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“Baseless Allegations”: Wilhelm II and the Hale Interview of 1908
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 16 December 2008
Extract
In a conversation with Charles Hardinge aboard H.M. Yacht Victoria and Albert in April of 1907, King Edward VII raised the question of inviting Kaiser Wilhelm II to visit England. In 1904, the British monarch had paid a state visit to Germany, and now he felt the time had come to return his imperial nephew's hospitality. Hardinge relayed the King's suggestion to Foreign Secretary Edward Grey. “The King thinks that this invitation should be greatly appreciated by the Emperor William and the German people,” the undersecretary wrote, “and would tend to improve the relations between the two countries without giving our friends any real cause for suspicion or alarm.” While Hardinge was unenthusiastic about the idea of the Kaiser coming to Britain, he nonetheless conceded that “this visit has to be paid sometime or other,” and supposed that it might “mitigate any ill-feeling” created by the negotiations leading to the Anglo-Russian entente.
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References
1. Hardinge to Grey, 7 Apr. 1907, Public Record Office, Foreign Office (hereafter FO) 800/82; Gooch, G. P. et al. , eds., British Documents on the Origins of the War, 1898–1914 (hereafter BD), 11 vols. (London 1926–1938), 6:78Google Scholar. In Grey's view, “it would be a relief to have it [the visit] over soon.” Grey to Hardinge, 15 Apr. 1907, FO 800/92. Noting that “the present moment is a critical one in our relations with France,” Grey for his part was loath to have the Windsor visit exceed its “proper proportions as a purely private affair.” Grey to Lascelles, 18 Sept. 1907, FO 800/61 and BD 6:81.
2. Minute by Wilhelm II, 9 Sept. 1907, Politisches Archiv des Auswärtigen Amts (hereafter AA), Deutschland 135 Nr. 4.
3. Daily Telegraph, 28 Oct. 1908. As for the phrase “mad as March hares,” Stuart Wortley may have put words into the Kaiser's mouth. See Stumm to Bülow, 8 Sept. 1908, marginalia by Wilhelm II: “Stuart Wortley sagte mir im [the German fall] Manöver ‘my countrymen are mad as March hares, even in September. Even General Sir John French believes firmly in a forthcoming German attack!’ Worauf ich ihn beauftragte, von mir aus zu Hause zu bestellen, dass die Briten den Eindruck of a set of raving lunatics machten. Worüber er sich enorm amüsi[e]rte und es zugab.” Lepsius, Johannes et al. , eds., Die Grosse Politik der Europäischen Kabinette (hereafter GP), 40 vols. (Berlin, 1922–1927), 24:159.Google Scholar
4. See Wortley, Stuart to Wilhelm, II, 11 Nov. 1908Google Scholar, in GP 24:190, for Stuart Wortley's good intentions and his dejection at the poor reception accorded the interview.
5. See Schüssler, Wilhelm, Die Daily-Telegraph-Affaire (Göttingen, 1952)Google Scholar; von Gaertringen, Friedrich Hiller, Fürst Bülows Denkwürdigkeiten (Tübingen, 1956)Google Scholar; more recently, Cole, Terence, The Daily Telegraph Affair, in Röhl, John C., ed., Kaiser Wilhelm II: New Interpretations (Cambridge, 1982).Google Scholar
6. Hardinge, to Villiers, F., 16 Nov. 1908, FO 800/24Google Scholar. One contemporary, the White House correspondent of the New York Times, later speculated that war might well have resulted from publication. See Davis, O. K., Released for Publication (Boston, 1925), 81Google Scholar. Davis was not alone in his appraisal, however alarmist it might have been. Compare his views to those of Roosevelt (at n. 27 below) and the king of Sweden (at n. 73 below).
7. Hale, W. H., “Thus Spoke the Kaiser,” and “Adventures of a Document,” in Atlantic Monthly, May and June 1934.Google Scholar
8. It is unclear who arranged the interview for Hale. One possibility is the German ambassador in Washington; see Davis, Released for Publication. Another is David Jayne Hill, the American ambassador in Berlin, who may have put Hale in touch with Bussche. Hale had met Hill on 9 July 1908; entry, Hill's appointment book, Hill Papers, University of Rochester Library. Johnson, Robert Underwood, in Remembered Yesterdays (Boston, 1923), 229Google Scholar, suggests that Bussche furnished Hale with a letter of introduction to the Kaiser. Bussche may have known Hale from his four-year stint as secretary of legation at the German embassy in Washington. The third possibility is General Alfred von Löwenfeld, a member of the Kaiser's military entourage, and the court architect Ernst von Ihne, both acquaintances of Hale; see Borland, H., “The Kaiser, Japan, and Hitler,” New York Times Magazine, 16 07 1939Google Scholar. It is not unlikely that all three played a role. Bülow denied having introduced Hale to the Kaiser. Rejecting an allegation to this effect in the book by Rudolf Martin (Deutsche Machthaber, Berlin, 1910, 45Google Scholar), Bülow wrote to Bethmann Hollweg on 25 June 1910, “Es ist nicht wahr, dass ich die [sic] Interview mit dem Amerikaner Hale veranlasst hätte, und dass sie nur ein weiteres Glied in der Kette von Interviews gewesen wäre, die in der Tendenz der amtlichen deutschen Politik gelegen hätten. Seine Majestät war von dem kaiserlichen Botschafter in Washington und von dem Auswärtigen Amt um den Empfang des angesehenen Amerikaners Hale gebeten worden, so weit ich mich erinnern kann, ohne Rückfrage bei mir. Gegen den Empfang war auch nichts zu sagen. Dass ich eine Veröffentlichung über die während dieses Empfangs angeblich gefallenen Äusserungen Seiner Majestät verhinderte, war nicht ‘unlogisch,’ sondern verdienstvoll; denn sobald nach dem anglophilen ‘Daily Telegraph Interview,’ [hätte ein Interview] in dem Seiner Majestät antienglische Äusserungen in den Mund gelegt wurden, doppelt schädlich gewirkt.” Bundesarchiv Koblenz (hereafter BA), Nl. Loebell 6/121.
9. Northcliffe to Tyrrell, 21 Aug. 1908, FO 371/461. Hale had spent four days at the White House, from which he produced a story on the president's day-to-day activities. It may have been this article which led the Kaiser to believe that Hale and the president were close. Roosevelt later described Hale as a man “of entirely good character, but of course it is nonsense to represent him as my ‘friend’ …” Roosevelt to Reid, 6 Jan. 1909, Morison, E. E. et al. , The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt, 8 vols. (Cambridge, Mass., 1951–1954), 6:1466Google Scholar. Hale related his encounter with the Kaiser to Roosevelt on 12 Aug. 1908 (Hale, W. H., “Adventures of a Document,” p. 705Google Scholar), and met Roosevelt again on 16 Nov. 1908 “at the invitation of the President.” Hale to Hill, 17 Nov. 1908, Hill Papers.
10. Müller diary, entries for 29 June, 7 July, and 9 July 1908, Bundesarchiv-Militärarchiv Freiburg (hereafter BA-MA), N 159/3. Treutler to Schoen, 11 July 1908, AA England 78 secr. The British forces were under the command of Charles Beresford, whose antagonism toward the First Sea Lord, John Fisher, was well-known to Wilhelm. Had the invitation been given and had it become public knowledge, it would certainly have incited further discord in the Admiralty and, coming only four months after the Tweedmouth letter, might well have unleashed a storm in the British press. The Kaiser's erratic behavior had cast a shadow on earlier cruises to Norway. For impressions of the cruises of 1898, 1899, 1900, and 1903, see Philipp Eulenburg's letters to Bülow in Röhl, John C., ed., Philipp Eulenburgs Politische Korrespondenz, 3 vols. (Boppard, 1976–1983), 3:1904f., 1941ff., 1983ff., 2090ff.Google Scholar
11. “Dazu kommt dann die richtige Einfädelung des Bruchs, der so erfolgen müsse, dass England uns anfalle und falls es Frankreich dazu bekommt, auch letzteres uns den Krieg erklärt. Dann seien wir die Angegriffenen …” Wilhelm II to Bülow, 15 July 1908, AA Deutschland 131 secr. Nr. 5. According to the editors of the Grosse Politik, this telegram could not be located in the Auswärtige Amt files. GP 24:96n.
12. Metternich to Bülow, 16 July 1908, marginalia by Wilhelm II, GP 24:103. In mid-August, the Kaiser used similar language in a conversation with Hardinge who had accompanied King Edward VII on an informal visit to Kronberg. The belligerence of the Kaiser's remarks on that occasion and in the preceding weeks lends credence to Bülow's later view that the Kaiser had hoped to stage an encounter akin to Benedetti's confrontation with King Wilhelm I at Bad Ems in July 1870. von Bülow, Bernhard, Denkwürdigkeiten, 4 vols. (Berlin, 1930–1931), 2:322.Google Scholar
13. Hale to Reick, 19 July 1908, cited in Davis, , Released for Publication, 82Google Scholar; Northcliffe to Tyrrell, 21 Aug. 1908 (enclosure, first letter), FO 371/461.
14. Northcliffe to Tyrrell, ibid.
15. Hale, W. H., “Thus Spoke the Kaiser,” passim, and FO 371/461, undated, 505ffGoogle Scholar. The chimera of a future war in the Pacific, pitting Japan against the West, not only haunted the Kaiser but also prompted Roosevelt to lively speculation. The president repeatedly aired this subject with the German ambassador, whose reports could only reinforce Wilhelm's impression that his and the president's views were identical. On 8 Nov. 1907, Sternburg reported that although Roosevelt thought the time had not come for a joint German-American declaration on China, the president would nonetheless go “hand in hand in the great East Asian questions” with the Kaiser. The president also spoke of probable cooperation between the American and German fleets against Japan. GP 25:78. In a further dispatch, Sternburg cautioned that the question of a German-American agreement on China was of an extremely delicate nature: Germany would do best to leave any diplomatic initiative to the United States. Sternburg to Auswärtige Amt, 13 Jan. 1908, AA China 30 secr.
16. Hale, W. H., “Thus Spoke the Kaiser” and FO 371/461, undated, 505ffGoogle Scholar. Once again the Kaiser treated a development in the making as if it were a foregone conclusion. After much prodding, the Chinese government had been induced to raise in Washington the subject of a German-American “statement of policy” on China. This task was entrusted to Tang Shao-yi, a special envoy dispatched to Washington to thank the United States for its remission of the Boxer indemnity. Two developments frustrated Tang's mission. By the time of his arrival, Roosevelt's decision to proceed with direct Japanese-American negotiations had borne fruit in the Root-Takahira agreement. Second, the death of the Dowager Empress on 15 Nov. 1908 was expected to usher in a long period of political instability in China, a prospect which naturally made Roosevelt loath to enter into any commitment on behalf of that country: “The Chinese envoy here is completely upset by the very unexpected news of what has just happened in China, and I think intends immediately to return. The Chinese are so helpless to carry out any fixed policy, whether home or foreign, that it is difficult to have any but the most cautious dealings with them.” Roosevelt to Wilhelm II, 2 Jan. 1909, AA Ver. St. v. Nordamerika 11. Cf. Esthus, Raymond, Theodore Roosevelt and Japan (Seattle, 1966), 258–62 and 281–84.Google Scholar
17. Hale, W. B., “An Evening with the German Emperor,” Century, 12 1908Google Scholar; publication suppressed. At least three copies are known to exist: one among the papers of W. B. Hale, a second in the Hill Papers at the University of Rochester, and a third in the Auswärtige Amt archives, Akten des AA im Grossen Hauptquartier 24, Bd. 3, Presse und Journalisten.
18. Hale, W. H., “Thus Spoke the Kaiser,” 514Google Scholar. The only evidence that Bussche had censored the text comes from Hale himself. There is no corroborating evidence in the German archives. See also Hale to Reick, 24 July 1908, reprinted in part in Davis, , Released for Publication, 83.Google Scholar
19. Roosevelt to Root, 8 Aug. 1908, Morison, Letters, 6:1164.
20. Northcliffe to Tyrell, 21 Aug. 1908 (enclosure, second letter, undated but from early Aug. 1908), FO 371/461, 499ff. See below, 377ff.
21. Roosevelt to Root, 8 Aug. 1908, Morison, , Letters, 6:1164.Google Scholar
22. Roosevelt to Lee, 17 Oct. 1908, ibid., 6:1293.
23. Ibid. In the view of the undersecretary in the Auswärtige Amt, the New York Times could be classified as “im allgemeinen deutschfreundlich.” Note by Stemrich, 28 Sept. 1908, AA Ver. St. v. Nordamerika 2.
24. Roosevelt to Root, 8 Aug. 1908, Morison, , Letters, 6:1164Google Scholar; Roosevelt, to Roosevelt, Theodore Jr, 20 Nov 1908Google Scholar, ibid., 6:1371; Roosevelt to Reid, 6 Jan. 1909, ibid., 6:1466.
25. According to Davis's notes of the conversation, the president claimed that “this is the first time I have ever heard the name of Tang Shao-yi … I do not know whether this is the man or not, or whether he is really on his way or not.” Davis, , Released for Publication, 87Google Scholar. Sternburg had raised the subject with the president on 6 Apr. 1908, though it is unclear whether the ambassador specifically mentioned Tang Shao-yi. GP 25:94. In a later conversation with the German consul general in New York, Roosevelt denied that he or Root ever seriously contemplated an agreement (Bündnis) with China. Bünz, to Bussche, , 13 09 1908Google Scholar, AA Ver. St. v. Nordamerika 11.
26. Roosevelt, to Lee, , 17 08 1908Google Scholar, Morison, , Letters, 6:1292.Google Scholar
27. Roosevelt, to Reid, , 6 01 1909Google Scholar, ibid., 6:1467.
28. Roosevelt, to Lee, , 17 10 1908Google Scholar, ibid., 6:1294. Also cf. Roosevelt, to Lee, , 23 11 and 20 12 1908Google Scholar, ibid., 6:1378 and 6:1432.
29. Northcliffe, to Tyrrell, , 21 08 1908Google Scholar, FO 371/461. Northcliffe's contact at the New York Times will remain unknown, at least as long as the paper's archives refuse to admit outsiders. It is clear only that the man involved was a senior member of the newspaper's staff. See Pound, R. and Harmsworth, G., Northcliffe (London, 1959), 434Google Scholar. The nature of this purported “working arrangement” which Northcliffe mentioned is cloudy; the present London Times archivist, Mr. Gordon Phillips, expressed surprise at hearing of its existence. It may have been a private rather than a business relationship. Northcliffe's correspondent assured him that he had written in confidence, as otherwise he “should have been forbidden to do it.”
30. This synopsis and Hale's initial letter to Reick raise a tricky interpretive problem. Both were much more strongly worded and unambiguous than either of the articles which Hale prepared for publication. Northcliffe's source assured him that “every word I have written to you was actually spoken by Wilhelm” and, as his account was conveyed privately, it must be viewed as completely uncensored. One cannot be certain however which of these versions, the moderate or the emphatic, more accurately reconstructed the Kaiser's words. According to Northcliffe's informant, the Kaiser had asserted that “it had always been England's way to attack the strongest power” on the European continent. In the first version of his article, Hale quoted the Kaiser as stating that “England has founded her foreign policy on the leading principle that she must single out and oppose the Power at the moment paramount on the Continent.” (Hale, W. H., “Thus Spoke the Kaiser,” 525Google Scholar, emphasis added.) The synopsis which later reached the Foreign Office from the Japanese embassy (at n. 66 below) omitted any such reference. Whereas Hale's initial letter and Northcliffe's correspondent left no doubt about the Kaiser's belief in the inevitability of an Anglo-German war, both of Hale's articles were more ambiguous. They hinted at an outbreak of hostilities between East and West and implied that Germany and England would not fight on the same side. Nor did they corroborate the assertion of Northcliffe's source that “the Kaiser's ambition was to take Egypt from the British and the Holyland from Turkey.” This rather improbable reference was completely at odds with the Kaiser's often-stated sympathy for the Muslim cause. It is equally curious that the very same reference found its way into the New York World's spurious rendition of the Hale interview (see below, at nn. 58ff.).
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40. Admitting that he had not read the text of the interview, Bülow was prepared to suffer the consequences of this sin of omission. On 30 October 1908 he submitted his resignation to the Kaiser. It was refused. GP 24:181 and n. Disagreements between the Kaiser and the foreign ministry about the substance and execution of German foreign policy had surfaced with alarming frequency throughout 1908. Circumventing the standard diplomatic and constitutional channels, the Kaiser in February wrote directly to the First Lord of the Admiralty about the German naval program. In late July, Wilhelm forbade Bülow to explore the possibility of a naval accord with England. Two further collisions were barely averted: in September, the Kaiser protested in no uncertain terms the foreign ministry's failure to keep him informed of Germany's Moroccan policy. (GP 24:433). Similarly, the Auswärtige Amt neglected to keep him abreast of the impending Austrian annexation of Bosnia and Herzegovina (GP 26:39–54), further exacerbating the strained relations between the Kaiser and his ministry.
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66. The copy still exists, on stationery imprinted “Japanese Embassy, 4 Grosvenor Gardens.” FO 371/461, undated, 505ff.
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