Kaiser and his circle were carried forward in 1914 by a tide of events they had themselves done much to create. In the summer of 1914 war was seen as a last desperate throw to stave off Germany’s otherwise inevitable decline. Bethmann Hollweg laid the blame for the outbreak of war on cosmic forces, on the clash of imperialism and nationalism, and, specifically, on British, French and Russian envy of Germany’s progress. Germany, so he claimed, could have done little to change this. But did its growth of power make the struggle in Europe inevitable or did its own policies contribute to war and its ‘encirclement’? Twenty-six years earlier, in 1888, at the time of the accession of Wilhelm II, Germany appeared not only secure but on the threshold of a new expansion of power, world power. The contrast of mood and expectations between then and 1914 could not have been greater. Bismarck had adopted the same manipulative approach as at home to safeguard the new empire. In a famous passage in his memoirs he spoke of his recurring ‘nightmare of coalitions’. By this he meant that Germany’s neighbours would combine and surround and threaten Germany. The danger stemmed from a fatal error he had made in his primitive treatment of defeated France. France was forced to pay a war indemnity and, worse, lost a large slice of territory, the provinces of Alsace and Lorraine. Why had Bismarck, who had treated the defeated Danes and Austrians generously, uncharacteristically ensured that France would harbour hatred for its German neighbour for the next fifty years? The reason is that Bismarck believed that a genuine reconciliation with France, the hereditary enemy, was impossible. At the heart of his diplomacy lay the need to keep France weak and to isolate it. His alliance system succeeded but with increasing difficulty and contradictions. What made it plausible was his genuine declaration that Germany was satiated, hankered after no more territory. He could thus act on the continent for two decades as the ‘honest broker’ in mediating the disputes of others. The most serious arose from the decline of power of the Ottoman Turks. The Habsburg Empire and tsarist Russia and Great Britain eyed each other with suspicion when it came to the inheritance and influence among the weak, unstable nations emerging from the decay of Turkey in the Balkans. Brief wars flared up and were smothered by great-power diplomacy with Bismarck’s assistance.
Germany's Overall Situation in Pre-war Times: Modernization of Political Procedures and Approaches
