Foreign threats and the road to war?
January 1897
January first eighteen hundred and ninety seven dawned over the city of Berlin, Germany at about 7 in the morning. The dawn over the cool foggy sleeping city saw Kaiser Wilhelm II on his balcony looking over this scene. Although this morning his thoughts took him far from Berlin and even far from the Fatherland that he ruled over. He was thinking about matters of national security and foreign policy.
To the south there was Austria-Hungry and Italy both of whom were allied with the Fatherland, he knew he could count on Austrian help if the need should ever arise but he was not all too sure of Italian help. The Kingdom of Italy was small and seemed more concerned about itself rather then its allies so it seemed safe to say that Italy would bail in times of trouble or if it did not any help from it would be limited in size and duration.
To the west stood the French and their allies, Russia, stood to the East. The Kaiser figured that a pincer from France and Russia was the most likely thing to happen in a matter of war.
To the north stood Denmark, not that much of a threat if you asked the Kaiser. No there was not much to worry about from that direction unless the Russians decided to add a third direction for the pincer and went through Scandinavia and then south through Denmark. That was a possibility as none of Scandinavia could withstand much battle.
To the Northwest was the Nordsee and on the other side was the British Empire and on the waves was the very formidable British Royal Navy. If the Kaiser got into a war with the British he would have to be on the defensive. There is no way the Reichsmarine could stand up to the Royal Navy but the Royal Army can not stand up to the Reichsheer.
He smiled when he thought of the Reichsheer. It was the fourth largest army size wise in the world. The bad thing was the largest was Russia and Qing both tied in size with France having a slightly larger army then Germany. The Reichsmarine was no were near the size of its competition. In fact it was rather small with only twenty six ships and five destroyer flotillas. It was half that of the French Navy and less then one third of the size of the Royal Navy.
As he went inside after thinking that, Baron Marschall von Bieberstein was just waking up to find out that over the night he was removed from his position of foreign secretary. von Bieberstein was thrown into a rage, how could the Kaiser do that to him. He was one of the best diplomats since von Bismark, or so he told himself. The only reason was lack of patriotism, slowly it dawned on him that the reason was most likely because he had become slightly biased towards other countries. By that time he slowly sat down and was just thinking. After the outrage, comes acceptance and he was reaching that stage now.
In a house in another part of the city celebrations were just starting. Graf von Bülow was just learning of his surprise appointment to the position of foreign secretary. He knew von Bieberstein was going to retire but not yet. As far as he knew it was in a few months still.
Graf von Bülow
On the evening of January fifth Graf von Bülow slowly begrudgingly walks back into his office. He just did his first job as foreign secretary and to him it was below him. It is a trade agreement with the Austria-Hungarian Empire, they would send 31 units of much needed rare materials for 64 units of metal. The only good thing is now the German industrial factories that ran the entire country could now run at full capacity. Overall it was a short very normal boring trade agreement.
In the second half of January General von Hahnke commander of the VII Armeekorps and General von Waldersee of the II Armeekorps started getting reports from their patrols along the Rhine that was large heavy French troop movements on the other side of the Rhine. On the 20th the two meet and talk about these reports. They decide that it is of great importance to the Kaiser and it may mean that France is preparing for war with Germany. That would also mean a war with Russia. While the II and VII Armeekorps have five divisions each and intelligence say there are three sets of three French divisions. So if war started they were almost sure that they could hold back the French army but they should let the Kaiser know. By January 23 Wilhelm had the telegram on his desk and he sent warnings out to the Reichsheer raising the level of warning, having them get ready to march for a Russian and French invasion. He sends out telegrams to General von Haeseler commander of the III Armeekorps near Königsberg and General von Hausen commander of the IV Armeekorps near Posen for Russian Army movements. von Hausen reports no Russian movement but von Haeseler reports local movements. The reports are somewhat heartening because there is only small local movements of Russian troops which seem to indicate that the Russian army is not preparing for war. Because of these reports there are no redeployments of the Reichsheer were ordered, but the Reichsheer did stay on the higher level of alert. Luckily by the end of January the movements stopped and it is assumed by many to just be normal redeployments but the Kaiser still thinks that it is indictive of a future French and Russian invasion that could happen at any second.
February 1897
February was a pretty normal month for Germany with nothing more then the normal small menial matters of the state that all heads of state must see to. But on February 25th something did happen. In the morning Graf von Bülow met with Kaiser Wilhelm to discuss an urgent matter of state. Their topic of conversation is the Cretan rebellion, being called the Cretan Crisis. There are two real sides to the matter and a few more things that weigh heavily on the issue. On one side the Cretans are Christian Greeks and not Islamic Turks. On the other hand the Ottoman Empire is a Great Power, if only a minor one now in present times, and the upstarts in Athens interfeared in the whole event sending their Prince to visit the Cretans and they even lent an army commander to the Cretans. If Crete is handed over the balance of power in the Mittelmeer would be changed and it might encourage the other Balkan states to rebel which would lead to the hastened death of the Ottoman Empire. The easy and practical solution would to have an autonomous Crete inside the Ottoman Empire but the Russians have suggested that, and Wilhelm is still suspicious of the Entente's army movements of last month. The hours slowly ticked by as the two of them debated the pros and cons of the two options, let Crete join with Greece or make an autonomous Crete. By that evening they had decided that the Ottomans would never regain true Great Power status and was already on the decline. They also agreed that the balance of power would not shift much and if they could get Greece to join their alliance with Austria-Hungry and Italy then the balance of power would shift in their favor. This event was also seen as a way to oppose the Russians and possibly help lessen their power over Europe. The next day telegrams were sent out to all the Great Powers and any other leader involved in this matter. Germany was officially supporting the Cretan rebels in their struggle. Their reasons were publicly that the Cretans were Greek and should be allowed to join in a union with Greece as that was clearly their wishes. A stipulation was added though, Germany did not condone the Greek intervention. As this was happening von Bülow left Berlin and headed to Athens to start negations that would hopefully end up with Greece joining the alliance. With German support for the Cretans the other Great Powers decided that they would carve up the Ottoman Empire for when it finally died. Germany belatedly claimed Central Anatolia.