
the chief actors had not so far arisen.
The Egyptian question, with all the embarrassments
arising out of the tangle or created by ministerial policy in
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? 4H
BISMARCK
Great Britain, was just what Bismarck could have wished.
It made Great Britain more dependent on German good-
will, and, properly handled with the requisite air of im-
partiality, could separate France and Great Britain and
prevent an Anglo-French alliance. The evidence that
Bismarck would have welcomed a loose Anglo-German
alliance or entente between 1880 and 1890 is suggestive,
but neither precise nor conclusive. Such an 'alliance'
would have been a triumphant codicil to the Triple
Alliance, would have been warmly welcomed in Italy, and
need not have damaged a separate understanding between
Germany and Russia. The interests of Great Britain and
Russia in many respects were not more divergent than
those of Austria and Italy; and it would have been a
powerful aid in emphasising German arguments at
Petersburg. But if Bismarck went so far as to make
direct or indirect overtures, they broke down on
Mr. Gladstone's radical distrust, and no less on the direct
conflict of interest in colonial policy that came to a head
in 1884. In that year Germany was caught up in the
colonial movement.
It was inevitable after 1871 that Germany should begin
to take an interest in colonial expansion, if for no other
reason than that the most powerful of the Continental
States had no colonies, and that colonial possessions were
a proof and a guarantee of strength. German Nationalism,
after 1815, as has been emphasised earlier in these pages,
had found its deepest conviction and most stimulating
nourishment in the consciousness of German impotence
relatively to other great national States. The feeling that
a united Germany could and ought to stand in the world
as a Power, able to stand and speak for Germans as a whole
in the gate of its rivals, and on terms of equality face
France, Austria, Russia, and Great Britain, was overwhelm-
ing and reasonable. Germany had now accomplished
her unification, and the power of the German Empire
after 1871 was an indisputable fact which satisfied to the
full the passionate craving of the once impotent Germany
of the Federal Diet. After 1871 the German nation, like
its Emperor had ' drunk of the chalice of victory and would
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 415
not break it. ' It now desired to be an Empire like other
great Empires--and the Empires with a future had colonies
because the future lay with colonies. Leroy Beaulieu's
remark, that colonies may not be signs of strength to-day,
but that they hold the strength of the future, sums up the
inarticulate German ambition. Just as a man who has
made himself a millionaire by his own efforts desires motor
cars, a fine picture gallery, or historic castles in the country,
not for their intrinsic value, but because they prove that
he is as rich and as powerful as other millionaires, so the
German nation also desired colonies as the appurtenances
and apparatus of Empire--to give them the external
position and framework in the world enjoyed by other
imperial nations.
After 1871 a decade was spent in completing unification
into which the best energies of the German nation were
thrown with enthusiasm. By 1880 the increase in popula-
tion, wealth, commerce, and maritime trade, no less than the
stability and strength of the administrative and military
fabric was remarkable. The industrialisation of Germany
proceeded by leaps and bounds. A still greater future
awaited a further expansion. It was inevitable that the
German trader should seek outlets for capital and markets
outside Europe. He found them and developed them with
the same energy and thoroughness that marked the work
done by Germans at home in science, the army, civil ad-
ministration and trade. But there was one humiliating
disadvantage. The German emigrant was lost to Germany
because there was no Germany outside Europe. The
German trader had to explore and develop his trade either
under the protection of a foreign flag or at his own risk.
In Europe he could say 'civis Germanus sum'--a claim
that no European State was likely to underrate--but in the
Pacific or on the coast of East or West Africa the claim
lost its force. The German found the white ensign of
Great Britain everywhere; the tricolour of a France
which he had defeated and despised was being planted
steadily outside France; but the German flag did not fly,
even where trade was in German hands or the unknown
spaces of the earth had been explored by German effort.
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? 416
BISMARCK
Germany had obliterated, since 1815, the ' injuries of two
centuries' in Europe. Unless she now girt up her
puissant loins the world would be closed and time would
have inflicted fresh and irremovable injuries.
The conversion to Protection at home clinched con-
clusively the sentimental and the political argument.
That conversion, as has been pointed out, was a renaissance
of seventeenth-century mercantilism interpreted in the
terms of the later nineteenth century. The Bismarckian
doctrine of power, developed from the renaissance theory
of Reason of State, joined hands with the mercantilist
doctrine of power, founded on a specific economic analysis
of national power, of which F. List in his masterpiece The
National System of Political Economy, a generation earlier,
had given a penetrating and reasoned exposition. Cobden-
ism and Manchesterism, the disciples of List in Germany
argued, had failed. The belief of the Cobdenites and the
builders of the Zollverein that the future of the great
economic and industrial States lay with Free Trade had
proved a delusion. The world had slowly turned not to
Free Trade but to Protection, to tariffs and tariff treaties,
and Germany had now turned with it. The economic
future lay with a new and scientific Protection, which was
the basis of economic and political Power. The essential
and logical corollary to the reservation of the home-market,
and the home industries to the natives of the State, was the
opening of the maritime markets to the products of modern
industry on the grand scale. Germany as a workshop of
the world--protected by a scientific tariff--required
expanding markets and the reservation of the requisite
raw materials which could not be provided in Europe.
Unless these were secured beyond dispute German trade
would either be mutilated in its upward expansion or be
left dependent on the precarious goodwill and the certain
jealousy of her European rivals. Her most serious
economic competitors were also her most formidable
political rivals. Markets and raw materials could, in
short, only be secured by colonies and a fleet. Without
colonies, the expanding mercantile marine and the nerves
and sinews of German industry were exposed to an in-
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 417
creasing jeopardy. Colonies, therefore, on this argument,
the cogency of which was strengthened by every increase
in economic efficiency and prosperity, were not a luxury,
but an absolute necessity of power. In the early eighties
the argument was being driven home by professors, news-
papers, the industrial magnates and the increasing scramble
for colonies, so notable after 1871. In 1887 Die Deutsche
Colonial Gesellschaft, the union of two separate colonial
organisations, was a significant proof of the solidarity of
the movement; and the formation of a' Colonial group' in
the Reichstag as early as 1883, to press the demand, was
the political expression of the forces at work.
Bismarck was not convinced. Like most men who have
grown up and achieved great things under the influence of
one set of conditions--men whose characters, convictions,
and principles of action are strong because they are so set
in their fibres and their blood that they are the men them-
selves--Bismarck was never very sensitive to new ideas
and new forces which were the result of wholly new con-
ditions and a new age. He was hostile to ' colonialism,'
also, because it was not his own idea, the product of his
own original and creative gifts. Unlike many statesmen,
and most of his own countrymen, Bismarck had, with all his
devouring ambition and pride of, and trust in, power, a
fine and moderating sense of limits. Between the ideal
and the practicable he continually drew a distinction that
is the marrow of his statecraft. He was like Gustavus
Adolphus or Richelieu energy indeed, but energy under
restraint. And he. never forgot what he wrote to his wife
after Ktmiggratz--' we must not think that we have
conquered the world nor forget that we have to live with
three neighbours. ' He recognised that the success of the
German Empire had stirred the deepest jealousies and
resentment; it might and could be overthrown by
coalitions; Germany was not able, for all her strength, to
defy the world.
His intuitional dislike of colonialism went deeper than
mere sentiment, temperamental indifference to principles
not his own, or a practical calculation of the limits of
German Power. He was and he remained to his death
R. 2D
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? BISMARCK
essentially a continentalist; that is, he held as the core of
a true system of German policy that the German Empire
must be based on the complete mastery of the continental
conditions of supremacy. Germany must control Central
Europe; without that control the Empire would either
be dissolved or be reduced to the second rate position of
his youth and early manhood. And the control of Central
Europe imposed the absolute necessity of an invincible
army, superior to that of any likely coalition of forces--
an army in fact on a two-Power or three-Power standard--
together with a foreign policy carried out by a vigilant
and invincible Higher Direction, concentrating on the
keys of power in Europe. The German army involved
a severe tax in manhood and money. Any dissipation of
strength on objectives outside the main theatre would
mean a proportionate reduction in the army; and, no less
pernicious, a dualism in the higher strategy of the Wilhelm-
strasse. No one realised more completely than Bismarck
the task that the maintenance of German hegemony in
Europe after 1871 laid on the Chancellor. Only by
prestige and a sleepless diplomacy had the successive
phases of the European situation been successfully met,
manipulated, and worked into the broad plan. The task
of watching and controlling Austria, France, Russia, Italy,
Spain--of anticipating the complications in the Near East,
in Poland, and the Mediterranean--became harder, not
easier, as the European Powers grew, penetrated or copied
Bismarckian principles and methods. The invitation
therefore to break out on a new objective--a great colonial
campaign--must be resisted. It was excentric to the
central issues, which in the nature of things constituted
the essentials of a true German policy.
Moreover, Bismarck foresaw that a successful colonial
campaign inevitably involved rivalries outside Europe
that would react on the European position. There were
two chief Colonial States in Europe--France and Great
Britain. Was Germany to compete with France, stop the
policy of diversion which dissipated French strength and
drive her back on concentrating on Europe ? ? And Great
Britain? Competition here would not drive Great Britain
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR
back on Europe--it was competition with a Power essen-
tially colonial and only secondarily continental. At sea
Great Britain was supreme. What if Great Britain replied
by building up a European coalition against Germany? The
antagonism of Great Britain was not lightly to be provoked.
Bismarck predicted that a really serious German challenge
to Great Britain in the colonial and extra-European
sphere would end in a Franco-British alliance and a deep
penetration of Great Britain into the continental situa-
tion--precisely the one object that he desired to prevent.
Bismarck had studied history as a great statesman should
study it--to learn from it the secrets of statecraft. History
was for him a study in statesmanship: precisely as to all the
great commanders from Caesar to Moltke the study of military
history--the great things in war done by the great soldiers
--is the indispensable apprenticeship in the principles of
their science. And he saw, as his speeches and obiter dicta
prove, in modern European history that Great Britain had
always, and only, been formidable, when, in the task of
building and consolidating the British Empire, and in the
pursuit of British ends, she had been driven by the facts
and forces of a given situation to be the backbone and
the reservoir of a European combination. William in. ,
Marlborough, Chatham, Castlereagh--did not these prove
that no European coalition had ever succeeded of which
Great Britain was not the backbone and the reservoir?
Thus, indeed, had Louis xiv. , Louis xv. , Kaunitz, and
Napoleon been overthrown. The Great Britain of Lord
North and George in. , or of the ministries of 1864, 1866,
and 1870, without European allies, and either refusing to
find them or wilfully rejecting them--sulking or ignorantly
rejoicing in a splendid isolation--had brought disaster or
impotence on itself. Put Great Britain, Bismarck virtually
argued, with her back to the wall, because her imperial
interests are threatened, and if she had a statesman to
direct her policy, she would make a European coalition
and keep it going until her British ends--outside Europe
--were achieved. A Concert of Europe directed by Great
Britain spelled the end of German supremacy in Central
Europe. Germany would be not the first amongst equals,
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BISMARCK
but an equal among equals. Could Germany ever hope
to have an army of a continental three-Power standard
and also a navy equal or superior to that of Great Britain?
The first was the essential of Continentalism, the second
the essential of Colonialism. Which was Germany to
choose?
'Colonies,' said Bismarck in 1873, 'would only be a
cause of weakness, because they could only be defended by
powerful fleets and Germany's geographical position did
not necessitate her development into a first-class maritime
Power. Many colonies have been offered me. I have
rejected them. ' This repeated what he had said in 1871:
'For us in Germany this colonial business would be just
like the silken sables in the noble families of Poland, who
have no shirts to their backs. ' In 1884, in the Reichstag,
Bismarck openly said he was 'no colonial man' (Kein
Kolonial-mensch) and in 1885 (January 10) he pronounced:
'The last speaker has told us that we must either abandon
our colonial policy or increase our naval strength to such
an extent that we need not fear any naval Power, or, to
speak more clearly, that our navy should rival that of
England herself. However, even if we should succeed
in building up a navy as strong as that of England, we
should still have to fear an alliance of England and France.
These Powers are stronger than any single Power in
Europe is or ever can be . . . from my diplomatic ex-
perience, I cannot see any reasons which can make
hostilities possible between Germany and England, unless
a Cabinet of inconceivable character should be in power
in England, a Cabinet which neither exists nor which
is ever likely to exist, and which criminally attacks us. '
And again (January 26, 1889): 'I absolutely refuse to act
towards the Sultan of Zanzibar in opposition to England
. . . . English colonial interests compete with ours in
numerous places . . . the preservation of Anglo-German
goodwill is, after all, the most important thing. I see in
England an old and traditional ally. No differences exist
between England and Germany. I am not using a
diplomatic term if I speak of England as our ally. We
have no alliance with England. However, I wish to remain
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 421
in close contact with England also in colonial questions
. . . if I should discover that we might lose touch with
England I should act cautiously and endeavour to avoid
losing England's goodwill. ' It is asserted on good
authority that German diplomatic agents were in the
Bismarckian epoch instructed to ' Do all in your power to
keep up good relationship with the English. It is not
necessary to cable in cipher. We have nothing to conceal
from the English, for it would be the greatest possible folly
to antagonise England. '
Such an antagonism Bismarck foresaw jeopardised the
Triple Alliance--the basis of his Continental system
and the German control of Central Europe. In 1890
(January 13) an article written under Bismarck's inspiration
laid down the following: 'Italy must be able to rely on
the assistance of the English fleet, for the Triple Alliance
cannot protect the Italian coasts. Hence Italy has to
think of England, and consideration of England may con-
ceivably limit Italy's freedom of action. As long as
Germany, Austria-Hungary and Italy are united in the
Triple Alliance, and as long as these three States may
reckon on the assistance of English sea-power, the peace
of Europe will not be broken. '
So far general principles. Active German intervention
in the acquisition of colonies in 1884 was due to the pres-
sure of a combination of forces. German relations with
France were good; Great Britain was gravely embarrassed
in Egypt; British relations with France were strained:
Ireland and the Franchise question were additional burdens
on an administration, the credit of which was gravely
undermined, and the internal unity of which was sapped
by ministers themselves; a quarrel with Russia in the
Middle East was brewing. The British government was
not in a position to resist dexterous pressure. Great
Britain was not able in 1884 to quarrel with Germany, unless
she were prepared to abandon important commitments in
her policy elsewhere. Public opinion in Germany was
vociferous. It represented powerful material interests.
The government was not too strong in the Reichstag;
a general election was imminent and the internal measures
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BISMARCK
of State Socialism had stirred severe criticism in some,
and bitter opposition in other, quarters. The govern-
ment had to convince Germany that its policy was based
on true German interests. The closer Bismarck's policy
is studied the more apparent is the vital connection
between a stroke in foreign policy and the home situation.
Bismarck might affect to despise or ignore public opinion
in Germany--he frequently did, when it was essential to
his aims to do so--but he watched its course and weighed
its volume with vigilant care, and he always found a safety
valve to let the steam out and ease the pressure on the
ministerial boilers. As with the Kulturkampf and the
Vatican Decrees, so now with the colonial movement, he
saw the opportunity and gripped it with characteristic
firmness and dexterity. In the spring of 1884 he had been
able, as is indicated below, to secure an important under-
standing with Russia, endorsed in the autumn of the same
year. The embarrassment of Great Britain was the
Chancellor's opportunity to satisfy public opinion at
home, achieve what was necessary to satisfy public opinion
without sacrificing the essentials of his system, and do it
before the fall of Ferry's administration and the renaissance
of the inveterate hostility between France and Germany
made the opportunity no longer available.
It is not necessary or possible here to trace in detail the
swiftly developed plans by which Germany between 1884
and 1890 acquired Togoland, the Cameroons, South-
West Africa (but without Walfish Bay), the framework of
German East Africa, a third of New Guinea, and a share
of the Samoa group. The Anglo-German agreement of
July 1, 1890 (which brought Heligoland to Germany, but
ceded German claims on Zanzibar and Witu to Great
Britain) falls outside Bismarck's period of office, and was
concluded by his successor, Caprivi. The initial and
most characteristic stages in German colonial policy and
the Anglo-German conflict are described at length, and
from authoritative sources, in Lord Fitzmaurice's Life of
Lord Granville. It must suffice here to note that after
1885 a Conservative, not a Liberal, ministry in Great
Britain was responsible for the ' concessions' and conven-
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 423
tions; that the German colonial party was by no means
satisfied with the achievements of their government; that
in 1885 the attempt to secure the Caroline Islands was
abandoned when Bismarck referred the dispute to the ar-
bitration of Pope Leo xin. , in order to conclude the
Kulturkampf and secure the Clerical Centre; and that
Bismarck bitterly criticised the agreement of July I, 1890,
which may be partly due to his determination to condemn
as a blunder everything done after he ceased to be Chan-
cellor. But the broad fact remains that the foundations
of Germany's Colonial Empire were laid by Bismarck, and
that unless we are to regard all his public utterances on
the subject as deliberate insincerity, he accomplished a
limited programme under pressure, with considerable mis-
giving and much reluctance. 1 He was severely criticised
in the Reichstag and in the press, inspired by the Colonial
Society, for being so apathetic, hesitating, and absurdly
considerate of Great Britain, no less than for sacrificing
Germany's future across the water to an obsolescent
Continentalism.
In 1883 and the spring of 1884 Lord Ampthill warned
our government that the pressure of powerful parties in
Germany was greatly influencing Bismarck ' whose interest
(in colonial policy) was increased by the prospect of a
general election this autumn' (March 15, 1884). The
German government was also indicating with unmis-
takable emphasis that German goodwill in Britain's
Egyptian policy was dependent on British goodwill in
German colonial policy. This plain hint was continually
repeated in the next two years. 'I am in perfect despair,'
Ampthill wrote (August 2, 1884), 'at Prince Bismarck's
present inclination to increase his popularity before the
general election by taking up an anti-English attitude.
Compelled by the colonial mania . . . he has discovered
1 'For the sake of two million marks I cannot throw myself against the
great impulse of the nation, or offer opposition to the will of the whole country.
To this day I am not "a colonies man," and I entertain the gravest apprehen-
sion on the subject ; but I was compelled to decide upon yielding to the general
demand of the nation. . . . If the locomotive of Empire has struck out a track
for itself, I shall not be the one to throw stones in its way. '--(Bismarck in the
Reichstag, January 26, 1S89. )
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? 424
BISMARCK
an unexplored mine of popularity in starting a colonial
policy, which public opinion persuades itself to be anti-
English: and the slumbering theoretical envy of the
Germans at our wealth and our freedom has awakened
and taken the form of abuse of everything English in the
press. ' The remark apart from its special reference is
deeply significant, for it confirms the trend in the develop-
ment of German public opinion, emphasised (p. 275)
earlier in these pages. The alienation of Germany from
England, which was in truth the gravest feature for the
future of both countries, had proceeded with great
rapidity since 1870, and though Bismarck regarded it with
misgiving, as he well might, he would have abandoned
all the principles and methods of his statecraft had he not
utilised it to the full when his policy required it.
The colonial chapter in his Chancellorship is, therefore,
of deep interest, for it reveals all the secrets of his statesman-
ship--his eye for realities, his extraordinary mastery of his
own peculiar technique, his recognition that a genuine
and deep-seated German public opinion must not be
ignored, together with an inflexible determination to
maintain his Continental system and not to push the anta-
gonism with Great Britain to measurable distance of a
rupture. Great Britain could be harried and badgered;
she must understand that international relations were the
result of bargains; she must make concessions that could
be represented as diplomatic victories for Germany; but
she must not be driven into the enemy's camp. And as
the situation developed from 1884 to 1890, Bismarck
relaxed or increased the pressure on the successive Cabinets
in London, not thinking so much of the Colonies them-
selves, as of the prestige- of his government, German
relations with France or Russia, and the Triple Alliance,
in which Italy's continued inclusion was not too certain.
The more clearly that the Anglo-German negotiations
are studied in detail, the more clearly stand out those
methods which this biographical study has continuously
emphasised as truly Bismarckian. The German demand
for colonies and the German movement towards expan-
sion outside Europe were not intrinsically indefensible and
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 445
were the product of forces beyond the control even of an
Iron Chancellor. The supposition which underlay much
1884-90 that Great Britain could have peremptorily vetoed
all German colonial acquisitions, and could have done so
without sacrificing British interests in Egypt or in the
Middle or Far East--in a word, that Great Britain was
strong enough between 1884 and 1890 to defy France,
Russia, and Germany, or should have embarked on a
which can be sustained by a careful study of a very compli-
cated and critical European situation, combined in those
years with a very critical situation at home. Great Britain
had to choose between France and Germany, and France
was practically under German direction. In these pages
we are not primarily concerned either with explaining
the origins and development of British policy, or with
drawing up a balance-sheet based on a critical survey of
mistakes, alternations and successes; for the complete
British balance sheet cannot be adequately set out here,
nor the verdict based on the necessary cross-examination
of the very copious evidence.
One conclusion, however, seems fully justified. It
would have been easy for Bismarck, had he chosen to do
so, to have picked a very formidable quarrel with Great
Britain. Such a choice could have been made really
popular in Germany. Bismarck, indeed, in a month, could
have lashed Germany into a frenzy over colonies, at any
moment after 1884 to 1890. His prestige savoured of the
miraculous: his knowledge of his countrymen's passions
was unrivalled and Germany's military strength was
beyond question. It would have been no less easy to have
lashed Great Britain and colonial sentiment, particularly
in Australia, into the temper that makes either a complete
diplomatic victory or war the only alternatives. The
Pendjeh incident in 1885 proved the readiness of the
country to respond to a strong lead against Russia. 'The
Colonies' would have been a far more formidabL appeal
to national passion than an obscure place on the Afghan-
violent criticism
Salisbury from
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? 426 BISMARCK
istan frontier. But neither Bismarck nor the successive
British governments embarked on a course so fraught with
peril. Bismarck deliberately refused indeed to push
Great Britain against the wall and the inference from his
refusal is irresistible. For reasons, that may be bad or
good, but to which he attached the greatest weight,
he was ready to badger, even to insult, while insisting
on concessions, but not to 'antagonise' Great Britain.
German critics then and since have questioned the accuracy
of his judgment and the validity of his reasons. In this
country we can appreciate the reason for, and ratify the
wisdom of, his decision. For Bismarck was convinced his
policy secured the best interests of Germany. He was
not concerned with the question whether it also made for
British interests. But it made for peace in Europe--and
peace he held was a supreme German interest in those
years. That it was also a British interest, not lightly to be
sacrificed, is demonstrable.
But if Bismarck's ends were and remain defensible, his
methods were and remain' quite indefensible. British
ministers must plead guilty to lack of vigilance and errors
of judgment; the Colonial governments cannot escape
severe criticism; but whatever their mistakes, our Foreign
and Colonial Offices acted in a straightforward and honour-
able manner; and in the beginning they credited, quite
wrongly, the German government with similar intentions
and methods. It would be, on the facts before us, im-
possible to pronounce but one verdict on German diplo-
macy. From the negotiations about Angra Pequena to
the annexation of part of New Guinea, Bismarck's methods
were marked by duplicity and a demonstrable intention
to deceive the British government as . to the true aims of
the German government, to present our government
with faits accomplis, snatched in defiance of soothing
assurances or virtual pledges, and thus to make the whole
situation doubly difficult. The German White Books
were an incomplete, misleading, and, in places, positively
inaccurate version of the negotiations; our Blue Books,
which threw a very different light on what had happened,
roused Bismarck's deepest wrath, and we can understand
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? THE IMPERIAL CHANCELLOR 447
the reasons for his anger. The Chancellor utilised his
unique position in Germany to work up carefully prepared
explosions in the Reichstag, even publicly to suggest that
the British government was hostile to, and jealous of, any
German colonial acquisitions--which he knew was not true
--and to make charges against both Lord Granville and
Lord Derby which he was quite unable to sustain. 1 The
public statements of the Chancellor were intended for a
credulous German public opinion and an invitation to draw
its own (and quite false) conclusions; the withdrawal of
the charges was either privately made or slurred over, after
the poison ha*d been allowed to inflame German feeling.
The missions of Count Herbert Bismarck, whose reception
in England by ministers and society deeply gratified a
sensitive father's heart, were intended to do more than
effect an amicable settlement. 'Count Herbert Bismarck,'
wrote Sir C. Dilke, 'came over again. If at his former
visit he had only tried to get us to dismiss Lord Derby,
on this occasion he wanted us to dismiss Lord Granville
and Lord Derby. ' He failed. So gross and unwarranted
an interference in our home politics, thoroughly Bis-
marckian in character, was calculated to produce precisely
the opposite effect to that which Bismarck desired. All
through this trying period Lord Granville, who acted as
an honourable gentleman towards a great statesman, who
in his diplomacy was never a gentleman, suspected that
the cession of Heligoland was at the bottom of Bismarck's
tortuous and dishonest methods. The possibility of the
concession had been confidentially mentioned more than
once to Lord Granville, but no formal or open suggestion
on the subject was made, though Lord Granville was
1 I. t. the charge that Lord Granville had betrayed confidential communica-
tions of . Bismarck's to the French government (Granville's Life, ii. p. 370), and
that the British government had failed to reply to an important dispatch of
May 5, 1884, when as a matter of fact the dispatch had, by Bismarck's instruc-
tions of which he was well aware, not been communicated to our Foreign Office.
'I had a talk with Munster,' Lord Granville wrote privately to Mr. Gladstone,
'he was frightened out of his wits. He found the famous dispatch, but a
telegram not to act upon it. He begged me to keep this secret. ' And this
our government did, to their honour (op. at. , ii. p. 428). Munster was grate-
ful. But Bismarck never repudiated his statement, and to this day it is believed
in Germany--along with many other innuendoes and allegations, derived from
Bismarck's speeches which were untrue in fact.
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BISMARCIt
aware ' it was the intention of Germany to open a canal
into the Baltic . . . for the security of which it would be
necessary to give a good and fortified harbour to Heligo-
land. ' The concession was ultimately made by Lord
Salisbury on July I, 1890, as part of the general Anglo-
German agreement of that date.
It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that Bismarck
threw away a great opportunity between 1883 and 1885,
and threw it away deliberately. Had he frankly and
openly approached the British government in 1883 with
an explanation of the difficult position the German
government was in, placed all the cards loyally on the
table, invited our goodwill while emphasising the neces-
sity of concessions on grounds of policy, and his readiness
in return for such concessions to support us against Ferry
and the French government, whose policy was to em-
barrass Great Britain everywhere by subservience to
Germany, all that Germany subsequently obtained might
have been gained and more, without endangering the good
relations of both countries. Bismarck pursued a very
different course: partly because such methods were not
his idea of diplomacy, partly because he could not resist
this opportunity to utilise the difficulties of Great Britain,
partly because he conceived it necessary to mislead Ger-
many by representing Great Britain as hostile, while
representing that her hostility was only broken down by
the skill and force of an invincible German diplomacy.
