In spring 1875, Chancellor Otto von Bismarck, apparent master manipulator of both the internal and external politics of the new German Empire, kept Europeans on edge with an orchestrated campaign of saber-rattling against the fledgling French Third Republic. Historians have long puzzled over the so-called “war-in-sight” (Krieg in Sicht) crisis, for it seemed to reveal an uncharacteristic clumsiness on Bismarck's part and was hard to square with Bismarck's long-term foreign policy goals. Stone's monograph (based on his Marburg dissertation) deals with these problems in overwhelming detail and provides a satisfying explanation of how the crisis did indeed conform to the Iron Chancellor's overall vision of Germany's place among the great powers.
In a twist of Eckart Kehr's Primat der Innenpolitik, Stone argues for the primacy of the domestic politics of other nations. Bismarck, he contends, focused all his efforts on thwarting a militarily strong revanchist France by supporting republicans in France against monarchical pretenders or a potential pseudo-monarch, President MacMahon. Of course, Bismarck was no republican; this was pure Realpolitik. In the wake of France's humiliation in the Franco-German War of 1870-71, the French army reorganization of 1873 looked like a provocation. Bismarck, ever sensitive to the apparent fragility of the Dreikaiserabkommen with St. Petersburg and Vienna, and obsessed with an international Catholic conspiracy against the Reich, sought to keep France isolated and weak. An unstable republican France would make her an unreliable ally and help to promote what Stone calls a “Cacophony of Europe.” Stone sees this policy as consistent with Bismarck's aims all the way to his dismissal in 1890—at which time France was indeed still republican and the Triple Entente still in the future.
No review can do justice to Stone's rich narrative of the 1875 crisis. He carefully documents Bismarck's manipulation of the press (the phrase Krieg in Sicht itself originated in a Bismarck-inspired article in the Berliner Post). He notes the importance of the chancellor's personal animosity toward Russian Chancellor Prince Gorchakov, as well as his fervent desire to keep Count Andràssy in the Austro-Hungarian Foreign Office. Bismarck-centric though it is, the narrative is especially strong in highlighting the views of foreign powers, the minor players, such as Italy, Spain, and Belgium among them. In the short run, Bismarck was too clever for his own good. Fear and hubris got the better of him, says Stone. He failed to appreciate that others could play the media manipulation game, too. French Foreign Minister, the duc de Decazes, leaked an embarrassing conversation to The Times, provoking the British to back the Russians in dampening the crisis.
Bismarck, of course, denied any provocation, implausibly blaming a rogue press. True, the chancellor never really intended to start a preventive war. He knew all along that there was no serious military threat from France, but both diplomatic Europe and the public recognized that he had clumsily and recklessly endangered the peace. One of the strengths of Stone's book is that he shows convincingly that the military was not a driving force in the crisis. Indeed, Chief of Staff von Moltke acted as a moderating influence on Bismarck. Stone does not delve into the matter, but there is also no evidence that significant sectors of the public were clamoring for war, decidedly unlike 1870. These are important facts in evaluating the degree to which the Second Reich was “militaristic.”
Stone's thesis is not entirely original, but he does pursue it systematically and in great detail, tying together apparently disparate episodes across Europe, and supporting his claims with massive archival evidence from a half-dozen nations. Chapter four alone contains 359 footnotes, though the author claims (apparently without irony) that he has sought to keep them to a minimum. Essentially, he uses the crisis as the centerpiece of a broad-gauged diplomatic history of Europe in the 1870s.
In his introduction, Stone acknowledges the new diplomatic history that goes beyond the usual sources to take into account broader cultural factors, but he then writes that his “somewhat traditional approach” works better for specific incidents and better ferrets out individual motivations. The modifier “somewhat” seems to refer to his taking into account public opinion, the military, and the political milieu. Whatever the qualifications, when Stone gets down to business, he writes a traditional great-man history. Monarchs, ministers, and ambassadors are the causal agents, and personalities matter. The whole story is anchored in Bismarck's thoughts and actions, yet oddly, we learn little about Bismarck the man—the huge, gluttonous, hard-drinking, hypochondriacal, scheming insomniac so memorably portrayed in Otto Pflanze's biography. The narrative, while richly documented with the comings and goings of individuals, at times seems bloodless.
The book would have benefited from more aggressive editing. It is longer than it needs to be to sustain the author's thesis and has the odor of the only slightly revised dissertation. Stone seems hesitant not to use all of the material he has so carefully collected. Many of the more minor episodes bog down the reader and obscure the line of argument. To take but one of a myriad of examples, few readers will wish to follow the story of the Belgian bishops' pastoral letters in 1873. This is, in other words, very much a book for a few specialists. Diplomatic historians of the period and Bismarck scholars will find it essential. Others are more likely to mine it for particular facts or simply cite it rather than actually read it through.
The book's narrow appeal should not, however, obscure its important virtues: Stone has produced a deeply and broadly researched monograph, clearly written, well organized, judicious in weighing evidence, and persuasively argued—overall an admirable work of diplomatic history. This is most likely the definitive work on the Krieg in Sicht crisis.
