Wilhelm II's Role in the Coming of World War One
Otto von Bismarck's Vision and Policy Cast Aside by the Young Kaiser
Dec 1, 2008
In January 1871 Otto von Bismarck proclaimed the German Empire at Versailles, near Paris, after a humiliating French defeat in the Franco-Prussian War. The defeated nation was diplomatically isolated as Bismarck strengthened alliances with Russia and Austria-Hungary. Great Britain refused to be lured by France into a continental war, preferring to concentrate on her world empire. The Franco-Prussian War was the first step in a long series of events that would culminate in World War One.
A New Kaiser Meddles With the Formula
Wilhelm II became the last Kaiser when his father, Frederick III, died of throat cancer in June 1888. The 29-year old emperor reversed diplomatic successes nurtured by Bismarck and initiated policies destined to free France from isolation and turn Britain into a potential adversary. In 1890, Wilhelm dismissed Bismarck after disagreements over internal matters and foreign policy goals.
Bismarck viewed Germany’s role in terms of continental leadership. After defeating Austria-Hungary in the Seven Weeks’ War in 1866, Austrian influences in the former German confederation waned as she turned her attention to the Balkans, potentially risking a Russian war. Bismarck’s stand on this in regard to Germany was unequivocal: “The whole of the Balkans is not worth the bones of a single Pomeranian grenadier.”
Kaiser Wilhelm, however, wanted his “place in the sun” and began a policy of imperial meddling in Asia and North Africa, resulting in British consternation. He even sent war ships into the Caribbean in the late 1890s, garnering US suspicions. Above all, the Kaiser wanted a modern navy, having read Alfred Thayer Mahan’s book on The Influence of Sea Power. Wilhelm’s vision of a navy represented a direct threat to Britain and her naval station at Scapa Flow, directly opposite the new German naval terminus.
Perhaps his greatest blunder, Wilhelm allowed the treaty with Russia to lapse. Bismarck had once quipped that the secret of politics was a good treaty with Russia. Republican France seized on the opportunity and concluded its own alliance with the conservatively autocratic Tsar Alexander III, flooding the country with investment dollars.
June 1914
By the time Archduke Francis Ferdinand and his wife Sophie were assassinated in Sarajevo, all of the pieces of the diplomatic and military puzzle were in place. Russia would honor her commitment to Serbia, having nurtured Pan-Slavic policies for decades against expansionist Austria-Hungary. Wilhelm honored the German alliance with Austria-Hungary, personally appalled by the murder of the archduke and his wife; Wilhelm had a particular fondness for the couple and went out of his way to accommodate them on state visits.
Once Tsar Nicholas II of Russia issued orders for full mobilization, against the strong recommendations of Count Witte, one of the few men in Russia to predict calamity if Russia entered the conflict, Germany declared war and the Great War began. The intricate alliance system involved all of the European powers. Britain entered the conflict after Germany violated Belgian neutrality.
The Merchants of Death Prepare For War
Ever since the end of the Franco-Prussian War, both nations had furiously prepared for the next war which each believed to be inevitable. This involved the development of bigger and more accurate artillery. While France constructed tremendous fortifications along the German border, the German General Staff refined the “von Schlieffen Plan,” designed to bypass a direct attack on the heavily fortified French positions by marching through Belgium. The plan almost worked.
Summary
The First World War was an event long in the making. Fate brought a 29-year old to the powerful German throne from which he ignored the expedient pragmatism of RealPolitik and placed his empire in the precarious position of having to fight a two-front war. The long conflict would have global implications and ultimately feed into a second, more horrific world war in 1939.
Sources and further reading
Henry Kissinger, Diplomacy (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1994) see chapters 5-7
W. Bruce Lincoln, In War's Dark Shadow: The Russians Before the Great War (New York: The Dial Press, 1983)
Robert K. Massie, Dreadnought: Britain, Germany, and the Coming of the Great War (New York: Random House, 1991)
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