Alliances Matter

In the two years after the conclusion of the Anglo-French treaty of April 1904, Germany dominated the scene of European politics by a series of extraordinary diplomatic maneuvers. Twice in eight months’ time, attempts were made to conclude a treaty of alliance with Russia, first in November 1904 and again in July 1905, during the kaiser’s meeting with the tsar at Bjorko. At the same time, a vigorous policy against France was followed on the Moroccan issue. After a period of deliberate silence on the new Anglo-French and Franco-Spanish Moroccan agreements, the kaiser made clear his strong stand for the sultan’s authority against the French by his visit to Tangier at the end of March 1905. In the following months, Germany was further to demand an international conference for the purpose of reaching a new Moroccan agreement and to exert pressure on France-to the point of threatening to make war—to remove Delcasse from the foreign ministry.

This extraordinary series of diplomatic activities is generally regarded by historians of pre-war diplomacy as Germany’s reaction to the Anglo-French entente.To be sure, it has been pointed out that the kaiser also had in mind his own alliance plan-a five-power continental league—in his secret negotiations with the tsar for a treaty of alliance. It is held without doubt, however, that the situation created by the Entente Cordiale was what prompted the kaiser and Bulow to initiate the series of diplomatic moves made by Germany during 1904 and 1905.

The Entente Cordiale was, however, not the only important source of worry for Germany during the period. A reexamination of the documents contained in Die grosse Politik shows unmistakably that, as early as 1904, German statesmen were preoccupied with the possibility of an Anglo-Russian rapprochement, which together with the Entente Cordiale would complete the encirclement of Germany. This possibility was very real at the time, because the Russo-Japanese War, which was started two months before the conclusion of the Anglo-French treaty, might have been brought to an early end through French and British mediation. On the basis of a new Far Eastern settlement to be worked out on the occasion of the peace, a quad-ruple alliance (Quadrupelallianz or Viererbund) might be formed, which would embrace the Anglo-Japanese and the Franco-Russian alliances. Several times between December 1904 and August 1905 directors of German policy believed that the Anglo-French mediation had come to the verge of success and that the formation of the alliance was imminent.

If the interpretation of the Foreign Office documents presented in this paper is correct, the danger of a new alliance was indeed a more serious and a more immediate concern to the directors of German policy than the situation created by the Entente Cordiale itself. The fear of a new alliance was in fact behind almost every diplomatic step taken by Germany in 1904 and 1905. The two attempts to secure a Russian alliance were made chiefly because of the belief that a German-Russian pact would forestall the possibility of an Anglo-Franco-Russian combination. The Tangier visit and the threat to make war, should Delcasse remain in office, were decided upon at two critical moments when the success of French mediation appeared to be dangerously imminent. They were designed to support Biilow’s policy in the Far East as well as in Morocco.

The fact that Germany had been so preoccupied with the possibility of an Anglo-Franco-Russian combination indeed obliges us to view the development of the system of alliances before the World War in a new perspective. The German “fear of encirclement” can be said to have begun as early as 1904.