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Authors: David Fromkin
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its army to the extent that would be required to realize such expansionist dreams.
Admiral Alfred Tirpitz explained in 1896 that in the end the armed forces existed "to suppress internal revolutions." The very industrial revolution that was making Germany the greatest country on the Continent was at the same time generating forces that were threatening the regime. It was only one of the many contradictions in Germany's policies.
Driving Germany's industrial growth was the country's educational system. Here, too, was a contradiction. The best-educated general public in Europe was unlikely in the long run to tolerate an archaic government structure or a leadership drawn exclusively from a narrow pool.
Long after the Great War, sympathetic foreign observers were to make the argument that Germany's increasing greatness should have been peacefully accommodated by the other powers: that they should have appeased Berlin. Put this way, the responsibility for the outbreak of war falls on the shoulders of the main countries—Britain, France, Russia, and the United States—that eventually stood in the way of Germany's rise to world power. They gave Germany, the argument runs, no way to assert itself other than through war. As the French historianElie Halévy understandingly put it in the 1930s: "But suppose that, presently, one nation is found to have gained immensely in military or economic strength at the expense of one or many of the others . . . for such a disturbance of equilibrium man has not yet discovered any method of peaceful adjustment. . . . it can be rectified only by an outburst of violence—a war."
Again, however, one arrives at a contradiction. As will be shown presently, the Kaiser and other German leaders in 1912 and 1913 believed that their country was becoming weaker, not stronger, relative to the other powers. As will be seen, the chief of the general staff felt that Germany ought to launch a war as soon as possible precisely because the chances of winning it would be less every year. War was necessary, in other words, not toaccommodate German strength, but to accommodate German weakness.
For a time, the arms race seemed to offer a way out. Germany, in the process of overtaking Britain as Europe's leading economy, ought therefore to have been able to outspend its rivals for military purposes. But an archaic constitutional structure and the consequent lack of a progressive tax system kept Germany from translating a growing economy into growing government revenues. By the start of the twentieth century Germany had reached the limits, spending all that it could, and more than it should, on the military. In his authoritative study of pre–World War I Germany, Berghahn writes: "German armaments policy was almost exclusively responsible for the Reich's financial plight. Over the years a relatively constant figure of about 90 per cent of the Reich budget had been spent on the Army and Navy" (emphasis added).
A leader like Franklin D. Roosevelt might have lifted the eyes of Germans to some higher vision, and brought people together through sheer charisma. Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II seemed to aspire to play such a role. He wore glittering uniforms and mounted noble chargers, and, at times, uttered dramatic pronouncements. But he fell short: he had no aptitude for the role.
Through the many years of his reign his support dwindled among the German people, and plunged during several public scandals of which more will be said later. It is curious that in foreign countries he was taken as the embodiment of the Prussian Junker military tradition, when his popularity was so low among Prussian military Junkers.
Kaiser Wilhelm II was half English; his mother was Queen Victoria's daughter. He exhibited strange attitudes toward England—a kaleidoscope of love, hate, envy, admiration, and a desire to be accepted as at least an equal—and these contradictions are explained by many biographers on the basis of his feelings for either
Admiral Alfred Tirpitz explained in 1896 that in the end the armed forces existed "to suppress internal revolutions." The very industrial revolution that was making Germany the greatest country on the Continent was at the same time generating forces that were threatening the regime. It was only one of the many contradictions in Germany's policies.
Driving Germany's industrial growth was the country's educational system. Here, too, was a contradiction. The best-educated general public in Europe was unlikely in the long run to tolerate an archaic government structure or a leadership drawn exclusively from a narrow pool.
Long after the Great War, sympathetic foreign observers were to make the argument that Germany's increasing greatness should have been peacefully accommodated by the other powers: that they should have appeased Berlin. Put this way, the responsibility for the outbreak of war falls on the shoulders of the main countries—Britain, France, Russia, and the United States—that eventually stood in the way of Germany's rise to world power. They gave Germany, the argument runs, no way to assert itself other than through war. As the French historianElie Halévy understandingly put it in the 1930s: "But suppose that, presently, one nation is found to have gained immensely in military or economic strength at the expense of one or many of the others . . . for such a disturbance of equilibrium man has not yet discovered any method of peaceful adjustment. . . . it can be rectified only by an outburst of violence—a war."
Again, however, one arrives at a contradiction. As will be shown presently, the Kaiser and other German leaders in 1912 and 1913 believed that their country was becoming weaker, not stronger, relative to the other powers. As will be seen, the chief of the general staff felt that Germany ought to launch a war as soon as possible precisely because the chances of winning it would be less every year. War was necessary, in other words, not toaccommodate German strength, but to accommodate German weakness.
For a time, the arms race seemed to offer a way out. Germany, in the process of overtaking Britain as Europe's leading economy, ought therefore to have been able to outspend its rivals for military purposes. But an archaic constitutional structure and the consequent lack of a progressive tax system kept Germany from translating a growing economy into growing government revenues. By the start of the twentieth century Germany had reached the limits, spending all that it could, and more than it should, on the military. In his authoritative study of pre–World War I Germany, Berghahn writes: "German armaments policy was almost exclusively responsible for the Reich's financial plight. Over the years a relatively constant figure of about 90 per cent of the Reich budget had been spent on the Army and Navy" (emphasis added).
A leader like Franklin D. Roosevelt might have lifted the eyes of Germans to some higher vision, and brought people together through sheer charisma. Germany's Kaiser Wilhelm II seemed to aspire to play such a role. He wore glittering uniforms and mounted noble chargers, and, at times, uttered dramatic pronouncements. But he fell short: he had no aptitude for the role.
Through the many years of his reign his support dwindled among the German people, and plunged during several public scandals of which more will be said later. It is curious that in foreign countries he was taken as the embodiment of the Prussian Junker military tradition, when his popularity was so low among Prussian military Junkers.
Kaiser Wilhelm II was half English; his mother was Queen Victoria's daughter. He exhibited strange attitudes toward England—a kaleidoscope of love, hate, envy, admiration, and a desire to be accepted as at least an equal—and these contradictions are explained by many biographers on the basis of his feelings for either
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