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Authors: Peter Padfield
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attack on the world, first continental hegemony, then world power. This was, of course, the policy later pursued by Hitler; like everything else in that second-hand cerebrum it was taken straight from the Kaiser’s
Reich
.
The new policy, discernible at least from 1912 and certainly from the Palace meeting of December 1912, was first to smash France and so reduce her that she could never again either threaten Germany’s western borders or finance Germany’s eastern neighbours, then form a giant German
Mitteleuropa
including Holland and Belgium, the coastline ofnorthern France, the states of Eastern Europe—thrusting Russia back—and the Balkan countries down to the Mediterranean. This was the first stage—in fact a United States of Europe under Prussian leadership. The second stage was to tack a colonial empire on to this huge power base. 54
Following the December 1912 meeting, therefore, the Army discarded its alternative plan for a strike east and worked solely on train timetables and supply programmes for a strike west into France through Belgium; the government and the Army between them blocked Tirpitz’s further naval expansion plans, and the Foreign Ministry set about using the threat of further naval expansion as a bargaining counter with Great Britain to force her to grant Germany a free hand in Europe in return for allowing Britain a free hand on the oceans; meanwhile they sought allies in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Turkey and Italy. Propaganda was shifted away from depicting John Bull as the jealous arch-rival who had organized the ‘encirclement’ of Germany, instead concentrating on the danger in the east—for Russia was bound to come in when France was attacked.
It was fairly clear what was going on and both France and Russia hugely stepped up their military programmes in response. This alarmed the Army; by the end of May 1914 von Moltke had become very anxious indeed—so he told the Foreign Minister. In two or three years’ time the military superiority of their enemies would be so great that he did not know how he could cope with them. In his opinion there was no alternative to launching a preventive war while there was still a chance of victory. He asked the Minister ‘to gear policy to an early unleashing of a war’. 55
Relations with England had improved meanwhile, since the focus had shifted from the dreadnought building competition, and when news of the murder at Sarajevo came on June 28th it was possible to hope that here was the pretext needed for a continental war which England, with her Liberal, humanitarian government containing several proclaimed pacifists, would not enter. It was not, however, a moment for reason; war had become a psychological necessity and it was a time for that touch of madness—that steeling oneself for the leap into the unknown, necessary at times in human affairs. To the ministers, ‘haunted by the nightmare of internal chaos and external defeat, war seemed the only way out of the deadlock’. 56
For Wilhelm himself, shocked by the murder and in a high state of emotion, the existence of the Austrian Empire was at stake; it was timefor the Serbs to be ‘straightened out’ once and for all. 57 When his ministers urged the Austrians to do this and the Austrian Emperor sought clarification, Wilhelm assured him of unconditional German support. He was playing up to the war-lord image expected; he also wanted to believe the war could be localized. Tirpitz, on holiday, received a letter from his ‘ears’ in Berlin saying that HM did not think it very likely that Russia would help Serbia because the Tsar would not wish to support regicides and Russia was not yet ready militarily or financially; the same was true of France. ‘HM did not speak of England.’ 58 Whatever plane the Kaiser was inhabiting, on any rational consideration it was evident that Russia could not afford to allow her client Serbia to be overrun by Austria without losing her whole position
Reich
.
The new policy, discernible at least from 1912 and certainly from the Palace meeting of December 1912, was first to smash France and so reduce her that she could never again either threaten Germany’s western borders or finance Germany’s eastern neighbours, then form a giant German
Mitteleuropa
including Holland and Belgium, the coastline ofnorthern France, the states of Eastern Europe—thrusting Russia back—and the Balkan countries down to the Mediterranean. This was the first stage—in fact a United States of Europe under Prussian leadership. The second stage was to tack a colonial empire on to this huge power base. 54
Following the December 1912 meeting, therefore, the Army discarded its alternative plan for a strike east and worked solely on train timetables and supply programmes for a strike west into France through Belgium; the government and the Army between them blocked Tirpitz’s further naval expansion plans, and the Foreign Ministry set about using the threat of further naval expansion as a bargaining counter with Great Britain to force her to grant Germany a free hand in Europe in return for allowing Britain a free hand on the oceans; meanwhile they sought allies in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Turkey and Italy. Propaganda was shifted away from depicting John Bull as the jealous arch-rival who had organized the ‘encirclement’ of Germany, instead concentrating on the danger in the east—for Russia was bound to come in when France was attacked.
It was fairly clear what was going on and both France and Russia hugely stepped up their military programmes in response. This alarmed the Army; by the end of May 1914 von Moltke had become very anxious indeed—so he told the Foreign Minister. In two or three years’ time the military superiority of their enemies would be so great that he did not know how he could cope with them. In his opinion there was no alternative to launching a preventive war while there was still a chance of victory. He asked the Minister ‘to gear policy to an early unleashing of a war’. 55
Relations with England had improved meanwhile, since the focus had shifted from the dreadnought building competition, and when news of the murder at Sarajevo came on June 28th it was possible to hope that here was the pretext needed for a continental war which England, with her Liberal, humanitarian government containing several proclaimed pacifists, would not enter. It was not, however, a moment for reason; war had become a psychological necessity and it was a time for that touch of madness—that steeling oneself for the leap into the unknown, necessary at times in human affairs. To the ministers, ‘haunted by the nightmare of internal chaos and external defeat, war seemed the only way out of the deadlock’. 56
For Wilhelm himself, shocked by the murder and in a high state of emotion, the existence of the Austrian Empire was at stake; it was timefor the Serbs to be ‘straightened out’ once and for all. 57 When his ministers urged the Austrians to do this and the Austrian Emperor sought clarification, Wilhelm assured him of unconditional German support. He was playing up to the war-lord image expected; he also wanted to believe the war could be localized. Tirpitz, on holiday, received a letter from his ‘ears’ in Berlin saying that HM did not think it very likely that Russia would help Serbia because the Tsar would not wish to support regicides and Russia was not yet ready militarily or financially; the same was true of France. ‘HM did not speak of England.’ 58 Whatever plane the Kaiser was inhabiting, on any rational consideration it was evident that Russia could not afford to allow her client Serbia to be overrun by Austria without losing her whole position
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