PEEBLES PROFILES
EPISODE XV
Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg
EARLY LIFE AND RISE TO POWER
Theobald Theodor Friedrich Alfred von Bethmann-Hollweg was born in Hohenfinow, Brandenburg on November 29, 1856, the son of Prussian official Felix von Bethmann-Hollweg. His grandfather was August von Bethmann-Hollweg, who had been a prominent law scholar, president of Frederick William University in Berlin, and Prussian Minister of Culture. His great-grandfather was Johann Jakob Hollweg, who had married a daughter of the wealthy Frankfurt am Main banking family of Bethmann, founded in 1748.
Cosima Wagner was a relative on the Bethmann side, and his mother, Isabella de Rougemont, was a French Swiss.
Bethmann-Hollweg was educated at the boarding school of Schulpforta and at the Universities of Strasbourg, Leipzig and Berlin. Entering the Prussian administrative service in 1882, he rose to the position of the President of the Province of Brandenburg in 1899. He married Martha von Pfuel, the niece of Ernst von Pfuel, Prime Minister of Prussia.
From 1905 to 1907, Bethmann-Hollweg served as Prussian Minister of the Interior. He then served as Imperial State Secretary for the Interior from 1907 to 1909. On the resignation of Chancellor Bernhard von Bülow in 1909, Bethmann-Hollweg was appointed to succeed him.
RELATIONS ABROAD AND AT HOME
In foreign policy, he pursued a policy of détente with Britain, hoping to come to some agreement that would put a halt to the two countries’ ruinous naval arms race and give Germany a free hand to deal with France. This policy failed, largely from the opposition of German Naval Minister Alfred von Tirpitz.
Despite the increase in tensions because of the Second Moroccan Crisis of 1911, Bethmann-Hollweg improved relations with Britain to some extent, working with British foreign secretary Sir Edward Grey to alleviate tensions during the Balkan Crises of 1912–1913.
He also negotiated treaties over an eventual partition of the Portuguese colonies and the projected Berlin-Baghdad Railway, the latter aimed in part at securing Balkan countries’ support for a German-Ottoman alliance.
In domestic politics, Bethmann-Hollweg’s record was also mixed, and his compromising of socialists and liberals on the left and nationalists on the right alienated most of the German political establishment.
THE JULY CRISIS
World events were coming to a head when on July 5, 1914, the Count Hoyos mission arrived in Berlin in response to Count Berchtold’s plea for friendship. Berlin expected Vienna to take swift action against Serbia while the Sarajevo murders were still fresh, delivering a sudden fait accompli to the Triple Entente and thus (maybe) decreasing the chances of a wider war. There was some factors that could upset this wishful thinking by the Prussian hierarchy, and the classic Austrian traits of indecision, prevarication, and delay (Schlamperei) were at the top of the list!
Bethmann-Hollweg was assured that Britain would not intervene in the frantic diplomatic rounds between the European powers. However, reliance on that assumption encouraged Austria to demand Serbian concessions. His main concern was Tsarist Russia, conveyed by his ambassadors at a time when Raymond Poincaré himself was preparing a secret mission to St Petersburg. He wrote to Count Sergey Sazonov:
“Russian mobilization measures would compel us to mobilize and that then European war could scarcely be prevented.”
As feared, the Austrians were slow to act publicly. Most of the army units were on summer leave, including the Hungarians who were helping bring in the early harvest. So, the ultimatum was delivered nearly three weeks after the drama in Sarajevo. Thus, the Dual Monarchy lost the reflex sympathies attendant to the June 28th murders and gave the further impression to the Entente that Austria-Hungary was merely using the assassinations as a pretext for aggression.
When War Minister Erich von Falkenhayn wanted to mobilize for war on July 29th, Bethmann-Hollweg was still against it, but he used his veto to prevent the Reichstag from debating it. The Pourtales telegram of July 31st was what Helmuth von Moltke the Younger, who declared a Zustand drohender Kriegsgefahr (state of imminent danger of war), wanted to hear. To the dismay of Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg, the other powers had failed to communicate Tsarist Russia’s provocation.
Following the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo on June 28, 1914, Bethmann-Hollweg and his foreign minister, Gottlieb von Jagow, were instrumental in assuring Austria-Hungary of Germany’s unconditional support (the so-called “blank check”), regardless of Austria’s actions against Serbia. While Sir Edward Grey was suggesting a mediation between Austria-Hungary and Serbia, Bethmann-Hollweg wanted Austria-Hungary to attack Serbia; so, he tampered with the British message and deleted the last line of the letter:
“Also, the whole world here is convinced, and I hear from my colleagues that the key to the situation lies in Berlin, and that if Berlin seriously wants peace, it will prevent Vienna from following a foolhardy policy.”
When the Austro-Hungarian ultimatum was presented to Serbia, Kaiser Wilhelm II ended his cruise of the North Sea and hurried back to Berlin.
When Wilhelm arrived at the Potsdam station late in the evening of July 26th, he was met by a pale, agitated, and somewhat fearful Chancellor. Bethmann-Hollweg’s apprehension stemmed not from the dangers of the looming war, but rather from his fear of the Kaiser’s wrath when the extent of his deceptions were revealed.
The Kaiser’s first words to him were suitably brusque: “How did it all happen?” Rather than attempt to explain, the Chancellor offered his resignation by way of apology. Wilhelm refused to accept it, muttering furiously, “You’ve made this stew, now you’re going to eat it!”
A SCRAP OF PAPER
Bethmann-Hollweg, much of whose foreign policy before the war had been guided by his desire to establish good relations with Britain, was particularly upset by Britain’s declaration of war following the German violation of Belgium’s neutrality during its invasion of France. He reportedly asked the departing British Ambassador Edward Goschen how Britain could go to war over a “scrap of paper” (“ein Fetzen Papier”), which was the 1839 Treaty of London guaranteeing Belgium’s neutrality.
A Published Interview Explaining the “Scrap of Paper” Phrase said by German Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann-Hollweg:
“My conversation with Sir E. Goschen occurred on the 4th of August.
“I had just declared in the Reichstag that only dire necessity, only the struggle for existence, compelled Germany to march through Belgium, but that Germany was ready to make compensation for the wrong committed.
“When I spoke I already had certain indications, but no absolute proof, on which to base a public accusation that Belgium had long before abandoned its neutrality in its relations with England.
“Nevertheless, I took Germany’s responsibilities towards neutral States so seriously that I spoke frankly on the wrong committed by Germany.
“What was the British attitude on the same question? The day before my conversation with the British Ambassador, Sir Edward Grey had delivered his well-known speech in Parliament, wherein, while he did not state expressly that England would take part in the war, he left the matter in little doubt.
“One needs only to read this speech through carefully to learn the reason of England’s intervention in the war. Amid all his beautiful phrases about England’s honour and England’s obligations we find it over and over again expressed that England’s interests – its own interests – called for participation in war, for it was not in England’s interests that a victorious, and therefore stronger, Germany should emerge from the war.
“This old principle of England’s policy – to take as the sole criterion of its actions its private interests regardless of right, reason, or considerations of humanity – is expressed in that speech of Gladstone’s in 1870 on Belgian neutrality from which Sir Edward quoted.
“Mr. Gladstone then declared that he was unable to subscribe to the doctrine that the simple fact of the existence of a guarantee is binding upon every party thereto, irrespective altogether of the particular position in which it may find itself at the time when the occasion for action on the guarantee arrives, and he referred to such English statesmen as Aberdeen and Palmerston as supporters of his views.
“England drew the sword only because she believed her own interests demanded it. Just for Belgian neutrality she would never have entered the war. That is what I meant when I told Sir E. Goschen, in that last interview when we sat down to talk the matter over privately man to man, that among the reasons which had impelled England into war the Belgian neutrality treaty had for her only the value of a scrap of paper.
“I may have been a bit excited and aroused. Who would not have been at seeing the hopes and work of the whole period of my Chancellorship going for naught?
“I recalled to the Ambassador my efforts for years to bring about an understanding between England and Germany, an understanding which, I reminded him, would have made a general European war impossible, and have absolutely guaranteed the peace of Europe.
‘Such understanding would have formed the basis on which we could have approached the United States as a third partner.
“But England had not taken up this plan, and through its entry into the war had destroyed forever the hope of its fulfilment.
“In comparison with such momentous consequences, was the treaty not a scrap of paper?”
— Charles F. Horne, Source Records of the Great War, Vol. I (1923)
A tall, gaunt, sombre, well-trimmed aristocratic figure, Bethmann-Hollweg sought approval from a declaration of war. His civilian colleagues pleaded for him to register some febrile protest, but he was frequently outflanked by the military leaders, who played an increasingly important role in the direction of all German policy. However, historian Fritz Fischer, in the 1960s, showed that Bethmann-Hollweg made more concessions to the nationalist right than had previously been thought. He supported the ethnic cleansing of Poles from the Polish Border Strip as well as Germanisation of Polish territories by settlement of German colonists.
THE SEPTEMBERPROGRAMM
Bethmann-Hollweg also presented the Septemberprogramm, which was a list of goals for Germany to achieve in the war. It was drafted by his private secretary (Kurt Riezler) on September 9, 1914 and contained the following:
1. France should cede some northern territory, such as the iron-ore mines at Briey and a coastal strip running from Dunkirk to Boulogne-sur-Mer, to Belgium or Germany.
2. France should pay a war indemnity of 10 billion German Marks, with further payments to cover veterans’ funds and to pay off all of Germany’s existing national debt. This would prevent French rearmament, make the French economy dependent on Germany, and end trade between France and the British Empire.
3. France will partially disarm by demolishing its northern forts.
4. Belgium should be annexed to Germany or, preferably, become a “vassal state”, which should cede eastern parts and possibly Antwerp to Germany and give Germany military and naval bases.
5. Luxembourg should become a member state of the German Empire.
6. Buffer states would be created in territory carved out of the western Russian Empire, such as Poland, which would remain under German sovereignty.
7. Germany would create a Mitteleuropa economic association, ostensibly egalitarian but actually dominated by Germany. Members would include the new buffer states.
8. The German colonial empire would be expanded. The German possessions in Africa would be enlarged into a contiguous German colony across central Africa (Mittelafrika) at the expense of the French and Belgian colonies. Presumably to leave open future negotiations with Britain, no British colonies were to be taken, but Britain’s “intolerable hegemony” in world affairs was to end.
9. The Netherlands should be brought into a closer relationship to Germany while avoiding any appearance of coercion.
DOWNFALL, DEFEAT, AND DEATH
With all credibility and power now lost, the Chancellor conspired over Falkenhayn’s head with Paul von Hindenburg and Erich Ludendorff (respectively Commander-in-Chief and Chief of Staff for the Eastern Front) for an offensive in the spring of 1915. They then succeeded in securing Falkenhayn’s replacement by Hindenburg as Chief of the General Staff, with Ludendorff as First Quartermaster-General (Hindenburg’s deputy) in August 1916.
Thereafter, Bethmann-Hollweg’s hopes for U.S. President Woodrow Wilson’s mediation at the end of 1916 came to nothing. Over his objections, Hindenburg and Ludendorff forced the adoption of unrestricted submarine warfare in March 1917, adopted as a result of Henning von Holtzendorff’s memorandum. Bethmann-Hollweg had been a reluctant participant and opposed it in cabinet. The U.S. entered the war one month later, perhaps the inevitability that they had wished to avoid.
On July 19, 1917, a Reichstag revolt resulted in the passage of the Social Democrat Matthias Erzberger’s Peace Resolution, which passed by a vote of 212 to 126. It was supported by the Social Democrats, the Catholic Center Party and the Progressive People’s Party. The measure was opposed by the National Liberals and the Conservatives.
It was an attempt to seek a negogiated peace treaty (Verständigungsfrieden) and a very calm peace to end the Great War. The resolution called for no annexations, no indemnities, freedom of the seas, and international arbitration. In the end, it was ignored by the German High Command AND the Allied powers.
The resolution had immediate repercussions, and it forced Bethmann-Hollweg to resign as Chancellor. His replacement was a relatively unknown figure, Dr. Georg Michaelis.
During 1918, German support for the war was increasingly challenged by strikes and political agitation. In October of that year, sailors in the German Imperial Navy mutinied when ordered to set sail for a final confrontation with the British Navy. The Kiel Mutiny sparked off the November Revolution which brought the war to an end. Bethmann-Hollweg tried to persuade the Reichstag to opt to moderate for peace.
His plan to dominate European hegemony through Pan-Germanism in the east and Mitteleuropa in the west disintegrated at the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk in March 1918. It signalled a long-term development of racially expansive policies of Germanification that presaged the conflict twenty years later.
Intellectual supporters of the policy in Berlin, Arnold Wahnschaffe (the undersecretary in the Chancellory) and Arthur Zimmermann were his closest and ablest colleagues. Bethmann-Hollweg was directly responsible for devising the Flamenpolitik on the Western Front carried out in the Schlieffen Plan (of which he did learn until almost 1913), yet this strategy’s ultimate failure as a mode of occupation brought economic collapse and military defeat, as was clearly identified by the Bryce Report. The Chancellor’s justification lay in the refrain that Germany was fighting a war of national survival.
Bethmann-Hollweg received prominent attention throughout the world in June 1919, when he formally asked the Allied powers to place him on trial instead of the Kaiser. The Supreme War Council decided to ignore his request. He was often mentioned as among those who might be tried by Allies for political offences in connection with the origin of the war. Reports from Geneva said he was credited in diplomatic circles there as leading the monarchists for both the Hohenzollerns and the Habsburgs, the nucleus of which was said to be located in Switzerland.
The ex-Chancellor spent the short remainder of his life in retirement, writing his memoirs. A little after Christmas 1920, he caught a cold which developed into acute pneumonia from which he died on New Year’s Day 1921. His wife had died in 1914, and he had also lost his eldest son in the war.
Bethmann-Hollweg is buried in his birthplace of Hohenfinow.
