Chapter 3: Bismarckian Foreign Policy (1871-1890)

(A) Bismarck’s Pax Europa

A New Balance of Power

We have seen that, in terms of domestic policy, Bismarck spent much of his time
seeking out enemies of the Reich and neutralising their impact either by coercion,
paternalism or brute force. But peace at all costs at home was never a game of
compromise that interested Bismarck for very long. Yet after a decade of using the
force of arms to assist the unification of Germany, Bismarck’s foreign policy was
coloured by the shades of peace. It is generally not an issue for debate that, after
1871, Bismarck sought peace in Europe. He knew that the rest of Europe would allow
the ‘Empire of Prussia’ to grow not one more hectare without intervention. For three
hundred years France had been the dominant European Power. The balance of power
had been transformed. Disraeli called it the greatest upheaval since the French
Revolution. The dangers of a Europe torn apart by war and counter war seemed
possible. But Bismarck was determined to preserve his new Empire – and this
required a Europe at peace to do so effectively. But here the unanimity between
historians ends.

Bismarck’s specific objectives and the mechanisms he employed to enhance Imperial

security have been issues of great debate. W L Langer’s book “European Alliances
and Alignments” portrayed the Chancellor as the ultimate tactician who was desirous
of peace at all costs. “…..for Germany’s sake to avoid any conflict in Europe”. To
this end he devised a complex system of alliances that made peace mutually beneficial
to all the great powers for most of the time. A J P Taylor, on the other hand, has
argued that Bismarck was a realist who accepted that male nature required at times the
escape of conflict. Thus his objective was to keep a “balance of tension” alive in
Europe. War between separate states should be avoided if it directly threatened the
peace of MittelEuropa and German security. If tension had to be played out then he
preferred to direct it to overseas Empire and the furthermost parts of Europe.
Therefore, to see Bismarck as a German Gladstone, preaching by practice a sermon on
international brotherly love and striving for permanent alternatives to the risk of
international hostilities, would for the most part seem totally illusory. What then was
Bismarck’s policy in practice? For William Carr it was twofold, the permanent
isolation of France and the maintenance of peaceful co-existence with the other two
major conservative European powers, Austria–Hungary and Russia.

Pacifying and Isolating France

Contemporaries noted that Bismarck’s peace treaty with France was far harsher than
those with Denmark in 1864 or Austria in 1866. Bismarck felt that France had
retarded German unification for centuries and thus his peace would be punitive and
remind France that Europe had a new hierarchy of power. According to D Richards,
Bismarck was willing to run the risk of alienating French feeling because,
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“Firstly ….France would take many years to recover from the Franco – Prussian war.
Secondly…. he could use the bogey of a French war of revenge to make the Reichstag
maintain a high level of German armaments. And…thirdly… his diplomatic genius
could keep France isolated.”

D. Richards: An Illustrated History of Europe. London 1985.

Thus the Treaty of Frankfurt had taken Alsace and East Lorraine and the chief forts of
Metz and Strasbourg, weakening the French state’s defences on the Rhine. France
had to pay five billion francs in war indemnity and maintain the German army on
French soil until it was paid. The new Germany was proclaimed on 18 January 1871
at the palace of Versailles – Louis XIV’s architectural symbol of French cultural
superiority.

But the first of these assumptions was misplaced. The French recovery was quicker
than Bismarck expected. The indemnity was paid off by 1873 and the German
soldiers left on 16 September to the vocal anger of Parisian French women who
scrubbed the streets clean as the soldiers departed the City. The Third Republic
rebuilt its army and its popular press began to demand the return of Alsace and
Lorraine. Bismarck was happy that the French were establishing an overtly
democratic Republic because he assumed this would frighten off monarchical allies.
But when between 1874 and 1875 the French increased regiment sizes from three to
four and ordered an extension of the cavalry and armaments divisions he grew
concerned. Egged on by Moltke he demanded increases in the army budget from the
Reichstag and in April the Berlin press began commenting on a “war in sight” crisis.
It may be that Bismarck wished merely to pressure France into returning to the status
quo of 1874. But he overplayed his hand and Alexander II of Russia and Queen
Victoria of Britain pledged their help to France if Germany declared war. Bismarck
back peddled.

Instead after 1878 he preferred to promote a policy of diverting the French towards
Colonialism. Between 1878 and 1886 Bismarck backed French claims in Romania,
the Near East, North Africa and Asia. In 1884 he hosted the Congo Conference in
Berlin and promoted a Franco-German entente to challenge the British Imperial
Empire. The next Franco–German tension emerged in 1886 when General Boulanger
was appointed French Minister of War. He was a militant nationalist who seemed at
one stage to actually threaten the existence of the Republic itself. Although he failed,
Bismarck used him to promote further army expenditure at home. When the
Reichstag refused fiscal increases, he dissolved it and won a centre-right victory in
February 1887. The French however were aware of his manipulation of republican
internal politics yet again. The statue in Paris that represented the fallen city of
Strasbourg was draped in black in April 1871. It remained so in 1890. Bismarck had
totally failed to “pacify France”. However, knowing this he had spent much time
promoting Austro–Russian friendship. He was not prepared to countenance a two
front war with a potential French ally.

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Austro-Russian Friendship and the Alliance System

The counterweight to French isolation was the promotion of Austro–Russian

friendship. Bismarck knew this would secure his southern and eastern borders and
thus provide him with less security insomnia. But the objective was harder to
guarantee than one would imagine. For both states the Balkan region of the decaying
Ottoman Empire was ripe for conquest. Again and again between 1871 and 1890
Bismarck would become an informal referee between the two empires. For Austria
the rise of nationalist Balkan states threatened to destabilise her own multi–ethnic
empire. In the case of Russia the region was dominated by subjugated “Orthodox
Christians” for whom the Pan-Slavist movement deemed Mother Russia the sole
protector. Both Emperors Alexander II and Alexander III did not forget that those
who controlled the area would also control access to the Dardenelles, Black Sea
access to the Mediterranean. Russia could at long last have a winter warm-water port.

The early 1870’s seemed to suggest that peace could be easily maintained; all three
states (Russia, Austria and Germany) were led by conservative Emperors eager to
maintain their privileges and powers and determined to hold back the forces of
liberalism, democracy and socialism. This desire was thus symbolised by the signing
of the ‘Informal Dreikaiserabkommen’ between June – October 1873. This, in
generalised terms, emphasised the Emperors’ desire to maintain European peace,
challenge the revolutionary forces that could affect all of them and consult on their
foreign policy developments. In a sense, Taylor was right in commenting that this
agreement was a cementing of solidarity in the face of potential revolutionary forces
that could disturb their mutual domestic fronts. It did not, however, prepare the way
for binding any states to understanding on foreign affairs as the Eastern question
perfectly reflected. Any such illusions for Bismarck were blown away in 1875.

The Eastern Question (1875-1878)

In 1875 Bosnia-Herzegovina rebelled against the Ottoman Empire. In the ensuing

Balkan war, Russia gained huge success against Turkey and by January 1878 had
reached Constantinople. The Russians imposed the Treaty of San Stefano in Turkey
in order to create a pro Russian Bulgaria, which would help protect Russia’s access to
the Mediterranean. When Britain and Austria threatened war, Bismarck stepped in
and offered to renegotiate the peace. Thus was born the ‘Congress of Berlin’ in 1878
where Bismarck played the ‘honest broker’ – more interested in European peace than
German Empire building. It was the high point of his diplomatic career. Germany
was seen as the peacemaker rather than the warmonger. The new treaty allowed
Austria to occupy Bosnia – Herzegovina and the creation of a smaller independent
Habsburg friendly Bulgaria with ‘no access’ to the Straits. But try as he might,
Bismarck knew that Russia held him responsible for a pro Austrian peace. Russia was
disillusioned with the Chancellor. Bismarck responded by attaining closer links to
Austria. On 7th October 1879 he signed the Dual Alliance. The alliance promised that
both states would be neutral if attacked by a third – unless it was Russia, in which
case they would aid the other party. Bismarck had an array of reasons for signing the
treaty: it would please southern Germans infuriated by the Kulturkampf; it would
totally secure the Empire’s southern borders; it supported his domestic economic
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preference of increasing the Reich’s Danubian trade while allowing him to please
Junker Prussian wheat producers by placing huge tariffs on imported Russian wheat;
and finally, it could be used by him as the stick with which to woo an isolated Russia
back into the fold. If it had the bonus of removing his hated Russian rival Chancellor
Gorchakov - all well and good. However, for William Carr,

“The truth is that he acted once again on the spur of the moment to deal with an
emergency situation – largely of his own making. The alliance was a temporary
expedient to preserve the precarious balance of power in the Balkans by warning
Russia off Austria. In no sense was Bismarck making a final choice between them.”

(W Carr. A History of Germany 1815 – 1985. Page 151).

Maintaining the Peace (1879-1890) – The Alliance System’s Growth

By 1880 the Russians knew about the alliance and felt again isolated. Bismarck put
pressure on his ally Austria to enter into a new tripartite agreement. A ‘formal
Dreikaiserbund’ was signed in June 1881. This time Russia’s interests in the East
were supported by Bismarck. But the death of Tsar Alexander II by assassination and
the succession of Alexander III meant that the Russians were only temporarily
appeased. Indeed in February 1882 a Pan-Slavist Russian, General Skobelev attacked
the Germans as the natural enemies of the Slavs. Moreover, Alexander’s Ministry
was dominated by Pan-Slavist ministers like Pobedonostov and Tolstoy. Fortunately
for Bismarck, Alexander had left a pro German Minister, Giers, at the Russian
Foreign Office. He used this contact to both deter Pan-Slavist sympathy at St.
Petersburg while also reminding them of their vulnerability to potential isolation. To
reinforce the latter Bismarck exploited Franco–Italian friction over Tunis to bring
Italy into the Dual Alliance. The Triple Alliance was sealed in May 1882. With
Italian forces ranged against France, Austrian troops could concentrate on a Russian
attack with Germany. Bismarck extended the alliance to Romania in 1883 thus
boxing in the Russian borders.

By 1885 Bismarck’s system had reached its greatest complexity. But in 1885 the
Bulgarian crisis re-erupted. Russia felt the unification of the country under the pro
British/pro German Prince Alexander of Battenburg was denying her influence.
Bismarck urged a Mediterranean alliance between Britain, Italy and Austria to police
the Black Sea access and hem Russia in. He also put pressure on Russia’s finances by
withholding German investment. Russia signed the so-called ‘Reinsurance Policy’
that promised benevolent neutrality between the states if attacked by a third party. It
was secret and renewable after three years. It kept Russia from a French alliance. Yet
in supporting the “Lombard-Verbot” agreement on 10th November 1887 under which
further Reichsbank loans to Russia were severely curtailed, Bismarck seemed to be
contradicting his foreign policy. For economic historians like Stern, it was a gambit
to steer Russia into continuing friendship. But really it reminded all of the importance
of the Dual Alliance which, as Medlicott has pointed out, gave bonuses to Bismarck
on both the domestic as well as the foreign policy front. Bismarck would certainly
have signed the Reinsurance treaty, had he not been removed from the chancellorship
in 1890. But most historians agree that even had he stayed on, he would have found it
increasingly difficult to maintain Austro–Russian passivity in the light of their
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differing aspirations. Moreover, with German industrialists appearing keen on
retarding Russian economic development, the Tsar would have had little choice but to
seek fiscal support elsewhere. The Bourgeois state of republican France would be the
only alternative. Where economic aid begins, foreign alliances follow and sure
enough Bismarck’s fears since 1871 became a reality in 1892 and were formalised
with a Franco–Russian alliance in 1894.

Bismarck’s system had limitations. The juggler could not quite keep all the balls in
the air in perpetuity.

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