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Crisis! W hat crisis? The origins and evolution of foreign policy crisis

Mihalkanin, Edward Styles, Ph.D.

The American University, 1991

Copyright ©1991 by Mihalkanin, Edward Styles. All rights reserved.

UMI 300 N. Zeeb Rd. Ann Aibor, MI 48106

CRISIS! WHAT CRISIS?: THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF FOREIGN POLICY CRISIS by Edward S. Mihalkanin submitted to the Faculty of the School of International Service of The American University in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in International Relations

Signatures of the Committee: Chair: A/

J l viio L O (3^hr\JihAj Decean of the School

Date

1991 The American University Washington, D.C. 20016 7^3^

t o AliERICM UKIVE3SITY LIBEAEY COPYRIGHT

BY

EDWARD S. MIHALKANIN

1991

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED CRISIS! WHAT CRISIS?

THE ORIGINS AND

EVOLUTION OF FOREIGN

POLICY CRISIS

by

Edward S. Mihalkanin

ABSTRACT

I propose that foreign policy crisis, as a type of

event in international relations, arose much later than

did the modern state system. Crisis originated at a

specific time in response to changes which occurred in the

modern state system. I critique the foreign policy crisis

literature which tended to obscure both the origins and

evolution of crisis because of the static conceptual­

izations writers had of the modern state system, their positivist methodology, and their ahistorical reasoning.

I derived a definition of crisis from the most

important writings within the crisis subfield. In order to use the insights of the crisis writers without being

limited by their limitations mentioned above, I turned to the critical theory of Robert Cox and the configurative method of Harold Lasswell. Their emphases on origins, recursion, and replication provided a base from which I could inquire after the origins and evolution of crises.

Developments in weaponry and the organization of the armed forces, new transportation and communication technologies, the rise of the nation-state, and

innovations in conference diplomacy explain both the

origins and evolution of crisis. Crisis arose when the

decisionmakers of the Great Powers, fearing that Great

Power war would lead to revolution after the end of

Napoleonic wars, tried to find a way to settle their

competing interests short of war.

Crises that existed before 1871 were different from

those that occurred after that date due to the uneven

incorporation of the innovations mentioned above in the workings of the modern state system. Crises before 1871 shared the characteristics of longer duration, weak perception of crisis, and weak nationalism.

To illustrate the similarities and differences which

I believed existed among crises, I chose those representative of important conflicts among the Great

Powers over long-standing diplomatic issues. They are the

Anglo-French Near East Crisis of 1840, the Olmütz Crisis of 1850, the Seven Weeks War Crisis of 1866, the Fashoda

Crisis of 1898, the Munich Crisis of 1938, and the US-USSR

Nuclear Alert Crisis of 1973. I believe that I have demonstrated that these crises were in fact crises but that they also showed differences among themselves depending on what side of the 1871 divide they fell. TABLE OF CONTENTS

ABSTRACT ...... i

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS ...... i ü

Chapter: Page:

1. INTRODUCTION ...... 1

Summary of Studies ...... 2

Project Outline ...... 11

Justification of the Case Studies ...... 14

2. THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF FOREIGN POLICY CRISES ...... 16

Introduction ...... 16

Review of Literature ...... 17

The Critical Theory of Robert Cox ...... 27

Lasswell ...... 31

Historical Interpretation ...... 36

Crises Differences ...... 44

Summary ...... 46

3. THE ANGLO-FRENCH NEAR EAST CRISIS OF 1840 ...... 47

Introduction ...... 47

The Setting ...... 48

The Crisis ...... 53

Threat of War ...... 53

Threat to High Priority Goals ...... 58

Threat to French Goals ...... 58

Threat to British Goals ...... 60

Time Constraints ...... 64

Pre-1871 Crisis Characteristics ...... 65 Longer Duration ...... 66

Weak Perception ofCrisis ...... 67

Weak Nationalism ...... 70

Conclusion ...... 71

4. THE OLMÜTZ CRISIS OF 1850 ...... 73

Introduction ...... 73

The Setting ...... 74

The Crisis ...... 78

Threat of War ...... 78

Threat to High Priority Goals ...... 90

Time Constraints ...... 96

Pre-1871 Crisis Characteristics ...... 97

Longer Duration ...... 98

Weak Perception ofCrisis ...... 101

Weak Nationalism ...... 105

Conclusion ...... 109

5. THE SEVEN WEEKS WAR CRISIS OF 1866 ...... Ill

Introduction ...... Ill

The Setting ...... 113

The Crisis ...... 117

Threat of War ...... 118

Threat to High Priority Goals ...... 126

Time Constraints ...... 130

Crisis Comparisons ...... 132

Duration of Crises ...... 132 Intermediate Nationalism ...... 135

Perception of Crisis ...... 139

Conclusion ...... 141

6. THE FASHODA CRISIS OF 1898 ...... 143

Introduction ...... 143

The Setting ...... 147

The Crisis ...... 152

Threat of War ...... 152

Threat to High PriorityGoals ...... 166

Threat to British Goals ...... 166

Threat to French Goals ...... 172

Time Constraints ...... 178

Crisis Comparisons ...... 179

Mass Nationalism ...... 180

Duration of Crises ...... 182

Perception of Crisis ...... 183

Conclusion ...... 186

7. THE MUNICH CRISIS ...... 188

Introduction ...... 188

The Setting ...... 190

The Crisis ...... 198

Threat of War ...... 199

Threat to High Priority Goals ...... 212

Czech Goals ...... 212

French Goals ...... 214

British Goals ...... 217 German Goals ...... 220

Time Constraints ...... 224

Comparison of Crisis ...... 227

Crisis Duration ...... 227

Nationalism ...... 230

Perception of Crisis ...... 232

8. THE US-USSR NUCLEAR ALERT CRISIS OF 1973 ...... 236

Introduction ...... 236

The Setting ...... 238

The Crisis ...... 246

Threat to High Priority Goals ...... 247

Threat to Soviet Goals ...... 247

Threat to United States Goals ...... 253

Threat of War ...... 256

Time Constraints ...... 259

Crisis Comparisons ...... 260

Mass Nationalism...... 261

Perception of Crisis ...... 262

Duration of Crisis ...... 264

9. CONCLUSION ...... 266

Review ...... 267

Crisis Similarities ...... 270

Crisis Differences ...... 277

Further Research ...... 282

APPENDIX A ...... 285

BIBLIOGRAPHY ...... 286 CRISIS! WHAT CRISIS?

THE ORIGINS AND

EVOLUTION OF FOREIGN

POLICY CRISIS

by

Edward S. Mihalkanin

ABSTRACT

I propose that foreign policy crisis, as a type of

event in international relations, arose much later than

did the modern state system. Crisis originated at a

specific time in response to changes which occurred in the modern state system. I critique the foreign policy crisis

literature which tended to obscure both the origins and evolution of crisis because of the static conceptual­

izations writers had of the modern state system, their positivist methodology, and their ahistorical reasoning.

I derived a definition of crisis from the most

important writings within the crisis subfield. In order to use the insights of the crisis writers without being limited by their limitations mentioned above, I turned to the critical theory of Robert Cox and the configurative method of Harold Lasswell. Their emphases on origins, recursion, and replication provided a base from which I could inquire after the origins and evolution of crises.

Developments in weaponry and the organization of the armed forces, new transportation and communication

technologies, the rise of the nation-state, and

innovations in conference diplomacy explain both the

origins and evolution of crisis. Crisis arose when the

decisionmakers of the Great Powers, fearing that Great

Power war would lead to revolution after the end of

Napoleonic wars, tried to find a way to settle their

competing interests short of war.

Crises that existed before 1871 were different from

those that occurred after that date due to the uneven

incorporation of the innovations mentioned above in the

workings of the modern state system. Crises before 1871

shared the characteristics of longer duration, weak

perception of crisis, and weak nationalism.

To illustrate the similarities and differences which

I believed existed among crises, I chose those

representative of important conflicts among the Great

Powers over long-standing diplomatic issues. They are the

Anglo-French Near East Crisis of 1840, the Olmütz Crisis of 1850, the Seven Weeks War Crisis of 1866, the Fashoda

Crisis of 1898, the Munich Crisis of 1938, and the US-USSR

Nuclear Alert Crisis of 1973. I believe that I have demonstrated that these crises were in fact crises but that they also showed differences among themselves depending on what side of the 1871 divide they fell.

11 ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

The world is so empty if one thinks only of mountains, rivers and cities; but to know someone who thinks and feels with us, and who, though distant is close to us in spirit, this makes the earth for us an inhabited garden.

Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

I feel lucky that I was able to do my graduate work at the School of International Service. The School fostered a sense of community which was one of its greatest gifts to me. This community encouraged learning by cultivating the curiosity and openness necessary for actively searching minds to sustain themselves. The

School also made it possible for me to develop friendships which have made all the difference in my personal and pro­ fessional lives.

I want to thank my committee members Nicholas Onuf,

Robert Gregg and Masaru Tamamoto for their consideration and care in reading my dissertation within severe time constraints. Nick Onuf deserves special thanks. Nick introduced me to the world of international relations and academia and, for more years than either one of us would like to admit, he has been my mentor. I feel luckier still that we are friends.

111 IV

Next, I want to thank my friends from graduate school

who have kept me going. Mahama Bawa, Kurt Burch, Spike

Peterson, Jim Roberts, and Elaine Vaurio all have made

their mark on me and this project. The quality of their

minds and the content of their characters have been a

constant inspiration and spur to me. Mahama, Kurt, Spike

and Jim were with me from the beginning. They immea­

surably enriched the value of my course work and my life.

Kurt’s support and suggestions were invaluable to me as I

struggled to get started with my dissertation. No friend

was more supportive or helpful. Jim and Elaine took on

the horrendous task of typing the first drafts of this

dissertation. There is no way that I can adequately thank

or repay them for their time and effort in what was, at

best, an impossible task. Thank you.

My new colleagues at Southwest Texas State also deserve my thanks. Bob Gorman, Randy Bland, Ted Hindson,

Arnie Leder and A1 Sullivan welcomed me to the department and into their homes. Their friendship made my transition to Texas less lonely and more enjoyable. I also want to thank other friends who have helped and supported me over the years: Pete Geary, Gary and Marge Carlson, Greg and

Rose Holmes, Mike Jones, Ken Montgomery, Karen Pollitz,

Dave Airozo, Mark Reader, and Danny Chick. Thanks. Brad

Urrutia and Terry Baker also deserve my thanks for their assistance. V

Finally, I want to thank my parents, Adam and Ethel

Mihalkanin and my sister and her family, Gail, Doug, Ryan and Lauren Howitt. Without their support, encouragement and love, I never would have been able to complete this work. This project is dedicated to them. All that I am, and all that I ever hope to be, I owe to them. CHAPTER 1

INTRODUCTION

Unlike dates, periods are not facts. They are retrospective conceptions that we form about past events, useful to focus discussion, but very often leading historical thought astray.

G. M. Trevelyan*

Previous work on foreign policy crises (FPCs) ob­

scures significant differences among crises by assuming

that changes in weapons, transportation and communication

technologies, ideologies, and economic arrangements have

had no effect on FPCs. This is reflected in the choice of

FPCs studied. As a rule no study investigated FPCs occur­

ring before the 1890s. While this dissertation is ground­

ed in the existing literature, it departs from this liter­

ature by historically contextualizing changes in the

nature of FPCs. My goal is to place the study of FPCs

within the evolution of the modern international system.

To do this I begin by summarizing the most important

comparative FPC studies of the last few years.% These

works outline the FPC subfield. From this outline I

indicate the rationale for this dissertation and the

* Trevelyan is quoted in Bradbury and McFarlane (1976, 19).

2 I discuss the works of Snyder and Diesing (1977), Lebow (1981), and Brecher, Wilkenfeld, and Moser (1988) in Chapter 2. 2

issues in the literature it addresses. I then present the

dissertation’s argument.

Summary of Studies

Each of the studies detailed below makes theoretical

claims to confront policy problems. In so doing, each

study conveys ahistorical assumptions or advances ahis­

torical arguments about the nature of crisis. Each study

wants to explain the existing phenomena of FPCs. Indeed,

crises appear as a given in the anarchic system of autono­

mous states. The authors do not question the origins of

crises; crises are a natural and inevitable consequence of

the structure of interacting, autonomous, sovereign

states.

Snyder and Diesing (1977) analyze sixteen foreign

policy crises in case studies ranging from the late 1890s

to the early 1970s. Their twin goals were to explain "how

states and statesmen behave in international crises"® and

"to improve and integrate . . . systems, bargaining, and

decision-making theories using crises as an empirical

source for the testing, revision, augmentation, and syn­

thesis of theory." To pursue these goals they examined

® Snyder and Diesing, as well as Lebow (1981), use the term "international crisis" instead of "foreign policy crisis." Yet with the major work of Brecher, Wilkenfeld, and Moser (1988), the terms are no longer interchangeable. 3

FPCs in two different international systems: the multi­

polar system which lasted until World War II and the

bipolar system which arose after World War II (Snyder and

Diesing 1977, 3, 5).

They argue that "crisis"— as a type of conflict— is

central to all politics. Crises lie between peace and war

and so illuminate the distinguishing characteristics of

international relations and international systems. Crises

also highlight the expectation of war. Such expectations

arise in part from the structure of the international

system. "Since war is always possible, the implicit or

explicit threat of war is the ultimate form of political

pressure and the ultimate means to security and other

values." Foreign policy crises make explicit the con­ figurations and alignment of power, the expectation of war, national interests, and decisionmakers’ perceptions.

Hence, "crisis distills many of the elements that make up the essence of politics in the international system"

(Snyder and Diesing 1977, 3-4).

At the time of publication, their book uniquely covered a wide historical range of crisis case studies.

Since they used "crisis" as an empirical referent, the broad range of studies contributed to testing their theo­ ries at the most general or universal level. Thus, they remark that their work is "both . . . a theory of crisis 4

behavior and a contribution to the theory of international conflict or international politics generally" (Snyder and

Diesing 1977, 3).

The authors explicitly deny they offer a general theory of international politics (Snyder and Diesing 1977,

4), but they argue they contribute to international poli­ tics theory generally. They declare that the anarchic structure of the international state system causes crises.

Said simply, crises are a manifestation of the workings of the modern state system, a phenomenon of modern history.

Thus, by better understanding crises we better understand the modern state system and systemic anarchy.

Snyder and Diesing begin their studies with an 1898

FPC (Snyder and Diesing 1977, xii). They constrain their desire to generalize broadly by admitting that their findings may not apply to crises earlier in the century.

Yet they also claim that the findings hold rather well for crises after 1870 without explaining the significance of that date (Snyder and Diesing 1977, xii). So, a general theory of crisis is tested from empirical referents dating from only 1898, but with no loss of rigor, say the au­ thors, because of the constancy of the anarchic structure of the modern state system.

Snyder and Diesing are not alone in this orientation to the study of crisis. Lebow’s 1981 study pursues the 5

same theoretical and research agenda as Snyder and Dies­

ing. Lebow explores twenty-six historical case studies,

ranging from the Cuban crisis of 1898-1899 to the Arab-

Israeli crisis of 1967. The list is less than exhaustive,

but is sufficiently comprehensive to permit confident

theoretical and typological generalizations (Lebow 1981,

13). Lebow’s comparative approach permits him to create a

typology of crises, since it enables him "to discern pat­

terns of behavior which are dependent upon the observation

of a class of events" (Lebow 1981, 6, emphasis in the original).

Lebow believed he had discovered three types of

crises: justification of hostility; spinoff; and brink­ manship (Lebow, 1981, 23). Although he viewed these as

ideal types, Lebow believed they facilitated a deeper understanding of the phenomena of crisis (Lebow 1981, 24).

From the patterns among the crises Lebow identifies, he asserts that crises are recurring systemic phenomena

(Lebow 1981, 23). Despite the advent of nuclear weapons since the end of World War II, the character of crises remains remarkably consistent. Thus, "the generic causes of crises, the principles of strategic bargaining and the problems of crisis decision-making, appear to have changed very little during the last fifty and even seventy-five years" (Lebow 1981, 14-15). If changes since 1945 have 6 not fundamentally changed the causes of crises, crisis bargaining, nor decision-making, then earlier changes are unlikely to have changed crises either.

Lebow thought when he began this study that there would be a sharp discontinuity between pre and post nuc­ lear crises (Lebow 1981, 16). He found this not to be the case. "Thus, the distinctions between conventional and nuclear crises may be more in degree than in kind" (Lebow,

1981, 17). Since such "an important watershed in the history of international relations" as the introduction of nuclear weapons did not change the crises significantly,

Lebow implicitly assumed that no earlier technological or political innovations would have changed the nature of crises either (Lebow 1981, 17).

Lebow attempts to develop both theories of crisis and theories of interstate conflict. Like Snyder and Diesing,

Lebow "draws upon historical experience to formulate and test hypotheses about international crisis and the nature of interstate conflict (Lebow 1981, x). Also, he seeks

"to use history as a laboratory in which to develop and test concepts about political behavior" (Lebow 1981, ix).

Lebow holds that crisis, as an independent variable, can "intensify or ameliorate the underlying sources of conflict in cases where war is averted" (Lebow 1981, 334).

Since "crises can be turning points in international 7 conflicts," he examines "the relationship between crisis and war" in order to determine the extent to which crisis influences the course of a conflict as well as the manner which it occurs" (Lebow 1981, 4).

Not only are crises potential turning points, but also they are reflections of the fundamental structure of international relations since "short of war, crises are the most salient and visible points of conflict between states." Further, "they are crucial moments in inter­ national relations when the purposes and proceedings of states are revealed at their most fundamental level."

Therefore, "crises can . . . put interstate conflicts into sharper focus by providing insight into the state of mind and objectives of their protagonists" (Lebow 1977, 309).

Lebow sees the relationship between conflict and the state system in the same way as Snyder and Diesing. Crisis, as the second most intense form of conflict, reveals the goals and behavior of states at their most fundamental level. We return to the Procrustean bed of international relations: inherent conflict among states with incompat­ ible and conflicting goals in an anarchic international system. 8

The latest study is a massive two volume comparison

of 278 crisis occurring between 1928 and 1979.4 Brecher,

Wilkenfeld, and Moser (1988) conceive crisis as "the

master analytical key" for understanding "the phenomenon

of change in the international system." Crises are both

the causes and consequences of change. As causes, FPCs

can effect both state behavior and the configuration of

the international system (Wilkenfeld, Brecher and Moser

1988, 1). Wilkenfeld et al. (1981:1) assert that crises

are ubiquitous in "all eras of autonomous political com­

munities." Yet, they review crises occurring only between

1928 and 1979 (Wilkenfeld, Brecher and Moser 1988, 1).

The structural persistence of anarchy and sovereignty

obviate the need to examine a broader time span. Indeed,

Brecher et a l .. (1988, 4-5) argue that the cases selected

maximize comparisons across international systems. Four

are evident: multipolarity (1929-1939), World War II from

1939-1945, bipolarity (1945-1962), and polycentric system

(1963-1979).

While Brecher et a l .. (1988) identify changes in the

organization of the international system (with causality

4 The first volume is Michael Brecher, Jonathan Wilkenfeld, and Sheila Moser, Crises in the Twentieth Century Volume I Handbook of International Crises. Oxford: Pergammon Press, 1988. The second volume is Jonathan Wilkenfeld, Michael Brecher, and Sheila Moser, Crises in the Twentieth Century Volume II Handbook of Foreign Policy Crises. Oxford: Pergammon Press, 1988. 9

unspecified), they see crises as a systemic constant. One

can only assume the consistency of crises since 1648.

Indeed, neither the incidence or character of crises have

been significantly disturbed by changes in either the

international systemic environment or in state behavior.

Thus the authors see the multipolar "era" of 1929-1939 as

illustrative of an era of mutlipolarity dating from the

formation of the Western state system to the outset of

World War II and thus as a "representative sample" of the

total universe of crises during the history of the multi­

polar European system. The decade alone provides "suf­

ficient data for comparative analysis" with other eras and systems (Brecher, Wilkenfeld and Moser 1988, 4-5).

Since crises are historically unproblematic system constants, the authors' purposes become clearer. They seek to generate and test "hypothesis about the effects of crises-induced stress on coping and choice by decision­ makers"; "to discover crisis patterns" (that is, the consequences of crises); and to apply "the lessons of history to the advancement of international peace and world order" (Brecher, Wilkenfeld, and Moser 1988, 1-2).

More specifically, they intend for their theoretical concerns to help frame "core generalizations about world politics." Policy concerns— responding to and coping with

FPCs— drive the theoretical work. Specifically, they hope 10

the study yields specific policy benefits, namely "improv­

ed crisis management control over escalation and reliable

crises anticipation" (Brecher, Wilkenfeld, and Moser 1988,

2 ).

* * *

Each of the studies mentioned is surprisingly ahis-

torical. The authors generally assume that FPCs remain

largely and fundamentally unchanged. Each author addres­ ses historical eras and changes: Snyder and Diesing contrast multipolar and bipolar systems; Lebow distin­ guishes prenuclear from postnuclear eras; Brecher, Wilken­ feld, and Moser classify multipolar. World War II, bi­ polar, and polycentric configurations. Yet they see in crisis configurations a constancy and consistency which was not disturbed by great changes in the international system. The authors assumed that the structure of the international system, hence relations among states and decisionmakers, went unchanged until the twentieth cen­ tury. They also assumed that their findings about twen­ tieth century crises applies equally and without loss of theoretical power to crises at earlier periods. Thus, they fail to treat the great socio-political changes which occurred in the nineteenth century. Historians such as

Barraclough (1964) argue that these changes produced a new epoch in human history. 11

For example, the authors stipulate that a crisis involves a threat of war and that this creates tension and stress. This threat puts decisionmakers in the dilemma of defending a high priority goal without causing a war to break out (Snyder and Diesing 1977, 6, 9; Lebow 1981, 11-

12; Brecher, Wilkenfeld, and Moser 1988, 3, 16). The authors never ask why decisionmakers use threats of war to achieve foreign policy goals. Why not wage war itself?

Why was there a need to avoid war? Why resist

Clausewitz’s insight that war is a continuation of politics by other means? Lebow rightly identifies pre­ nuclear crisis decisionmakers’ abhorrence and avoidance of war because war had become too disastrous, too destruc­ tive, too violent (Lebow 1981, 15-17). Yet, Lebow did not push the issue further to ask whether their revulsion helped to create the conditions for crisis to arise and develop. An important question goes unasked: how have changes in the environment of the modern state system changed the nature of foreign policy crises? To this issue— the issue of the historical contextuality of cris­ es— I turn my attention.

Project Outline

The dissertation lays out a simple argument: foreign policy crises arose later than the modern state system 12

itself. Crises arose when war became too costly and too

destructive. In short, many decisionmakers came to think

of war as counterproductive. The increased cost and

destructiveness of war occurred as a result of the rise of

nationalism and popular participation in politics, im­

proved communication and transportation, technological

innovations, developments in weaponry, the reorganization

of the armed forces, and the institutionalization of

multilateral diplomacy.

These long-term changes shaped and materially sub­

stantiated foreign policy crises. The industrial revolu­

tion and its aftermath— mass mechanization of production,

expansion of wage labor, and the use of centralized pro­

duction— wrought such changes. The year 1871 is a thres­

hold since by that date these innovations attained a sig­

nificant maturity and breadth. Although all foreign

policy crises share family resemblances, those which occurred before 1871 are different from those which oc­ curred after 1871, due to the innovations and developments mentioned above.

Chapter Two reviews and critiques the concept of

"crisis" in political science. Also in the chapter I discuss the applicability of critical theory to the study of crisis. Further, I fuse Lasswell's configurative method with critical theory in order to better understand 13

crisis. Finally, I review developments in Europe from

1789 to the 1870s in terms of Lasswell’s framework and

sketch the differences between crises before and after

1871. Chapters Three through Eight address, respectively,

the Anglo-French Near East Crisis of 1840, the Olmütz

Crisis of 1850, the Seven Weeks War Crisis of 1866, the

Fashoda Crisis of 1898, the Munich Crisis of 1938, and the

US-USSR Nuclear Alert Crisis of 1973.® The case study

chapters follow the same format. Each has a short intro­

duction, a concise review of the historical setting of the

crisis, and a discussion showing how the case study shares

the characteristics of foreign policy crises, and a dis­

cussion showing how the case study is different from those

crises that are on the other side of the 1871 historic

divide. Chapter Nine provides a provisional conclusion. I

discuss some possible applications of the study to current

and future crises.

® An additional point must be made concerning periodization. The period from 1851 to 1871 was a transition era during which the liberal nation-state, more costly and destructive weapons, more efficient transportation, and communication technologies and multilateral conference diplomacy, were introduced to the interna­ tional system. They were introduced at such a rate that they were being integrated into the workings of the international system from 1851 to 1871. They were integrated with the international system by 1871 to the point that crises after that year' were different from those which occurred earlier. Crises occurring between 1851 and 1871 shared characteristics with crises occurring before 1851 and after 1871. 14

Justification of the Case Studies

I argue herein that Great Powers became entangled in

foreign policy crises as a result of changes in prevailing

political, economic, and/or technological conditions. By

approximately 1871 the international systemic effect of

such changes served to alter the global order. Conse­

quently changes in political, economic, and/or technologi­

cal circumstances changed the character of FPCs also. The

Great Powers implemented or responded to these changes

first. Since Great Powers pursue a wider range of inter­

ests than other states, they are more likely to conflict with other states and thereby become involved in foreign

policy crises. Further, such Great Power crises are

likely to manifest the political, economic, and technolog­

ical changes mentioned above. Since the Great Powers were the states most frequently at war (Wright 1964, 52-54), they were also the states most frequently and illustra­ tively involved in foreign policy crises.

I examine FPCs which exemplify major and longstanding foreign policy interests of Great Powers, as well as the political, economic, and technological innovations noted above. These same examples illustrate the evolution of foreign policy crises from the Congress of Vienna to the contemporary era. In particular, I chose FPCs which illustrate the eras 1815-1850, 1851-1870, and 1871 to the 15

present.® I chose the Anglo-French Near East Crisis of

1840 and the Olmütz Crisis of 1850 because of their impor­

tance to the Eastern and German Questions in European

diplomacy in the 1816-1851 period. I chose the Seven

Weeks War Crisis of 1866 again because of the continuing

importance of the German Question in European diplomacy

during the transition era 1851-1871.

For the period 1871 to the present, I examine three

crises which reflect important diplomatic interests of the

Great or Super Powers. Thus, I chose the Fashoda Crisis

of 1898 involving France and Great Britain, the Munich

Crisis of 1938, and the US-USSR Nuclear Alert Crisis of

1973.

® As will be argued in chapter two, for the understanding the evolution of Foreign Policy Crises, the post-Napoleonic Era can be divided into three periods. The first period 1816-1851 is the first period of Foreign Policy Crises. During this time there were no wars between the Great Powers. The fear of Great Power war leading to revolution, which would overthrow the monarchies, created the conditions under which Foreign Policy Crises developed. War itself was seen by decisionmakers to threaten their high priority goals. The period 1851-1871 was a transition era during which all the wars between the Great Powers between 1816 and 1914 occurred. All crises between the Great Powers during the transi­ tion of 1851-1871 ended in war. Monarchs no longer believed that nationalism and liberalism threatened their rule, while other innovations in weaponry and organization of the armed forces had not developed sufficiently to check the Great Powers' recourse to war. The third era, 1871 to the present, witnessed the reemergence of Foreign Policy Crises, which ended peacefully, although all did not do so. The innovations noted above introduced for the most part between 1851 and 1871, were integrated into the European state system sufficiently to have a moderating influence on state behavior. CHAPTER TWO

THE ORIGINS AND EVOLUTION OF FOREIGN POLICY CRISES

Merely to recount the events, even on a world-wide scale, is unlikely to result in a better under­ standing of the forces at play in the world today unless we are aware at the same time of the under­ lying changes. What we require first of all is a new framework and new terms of reference. It is these that the present book seek to provide.

Geoffrey Barraclough

INTRODUCTION

Our understanding of foreign policy crises can be

improved by examining them in the broader context of

social and international relations theory and as part of

the evolution of the modern state system. The first part

of the following chapter will review the development of

the concept of crisis in political science and examine the

historical assumptions basic to the study of this concept.

It will also attempt to show the applicability of the

critical theory of Robert Cox to the study of crisis, and

also set forth Lasswell's configurative method as an

international relations approach which can be fused with critical theory in order to improve the understanding of foreign policy crises.

’ Geoffrey Barraclough, An Introduction to Contem­ porary History. New York: Penguin, 1964, page 1.

16 17

I will review developments in Europe from the 1700s until the late nineteenth century in terms of Lasswell's framework. Finally, differences between crises will be set forth in relation to the historical developments discussed in the preceding section.

Review of Literature

Nearly all existing studies of crises in international relations have assumed, either explicitly or implicitly, that crises, as situations or processes, have occurred throughout the history of the modern western state system.

However, historical support for the assumption that crises have been a familiar phenomenon in international relations from 1648 until the present is based almost solely on evidence culled from international history since the

1890s.

This assumption can be found in definitions and an­ alyses of international or foreign policy crises employed since the 1950s and forming the foundation of the study of crises in the discipline of international relations.

For years, the most widely accepted and cited definition of crises was that by Charles F. Herman, who wrote that: 18

crisis is a situation that (1) threatens high priority goals of the decision-maker, (2) re­ stricts the amount of time available for response before the decision is transformed and 3) sur­ prises the members of the decision-making unit by its occurrence. (Hermann 1972, 13).

Herman's decisionmakers are always state decisionmakers

and all of his examples of crises situations are taken

from the diplomatic history of modern states.

Charles McClelland had a different orientation towards crises which emphasized them as processes. He wrote: an

"international crisis is defined by at least a tripling of the volume of reported relevant acts above the level of the six months preceding the occurrence of the crisis and by more than a two-thirds activation of all the types of behavior categorized as possible" (McClelland 1968, 62).

One of his later descriptions defined international crises as "a particular kind of alteration of the pattern of the interflowing actions between conflict parties" (McClelland

1972, 97). The acts, actions and behavior McClelland described in his examples were those of states in the international system.

Oran Young provided a richer definition, one which emphasized the process inherent in crises and which ap­ parently has influenced the discussion in the crises literature since its appearance. For Young, a crisis "is a process of interaction . . . characterized by: a sharp 19

break from the ordinary flow of politics; shortness of

duration; a rise in the perceived prospects that violence

will break out; and significant implications for the

stability of some systems or subsystems in international

politics" (Young 1968, 15). His interaction is the inter­

action of states characterized by more intense activity in

international politics, by state decisionmakers's percep­

tions of the risk of violence breaking out between states,

and by a perceived threat to the continued stability of an

international system composed of states.

A subsequent definition elaborated elements of Young's

definition. For Snyder and Diesing, "an international

crisis is a sequence of interactions between the govern­

ments of two or more sovereign states in severe conflict,

short of actual war, but involving the perception of a

dangerously high probability of war" (Snyder and Diesing

1977, 6). Their definition stipulated that the interac­

tion described should comprise the interaction between

governments of independent states and the threatened

violence is the violence of war. This definition was

developed out of 16 case studies of international crises

that occurred from 1898 to 1973.

A definition of crisis which also was developed from multiple case studies was that of Lebow, who defined crisis in terms of three operational criteria: 20

1. Policy-makers perceive that the action or threatened action of another international actor seriously impairs concrete national interests, the country’s bargaining reputation, or their ability to remain in power... 2. Policy-makers perceive that any actions on their part designed to counter this threat (capitulation aside) will raise a significant prospect of war... 3. Policy-makers perceive themselves to be acting under time con­ straints (Lebow 1981, 10-12).

His definition contains the implicit theory specify­

ing what the action or threatened action impairs, thereby explaining why crisis is marked by higher levels of per­ ceived intensity. Lebow asserts that policymakers’ per­ ceptions should be seen as a necessary part of a crisis.

He claimed that to avoid reifying the state, it was neces­ sary to view people as decisionmakers, rather than states as decisionmakers. (The terms 'policymakers’ and 'de­ cisionmakers' are used interchangeably.) The policymakers involved in a crisis are state policymakers faced with the prospect of war between their state and one or more other states. Lebow based his contention on a review of crises from 1898 to 1967.

Finally, Wilkenfeld, Brecher and Moser distinguish between international and foreign policy crises— a dis­ tinction I believe the field should adopt. Although the term "international crises" has been used in the past to represent what Wilkenfeld, et al, refer to as "foreign 21 policy crises" the latter term approaches more closely what the writers of crisis in the discipline of internat­ ional relations have been studying. The two terms should not be used to distinguish between the micro and macro levels of the same crises, I contend. Rather they should be used to distinguish between those events which threaten the continued existence of an international system from those that have been analyzed as a situation or process distinguishable from non-crisis situations, such as normal diplomatic activity and war. No one can deny that Napol­ eon’s attempt to conquer Europe was a "crisis," in Wilken­ feld, et al"s. terminology "an international crisis," for the multipolar state system, since Napoleon’s actions represented a threat to the continued existence of that international system. Foreign policy crises occur at the level of the state while international crises occur at the level of the system.

For Wilkenfeld, ^ al- "a crisis. . . is a situation with three necessary and sufficient conditions, deriving from a change in [a state’s] external or internal environ­ ment. All three conditions are perceptions held by the highest level decisionmakers: (1) a threat to basic values, with a simultaneous or subsequent awareness of (2) finite time for response, and of the (3) high probability of involvement in military hostilities" (Wilkenfeld, 22

Brecher, and Moser 1988, 2, emphasis in original). The authors accept the proposition that foreign policy crises

have been a part of international politics during the whole history of the modern state history and they have existed during other eras of international history as well. "Foreign policy crises are ubiquitous. . . in time

(all eras of autonomous political communities)" (Wilken­ feld, Brecher, and Moser 1988, 1). The preceding asser­ tion is based on an analysis of 278 foreign policy crises from 1928 to 1981.

A foreign policy crisis, by my definition, is a proc­ ess of interaction between decisionmakers of two or more states characterized by bargaining tactics and strategy.

These tactics and strategy are in turn perceived by decis­ ionmakers as posing a threat to the achievement of high priority goals of decisionmakers, increasing the possibil­ ity of war, and placing time constraints on decisionmak­ ers.

I believe that this definition is supported by the literature. For example, McClelland and Young see crisis as a process which of necessity includes bargaining (Young

1967, 3), (McClelland 1961, 190). I specified states, borrowing from Snyder and Diesing, since my frame of reference is international relations— the relations of states— for which decisionmakers are competent agents. 23

The proposition that crisis is a situation which threatens high priority goals of decisionmakers is an assumption made by Raymond Cohen (1979), Lebow, Ole Holsti

(1972), Glenn Paige (1980), and Herman. My addition of

"the attainment of" is an explicit statement which formed the discussion on high priority goals by the above authors. A perception that a significant threat of vio­ lence, war, or military hostilities exist is a part of a crisis definition for Snyder, Diesing, Richard Falk and

Samuel Kim (1980), Young, Snyder, Lebow, and Wilkenfeld,

Brecher, and Moser. Again, even those who do not use the perception of war explicitly in their definition of inter­ national crises use real world referents which are marked by the perception of an increased possibility of war and which they identify with the term "crisis."

We now need to focus on the historical assumptions basic to the study of crises. Wilkenfeld, Brecher, and

Moser are not the only scholars who have explicitly seen crisis as having a continuous presence in international relations. Alexander George and Gordon Craig assert that crisis management, and therefore crisis itself, was a familiar phenomenon during the European balance of power era (George and Craig 1983, 205-219). Young appears to support Craig and George when he names as crises "the struggle over the Spanish succession, the clashes sur- 24 rounding Napoleon’s bid for supremacy," and the compe­ tition between Germany and the other powers ending in

World War I (Young 1967, 12). Finally, the father of us all, Hans J. Morgenthau, describes the Munich Crisis simply as a manifestation of the balance of power (Morgen­ thau 1960, 428).

Yet, if changes in technology, ideology, and economic arrangements helped to transform the world from 1648 until the present, why would those changes not alter foreign policy crises? Little attention has been paid to the relationship between foreign policy crises and the modern state system, except by the authors noted above, in terms of the question: are foreign policy crises endemic to the modern Western state system or are they historically specific types of events hinging on certain conditions and arising at a specific time? All of the authors except one, who have mentioned the subject have believed that the existence of crisis is an enduring part of the modern

Western state system. Raymond Cohen studied crises occui— ring after 1870 only because "developments in the technol­ ogy of warfare and communications set [the period since

1870] apart from preceding periods and helped define the nature of the system" (Cohen 1979, 22). Cohen implies that since the international system changed character after 1870 then crises also differed from one period to 25

the next. Yet, he does not elaborate.

For most scholars, a foreign policy crisis seems to be a type of situation and process similar to normal diplo­ matic practice and war and distinguishable from non-crisis situations. It has characteristics which separate it from war and normal diplomatic activity. All studies of crisis which have used case studies as an analytical tool separ­ ated crises from non-crisis situations by definition— otherwise they would have been unable to test their data with an empirical referent. Since crisis is seen as a distinct type of situation in international relations, a particular crisis has a beginning and an ending, it takes place only for a finite period of time. It can be said that the situation which has been given the name "foreign- policy crisis" differs sufficiently from war and normal diplomatic activity that it can be identified as a par­ ticular type of situation or event in international rela­ tions .

This ability to distinguish crisis from war and normal diplomatic activity may be why crisis is seen to be a constant in modern international relations. Since the conceptualizations of crisis deal with states and de­ cisionmakers of states and since the overwhelming per­ centage of case study examples are drawn from events since the late 1890s, scholars have seen crisis as a constant in 26 the inter-state relations of the modern period. Those scholars who have mentioned crises which they say occurred from 1648 to the 1890s have worked backward from the contemporary world and assumed that the way states inter­ acted since the 1890s was the way that states interacted throughout the history of the modern Western state system.

Their great constant was the existence of autonomous political communities or a system of sovereign states.

Since a system of states whose actions included war and diplomatic activity have existed throughout the modern era, they reasoned then crisis too has existed during that period.

I cannot agree that crisis has existed throughout the history of the modern state system. The study of crisis has assumed a constancy which is not supported by histori­ cal data and which betrays a hidden stasis bias by the scholars whose assumption it is. If we would examine ori­ gins instead of concentrating our attention on the func­ tioning of the international system, we could better see how certain changes in the world have resulted in changes in foreign policy crisis.

A theory orientation which aids in the questions of origins and changes in international relations is that of critical theory. Critical theory provides a way to his- toricize the study of the evolution of crisis. To the 27

relationship of critical theory and crisis, we will now

turn.

The Critical Theory of Robert Cox

The usefulness of critical theory in questions of

origins and changes lies in the way it conceptualizes

theorizing. Although all theories purport to be univer­

sal, they are invariably marked by the circumstances, the

conditions in historical space and time, which spawned

them (Morgenthau 1946, 20). Most theories were created to

resolve or illuminate specific issues current at the time.

At the same time, the theories strive to transcend those

problématiques. Kuhn referred to theories in this way when he distinguished between puzzle-solving within a paradigm and the articulation of a new paradigm (Kuhn

1962, 35-42). Hence, we have two types of theories, problem solving and critical.

Problem-solving theory takes power arrangements and the institutions which order them as "givens" and works to make the framework, system, or set of institutions func­ tion more efficiently along the lines of structural-funct­ ionalist analyses (Cox 1986, 207-208). This problem-solv­

ing can be extraordinarily broad in scope. For example, in an important contribution to the crisis literature, it states explicitly that "the primary aim... is to illumi- 28 nate an enduring phenomenon of world politics [and] to apply the lessons of history to the ongoing quest for world order" (Wilkenfeld, Brecher, and Moser 1988, 1).

Critical theory tries to separate itself from the current world system and inquires into the ways that system was created. It "does not take institutions and social and power relations for granted but calls them into question by concerning itself with their origins and how they might be in the process of changing" (Cox 1986, 208).

Critical theory tries to deal with wholes rather than parts. All theories have a starting point from some slice of human activity. Yet, "the critical approach leads toward the construction of a larger picture of the whole of which the initially contemplated part is just one component, and seeks to understand the processes of change in which both parts and whole are involved" (Cox 1986,

208-209).

By applying the critical theory of Cox, the study of the evolution of crises can be integrated into the study of the evolution of the international system as a whole— from crises origins and the reasons for their origins through to the changes which have affected them throughout their existences. Studying crises in the context of changes in the international system can enrich our under­ standing of both crises and the international system. 29

Critical theory helps us do this since, as a theory of

history, it is concerned with "a continuing process of

historical change." Critical theory changes its concepts

in response to the changes which occur in the subject it

is attempting to understand by assuming, unlike problem­

solving theory, that the world is constantly changing (Cox

1986, 209). Critical theory is also useful because of its

view of the relations between people and the structures of

the changing world.

For Cox, the framework within which people operate

"has the form of a historical structure, a particular

combination of thought patterns, material conditions and human institutions. . . . These structures do not deter­ mine people’s actions in any mechanical sense but consti­ tute the context of habits, pressures, expectations and constraints within which action takes place" (Cox 1986,

217).

These historical structures can be applied to three realms of human activity: the organization of production or the social forces which result from certain production processes; forms of state; and world orders or the part­ icular configurations of forces (Cox 1986, 220). These realms affect each other in a reciprocal way depending on changing circumstances. For example, the increasing dominance of capitalist production (social forces) within 30

Iran in the 1970s resulted in a reaction on the part of

many against a perceived secularization of Iranian socie­

ty. This reaction laid the basis for Aytollah Khomeini’s

Islamic state (forms of state) and its rejection of close

security ties with the United States (world orders).

There is an abundance of similar examples to demonstrate

that critical theory focuses on spheres of activity that

are critical to understanding of international relations.

An international relations theorist who anticipated

this orientation to the field was Harold Lasswell. Al­

though critical theory is helpful in focusing on origins

and changes, it is useful to synthesize C ox’s critical

theory with Lasswell’s international relations theory.

While his theory ignores the issue of origins per se, it

occupies itself with the issue of replication and change

in international relations, the division of labor and the

way goods, symbols, and instrumentalities of violence

relate to changes in international relations. Lasswell’s

international relations theory, synthesized with a criti­ cal theory perspective, and then applied to an analysis of

the changes in the international system, can show the way those changes created the conditions by which foreign policy crises emerged and evolved. 31

Lasswel1

Lasswell’s focus was on the way various forces and changes affect the extent of insecurity generated within the nature of man in culture. Critical theory and Lass­ well’s theory are complementary.

Lasswell rejected the liberal preoccupation with the autonomous actor, independent of all societal constraints, and the structuralist emphasis on the rules which detei— mine human behavior in society. He viewed individuals

interacting within an environment which conditioned their behavior. However, he acknowledged that the environment would change partly in response to the demands which the public put upon it. The mass demands of all societies were for the values of safety, income, and deference, he believed. In Lasswell’s view, the few who obtain the most of the three values are the elite; the rest were defined as the masses. The elite maintains itself by distributing goods, employing violence, and manipulating symbols (Lass­ well 1965, 3).

The symbols that are the basis for communication be­ tween elites and masses are of three types: identifi­ cation, demand, and expectation. These symbol types permit the articulation of the desires of the masses which result from changes in the external environment and peo­ ple’s personal insecurities. The mass level demands which 32

arise from the symbol articulations are the demands for

security, equality, and supremacy. These demands result

in war, emancipation, and independence movements. The extent of personal insecurity is affected by shifts in the

division of labor (social forces) which alter the dis­ tribution of the instrumentalities of violence (world order) and changes in the symbolic environment (forms of state).

People attempt to make sense of their world. They use concepts in order to define and explain their world. The symbols they use to explain the world are related to the material conditions which exist. Concepts have to be con­ stantly redefined and reaffirmed in response to new cul­ tural formations in order to keep their relevance. Sym­ bols affect behavior when an emotional attachment exists between a person and a symbol. Symbols are related to conditions, and individuals are related to both. Because of the needs of individuals, "private motives get dis­ placed onto public objects and are then rationalized in terms of public interest" (Lasswell 1965, 31). Further, once people identify themselves with a symbol, the "symbol of identification is elaborated according to the patterns already existing in the culture" (Lasswell 1965, 33).

To continue the review of Lasswell’s thought, we need to see how a series of dialectics unfolds. As stated 33

earlier, all societies are divided between elites and

masses. There is an ever present tension between the

elite and masses because of the hierarchical nature of

society and because all people regardless of their social

position need security, income, and deference. People

relate to their world through symbols while symbols inter­

act with the conditions of the environment. These condi­

tions include changes in the flow of goods and services and in the alterations of the distribution of the instru­ ment of violence. For Lasswell, an example of the above

relationships was "the spread of emancipation movements. . . intimately connected with changes in the division of labor" (Lasswell 1965, 84). The growth of national movements reflected the innovations in the pro­ duction technique, i.e., mass production.

A second relationship is that between symbols and the individual. Many symbols compete for the individual’s attention and loyalty. An individual can identify with the symbol ’nation’ or with the symbol ’class’ so that the loyalties of an individual are split, for example, between

Great Britain and the labor movement. Symbols are adopted more rapidly when the insecurity level of a person is higher. What symbol commands the greatest loyalty depends on where the threat to the individual is perceived to be originating. 34

A third relationship is that between the individual and the conditions of the environment. Technological change, a decrease in the output of essential goods, and the breakdown of the traditional symbolic network are examples of the type of changes in the environment which can cause the insecurity level of the individual to in­ crease. The individual’s environment consists of pro­ duction, power, and communication. The elites control goods, violence, and symbols in order to keep the insecur­ ities of the masses from being directed against them.

The world is in a state of continual flux. Tides of insecurity are released within an individual by changes in the conditions of the environment. Technological advances causes changes in the production of goods which trigger insecurities within people. The individual, in constant conflict, attempts to control anxieties by gaining and keeping the values of security, income, and deference.

The elites control goods, violence, and symbols and mani­ pulate these items so as to keep the hierarchical struc­ ture together. There is a constant movement in this universe of Lasswell’s. No thing is at rest. Societies and individuals are constantly subject to pressures that they put on themselves and which are put on them by their outer environment. In this way does societal recursion occur. To put it another way, this is how a people are 35 able to replicate the dominant relations and rules of their society in the midst of change.

How are we to relate all of this to the emergence and evolution of foreign policy crises? We need to present historical examples of earlier changes in the division of

labor along with the resulting alterations in the dis­ tribution of the instruments of violence and changes in the symbolic environment and tie the above to specific conditions from which foreign policy crises arose. My argument is that crises emerged and evolved because of the rise of the liberal nation-state, increased cost and destructiveness of war due to the mechanization of war, and innovations in transportation and communication tech­ nologies, and innovations in conference diplomacy. The above stemmed from the increasing dominance of capitalist production and the increasing mechanization of production within that mode of production. The above changes caused a major increase in mass insecurities. Yet, these in­ securities could not be discharged by a war because state decisionmakers viewed great power war as threatening their rule and the power status of their states. Thus, decis­ ionmakers used crisis as a way to discharge insecurities short of war. Through the use of crisis, insecurities could be discharged much less expensively than they could by a recourse to war. 36

Historical Interpretation

The 1700s were marked by the expansion of capitalism,

a system of production for sale with the goal of a profit,

intended, in turn, to be reinvested in the production

process to increase future profit. Landlords in Europe,

in order to raise the profit of their agricultural hold­

ings, commercialized agriculture and attained greater

productivity introducing new farming methods, new crops,

and new land arrangements. At the same time commerce and

industry were expanding, changing the division of labor especially within Western Europe. Social classes were

increasingly tied by capitalist methods of production,

rather than as before by production for use (Woloch 1982,

120-130), while the middle class, in particular, became more vital to the economic health of the state yet con­ tinuing to be excluded from political activities.

The limited nature of wars had, until then, preserved the balance of power. However, the wars which arose from the French Revolution began to pose threats to the power of the absolute monarchs of Europe. The increased destru­ ctiveness of war was a direct result of the introduction of the mass army, arising from a growing spirit of nation­ alism and the rejection of monarchical rule. After Napol­ eon was forced into exile in 1815, the ruling orders were 37

still obsessed with the problems of interstate relations

and domestic tranquility. It was the correlation between

war and revolution in the minds of the European elite

which put a ceiling on conflict among the Great Powers

after 1815 (Ropp 1959, 125). This provided the window of

opportunity for foreign policy crisis to emerge in Europe

and become a process by which the European powers could

relate to each other.

It is understandable why many people would not have

come to this conclusion. After making the argument that

foreign policy crisis is a type of event in international

relations, just as normal diplomatic activity and war are,

how can it then be said that while war and normal diplo­

matic activity are types of situations in international

relations throughout the history of the modern state

system, foreign policy crisis is not? The response is

based on the opinion decisionmakers had of war before and

after the Napoleonic Wars. Before the wars, the statesmen

of Europe viewed war as an integral part of the balance of

power system. War, limited war, was a regulator of the

international system and all Great Power decisionmakers

viewed war as a tool at their disposal, not a problem to

be avoided. After Napoleon’s appearance and demise, the

decisionmakers of Europe operated under the assumption that Great Power war would lead to revolutions which would 38 sweep them from power. War was seen not to be controll­ able or limited anymore and so was a problem.

This can be thought of in another way. Most of the definitions of crisis in international relations include an increased possibility of violence or war. Decision­ makers implement policies to show their serious war intent and their ability to wage war. Why is the threat of war used instead of war itself? The threat of war becomes a surrogate for war. Relative abilities are discovered in the process of the war preparations. Contributing to this is the mechanization war which makes it more of a mass business enterprise, requiring policies which will take weeks to complete.

We can see how the decisionmakers were prompted to use crisis management techniques to resolve disputes in the latter half of the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century. After the increased cost and destructiveness of war arose as a result of the vic­ tory of the national state, increased cost and destruc­ tiveness of weaponry, and innovations in transportation and communication technologies by 1871, war continued to be seen as it had been seen from 1815 to 1850: too des­ tructive and costly to the decisionmakers to use as a tool of state policy. The innovation of multilateral diplomacy was seen by different decisionmakers as a way to deal with 39

this new reality while maintaining the balance of power

system. For example, decisionmakers quickly accepted the

invitation to the Berlin conference of 1879 which ended a

potential crisis over the Near East before it could begin.

Gray of Great Britain attempted to organize a multilateral

conference to resolve the crisis of July/August 1914.

Mussolini’s response to Hitler’s threat of war against

Czechoslovakia was to help arrange a multilateral con­

ference to resolve the crisis.

The period from 1851 to 1871 was a transition era.

All Great Power wars between 1815 and 1914 occurred within

these twenty years when multilateral crisis management

broke down because monarchs believed that nationalism and

liberalism no longer threatened their rule due to the

failure of the Revolutions of 1848. It was not until

developments in warfare and the organization of the armed

forces (alterations in the instruments of violence),

innovations in transportation and communication (alter­

nations in the instruments of violence and changes in the

symbolic environment), and the rise of the liberal nation­

state (changes in the symbolic environment) that crisis

management reemerged, all because of the success of the

industrial revolution and the resulting mass mechanization of production, expansion of wage labor, and rise of cen­ tralized production (changes in the division of labor). 40

A crisis to exist needs a ceiling on conflict and a floor of threat. In earlier times of the modern state system, decisionmakers when faced with a threat to the attainment of high priority goals responded with war, not crisis diplomacy. Since it was not seen as a threat to their rule or to the "rule" of the Great Powers, war remained a valid option. Crisis developed as an indepen­ dent event in international relations only after war itself was seen to be a threat to the attainment of high priority goals of Great Power decisionmakers.

The workings of the Concert of Europe are the first examples of both crisis avoidance and crisis management in the modern state system. The Concert created the innova­ tion of the multilateral conference by which decisionmak­ ers of the Great Powers could resolve dangerous differen­ ces among states without resorting to war and without appearing to retreat in the face of an adversary’s chal­ lenge. As Claude observed, "not only was the principle of joint consultation established and the expectation of collective diplomatic treatment of major international issues normalized [by the multilateral conferences] but important progress was made in developing the techniques and creating the psychological prerequisites of successful multilateral negotiation" (Claude 1971, 27). There was no major war from 1815 to 1853 since the emergence of the 41 mass armies and the suppression of nationalism and liber­ alism created conditions by which foreign policy crises developed.

The social composition of European societies was changed by the industrial revolution. The percentage of wage laborers increased significantly while the upper middle class gained political power at the expense of the landed elite. Household production was replaced by fact­ ory-based production by machines resulting in a vastly increased amount of goods at a greatly accelerated rate.

At the same time the need for labor was reduced.

Also, at the same time both the accuracy and firepow­ er of weapons increased with the breech-loading rifle in general use by the end of the 1850s (Dyer 1985, 77), dynamite perfected by 1867, and the first modern battle­ ship, the Devastation, launched by Britain in 1873. The

industrial revolution transformed the character of international relations by revolutionizing the character of warfare. Scientific developments made possible new inventions in armaments, while the new system of production facilitated the rapid output on a large scale of munitions and other military supplies; the mechanization of warfare made the clash of arms more serious and disastrous (Langer 1950, 5).

By 1871 Europe had been linked by rail while the telegraph had been extended across Europe during the

1840s, 1850s, and 1860s. The Suez Canal and the first transcontinental railroad in the United States were com- 42 pleted in 1869. Together with increased use of the steam­ ship, these innovations resulted in enormous increases in the speed of communication and transportation. These changes in turn furthered the development of nationalism and liberalism, since national communities could commun­ icate better internally and so separate themselves from other national communities. In addition, an increase in literacy gave rise to the mass press and a flood of books and pamphlets extolling the virtues of different national communities (Deutsch 1964, 112).

These ideologies helped transform war from a limited clash of arms to a total conflict. Along with citizens’ demands for rights (universal male suffrage), came reci­ procal obligations of conscription and obligatory military service which became part of the major military machines of Europe by the mid-nineteenth century. Conscription mobilized the masses for warfare and so made war a concern of the masses. Leaders soon realized that liberalism could be used to promote war (Preston 1962, 208), and that disputes between decisionmakers had acquired the potential of becoming full scale disputes between peoples.

The mechanization of warfare and the emergence of mass armies increased the cost of war and made it more destruc­ tive, leading decisionmakers to search for alternatives since the new world of mass capitalist production threat- 43 ened the security of all the states of Europe by making possible a total war. At the same time, inter-state competition heightened tensions between peoples. As a result, crisis management, the discharge of insecurities without war, came into practice for a second time in the last quarter of the nineteenth century.

The choice of crisis management as a tool by the

Great powers was made easier, in part, by the new imper­ ialism which discharged insecurities by annexing territor­ ies in Africa and Asia and permitted competition among the

European states far from the centers of control in Europe.

The three crises before World War I which centered on

African territory (the Fashoda Crisis of 1898 and the

First and Second Morocco Crises of 1905 and 1911) involved the last two territories in Africa left which the European states agreed were still open to colonization, the Sudan and Morocco.

The development of the multilateral conference since

1815 arose from the need for decisionmakers to practice war prevention and crisis management. The multilateral conference as a form of crisis management allowed the

Great Powers to resolve conflicts peacefully. Decision­ makers needed peaceful resolutions to conflicts since war was seen to threaten both elite rule within their state and the continued status of their states as Great Powers. 44

Crisis Differences

The foreign policy crises between 1816 and the present share family resemblances which can be found in the defin­

ition of foreign policy crises which I have set forth in this chapter. Yet, there are differences between crises which existed before and after 1871, a date which repre­ sents a watershed in respect to innovations in warfare, transportation and communication in Europe. By 1871, political changes introduced earlier had achieved a near

European-wide practice.

Before 1871 relatively quick communication between decisionmakers was difficult, thus ruling out crises of relatively short duration and producing extended crises which lasted over three months. Crises before the advent of the railroad and telegraph occurred over a longer period of time compared to crises after that time. This does not mean that decisionmakers in pre-1871 crises were free from time constraints. Decisionmakers perceived that they were acting within time constraints in a crisis because they perceived that in an unspecified but limited amount of time they could be involved in a war, or the threat to their high priority goals which they were resis­ ting could be successful or both results could occur.

The perceptions of the decisionmakers also marked 45 foreign policy crises before and after 1871. Before 1871 decisionmakers tended to view what is today described as a crisis no more than as the diplomatic maneuverings before a war or a more intense example of normal diplomatic ac­ tivity leading inevitably to war. Those decisionmakers who did not conceptualize a situation as a crisis but

instead as the diplomatic prelude to an inevitable war and who viewed war as a threat to high priority goals could be adverse to taking part in the high stakes bargaining which

is now associated with crises. Crises before 1871 lacked the clarity of those that arose after that date. The first decisionmaker from the case studies to use the term

'crisis' to describe what we today conceptualize as a foreign policy crisis was Robert Arthur Cecil, Lord Salis­ bury, who was both the British Prime Minister and Foreign

Minister during the Fashoda Crisis of 1898 (Langer 1960,

549).

Decisionmakers before the rise of mass nationalism at times identified with their socio-political counterparts in other states more than with their fellow nationals.

The elite of Europe shared a social heritage and believed their rule was threatened by possible revolutions which would result from a Great Power war. This weak national­ ism, common background and fear made the governments in a crisis less than perfect unitary actors and led to members 46 of governments manipulating members of opposing govern­ ments into actions which would pressure their own govern­ ment to change policy. This occurred during the Anglo-

French Near East Crisis of 1840 and the Olmütz Crisis of

1850.

Summary

Critical theory, with its emphasis on origins and re­ cursion, and Lasswell’s theory, with its emphasis on people acting within society in response to fundamental changes in that society, provides a framework by which the evolution of the international system and the emergence and evolution of foreign policy crises can be explored and understood. By historicizing the study of foreign policy crises, the understanding of its relation to the inter­ national system and the international system itself is enriched. Critical theory and Lasswell’s theory comple­ ment each other and can help ground and broaden discus­ sions of foreign policy crises in their historical set­ ting. CHAPTER THREE

THE ANGLO-FRENCH NEAR EAST CRISIS OF 1840

Palmerston is gone to town this morning to sign the treaty [Straits Convention of 15 July 1841] so that now France may re-enter into the great European family. There has been something ridiculous in this from the beginning.

Prime Minister William Lamb, Lord Melbourne, to Lord John Russell, Secretary for War and the Colonies 13 July 1841

Introduction

Melbourne’s opinion was shared by many in the British government. Throughout the crisis they believed that the behavior of Foreign Secretary Henry John Temple, Lord

Palmerston, towards the French government was unbecoming to the status of both states. What Melbourne called ridiculous stemmed from the "artificial" quality of the event: artificial in the sense of man-made or constructed from a series of actions of the participants (Simon 1969,

4).

This crisis involved a disagreement between Britain and France over the status of Muhammad Ali, ruler of Egypt and Syria within the Ottoman Empire. It represented the

^ Kenneth Bourne, Palmertson. The Early Years: 1784- 1841 New York: MacMillan Publishing Co., Inc, 1982, 620.

47 48 first serious threat of war between the Great Powers since the defeat of Napoleon and the creation of the

Concert of Europe in 1815. The Concert had been created because of the fear of a Great Power war and subsequent revolution, and this formed the basis for relations among the Great Powers for the next 25 years.

Understanding the Anglo-French Near East Crisis of

1840 is crucial to understanding the evolution of crisis in the modern state system. It has marked differences from and similarities to later crises. The crisis will be set out as follows. This chapter will outline the situ­ ation in Europe and the Near East before the crisis, and describe the events as they unfolded and in the process demonstrate that it was a crisis. Finally, this chapter will discuss the ways the 1840 Crisis differed from pre­ vious crises and fix its place in the evolution of crises.

The Setting

The grand coalition of Great Britain, Russia, Prus­ sia, and Austria which had defeated France in 1814-1815 followed two seemingly contradictory policies. The allied

Great Powers wanted to restore to Europe the balance of power system which Napoleon had destroyed during his reign

(Gulick 1967, ix). After Napoleon’s defeat in 1815 retu»— ning monarchies and the aristocracies were in full agree- 49

ment on the need for a total political restoration (Artz

1934, 10). The statesman of the Allied Great Powers tried

to recreat the rules of the balance of power to guide

state relations. After more than two decades of warfare,

the desire for peace was widespread and supported by the

governing classes (Artz 1934, 1). The Great Powers also wanted to regulate the relations of states in ways which would maintain the peace in Europe.

"It was evident to all intelligent statesmen that no major European war was henceforth tolerable; for such a war would almost certainly mean a new revolution and consequently the destruction of the old regimes" (Hobsbawm

1962, 99). However, peace was not an aim of the balance of power system, which recognized war as the chief means of maintaining the balance when one state threatened to dominate. Wars had been fought in the name of the balance of power against Louis XIV, in 1667-1668, 1673-1679, 1689-

1697, 1701-1714, and against Napoleon in 1793-1797, 1798-

1801, 1805-1807, 1812-1815 (Gulick 1967, 34-36).

Why did the restored statesmen of Europe believe they could eliminate war as a tool in the balance of power system without destroying the effectiveness of the system?

The statesmen had realized that the system needed sig­ nificant modification even before the allied armies reached Paris and drew up the Treaty of Chaumont of March

1814. The treaty, which called for the allies to work 50

together to maintain the balance of power in Europe (Phil­

lips 1914, 78), foreshadowed the Quadruple Alliance of

November 1815, which provided the legal basis for the

Concert of Europe. The Concert upheld the restored power

balance, but substituted periodic conferences and negotia­

tion among the Great Powers for war (Claude 1971, 26).

"[N]ot only was the principle of joint consultation es­ tablished [through the Concert's provisions] and the expectation of collective diplomatic treatment of major

international issues normalized but important progress was

[also] made in developing the techniques and creating the psychological prerequisites of successful multilateral negotiation" (Claude 1971, 27).

The consultation provisions functioned extremely well from 1815 until the revolutions of 1848. Even when there was Great Power disagreement over issues, the members did not resort to war. The Concert was effective enough to oversee the admittance of France into regular delibei— ations of the Great Powers (1818), sanction French inter­ vention in Spain (1822), and recognize both the indepen­ dence of Greece (1830) and Belgium (1831). When the

Concert eventually foundered it was because of the great­ est diplomatic issue of the nineteenth century (some would say even of the twentieth century): the Eastern Question, which revolved around the status of the Ottoman Empire in continental diplomacy. The Eastern Question had entered 51

European deliberations as early as the 1700s as a result of the Ottoman loss of substantial territory at the hands of the empires of Russia and Austria and the subsequent invasion of its Egyptian province by French forces under

Napoleon. Whether the Ottoman state could survive became an even more important issue for the Great Powers with the rise of a local ruler, Muhammad Ali, in Egypt.^ Ali had been able to achieve Egypt's de facto independence from the Empire by 1807 but his ambitions transcended the confines of his adopted country.^ It was these ambitions which put Ali in direct conflict with Sultan Mahmud II

(1808-1839) and Sultan Abdul-Mejid I (1839-61) and led to the Anglo-French Near East Crisis of 1840.

Ali was a state builder, while his adopted province had historic ties to France. Many in France saw Ali as continuing the work of Napoleon (Rodkey 1921, 37). Many viewed Egypt as a French possession (Rodkey 1921, 126).

In 1827 Ali asked the Sultan to grant him control of

At the time of the crisis, the Ottoman Empire controlled what is now Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt in north Africa; Turkey, Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Israel, Qatar, Bahrain, and the Red Sea and Persian Gulf Coastal areas of Saudi Arabia in the Middle East, and Romania, Bulgaria, central and eastern Yugoslavia, Albania and Macedonia in Europe.

Ali was an Albanian by birth who was a commander of an Ottoman regiment sent to Egypt to help restore Ottoman rule there after the British occupied the country during the Napoleonic Wars. Sultan Mahmud II, in recogni­ tion of Ali's services to the Ottoman Empire, appointed Ali governor of Egypt. 52

Syria, a request which was eventually refused in 1831.

Ali responded by invading Ottoman controlled territories

in the Near East (Syria and Adana) and was so successful

that by late 1833, the Sultan gave in, granting him Crete,

Syria, and Adana (Dodwell 1967, 121-122).

Not content with autonomy for his greatly expanded

realm, Ali announced his intention to establish Egyptian

independence from the Ottoman Empire in May of 1838 (Craig

and George 1983, 193). Intervention by British and Rus­

sian diplomats averted outright conflict between the two

for a time, but in April 1839, the Sultan sent Ottoman forces into Syria to expel Ali's army. On 24 June 1839, the Egyptian army led by Ali's son, Ibrahim, crushed the

Ottoman army. Sultan Mahmud II died on 30 June. The

Ottoman fleet deserted to the Egyptian side (Marriott

1958, 238).

These events created de facto Egyptian independence and generated intense diplomatic activity among the Great

Powers. Britain’s Palmerston believed that continued

Egyptian control of Syria would destabilize the Ottoman

Empire (Hurewitz 1975, 267). France's Prime and Foreign

Minister Louis Adolphe Thiers supported Egyptian control of Syria since Ali's aims seemed to coincide with those of

France (Marriott 1958, 240). Palmerston's attempt to achieve Great Power unanimity was rebutted by France, which refused to agree to any action against Ali. Event­ 53 ually Palmerston concluded a convention with Austria,

Prussia, and Russia on 15 July 1840 sanctioning military action against Ali. This convention signaled the onset of the crisis proper.

The Crisis

The events between the signing of the Convention of

15 July 1840 and Thiers’s resignation on 21 October 1840

represented a foreign policy crisis (FPC). The Convention threatened to lead to war between Britain and France, threatened the high priority goals of France and Britain, and placed time constraints on decision making: all prerequisites of an FPC.

The Convention called on Ali to evacuate Syria and return the Ottoman fleet within 20 days. In return, the

Great Powers would ensure that Ali would receive Egypt for his dynasty and Syria to rule for life. If Ali refused, he would be forced to forfeit any rights to Syria and

Egypt (Hurewitz 1975, 272-274).

Threat of War

This Convention marked the isolation of France from the other Great Powers on an important international issue. Fueled by the French press which saw the Conven­ tion as an affront to the honor of France (Gleason 1972,

249), the public protest reached such proportions that neither Thiers nor King Louis Philippe of France could 54

have ignored it without jeopardizing their rule (Webster

1969, 697-698).

News of the Convention had caused "a wave of indigna­

tion . . . almost the whole of the public press. . .

called loudly for war." The French government believed

it could have the Convention rescinded by threatening war

against Britain, which it believed responsible. Thiers

and Louis Philippe began extensive preparations for war

(Rodkey 1921, 167), ordering plans to be drawn up for the

fortification of Paris, the arming of the French navy, and the drafting of eligible men from the registration rolls of 1836 and 1839 (Rodkey 1921, 167). Thiers believed war with Britain was a possibility on 31 July 1840. As Guizot observed on that day, Thiers was "mu6h preoccupied with the chance of war" (Rodkey 1921, 171).

The Queen’s speech opening Parliament spoke highly of the 15 July 1840 Convention and failed to mention France.

This intensified French hostile feeling. In response the

French government increased the size of its army and navy

(Webster 1969, 698).

Alarmed at the possibility of war. King Leopold of

Belgium appealed to his niece. Queen Victoria, to moderate

British policy with respect to Egypt and France. Leopold viewed the specter of a war over the status of Ali comical and sad (Benson 1907, 294). In a series of letters to

Queen Victoria written throughout October, he pressed her 55 to force her government to compromise. In a letter to

Clemens Metternich, Austrian State Chancellor, Leopold pointed out what he saw as Europe’s "social sickliness." A

"great war" was possible, he said, and Europe’s "entire social form and organization would be transformed and shattered by such a struggle" (Rodkey 1921, 193).

The Duke of Wellington believed initially that his government’s policy was correct but he opposed war with

France. "Every effort ought to be made to avoid [a war]"

(Sanders 1889, 461), he wrote. Eventually, he abandoned his support for the government. "What is Ali in compari­ son with the immeasurable importance of preserving peace in Europe?" (Reeve 1885, 160).

Melbourne wrote to Colonial Affairs Secretary Lord

Russell on 21 August 1840 that in both Granville’s and

Bulwer’s opinion, British ambassador to France and charge d ’affaires respectively, feeling for war was still strong in Paris (Sanders 1889, 463). Lord Clarendon, George

William Frederick Villiers, who was Lord Privy Seal, wrote to Melbourne in the same vein on 31 August. Francois

Pierre Guillaume Guizot, the French ambassador to Great

Britain, told Clarendon that "the preparations for war were very real and proceeding with all possible activity"

(Sanders 1889, 467). In the same conversation, Guizot related that King Louis Philippe of France "foresaw the possibility of war and that he was determined to be pre­ 56

pared for it in a manner suitable to the honour and power

of France" (Sanders 1889, 470).

This fear was heightened in early September when as a

result of the news reaching Paris and London that the

Anglo-Austrian Mediterranean fleet had cut sea communica­

tions between Syria and Egypt under orders issued when the

Convention was signed, and that this same fleet was pre­

paring to attack Ali if he didn’t submit to the terms of

the Convention, a new wave of war fever swept over France.

Its government decreed the fortification of Paris and

drafted the eligible men from the registration rolls of

1834 and 1835 (Rodkey 1921, 178).

Events in the Near East further enraged French opin­

ion. Sultan Abdul-Mejid I (after succeeding to the throne

at the death of his father) issued a decree which legally

deposed Ali as governor of Egypt on 14 September 1840.

The Anglo-Austrian fleet began a bombardment of Ali’s army

in Beirut on 11 September and by 20 September had success­

fully taken the city. News of both events caused a public outcry in France. In an official note to Palmerston,

Thiers predicted that the deposition of Ali would be a cause for war (Rodkey 1921, 187-188). In an official conversation with British Ambassador Granville on 15

October, Thiers threatened that if negotiations were not begun between France and the other powers then he would ask the Chamber of Deputies to authorize an increase in 57 the army, the calling up of the national guards while ordering several armies to the frontier (Rodkey 1921,

189). It was about this time that Melbourne expressed his opinion to Queen Victoria that France would be forced into a war by public opinion (Rodkey 1921, 190). Melbourne’s opinion was based on a conversation that he had with

Guizot on 10 October. Guizot believed that if Thiers’s note of 8 October was ignored then "the conduct of affairs in France would probably fall into the hands of the vio­ lent party and that it would be no longer possible to control the excited feelings of the people in France"

(Bensen and Esher 1907, 303).

In the end, it was King Leopold’s attempts to end the crisis which finally bore fruit, although not in the way he intended. Leopold wrote Victoria on 20 October and plead for compromise. Melbourne sent a reply to Leopold which Melbourne knew would be shown to Louis Philippe. In the letter Melbourne threatened to call Parliament into session so that it could put Britain on a war footing.

Melbourne said he would "lay before [Parliament] the conduct of France, ask for supplies, in order to increase our fleets...[T]his is, in a word. War, Sir...I know that the interests and the honor of my country require it and that I will be approved by the whole nation" (Ziegler

1976, 326). Requested by Thiers on 20 October to makea bellicose speech at the opening of the Chamber of Depu- 58

ties, King Louis Philippe refused, precipitating the im­

mediate resignation of Thiers and his government (Rodkey

1921, 192-193), thus ending the immediate threat of war.

Following his resignation, Thiers admitted the intention

of attacking Europe when French armaments were completed

(Webster 1969, 730).

Threat to High Priority Goals

In the Near East Crisis of 1840, France threatened

war against Britain. Britain maintained its policy in the

face of those threats. Both countries' stances can be

understood by examining the important goals of each count­

ry. Britain’s interest was in the continued existence of

the Ottoman Empire and in the protection of trade routes to India. France was concerned with the continued auton­ omy of Muhammad Ali and through it an enhanced strategic position for France in the Mediterranean.

Threat to French Goals

By 1840, French interests in the eastern Mediter­ ranean were centuries old, dating from at least 1535, the year of the first proposed commercial treaty between

France and the Ottoman Empire. By a treaty of 28 May

1740, the Ottoman Empire granted France commercial capitu­ lations in perpetuity (Hurewitz 1975, 2). Relations with the Ottomans developed so quickly that Ranke, in writing 59 about the diplomacy of the late seventeenth century, could say that "France was continuing to exert her old influence upon the Porte by the usual means." That is, if Russia threatened Sweden militarily, France would press Turkey to

invade Russia (von Laue 1950, 193, my emphasis).

France had acquired an active interest in Egypt with

Napoleon’s invasion in 1798 and consequent foui— year oc­ cupation. The French held an important position there after Napoleon’s defeat in 1815. Muhammad Ali used French soldiers, sailors, engineers, financiers, and agricul­ turalists to organize and increase both agricultural and

industrial production, create a modern army and navy, and to establish a modern administration (Marriott 1958, 228-

229). In fact, from the 1820s on, Egypt was the key to

French Mediterranean policy. France wanted this relation­ ship with Egypt because France viewed the Egyptian navy as a potential balance to the British navy in the Mediter­ ranean.* This view of the relationship between France and

Ali was reciprocated by Ali. Ali said that Egypt was virtually the work of France in a request for an official

French loan in April 1832 (Puryear 1969, 117,159). When

Syria was added to Ali’s control in 1833, it was seen as a

French success in Egypt paralleled French success elsewhere in the Mediterranean. France attacked Algeria and successfully defeated it by 5 July 1830 (Puryear 1968, 135). Further, France was dynastically united with Spain (Marriott 1958, 239). 60

success not only of Egyptian arms but also of French

diplomacy (Puryear 1968, 1).

Thiers always had asserted French claims to Egypt

with vehemence even before his government of March -

October 1840 (Marriott 1958, 240). Because of his opinion

that France had established a protectorate in Egypt,

Thiers told the British ambassador Granville, on 17 April

1840, that France would refuse to be part of a conference

which would even discuss the coercion of Ali (Webster

1969, 679).

After Thiers government resigned, debates over Egyp­

tian policy in the French Chamber of Deputies made public

the goals of their government. Thiers and others admitted

that France had protected Ali to establish Egypt as a second-rate naval power which could be used in union with the French fleet against the British fleet (Rodkey 1921,

206-207). In that way, the dominance of France in the

Mediterranean and in North Africa would be assured.

Threat to British Goals

This dream of French hegemony in the Mediterranean was a nightmare for British officials, especially Pal­ merston, and collided directly with British interests in the Near East. It is to Palmerston that credit must go for organizing a coalition both within the British govern­ ment and among the Great Powers which stopped French 61

policy from succeeding.

The lodestar of Palmerston’s policy was the Ottoman

Empire and its relationship to British imperial interests

in India. Palmerston believed by mid-1833 that if Ali

maintained Egyptian independence and established a larger

kingdom, then it would lead to the dismemberment of the

Ottoman Empire (Rodkey 1921, 38-39). Al i ’s successes from

1831 to 1833, Palmerston believed, had already begun the

process of dismemberment. After Ali successfully invaded

the Ottoman Empire in Asia Minor, the Porte appealed to

the Powers for help. Only Russia offered timely assis­

tance. This was codified in the Treaty of Hunkar Iskelesi

of 8 July 1833 (Marriott 1958, 232-235). The treaty

placed the Ottoman Empire under the military protection of

Russia which promoted Palmerston’s fears that the end

result of the treaty would be the transformation of the

Ottoman Empire from an independent power to that of the

southernmost province of the Russian Empire (Temper1 y

1966, 119). Palmerston’s logic was simple. Russia would

not send military forces to the Ottoman Empire unless

asked, and it would not be asked unless invited by the

Sultan who would not extend the invitation unless attacked

by Ali (Hoskins 1968, 272-273). He and others viewed Ali as a mere tool of the French. Palmerston believed that

Ali would always be able to threaten to attack the Ottoman 62

Empire if he controlled Syria.® Thus, Palmerston’s goal was to end the Egyptian control of Syria thereby ending

both the Ottoman’s need of Russian aid and the threat to

Britain from a possible partition of the Ottoman Empire

(Bourne 1982, 577).

One of the main goals of British foreign economic policy between 1815 and 1848 was to develop new markets overseas (Puryear 1969, 110); and the most important market, the key to both British imperial expansion and the opening-up of the Far East, was India. At this same time, the British Indian Empire increased by two-thirds (Hobs- bawm 1962, 107), prompting the value of British cotton goods imported by India to increase sixteen times over between 1815 and 1832 (Hobsbawm 1962, 165). The Indian market was central to the expansion of British trade to the Far East. The British desire to protect its position in India helped prompt the long British-Russian rivalry in

Afghanistan which began in the 1830s (Puryear 1969, 63).

By the mid-1830s, Britain knew that the bulk of future communication with India would be through either the Red Sea or the Persian Gulf (Rodkey 1921, 61). The overland route to India through Egypt was established in

1835 (Headlam-Morley 1930, 54) while regular steam service

The Ottoman province of Syria included what is now Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, and Israel. By controlling Syria, Ali could threaten both Constantinople and the Ottoman territory in Asia Minor, which is now Iraq and Kuwait. 63 from India to Britain via the Red Sea was established by

1837 (Hoskins 1968, 224). The sole motive of British policy in Egypt at this time was to maintain access to

India (Headlam Morley, 1930, 53). This is the reason for

Palmerston’s hostility towards Egyptian expansion. If

Ali had successfully controlled Syria, he could have controlled the two main routes to India, the Red Sea and the Persian Gulf. Palmerston sent a warning to Ali to stay out of Baghdad on 8 December 1837 (Dodwell 1967,

139). To forestall future Egyptian expansion and to help protect the sea routes to India Britain occupied Aden in

January, 1839 (Graham 1965, 74), and later in the same year took possession of Bahrein (Hoskins 1968, 269).

The Ottoman Empire also became commercially important to Britain as a result of successful diplomacy in the late

1830s. Britain and the Ottoman Empire agreed to the commercial convention of Balta Liman on 16 August 1838.

This convention abolished all monopolies within the Otto­ man Empire and gave Britain a privileged commercial posi­ tion within the empire (Hurewitz 1975, 266-267). The stakes were higher for Britain because of this treaty. If the Ottoman Empire was partitioned, Britain would lose economically in addition to losing politically and stra­ tegically (Puryear 1969, 90).

Although it was Palmerston who saw the threat to

British interests most clearly in 1840, it was an estab- 64

lished position of Britain to counter any advances in the

Near East by a Great Power. There was a consensus that

French policy in the Near East threatened fundamental

British interests. Britain and France competed in Egypt from Napoleon’s invasion of May, 1798 until French recog­ nition of the British protectorate in Egypt in 1904 (Head­

lam-Morley 1930, 53). Further, Britain did not deviate from its policy of defending the Ottomans until the rise of German power on the continent appeared as the greatest threat to Britain. Even this was temporary. Except for the period 1915 to 1918, Britain has adhered to the policy of supporting Turkey.

Time Constraints

The situation between July and October in 1840 repre­ sented a foreign policy crisis for Britain and France be­ cause of time constraints placed on the decisionmakers of each. The constraints existed because of the terms of the

Great Power Convention of 15 July 1840. The Convention was a twenty day ultimatum to Ali to remove his armies from the Near East or lose Syria and then Egypt. The

Great Powers had pledged collective military action to enforce this ultimatum (Hurewitz 1975, 271-275). Yet

Thiers hoped to overturn the Convention before the expir­ ation date for Egypt had passed. He based his strategy on the disagreements within the British Cabinet and within 65 the other Great Powers, especially Prussia (Bourne 1982,

596). Although Thiers' attempts to convince the Great

Powers that the threat of war was real were unsuccessful, he continued to believe it possible to break up the Con­ vention by using what he hoped would be the indecisiveness of the military campaign (Dodwell 1967, 180).

Palmerston also suffered problems about time. He needed to convince Britons to adhere to the Convention of

15 July 1840 until its wisdom could be demonstrated. On

16 July 1840, Palmerston ordered the British army and navy to move into place to attack Ali if he refused to vacate

Syria (Webster 1969, 695).

Palmerston came closest to failure in late September, the interval between Great Powers' actions in the Near

East, such as the capture of Beirut and Acre and the news of their success reaching Britain. The news of the suc­ cessful assault on Beirut dampened for a few weeks a push for compromise with France by some in the Cabinet— enough time for Palmerston to clinch the success of his policy.

Yet, agitation for compromise in the British Cabinet did not end unti1 news of the capture of Acre on 4 November

1840 reached the British government on 24 November (Bourne

1982, 616).

Pre-1871 Crisis Characteristics

The Anglo-French Near East Crisis of 1840 has many 66 characteristics common to the general term "crisis." It also has characteristics which set it apart from later crises— those occurring after 1871. And it possesses a set of characteristics which only those crises that un­ folded between 1815 and 1871 possess. These characteris­ tics can best be described as a longer duration, weak elite perception of the crisis as a crisis, and a climate of weak nationalism.

Longer Duration

The Anglo-French Near East Crisis spanned a much longer period than those which followed. This crisis began on 15 July with the signing of the Convention and ended on 20 October with the resignation of Thiers, a duration of three months and six days. By comparison, the

Olmütz Crisis of 1850 lasted from 12 September to 29

November 1850, or two months and 17 days; the Seven Weeks

War Crisis of 1866 lasted from 9 April to 17 June 1866, or two months and six days; the Fashoda Crisis lasted from 19

September to 4 November, or one month and sixteen days; the Munich Crisis lasted from 12 September to 30 September

1938, or 18 days; and the US-USSR Middle East Crisis of

1973 lasted from 12 October to 26 October, or two weeks.

The trend is well defined.

What set the crisis of 1840 apart from those which followed was its occurrence at the close of an era when 67 communication and transportation were slow and uncertain.

The impact of inventions such as the telegraph, perfected in 1844, and railroads, which did not link

European centers until 1870, had yet to be felt. True,

Britain had introduced regular steam travel from India to

Britain three years earlier in 1837, but early steamships were not much faster than sailing ships— their initial advantage lay in their reliability.

The interval between the occurrence of events in the

Crisis of 1840, and the knowledge of the events in other countries affected by the crisis are shown in Table 1.

News from the Near East to Britain and France took between two to three weeks to travel the distance. This lag reflects the slowness of communication, which delayed interactions, prolonged the crisis, and helped give it a distinctive character (Webster 1969, 703). (See Table 1,

Appendix A).

Weak Perception of Crisis

Today, foreign policy crises are reasonably well defined. Both academics and foreign policy decisionmakers have a clear understanding of the event. However, earlier decisionmakers viewed crises as nothing other than diplo­ matic maneuvering which would lead inevitably to war.

They saw the associated high stakes bargaining as a way to attain an advantageous position once war occurred, the 68 crisis being no more than an introductory phase of war- making .

Members of the British Cabinet who were most con­ vinced that Palmerston's policy of war against Egypt would

lead to war with France were also most in favor of com­ promise as a way of averting war. On 27 September Russell pushed a new meeting of the ambassadors of the four Powers

in order to redraw the terms of the July Convention "be­ cause, as matters are now going it seems to me that we may at any moment find ourselves at war" (Greville and Reeve

1885, 278). Lord Clarendon's belief that the possibility of war was high convinced him to work for a change from

Palmerston's policy (Sanders 1889, 470). Lord Holland

(Henry Richard Vassal 1 Fox), Chancellor of the Duchy of

Lancaster, was a constant critic of Palmerston's policy for the same reason (Bourne 1982, 612). Those who were outside of the British government were motivated by the same concerns. Wellington refused to support the British government by the end of August because he believed that

Palmerston's policy was leading to war (Greville and Reeve

1885, 160). As noted earlier. King Leopold of Belgium thought a general European war quite high throughout the duration of the crisis (Rodkey 1921, 193). Even Metter- nich was affected by this perceived threat of war. Al­ though he had strongly supported Palmerston's policy in mid-July, he thought the possibility of war had so in­ 69

creased by late August that he sent a compromise proposal

to Britain and France (Rodkey 1921, 183).

Palmerston, on the other hand, understood that Thiers

was using the threat of war in place of war to achieve the

ends of French policy. He was convinced that war would

not break out, hence his insistent support of British

policy. "Nothing is more unsound than the notion that

anything is to be gained by trying to conciliate those who

are trying to intimidate us," Palmerston wrote. "If we

gave way, the French nation would believe that we gave way

to their menaces. My opinion is that we shall not have

war now with France" (Seton-Watson 1945, 217). He was

emphatic on this point. On 23 August 1840, Palmerston

wrote "there will be no war" (Rodkey 1921, 175).

Palmerston also believed that war would not result

from Louis Philippe being overthrown, noting that the

French government had been using the supposed weakness of

Louis Philippe since 1830 as a way to force concessions

from Britain and that every time Britain had disregarded

it, Louis Philippe had managed to survive (Webster 1969,

849). According to Palmerston, Louis Philippe "certainly understands his French subjects and their character, and has shewn [sic] that he knows how to manage them" (Webster

1969, 848). 70

Weak Nationalism

The last distinguishing characteristic of crises

between 1815 and 1871 involves the weak nationalism of the

participants. The 1840 crisis had none of the sharp

divisions between decisionmakers common to crises after

1871 because of the absence of mass nationalism. In 1840,

decisionmakers in both Britain and France openly discussed

internal disagreements with the opposing government,

apparently seeing nothing wrong or disloyal in using

members of the opposing government to manipulate the

policies of their own government.

Cabinet controversies were known by the French be­ cause Holland was in constant communication with Guizot

(Webster 1969, 710). Both Palmerston (Ziegler 1976, 323), and Melbourne (Sanders 1889, 479) decried the damage being done. Wrote Bourne: "in a dangerous inflationary spiral, fears about France stimulated doubts among Palmerston's colleagues about the wisdom of his policy and the increas­ ing signs of doubt in England encouraged further resis­ tance and bluff in France" (Bourne 1982, 596).

Holland appeared to be the most flagrant offender among those on both sides. Melbourne informed Holland that Metternich had given the British ambassador to Aus­ tria, Beauvale, evidence that Holland had been the source of the French government's knowledge of British Cabinet secrets (Bourne 1982, 612). One biographer called his 71 actions "indiscreet if not actually treasonable," while

Thiers himself admitted to relying on Holland for help

(Webster 1969, 730). Holland and others appeared to have greater loyalty to their own vision of a harmonious rela­ tionship between Britain and France than they did to the publicly stated policy of the own government.

Similarly, King Louis Philippe appeared more con­ cerned with maintaining himself in power and removing an obnoxious premier than with protecting France from a major diplomatic defeat. King Louis Philippe always told people of his desire for peace but went along with Thiers in order to maintain his throne (Greville and Reeve 1885).

Further, the relationship between Thiers and the King was not a good one. Guizot told Clarendon that King Louis

Philippe "hates and mistrusts Thiers" (Sanders 1889, 470).

Philippe’s desire for peace was so strong and so open that he told the British ambassador during the crisis that

"[u]nless they put a knife to my throat, I ’ll do all I can to avoid war" (Seton-Watson, 1945, 214) thus undercutting

French threats to go to war.

Conclusion

The Anglo-French Near East Crisis of 1840 has been shown to be a foreign crisis due to the characteristics of an increased possibility of war, a threat to high priority goals of decisionmakers, and time constraints on decision­ 72 making. This crisis was different from crises which occurred after 1870 because of its longer duration, the uncertain perception of the series of events as a crisis and not merely a prelude to war, and the weak nationalism which permitted members of the governments to work against their own governments by communicating their dissent to a state towards which their government was hostile.

This case study, one of six, treats the Anglo-French

Near East Crisis of 1840, the first crisis after 1815, to demonstrate that a contextual explanation of foreign policy crisis can be developed which will acknowledge that foreign policy crisis, as a type of process among states, reflects the differing environments that states and de­ cisionmakers of states find themselves in. This should assist scholars in our field to reject ahistorical ex­ planation and instead historicize explanations in an attempt to better understand state relations. CHAPTER FOUR

THE OLMÜTZ CRISIS OF 1850

It was . . . the contradictory personality of Frederick William IV that settled the great struggle between Austria and Prussia/"

INTRODUCTION

The "contradictory personality" of King Frederick

William IV of Prussia both created and ended the Olmütz

crisis as well as giving it a peculiar structure. This

autocratic zig-zag’s^ irresolute and erratic policies also

helped prolong the crisis. The King desired to be the

king of a united Germany by the agreement of the German

princes but rejected the Imperial Crown from the Frankfurt

Assembly. He aimed to exclude Austria from the union of

the German states yet expected Austria to support the

unification.

Frederick William's fears and hopes reflect many

attributes of the post-Napoleonic age. The confused

" Joseph Redlich. Emperor Francis Joseph of Austria: A Bioqraohv. New York: MacMillan and Co., 1929, page 72.

2 A phrase coined by Theodore Roosevelt to describe Kaiser William II. It is equally apt to describe William I ’s great uncle, Frederick William IV. 73 74

political situation in Europe during and immediately after

the Revolution of 1848 broadened the rivalry of Prussia

and Austria for the hegemonic position in Germany. In

1850 the resulting tensions threatened to break out into

war hence the Olmütz Crisis. This chapter will present

the European and German setting of the crisis. Next it

will demonstrate that the events did constitute a crisis,

and finally it will discuss differences between this

crisis and later crises.

The Setting

The Olmütz Crisis unfolded in the aftermath of revo­

lutionary and counterrevolutionary activity during 1848

and 1849 on the continent, particularly in Germany, the

Hapsburg Empire, and Italy. Although successful for a

time, the liberal, nationalistic revolutionary movements

ultimately failed because of internal divisions, a lack of

mass support, and the refusal of the more liberal powers—

Great Britain and France— to actively support them.s

Among the Revolutionaries’ temporary gains in 1848 and

1849 were control of Prussia, Austria, most of the smaller

German states, the Italian states, and France.

In Prussia, the temporary success of the revolution

® One of the better works on the revolutions and one sym­ pathetic to the hopes of 1848 is Robertson (1952). 75

led to a constitutional monarchy. Frederick William and

his advisors detested this political arrangement but had

to wait until internal revolutionary divisions ensured the success of their planned Royalist counter-revolution.

In late 1848, a counter-revolution began in Germany when, on 10 November, General Frederick von Wrangle oc­

cupied Berlin with 13,000 royal troops by royal order and proceeded to close the Parliament building, thereby sup­ pressing the revolutionary government. On 5 December,

King Frederick William dissolved the Parliament and issued a new Royalist constitution (Lager 1969, 480-481), thus reasserting control in Prussia.

In Austria, by comparison, suppression of the nation­ alist and liberal movements by the Hapsburg monarchy were effected much more slowly and with greater effort. During that period, Austria was too preoccupied by internal struggle to devote much effort opposing King Frederick

William’s unification plans. Even after the forces of revolution were defeated, government reorganization oc­ cupied a great deal of time in Austria, with the result that for about a year Prussia was free to chart an in­ dependent course in Germany (Hamerow 1958, 174).

Prussia began its independent course in 1849. The

Frankfurt Parliament, which had been elected to unify

Germany under a liberal constitution, voted to offer the 76

Imperial Crown to Frederick William on 28 March. On 3

April, however, the king officially rejected the Crown,

saying it should be offered by the consent of the princes

(Taylor 1962, 86-87). On 28 April, the King invited all

the German governments to a conference in Berlin to

discuss framing a constitution to unite all of the German

states. With the liberal union defeated, the revolutions

crushed and Austria preoccupied, the important German

governments, Bavaria, Saxony, and Hanover, had to no choice but to attend the conference which opened on 17 May

1849 (Ward 1909, 218-220). The resulting agreement be­ tween Hanover, Saxony and Prussia on 26 May created the

Three King’s League (Sybel 1891, 382) based on a 21-year alliance among the three states and the acceptance of a draft constitution for a German union henceforth referred to as the Erfurt Union (Ward 1909, 220; Hoi born 1961, 92).

Representatives of Hanover and Saxony, the most important states, declared later that their acceptance of the League and Union had been conditional on its being accepted by

Bavaria, but the Prussian government ignored them. How­ ever, their caveat proved to be a fatal weakness of the

Erfurt Union. Prussia received acceptance from all the minor states of northern and central Germany and the southwestern state of Baden. But Hanover and Saxony withdrew from both the Union and the Three Kings League 77 after plans were accepted which would have made them both a functioning reality.

Meanwhile, Austria had begun creating a counter­

league in opposition to Prussia’s, and in fact improved upon Prussia’s plan. In the spring of 1850, it organized an Assembly to meet in Frankfurt which claimed authority over all of Germany, north and south of the River Main.

The Austrian Chancellor, Felix Zu Schwarzenberg, based the claim he engineered on the continued existence of the

German Confederation, which had been created at the Con­ gress of Vienna of 1815. When Schwarzenberg persuaded the

Frankfurt Diet to declare itself the Confederation Diet in

May 1850, its decisions became law in Germany while decis­ ions of the Erfurt Union, being incompatible with the

Confederation Diet, became unconstitutional (Holborn 1969,

95).

This constitutional dispute was the crux of the power conflict between Prussia and Austria. Both countries had created institutions which claimed authority over the

German states. The Prussian-led organization claimed jurisdiction over northern Germany plus Baden, while the

Austrian-led organization claimed jurisdiction over all of the states of the German Confederation.

Open conflict would have been assured had both states claimed exclusive jurisdiction within the territory of one 78

German state. Both claims could not have stood, and one

side would have been forced to yield, renouncing claims of

jurisdiction over Germany.

The Olmütz Crisis was precipitated when the legisla­

ture of the German state of Hesse-Cassel (henceforth

referred to as Hesse) refused to accept its own Elector’s

government. The Elector appealed to the Frankfurt Diet to

reinstate him even though Hesse belonged to the rival

union.

The Crisis

The announcement of the Frankfurt Diet on 21 Septem­

ber 1850 that it had jurisdiction in Hesse to reinstate

the Elector of that state threatened to lead to war bet­

ween Prussia and Austria. It also threatened the high

priority goals of both countries, primacy in the German

Confederation, and placed time constraints on the deci­

sionmakers. These characteristics of foreign policy

crisis existed from 21 September to 29 November 1850.

Threat of War

All writers on the Olmütz crisis and all but two of the decisionmakers in the crisis believed that the an­ nouncement of the Frankfurt Diet on 21 September changed the conditions of the relationship between Prussia and 79

Austria so that war between them was a serious possibil­

ity. The announcement of the Diet, a creation of Austria,

was a declaration by Austria that it did not recognize the

claims of Prussia to an exclusive jurisdiction over north­

ern and central Germany and that it would resist the

Prussian claims with force if necessary. As Sybel

observed, "whoever wanted to set up a German Federal

Union, without Austria, must count upon war with Austria"

(Sybel 1890, 369).

Joseph Maria von Radowitz, who operated more or less

as a minister without portfolio and who had been the force

behind Prussia’s Erfurt Union policy, called for Prussia

to respond to the proposed action of Austria’s Frankfurt

Diet. Radowitz told the Prussian Ministry on 24 September

that they should anticipate and preempt any enforcement of

the Diet’s illegal claims to Hesse. He called for im­

mediate military operations to begin. No one in the

Ministry objected.

On 26 September, in the presence of the King,* Rado­

witz again presented his proposals before the Ministry.

The King agreed, thereby making it an official Prussian

policy goal to block the proposed Frankfurt intervention

in Hesse. At the same meeting the King appointed Radowitz

* The King had not been present at the Ministry meeting of September 24. 80

as Minister of Foreign Affairs (Sybel 1890, 486-487).

Radowitz immediately sent Austria an official protest

against the intervention which included the following

argument and information. Since Hesse continued to be a

member of the Erfurt Union, it was within the province of

that body to intervene, if it believed intervention was

necessary. Further, the Prussian government had decided

to occupy Hesse with its troops if troops of the Frankfurt

Diet were sent to Hesse (Langer 1969, 509). Radowitz

suggested to Schwarzenberg that the two countries’ dif­

ferences could be settled by commissioners appointed by

Austria and Prussia. This proposal increased the tempo of

events and increased the threat of war still further,

since it threatened Prussia’s intent to challenge Austrian jurisdiction in Hesse. Bavarian Prime Minister Ludwig

Freiherr von der Pfordten, fearing that the secondary

German states would be marginalized, condemned the commis­ sioners’ proposal at a meeting with the Prussian ambas­ sador a few days after the Prussian proposals were pre­ sented to Austria. Von der Pfordten told the Prussian ambassador that Prussia could have a war if it wished a war. To support his threats. Von der Pfordten ordered the

Bavarian army to be issued fresh materiel and to be rein- 81

forced on the same day (Sybel 1890, 488).®

Prussia responded to the Bavarian military threats

and actions by increasing its troop strength. The Minist­

er of War, Baron Stockhausen, stationed 4,000 men at

Erfurt and organized another 3,500 men at Paderborn at the

order of the King (Sybel 1890, 488). These steps did not

intimidate Schwarzenberg, the Austrian Chancellor. The

combined strength of these troops was still below that of

the Bavarian army. Second, the Chancellor had learned

that Tsar Nicholas I of Russia had been appalled at the

rebellion in Hesse and totally approved of the Frankfurt

Diet intervening there. The Russian approval cemented the

resolve of Schwarzenberg making him "determined, even at

the risk of war, to reestablish Austrian supremacy in

Germany" (Taylor 1954, 3). He thereupon rejected Rado­

witz ’s proposals for commissioners to mediate the two

countries' differences and reaffirmed the Frankfurt Diet’s

exclusive authority in Hesse. \

On 12 October, Austria’s strength was greatly in­

creased when it concluded a military alliance with Bavaria

and Württemberg. Under its terms, the southern German

® Since Austria and Prussia were competing for control of the German States, the opinions of the governments of the secondary German states were of prime significance, especially those of Bavaria, Hanover, and Saxony. Both Austria and Prussia had organized the German states on the basis of voluntary agreements. 82

States agreed to use military force in Hesse if required

by the Frankfurt Diet (Langer 1969, 509). This alliance

had the potential of putting 200,000 men in the field

against Prussia. This has been referred to as a "war-

all iance" (Taylor 1954, 39).

Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph then ordered the mobil­

ization of four army corps under the new treaty. Three

were mobilized in Bohemia. Meanwhile, Prussian troops

were being built up in the western territories against

Bavaria. The military forces of Austria began moving

toward the Hessian frontier (Sybel 1890, 491), while

Prussians moved into the Hessian military routes and

(contrary to Prussian-Hessian agreements) into the tei—

ritory between them (Schwarzenberg 1947, 147-148).®

With Russian support secured and an alliance with the

southern German states signed, Schwarzenberg pressed home

the advantage, and on 26 October persuaded a commission of

the Frankfurt Diet to vote to send Bavarian and Hanoverian

troops to Hesse.

The Prussian government had anticipated this action.

With the unanimous vote of the Cabinet on 22 October, the

® In 1850, Prussian territory was not contiguous. By earlier agreements, Prussia had the right of use specific roads in Hesse (whose territory lay between Prussian territory) to transport troops to the Prussian Rhenish provinces. These agreements did not give Prussia the right to station troops in Hessian territory. 83

King authorized General Groben, Commander of Prussian

troops in Hesse, to try to persuade the Bavarian troops to

withdraw peacefully if they entered Hesse. If the peace­

ful policy failed, Groben was to use all the force at his

disposal to expel the Bavarian troops from Hesse (Sybel

1891, 13-14). From Schwarzenberg’s point of view, Prussia

would be instigating war if their troops entered Hesse for

whatever reason. In the view of Tsar Nicholas I, sending

Prussian troops to Hesse would represent an act of aggres­

sion (Taylor 1954, 37). On 28 October, the Russian Chan­

cellor Nesselrode officially informed Schwarzenberg that

the Tsar would regard Prussian interference with Confeder­

ation intervention in Holstein as casus belli for Russia.?

The actions of the last week of October put Berlin

"in a condition of intense war-like excitement" (Ward

1916, 529). A full session of the Prussian Ministerial

Council on 29 October decided that Prussia should maintain

its policies "even at the risk of war with Austria" and

that if Bavarian troops entered Hesse, General Groben

should be given orders to attack (Sybel 1891, 21, 23).

? During 1848 and 1849 the Duchies of Schleswig and Holstein declared their independence from Denmark. Prussia supported the duchies, while Austria and Russia supported Denmark. The Frankfurt Diet had voted to send troops to the duchies to crush the rebel­ lion, and Prussia had publicly threatened to block that military action. Whence the Russia threat. The best work on the duchies is Steefel (1932). 84

The next day, Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph put

Austria on a war-footing by ordering 76,000 soldiers

quartered in Bohemia to the Austro-German frontier (Sybel

1891, 39). On the following evening, the Prussian govern­

ment received news that a combined Austro-Bavarian force

of 25,000 had crossed the Hessian frontier (Ward 1916,

529). King Frederick William IV ordered General Groben to

retreat within Hesse to a position further from the ad­

vancing Austro-Bavarian troops (Sybel 1981, 27).

The Prussian Ministerial Council meetings of 1 Novem­

ber and 2 November were called to discuss what actions should be taken in response to Confederation troops oc­ cupying Hessian territory. Frederick William proposed on

1 November to withdraw Prussian troops from Hesse and to order a general Prussian mobilization to mask the retreat.

Radowitz pleaded with the King and Council for both armed

resistance to the Confederate intervention in Hesse and a

Prussian mobilization. He was supported only by a minor­

ity of the government (Ward 1916, 529).

However, Prussia’s Ministerial Council decided against immediate mobilization and armed resistance on 2

November. Rather than pressing the point, the King unex­ pectedly acquiesced in the decision. This reversal of policy lost the King his own Minister of Foreign Affairs:

Radowitz was outvoted and had no choice but to resign. 85

William Graf von Brandenburg became head of the new gov­ ernment, but on the following day fell ill and died less than a week later (Ward 1916, 530). Apparently willing to back down even further, the Prussian government sent word to Austria that it was willing to give up the Erfurt

Union. It requested conferences to clarify the status of

Hesse and Holstein (Schwarzenberg 1947, 151). Prussian troops were withdrawn from the Holstein frontier on 4

November while Groben was ordered by the King to maintain his position. Later the same day Austrian minister to

Prussia, Anton Freiherr von Osten-Prokesch (henceforth referred to as Prokesch) presented a note from his govern­ ment demanding the withdrawal of all Prussian troops from

Hesse. On 5 November Austrian troops crossed the Bavarian frontier, Saxony prepared to mobilize. Confederation

Commander Thürn refused to communicate with Groben on ways to avoid a clash and the Prussian ambassador to Austria,

Albrecht Graf von Bernstorff, sent word that "Schwarzen­ berg was without question intent upon waging a war of annihilation against Prussia" (Sybel 1891, 40-42).

Otto Freiherr von Manteuffel, head of the Prussian government since the onset of Brandenberg’s illness, had begun to have doubts about Prussia’s ability to maintain 8 6

the peace through concessions.® General Edward von Peuck-

er, the Prussian representative in Frankfurt, sent Man­

teuffel word that General Thürn, Commander of the Con­

federation troops in Hesse, continued to refuse to discuss

a peaceful means out of the impasse.

On the evening of 5 November, Manteuffel, seeing

"before his very eyes the outbreak of war" obtained the

King’s approval to mobilize the army. The mobilization

order, made public the next day, was greeted by a surge of

approval from the army, the people, and the press (Sybel

1891, 43-45).

When Schwarzenberg heard the news of the Prussian

mobilization on 6 November, he was certain that the crisis

would end peacefully; mobilization gave Prussia the means

for an honorable retreat (Sybel, 1981, 47). In fact, that

had been the Prussian King’s intention, but events were

coming close to outpacing the ability of policymakers to

control them. ,By 8 November, Austrian-Bavarian troops in

Hesse had come face to face with the Prussian troops,

precipitating a clash between the opposing forces. Five

Austrian soldiers were wounded. War appeared so close

that the larger secondary states such as Hanover, Saxony,

® At the Prussian Ministerial Council meetings of 1-2 November, Manteuffel had been against Prussian mobilization, since in his own opinion, Austria would view the mobilization as an act of war. 87 a n d Bavaria, were already anticipating an Austrian victory

(Langer 1969, 510).

Appalled by the thought of war with Austria, King

Frederick William IV ordered General Groben to withdraw to the Hessian military roads. The Prussian Ministerial

Council approved an official proclamation on 9 November abrogating the Erfurt Union. Yet the King balked at ordering the retreat of Prussian troops from Hesse. As

Taylor has observed, the King "wanted that impossibility, a surrender with honor" (Taylor 1954, 41).

The position of Prussia was becoming untenable. On

11 November, Alexander Gorchakov presented his credentials as the Russian ambassador to the Confederation Diet at

Frankfurt, thereby giving Russian recognition to the Diet as the legal authority in Hesse (Mosse 1958, 36). By mid-

November, Austria had moved one-hundred and thirty thou­ sand soldiers to Bohemia and twenty thousand men to Ba­ varia. Bavaria, Württemburg, and Saxony, themselves, were preparing for war with Prussia (Sybel 1891, 53).

In a seeming return to belligerence, the King ordered a message sent to Austria on 18 November saying he would regard any attack on Prussian troops as "a declaration of war." The next day the Duchy of Brunswick sent the Prus­ sian government a note explaining that the Confederation

Diet had orders to occupy Holstein and that its forces 8 8

intended to cross Brunswick territory. The Brunswick

government, viewing the Confederate Diet as an illegal body, would refuse to grant transit rights. Brunswick

requested Prussian protection for the Duchy, support the

King readily pledged (Sybel 1891, 54-55).

Buoyed by this latest exchange. King Frederick Wil­

liam opened the Prussian parliament with a speech that many have called war-like. In the speech, the King called for a new German union, pledged Prussian support for

Brunswick and promised that Prussian war-readiness would continue (Sybel 1891, 57; Mosse 1958, 36). It was con­ demned by Nicholas I as war-like and revolutionary. In response, four Russian Army corps in Poland were mobilized

(Mosse 1958, 36).

Ambassador Prokesch delivered Austria’s final declai— ation to Prussia on 22 November, agreeing to withdraw

Confederate troops from Hesse as soon as the Hessian

Elector was reinstated. Austria would permit a few Prus­ sian troops on the military roads as long as the Prussians permitted Confederation access to the roads to reinstate the Elector. "A negative answer from Prussia would be

. . . followed by the beginning of a war," according to the declaration. On the same day, the Russian ambassador,

Baron Budberg, informed Manteuffel that the Tsar con­ sidered Prussian support of Brunswick a personal affront. 89

The Tsar had ordered a partial mobilization of the army,

since he considered the dispute over Hesse "the signal of

war for himself" (Sybel 1891, 57-59).

At a Ministerial Council meeting on November 23, the

Prussian government could come to no decision. Some

wanted to withdraw all Prussian troops from Hesse while

others wanted the government to accept the Austrian propo­

sal. The Austrian government broke the stalemate when

Ambassador Prokesch delivered an ultimatum to Manteuffel

on 25 November. If Prussia did not permit the free move­ ment of Confederation troops in Hesse within forty-eight

hours, it said, hostilities would begin. To back the threat, Schwarzenberg sent orders to General Thürn on 25

November to attack the Prussian fortress of Cassel on 27

November and destroy any opposition (Sybel, 1891, 59, 61,

62). On 26 November the end of the crisis was signaled, when King Frederick IV sent a personal letter to Austrian

Emperor Franz Joseph requesting a meeting between Manteuf­ fel and Schwarzenberg and the Emperor chose Olmütz— the meeting contingent upon Prussia opening the military roads

(Sybel 1891, 65-67).

The Olmütz Punctuation (the humiliation of Olmütz for

Prussia) marked the end of the crisis and the agreement of 90

the disputants.® It provided for Confederation and Prus­

sian troops to jointly occupy Hesse and for Prussia and

Austria to force Holstein to submit to Denmark. Prussia

would be required to demobilize its entire army at once,

to be followed by a partial Austrian demobilization. The

agreement did not require the secondary German states to

demobilize. Finally, it provided for a conference to

discuss proposed changes to the Germany Confederation, the

Confederation which Prussia had denied existed during the

crisis— hence the legality of the Erfurt Union (Ward 1916,

535). Not surprisingly, the Prussian government, includ­

ing its King, ratified the agreement of December 2 thereby

recognizing the German Confederation.

Threat to High Priority Goals

The increased risk of war from 21 September to 1

November arose because Prussia and Austria both claimed

jurisdiction over Hesse. They backed that claim with the

threat to send troops to Hesse and the movement of the

troops towards Hesse. The threat of war after 1 November

arose because both Austria and Prussia had occupied Hesse

with troops and each refused to leave the territory in

® The official name of the agreement ending the crisis of 1850 between Austria and Prussia is the Olmütz Punctuation. All of the historians who discuss the Olmütz use the term "humiliation" to describe the Prussian defeat at the end of the crisis. 91

spite of mutual threats to use force. Prussia and Austria

threatened war against each other because they held iden­

tical and mutually exclusive goals: both wanted to be

dominant in Germany.

Prussia desired at least a duopoly of authority in

Germany. At times, Prussia wanted merely for Austria to

acknowledge it as an equal and grant it control of north­

ern Germany alone. At times, Prussia demanded the first

position in Germany. As the smallest of the Great Powers

in territory, population, and resources, Prussia could maintain its Great Powers status only if it could acquire new territory (Taylor 1962, 26-28). Because Prussia bordered on two Great Powers— Austria and Russia— its only hope of expansion lay within the German states.

For Austria, traditionally the greatest power in

Germany, it was a question of maintaining the status quo.

In the past, the Austrian Emperor had also been Holy Roman

Emperor. The Hapsburg family held the Imperial Crown from

1440 until the Empire was dissolved in 1806. After the defeat of Napoleon, the Congress of Vienna gave the Aust­ rian Empire the presidency of the newly created German

Confederation. Furthermore, Austria was organized along multinational and not national lines. For instance, its

Great Power status was based in part on its supremacy in

Germany and its control of Italy. Its multinational base 92 allowed it to refuse quite easily to acquiesce to any single nation’s demands.

Schwarzenberg’s goal as Austrian Chancellor was to

reestablish the Austrian supremacy that had been chal­

lenged during its suppression of the revolutionary move­ ments of 1848 and 1849 (Taylor 1935, 3).

While King Frederick Williams IV had comparatively

little difficulty reasserting his control of Prussia over revolutionary forces and had succeeded by December 1848,

Emperor Franz Joseph regained his empire only in stages.

These were not completed until August 1849 and required the aid of the Russian army. The last of the revolution­ ary movements on the Italian peninsula were not quelled until Sardinia was finally defeated at Novara in late

March, 1849 (Robertson 1952, 353-356, 358), and even then the Austrian government felt it necessary to station troops in its reconquered Italian provinces through the rest of 1849.

The subjugation of Hungary took even longer and was not completed until after the Austrian government was obliged to ask Russia for assistance in early April 1849, a fact that may have caused the Austrian administration to be excessively forceful in its claims of Austrian suprem­ acy in Germany.

Yet, the struggle that ensued between Prussia and 93

Austria in 1850 for control of the German states was but a

chapter in what Taylor has called the "ceaseless conflict

within Germany" (Taylor 1954, 30). The conflict ended

only in 1945 with the forcible separation of Austria from

Germany by the victorious Allies at the end of World War

II. It began long before when Frederick the Great forc­

ibly annexed the province of Silesia in 1740 and succeeded

in keeping the province for Prussia against the claims

pressed by Austria in both the War of Austrian Succession

(1740-1748) and the Seven Years’ War (1756-1763). His

success in these wars transformed Prussia into a Great

Power and deprived Austria of the undisputed leadership of

Germany. In fact, towards the end of his reign (1740-

1786) he worked with a majority of the German princes to

hinder Austrian Emperor Joseph II’s attempt to gain great­

er control of the Holy Roman Empire (Taylor 1962, 28, 32;

Sybel 1890, 23-24).

The struggle continued diplomatically at the con­

clusion of the Napoleonic Wars. Clemens Lothar Wenzel

Metternich, Minister for Foreign Affairs, wanted a limit

on Prussian power and so maneuvered the allies both to

grant Prussia new lands in the Rhineland and Westphalia

and deny her Saxony which Prussia wanted. In Metternich’s view the annexation of Saxony by Prussia would represent a

"disproportionate aggrandizement" of Prussia and he was 94

against this (Kissinger 1964, 160). At the same time,

pushing the Rhenish provinces on Prussia forced her to act

as a bulwark against French power so that Prussia was now

the protector of the northern German states against France

in addition to bordering two other Great Powers: Russia

and Austria.1° Finally, Austria was able to convince the

Congress to create a new German Confederation under Aust­

rian leadership (Sybel 1890. 48-49). The Prussian repre­

sentative, Hardenberg, had been outmaneuvered by Metter­

nich (Kissinger 1964, 160-162, 166-168).

From 1848 to 1864, Austria’s goals stood: a desire

to preserve Austria’s position vis-a-vis the lesser German

states and to prevent any German unification which would

exclude Austria from Germany, divide Austria’s territor­

ies, or attract Austria’s German population to a united

German state (Austensen 1980, 199).

Schwarzenberg aimed to restore Austria’s eroded

status in Germany. His primary objectives were to "gain

complete supremacy in the German-Austrian-Italian area and

once and for all to settle in favor of Austria the long­

standing Austro-Prussian rivalry for supremacy in Germany"

(Kann 1964, 70). He believed the maintenance of Austria

Ironically, Prussia’s Rhenish-Westphal ian territories would be the basis for the vast increase in Prussian/German power after the mid-nineteenth century. 95 as the "first power" within Germany would help the unity of the Monarchy (not an inconsequential consideration)

(Schwarzenberg 1946, 116).

Schwarzenberg was set in his mind concerning Aus­ tria’s position in Germany as early as January 1849, when he presented his opinion as a guide to Austrian policy to the Austrian ambassador in Prussia, Count Trauttmansdorff, on 24 January 1849.

The King [Frederick William IV] has repeatedly given us his solemn promise that he would never aspire to the first place in Germany, knowing very well that the place will always belong to Austria . . . His majesty as Emperor of Austria is the first German Prince. This is right, sanctified by tradition and the course of cent­ uries, by Austria’s political power, and by the wording of treaties on which the federal rela­ tions, still in force, are founded. His majesty is not willing to renounce this right (Schwarz­ enberg 1946, 119).

In fact, Schwarzenberg’s objective of Austrian supremacy in Germany lived long after his death in 1852.

Otto von Bismarck, Prussian Foreign Minister, used the idea of Austria’s primacy in Germany to successfully entrap Austria in Holstein in 1864 and 1865. The concept motivated Austria in its struggle with Prussia in 1866 for control of Germany, a conflict which was the final one between the two powers over control of Germany (Taylor

1967, 61-62, 78-83). 96

Time Constraints

The situation from September to November 1850 repre­ sented a foreign policy crisis for Austria and Prussia because of the time constraints placed on both powers.

These numbered three. The first existed because of the conflicting claims of both powers in Hesse and the threats of each to back those claims with force if necessary.

Both began preparing for war, massing and moving troops.

Each warned the other not to enter Hesse with military force while both were organizing their troops for just that purpose. Each side attempted to deter the other from entering Hesse with their armies, using the threat of war.

Each knew the other was planning to send its army to the disputed territory. Whichever side was able to establish itself militarily in the disputed territory would have a bargaining advantage. Since each side felt the others’ military move was imminent the decisionmakers perceived they were acting under time constraints.

Neither gave ground. Prussian troops were in Hesse on 26 October, while confederation troops entered Hesse on

1 November, when the crisis entered a new stage. Each state’s troops faced the other’s in Hesse. Both sides tried to convince the other to retire without recourse to war. Yet it was during this first part of November during a situation of stalemate that war seemed most certain. On 97

8 November the minor clashes between Confederation and

Prussian troops heightened the chances of war and yet provided more time for a peaceful resolution of the dis­ pute. Prussian troops were ordered to retreat to the military roads while the Prussian government expressed its extreme regret over the incident. The Confederation postponed military operations temporarily. This second stage did not last long.

The third and final stage opened on 25 November when

Austrian ambassador Prokesch delivered an ultimatum to

Prime Minister Manteuffel demanding the free movement of

Confederation troops within 48 hours. King Frederick

William IV was able to buy an extra day with a personal appeal to Emperor Franz Joseph of Austria. However, the

Olmütz Conference, which began on 28 November and con­ cluded the following day, ended the crisis when Prussia conceded to Austria all vital points in dispute. Austria had been more consistent and unwavering in its position and in fact had provided the impetus for every new stage of the crisis as it unfolded, including the conclusion.

Pre-1871 Crisis Characteristics

Although the Olmütz Crisis of 1850 has characteris­ tics which allow the general term "crisis," it also has characteristics which set it apart from crises occurring 98

after 1871. It possesses a set of characteristics which

only those crises that unfolded between 1815 and 1871

possess. They include: a longer duration in absolute

terms, a weak perception of the crisis as a crisis, and

occurrence in a climate of weak nationalism.

Longer Duration

The Olmütz Crisis unfolded over a much longer time

period than those which followed. The crisis began on 21

September with the Confederation Diet at Frankfurt claim­

ing jurisdiction over the governmental dispute in Hesse.

It ended on 29 November with the Austria-Prussian agree­

ment of Olmütz, a duration of two months and seventeen

days.

The crisis occurred at the beginning of the introduc­

tion of new communication and transportation technologies.

Although the telegraph had been perfected in 1844 (Preston

et al. 1962, 248), the decisionmakers in the crisis used

it mainly for intra-governmental communications, not for

inter-governmental communication, preferring the older

diplomatic form of official dispatches. The ambassador

would receive instructions from his government and then

request an audience with the appropriate minister.

Orders sent to General Groben to resist the Confeder­ ation advance in Hesse on 26 October were sent by tele­ 99

graph (Sybel 1891, 13-14), as were his orders to retreat

within Hesse on 1 November (Sybel 1891, 27). Similarly,

all orders to Groben and all communications from him were

telegraphed (Sybel 1891, 40-41, 48). Manteuffel was in

constant communication by telegraph with his ambassador in

Vienna, Berstorff, in the first part of November (Sybel

1890, 41), and in fact all communications between Prussia

and its ambassadors came by way of the telegraph. Prussia

received news of Russian military preparations from its

ambassador in early November and sent its decision to

mobilize to its ambassadors in Vienna, Frankfurt, and St.

Petersburg on the evening of 5 November by telegraph

(Sybel 1891, 44). The news that Austria had accepted a meeting to resolve the conflict reached Prussia from ambassador Bernstorff who wired the good news to his government late in the evening of 27 November (Sybel 1891,

67).

The Austrian government used the telegraph to com­ municate with its ambassadors and officers who, in turn communicated directly with their Prussian counterparts.

Schwarzenberg wired Ambassador Prokesch on 9 November instructing him to demand the evacuation of Hesse by Prus­ sian forces (Schwarzenberg 1946, 153). And Schwarzenberg telegraphed Ambassador Prokesch the 48-hour ultimatum to

Prussia on 25 November (Sybel 1891, 61-62). 100

At times, the two governments would communicate directly without using their ambassadors, but instead of using the telegraph, they chose mounted messengers for their dispatches. One such official Prussian written communication from Manteuffel was sent on 3 November:

Schwarzenberg received it two days later (Sybel 1891, 34,

36). The ambassador would also receive longer official communications from his home government, not suitable for the telegraph to be presented to his host government.

Prokesch received an official communication from his government on 20 November which he discussed with Manteuf­ fel on 22 November. Manteuffel shared this communication with his own government on 23 November.

The use of the telegraph did speed communication between Prussia and Austria and so helped shorten the duration of the crisis compared to the Anglo-French Near

East Crisis of 1840, since the distances involved in the former were shorter than in the latter. However, because of its limited use, the length of the crisis was not shortened to the degree it might have been.

Improvements in transportation also played a part in this crisis. Although railroad lines had been opened in

Austria and Germany in the early 1830s and 1840s respec­ tively, no railroad network existed in either country in

1850 (Burlingame 1967, 426-427). Until Helmut von Moltke, 101

Chief of Staff of the Army, began to stress the importance of railways for Prussia in 1858, the Prussian army had by

and large ignored the use of the railroad in warfare

(Schowalter 1975, 18). It was not until 1866 that von

Moltke created a separate railway section for the German

General Staff. Austria did not follow the German General

Staff's example until 1875 (Preston, et al. 1962, 249).

In this crisis both Prussia and Austria were hampered

by having to send troops to areas beyond their borders.

Austria did use its railroads to move troops, but their movement was slow. The 76,000 troops sent to Bohemia on

October 30 from Hungary and Vienna traveled by rail, a journey of 26 days. In fact, the troops could have walked the distance in the same amount of time (Pratt 1915, 8).

One reason the crisis lasted the length of time it did was because bringing Austrian and Prussian troops within fighting distance of each other took so long. Once troops were in place, the crisis was resolved within 21 days.

Weak Perception of Crisis

The second aspect of the crisis which set it apart was the weak perception of the crisis as such. Most of the decisionmakers, in fact, seemed to view the crisis as a prelude to war. Those who saw the crisis as leading to 102 war were opposed to the type of high stakes bargaining which is now associated with crisis. Instead they worked towards compromise, sometimes even a retreat from their country’s position.

The point should be made that foreign policy crises can end by diplomatic agreement or by war, but if by war, they do not cease to be crises. Crises which end in war are "preludes to w a r ’ in a literary and historical sense by the definition of the term prelude: "to prepare the way for, introduce: to foreshadow" (Oxford English

Dictionary 1988, 2279). Crises which end in war can be identified as distinct international relations phenomena.

For example, the July Crisis of 1914 was a prelude to

World War I, yet it can be viewed as a distinct and sepat— ate event from the war itself. Because crises do not always lead to war, they can be treated as entities in­ dependent of war by scholars and foreign policy practi­ tioners. Grey believed the July Crisis need not end in war and attempted to arrange a conference to arrange a peaceful resolution.

Most policy makers in Prussia and Austria did not believe that their opposite numbers were bluffing and wanted to end the conflict. But Radowitz and Schwarzen­ berg believed their opponents were bluffing by threatening war. 103

The members of the Prussian government who were most convinced that Radowitz’s policy would lead inevitably to war were those most in favor of retreating from the policy of the Erfurt Union. At the meeting with Schwarzenberg on

26 October Brandenburg admitted the extreme unlikeliness of the Erfurt Constitution being executed, an admission which was tantamount to accepting the Austrian position

(Sybel 1891, 16). Brandenberg believed that there was a real risk of war between the states. A few days later he declared himself against the proposed troop mobilization because it "would at this Juncture certainly enkindle the war" (Sybel 1891, 35). His stance was based on his belief that a reconciliation with Austria would be impossible if

Prussian and Confederation troops clashed (Sybel 1891,

11), and the risk of a clash would be increased if Prus­ sian mobilization was ordered. Stockhausen, the Minister of War, opposed mobilization for the same reason (Sybel

1891, 30).

At the Prussian Ministerial Council meeting of 2

November, Brandenberg declared himself in favor of con­ tinued negotiations and no mobilization. And Manteuffel, von Rabe and Simons agreed with his reasoning (Sybel 1891,

26-27, 36). At the afternoon session of the Ministerial

Council Meeting, Manteuffel argued that a war between

Prussia and Austria could arouse revolutionary emotions in 104

the people which would be dangerous for the government

(Sybel 1891, 30). The King favored both mobilization and

negotiations because he believed Austria’s actions meant

it seriously contemplated war. Prussia should be ready

for it, the King believed. If Prussia negotiated at the

same time it mobilized then Prussia could compromise

without violating her honor (Sybel 1891, 30-31).

Manteuffel, who had been appointed Minister of For­

eign Affairs at the onset of Brandenberg’s illness,

thought war was very near by 5 November. For this reason,

he requested mobilization as a defensive measure (Sybel

1891, 44).

Although most participants in this episode believed

that Austria and Prussia were heading for war during this

time Radowitz and Schwarzenberg did not, each believing the other side would refrain from war to achieve its goals and instead that the threat of war, not war itself, was the intended instrument for achieving foreign policy objectives. Radowitz was unimpressed by the alliance of

12 October, which included Austria, Bavaria, and Württem­ berg, and believed there was no desire for action behind the words of the alliance. War was possible, he believed, only if Russia joined Austria against Prussia (Sybel 1890,

490). Radowitz held to this position even after the

Confederation Diet voted to send troops to Hesse, a few 105 weeks later concluding that peace would be more certain the more prepared Prussia was militarily (his judgment anticipated high stakes crisis bargaining of the 20th century).

For his part, Schwarzenberg was convinced that Prus­ sia would never go to war with Austria because he felt that the Prussian King’s devotion to the Austrian monarch would not permit him to wage war against Austria (Sybel

1891, 46; Taylor 1935, 3). In early November Baron Meyen- dorff, the Russian ambassador to Austria, tried to con­ vince Schwarzenberg to compromise with Manteuffel in order to strengthen the government ministers in opposition to the Erfurt Union policy in Prussia. Schwarzenberg’s own ambassador in Berlin, Prokesch, advised likewise.

Yet Schwarzenberg refused (an eerie echo of Palmers­ ton in 1840). The Prussian dispatch which he received on

5 November merely reinforced his opinion that the King of

Prussia would never wage war against Austria, therefore compromise was unnecessary.

Weak Nationalism

The weak nationalism which existed in Europe at this time reinforced Schwarzenberg’s position. Decisionmakers of different states were bound by mutual values. Dynastic ties between states were still important and these ties 106

were useful in finding a peaceful solution to the crisis.

In addition, fear that war might advance the cause of

revolution still motivated many decisionmakers causing

them to strive towards peaceful resolution of the dispute.

The Prussian government was plagued by dissension

even before the crisis began. In early 1850, Foreign

Minister Schleintz, Minister of the Interior Manteuffel,

and Minister of War Stockhausen opposed the Erfurt Union

in favor of Prussia adhering to the traditional tie of the

Holy Alliance. They were in the minority, but did not

hesitate to express their views to Prokesch, the Austrian

ambassador, who reported back that Brandenburg and

Schleintz wanted to use the Interim agreement (10 Septem­

ber 1849 - May 1850) as a bridge whereby Austria and

Prussia could reach a compromise (Schwarzenberg 1946, 129-

ISO).

Schwarzenberg was well informed about the opinions of

the Prussian Cabinet because its members "had the . . .

penchant to pour out their innermost thoughts to the

Austrian envoy [Prokesch]" (Schwarzenberg 1946, 141). As

with the Anglo-French Near East Crisis, ministers endeav­

ored to change their own government’s policy by providing

information to the opposing government. Many of the Prus­

sian ministers sought to maintain the traditional alliance with Austria because Austria represented stability, tradi- 107 tion, legitimate authority, and absolute government (Tay­ lor 1954, 40). Furthermore, most Prussian ministers regarded Radowitz as a papist and an alien who pushed radical economic polities and accepted revolutionary nationalism (Hamerow 1958, 186).

As for the risk of revolution, in the crucial meet­ ings of the Prussian Ministerial Council in late October and early November, Stockhausen emphasized the weaknesses of the regular army forces and the weak financial position of Prussia. Those who stood to gain the most by an Aus­ tro-Prussian war would be those most hostile to the Prus­ sian monarchy, he said, warning that an ensuing revolution would destroy the monarchical institution in Prussia if not in all of Europe (Craig 1956, 131). The fear of revolution also affected the dynastic relations of the members of the Holy Alliance. For instance, Prussia and

Austria were tied together not only by the alliance but also by personal family ties. Frederick William IV’s wife was Franz Joseph’s aunt and his mother’s favorite sister.

There was also a "peculiarly close relationship" between

Frederick William and Franz Joseph. Further, Tsar Nicho­ las I considered Franz Joseph a protege and looked upon him "with hope, affection and trust" (McCartney 1969,

432). At the same time, Nicholas I felt he could not threaten his brother-in-law, Frederick William, in the 108 same way he could Louis Napoleon of France but was angry at his brother-in-law for appearing to deviate from ab­ solutist principles forged during the revolution of 1848 and later.

These dynastic ties and fear of revolution did aid in the peaceful resolution of the crisis. Russian Chancellor

Nesselrode on orders of the Tsar was present during the negotiations between Brandenberg and Schwarzenberg in late

October and Meyendorff, Russian ambassador to Austria, was present at the negotiations between Manteuffel and

Schwarzenberg at Olmütz in late November (Sybel 1891, 8,

11; Taylor 1954, 42). In fact, Meyendorff may have been more important to the successful conclusion of Olmütz than anyone else (Moses 1958, 49). Tsar Nicholas I had all along called for a return to the Confederation of 1815 since it formed the legal and traditional basis of Austro-

Prussian relations (Taylor, 1954, 42).

Yet, the role of Franz Joseph should not be over­ looked. When Prussia received the ultimatum of 25 Novem­ ber, Frederick William immediately decided to send two letters— one from his wife to her sister, the Dowager of

Austria, and one from himself to the Dowager requesting negotiations. The King said that the letters should go through Schwarzenberg on their way to the addressees.

Manteuffel expressed his opinion that, he did not think the 109

letters would make any difference. The King replied,

"Schwarzenberg cannot in any way refuse an interview if

Manteuffel announces himself as the bearer of these two

letters and of special messages from the King" (Sybel

1891, 65-66).

These letters were successful. Franz Joseph ordered

Schwarzenberg to meet Manteuffel at Olmütz and come to an agreement to resolve the crisis. Dynastic ties still were as powerful as national ties (Sybel 1891, 89; Redlich

1929, 72-73; and MaCartney 1969, 438).

Conclusion

The Olmütz Crisis of 1850 was a foreign policy crisis because of the characteristics of an increased possibility of war, a threat to high priority goals of decisionmakers, and time constraints on decisionmaking. This crisis shared similarities with the Anglo-French Near East Crisis of 1840 because of the longer duration of the Olmütz

Crisis, a weak perception of the crisis as such and the weak nationalism which allowed members of one government to communicate their dissatisfaction and dissent to the opposing governments. Weakening the nationalism further were the dynastic relationships among Russia, Austria, and

Prussia, much closer than between those of Britain and

France in 1840. Further, the fear and disdain of révolu- 110

tion played a role in the policies of Prussia and Russia

as they had in France and Belgium in 1840.

It is significant that Radowitz and Schwarzenberg had

followed Palmerston in their refusal to compromise because

of their opinion that their opponents did not actually

contemplate war. In this case, Schwarzenberg had assessed

his opponent’s position correctly while Radowitz had not.

As significantly, both Radowitz and Schwarzenberg repre­

sented a minority opinion within their own governments.

War was a possibility, since Schwarzenberg and the smaller German states were ready for it. Perhaps if King

Frederick William IV had shown more resolve war would have broken out in 1850. As it was, the conflict was replayed sixteen years later. This time, Prussia was guided by men who were as determined to succeed as Schwarzenberg had been in 1850. They, in turn, had benefited from a radical shift in national capabilities. CHAPTER FIVE

THE SEVEN WEEKS WAR CRISIS OF 1866

It would be a misrepresentation of the spirit of politics to believe that a statesman can formu­ late a comprehensive plan and decide what he is going to do in one, two, or three years. Schle­ swig-Holstein was certainly worth a war, but you cannot pursue a plan blindly. You can only give a general indication of your aim . . . It was difficult to avoid a war with Austria but he who is responsible for the lives of millions will shrink from war until all other means have been exhausted . . . I should have welcomed any solution which cleared the way for the aggran­ dizement of Prussia and the unification of Ger­ many without a war.

Otto von Bismarck^

INTRODUCTION

Bismarck’s frank observation of the contingencies of his position as the German Chancellor and Foreign minister through the first half of 1866 is a welcome relief from both the hagiography and demonology which is so prevalent in the study of Bismarck. More to the point, it is a useful perspective from which to analyze the Seven Weeks

War Crisis of 1866.

To demonstrate that the period from 8 April to 14

June 1866 was a foreign policy crisis, it is necessary to

This quotation is from Heinrich Friedjung (1935, 314). Friedjung was able to interview Bismarck on 13 June 1890 after his forced retirement. Ill 112

policies. Austro-Prussian relations were in a state of

perpetual tension from the time of the Danish War in mid-

1864 to some years after 1866.

Bismarck, ironically enough, helped to obscure the

fluidity of his policies in his effort to prove how in­

dispensable he was to Prussia. His published memoirs were

intended to show how stupid both his predecessors and

successors were and to prove that he had been the only one capable of steering the Prussian ship of state. He would

tell anybody who would listen how he had planned his bril­

liant maneuvers of the 1860s in order to create the German

Empire (Seaman 1963, 97-98).

Bismarck was a dramatist. He enjoyed telling a good story, especially when it enhanced his role in the success of Prussia (Langer, 1961). In 1864, Bismarck did not an­ ticipate a future war with Austria. All he wanted was the

Schleswig-Holstein question to be settled in Prussia’s favor and he was open to a number of contingencies that could help him achieve his goal (Binkley 1935, 263). If

Bismarck was intent on war against Austria for its own sake there was ample opportunity in 1864 and 1865. Yet

Bismarck did not push war because of his uncertainty about the reaction of France if he did. Bismarck’s goal was

Prussian aggrandizement, not war for its own sake at least with any major state (Seaman 1963, 102-108). 113

Bismarck was successful in some measure because he

was an opportunist (Simon 1968, 29), as the quotation of

the epigraph suggests. Yet, he was only a minister, not

the King of Prussia. Therefore, no matter what his pref­

erence, his opinion would have been still-born if he had

not convinced the King and the Prussian Council of the

correctness of his policy. If Prussia had been only Bis­

marck, the German Empire would not have been proclaimed in

the Hall of Mirrors in the Palace of Versailles on 18

January 1871. And in fact, Bismarck was only one of the

many gifted statesmen with whom Prussia was endowed at the

time. Thus, the account of the Seven Weeks War Crisis of

1866 is more than a partial biography of Bismarck.

This chapter has the same format as the other case

study chapters. First, the situation in Europe as a whole

and in Germany is sketched briefly. Second, the events of

the crisis proper is presented to show that indeed it was

a crisis. Third, differences of this crisis from the other cases are discussed. Fourth, the place of this crisis in the evolution of crises is highlighted.

The Setting

The fear of Great Power war leading to revolution which had motivated European statesmen for decades after the Congress of Vienna virtually disappeared as a result of the unsuccessful revolutions of 1848. By the end of 114

1850, when the European political situation had stabil­

ized, the threat of revolution ceased to be taken ser­

iously by European governments. The removal of this

threat of revolution ushered in an era of power politics

where the Great Powers attempted to attain goals by diplo­

macy or war, in blatant disregard for the interests of the

other Great Powers (Robertson 1952, 419).

This grand use of force by the Powers began with the

use of troops by some to suppress revolutionary activity

beyond their borders. For instance, the French Army

reimposed Papal authority in Rome, while the Russian army enforced the Tsar’s feelings of noblesse oblige by suppress­

ing the revolution in Hungary in 1849 (Robertson 1952,

298-301, 376-378).

These interventions were a portent of things to come.

Many see the Crimean War as altering the structure of the western state system and opening a new era in European state relations. The Crimean War shattered the Concert as an instrument for managing international relations in

Europe (Craig and George 1983, 35-36). The war also was

"the prelude to a period of militant and triumphant nationalism which followed" (Langer 1950, 3). Following the rise of this nationalism "there were more powers willing to fight to overthrow the existing order than there were to take up arms to defend it" (Craig 1967,

273). 115

Between 1853 and 1871 were the only wars between the

Great Powers to occur in the century from 1815 to 1914.

Great Britain, France, Turkey, and Sardinia fought Russia

in 1854-1856; France and Sardinia fought Austria in 1859-

1860; Prussia and Italy fought Austria in 1866; and Prus­

sia fought France in 1870-1871. It is striking that wars

between the powers occurred only within this twenty year

period. The crisis prevention devices of the Concert,

based on fear of revolution, had broken down while crisis

management based on the awareness of the increased cost

and destructiveness of war had not yet come into being.

The unsettled state of affairs in Europe existed in

microcosm in the German states as well. The crisis and

war of 1866 had their specific origin in the reopening of

the Schleswig-Holstein Question.^ This issue revolved

around the two duchies of Schleswig and Holstein, which

were in personal union with the King of Denmark. The King

had agreed to have no other connection to the Danish state

under an arrangement sanctioned by the London Treaty of

1852 signed by Great Britain, France, Sweden, Denmark,

Prussia, Austria, and Russia.

The standard work on this issue is still Steefel (1932). He is excellent in making sense of the minutiae which constitutes this question. The information provided in this chapter on this question is from Steefel (1932) unless otherwise stated. 116

When the Danish government moved to incorporate the duchies of Schleswig and Holstein as provinces of Denmark in 1863, both of which had majority populations of Ger­ mans, Prussia and Austria protested. The protests were ignored and Prussia and Austria felt compelled to declare war against Denmark in January 1864. Denmark, defeated in the war quickly, ceded all rights to Prussia and Austria jointly on 30 October 1864. The Gastein Convention of 14

August 1865 provisionally settled the issue between Aus­ tria and Prussia. By its terms, Prussia and Austria continued to exercise joint sovereignty over both duchies while Austria administered Holstein and Prussia admini­ stered Schleswig.

However, this arrangement did not prove satisfactory to any of the parties. Relations between Austria and

Prussia became strained over the issue between November,

1865 and June, 1866. Prussia constantly protested Aust­ rian policy in Schleswig and each side began increasingly to distrust the other. As a result of the decision of a

Prussian Crown Council meeting on 28 February 1866 that the Duchies were worth a war. King William I of Prussia authorized secret negotiations with France and Italy with the hope of achieving a military alliance with those states (Friedjung 1935, 95).

Emperor Louis Napoleon of France refused to enter into any type of alliance with Prussia. Italy, because of 117

its desire to annex Venetia, was more interested in the

Prussian proposals. After Napoleon promised to come to

Italy’s defense if it were left to face Austria alone,

Italy signed an offensive military alliance with Prussia

on 8 April 1866. This treaty signaled the onset of the

crisis period.

The Crisis

The Prussian-Italian Treaty of Alliance of 8 April

1866 threatened to lead to war between Prussia and Austria

(and for that matter between Italy and Austria^), threat­

ened the high priority goals of Austria and Prussia,

placed time constraints on the decision makers, and thus

was a foreign policy crisis. This section will show that

these characteristics existed from 8 April to 14 June

1866.

This analysis will focus on Prussian-Austrian relations in 1866 and not comment on Italo-Austrian relations as such, since the main conflict was between Austria and Prussia. By her actions in June 1866, in giving up Venetia, Austria showed her greatest interest was in maintaining her position in Germany — not in Italy. Just as the conflict between Russia and Prussia in 1850 was subsidiary to the Prussian-Austrian conflict of that year, so too was the Italo-Austrian conflict a sub­ sidiary to the Austro-Prussian conflict in the way that it resolved itself in 1866. There is every reason to believe that Austria would have transferred Venetia to Italy without a war if the time limit of the Prussian-Italian Alliance had expired without war, in order to concentrate on Germany and Prussia. See Clark (1934, 340); Pottinger (1966, 113-116, 146); and Roliff (1909, 340). 118

Threat of War

All writers on the events leading to the Seven Weeks

War and all decisionmakers in the crisis believed that the

alliance treaty changed the condition of the relationship

between Prussia and Austria so that war was a real pos­

sibility between them. The most obvious proof of this was

that the Seven Weeks War did break out between Prussia and

Austria on 14 June 1866. These events are not as clear-

cut as they seem.

The Prussian-Italian Treaty of Alliance stipulated

that if war broke out between Prussia and Austria, then

Italy would immediately declare war on Austria. In this, both sides promised not to conclude a separate peace, while Italy was promised Venetia. Finally, the treaty would lose its validity three months after being signed unless Prussia had declared war on Austria by that time

(Wiell 1972, 183). This treaty of 8 April significantly altered the situation among the Powers. "Until then the question had been whether war could be made; thereafter, whether it could be avoided" (Taylor 1954, 161). The agreement increased the likelihood of war because it sanctioned the Prussian military attitude which favored war in order to acquire the Duchies (Pottinger 1966, 81).

At the Prussian Crown Council of 28 February 1866,

King William I decided that "[t]he possession of the 119

Duchies is worth the war... We will not provoke a war but

we must go forward upon our way and not shrink back before

a war" (Sybel 1891, 321). Count Helmuth von Moltke, Chief

of the Prussian General Staff, replied that the "indispen­

sable condition for the war [is] the active involvement of

Italy" (Hamerow 1972, 240). As a result, the Prussian

government decided to negotiate with Austria in order to

acquire the Duchies, and at the same time begin negotia­

tions with Italy for an alliance. These negotiations served two purposes. They were meant to enhance the

bargaining position of Prussia and so make it more likely that a peaceful solution to the issue of the Duchies would be found. If this was not the result, however, successful negotiations were intended to strengthen the Prussian position in case of war.

Prussia had bullied Austria throughout the winter of

1865-1866 by diplomatically challenging the Austrian administration of Holstein, and Bismarck reportedly believed that war between Austria and Prussia was in­ evitable (Friedjung 1935, 101). Austria was inhibited by the fact that it could mobilize only slowly: it required between seven and eight weeks compared to Prussia's three weeks (Taylor 1954, 161-162). Since the Austrians "knew that they could neither mobilize nor concentrate large forces with anything like the speed of the Prussians," they were at a disadvantage because of the need to begin 120 military preparations before Prussia to protect itself from anticipated Prussian offensive actions (Showalter

1975,224). Austria had known of the Prussian Crown Coun­ cil meeting of 28 February 1866 and had been increasingly buffeted by Prussian complaints over Holstein. Austria was also aware of the negotiations for a military alliance between Italy and Prussia which were taking place in March

(Sybel 1891, 343; Clark 1934, 344). Austria suspected that the Italo-Prussian negotiations had been successfully concluded when on 9 April, the Prussian minister to the

Confederation Diet, Karl Friedrich von Savigny, introduced a motion to reform the German Confederation.* This reform proposal would have excluded Austria completely from the

Confederation (Clark 1934,345). Austria, and France as well,5 considered the motion the equivalent of a declaration of war against Austria (Sybel 1891, 371-372).

Austria’s response was the military action which spiraled into war in June.

The Austrians were correct in their suspicion. The final orders to Savingy went out immediately after the signing of the Italo-Prussian Treaty of Alliance.

® France, in the person of Louis Napoleon, had the most direct interest in a potential conflict in Central Europe after the potential belligerents. In the event of war between Prussia and Austria, Louis hoped to acquire Rhenish territory for France and Venetia for Italy. Louis would offer France’s neutrality to the highest bidder. The question was which would pay the most for it. See (Sybel 1891, 466-467). 121

On 13 April, Austria ordered the arming of its north­

ern fortresses and on the next day accelerated purchases

of horses, and called up all reservists, while furloughing

members of the field artillery. On 15 April, Austria foi—

warded plans for mobilization to all appropriate army

divisions (Sybel 1891, 386).

A Prussian note of 15 April, presented to the Aus­

trian government on 17 April, denied any belligerent

intent. Prussia demanded that Austria cease its war prep­

arations. Otherwise, Prussia would begin its own partial

mobilization (Sybel 1891, 387). On the same day both

countries began negotiating over the possibility of demo­

bilization, and even agreed to it on 21 April. But in­

creasing Italian mobilization undercut the agreement and

it was abandoned.

By 20 April reports reached Vienna of major Italian military activity on the Venetian frontier (Pflanze 1963,

289). Throughout the previous weeks, influential Austrian

newspapers had been calling for war (Clark 1934, 511), and on that day, in response to the pressure of the press and the perceived Italian threat, the Austrian General Staff proposed immediate mobilization of the Austrian army

(Friedjung 1935, 131). The following day Emperor Franz

Joseph of Austria ordered the mobilization of the army of the South (Italian frontier) and also ordered 28 addition­ al battalions from furlough to active duty (Sybel 1891, 122

394). The Austrian mobilization convinced Prussia’s King

William I of Austria’s hostility (Taylor 1967, 52) in

spite of Austria’s offer of mutual demobilization (Clark

1934, 386-387; Redlich 1929, 322-323).®

The diplomatic snipings and military preparations

continued. An Austrian note of 26 April informed Prussia

that if it could not come to an agreement with Austria on

the Schleswig-Holstein issue, then Austria would bring the

issue to the Diet (Sybel 1891, 397). On the same day

Austria, realizing the difficulties of a partial mobiliza­

tion, decided to mobilize its northern (Prussian) front

(Friedjung 1935, 133). The following day Italy decided to

mobilize its entire army (Mowat 1923,190; Sybel 1891, 400-

401).

On 27 April Franz Joseph officially ordered mobili­

zation against Prussia, and on 29 April, the entire Aus­ trian cavalry was put on a war footing (Clark 1934,388;

Sybel 1891, 395). Bismarck sent an official note to

Austria the next day which said that Prussia would be satisfied only if Austria entirely abandoned its prepara­ tions for war (Sybel 1891, 404). However, Austria, con­ vinced of the high probability of war, continued to mobil-

Alfonso La Mormora, Italian premier and minister of foreign affairs, admitted later that the Italians had begun preparations in order to goad Austria into making military preparations which would provoke Prussians to respond in kind (Friedjung 1935,130). 123

ize throughout.May. By 1 May, Franz Joseph had decided

that war was "unavoidable" (Clark 1934, 289), writing to

his mother: "[o]ne must face the [coming] war with com­

posure" (Clark 1934, 521). That same day, Austria mobil­

ized ninety-four battalions (Sybel 1981, 395), and on 4

May, the Austrian Ministry of War ordered all absentees

and reserves to be called into the army (Sybel 1891, 403-

404).

On 3 May, Prussia ordered mobilization of all calvary

and artillery and from then until 10 May mobilized the 8th

(Rhine Corps), the 7th (Westphalia) Corps, the 1st and 2nd

Corps, and most of the rest of the militia (Sybel 1891,

407-408; Clark 1934, 402).

In the meantime, the military preparations by the two greatest German states caused panic and counter-prepara­ tions in the other German states. Hanover summoned its reserve forces to active duty and raised battalion strength by 300 men on 5 May (Sybel 1891, 406). Prompted by a motion of the Saxon minister on 5 May, the Confeder­ ation Diet formally asked Prussia to explain its mobiliza­ tion (Sybel 1891, 409; Pflanze 1963, 296). Württemburg mobilized its entire army on 11 May while Darmstadt and

Nassau mobilized theirs three days later. Bavaria, the most important secondary state, ordered its army mobilized on 19 May (Pflanze 1963, 409). The Prussian public was also concerned about the outbreak of war. Seventeen 124

Chambers of Commerce sent a collective petition against war to King William in mid-May (Hamerow 1972, 271). In the same month, 250 liberal legislators assembled and passed a resolution opposing the impending war, while those at a mass meeting in Leipzig condemned Prussian war activity. While most cities in the Rhine Provinces were against the approaching war, even Stettin and Konigsberg

in Brandenberg-Prussia and East Prussia respectively, voted against war (Hamerow 1972, 264, 270).

The crisis was bought to a violent conclusion as a result of the actions of the Confederate Diet. Prussia had consistently held the position that the Diet had no jurisdiction in Schleswig-Holstein and so should remain militarily passive during any conflict between Prussia and

Austria. As early as 20 May the Prussian ambassador to

Hanover had relayed this position to Hanover, stressing that Prussia would consider a general mobilization of the members of the Confederate Diet equivalent to a declara­ tion of war (Sybel 1891, 440). On 1 June the Austrian minister to the Diet officially asked for the issue of

Schleswig-Holstein to be placed before the Diet, which subsequently accepted the request (Taylor 1967, 83).

However, Prussia protested, calling the action a breach of the Gastein Treaty. On the following day, 4 June, the

Prussian state newspaper published Article V of the Gas­ tein Treaty which stated that the fate of the Duchies 125

would be decided by Austria and Prussia jointly (Sybel

1891, 479; Friedjung 1935, 188). In defiance of the

action of the Diet on 1 June,^ Prussian troops entered

Holstein on 7 June. By 11 June, they were in full occupa­

tion (Sybel 1891, 492; Pflanze 1965, 296-297).®

The Prussian minister at the Diet, Karl Friedrich von

Savigny, objected in vain to the Diet's agreeing to con­

sider the Schleswig-Holstein issue, protesting that the

Diet had no jurisdiction over either duchy. In turn, the

Austrian minister protested the invasion of Holstein by

Prussian troops (Sybel 1891, 480-481, 483). On 11 June,

the Austrian minister to the Diet moved at a meeting of

the Diet that all Confederation troops, except Prussia’s, should mobilize (Clark 1834, 466-467).

On the following day, France and Austria signed a convention of neutrality whereby France promised to remain neutral if war broke out between Austria and Prussia and

Austria pledged to cede Venetia to France when the war was over (Wiell 1972, 181). The Austrian minister to Prussia asked for the return of his passports while the Austrian

By accepting the Austrian request that the Confederation Diet decide the issue between Austria and Prussia, the Diet was accepting jurisdiction in the dispute. The Prussian action was an act of defiance be­ cause by acting before the Diet decided the issue, Prussia was demonstrating its refusal to accept the Diet’s juris­ diction in the dispute.

® The Austrian troops had retreated to Hanover in the face of the overwhelming number of Prussian troops. 126

government returned the Prussian ambassador’s passports,

actions which effectively broke diplomatic relations

between the two states (Sybel, 1891, 496; Clark 1934,

466). Bismarck sent all Prussian ambassadors to the

German states a dispatch warning that any vote for Aus­

tria’s motion would be regarded by Prussia as a declat—

ation of war. Bismarck also instructed Savigny to declare

the Confederation dissolved if the Diet passed the Aus­

trian motion. Bismarck also said Prussia would leave the

dissolved Confederation (Sybel 1891, 496-497).

On 14 June, the Diet voted 9-6 in favor of an amended motion of Bavaria’s calling for the mobilization of all non-Prussian troops and non-Austrian forces. Savigny declared the Confederation dissolved and announced Prus­ sia’s withdrawal from it (Clark 1934, 468, 496). When

King William I received this news he ordered the Prussian army to attack Austria, thereby signalling the start of the Seven Weeks War (Sybel 1891, 507-508).

Threat to High Priority Goals

This crisis and the Seven Weeks War which followed represent the last struggle between Austria and Prussia for the control of Germany (See Chapter 4). Conflict over supremacy in Germany began in the early 1700s with the rivalry between Frederick the Great of Prussia and Maria

Teresa of Austria and ended with the Peace of Prague on 26 127

August 1866 ending the Seven Weeks War. The interests of

the two powers had not changed from the 1700s to the

1860s. Yet there had been a change in leadership in

Prussia between the Olmütz Crisis in 1850 and the Seven

Weeks War of 1866. Each state’s ability to wage war had

also changed, altering the relationship between the two

German Powers and bringing the second German crisis to a

different conclusion from the first.

The three most important changes of leadership during

this period occurred in Prussia as a result of Prussian

King Frederick William IV’s insanity. As regent, the future King William I appointed Count Helmuth von Moltke

Chief of the General Staff in 1857. On 2 January 1861,

William I succeeded Frederick William IV as King of Prus­ sia and in 1862 the new King appointed Otto von Bismarck prime minister. Moltke and King William I had a goal, the building of Prussian state power based on a strong and efficient army. They were less affected by talk of the bonds between Austria and Prussia than their predecessors had been. Bismarck successfully implemented Radowitz’s policy of 1849-1850 of German unification under Prussian leadership because of the resolve of Moltke and William I.

Although Moltke was not adverse to cooperating with

Austria (Clarke 1934, 183, 227), he was also intensely interested in the success of the Prussian Army against any opposing army. Moltke was an innovator in the organize- 128

tion of the military. He created the prototype for the

modern general staff and in 1866 created a separate Rail­

way Section of the Great General Staff (Preston, et. al.

1962, 249). Partly through his efforts, the Prussian army was professionalized. He also brought about changes that

anticipated the effects developing technology would have on warfare. Moltke supported Bismarck’s advocacy of war with Austria at the important Prussian Crown Council of 28

February (Friedjung 1935, 73) and readied the army for war. On 14 May and again on 25 May, Moltke urged William

I to declare war against Austria, choosing 4 June as the date, so as to give Prussian forces the greatest chance of success (Friedjung 1935,168). Moltke’s goal was to defeat

Austria in battle, not to forestall a "civil war" between

German brothers.®

William I’s commitment to an Austro-Prussian alliance was much weaker than Frederick William IV’s. War with

Austria was unthinkable to William I until the beginning of the Schleswig-Holstein dispute, but he remained deeply embittered over Olmütz. At the time of Olmütz, then Crown

Prince William was alone in believing the Prussian Army capable of defeating the Austrian army. William I had refused to aid Austria in 1859 because Franz Joseph had

This is how Frederick William IV described the potential Austro-Prussian War at the time of the Olmütz Crisis. 129

withheld from him command of the north German Confederate

forces and once William I made up his mind he did not

change it easily. In the first six months of 1866 he

decided that Prussia was justified in annexing Schleswig-

Holstein and acquiring military dominance in northern

Germany. The older dynastic ties between Prussia and

Austria and their common conservative principles were still important to him, but not enough to him to give up

his claims in northern Germany (Clark 1934, 5, 7, 32).

For his part, Bismarck sought the aggrandizement of

Prussia and the expulsion of Austria from Germany (Seaman

1963, 96). During his term as the Prussian delegate to the Confederation Diet Bismarck had become hostile to

Austria (Taylor 1867, 33-37), and advised the Austrian ambassador to the Diet that the only way to stop a future war between Austria and Prussia would be for Austria to switch the center of in its interest from Germany to the

Balkans (Eyck 1958, 65). Bismarck’s goal was the enhancement of Prussian power. He was not dissuaded by talk of the horrors of civil war and importance of maintaining bonds of the ancient German brotherhood of

Prussia and Austria, but believed his goal would be attained by forcing war between Prussia and Austria. 130

Time Constraints

The situation between April to June 1866 represented

a foreign policy crisis for Prussia and Austria because of

the time constraints placed on their rulers. The time

constraint on Prussia was contained in its treaty of

alliance of Italy, whose Article V provided that the

treaty would lapse three months after its ratification.

Since Moltke had said that an indispensable condition of

success in a war was the active participation of Italy,

and since King William I was more inclined toward war

because of the Italian alliance (Sybel 1891, 323), it was

necessary for Bismarck to move within three months or lose

Italian support, rendering his war threats less com­ pel ling.

The Austrian decisionmakers also were aware that the

Italo-Prussian Treaty would last only until 8 July and so felt that they were acting within time constraints (Clark

1934, 36), quickening the pace of their diplomatic activities and military preparations. Knowing of their opponents’ deadline might have tempted the Austrians to slow the pace of events so the alliance would end before the outbreak of war. Instead, because of the Austrian perception of an increased chance of war and the time required for full mobilization, decisionmakers adopted policies which would increase its readiness in the event of war (Clark 1934, 436). 131

A second time constraint involved mobilization.

Although mobilization in 1866 did not signify immediate

war, it was a war-like action. Neither Austria nor

Prussia wanted to be the initiator of hostilities, but

both expected war once mobilization was completed (Clark

1934, 388). "So great are the expenses and dislocation

that both sides feel the pressure to act lest the

sacrifice appear in vain" (Pflanze 1963, 289).

The memory of Olmütz influenced the Prussians’

decision against demobilization. The Austrians were

influenced by more practical considerations. The Austrian

government was in bad financial shape, having run deficits

from 1860 to 1865; the service on the national debt was a

staggering 40% of net national revenue (MaCartney 1969,

532). The conventional wisdom in Austria was that if all the expensive military operations did not end in war,

Austria would be bankrupt and her position in Germany and

Europe destroyed. The only solution was war (Sybel 1891,

431 ).

The third and final constraint dealt with the de­ cision of Austria to take the dispute to the Diet.

Prussia had made it plain that it considered the issues beyond the jurisdiction of the Diet. When the Diet ac­ cepted jurisdiction on 1 June, it was only two weeks before the Confederation claim of jurisdiction to decide the Schleswig-Holstein issue clashed with the Prussian 132

declaration that it was an issue to be decided solely by

Prussia and Austria. Prussia used the threat of war

against the secondary states of the Confederation to deter

them from passing a vote of mobilization. However, they

voted to mobilize: the proximate cause of the war.

Crises Comparisons

The Seven Weeks War Crisis occurred during the

transition years between the first effective workings of

the Concert, 1815-1850, and the reemergence of the Concert

after 1871. This crisis, then, shares characteristics

with previous and succeeding crises and reflects the way

statesmen were adapting to the changes which were occur­

ring in transportation and communication technologies.

Duration of Crises

The Seven Weeks War Crisis occurred over a shorter

period than the previous two case study crises discussed,

but over a longer period than the three succeeding case

study crises to be discussed. I believe this is a direct

result of the incomplete incorporation of new technologies

into the practice of European diplomacy. For example, the telegraph was perfected in 1844 (Preston et. al. 1962,

248), and spread quickly through Europe. Austria and

Prussia both telegraphed instructions to their envoys in

Berlin and Vienna respectively, but their governments did 133

not communicate with each other directly by telegraph

during the Olmütz Crisis of 1850. This pattern repeated

itself in the Seven Weeks Crisis of 1866.

In the 1866 crisis the practice was to send

instructions to envoys'® who then arranged to present

personally to their countries’ positions to their accredi­

ted states, quite unlike the constant telegraph traffic

between governments in 1914 (Holsti, 1965). For example,

a note Prussia sent to its ambassador in Vienna, Baron

Karl von Werther, on 15 April, was delivered by him to the

Austrian government on 17 April (Sybel 1891, 387). The

only exception to this practice was when Prussia sent a

warning by telegraph to the lesser states on 12 June,

stating that Prussia would consider a vote for mobiliza­

tion a casus belli (Friedjung 1935, 193).

The railroad was another advance which was used to

different effect by the two sides. The Prussians became

known as innovators in the military uses of the railroad,

and in 1846 one Prussian army corps was moved 250 miles in

two days, a trip which would have taken 10 days to two

weeks on foot. Moltke, the man most responsible for

Although Prussia was represented by an ambassador in Vienna, Austria, considering Prussia just another secondary German state, was represented in Berlin only by a minister. This did not change until the Seven Weeks War. Hence, use of the term "ambassador" is not appropri­ ate in describing the two states’ diplomatic represen­ tative . 134

Prussia’s integration of the railway into military strat­

egy, created a separate Railway Section for the Prussian

General Staff in 1866. The rapid mobilization of the

Prussian army in 1866 was due almost completely to rail

under the supervision of this Railway Section (Preston,

et.al. 1962, 240, 249).

Austria adapted less quickly. It was estimated that

in 1866 it would take the Austrian army between seven and eight weeks to mobilize," a lag which helped extend the crisis. King William I ’s peculiar sense of honor prevented him from assuming an aggressor’s role against

Austria (Friedjung 1935, 94-97, 105, 109). Yet Austria was reluctant to be on the losing end of a reverse Olmütz.

As Clark described the dilemma: Franz Joseph "must lose the diplomatic battle by mobilizing first; or he must endanger his realm by waiting for Prussia to take that step" (Clark 1934, 361). Franz Joseph chose to mobilize, thus deepening the crisis and shortening it, since the mobilization was due to be completed three weeks before the expiration of the Italo-Prussian alliance treaty.

Completion of mobilization would have meant the necessity for Franz Joseph to choose between war and demobilization.

Perpetual mobilization was not an option for him.

Austrian mobilization was slower than Prussian, due to Austria having less railroad mileage and because the Austrian Officer Corp was less efficient than the Prus­ sian. 135

The Austrian decision to mobilize gave Bismarck a

casus belli which he calculated would put Austria in the

wrong in the eyes of King William I. The Austrian

decision has been described as "one of the first examples

of the interrelationships of technology and diplomacy

which is among the distinctive characteristics of modern

history. Modern technology had gone to war for the first

time in 1866" (Showalter 1975, 224, 226).

Intermediate Nationalism

The 1866 crisis took place in an era of political as

well as technological changes, when elite was giving way

to mass politics. Decisionmakers in 1866 were more moti­

vated by nationalistic sentiments than in 1850 but also

were motivated by other concerns. Attitudes of the major

Prussian decisionmakers, reviewed in the previous sections, reflected this. As for the Austrians, they paid

lip service to a common German brotherhood, but were more concerned with maintaining Austrian state power and Habs- burg dynastic prestige. Emperor Franz Joseph was determined that Austria maintain its position as political hegemon in Germany in the face of Prussian competition and during the war against France and Sardinia, had tried to induce William I to come to his aid. He saw William I ’s refusal as "desertion" and he privately labeled Prussia

"ignominious scum." Relationships were not helped when 136

William gave formal recognition to the kingdom of Italy.

Franz Joseph considered this a betrayal of monarchical

interests (monarchical solidarity)'^ and a threat to Aus­

tria (state interests). When war came, the Emperor viewed

it as a dynastic struggle.

Ludwig Maxi Ilian von Biegeleben, Counsellor for

German Affairs in the Austrian Foreign Office was Austri­

a ’s p r o f o r m a head of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs

(Friedjung 1935, 67-68) because the actual office holder

had abrogated his responsibilities. Biegeleben sought

Austria’s domination of Germany in order to protect a

conservatism he cherished (Friedjung 1935, 65). He hated

Prussia and wanted to prevent any increase in that count­

ry’s power (Roloff 1909, 444).

These Austrians faced Bismarck throughout the crisis.

Their dynastic and nationalist views were reflected in attempts to resolve the crisis. The first was Mensdorff’s attempt to stop the mobilization of both states’ armies in late March, when he attempted to influence the Prussian

Crown Prince Frederick (who at the Prussian Crown Council

Franz Joseph did not consider the Italian Kingdom a legitimate Kingdom. The Italian Kingdom was formed after Austria’s defeat and subsequent loss of Lombardy to Sardinia at the hands of France and Sardinia. The Austrian government refused to recognize the Kingdom of Italy since an important territorial component of it was claimed by Austria. Further, Franz Joseph was outraged that a fellow German monarch would betray the German Emperor by recognizing the new, upstart Italian Kingdom. 137

meeting of 28 February 1866 had described the war with

Austria as a "war between brothers") (Sybel 1891, 322).

Mensdorff’s attempt also involved the Crown Prince’s wife

Victoria Louise, Queen Augusta of Prussia, Duke Ernest,

and the dowager Queen Elizabeth of Prussia (Franz Joseph’s

aunt). Mensdorff cited the "mystic chords of memory" that

united the two dynasties, a plea which had worked well at

the time of Olmütz.

Mensdorff’s letter was addressed to Ernest, but in­

tended for William’s eyes, and reasoned that the conflict

was not in the interest of either state. As a result.

Queen Augusta, and the Crown Princess, Victoria, both

wrote Queen Victoria of Great Britain urging her to coun­

sel peace and the Archduchess Sophie of Austria wrote her

sister. Queen Elizabeth to the same end. Queen Victoria

did write William I in early April imploring him to

"[p]ause before you permit so fearful an act as the com­

mencement of a war," and blamed the crisis on Bismarck

(Clark 1934, 375-377). But even this flurry of letters

failed to halt the mobilization. King William’s accept­ ance of Austria’s demobilization offer of 18 April reached

Vienna by telegraph from Count Alois Karolyi, Austrian minister to Prussia, at 6 p.m. on 21 April, roughly three hours after the orders were sent to mobilize Austria’s army of the south on the Italian frontier (Clarke 1934,

387, 388). This partial mobilization convinced William of 138

Austrian hostility and made a peaceful resolution more

difficult (Friedjung 1935,139).

A second peace initiative also reflected a weak

nationalism overshadowed by respect for dynastic ties

between Austria and Prussia. It involved Baron Anton von

Gablenz, a Prussia citizen and a member of the Prussian

Diet, and his brother Baron Ludwig von Gablenz, Austrian

General and commander of Austrian forces in Holstein, who

tried to forge a compromise based on a division of mili­

tary hegemony in Germany between Austria and Prussia at

the River Main. Negotiations began on 25 April when Anton

presented a compromise proposal from his brother to Count

Moirz Esterhazy, Minister without Portfolio. Esterhazy

passed Gablenz to Mensdorff along with a favorable recom­

mendation, and while Mensdorff favored the compromise, he

wanted Bismarck to agree first. On 30 April, Gablenz

presented the compromise proposal to Bismarck who

approved. However, a four-week shuttle between Vienna and

Berlin gained Gablenz little but frustration. At a 22 May

meeting, Franz Joseph gave the proposal a cool reception,

saying that it might have found favor before military

preparations had begun and later on 28 May officially

rejected it (Friedjung 1934, 175). In fact, Franz Joseph viewed the compromise as giving Prussia the "lion’s share" of the points in dispute (Clark 1934, 426). Without the ties of blood between the ruling families and with a 139 stronger nationalism, it is doubtful that negotiations would have lasted as long as they did.

The last attempt at a peaceful resolution of the crisis can be viewed as foreshadowing the multilateral type of crisis resolution conferences which arose after

1871. Louis Napoleon III of France, desiring his country to play a mediating role in this crisis, invited all

European powers plus Italy and the German Confederation to a congress to resolve the issues on 24 May. Russia and

Great Britain had already agreed to attend. On 29 May,

Prussia also agreed, followed by Italy and the German

Confederation on 1 June (Sybel 1891, 458). Austria ac­ cepted the same day but insisted that no territorial adjustments would be discussed effectively destroying any chance for a congress and a peaceful end to the conflict

(Sybel 1891, 458).

Perception of Crisis

During the 1866 crisis, decisionmakers of both count­ ries took part in explicit crisis bargaining, using diplo­ matic warnings, alliance agreements, mobilization, and the threat of war to back their positions. Both sides were willing to go to war, as they ultimately did. Both used crisis bargaining and would have stopped short of war to achieve their objectives. Bismarck was willing to accept the Gablenz proposal and endeavored to frame a treaty but 140

was not adverse to war as a way to settle the issue (Clark

1934, 421-422).

Franz Joseph, who both admired and disliked Bismarck,

might have accepted a peaceful resolution before mobiliza­

tion began. While he approved of Bismarck’s domestic

policy, the Emperor mistrusted the Chancellor’s demands of

Austria and wrote: "one must never trust him and in this

country one cannot forgive him for setting Italy upon us"

(Clark 1934, 5290, 31, 520-521).

Ironically, Franz Joseph’s position in 1866 was simi­

lar to that of Frederick William IV in 1850, when that

monarch expressed himself as willing to give up the Erfurt

Union, accept Austrian jurisdiction in Hesse, and demo­

bilize before Austria. As a pre-condition, Frederick

William wanted only a conference of the representatives of

the two states to save face, rather than be seen to bow to

an Austrian ultimatum. The King of Prussia actually

considered the meeting at Olmütz a moral victory for

Prussia since it occurred after the time limit on Schwar-

zenberg’s ultimatum had expired.

In 1866, Franz Joseph’s concern was as much with

national and dynastic prestige as it was with the actual

basis of state power. Had the Gablenz proposals been quietly forwarded by Bismarck

and presented to the Hofburg [Emperor’s official residence - the Austrian "White House"] before the generals and the armies had come into the 141

foreground, before Austria had become to deeply engaged with the German states then some such settlement [might have been] gained through . . . liberal concessions to Hapsburg pride, but not by a public ultimatum. In the Hofburg, prestige was rated higher than the possession of a province (Clark 1934, 359).

Franz Joseph would have accepted the Gablenz comp­ romise and peace, but he was also willing to threaten war to achieve his goals. In the end he chose war rather than to see Habsburg prestige suffer. In the great game of crisis bargaining he lost to a master diplomatist.

Conclusion

The Seven Weeks War Crisis of 1866 was a crisis first because the Italo-Prussian Treaty of Alliance of 8 April

1866 at its onset threatened to lead to war between

Austria and Prussia. The crisis also threatened high priority goals of Austria and Prussia, and placed time constraints on the decisionmakers. By comparison to previous crises, the time constraints were shortened by the technological innovations of the telegraph and the rai1 road.

The crisis resembled the post-1871 crises both in the way decisionmakers used the threat of war in an attempt to achieve their goals, and in their view that war was not inevitable until late in the crisis. Their crisis bar­ gaining was done independently of war preparations.

During the Olmütz Crisis of 1850, William I had been 142

Prince Regent, Franz Joseph Emperor and Bismarck obliged

to defend the final settlement to the Prussian Diet. All

had been important decisionmakers then and their experien­

ces in the earlier crisis could not have failed to affect

their behavior in 1866. The 1866 Crisis may appear more

like modern crises because the major decisionmakers were better able to recognize a crisis and could conceptualize a prelude to war as a crisis and act accordingly. Their threats of war by way of mobilization and alliance with other states, were attempts to convince their opponents to change policies without resorting to war. Although Emper­ or Franz Joseph wrote in early May that war was "in­ evitable" this did not stop him from working for four weeks on the Gablenz proposals in an attempt to resolve the crisis peacefully. Franz Joseph hoped the crisis would end peacefully but was resigned to war if it came.

The Seven Weeks War Crisis of 1866 was a transitional crisis, exhibiting characteristics similar to crises which preceded and succeeded it. It was the last time that dynastic ties were seriously used in a major attempt to resolve a crisis and the first time that a majority of the decisionmakers took part in crisis diplomacy and recog­ nized it as such. It is necessary to turn to the Fashoda

Crisis of 1898 to see how decisionmakers had totally incorporated the innovations of the nineteenth century in their crisis diplomacy. CHAPTER SIX

THE FASHODA CRISIS OF 1898

In six months’ time . . . we shall be on the verge of war with France.

Lord Salisbury, Robert Arthur Cecil, British Prime Minister and Foreign Minister (1895-1900) March 1898.’

INTRODUCTION

Salisbury’s anticipation of a foreign policy crisis

was shared by French Foreign Minister Théophile Delcassé.

Neither statesman wanted a crisis between their two

states, let alone a war. Yet, the stakes in Africa for

Great Britain were too high for Salisbury to ignore.

Thus, he used the time to prepare Britain militarily and

diplomatically for the approaching crisis while attempt­

ing, at the same time, to resolve the issue of the Sudan

through normal diplomatic channels.% Delcassé, only

’ G. N. Sanderson. England. Europe & the Upper Nile. 1882- 1899: A Study in the Partition of Africa. Edinburgh University Press, 1965, page 324.

2 Both Britain and France claimed a right to the Sudan and the Upper Nile Valley throughout the 1880s and the 1890s. The Upper Nile Valley flows through the land area called the Sudan in northeast Africa. For the most part, the terms "the Sudan," "the Upper Nile Valley," and "the Nile Valley" will be used inter­ changeably in this chapter, as they were used by the British and French decisionmakers in the 1880s and 1890s. 143 144

becoming the French foreign minister in June 1898 and mediating the negotiations which ended the Spanish-Ameri- can War that summer, belatedly attempted to forestall the onset of the crisis unsuccessfully in early September.

The Fashoda Crisis is the first crisis case study of this dissertation to be marked by participating states­ men's awareness that an important dispute could evolve

into a foreign policy crisis threatening important goals of both sides. From 1895 to 1898, Salisbury repeatedly warned French officials of the importance of the Sudan to

Britain and attempted to come to a territorial agreement with them. French statesmen, convinced until September

1898 that it was not in the interests of Britain to push the dispute to the level of a crisis, refused to accept a territorial agreement which would exclude France from the valley of the Nile.

By the end of the crisis, the British resolve to go to war with France over the Sudan convinced Delcassé that the dream of French control of the Nile Valley would have to submit to the reality of British naval power. Although both Salisbury and Delcassé were pressured by colleagues and public opinion to resolve the crisis by war, neither succumbed to this pressure due to countervailing pressure for peace and their own convictions that war would not be in the interests of either of their states. 145

This chapter’s format is as follows. The situation in Europe and Africa are reviewed, followed by an examina­ tion of the events of the Fashoda crisis demonstrating that it was a crisis, and concluding with a discussion of the differences between Fashoda and earlier crises making its place in the evolution of crises.

The Setting

The Fashoda Crisis case study is the first foreign policy crisis in this dissertation which occurred after the benchmark year of 1871. By 1871 changes in transpor­ tation and communications technologies, increases in the cost and destructiveness of armaments, the rise of nation­ alism and liberalism, and innovations in conference diplo­ macy had changed the conditions of the international system enough to change foreign policy crises. FPCs which occur after 1871 can be seen to be different from those which occur before that year, although both have common traits.

The above developments made war so costly and de­ structive that decisionmakers ceased to view it simply as an extension of politics. They began to view it as a problem in itself and to fear its potential for destruc­ tion and for disrupting their states’ politics (Wright

1964, 77). Statesmen came to believe that a Great Power 146

war could destroy European society. The evolution of

popular government had also made it vital that a govern­

ment’s foreign policy be backed by public opinion.

Statesmen were more desirous of peaceful resolutions to

conflicts and less ready to risk war than before (Sontag

1933, 5).

This is apparent in the views that Salisbury and

Delcassé expressed on war and diplomacy. For Salisbury,

war was "the ultimate misfortune" (Grenville 1964, 22).

Consequently, the goal of his diplomacy was the avoidance of war (Grenville 1964, 6): towards that end and for its own sake, Salisbury tried to avoid foreign policy crises.

He realized that diplomatic victory in a crisis could humiliate another Great Power just as war could, and victory over a temporary rival would make later and neces­ sary reconciliation more difficult. As a rule, Salis­ bury’s diplomacy can legitimately be described as crises deterrence (Grenville 1964, 218, 22). Delcassé shared similar views, observing on 16 May 1889 that "wars are becoming more rare. That is because they are too deadly and too costly." While believing war could never be abolished, Delcassé argued that "[t]he duty of a govern­ ment is to stave off war as long as possible" (Porter

1936, 47-48).

As a result of this general elite consensus, the 147

period from 1871 to 1914 saw no war between the Great

Powers. In fact, innovations in conference diplomacy

which had began with the Congress of Vienna in 1815

provided a forum by which conflicting interests could be

reconciled. What A. J. P. Taylor called "the great East­

ern crisis" between 1875 to 1879, when Britain and Austria

resisted Russian aggrandizement at the expense of the

Ottoman Empire, was resolved by multilateral crisis diplo­

macy at the Congress of Berlin in June 1879 (Taylor 1954,

228-254).

Multilateral conference diplomacy was not always used

to resolve crises between 1879 and the onset of the Great

War, but crisis diplomacy did replace a recourse to war as

a way to resolve the different crises which arose in this

time, such as the Bulgarian Crisis of 1887, the Fashoda

Crisis of 1898, the First Moroccan Crisis of 1906, the

Bosnia Annexation Crisis of 1908, and the Second Moroccan

Crisis of 1911 (Taylor 1954, 314-324, 437-440, 451-456,

466-473). In fact. Great Power crises became so common during this time that when the crisis between Serbia and

Austria-Hungary in 1914 threatened to lead to general

European war, it was natural for Sir Edward Grey, Prime

Minister of Great Britain, to suggest a conference of the

Great Powers to resolve it (Taylor 1954, 525).

Fears for the destructiveness and totality of war 148

which helped give form to foreign policy crises after 1871

also motivated the Great Powers to channel the ambitions

and energies of each other to regions outside of Europe in

the form of their colonization of Africa, Asia and the

Pacific. Chancellor Otto von Bismarck of Germany encour­

aged France in North Africa while a succession of French

leaders encouraged Russia in Asia (Seaman 1985, 132).

Unfortunately for Great Britain, its interests were deemed

vital in both Africa and Asia and so European expansion in

those continents threatened her directly.

The division of Africa among Britain, France, Italy,

and Germany had a more specific impetus, "the danger of a

general Ottoman demise" (Robinson ei aj.. 1961, 82).

Russia's easy success against the Ottoman Empire in the

Russo-Turkish War of 1877-1878 and the possibility that as a result the empire would become a Russian protectorate galvanized the other Powers to forestall any threatened

Russian expansion. The Berlin Congress of 1879 checked

Russia but did not strengthen the Ottomans. Since the

Powers could not protect their interests by their influ­ ence with the Ottomans, they resorted to partition and effective occupation (Robinson, et 1961, 81-82). To regularize this land grab, the Berlin Conference of 1884-

1885 created a legal code to govern annexation of terri­ tory and the establishment of protectorates in Africa 149

(Sanderson 1965, 24).

Britain and France led the resulting march for em­

pire, acquiring four million square miles and three and

one half million square miles respectively (Hobsbawm 1988,

59). While their imperialisms conflicted at different

points on the globe, their greatest conflict was over the

Nile Valley in the Sudan which had been a province of

Egypt. Britain and France had established dual control of

Egyptian finances by 1876, but Britain was able to estab­

lish sole control of Egypt by 1882 after unilaterally

destroying a revolt against the nominal Egyptian ruler.^

France refused to recognize British control of Egypt

while Britain refused to accept the refusal. While the

reality of British control of Egypt could not be ignored,

successive governments of France decided to challenge the

British in Egypt by acquiring title to some or all of the

great land mass called the Sudan. Both the White and Blue

Nile Rivers flow through the Sudan on its way to Egypt,

and a series of French governments thought that control of

the Nile in the Sudan would allow Britain to be ousted

diplomatically from Egypt (Riker 1929, 55; Sanderson 1965,

® The French Chamber refused on 24 July 1882 the request of the Freycinet government to vote credits for a French military force which would join with a British force to suppress the revolt, reestablish the authority of the Khedive (the title of the Egyptian governor) and thereby secure continued French influence in Egypt (Mowat 1922, 256). 150

114). An expedition under the command of Captain Jean-

Baptiste Marchand of the French Army was authorized on 30

November 1895 (Brown 1970, 43-44). The Marchand Mission

reached Fashoda, an abandoned Egyptian outpost on the

White Nile in the Bahr-el-Ghazelle region of the south­

western Sudan, on 10 July 1898, signed treaties with local

tribes and planted the French flag (Sanderson 1965, 287).

The British government sent a military mission into

the Sudan in March 1896 in order to counter the French

advance into the Sudan. The British action was taken

under the pretext of helping the Italian military forces

operating from the Italian colony of Eritrea against the

Ethiopians and the Mahdist forces^ (Robinson et al. 1965,

346). British and Egyptian forces under General Herbert

Kitchener, Commander-in-Chief or Sirdar of the Egyptian

Army, decisively defeated Mahdist forces, thus destroying

the Madist state, at the battle of Omdurman on 2 September

1898. They occupied Khartoum two days later (Sanderson,

1965, 265; Garvin 1934, 226).

* Mohammed Ahmed, a Sudanese native, claimed to be the M a h d i (in Arabic literally "the guided one") who would restore pure Islamic practice and destroy Egyptian and European power in the Sudan, the Sudan being a province of Egypt since the days Mohammed Ali (see Chapter Three). The Mahdi began a revolt against Egyptian authority and European influence in 1881 and by 1885, Khartoum, the Egyptian capital of the Sudan, was captured. After the Mahdi’s death in 1885, the Sudan was ruled by his successor, Abdullah, referred to as the Khalifa (lieutenant). The forces of the Mahdi and the Khalifa were known as the Dervishes (Moon 1926, 143). 151

Once there, Kitchener opened sealed orders from

Salisbury instructing him to lead an expedition up the

White Nile. If he encountered any French officials "noth­ ing should be said or done which would in any way imply a recognition on behalf of her Majesty's Government of a title to possession on behalf of France" (Temperly and

Penson, 1938, 508). Kitchener was also instructed to remind any French officials that the current British gov­ ernment adhered to the position stated nearly a year earlier by Sir Edmund Monson, British Ambassador to France on 10 December 1897: "Her Majesty's Government . . . must not be understood to admit that any other European

Power than Great Britain has any claim to occupy any part of the Valley of the Nile" (Temperly and Penson 1938,

508).

With these orders. Kitchener arrived at Fashoda on 18

September. At a meeting with Marchand the following day.

Kitchener learned that Marchand had occupied the Bahr-el-

Ghazel le by the order of the French government. Marchand in fact welcomed Kitchener in the name of France. Kitch­ ener protested against Marchand's "infringement of the rights of Egypt and Great Britain," but Marchand refused to retire from Fashoda without orders of his government while Kitchener, to avoid open hostilities, declared it his duty to reassert Egyptian authority at Fashoda. 152

Marchand agreed to the hoisting of the Egyptian flag as

long as the action was not seen as determining claims to

the territory (Sanderson 1965, 334-335). The crisis

period began on 25 September when Salisbury received

Kitchener’s telegram describing the Marchand-Kitchener

meeting of 19 September 1898 (Sanderson 1965, 341).

The Crisis

A foreign policy crisis began when news reached the

British and French governments that their military expedi­ tions faced each other in territory claimed by both governments. This situation was a crisis because it threatened to lead to war between Britain and France, threatened high priority goals of both countries, and placed time constraints on decisionmakers. The following will demonstrated that these characteristics existed from

26 September to 4 November 1898.

Threat of War

The threat of war between the two states arose soon thereafter. On 26 September, British Ambassador to

France, Sir Edmund Monson, apprised Delcassé of the meet­ ing of Kitchener and Marchand at Fashoda. On behalf of his government, Monson demanded that the French government order Marchand’s withdrawal (Sanderson 1965, 341). 153

After consulting the French Cabinet on 27 September

Delcassé told Monson that the French government could not act until it had received information directly from Mar­ chand and requested the use of British communication and transportation facilities in the Sudan and Egypt for that purpose. Monson asked if this meant that Delcassé, on behalf of his government, refused to withdraw Marchand

(Sanderson 1965, 341). As Monson reported the same day,

Delcassé replied "if there was to be no discussion, a rup­ ture could not be avoided" and implored the British "not to drive him into a corner" (Robinson, gt al. 1961, 371).

Salisbury had authorized the use of British steam­ boats and telegraph offices by the French government to communicate with Marchand via Egypt, and the British government continued to make threats and institute poli­ cies from late September through October aimed at pres­ suring France to withdraw Marchand.

On 28 September, after Delcassé told Monson that his demands were impossible, Monson replied that the British government would not compromise. "You surely would not break with us over Fashoda?" Delcassé asked. Monson replied that "it [is] exactly that which I feared," Del­ cassé replied: "[i]n that event we shall not stand alone" 154

(Sanderson 1965, 342).®

Delcassé was convinced from incorrect diplomatic

intelligence that Monson planned to present him with an

ultimatum. To forestall this, he took the offensive in a

conversation on 30 September, declaring that France would

accept war rather than submit to "such an insult to the

national honour" (Brown 1969, 99). According to Monson,

Delcassé continued:

All France would resent such an insult to the national honour as is involved in the proposal to recall M. Marchand and to treat the French occupation of Fashoda as an unjustifiable act. He could not think that it is wished in England to go to war over such a question, but France would, however unwillingly, accept war rather than submit (Robinson, et aj.. 1961, 372).

When Monson reported this conversation to Salisbury

on 1 October, he added "I believe that he . . . thoroughly

meant what he said" (Robinson, et âl- 1961, 372).

Salisbury was not as ready to take alarm as Monson

but decided to apply more direct pressure to the Marchand

mission. By cable, he ordered British officials in Cairo,

Egypt that Marchandas "position should be made as unten­

able as possible" by the denial of all supplies "except in

extreme necessity." On 7 October Salisbury went further

® By this, Delcassé was brandishing the threat of Russian assistance to France in the event of an Anglo-French war. 155 and ordered the British forces at Fashoda to blockade the

French expedition (Sanderson 1965, 342-343).

At one point, a peaceful end to the crisis did appear possible. Delcassé appeared willing to order the with­ drawal of the Marchand mission as early as 3 October in return for territorial concessions in the Bahr-el-Ghazelle

(Sanderson 1965, 344), and France's ambassador to Britain,

Alphonse de Couroe1, thought it could be arranged. Mon­ son, on 11 October, had cabled Salisbury that while Del­ cassé was under severe pressure not to order the with­ drawal he was "prepared to retreat . . . if we can build him a golden bridge" (Sanderson 1965, 546). On the same day, Delcassé promised Monson that if Britain "would make things easy for him in form he would be conciliatory in substance" (Sanderson 1965, 346). At a meeting with

Salisbury on 12 October, Courcel offered to recall the

Marchand mission in return for French access to a navi­ gable part of the Nile. In a subsequent written proposal,

France claimed all of the Bahr-el-Ghazelle, however, and in response, Salisbury flatly refused to discuss any territorial settlement (Sanderson 1965, 346-347).

Events in Britain would have made negotiations diffi­ cult even without French territorial claims. On 10 Oc­ tober, in violation of diplomatic tradition, the British government published a Blue Book on the Anglo-French 156 diplomatie correspondence concerning the Nile Valley.

Publication increased tensions between the two countries, particularly after France countered by publishing its

Yellow Book on 24 October, an account of the crisis from the French point of view (Sanderson 1965, 347; Brown 1969,

98). Both publications fanned bellicose sentiments of the

British and French public, and thereby increased the chances for war.

On 12 October Lord Rosebery, Archibald Philip Prem-

rose, a former Prime Minister and leader of the Liberal

Party, in a public speech defended the British govern­ ment’s position. "The nation will make any sacrifice and go to any length to sustain [the government] . . . I hope that this incident will be peacefully settled, but it must be understood that there can be no compromise of the rights of Egypt" (Moon 1927, 153).

The overwhelming majority of British newspapers called for war. The London Morning Post of 12 September said that if the French government did not disavow the

Marchand Expedition, there would be "no other course open but an ultimatum, coupled with the mobilization of the military and naval forces of the Empire" (Riker, 1929,

66). The Spectator, a weekly, had made the point more forcefully even before publication of the Blue Book. "It is quite clear that Fashoda must be retained, even at the 157

cost of war" (Riker 1929, 66). Said T h e Times (London) in

an editorial on 10 October: "We cannot conceal from

ourselves that Lord Salisbury and his colleagues have

taken a position from which retreat is impossible. One

side or the other will have to give way. The side cannot

after the publication of these papers [the Blue Book], be

Great Britain" (Riker 1929, 67).

T he Mo r n i n g Post o n 25 October stated the issue thus:

"The British nation has set its heart on the Nile Valley

from end to end. If the French nation seriously intends to

interfere with the fulfillment of that British purpose,

the queen’s [sic] subjects will accept the sacrifice

necessary to make it good. There is nowhere any inclina­

tion to compromise in this matter" (Riker 1929, 70). Sir

Edward Grey, a leader of the Liberal Party, provided a geopolitical rationale for British sentiment. The Times on

28 October, reported Grey as saying, "Egypt is the Nile and the Nile is Egypt." He warned that if the Upper Nile were controlled by an unfriendly power then the water

Egypt needed might be diverted and denied to it (Riker

1929, 69-70).

Monson believed that the sabre rattling of the Brit­ ish press since the onset of the crisis might cause a violent reaction in France (Grenville 1964, 227), in large part because of the unsettled state of French domestic 158

politics due to the Dreyfus Affair.® Monson believed that

the French Ministry of Prime Minister Henri Brisson would

not survive and that a successor government would attempt

to distract public attention from the Affair by refusing

to recall Marchand (Grenville 1964, 227-228), or even

possibly welcoming war (Sanderson 1965, 349).

On 28 October, Delcassé demanded of Monson a commer­

cial outlet on the Nile for France. If England refused

Monson reported Delcassé as saying "a humiliation will be

inflicted on the French which he personally cannot accept;

as a war with England, which is the only alternative,

would be alike contrary to his avowed policy, and repul­

sive to his principles he would be obliged to retire from

his post as Minister of Foreign Affairs" (Rolo 1969, 90).

On the same day the Colonialist newspaper La Dépôche Colon­

iale demanded war rather than the humiliation of uncondi­

tional withdrawal (Sanderson 1965, 353). The same day,

Delcassé complained to Monson that the policy of Britain

to humiliate France was making it impossible for him to

® Captain Alfred Dreyfus was found guilty of treason in December 1894 and sentenced to life imprisonment. The Dreyfus case became the Dreyfus Affair on 13 January 1898 when Emile Zola published an open letter to the government, accusing the army of suppressing evidence of Dreyfus' innocence and organizing a cover- up. On 31 August 1898, after confessing to forging the documents which convicted Dreyfus, Major Hubert Joseph Henry committed suicide, a scandal which shook the French Third Republic to its foundations (See Brown 1969, 55, 82, 59-60, 80, 90-92, 101-110). 159 stay on as foreign minister (Grenville 1964, 229). The next day he told Monson he believed Britain was forcing

France into war by forcing it to chose between humiliation and war. As both were repugnant to him, he said he would have to resign (Porter 1936, 139; Sanderson 1965, 352).

The need to avoid war with Britain became apparent to

Delcassé after conversations with French naval authori­ ties. France had begun war preparations on 12 October when the French Minister, Edouard Lockroy, requested the

Ministry of War to send regular infantry troops to Cher­ bourg, Brest and Toulon in order to protect these port cities (Brown 1969, 104). On 17 October the French Medit­ erranean fleet was mobilized (Marder 1940, 320) and throughout October naval yards at Toulon worked around the clock to ready the Mediterranean fleet for service. All leave was cancelled for French sailors. French President

Felix Faure convinced the chairmen of the Senate and

Chamber finance committees to authorize, without parlia­ mentary approval, the expenditure of one hundred million francs for defense (Langer 1960, 562).

Even as these preparations were being completed,

Delcassé learned of the inadequacy of the French navy.

Cavalier de Cuvervile, the chief of the naval staff, pointed out that the French fleet was half as large as the

British navy and that its equipment was inferior (Andrew 160

1968, 102). In the Mediterranean Britain had eighteen battleships to France’s fifteen; in reserves, Britain had ten battleships to France’s seven; Britain had a full second set of reserve battleships while France had none

(Marder 1940, 321), and Britain had thirty-four battle­ ships less than ten years old, while France only had thirteen (Langer, 1960, 560).

French Minister of Marine, Edouard Lockroy, later told the Chamber that the French fleet had been as prepared for war with Britain as the Spanish navy had been ready for war with the United States in 1898 (Andrew 1968,

102-103). Lackroy told President Faure that the plan to meet England in war lacked detail, and both he and Cuver- ville considered it totally unworkable (Andrew 1968, 103).

The British did not have the same qualms about a war. The first public statement on the issue by a member of the

British was made in a speech by the Chancellor of the

Exchequer, Michael Hicks-Beach on 19 October. He said,

"the country has put its foot down. If unhappily, another view should be taken elsewhere, we, the Ministers of the

Queen, know what our duty demands. It would be a great calamity . . . but there are greater evils than war"

(Grenville 1964, 228).

The British government’s war preparations reflected the confidence expressed by Hicks-Beach. On 24 October, 161 the Admiralty began to coal and man the Reserve Squadron

(Grenville 1964, 229). Also, on that day, the Admiralty began closely following French battleship movements (Mar­ der 1940, 322). A British war strategy, drawn up and ready on 26 October, included securing the home ports against French attack and then destroying the French

Atlantic Fleet as quickly as possible. The British Re­ serve Squadron would attack French Channel ports while the

British Home Fleet would blockade France (Marder 1940,

325-36). On the same day the Admiralty drafted deployment orders for the Home, Mediterranean, and Channel Fleets

(Sanderson 1965, 349).

At a 27 October Cabinet meeting on the issue, a majority of the Cabinet gave support to issuing an ul­ timatum to France, coupled with military actions short of war. Salisbury favored a compromise whereby a "spontan­ eous" recall of Marchand would be followed by Salisbury

"spontaneously" opening negotiations leading to the offer of a commercial outlet on the Nile for France (Brown 1969,

112). The Cabinet, according to Cabinet member Lord

Esher, "seemed to take the view that the row would have to come and that it might as well come now as later" (Brown,

1969, 112-113). Minister of Colonies Joseph Chamberlain,

Lord President of the Council, the Duke of Devonshire,

Spencer Cavendish, and Hicks-Beach were opposed to any 162 concession (Robinson and Gallagher 1961, 373; Garvin 1934,

230) while Chamberlain, First Lord of the Admiralty George

Goschen and Devonshire favored a preventive war against

France (Marder 1940, 332; Robinson and Gallagher 1961,

373; Brown 1969, 113).

Salisbury was able to turn the Cabinet from an ex­ plicit ultimatum to a compromise by using the support of

Queen Victoria, who opposed "a war for so small and miser­ able an object" (Robinson and Gallagher 1961, 374). Under the compromise agreement, the British government would put its navy on a war footing, insist, short of an ultimatum, on Marchandas unconditional withdrawal to be followed by possible negotiations (Sanderson 1965, 350).

As a result of the Cabinet compromise, the war orders which had been drafted on 26 October for the Mediterranean

Fleet were issued on 28 October (Marder 1940, 327). The

Mediterranean Fleet was ordered to concentrate at Malta, while a smaller force sailed to Alexandria to protect the

Suez Canal (Langer 1960, 560). On 29 October, the Channel

Fleet was dispatched to Gibraltar to stop the French

Mediterranean Fleet if it tried to enter the Atlantic and to destroy it if war did break out. The British China

Squadron was ordered to concentrate at Hong Kong, ready to attack French Indochina (Marder 1940, 323).

In an attempt to soften the demand for unconditional 163 withdrawal, Salisbury gave Courcel an unofficial aide- mémoire indicating that the abnormal diplomatic relations between Britain and France would end and the French claims could be discussed if the French government ordered Mar­ chand ’s withdrawal. The Permanent Undei— Secretary for

Foreign Affairs, Thomas Sanderson, gave Courcel a second memorandum claiming that the British government had never officially demanded the evacuation of Fashoda (Sanderson

1965, 350-351 ). Georges Clemenceau, editor of L ’Aurore, wrote in an editorial in his newspaper, "the brutal fact is that France cannot think of throwing herself into a war for the possession of some African marshes, when the

German is camped at Metz and Strassburg" (Carroll 1931,

174). Del cassé’s position was further complicated when the Brisson ministry fell victim on 25 October to the

Dreyfus Affair, and he continued as foreign minister only under a caretaker government. It was at this time that

Delcassé threatened resignation as an alternative to war or ordering Marchandas withdrawal.

Between the fall of the Brisson ministry on 25 Oc­ tober and the formation of a new government with Charles

Dupuy as Prime Minister on 1 November, President Faure wrote: "the gravity of the situation became extremely alarming; we feared an immediate attack. I pressed Del­ cassé to order the evacuation of Fashoda" (Brown 1969, 164

116).

After Faure agreed to take personal responsibility for the decision, Delcassé agreed to the recall (Brown

1969, 116), and when the new French Cabinet met on 3

November it ordered the withdrawal of Marchand (Porter

1936, 139). Later the same day, Delcassé informed Monson of the decision, and Delcassé instructed Courcel to inform

Salisbury as soon as possible (Sanderson 1965, 354).

In a conciliatory speech on the evening of 4 November,

Salisbury announced the decision publicly, thus signifi­ cantly reducing the threat of war between the two states

(Riker 1929, 73).

Many European observers perceived a real threat of war during the crisis. The French ambassador to Italy,

Blondel, reported on 29 September that many "believe in the possibility of a war provoked by the French military party" (Brown 1969, 128). On 25 October, the Italian government ordered Genoa and La Spezia to be put in a

"state of defense" (Brown 1969, 129).

British authorities also believed that a threat of war existed particularly in late October. Although they did not believe the French navy could match the British navy, British officers viewed French military preparations with apprehension. British Director of Naval Intelli­ gence, Sir John Charles Ardagh, believed that there was 165

overwhelming evidence that both offensive and defensive

preparations were being conducted at all five French

military posts (Marder 1940, 329). The British Foreign

Office learned on 1 November that all leaves and furloughs

in the French navy had been cancelled, all army officers

stationed at military posts were recalled, and all naval

reservists called up (Marder 1940, 329). The British

counsel at Cherbourg on 2 November reported a French

torpedo boat concentration at Dunkerque. On 3 November,

the British Foreign Office discovered that orders had been

issued to the Lille garrison to be ready to move on short

notice (Marder 1940, 329-330).

It is possible that if the crisis had continued

longer, the British military officials would have asked for permission to launch a preventive attack on the French navy and Salisbury, isolated in the Cabinet, would have had to acquiesce. Rumors that Salisbury was a "senile

invalid" were common in 1898 and did much to undermine his political authority (Sanderson 1965, 324). In a July

1898, a political cartoon in Punch, Chamberlain is showing

Salisbury an open door labelled "Exit From Office" (Sand­ erson 1965, 400). From all evidence Salisbury was able to head off an ultimatum to France only with the Queen’s support. If the crisis had continued longer, he might have not been able to persist. As Salisbury himself ob- 166 served on 9 November after the conclusion of the crisis,

"[w]e had recently to consider the question of a European war . . . with great anxiety and consideration. The result has turned out happily. At one moment it seemed possible that it might be otherwise" (Riker 1929, 73).

Threat to High Priority Goals

In the Fashoda Crisis of 1898, Britain threatened war against France. France claimed it would prefer to accept war rather than humiliation. Both countries' positions can be understood by examining the important goals of each which were threatened. Britain's interest was the protec­ tion of Egypt which would in turn protect the trade and military routes to India. France’s interest was to end

British control of Egypt and to establish an African continental empire. The goals of each could not be recon­ ciled.

Threat to British Goals

The importance of Egypt to the British Empire was recognized no later than the beginning of the nineteenth century when Britain sent its army and navy to forcibly remove Napoleon’s occupation force from the country. The interests of both countries up to 1840 has been discussed 167

in the Chapter Three.? The importance of India, hence

Egypt, increased, rather than decreased from 1840 to 1898.

India’s importance to Britain was both economic and

strategic. Between 40 percent to 45 percent of British

cotton exports flowed to India (Hobsbawm 1988, 69). By

the 1880s, Britain had devoted 20 percent of its total

overseas investment in India (Robinson and Gallagher 1961,

11). Britain was also able to use its Indian Army to

destroy Asian governments which tried to hinder British

influence and control. The Indian Army was sent "to China

in 1839, 1856, and 1859; to Persia in 1856, to Ethiopia

and Singapore in 1867, to Hong Kong in 1868, to Afghanis­ tan in 1878, to Egypt in 1882, to Burma in 1885, to Nyasa

in 1893, and to the Sudan and Uganda in 1896" (Robinson and Gallagher 1961, 12).

Fearing increased French influence in Egypt, British governments managed to hinder and delay the French company building the Suez Canal. It eventually was completed in

1869 (Hoskins 1966, 302). British Prime Minister Benjamin

Disraeli purchased Egyptian state shares in the Suez Canal company in 1875 (Moon 1927, 36). In the next year, an international Caisse de la Dette Publique was formed to be run by representatives of Austria-Hungary, Britain, France,

? See pages 58-64. 168

Germany, Italy, and Russia but in reality establishing the

Dual Control of Britain and France over Egyptian finances

(Robinson and Gallagher 1961, 84).

By 1882, 82 percent of Suez Canal traffic was British

(Robinson and Gallagher 1961, 117). As Lord Northbrook,

First Lord of the Admiralty, stated it: "As long as India

remains under British rule the interests of England and of

India . . . go far beyond the traffic in the Canal for

[they] demand that no other nation should be allowed to dominate Egypt" (Robinson and Gallagher 1961, 123). Un­ stated, but no less true, was the British determination to protect the Canal from indigenous Egyptian threats.

When a native revolt in 1882 threatened British influence in Egypt and the security of the Canal which

"was the indispensable link between the [British] Mediter­ ranean Fleet and the Indian Army, those two great factors of power . . . of English diplomacy" (Sanderson 1965, 14),

Britain bombarded Alexandrian land troops and thus began its long occupation and direct administration of Egypt

(Rolo 1969, 41-42; Mowat 1922, 255).

Once Britain was convinced of the need for direct control of Egypt, it began to be concerned about possible threats to its domination. The gravest threat to Egypt, from the point of view of both Egyptian and British lead­ ers, came from a hostile power controlling the Nile via 169 control of the Sudan. Riaz Pasha, an important Egyptian statesman of the time, wrote in 1888: "No one will deny, so clear and evident a proposition is it, that the Nile is the life of Egypt. Now the Nile means the Sudan, and nobody will doubt that the bonds and connections which unite Egypt and Sudan are as inseparable as those which unite the soul to the body" (Langer 1960, 107). The most respected British authority on the Nile in later nine­ teenth century was Samuel Baker. In his view, a power which controlled the Sudan would be able to divert the waters of the Nile with devastating consequences for

Egypt. In 1884 he wrote: "Should a civilized . . . enemy be in possession of that point (Khartum), the water of the

Rahad, Binder, Blue Nile and Atbara Rivers could be diver­ ted from their course and disbursed throughout the deserts, to the utter ruin and complete destruction of

Egypt proper" (Langer 1960, 106).

As long as the Mahdi controlled the Sudan, the Brit­ ish were not worried about immediate Nile diversion since the British did not think that the Sudanese were capable of such action. Yet, Britain felt it should guard the

Upper Nile against conquest by any European power and this goal became the keystone of British diplomacy in Africa

(Langer 1960, 108). This goal also increased in impor­ tance because of the decline of British influence in the 170

Ottoman government and the decline in the Ottoman power.

Salisbury was among the first to recognize the new

situation. His opinion is significant since "[f]rom 1885

until 1900 the foreign policy of Britain was built on the

concepts and designs of Lord Salisbury" (Robinson and Gal­

lagher 1961, 255). In the face of Franco-Russian cooper­

ation and the build-up of their respective navies, Salis­

bury, in June 1892, rejected as "a policy of false preten­

ses . . . the protection of Constantinople from Russian

conquest" (Sanderson 1965, 100). The Admiralty came to

the same conclusion in February 1896 and recommended that

Alexandria be developed as a naval base to meet the Rus­

sian threat. This implied "the absolute and permanent

occupation of Egypt, and the determination to hold it

against all comers!" (Sanderson 1965, 250).

The British made an explicit claim to the Nile Valley

in the early 1890s, based on Salisbury’s concurrence with expert opinion about the importance of the Nile: "Any

European power established on the Upper Nile would have

Egypt in its grip" (Andrew 1968, 41). By the time of the

Anglo-German Agreement of 1890, Germany had recognized the

British claim to the entire Nile Valley (Robinson and

Gallagher 1961, 294; Sanderson 1965, 64). In the Anglo-

Congolese Treaty of 1894, Britain leased the former

Egyptian Sudanese provinces of the Bahi— el-Ghazelle and 171

Equatoria in an attempt to prevent the French from sending expeditions into those territories (Robinson and Galla­ gher, 1961, 330). France protested the treaty and persis­ tent rumors in Europe had the French sending expeditions to the Bahr-el-Ghazelle.

In response, Edward Grey, British Permanent Under

Secretary for Foreign Affairs, on 28 March 1895, made to the House of Commons the so called Grey Declaration:

I stated the other day that . . . the British and Egyptian spheres of influence covered the whole of the Nile waterway . . . [0]ur claims and the view of the Government with regard to them are fully and clearly known to the French Government . . . [therefore] the advance of a French expedition under secret instructions right from the other side of Africa, into a territory over which our claims have been known for so long, would be not merely an inconsistent and unexpected act, but it must be perfectly well known to the French Government that it would be an unfriendly act, and would be so viewed by England (Temperly and Penson 1938, 502-503).

Salisbury accepted the Grey Declaration’s claims issuing the statement which Monson read to French Foreign

Minister Gabriel Hanotaux on 10 December 1897:

Her Majesty’s Government must not to be under­ stood to admit that any other European Power than Great Britain has any claim to occupy any part of the Valley of the Nile. The views of the British Government upon this matter were plainly stated in Parliament by Sir Edward Grey 172

. . . and were finally communicated to the French Government at the time, Her Majesty’s present Government entirely adhere to the lan­ guage that was on this occasion employed by their predecessors (Lowe 1967, 117).

This was the position of the British government in

March, 1896 when it ordered the reconquest of the Sudan

from the Mahdi and, in July 1898, on the eve of the Fash­

oda Crisis, when it decided to claim the entire Sudan in

the name of Egypt and Britain (Robinson and Gallagher

1961, 346; Sanderson 1965, 332). The only way Britain

felt it could safeguard its acquisitions of north and

central Sudan and therefore guard Egypt and the security of the Empire, the core British goal since Disraeli’s government of 1874 (Petrie 1948, 255; Moon 1927, 36-38;

Hobsbawm 1988, 68-69), was for it to threaten France over the southern Sudan, the place where the French challenge to the British in the Sudan had occurred (Sanderson 1965,

268).

Threat to French Goals

The French goals threatened during the Fashoda Crisis were French control of Egypt or at least the expulsion of

Britain from Egypt, thereby protecting the French colonial empire in Africa. Taylor’s sardonic analysis that "the

French wanted only some compensation for renouncing the 173 legacy that Bonaparte had failed to bequeath to them"

(Taylor 1954, 380) is completely accurate. The goal of expelling the British from Egypt may have appeared remote at the time of Fashoda, but it motivated French decision­ makers from 1882 until the French acceptance of the Brit­ ish occupation in 1904.

After refusing the British challenge of war in 1840° over Egypt, the French government attempted to restore its influence through loans to the Egyptian Government and by construction of the Suez Canal. The opening of the Canal in 1869 promised a permanent position of influence for

France in Egypt while British and French loans and result­ ing Egyptian bankruptcy led to Dual Financial Control.

The importance France placed on Egypt was commented on by the U.S. Consul in Cairo on 8 July 1879. Farman observed :

France . . . since the time of the first Napole­ on, has considered itself as having rights in . . . Egypt . . . superior to those of the other European Powers .... This has been a nation­ al idea which has not been affected by the various changes in the form of its government (Sanderson 1965, 114).

Through the accidents of French domestic politics and the inability of the Charles de Freycinet ministry to

° See Chapter Three passim. 174

create a broad-based coalition in favor of French military

intervention, Britain had established sole control in

Egypt in 1882 (Robinson and Gallagher 1961, 113-119).

Part of the reason for French acquiescence was repeated

assurances by the British Government that its occupation

of Egypt would be temporary (Rolo 1969, 43).

It proved not to be. French threats against the

Ottoman Empire led to the Empire's refusal to ratify the

Anglo-Ottoman Convention of May 1887 which would have

provided for Britain to evacuate Egypt in three years

while reserving the right of reentry (Dawson 1923, 244).

France’s threats ultimately made the British occupation

more permanent.

As for French concerns for a colonial empire in Af­

rica, Jules Ferry established the political legitimacy of

imperialism for France in the 1880s and led the way while

prime minister® by annexing Tunis in 1881 (Moon 1927, 42).

In Ferry’s view, the stakes were high: "Colonization is

for France a question of life and death: either France

becomes a great African power, or . . . she will be no

more than a secondary European power; she will count for

about as much in the world as Greece or Romania in Europe"

(Seaman 1955, 146).

® Ferry was Prime Minister from September 1880 to November 1881 and from February 1883 to March 1885 (Moon 1927, 43). 175

French exploration in West Africa had sparked inter­

est in Africa and helped lay the groundwork for a broad

based imperialist political coalition which Ferry did much

to develop. By the 1890s, the colonialist political

influence was so strong that French public opinion gener­

ally accepted the idea of an African French Empire from

the Atlantic Ocean to the Red Sea. According to Gabriel

Hanotaux, French Foreign Minister,all French expendi­

tures in Africa in the later nineteenth century were

geared for this goal (Langer 1960, 125-126). To complete

this objective, the Nile Valley and Ethiopia would have to

be annexed by France (Moon 1929, 139).

Delcassé, as Under Secretary for the Colonies and

later as Colonial Minister''^ was instrumental to the

French imperial dream, seeing colonies as crucial to the

economic well-being of France.’®

Europe is stifling within her present boun­ daries, with production everywhere outstripping demand. Its peoples are therefore driven by necessity to seek new markets far away, and what more secure markets can a nation possess than countries placed under its influence? (Andrew

Hanotaux was Foreign Minister from May 1894 to November 1895 and from April 1896 to June 1898 (Schuman 1969, 429).

” Delcassé was Under Secretary for the Colonies from January 1893 to December 1893 and Colonia Minister from May 1894 to January 1895 (Porter 1936, 74-75, 86).

The Colonial Section of the Ministry of Commerce and Industry was made a full-fledged Ministry of Colonies on 20 March 1894 (Porter 1936, 86). 176

1968, 26).

Under his direction French expeditions in west Africa

linked the French Atlantic Ocean coastal colonies with

Algeria thereby acquiring an enormous West African empire

for France (Andrew 1968, 35).

A French engineer's ideas in 1893 prompted a series

of decisions by the French government leading to the

Marchand mission to Fashoda in 1898. Victor Prompt, in

January 1893, delivered a paper to the French Egyptian

Institute arguing that a dam could be built on the White

Nile to destroy Egypt either by drought or flood (Sand­

erson 1965, 142). Delcassé who had received an advance

copy of the paper saw immediately that French control of

the southern Sudan would permit the reopening of the issue

of who would control Egypt by permitting France to threat­

en Egypt (Brown 1969, 26). At a meeting with President

Sardi-Carnot he convinced Colonel Paul-Louis Monteil, who

was given a copy of the paper, to lead an expedition to

the Bahr-el-Ghazelle to occupy Fashoda (Sanderson 1965,

144).

The Monteil Expedition never reached Fashoda because of a rebellion in the French Congo, but the French govern­ ment repeatedly reserved its rights to the Bahr el-

Ghazelle. On 28 February 1895 François Deloncle, a colon- 177

ial 1st in the French Chamber, made a speech in the Chamber

which stated that the aim of French African policy was to

establish a presence on the Upper Nile, thereby effective­

ly pressuring British to respect their pledges to evacuate

Egypt (Langer 1960, 263).

Succeeding French governments protested the preten­

sions of the Grey Declaration and worked against it. On 5

April 1895, Foreign Minister Hanotaux replied to the

British Government: "The position taken by France is

this: the regions in question are under the sovereignty

of the Sultan." If the Sudan was annexed, he said,

Britain and France would "find formulas suited to recon­

cile their interests and satisfy their common aspirations as regards civilisation and progress" (Dawson 1923, 252;

Riker 1929, 58). Hanotaux repeatedly protested against the Grey Declaration in 1897 and 1898 (Dawson 1923, 165;

Giffen 1930, 21, 22).

In fact, the Grey Declaration was the direct cause of the Marchand mission. Marchand used its implied threat to convince the French government to launch a new expedition to Fashoda on 30 November 1895 (Brown 1969, 38-39).

On 7 June 1894, the French Cabinet agreed to encour­ age the Negus Menelik, leader of an independent Ethiopia, to push the western frontier of Ethiopia to the White Nile

(Sanderson 1965, 294). Hanotaux’s strategy was to force 178

Britain to accept a division of the Sudan south of Khar­ toum between France and Ethiopia (Sanderson 1965, 310).

Yet, the French government was unsuccessful in all attempts to claim territory in the Nile River Valley, a failure codified in the Additional Declaration to the West

African Convention signed on 21 March 1899, setting the boundary of French and British control along the watershed of the Congo and Nile Rivers. The declaration effectively denied France all access to the Nile (Sanderson 1965,

371).

Time Constraints

The situation from 25 September to 4 November repre­ sented a foreign policy crisis for Britain and France because of two time constraints. The first came into being when the conflicting claims of both states to the

Sudan were backed by military force and each state’s troops faced the other’s at Fashoda. Like the Olmütz

Crisis, both sides tried to convince the other to withdraw without recourse to war.

The second constraint occurred when Delcassé received

Marchand’s report on 22 October (Sanderson 1965, 348).

Although both sides had threatened war from the onset of the crisis, they were inhibited from using extreme meas­ ures against each other. Delcassé had asked for and 179

obtained the use of British facilities to communicate with

Marchand (Sanderson 1965, 342). Once Delcassé received

Marchand’s report, events moved quickly. On 24 October,

Britain began intensive war preparations. The British

Cabinet met on 27 October and decided to continue and

intensify military preparations while demanding the uncon­

ditional withdrawal of Marchand. The British Navy began

its deployment on 28 October.

Because the Sudan was newly conquered territory,

communication between Fashoda to Cairo by steamer took a

minimum of eight days and steamers did not travel the

route daily (Schuman 1969, 165). The crisis was resolved

two weeks after Delcassé received Marchand’s report, its

duration a direct result of the time it took to communi­

cate between Fashoda to Cairo.

Crisis Comparisons

The Fashoda Crisis occurred after the benchmark year

of 1871 and exemplifies the type of crisis of this period.

The states involved in the conflict demonstrated the

strong nationalism of the post-1871 era. Decisionmakers

perceived that they were acting in a foreign policy cri­ sis, and acted within time constraints. 180

Mass Nationalism

Both governments felt they needed to take account of public opinion during the crisis. France during this crisis was the France of the Third Republic governed by a national legislature elected by universal male suffrage.

Britain also had a mass electorate, the result of a series of electoral reforms beginning with Disraeli’s support of the Great Reform Bill in 1868, doubling the size of the

British electorate.

This concern marked the entire Fashoda dispute. The

Grey Declaration has been called a "foreshadowing" of the age of "diplomacy by public warning" (Brown 1969, 35).

Hanotaux called it "an unscrupulous attempt to assert by parliamentary demonstration a claim which France still hotly disputed" (Sanderson 1965, 217).

Both countries issued official transcripts of the diplomatic correspondence concerning the dispute during the Fashoda Crisis, the British Blue Books and France’s

Yellow Book. The publication increased public interest in the controversy, particularly in Britain, and made it more difficult to compromise. It occasioned a flood of politi­ cal speeches in Britain from both Government and Opposi­ tion speakers. For instance, Rosebery’s speech of 12

October proclaimed Liberal Party support of Salisbury’s

Conservative Party’s position and declared "Behind the 181 policy of the government is the united strength the na­ tion. No government that attempted to recede from or alter with that policy would last a week" (Moon 1927,

153). Monson complained on 21 October that the "ostenta­ tious criticisms and disquisitions of the most influential

London newspapers" was making "the task of diplomacy, so far as [it] is concerned with keeping the peace, more difficult than ever" (Brown 1969, 110), making compromise less acceptable to public opinion. Salisbury wrote to

Queen Victoria during the crisis: "No offer of territor­ ial concession on our part would be endured by public opinion here" (Langer 1960, 556).

Delcassé was no less concerned with public opinion in his country. Throughout the crisis, he warned Monson that a new French government would be less willing to compro­ mise than he was. Backed as they were by public opinion,

Delcassé used his opponents as a bargaining tool with the

British. It failed because the British thought they could easily defeat France.

Both Salisbury and Delcassé were more amenable to compromise than were most of their compatriots. Yet, rather than working at cross purposes to their compat­ riots, as happened in the Anglo-French Crisis of 1840, they used the threat of their respective war parties to wring concessions from the opposing government. Delcassé 182 and Salisbury each used the opposition to their policy for compromise to strengthen the bargaining position of their states in the crisis.

Duration of Crisis

The Fashoda Crisis occurred over a shorter period than the previous three case studies discussed, but over a longer period than the two succeeding case studies to be discussed. This is a direct result of the increased use of the telegraph in diplomacy and the increased speed of mobilization. Although governments did not communicate directly by telegraph in the crisis, their communications still took less time than in earlier crises. Monson always communicated with Delcassé the same day or the day immediately following the day he received instruction from the British government. Courcel would usually speak with the foreign minister of his host country the same day or the day after he received a telegraph from his government.

Mobilization was also more quickly accomplished compared with earlier crises. Britain began major war preparations on 24 October and sent orders to the Fleet on

28 October to take war deployment positions. The crisis caught France worse prepared than the British; it might not have been "ready" after three months of preparations.

By contrast, the British Navy was ready to go to war 183

against France a week after it began intensive war prepar­

ation.

Both sides had achieved their maximum readiness in a

relatively short amount of time. Neither side could

maintain combat readiness indefinitely and the crisis was

resolved within a week of its attainment.

Perception of Crisis

During the 1898 crisis, decisionmakers of both coun­

tries took part in explicit crisis bargaining, using

diplomatic warnings, mobilization, and the threat of war

to back their positions. Delcassé and Salisbury also used

relative weaknesses within their respective political sys­ tems as a way to maneuver concessions from the other side.

Work with us, each said, or face the prospect of an even more hostile advisory.

Both Salisbury and Delcassé anticipated a crisis before it began: in Salisbury’s case, long before. As the British government watched the progress of Kitchener’s army in the Sudan, Salisbury wrote Cromer on 29 October

1897. "If we get to Fashoda, the diplomatic crisis will be something to remember and the 'What next?’ will be a very interesting question" (Langer 1960, 549). As early as October 1897 "Salisbury had foreseen and was prepared for the likely course of events" (Albrecht-Carrie 1970, 184

277).

Salisbury worked to reduce or eliminate conflict with

other Powers so that by the time a crisis did erupt,

France would be isolated. When the British Cabinet wanted

to issue an ultimatum to Russia to vacate Port Arthur,

China, Salisbury refused. "I don’t think we carry enough

guns to fight [the Russians] and the French as well . . .

In six months’ time . . . we shall be on the verge of war

with France; I can’t afford to quarrel with Russia now,"

Salisbury wrote to his daughter in March 1898 (Sanderson

1965, 324).

Salisbury headed off a slight possibility of a

Franco-German partnership in 1898 by negotiating the

Anglo-German Convention of 30 August 1898 which delimited

the two countries’ spheres of interest in southern Africa

(Taylor 1954, 378-379). British-Italian relations had

always been good, providing Italy some defense against a

French attack. Relations were sufficiently strong for the

Italian Foreign Minister, Admiral Canevero, to tell the

British Ambassador on 26 October 1898 that Italy would

remain neutral or side with Britain in case of a war with

France (Albertini 1952, 105).is

IS Austria-Hungary was sufficiently uninterested in the Nile Valley and unimportant in Europe that no diplomatic fence-mending was attempted by either Britain or France. 185

Salisbury’s orders of 2 August 1898 to Kitchener warned the commander that he should avoid armed conflict with any French expedition he met, doing nothing that might be interpreted as recognition of a French claim to any part of the Sudan (Grenville 1970, 222; Giffen 1930,

35; Rolo 1969, 84).

Del cassé anticipated the crisis later than did Salis­ bury, having only become the Minister of Foreign Affairs on 28 June 1898. In a conversation with Monson on 7

September, Del cassé raised the possibility that Marchand and Kitchener might meet so both countries could "prevent a collision" (Grenville 1970, 225; Griffen 1930, 34;

Langer 1960, 555-556).

On the same day of the interview with Monson, Del- cassé, in an attempt to forestall a crisis, wrote the

Minister of Colonies, Georges Trouillot, requesting that the Marchand mission be ordered to stop its progress short of Fashoda (Brown 1969, 85, 127) in order to avoid a confrontation. After receiving news of the peaceful meeting of Marchand and Kitchener, Del cassé wrote to his wife: "I can at least congratulate myself for having taken the first step . . . in opening negotiations and having thus perhaps prevented bloodshed" (Andrew 1968,

93). Del cassé’s concern to avoid a crisis was real. On

19 September 1898, he wrote that "a bloody conflict whose 186

consequences would be difficult to limit" might arise, and

he did all he could to avert it.

Conclusion

The Fashoda Crisis of 1898 was a crisis because the

meeting of British and French troops in the Sudan threat­

ened to lead to war between Britain and France, threatened

the high priority goals of Britain and France, and placed

time constraints on the decisionmakers.

Compared with previous crises, the time constraints

were of shorter duration because of the daily use of the

telegraph by the foreign ministers of Britain and France

and to the quickened pace of mobilization. The Fashoda

Crisis was also characterized by a stronger nationalism

and a perception of crisis which guided decisionmakers.

Both countries’ decisionmakers, while desiring peace, threatened war and did so to strengthen their bargaining positions. Salisbury and Delcassé were both legitimately concerned with public opinion in their respective coun­ tries and the weight given to public opinion made compro­ mise more difficult and war more likely. Both decision­ makers also recognized that a crisis would ensue if and when their forces met in the Sudan. Salisbury practiced crisis deterrence in an attempt to forestall the crisis.

At the same time, he insured through normal diplomacy that 187 if and when their forces did meet, the other Great Powers would be neutral or side with Britain. Delcassé attempted to forestall the crisis by having Marchandas orders with­ drawn— too late it turned out, to avert the crisis. He also did what he could to avert a conflict through his conversations with Monson before 25 September. CHAPTER SEVEN

THE MUNICH CRISIS^

In political life there is no such thing as principles of foreign policy. The programmatic principles of my party are its doctrine on the racial problem and its fight against pacifism and internationalism. But foreign policy in itself is merely a means to an end. In ques­ tions of foreign policy I shall never admit that I am tied by anything.

Adolf Hitler*

INTRODUCTION

Adolf Hitler, as Chancellor of Germany and leader of

the Nazi Party showed himself to be an extraordinarily

flexible foreign policy tactician, particularly between

1933 to 1938. He had broad strategic goals, territorial

expansion not the least among them, but he was alert to

the way in which changing conditions create opportunities

All of the authors who discussed this crisis refer to it as the Munich Crisis, naming it after the city which resolved the crisis. A more accurate name would be the Sudetenland Crisis, for it was a dispute over this region of Czechoslovakia which formed the core of the crisis.

* This quotation was attributed to Adolf Hitler during a libel suit in Munich before he became Chancellor by Konrad Heiden ("Introduction," page xx) in Hitler's Mein Kamof. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company, 1943.

188 189 where none existed before. Hitler saw the period from

1933 to 1938 as critical to Germany’s future because it was in those years that Germany was most vulnerable to any exercise of French or British military might.

German rearmament during these years was substantial having started from nearly nothing because of the disarma­ ment provisions of the Versailles Treaty forced on Germany as a result of its defeat in World War I. In the summer and early autumn of 1938 the leading generals of the

German Army believed that Germany would easily be defeated in a war against France and Czechoslovakia if Germany’s territorial demand for Czechoslovakia’s Sudetenland region led to war with those states. But during that period

Hitler was convinced until very late in September that neither Great Britain nor France would come to the aid of

Czechoslovakia if it was invaded by Germany. He based this opinion on his correct assessment of the French and

British leaders of the time.

Hitler was prepared and willing to threaten war to achieve his goal of German territorial aggrandizement and believed that he could force the Western leaders to back down indefinitely. Neville Chamberlain, Prime Minister of

Great Britain, had an extremely rigid and unyielding world view and believed that war among the Great Powers would be a disaster for Western civilization. He also believed that personal diplomacy could settle troublesome issues 190

between states and create a long term structure for Euro­

pean peace. The meetings between these two men in Septem­

ber 1938 provide the milestones of the crisis, while their

goals and tactics illuminate it.

In the following chapter,the situation in Europe pre­

ceding the crisis will be sketched. The events of the crisis will then be presented to demonstrate that the situation increased the possibility of war, threatened high priority goals of decisionmakers, and placed time constraints on the decisionmakers. Finally, differences between this and the other crises will be discussed.

The Setting

The Munich Crisis is the first post-World War I foreign policy crisis to be examined in this dissertation.

It reflected the fear of war by state decisionmakers and their hope that multilateral conference diplomacy would resolve matters short of war.

The use of multilateral conference diplomacy by the

Great Powers to resolve crises had become common by 1914.

Diplomacy, in fact, had replaced war as a way to resolve different crises which arose after 1898, such as the First

Moroccan Crisis of 1905, the Bosnia Annexation Crisis of

1908, and the Second Moroccan Crisis of 1911 (Taylor 1954,

437-440, 451-456, 466-473). When a crisis between Serbia and Austria-Hungary in 1914 threatened to lead to general 191

European war, it was natural for Sir Edward Grey, Prime

Minister of Great Britain, to suggest a conference of the

Great Powers to resolve it (Taylor 1954, 525).

Fears for the destructiveness and totality of war had

helped give form to foreign policy crises after 1871. The

Great War had used newly developed weapons and technolo­

gies to murderous effect. The machine gun, the submarine,

the airplane, and the tank had been used for the first

time in European warfare, and thirteen million people had

died as a result.* Those dead represented an entire ge­

neration gone, and their loss instilled a deep hatred for war among the peoples of Europe. In Britain it had pro­ duced a horror of the destructiveness and waste of war which guided both mass and elite opinion towards unilat­ eral disarmament and a desire never to go to war again.

It also caused a somewhat guilty sentiment that the Vei— sail les Treaty of 1919 ending World War I had done an injustice to Germany and that revisions should be allowed to normalize relations among the Great Powers. The treaty forced Germany to abolish its air force, restrict the size of its army and navy, and demilitarize part of its ter­ ritory (Taylor 1979, 76, 200, 204, 210-211, 215, 222-224,

242-245, 251-252). A second reaction was an odd amalgama-

0 For a discussion of the use of these innovations, see Fuller (1961); Ropp (1959); McNeill (1982); and Howard (1976). 192

tion of elitism, statism, militarism, and nationalism,

which constituted the mass based neo-mercantilism called

fascism. The losers in World War I and those who felt

betrayed by victory turned to fascism to restore their

lost prestige and justify their disregard of restrictions

in the treaty (Howard 1976, 118).*

Fascism and Nazism shared the traits of elitism, mil­

itarism, statism, nationalism, a disdain for the democrac­

ies, and a hostility towards the Versailles Treaty and consequent Revisionist aims. Benito Mussolini, Prime

Minister of Italy, and Hitler recognized each others’ mutual ideologies and national interests, and these became the basis of their Pact of Steel of 22 May 1938. The treaty bound each country to "come immediately to its side as ally and support it with all its military forces on land, sea, and in the air" if the other became "involved in hostilities with another Power or Powers" (Taylor 1979,

974).

This Pact was part.of Hitler’s tactic of the 1930s to enhance German power. Upon becoming Chancellor in January

1933, Hitler embarked on a programme of rearmament, re- mi 1 itarization, and territorial expansion. The size of the

The literature on fascism is extensive. The definition of fascism used in this chapter was culled from the following works: De Felice (1976); Germini (1980); Hayes (1973); Gregor (1969) and (1974); Joes (1978; Lan- dauer (1983); Mosse (1968); Nolte (1968); and Rossi (1968). 193 army was tripled, an air force created, the term of mili­ tary service extended, and conscription re-introduced

(Taylor 1979, 96-97; Bullock 1962, 332-334). By September

1937, Hitler had become emboldened by the mild response to his rearmament from the Western Powers and assured of

Italy’s support. He moved to attain what "had always been one of his first objectives in foreign policy," and a necessary preliminary for the eastward expansion of Ger­ many, the annexation of Austria by Germany or Anschluss

(Bullock 1962, 438).

In response to a series of actions by Hitler designed to undermine Austrian independence, Kurt Von Schuschnigg, the Austrian Chancellor, announced on 9 March 1938 that a plebiscite would be held on 12 March to decide the ques­ tion of Austrian independence from Germany. Clearly the plebiscite threatened Hitler’s entire program of Leben- sraum (territorial expansion) and he began preparing to invade Austria, a move which prompted its government to cancel the plebiscite and resign.

The new government "requested" German troops to "re­ store order" and on 13 March 1938 the Austrian cabinet signed a law making Austria a province of Germany (Toiand

1976, 445-446, 448, 457), thus providing the political setting for the Munich Crisis. Czechoslovakia’s Sudeten­ land bordered Germany and Austria, and contained a restive and sizable German population, in some places a majority. 194

Since 1935, the German Foreign Office had provided regular

subsidies to the Sudeten German Party (SGP) (Bullock 1962,

442). And Konrad Henlein, the leader of the SGP, received

news from Hitler that on 16 March 1938, he and his party

were under the orders of the German government (Wheeler-

Bennet 1948, 45).

That spring, while Hitler increased the pressure on

Czechoslovakia in the Sudetenland and continued to plan

against that state, the British and French governments

were pulling away from a commitment to Czechoslovakia.

Chamberlain, who took the lead in a new policy committed

to diplomatic solutions to resolve tensions in Europe, had

decided that neither Britain nor France should aid Czecho­

slovakia in case of war. In a letter to his sister, Ida,

on 20 March 1938, he observed:

"[y]ou only have to look at the map to see that nothing France or we could do could possibly save Czechoslovakia from being overrun by the Germans if they wanted to do it . . . [w]e could not help Czechoslovakia — she would simply be a pretext for going to war with Germany . . . I have therefore abandoned any idea of giving guarantees to Czechoslovakia or the French in connection with her obligations to that country (Loewenheim 1965, 7).

His position became the British policy following a series of foreign policy committee and Cabinet meetings held from 18 to 22 March (Rock 1977, 6-7). On the other hand, France had a military alliance with Czechoslovakia requiring France to come to its aid in the face of unpro- 195

voked aggression. Chamberlain felt the Czechoslovakian

government should come to an agreement with the Sudeten

Germans to remove the Sudetenland as a casus belliJ At

Anglo-French talks in London on 28-29 April, both coun­

tries agreed to press Czechoslovakia to make concessions

to Sudeten Germans.

Soon after Sir Ivone Kirkpatrick, First Secretary of

the British Embassy in Germany, asked for a statement of

German aims so "the British government could bring such

pressure to bear on Prague that the Czechoslovakian gov­

ernment would be compelled to accede to the German wishes"

(Taylor 1979, 388-389). Czechoslovakia did begin negotia­

tions with the Sudeten Germans as violent clashes between

them and the Czech police became more frequent, but negot­

iations were broken off because of the May Crisis on 19-20

May, when the Czech government became alarmed over the

reports of German troop concentrations near their border

and ordered partial mobilization (Rock 1966, 96).

On 21 May, Neville Henderson, British Ambassador to

Germany threatened German Foreign Minister Joachim von

Ribbentrop that "His Majesty’s government could not guar­ antee that they would not be forced by circumstances to become involved" if France attacked Germany in fulfilling

Henlien and the SGP at first had demanded redress of specific "injustices," but by April 1938, they demanded autonomy for the Sudeten Germans. 196

treaty obligations to Czechoslovakia (Taylor 1979, 392).

The French Ambassador to Germany, André Francois-Poncet,

made similar warnings to Ribbentrop. In Paris, Premier

Edouard Daladier warned the German Ambassador that if Gei—

many attacked Czechoslovakia, "the French would have to

fight if they did not wish to be dishonored" (Taylor 1979,

392-393). On the same day the German minister to Czecho­

slovakia asked for permission to burn secret documents,

the usual preliminary to war (Sontag 1971, 340).

However, the May Crisis ended on 23 May, when the

German government denied any hostile intent toward Czecho­

slovakia, said there had been no unusual troop movements,

and accused Czechoslovakia of knowingly spreading false

rumors. However, the world press concluded that as Hitler

had been forced to back down, it was a major diplomatic

defeat for Hitler. He viewed Czechoslovakia as the cause

of this humiliation (Taylor 1979, 393,395).

Hitler's reaction was rage at Czechoslovakia for

causing him this humiliation. He told his generals:

"[i]t is my unshakable will that Czechoslovakia shall be wiped off the map," and on 30 May signed a directive for

Operation Green, the war plan for an invasion of Czecho­ slovakia. It began: "[i]t is my unalterable decision to destroy Czechoslovakia by military action within the foreseeable future," a period interpreted by the High

Command as ". . . October, 1938 at the latest" (Taylor 197

1979, 394-395). General Alfred Jodl, chief of operations, wrote :

The [earlier] intention of the Führer not to touch the Czech problem as yet is changed be­ cause of the Czech strategic troop concentration of May 21, which occurs without any German threat and without the slightest cause for it. Because of Germany's restraint, its consequences lead to a loss of prestige for the Führer which he is not willing to suffer again (Wheeler-Ben- nett 1948, 61).

Meanwhile, pressed by the British and French govern­ ments, the Czech government accepted demands of the SGP, the Karlsbad Demands, as the basis for negotiations to settle the dispute with the Sudeten Germans (Wheeler-

Bennett 1948, 63-64).

Weeks went by without agreement and Edward Lord Hali­ fax, the British Foreign Minister, suggested an indepen­ dent British conciliator to mediate between the Sudeten

Germans and Czechoslovakia (Sontag 1971, 432). On 18

July, Captain Fritz Wiedemann, Hitler's personal adjutant, warned Halifax that Hitler's patience with the negotia­ tions was waning and, if any Sudeten Germans were harmed.

Hitler would take immediate action (Wheeler-Bennett 1948,

70-71). Following agreement by the French government to the mediation proposal, the Czechoslovak government form­ ally requested a British mediator on 23 July (Thorne 1967,

68), and Lord Runciman was chosen (Wheeler-Bennett 1948,

74-75). However, he accomplished nothing during two 198

months of mediation and on 7 September, on the pretext of

an incident involving a Czech policeman and a Sudeten

demonstrator, the SGP leaders broke off negotiations with

the Czech government (Wheeler-Bennett 1948, 91-92).

In one of its last attempts to deter a crisis, the

British government via an editorial in the London Times,

(considered by all of Europe to be a British government mouthpiece), proposed that Czechoslovakia cede the Sudeten

to Germany. This suggestion astonished many, since nei­

ther the German government nor the SGP had ever even suggested it. The goal of British policy was crisis deterrence, but it failed.

On 12 September, Hitler closed a rally of the German

Nazi Party with a violent speech denouncing Czechoslovakia and demanding self-determination for the Sudeten Germans.

This event significantly increased the probability of war and signalled the onset of the Munich Crisis.®

The Crisis

Hitler’s speech not only threatened to lead to war between Germany and Britain, France, and Czechoslovakia, but also represented a threat to the goals of the count-

Brecher, et al., also date the onset of the Munich Crisis from Hitler’s Nuremberg speech of 12 September 1938. See Michael Brecher, Jonathan Wilkenfeld, and Shelia Moser Crises in the Twentieth Century. New York: Pergammon Press, 1988, page 166. 199

ries involved while placing time constraints on the de­ cision-makers. These three characteristics predominated between 12 September and 30 September 1938.

Threat of War

Hitler's speech triggered rioting and attempts to seize public buildings in the Sudeten. Unrest had become virtual insurrection by the night of 12 September and the next morning the Czech government imposed martial law and quietly mobilized the army (Thorne 1967, 71-72). Worried that self-determination of the Sudeten Germans would lead to the annexation of Czechoslovakia by Germany, the French

Cabinet met all day on 13 September to decide how to react to Hitler’s demands. With a divided Cabinet, Daladier asked British Ambassador Sir Eric Phipps to request the

British government to negotiate with Hitler on both states’ behalf, striving for the best deal for Czecho­ slovakia, while also averting war (Wheeler-Bennett 1948,

101-104).

The British government believed German troops might invade Czechoslovakia at any time (Feiling 1970, 361), while Henderson, from Berlin, telephoned his government to say that "failing immediate grant of autonomy to the

Sudetens [Hitler] will march" (Taylor 1979, 677). Cham­ berlain proposed meeting face to face with Hitler to seek a peaceful solution and as he later told Parliament, "I 200 decided that the time had come to put into operation a

plan which I had had in mind for a considerable period as

a last resort . . . I resolved to go to Germany to inter­ view Herr Hitler and find out in personal conversation whether there was any hope of saving the peace" (MacLeod

1962, 233-234). He went so far as to wire Hitler per­ sonally: "[i]n view of increasing critical situation, I propose to come over at once to see you, with a view to trying to find peaceful solution. I propose to come across by air, and am ready to start tomorrow" (Feiling

1970, 363). Chamberlain believed that the proposed meet­ ing with Hitler "should be tried just when things looked the blackest . . . On Tuesday night [13 September] I saw that the moment had come and must be taken, if I was not to be too late" (Feiling 1970, 363).

Chamberlain reported on his 15 September meeting with

Hitler to the British Cabinet on 16 September. "If he had not gone he thought that hostilities would have started by now," according to Thomas Inskip, Coordinator of Defense, who was present at the Cabinet session (Taylor 1979, 749).

Duff Cooper, First Lord of the Admiralty, also be­ lieved the possibility of war had increased and argued for the mobilization of the fleet on 13 September as a way to preserve peace (Taylor 1979, 678). The Daily Herald rote of the upcoming 15 September meeting between Chamberlain and Hitler: "It is an effort to stave off war which has 201 seemed to be growing dreadfully near" (Wheeler-Bennett

1948, 107).

When Chamberlain met Hitler at Berchtesgaden on 15

September, Hitler repeatedly threatened war with Czecho­ slovakia. Paul Schmidt, Hitler’s interpreter, recorded

Hitler as saying: "The return to the Reich of three million Germans in Czechoslovakia he (the Fürher) would make possible at all costs. He would face any war and even the risk of a world war for this." Further, Hitler

"had made his intentions plain at Nuremberg [on 12 Septem­ ber] and it was a mistake to assume that these had been merely empty phrases. He could in no circumstances tolei— ate this persecution of Germans, and he was firmly re­ solved to act quickly" (Loewenheim 1965, 23, 23-24).

Claiming that the Czechs had wantonly killed 300 Sude­ tens,^ Hitler told Chamberlain: "I do not care whether there is a world war or not, I am determined to settle it

[the Sudeten issue] soon" (Taylor 1979, 742). Chamberlain responded by asking why Hitler had agreed to the meeting if he had already decided on this course of action. If

Britain would agree to allow Germany to annex the Sudeten,

Hitler replied, then he would continue the dialogue with

Britain. Chamberlain said he personally agreed in prin­ ciple to cession but would need to consult with his gover-

^ Hitler’s charge was untrue. 202 nment before continuing negotiations, and asked for an assurance that the situation would not "deteriorate" in the meantime. As Schmidt reported. Hitler "was prepared to give an assurance that . . . he would not give the order to set the military machine in motion during the next few days, unless a completely impossible situations should arise" (Loewenheim 1965, 26-27).

Chamberlain returned to Britain the following day on

16 September. Late that evening he reported to King

George VI that only his meeting with Hitler had prevented an attack on Czechoslovakia, and again to the full Cabinet the next morning repeated that he had just been in time to forestall an invasion. Chamberlain asked for quick decis­ ions from the Cabinet since "a man as excitable as Hitler might easily be carried away by some unfounded report"

(Taylor 1979, 748-749).

During the interlude Germany continued war prepar­ ations. On 17 September Hitler authorized the establish­ ment of a Sudeten German Freikorps and arranged for its supply by the German High Command. On 18 September the

Army presented its plans for the invasion of Czechoslovak­ ia (Bullock 1962, 456). Hitler told the Hungarian Prime

Minister and Foreign Minister on 21 September, that he was

"determined to settle the Czech question at the risk of world war ..." and he believed military action would provide "the only satisfactory solution" (Noakes and 203

Pridham 1975, 545). Meanwhile, the number of German

border guards on the Czech frontier was increased and an accumulation of empty railroad cars was begun to be ready to transport troops and supplies by the end of September

(Taylor 1979, 476).

The threat of war weighed heavily on British and

French leaders. At the first full cabinet meeting on 17

September called to discuss Hitler's Berchtesgaden de­ mands, Lord Halifax summed up: "If the alternative to acceptance of the Prime Minister’s proposal [acceptance of

Czech cession of the Sudetenland to Germany] was war, then what was the justification for war?" (Taylor 1979, 751).

On 18 September, Chamberlain told Daladier and French

Foreign Minister Georges Bonnet that once Hitler decided to invade Czechoslovakia, "nothing could be done to stop him" (Taylor 1979, 779). As the only to way to deter violence, Chamberlain proposed agreeing to Hitler’s demand for German annexation of the Sudetenland, a plan accepted by Daladier and Bonnet for France and later by Czecho­ slovakia in the face of Anglo-French threats to abandon it to Hitler. In the words of Czech journalist Hubert Ripka, a close friend of Benes, "It was generally felt that it would be an inadmissible adventure to embark on a struggle with Germany in the state of absolute isolation, to which we had been reduced by the defection of our Western friends and allies" (Taylor 1979, 791-792). 204

Chamberlain met Hitler at Godesberg on 22 September,

and told him of Czech acceptance of the Anglo-French plan,

but Hitler rejected it as wholly inadequate in view of an

extreme need to resolve the issue quickly. Kirkpatrick

recorded Hitler demanding that "a solution must be found

one way, or another, either by agreement or by force . . .

[T]he problem must be settled definitely and completely by

the 1st October at the latest" (Loewenheim 1965, 31).

Hitler then demanded the evacuation of the Sudeten by all

Czech civilian and military officials and its occupation

by German troops by that date. A plebiscite would be held

later to determine the final border, he said. The alter­ native was a military solution, he added.

Chamberlain’s response was to point out that a mili­ tary solution which would involve loss of German lives would be unnecessary if Herr Hitler could achieve his goals by peaceful means. Furthermore, Hitler "would not get a good friendship with England if he resorted to force" (Loewenheim 1965, 35).

Hitler replied that "an irreparable incident could occur at any moment." For instance, "if Prague fell under

Bolshevik influence or if hostages continued to be shot" he said, he "would intervene militarily at once." Hitler said he would hold his army in check as long as the con­ versations continued but said he had no faith "that a peaceful solution could be reached." That "was why he had 205 made his military preparations and Germany was ready today to move at a moment's notice" (Loewenheim 1965, 34-36).

In Britain, an inner Cabinet made up of Halifax,

Chancellor of the Exchequer John Simon, and Samuel Hoare of the Home Office, met throughout 22 September. Exaspet— ated at being excluded and having no news. Duff Cooper sent the group a message that evening: "The country might be within twenty-four hours of war and we were not being given the latest information which was available to some of our colleagues" (Taylor 1979, 811).

The French government meanwhile advised the inner

Cabinet to join in withdrawing previous advice to the

Czechs not to mobilize, which it did, followed by a gener­ al mobilization by Czechoslovakia announced at 10:30 p.m. on 23 September. Later that afternoon. Duff Cooper, on his own authority, cancelled all leave for the British navy, ordered all crews to full strength, placed the

Mediterranean Fleet on a war-footing with the addition of

1,900 men and ordered the Suez Canal defenses manned

(Taylor 1979, 812, 813). On the same day, the French government ordered partial mobilization (Loewenheim 1965,

82).

At the same hour the Czech government announced it was mobilizing its army, Chamberlain and Hitler met and

Hitler presented a written demand, the Godesberg Memoran­ dum, for the evacuation of a sizeable portion of the 206

Sudeten by all Czech officials between 26 and 28 September

and release by the Czech government of all German politi­

cal prisoners. German troops would occupy the evacuated

areas and a plebiscite would be held by 25 November to

decide the new frontier between Germany and Czechoslovakia

(Taylor 1979, 817-818).

When Chamberlain asked him if the memorandum was

really his last word. Hitler quoted a German proverb, "An

end even with terror, is better than terror without an

end," and said he "must take appropriate military measures

to meet the Czech mobilization." Chamberlain said later

he saw "no purpose in negotiating . . . further . . .

since he saw the final wreck of all of his hopes for the

peace of Europe" (Loewenheim 1965, 40).

On the afternoon of 24 September Chamberlain present­

ed to the inner Cabinet the issue as a choice between

accepting the terms of the Godesberg Memorandum or going

to war with Germany. Chamberlain was convinced that if

Hitler’s terms were rejected "Czechoslovakia would be

overrun" (Taylor 1979, 820). The inner Cabinet agreed.

Later the same day, Chamberlain told the full Cabinet that

there was "no chance of getting a peaceful solution on any other lines" (Taylor 1979, 820, 822). The Cabinet agreed that if the demands were rejected then war was quite probable but a majority said they believed the Czechs would reject them, the British public would reject them. 207 and war would occur in spite of any Cabinet decision

(Taylor 1979, 823). The group opinion was so divided that a decision was put off for that day, and then the next.

Meanwhile, the Czech government did reject Hitler's

Godesberg demands, calling them "absolutely and uncon­ ditionally unacceptable" (Wheeler-Bennett 1948, 141). And the French government, which had already partially mobil­ ized its army on 24 September, unanimously rejected Hit­ ler’s terms on the morning of 25 September (Wheeler-Bennet

1948, 141).

Chamberlain then presented his cabinet with a plan to create a commission to resolve the Sudetenland dispute.

If Hitler failed to respond positively he would then be informed that "France would go to war, and that if that happened it seemed certain that we should be drawn in"

(Taylor 1979, 857-858). The Cabinet and Daladier agreed to the plan.

Chamberlain’s proposal was presented by British representatives to Hitler at 5:00 p.m. on 26 September.

When Hitler heard that the Czechs had refused his terms he became angry but promised to hold his troops if Czecho­ slovakia accepted the terms by 2 p.m. on 28 September.

The British representatives agreed among themselves to present the warning of French and British intervention the next morning (Bullock 1962, 461).

That evening Hitler gave an inflammatory speech at 208

the Sportspalast attacking Czechoslovakia, accusing Benes of attempted genocide against Sudeten Germans and claiming that more than 200,000 Sudeten German refugees had fled to

Germany. "I desire to state before the German people that with regard to the problem of the Sudeten Germans my patience is now at an end" he said. "The decision now

lies in his [Benes’s] hands: Peace or War. He will either accept this offer and now at last give to the

Germans their freedom or we will go and fetch this freedom for ourselves . . . we are determined. Now let Mr Benes make his choice" (Loewenheim 1965, 48-49, 51-52).

On 27 September, the day before the date of Hitler’s ultimatum to Czechoslovakia would expire, the British representatives presented Hitler with the prearranged message: "If Germany attacked Czechoslovakia, France

. . . would fulfill her treaty obligations. If that meant that the forces of France became actively engaged in hostilities against Germany, the British Government would feel obliged to support France" (Taylor 1979, 874).

Hitler replied, "It is Tuesday today and by next Monday we shall all be at war" (Hadley 1944, 85). The British rep­ resentatives restated their warning and Hitler, now angry said, "In the event of a rejection of the memorandum, I will smash Czechoslovakia. In six days we will be at war with one another, and only because the Czechs refuse a proposal for the execution of obligations they have al­ 209

ready undertaken. I have made preparations for all emei—

gencies" (Taylor 1979, 874-875).

The British government had already increased its

preparations for war on 26 September by authorizing the

Prime Minister to order full mobilization without a vote

of the Cabinet. On the same day, Halifax issued a press

statement which made public Britain’s commitment to

France: "The German claim to the Sudeten areas has clear­

ly been conceded by the French, British, and Czechoslovak

governments, but if in spite of all efforts made by the

British Prime Minister a German attack is made upon Czech­

oslovakia the immediate result must be that France will be

bound to come to her assistance, and Great Britain and

Russia will certainly stand by France" (Taylor 1979, 862-

863).

After Hitler’s Sportspalast speech on 26 September,

Chamberlain issued a press statement which reflected a belief that war was near and unnecessary. "[I]t seems to me incredible that the peoples of Europe who do not want war with another should be plunged into a bloody struggle over a question on which agreement has already been large­ ly obtained" (Loewneheim 1965, 52). After listening to the speech, Kirkpatrick thought that "Hitler was bent on having his little war" (Loewneheim 1965, 83). William

Bui lit. United States Ambassador to France, telephoned

Washington: "I believe the chances are about ninety-five 210

in a hundred of war beginning midnight Friday" (Toland

1976, 484).

Europe was galvanized by the threat of war. Between

25 and 28 September so many people fled Paris for the

south that roads were jammed and train service out of the

city had to be tripled (Taylor 1979, 878). Workmen began

to dig trenches in London parks near Buckingham Palace.

Gas masks were distributed throughout London on 27 and 28

September (Thorne 1967, 79). On 26 September when the

Italian government received the news of Hitler's ultimatum

Count Galeazzo Ciano, the Italian Foreign Minister wrote

in his diary: "It is war!" (Taylor 1979, 876).

On 27 September at 1:20 p.m. Hitler ordered army

assault units to move to deployment areas and later that

afternoon authorized the mobilization of five regular

divisions on the western front (Taylor 1979, 875).

Only a few hours later, Chamberlain declared a state

of emergency, arranged to send mobilization orders to the

fleet and ordered full mobilization of the Auxiliary Air

Force (Wheelet— Bennet 1948, 151 ). Yet, in a radio broad­

cast the same hour, Chamberlain promised Britons he would work for peace until the first shot.

At 10 a.m. on the following day, 28 September,

Admiral Erich Raeder, Commander-in-Chief of the German

Navy, argued against war with Britain and France because of the lack of preparedness of the Navy. Hermann Goering, 211

Commander-in Chief of the Luftwaffe and the second highest raking official of the Nazi Party, also was urging Hitler to make a settlement (Bullock 1962, 465, 464). In re­ sponse, Hitler wrote Chamberlain, defending his immediate occupation of the Sudeten as a security measure and ending with an implicit request to continue to work for a diplo­ matic solution. Chamberlain replied suggesting yet an­ other meeting: "I cannot believe that you will take the responsibility of starting a world war, which may end civilization, for the sake of a few days’ delay in settling this long-standing problem." Chamberlain also asked Mussolini to support the meeting: "I trust your

Excellency will inform the German Chancellor that you are willing to be represented and urge him to agree to my proposal, which will keep all our peoples out of war"

(Toland 1976, 486).

On the same morning, the French ambassador requested a meeting with Hitler to present new suggestions for a resolution to the crisis. And the Italian ambassador to

Germany told Hitler around 11 a.m. that Mussolini believed

"it would be wise to accept the British proposal and begs you to refrain from mobilization." Hitler responded by promising to delay mobilization for twenty-four hours and agreed to a conference in Munich the next day if Mussolini would attend (Toland 1976, 486-488).

The Munich Conference opened at 1 p.m. on 29 Septem- 212

ber. The Munich Agreement was signed on 30 September at

1:30 a.m., a little over twelve hours later. By its

terms, Czechoslovakia agreed to cede the Sudetenland to

Germany, beginning evacuation 1 October and completing it

by 10 October. An international commission to be formed

would lay down the conditions for the evacuation, deter­

mine additional Sudeten territory of a "preponderantly

German character" to be occupied by German troops, deter­

mine which territories would hold plebiscites, and make

final determination of the frontiers. People of the transferred territories would have a right of immigration

into and out of these territories for six months (Taylor

1979, 50-51). With the signing of the agreement the crisis was resolved.

Threat to High Priority Goals

Germany’s demand for the Sudetenland sparked a crisis because it threatened important goals of Czechoslovakia,

France, and Britain. In turn, those states’ response threatened Hitler’s goals.

Czech Goals

The German demand for the Sudetenland threatened the entire economic and geopolitical basis of the Czech state.

The terms of the Munich Agreement demonstrate the serious­ ness of the threat: Czechoslovakia ended by losing not 213 just its border fortifications and 11,000 square miles of territory but also the bulk of its major industries and

resources. Its rail system was also disrupted. The cession lost Czechoslovakia 66 percent of its coal re­ sources, 70 percent of iron and steel, 80 percent of textiles, 80 percent of cement, 86 percent of chemicals, and 70 percent of electric power supplies (Wheelei— Bennett

1948, 195). The Munich Agreement also stipulated that ethnic minority claims had to be settled before a final guarantee of protection to the new Czech state was issued.

Czechoslovakia was obliged to further cede its Teschen district to Poland and Ruthenia and southern Slovakia to

Hungary (Bullock 1962, 469).

Czechoslovakian President Benes believed his country represented "the key to the whole postwar structure of

Central Europe. If it is touched . . . the peace of

Europe [is] seriously infringed." He believed the corner­ stone of Czech security was the mutual defense treaty with

France and similar treaties with Rumania and Yugoslavia

(Zinner 1953, 107-108). He and Jan Masaryk, Czech Ambas­ sador to Britain, both realized the severity of the threat to their country represented by the Munich Crisis.

In a telephone conversation on 25 September both agreed that Hitler’s Godesberg demands were impossible to accept. As Benes put it, acceptance would mean "we put our whole state into Hitler’s hands." As Masaryk des­ 214

cri bed the threat:

They deprive us of every safeguard for our national existence. We are to yield up large portions of our carefully prepared defenses and admit the German armies deep into our country before we have been able to organize it on the new basis or make any preparations for its de­ fense. Our whole national and economic indepen­ dence would automatically disappear with the acceptance of Herr Hitler’s plan (Taylor 1979, 828-830).

Czech Premier, General Jan Syrovy, in a radio address

to his people, explained government acceptance of the

Munich Agreement, by describing it as a choice "between

the diminution of our territories and the death of our whole nation" (Taylor 1979, 57). In fact, acceptance did

little more than postpone the death of the Czech state.

On 14 March 1939 Hitler met with Emil Hàcha; then Presi­ dent of Czechoslovakia, and threatened to send the Luft­ waffe to destroy Prague unless Hâcha signed an agreement authorizing the German annexation of his country. He did so on 15 March (Noakes & Pridham 1975, 552-553). On the following day Hitler issued the formal decree establishing the German protectorates of Bohemia and Moravia (Taylor

1979, 955).

French Goals

The destruction of its Czech ally shattered the

French security system created at the end of World War I 215

to protect France from Germany. The leaders of France

realized that their victory against Germany in World War I

had been possible only because they had been part of a

military alliance and after the war searched for suitable

allies among the successor states of Eastern Europe,

created out of the disintegration of the Austro-Hungarian

and Russian empires (Challenger 1953, 49-50, 75). The

Franco-Polish mutual assistance pact, followed by a simi­

lar treaty with Poland and Rumania and the Little Entente,

an alliance system which linked Czechoslovakia, Yugo­

slavia, and Rumania by three bilateral treaties, were all

forged in 1921. A Franco-Czech defensive alliance was

concluded in 1924; a Franco-Rumanian defensive alliance was signed in 1926; and a Franco-Yugoslav defensive al­

liance was agreed to in November 1927 (Albrecht-Carrie

1973, 408-409). France also relied on a strict observance of the German reparations and disarmament provisions in the Versailles Treaty of 1919 and on its alliances with the eastern European states to ensure its security.

However, the Great Depression greatly undermined the political unity and cohesiveness of France. Between

November 1929 and June 1936 France had seventeen govern­ ments and a wider rift developed between the right and left, a situation that helped preclude responsible govern­ ment. The foreign policy results were that the Eastern alliances stagnated. The Franco-Soviet Treaty of Mutual 216

Assistance, signed in May 1935, was the only strong for­

eign policy initiative taken during that period. Czecho­

slovakia followed France’s lead, and was the only eastern

European ally to do so, when it signed a mutual defense

treaty with the Soviet Union in 1934 (Albrecht-Carrie

1973, 480-481). Yet, these defensive treaties did more to

undermine the French security system in eastern Europe

than otherwise. While Poland was more antagonistic

towards the Soviet Union than Rumania both had strained

relations with the U.S.S.R. because it claimed territory

in both states. Further, the Czech-Soviet treaty infuria­

ted Hitler, who saw it as the beginning of Soviet penetra­

tion of eastern Europe, a region which he saw as vital to

German expansionist aims. The Franco-Soviet treaty also widened political divisions in France making less likely a foreign policy vigorous enough to resist German expansion.

French conservatives began to view the Soviet Union as the main threat to France leading in 1936 to the cry of "Hit­

ler or Blum" (Taylor 1979, 128).®

It also led to Conservatives resisting the call for

French military action against Germany for its remilitar­ ization of the Rhineland, which was a major violation of the Versailles Treaty. The desire for peace of the Left and the fear of communism of the Right dominated French

Léon Blum was leader of the French Socialist Party and Premier from May 1936 to June 1937. 217

policy and hindered it during the German expansion of the

1930s.

By 1936, the French people believed that France

needed Britain as an ally. "If there was one conviction

which all Frenchmen shared, it was the belief that outside

of their own military preparedness an entente with Britain

must become the cornerstone of France's system of secur­

ity" (Wolfers 1966, 76). Therefore, in any conflict

between an alliance with Britain and another alliance in eastern Europe the British would be favored invariably.

The weak French response to the remilitarization of the

Rhine in March 1936 was an example. When counseled by

Britain not to take military action and fearful of resist­

ing Germany alone, the French government merely issued a diplomatic protest and lodged a complaint with the League of Nations. From that time on, France followed in the wake of British policy and accepted British leadership in foreign policy questions.

British Goals

As described by Eyre Crowe in his well-known memoran­ dum of 1907, British foreign policy was based on the prevention of a hostile "general combination" of powers.

Britain felt it was "the natural enemy of any country threatening the independence of others and the natural protector of the weaker communities" against any state’s 218

"ambitions to extend it frontiers." In other words,

British security was based on the balance of power. That was why "the opposition into which England must inevitably be driven to any country aspiring to . . .. dictatorship assumes almost the form of a law of nature" (Taylor 1979,

199-200).® Britain had entered World War I to preserve a balance, but the cost of that preservation seemed all out of proportion to its worth.

Beyond the revulsion over the scale of the slaughter of World War I, the British people were united in their view that the Versailles Treaty was unfair and impractic­ able. Instead of trying to enforce its provisions the

British thought it better to acknowledge Germany’s status as a Great Power and accord it full equality in order to make Germany a responsible power and provide the basis for a structure of peace in Europe (Taylor 1979, 417).

Neville Chamberlain who became Prime Minister in May

1937 (Failing 1970, 242: MacLeod 1962, 193-195), believed that Hitler and Mussolini were rational leaders whose claims could be met with rational discussion. He repeat­ edly sent out assurances to Hitler and Mussolini through formal and informal channels that Britain was willing to negotiate in good faith for revisions in Versailles. Even after the German annexation of Austria, Chamberlain be-

® Taylor is quoting Crowe. 219

lieved that Hitler would strike again unless his justified

grievances were met in advance, and that is why Chamber-

lain attempted crisis deterrence in the spring and summer

of 1938 (Taylor 1965, 414, 424). Chamberlain’s goal was

to "extract from the Czechoslovak government concessions

which would satisfy the German inhabitants before Hitler

imposed a solution by force." A peaceful revision of the

Czech-German border, Chamberlain was convinced, could

avert another European war (Taylor 1965, 425). Chamber-

lain very much wanted war averted. This goal common to

Chamberlain and the French government, distinguished the

Munich Crisis.

By 27 September 1938, British and French leaders

realized that war was inevitable unless Britain and France

or Germany gave way in some regard. Although the French

government was more suspicious of broad German foreign policy goals, it adhered to the British view that German

goals were national self-determination and not continental dominance (Taylor 1979, 15-18). The British believed that

Britain owed Czechoslovakia nothing but rather the Czechs, having committed an injustice within its borders against

Germany for twenty years, owed it to Britain and France to make concessions to those same Germans in order to deter a

European war. Once the Sudeten issue was resolved, a new concert of Europe could keep the peace by acknowledging the legitimate interests of all the Great Powers. In this 220

view, Hitler did not seek world dominion, but only justice

for Germans.

German Goals

German goals were identical to Hitler’s goals given

the personalistic dictatorship of the Third Reich. Hitler

presented his goals and views of state power in Mein Kampf,

where he stated that the German race or nationality needed

a state to further its interests in competition with other

nationalities (Hitler 1943, 392-394). Foreign policy must

create a "viable natural relation between the nation’s

population and growth . . . and the quantity and quality

of its soil . . .," he wrote. And "only an adequately

large space on this earth assures a nation of freedom of

existence" (Hitler 1943, 643). He believed there was a

discrepancy between German population size and German land

area and in its current size Germany could not compete with Great Britain, United States, France, and China, all truly world powers (Hitler 1943, 644). "The German nation can defend its future only as a world power," he wrote

(Hitler 1943, 643). Further, "foreign policy is only a means to an end and that end is solely the promotion of our nationality" (Hitler 1943, 609). He believed that if

Germany wanted to be in the first rank of states it must act quickly to ensure its position (Barraclough 1964, 99,

122). 221

The only way to make Germany a world power would be through the conquest of living space in Eastern Europe, he believed (Holborn 1969, 762). This Lebensraum policy directed future expansion towards "Russia and her vassal border states" (Hitler, 1943, 654).

Yet, to the outer world. Hitler merely asked for an equality of status for Germany and was surprisingly friendly to states which later felt the iron heel of

Nazism (Wheeler-Bennett 1948, 222).

Hitler’s timing of offensive actions was astute: he sprang them on Europe in response to actions of other states, always insisting upon Germany’s peaceful motives.

In this way, Germany was able to leave the League of

Nations and the Disarmament Conference, denouncing the latter as a sham; to announce its total control of German rivers and the Kiel Canal, its intention to expand the size of the army to thirty-six divisions, to announce the existence of a German Air Force, the Luftwaffe; and to effect the remilitarization of the Rhine. The last four actions were in flagrant violation of the Versailles

Treaty.

By the end of 1937 Hitler called a meeting of senior military leaders to discuss overall strategy and began:

"The aim of German policy [is] to make secure and to preserve the racial community [Volksmasse] and to enlarge it" (Loewenheim 1965, 2). Current conditions in Europe 222

threatened the preservation of the German race, he said,

and "Germany’s problem [can] only be solved by means of

force" (Loewenheim 1965, 3). Hitler wanted this threat

eliminated by 1945 at the latest because after that, he

believed German strength relative to other states would

begin to decline (Loewenheim 1965, 3). "The incorporation

of these two states [Austria and Czechoslovakia] with

Germany . . . a substantial advantage because it would

mean shorter and better frontiers [and] the freedom of

forces for other purposes" (Loewenheim 1965, 5). His

"other purposes" included the drive to the east which

Hitler believed would solve Germany’s so-called problem of

space (Loewenheim 1965, 5).

Hitler looked for areas where Germany "could . . .

achieve the greatest gain at the lowest cost" (Noakes &

Pridham 1975, 525). From his analysis of British and

French policy Hitler thought that "almost certainly Brit­

ain, and possibly France as well, had already tactically

written off the Czechs and were reconciled to the fact

that this question would be cleared up in due course by

Germany . . . An attack by France without British support,

and with the prospect of the offensive being brought to a

standstill on [the] western fortifications, was hardly

probable" (Noakes & Pridham 1975, 527).

According to Alan Bullock, a respected biographer of

Hitler, "Hitler’s tactics were always those of an oppot— 223

t u m ’st, the aim of his foreign policy never changed from

its first definition in Mein Kampf in the 1920s to the

attack on Russia in 1941: German expansion to the East"

(Bullock 1962, 370).

Following the annexation of Austria in March 1938,

Hitler turned his attention to Czechoslovakia. He was not

in fact at all concerned with the German minority in the

Sudetenland: it provided no more than an excuse to move

against Czechoslovakia which he saw as an impediment to

his eastward expansion and a political threat (Toland

1976, 459; Bullock 1962, 439). Hitler in fact confided to

some SS officers: "That fellow Chamberlain has spoiled my

entry into Prague" (Noakes & Pridham 1974, 549). Further,

in a speech on 23 November 1939, Hitler said: "[i]t was

clear to me from the first moment that I could not be

satisfied with the Sudeten territory. That was only a

partial solution" (Bullock 1962, 472).

The immediate objective for Hitler was the destruct­

ion of the Czech state (Bullock 1962, 444), "a military

invasion that would carry him into Prague as a conqueror

and subjugator of the Czech nation" (Taylor 1979, XV).

General Jodi told a field commander during the Munich

Crisis that "the object of the military operations . . . was not merely the incorporation of the Sudetenland in the

Reich but the complete extinction of Czechoslovakia as an

independent state" (Taylor 1979, 746). 224

Time Constraints

The situation from 12 to 30 September 1938 represent­

ed a foreign policy crisis for Germany, Britain, France,

and Czechoslovakia in part because of the time constraints

imposed on them. Hitler was responsible for the time

constraints placed on Britain, France, and Czechoslovakia.

Leaders of the three states believed that Hitler’s

speech on 12 September impelled a crisis over the Sudeten­

land because of his threat to use force to resolve it.

Until the Czechs received the Anglo-French plan on 19

September, they fully expected that war with Germany was

imminent.

Chamberlain also believed that time was short after

Hitler’s speech on 12 September. He explained to his

sister afterward that his plan to see Hitler "should be

tried just when things looked blackest" and "on Tuesday

[13 September] night I saw that the moment had come and must be taken, if I was not to be too late" (Feiling 1970,

369). The French government also was faced with the need to make a decision quickly, since it believed failure to

react to Hitler’s demands might result in yet greater demands while support for Czechoslovakia might mean im­ mediate war (Wheeler-Bennet 1948, 101). In a letter to the British government Daladier emphasized the pressure of time: "Things are moving very rapidly and in suqh a manner that they risk getting out of control almost at 225

once . . . Entry of German troops into Czechoslovakia must

at all costs be prevented" (Taylor 1979, 531).

Reports to the inner Cabinet on the 15 September

Berchtesgaden meeting emphasized Chamberlain's claim that

"[i]f he had not gone . . . hostilities would have started

by now . . . A man as excitable as Hitler might easily be

carried away by some unfounded report" (Taylor 1979, 749).

When the subsequent Anglo-French Plan was presented to the

Czech government on 19 September, a reply was requested

"at the earliest possible moment," since Chamberlain wanted to renew his conversations with Hitler by 21 Sep­ tember. After the initial Czech rejection on 20 September the British inner Cabinet and Daladier and Bonnet agreed that pressure must be put on the Czech government quickly to forestall a German invasion. That was why the British and French Ministers to Czechoslovakia demanded an aud­

ience with Benes at 2:15 a.m. on 21 September and during that audience presented Benes with an ultimatum: accept the Anglo-French Plan or fight alone (Wheelei— Bennet 1948,

119, 122-123).

Hitler had promised to refrain from hostilities during British-French-Czech consultations but imposed a new time limit with his demand for German occupation of the Sudeten to begin on 26 September and be completed by

28 September. This reduced the time for negotiation or 226

acceptance to a few days only.'®

At 1:20 a.m. on 29 September Hitler ordered assault

units to move to deployment areas ready for an invasion of

Czechoslovakia. Later that afternoon he ordered the

mobilization of five divisions on the western front to

defend against any French offensive (Taylor 1979, 875).

From the military record, it appears that the fear in

Britain and France of a German invasion of Czechoslovakia

before 30 September was unfounded, but nothing in Hitler’s

actions or statements suggests that he did not intend an

invasion on 30 September.

Hitler promised to postpone military action for twen­

ty-four hours on 28 September and in the next few hours sent invitations for a Four Power Conference. A 2 p.m.

time limit was extended at noon of the same day and a new twenty-four hour limit was later abrogated with an invita­ tion to attend a conference the following day at Munich.

In fact, the conference worked steadily throughout the day and night of 29 September so that the agreement was signed at 1:30 a.m. 30 September permitting the occupation of some of the Sudetenland by German troops on 1 Octobei— the date Hitler had presented to Chamberlain as an ultimatum

(Taylor 1979, 744, 746, 864, 894).

During a second meeting late on 23 September, Hitler moved the date for the occupation of the Sudeten­ land to 1 October, thereby extending by a few days the time in which to make a decision (Feiling 1970, 370). 227

Comparison of Crisis

The Munich Crisis is the first crisis case study

which occurred in the twentieth century, and involves more

severe time constraints on decisionmakers than with eai—

lier crises. Competing countries evinced more cohesion

because of the stronger nationalism of the post-1871

world, and the decisionmakers realized, more than they had

earlier, that they were acting in a foreign policy crisis.

Crisis Duration

The Munich Crisis occurred from 12 September to 30

September, an eighteen day period. The shortness of time

reflected communication and transportation technologies developed since 1871, the three most important of which were the telephone, the radio, and the airplane. Ambas­ sadors and ministers communicated directly with their governments by telephone throughout the crisis. This was a more direct communication than the telegraph and enabled clarification at the time of the initial communication.

The telephone and the telegraph permitted almost instant­ aneous communication between governments and within gov­ ernments.

For instance, the British inner Cabinet telegraphed

Newton, British Minister to Czechoslovakia, on 23 Septem­ ber instructing him to tell the Czech government that the 228

British were withdrawing their advice not to mobilize

(Taylor 1979, 812). The next day, Chamberlain telephoned

to Newton an English translation of Hitler’s Godesberg

Memorandum which he was to communicate to the Czech gov­

ernment (Taylor 1979, 818). On 25 September, Benes and

Czech Minister to Britain, Jan Masaryk, had a telephone

conversation in which Benes instructed Masaryk to inform

the British of the Czech rejection of the Godesberg de­

mands (Taylor 1979, 828-829).

Hitler sent a letter to British Ambassador Henderson

to transmit to Chamberlain on the evening of 27 September.

The British embassy dictated the contents of the letter

over the telephone to the British Foreign Office in London

at 8:40 p.m. (Taylor 1979, 877). The same evening Cham­

berlain telegraphed Benes that, based on information in

the possession of the British government, it was "clear

that German forces will have orders to cross Czechoslovak

frontier almost immediately, unless by 2.0 p.m. tomorrow

[the] Czechoslovak Government have accepted German terms"

(Taylor 1979, 884).

On the morning of 28 September, Chamberlain tele­

phoned to Paris to ask support for a four-power conference which he intended to propose to Mussolini and Hitler.

Daladier and Bonnet readily agreed with Chamberlain's

suggestion that he immediately telegraph Hitler a request

for such a meeting through the British Embassy (Wheeler- 229

Bennet, 1948, 164).

The British Ambassador to Italy, Lord Perth, held a meeting with Ciano at 10 a.m. 28 September requesting

Mussolini to assume the role of mediator. Ciano gave the request to Mussolini who immediately accepted and tele­ phoned the Italian Embassy in Berlin. He told Attolico to see Hitler and inform him that Mussolini recommended a delay of hostilities for twenty-four hours. A little later the same morning Ciano telephoned Mussolini's accep­ tance of Chamberlain's proposed four-power conference to

Attolico to present to Hitler (Taylor 1979, 891). That afternoon Goring invited Daladier to the conference on behalf of Hitler by way of a telephone call to Francois

Poncet (Taylor 1979, 10).

The radio also played an important communications role in the crisis. The crisis began with Hitler's speech closing the Nazi Party rally of 12 September. The speech was broadcast throughout Europe (Bullock 1962, 453) and

CBS and NBC broadcast it in the United States (Manchester

1974, 180). It was a public declaration of intent which needed no transmission by any intermediary. Hitler's speech at the Sportspalast on 26 September was also pub­ licly broadcast and so both governments and citizens knew of the ultimatum he was presenting to Benes (Loewenheim

1965, 47-52). Chamberlain's public broadcast at 8 p.m. on

27 September was directed to two audiences— the British 230

public and Adolf Hitler. Just as Hitler communicated

directly with heads of government through the medium of

radio on 12 and 26 September, so too did Chamberlain communicate with governments through his radio broadcast

(Loewenheim 1965, 55-57; Taylor 1979, 884-885).

Air technology also assumed an important role in the crisis. Chamberlain and Hitler were able to communicate face-to-face so often in such a short period because air travel made it possible. Air travel was not considered safe enough at the time to allow heads of government to use it often, and in fact candidates in U.S. Presidential campaigns, for instance, did not use air travel until

1952. So, Chamberlain’s announcement that he was flying to Germany to discuss with Hitler ways to maintain the peace was a bit startling, and he was given credit for the initiative. Chamberlain made three round trips to Ger­ many: 15-16 September, 22-24 September, and 29-30 Septem­ ber. His first trip followed immediately upon the begin­ ning of the crisis, the second trip laid the groundwork for its climax, and the third resolved the crisis peace­ fully. It can be argued that the use of the airplane increased the tempo of events during the crisis.

National ism

The Munich Crisis occurred after the rise of mass nationalism, whose existence precluded the lack of gov- 231

emmental cohesion, which has been demonstrated in the

earlier crisis case studies. Although there were

disagreements over policy within the governments of Bri­

tain and France, these governments presented a united

front in their relations with Germany and Czechoslovakia

throughout this crisis. Although the disagreements within

the French Cabinet were bitter, there was no evidence that

dissenters communicated their opinions directly to any

Czech representatives. The French government spoke through its premier, Daladier, and its Foreign Minister,

Bonnet. In fact, Winston Churchill, who was not a member of the British government and was opposed to the compro­ mises of the Anglo-French Plan, visited two dissenting members of the French government, Paul Reynaud and Georges

Mandel, on 19 September. He persuaded them not to resign so as not to weaken the French government during the crisis (Taylor 1979, 786).

An issue that does arise in this context relates to the stance of the German Army towards Hitler during the

Munich Crisis. By and large, the German Army opposed war with Czechoslovakia. Most officers thought the Czechs would be able to defend themselves well behind their for­ tifications, and believed that Britain and France would come to the aid of Czechoslovakia once war broke out

(Taylor 1979, 681-684, 690-706, 713-719, 722-726)f. A few were so certain that a Czech-German war would become an 232

Anglo/Franco-German war with disastrous consequences for

Germany that they began to plot to overthrow Hitler if he gave the final orders to invade Czechoslovakia (Wheeler-

Bennet 1964, 404-419). However, the plot was stillborn.

The conspirators blamed the failure of their plot on the lack of resolution of the British and French governments

(Wheeler-Bennet 1964, 420-421). The conspirators "could have struck at any moment during the last week of August or the first weeks of September that Hitler happened to have been in Berlin" if they had been "as well prepared and as resolute as" they claimed (Wheelei— Bennet 1964,

423). Taylor agrees with Wheeler-Bennet’s analysis of the weakness of the conspirator's reasoning concerning the events of 28-29 September (Taylor 1979, 895-896).

Had the conspirators been stronger willed, it still would not have undercut the reality of the greater unity of the state since 1871. The officers were convinced that a war against Britain and France would lead to a horrible defeat for Germany, and they did not want to see that happen. Their loyalty to Germany was in fact greater than their loyalty to Hitler: only the will to act was miss­ ing.

Perception of Crisis

The decisionmakers involved were conscious of acting in foreign policy crisis. Until 27 September, all evi­ 233 dence points to Hitler’s wanting the crisis to end in war with Czechoslovakia. On that day he was convinced that

Britain would leave Czechoslovakia to its fate (Taylor

1979, 876-878, 893-894, 896-897). Hitler deliberately threatened war with the intention of deterring Britain and

France from going to war against Germany. At the same time he made excessive demands upon Czechoslovakia in hopes that it would be blamed for the resulting war. On

21 September Hitler reproached the visiting Hungarian leaders "for the undecided attitude of Hungary in the present time of crisis" (Noakes 1975, 544-545).

Starting in late April and more so following the May

Crisis, British and French policy aimed at solving the

Sudeten problem before it spawned a foreign policy crisis.

That is why Anglo-French diplomatic efforts have been referred to herein as "crisis deterrence." Chamberlain knew that he could not threaten war since British arma­ ments were low and that France was a weak ally. In his diary on 11 September, he wrote "you should never menace unless you are in a position to carry out your threats, and although, if we have to fight I should hope we should be able to give a good account of ourselves, we are cer­ tainly not in a position in which our military advisors would feel happy in undertaking to begin hostilities if we were not forced to do so" (Ferling 1970, 360).

Further, Chamberlain’s plan was one of "last resort" 234

to be sprung only when it looked like the peace could not

be saved in any other way (MacLeod 1964, 233). Chamber­

lain’s suggestion of a four-power conference fits well

with the historical examples of conferences being called

to resolve crises peacefully between 1871 and World War I.

Chamberlain and Daladier did not bargain successfully

because they did not think that they could threaten war

convincingly.

To Snyder and Diesing the Munich Crisis was unusual

in that "both parties, faced with the prospect of war,

backed down at the last moment" (Snyder & Diesing 1977,

199, emphasis in original). Chamberlain and Daladier

chose concessions while Hitler’s strategy was to negotiate

for the record by making demands that Czechoslovakia would

not accept. At Godesberg, Hitler overplayed his hand,

thus increasing the influence of those who were against compromise in both the British and French governments.

Both sides faced war on 26 and 27 September and ended by compromising. Hitler suggested that Chamberlain continue his work for peace while Britain and France made conces­ sions. There are two ways to keep the peace in a crisis: deter the opponent or restrain an ally. Since Hitler seemed bent on war, the only chance for peace was to persuade Czechoslovakia to accept the German demands

(Snyder & Diesing 1977, 436-438; Taylor 1979,624, 641,

782-783, 787-788). 235

Once the crisis was upon him, Chamberlain was in a difficult position, unable to threaten war, because both the British and French were not in a position to wage war successfully. Thus the best deal for the Czechs would have to be agreed upon before a crisis existed. Once a crisis arose, the British and French weaknesses would have been illuminated. This was apparent during the crisis when Ministers Newton and Lacroix were instructed on 20

September to emphasize to the Czechs "the dangers of bargaining and giving any excuse for precipitating war"

(Taylor 1979, 787). The British, French, and Czechs were only too well aware that they were in a foreign policy crisis which threatened high priority goals, threatened war, and presented them with restricted time for decision making. The problem was that the British and French believed decisions taken throughout the previous eight years had precluded effective resistance to the German demands during the Munich Crisis. Their choices were humiliation in peace or humiliation in war. Since humil­ iation in peace could be avenged, it would be accepted. CHAPTER EIGHT

THE US-USSR NUCLEAR ALERT CRISIS OF 1973

[T]he Middle East may become in time what the Balkans were in Europe before 1914, that is to say, an area where local rivalries . . . have their own momentum that will draw in [sic] the great nuclear powers into a confrontation.

United States Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, 12 October 1973^

INTRODUCTION

This opinion— that the Middle East could become the

arena for a potential World War III— was a view shared by

American and Soviet decisionmakers before and during the

Nuclear Alert Crisis of 1973. In fact, this view guided

decisionmakers in their quest to protect their respective

states’ interests. They were pushed into positions by

their perceived duty to protect their states’ interests

but were inhibited in making war by fear of the consequen­

ces of war.

The Nuclear Alert Crisis, like the Munich Crisis, was

marked by an awareness by the participating statesmen that

such a critical dispute, if allowed to ferment, could

produce a foreign policy crisis that would threaten impor-

’ William B. Quandt, Decade of Decisions: American Policv Toward the Arab-Israeli Conflict. 1967-1976 Berkeley: University of California Press, 1977, p. 181 236 237

tant goals on both sides. Kissinger, like Chamberlain in

the spring and summer of 1938 before the Munich Crisis,

practiced crisis deterrence in the hope of resolving a

dispute before it provoked a confrontation between the

Great or Super Powers. Kissinger had less time than Cham­

berlain for crisis deterrence because of advances in

communication and transportation technologies since the

late 1930s.

Their motivation was the same, however: to avert a

Great Power war which would have disastrous consequences

for all. This similarity of motivation is easily over­

looked for two reasons: Kissinger never sacrificed Israel

on the altar of Great Power harmony during his attempts at

crisis deterrence, as Chamberlain did Czechoslovakia; and

once a crisis was upon him, Kissinger was able to threaten

war and protect an ally while still furthering the overall

strategic interests of the United States. Chamberlain had

been able to achieve a peaceful resolution of his crisis

only by agreeing to the partial dismemberment of an ally.

For a week or so after the outbreak of the Yom Kippur

War^ Kissinger endeavored to forestall a crisis between

the U.S. and the U.S.S.R. because he was apprehensive

2 On the afternoon of 6 October 1973, Egypt and Syria launched a coordinated military offensive against Israel in the Sinai Peninsula and the Golan Heights. The war ended on 25 October 1973 when a U. N. cease-fire went into effect. 238

about the destruction a superpower war might cause. Even

after the crisis began, Kissinger and President Richard

Nixon of the United States were constantly aware of a

limit to conflict which they did not want to exceed. The

shadow of the nuclear arsenal both sides possessed com­

pelled them to be precise in actions which they knew could

increase tensions during the Yom Kippur War. The U.S.

used threats of war, not war itself, to protect an ally,

Israel, block unilateral Soviet intervention in the con­

flict and protect interests of the United States in the

area.

This chapter will present a short review of the

global and regional situations preceding the 1973 crisis.

The crisis will be analyzed to demonstrate that it threat­ ened decisionmakers' high priority goals, increased the possibility of war, and was responsible for placing con­ straints upon the decisionmakers. Finally, differences between this crisis and crises before 1871 will also be discussed.

The Setting

Nixon began his second term as President in a po­ sition of strength. His historic trip to China, which 239

established diplomatic relations with that country^ and

his policy of detente with the Soviet Union together with

negotiations which appeared at the time to permit the

complete withdrawal of U.S. troops from IndoChina, enabled

Nixon to win reelection in a landslide victory over his

Democratic opponent in November 1972.

This was all the more remarkable given the decline of

the international prestige of the U.S. because of its

inability to impose its will upon North Vietnam and be­

cause of the loss of the U.S. dollar’s unquestioned su­

premacy based on the international monetary regime of

Bretton Woods during Nixon’s first term. It was an era

when the world was still bi-polar but when the supei—

power’s ability to influence other states had reached

definite limits. However limited the power of the super­

powers in the early 1970s the tensions between them had

global impact.

The United States and the Soviet Union had become

locked, beginning in 1947 in a war-less conflict, a so-

called cold war, which involved their opposing ideologies,

economies and their military arsenals. The conflict

between the U.S. and U.S.S.R. in Europe had become stabil-

^ The United States refused to recognize the Communist government of China from 1949 until Nixon’s visit in 1973. Ambassadors were not exchanged, but de facto diplomatic relations were established between the two countries. 240

ized by the early 1960s with each country giving de facto

recognition to the other’s sphere of influence on that

continent.

With the exception of Cuba, the Soviet Union did not

try to compete with the United States in Latin America

for reasons of U.S. proximity, limitations of the Soviet

navy and the historic American influence in Latin America.

In sub-Saharan Africa, there were similar drawbacks to

Soviet expansion. Former colonial powers had been forced

to grant independence to most African states by the mid-

1960s, but the former colonial powers were not without

some means to check the Soviets extending their influence

south of the Sahara.

Although Asia was more vulnerable to Soviet expan- sionistic intentions, in the end it too limited the pro­ jection of Soviet influence. The successful communist

rise to power in China in 1949 had seemed to the West to herald a great victory for the Soviet Union and marked what was viewed as the worst diplomatic defeat for the

United States in the twentieth century. Seeing still another triumph for so-called "monolithic communism" persuaded the administration of U.S. President Harry S.

Truman to the defense of South Korea after its invasion by

North Korean forces on 25 June 1950. The dispatch of U.S. troops to South Korea to fight the North Korean forces on 241

27 June 1950 marked the beginning of a U.S. military

commitment to Asian states against "Communist aggression."

Soviet influence was further limited in the late

1950s when the Si no-Soviet split transformed the two

allies into two ideological and geopolitical antagonists.

With China’s closer proximity to Southeast and South Asia

and with the major commitment successive U.S. presidents made to the protection of those regions, there were limit­ ed opportunities for Soviet policy.

The situation was different with Middle East states, which had their own strong agendas, making it difficult for the superpowers to impose their will. Middle East politics had been dominated from the Napoleonic Wars to

1920 by the slow decline of the Ottoman Empire. Since

World War I it has been dominated by disagreements over the distribution of the inheritance of the Sick Man of

Europe.

This distribution included the political subdivision of the Arab Middle East and the creation of a new Israeli state in 1948. From the Arabian Sea to the Turkish bor­ der, eleven distinct Arab states had come into being from the military dictatorships of Syria and Iraq to the feudal monarchies of Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar. Also, there was Iran, led by the Shah; Turkey, a secular Islamic state tied to the Western alliance; Lebanon, a small neutral 242

State marked by a multitude of ethnic and religious divis­ ions; and Egypt, geographically a part of Africa but forming the geopolitical and religious heart of the Middle

East. These eleven states were united by Islam as the predominate religion and by a desire to eliminate the state of Israel.

When Israel's independence was proclaimed by Israeli

President David Ben-Gurion on 14 May 1948, Jordan, Egypt,

Syria, and Lebanon immediately attacked Israel. War between Israel and its neighbors continued through 1948 and 1949 but by July 1949 had ended in a cease fire set­ ting a pattern for Arab-Israeli relations over the next forty years.

Arabs and Israelis fought three other wars before the

Yom Kippur War, the war which set the stage for the 1973

Nuclear Alert Crisis. There was a war between Israel and

Egypt in 1956 which provided for an Israeli withdrawal from the Sinai and a U.N. monitored cease fire line be­ tween Egyptian and Israeli territory. In the Six Day War of 1967, Israel, after launching a preemptive strike, successfully captured the Sinai Peninsula, the West Bank of the Jordan River, the Golan Heights and the Gaza Strip.

Israel refused to relinquish the territories unless the action was part of a comprehensive peace settlement. In

April 1969, President Gamal Abdel Nasser of Egypt, hoping 243 to regain the prestige lost by Egypt by its defeat in the

Six Day War, launched the War of Attrition against Israel; but by January 1970, Israel had gained control of the airspace over eastern Egypt. To help protect Egypt in the air, the Soviet Union sent Egypt an air defense system complete with Soviet pilots, antiaircraft forces and

Soviet troops to guard it. In return, Nasser gave the

Soviet Union exclusive control over a number of Egyptian airfields and operational control of a large part of the

Egyptian army. Soviet and Israeli pilots fought a number of pitched air battles in June and July 1970 before an

American sponsored cease fire went into effect on 8 August

(Freedman 1978, 31).

Following Nasser’s death in September 1970, Anwar El-

Sadat, his successor, began shifting Egyptian policy away from the Soviets and toward the United States. Sadat wanted the return of the Sinai to Egypt and thought only the United States would be able to convince Israel to relinquish it. Hence the need of Egypt to appear friendly to U.S. interests. On 16 July 1972, Sadat ordered the expulsion of Soviet troops and advisors, a move intended to demonstrate to the U.S. that Egypt was an independent agent, free from the manipulation of Soviet policy (Sadat,

1977, 231). 244

Egypt did not break completely from the U.S.S.R. In

a series of meetings in February and March 1973, Soviet

representatives warned Sadat not to expect direct Soviet

intervention if war broke out between Egypt and Israel.

The Soviets’ claim that they opposed Egypt’s war policy

did not always match their actions. In March 1973, the

Soviet Union had begun increasing the delivery of arms to

Egypt. In turn, Sadat began in late 1972 to mobilize Arab

states for a war against Israel and by mid-September 1973 had created an Arab alignment made up of Egypt, Syria,

Libya, Jordan, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states (Freedman

1978, 122, 134). Egypt and Syria were committed to

launching a coordinated assault against Israel while

Jordan and Libya had promised diplomatic and indirect military support. In addition, Libya, Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states had promised to use oil as a weapon against the states which supported Israel.

On 6 October 1973, Egypt and Syria attacked Israel only hours after an unsuccessful attempt by Kissinger to forestall the action by reassuring the Soviet Union and

Egypt of Israel’s peaceful intentions. Kissinger’s crisis deterrence diplomacy began on the first day of the war, 6

October, and involved a warning to Soviet Foreign Minister

Anatoly Dobrynin that "everything that had been achieved in East-West relations might be at risk if the Middle East 245 went out of control" (Kissinger, 1982, 459). Kissinger expected a rapid Israeli victory, but since "at some stage every Mideast war had turned into an international crisis," he attempted to arrange a cease fire in the first few days and persuade the Soviets to use their influence to achieve that cease fire (Kissinger 1982, 455). The

Soviets, in fact were also pressing for a cease fire in private communications with Sadat. Every day the war lasted, the Soviet Ambassador to Egypt, Sergei Vinogradov, urged Sadat to accept a cease fire (Sadat 1977, 254).

Kissinger and Nixon believed that peace and a balance of power in the Middle East could best be achieved by a military standoff. The U.S. President and his Secretary of State wanted neither side to achieve "a decisive mili­ tary advantage" but rather wanted "a battlefield stale­ mate," "an equilibrium" which would permit a peaceful resolution of Middle East conflicts while avoiding a U.S.-

Soviet confrontation (Nixon 1978, 921).

On the morning of 9 October, the Israeli ambassador to the United States, Simcha Dinitz, informed Kissinger of serious Israeli losses of forty-nine planes and 500 tanks so far in the war (Kissinger 1982, 492). Kissinger was forced to revise his view of the Israeli counter-offensive timetable. From 9 to 12 October, the rate of American arms supplied to Israel to replace those lost was in- 246

creased, as inconspicuously as possible,'* so as to not

alienate the moderate Arab states (Kissinger 1982, 494).

At the same time, Israeli success in the Golan Heights had

caused the Soviets enough concern that they increased

efforts to resupply their Arab allies. On the evening of

12 October, Ambassador Dinitz complained to Kissinger that

the quantity of arms and supplies was inadequate and

Israeli war efforts, especially in the Sinai, were being

seriously hampered. The same day, Israeli Prime Minister

Golda Mier sent Nixon a message which painted a dark

picture of the military situation. As a result, Nixon and

Kissinger concluded that a foreign policy crisis was upon

the United States.

The Crisis

The events from the evening of 12 October 1973 to the

afternoon of 25 October represented a foreign policy

crisis. An increased threat to their respective informal

Mideast allies threatened the high priority goals of the

U.S. and U.S.S.R. threatened to lead to war between the

'* The United States became the main weapons supplier of Israel at the beginning of the 1967 Six Day War. The U. S. Government was committed to replacing Israeli weapons losses in the Yom Kippur War, but quietly, so as to be able to play the role of honest broker to end the war and forge a peace settlement in the Middle East. 247

U.S. and U.S.S.R., and placed time constraints on de­ cisionmakers.

Threat to High Priority Goals

The Yom Kippur War threatened important goals of both the Soviet Union and the United States. For the Soviet

Union, the war threatened to lead to another humiliating defeat of its Arab allies thereby reducing Soviet influ­ ence in the Arab states. For the United States, the war, in the early stages, threatened to lead to the defeat of a de facto ally and thereby reducing U.S. prestige and in­ fluence in the region. The war, in its later stages, threatened to lead to an Arab military debacle. This threatened another goal of the U.S., which was improving

U.S. relations with moderate Arab states.

Threat to Soviet Goals

By the time of the Nuclear Alert Crisis of 1973, the

Soviet Union had expended a great deal of attention and effort in the Middle East. Although it gave formal recog­ nition to Israel within days of its declaration of in­ dependence in May 1948, in an attempt to decrease British influence in the region, Soviet decisionmakers under

Khruschev began focusing their attention on the Arab states. 248

U.S. Secretary of State John Foster Dulles had made clumsy attempts in 1956 to force President Nasser of Egypt to abandon the non-aligned position of his state and in

1957, to create a NATO-like structure in the Middle East.

In response, Soviet Premier Nikita Khruschev sought and achieved much improved relations with the Arab Middle

East, thereby enhancing the U.S.S.R.’s strategic position

(Rubin 1975, 288; Freedman 1978, 12-13). In 1955, the

Soviet Union arranged for Czechoslovakia to sell Egypt arms and promised to help Egypt build the Aswan Dam in

1956. From the mid-1950s to the mid-1960s, 50% of Soviet foreign military and 40% of Soviet foreign economic aid was devoted to Arab allies (Rubin 1975, 289).

The outcome of the Six Day War in 1967 was a major humiliation for the Arab states and their Soviet ally.

However, the Soviet Union used the defeat to strengthen

Soviet-Arab ties, and within a few months of the end of the war, Soviet military advisors and instructors had been attached to every brigade of the Egyptian army. Within a year, the Soviet Union had replaced nearly all the jet fighters, bombers, and tanks lost in the war (Rubin 1975,

292-293).

The Soviet government felt compelled to support the

Egyptian-Syrian decision for war in October so as not to lose any additional influence in the Arab world. At the 249 same time, the Soviets wanted to avoid a confrontation with the U.S., and that is why the Soviets worked diplo­ matically for a cease fire.

Three days before Nixon and Kissinger realized a crisis was truly upon the U.S., on 9 October 1973, a major

Syrian offensive on the Golan failed. In a counter offen­ sive against the Syrians, Israeli forces had reached the

1967 cease fire lines by the following day, a reversal which prompted the initial Soviet airlift of arms to

Syria. On the evening of 11 October, Israel launched an attack into post-1967 Syrian territory, and by the following afternoon, had reached advanced sections of what became the Israeli-Syrian cease fire lines of 24 October

1973 (Herzog 1975, 130-133).

Dobrynin immediately informed Kissinger that Soviet airborne forces had been put on alert to move in the defense of Damascus if necessary (Herzog 1975, 136). On the same day, the Soviet airlift was expanded to include

Egypt and Iraq, and the Soviets began a sealift to the

Arab belligerents (Dowty 1984, 245, 246). Dobrynin also lodged an official protest from the Soviet government, accusing the United States of resupplying Israel (this predated the U.S. decision to do so) and referring to reports that 150 U.S. pilots were being sent to aid Is­ rael’s war effort. Nixon referred to the "menacing tone" 250

of the Soviet message; Kissinger described it as "pure

insolence." The Soviets wanted to show that they were

supporting the Arab states (Nixon 1978, 927; Kissinger

1982, 510; Dowty 1984, 246),

On 14 October, Israel defeated an Egyptian offensive

in the Sinai and that same evening launched an attack

across the Suez Canal (Herzog 1975, 135, 228). The Is­

raeli crossing of the Canal prompted the Soviet Premier

Alexei Kosygin, to fly to Cairo himself to argue for a

cease fire with President Sadat. On 19 October, having

learned of the U.S. airlift to Israel, Sadat decided he

could not defeat both Israel and the United States and

agreed to a cease fire in place (Sadat 1977, 259, 261).

On the same day, Dobrynin contacted Kissinger by telephone

to read him an invitation from Brezhnev to attend cease

fire negotiations in Moscow the following day (Kissinger

1982, 542).

In a four hour meeting the morning of 21 October,®

Brezhnev and other Soviet representatives agreed to

Kissinger’s conditions for a cease fire: it would be a

cease fire in place; belligerent parties would pledge to

® Kissinger was not able to leave for Moscow until the morning of 20 October. The flight from Washington to Moscow took fifteen hours. Kissinger had an "informal" discussion with Brezhnev that began at nine o ’clock in the evening of 20 October, but the serious discussions on the cease-fire did not begin until the morning of 21 October (Kissinger 1982, 545-550). 251

implement United Nations Security Council Resolution 242;®

and those same parties would begin to direct peace

negotiations. On the following day, the Security Council

duly passed a resolution embodying the U.S.-U.S.S.R agree­

ment timing the cease fire to become effective that same

day, 6:52 p.m. Middle East time (Kissinger 1982, 1246-

1247, 558, 565).

That first cease fire almost immediately broke down,

but a second cease fire resolution at the Security Council

sponsored by the U.S. and Soviet Union, recognizing Is­

raeli territorial advances on both fronts since the war

began, was approved on the evening of 23 October. It

reaffirmed the previous cease fire agreement and urged the

parties to return to the previous cease fire lines.

Israel, Egypt, and Syria ratified it the following morning

(Kissinger 1982, 575). This cease fire proved as ineffec­

tive the first. On the morning of 24 October, Egypt and

Israel accused each other of violating the cease fire and

the height of the crisis had arrived. In the afternoon of

24 October, Sadat requested the Soviet Union and the

United States to send forces to the Sinai to enforce the

® United Nations Resolution 242 was adopted by the Security Council on 22 November 1967. It called for the withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the 1967 war, the end to the states of belligerency, the acknowledgment of the independence of all states in the region and their right to live in peace (Meir 1975, 372). 252

cease fire (Sadat 1977, 266).

However, this request to serve as regional policemen

had the effect of triggering Soviet preparations for unilateral military action. The Soviets put four ad­ ditional airborne divisions on alert bringing the total

number to seven. In addition to the eighty-five Soviet ships already in the eastern Mediterranean, Soviet trans­ port planes were held at embarkation points while an air­ borne command was created in the southern parts of the

Soviet Union. On the evening of 24 October, Brezhnev sent

Nixon a message requesting a joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. force be sent to police the cease fire. "[I]f you find it impos­ sible to act with us in this matter, we should be faced with the necessity to urgently consider the question of taking appropriate steps immediately," he told Nixon

(Dowty 1984, 256).

Immediately, the United States government put its nuclear and conventional forces on alert. It warned Sadat that the United States would forcibly resist the introduc­ tion of Soviet troops into Egypt. And it told Brezhnev that not only would it not join the peacekeeping force, but also that it would not under any circumstances accept unilateral Soviet actions in Egypt (Kissinger 1982, 587-

589). 253

On the following morning, the Egyptian government

withdrew its request for a joint U.S.-U.S.S.R. force,

substituting a request for an international force to

police the cease fire. On the afternoon of 25 October,

Dobrynin telephoned Kissinger and read him a concessionary

letter from Brezhnev declaring that only seventy non­

military Soviet personnel had been sent to observe the

cease fire (Kissinger 1982, 597).

Threat to United States Goals

The goal the United States had in the Middle East was

the same general diplomatic goal it had in other regions:

contain the Soviet Union. Every government of the United

States from Truman to Nixon had been committed to the containment of Soviet power, including Soviet influence in the Middle East.

One way to do this was to have a close relationship with Israel. The United States extended recognition of

Israel days after its declaration of independence and was able to supply Israel through France with military equip­ ment throughout the 1950s and 1960s.

With the decline of regional alliance systems and of

U.S. public opinion for the direct use of U.S. troops abroad, the Nixon administration’s goals came to include a policy of supporting friendly states to act as regional 254 policemen, and as allies to defend U.S. interests in the world if necessary. In the Middle East, this policy had come to include increased supply of arms to Israel as well as to Jordan and Iran (Quandt 1977, 114, 109, 122-123).

When the Yom Kippur War began, Kissinger and Nixon wanted it ended without an expansion of Soviet influence in the region. By 12 October, it was apparent to Kis­ singer and other U.S. decisionmakers that not only would

Israel be unable to resolve the war to its satisfaction within a few days, but that Israeli officials were worried that a defeat of their forces was possible. U.S. decis­ ionmakers were sure that in this event, Israel would take drastic action against the Arab states which in turn could bring in the Soviet Union militarily. Even without Soviet military intervention U.S. decisionmakers feared that on

12 October Soviet surrogates would triumph with Soviet arms, thereby enhancing Soviet prestige, undercutting moderate Arab governments and leading to a Soviet presence in the region for decades.

The United States was caught off guard by the most serious threat so far to its long-term goals. It was on the afternoon of 12 October that Prime Minister Meir warned Nixon that Israel might have to use "every means" at its disposal to protect itself in a war, thus putting

Israel’s nuclear capability onto the crisis bargaining 255

table. As Safran puts it: "Suddenly, on October 12,

1973, the scenario of an Israel feeling on the verge of

destruction resorting in despair to nuclear weapons . . .

assumed a grim actuality" (Safran 1978, 483). Late that

evening Dinitz met Kissinger with a note warning of "very

serious consequences" if the United States did not im­

mediately begin to resupply Israel with weapons. The

United States promptly agreed (Dowty 1984, 245).

U.S. decisionmakers also worried that if Israeli successes on the battlefield became too great, the Soviets would intervene directly, requiring a United States re­ sponse, and leading to war between the superpowers. This

is why the U.S. worked so consistently for the first and second cease fire agreements (Dowty 1984, 253, 255).

United States decisionmakers were faced with the possibility of Soviet military intervention on the night of 24 October, and put their military forces throughout the world on alert. Nixon observed: "We obtained infor­ mation which led us to believe that the Soviet Union was planning to send a very substantial force into the Mid­ east, a military force" (Kissinger 1982, 606). Kissinger calculated that there was a "three out of four chance" of

Soviet intervention (Dowty, 1984 257).

The threat to U.S. goals which Soviet unilateral intervention represented had declined rapidly on 25 Oc- 256 tober. On that day, President Sadat withdrew his request for a joint Soviet-American force, and Secretary General

Brezhnev sent President Nixon a conciliatory message that only seventy Soviet non-military observers would observe the cease fire.

Threat of War

The period from 12 October to 26 October also represented a foreign policy crisis because decisionmakers perceived an increased possibility of war between the superpowers.

On 12 October Kissinger and other U.S. leaders had to face the possibility of an Israeli use of nuclear weapons

(Dowty 1984, 245; Safran 1978, 483), as well as a threat of Soviet military intervention as a consequence. U.S. decisionmakers also felt the threat of superpower war increasing each day the war continued, since both sides were involved in an escalatory military resupply of the parties to the war.

As each day proceeded without resolution of the conflict, each past day’s resources expended became a rationale for an increase by both the U.S.S.R. and the

U.S. in the resources committed to each new day. The

Soviet airlift began on 9 October, expanded 12 October and was intensified further on 16 October to between seventy 257

to eighty flights per day (Golan 1977, 87, 108). The

United States followed a similar pattern. On 6 October,

President Nixon approved a "low-profile" U.S. military

resupply of Israel. Early in the morning of 13 October,

Kissinger and Secretary of Defense James Schlesinger

approved the dispatch of ten U.S. military transport

planes directly to Israel. On 15 October, Nixon ordered a

U.S. military airlift to resupply Israel. The U.S. air­

lift to Israel totalled 228 flights (Dowty 1984, 267).

The Soviets as well were aware of the threat of war

from escalation. During talks with Sadat, Soviet Premier

Kosygin admitted there was a risk that if the fighting

continued the superpowers could be dragged into the con­

flict by the increasing demands for arms made by the

belligerents (Heikel 1975, 245).

The threat of war from Soviet military intervention was increased after Kosygin learned of the Egyptian mili­ tary situation on his trip to Cairo from 16 to 19 October.

This new knowledge prompted the urgent Soviet request to

Kissinger to travel to Moscow for cease fire negotiations.

Kissinger agreed to negotiate in the face of Soviet des­ peration, a desperation Kissinger did not want to see turn

into ill-advised action (Dowty 1984, 253).

The U.S. fear of ill-advised Soviet action was also prompted by Soviet military preparations. On 11 October, 258 three Soviet airborne divisions were put on alert (Dowty

1984, 234). On 24 October, four additional Soviet air­ borne divisions were put on alert while Soviet transport planes were being held at what were known to be embarka­ tion points. By the same date, the Soviets had eighty- five ships in the eastern Mediterranean (Dowty 1984, 256),

The height of the war threat came on the night of 24

October when Brezhnev, in a note to Nixon, threatened unilateral Soviet military action to enforce the cease fire. As Nixon observed in a letter to Brezhnev on 27

October, after the crisis had ended, suggesting that the

U.S. did need to respond forcefully to the Soviet threat:

As to the actions which the United States took as a result of your letter of October 24, I would recall your sentences in that letter: "It is necessary to adhere without delay. I will say it straight that if you find it impossible to act promptly with us in this matter, we should be faced with the necessity urgently to consider the question of taking appropriate steps unilaterally." Mr. General Secretary, these are serious words and were taken seriously here in Washington (Kissinger, 1982, 609).

All U.S. decisionmakers believed that the Soviets were capable of unilateral action in the Middle East

(Quandt 1977, 197). In Nixon's words, Brezhnev’s threats of unilateral action together with Soviet capabilities represented "perhaps the most serious threat to U.S.-

Soviet relations since the Cuban Missile Crisis eleven 259

years before (Nixon 1978, 238). Kissinger defended the

calling of the alert on 25 October. Kissinger observed

that "the President has no other choice as a responsible

national leader" (Kalb and Kalb 1974, 495). Later, Kis­

singer said that "if we had not reacted violently" the

Soviets would have sent troops to Egypt (Kalb and Kalb

1974, 499).

Time Constraints

U.S. decisionmakers faced a number of time con­

straints during the crisis. The first was on the evening

of 12 October when Meir hinted at the possible use of

nuclear weapons, and the U.S. accepted its demands for

more weapons within hours of the implicit threat. The

resulting U.S. airlift continued for the duration of the crisis.

The second time constraint on U.S. decisionmakers

began on 19 October when they received the Soviet invita­ tion to Kissinger to travel to Moscow for urgent negotia­ tions for a cease fire in the war. Kissinger's perception of urgency was borne out by the alacrity with which the

Soviet government approved the U.S. draft text of a cease fire resolution on the morning of 21 October.

A sense of operating within time constraints con­ tinued when the resolution was debated at the Security 260

Council later the same day and approved at 1:52 a.m. (EST) on 22 October. The perceived threat of Soviet action following the failure of the first cease fire prompted

U.S. decisionmakers to work quickly to arrange a second cease fire resolution, adopted on the evening of 23 Oc­ tober.

The time constraints on U.S. decisionmakers tightened further on the evening of 24 October when they received the note from Brezhnev via a telephone call from Dobrynin threatening unilateral Soviet military action. In this case, the time for action was measured in hours. The decisionmakers began to place U.S. forces on alert within two hours of the Soviet threat and alert orders were completed within four hours. The official U.S. government rejection of the Soviet "proposal" was presented to Dobry­ nin at 5:40 a.m. 25 October, only eight and a half hours after Brezhnev’s message had been received by U.S. deci­ sionmakers, the message which had prompted the U.S. alert.

Crisis Comparisons

The Nuclear Alert Crisis of 1973 exemplifies the type of crisis which occurred after 1871. The states involved in the conflict demonstrated the nationalism which charac­ terized the post-1871 era. Decisionmakers were quick to realize that they were acting in a foreign policy crisis. 261

The time constraints which events placed upon them were severe.

Mass Nationalism

The cohesion of the Soviet government was a hallmark of the Stalinist legacy. Whatever disputes may have occurred within the government were never exposed, and as one might expect, there was no indication during the 1973 crisis of any disagreement within the Soviet government.

More surprising was the cohesiveness of the U.S. government during the crisis in light of domestic events

in October 1973. On 10 October Vice President Spiro T.

Agnew resigned. A Court of Appeals decision that Nixon must turn over the tapes requested by Special Watergate

Prosecutor Archibald Cox was announced on 12 October.

Attorney General Elliot Richardson and Deputy Attorney

General William Ruckelshaus resigned rather than follow

Nixon’s order to fire Cox and the office of Watergate

Special Prosecutor was abolished on 20 October (Nixon

1978, 923, 926, 934). By 23 October, twenty-two resolu­ tions for the impeachment of the President had been intro­ duced in the U.S. Congress (Nixon 1978, 934, 935).

Yet, during the crisis, U.S. decisionmakers worked well together, and there was a unanimity in policies. The

U.S. decision to declare a military alert on the night of 262

24 October was made unanimously at a meeting held that

same evening and attended by Kissinger, Secretary of

Defense James Schlesinger, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of

Staff Admiral Thomas Moorer, Director of the Central

Intelligence Agency William Colby, Presidential Chief of

Staff Alexander Haig, Deputy Assistant to the President

for National Security Affairs General Brent Scowcroft, and

Commander Jonathan T. Howe, military assistant to Kis­

singer (Kissinger 1982, 588).

The only apparent "breach" occurred early on 25

October when news of the alert was made public, and Kis­

singer blamed this on the effects of the Watergate scan­

dal. Admiral Moorer thought it essential that the Soviets

receive news of the alert quickly and publicly. Far from

being a sign of the disorganization of the government, the

publicity of the alert was part of a disciplined U.S.

response to a Soviet threat (Dowty 1984, 276).

Perception of Crisis

U.S. decisionmakers had known a Superpower crisis was possible when the Yom Kippur War broke out on 6 October

1973. Kissinger has observed that "history taught that at some stage every Mideast war had turned into an inter­ national crisis," (Kissinger 1982, 455) and "in almost every crisis there occurs a moment . . . which conveys an 263

unmistakable signal that the other side is not prepared to

push matters" (Kissinger 1982, 521). Kissinger knew that

he was in a crisis from late on 12 October until 25 Oc­

tober.

Kissinger described U.S. government actions in crisis

management terms. U.S. policy on 15 October he described

as the "right strategy . . . to increase the pressure and

to show a way out of the adversary’s growing dilemma"

(Kissinger 1982, 526). Concerning the activities of 24

October, he observed; "crises have their own momentum"

(Kissinger 1982, 575). Kissinger interpreted Brezhnev’s message threatening Soviet unilateral action as showing that "the Soviet leaders decided on a showdown" (Kissinger

1982, 581). Kissinger described his press conference on

25 October as an attempt to help resolve the crisis. "If crisis management requires cold and even brutal measures to show determination, it also imposes the need to show the opponent a way out" (Kissinger 1982, 595). The Soviet message to say that the Soviets had sent only seventy non­ military observers marked the end of the crisis for Kis­ singer, and he described his feelings: "[T]here was the usual aftermath of a crisis: the mixture of relief, letdown and the premonition that some other, if lesser, challenge would take its turn (Kissinger 1982, 597). 264

Duration of Crisis

The U.S.-U.S.S.R. Nuclear Alert Crisis of 1973 lasted exactly fourteen days. Its comparatively limited duration was a result of the speed of communication and transporta­ tion in both diplomacy and war. The crisis began so rapidly on 12 October because both Superpowers realized that their allies in the Middle East could be defeated in days or even hours. Kissinger made sure that the Israeli ambassador knew that the U.S. airlift would begin the day following his government's decision so as to preempt any rash action by the Israeli government. Kosygin flew to

Cairo to plead with Sadat from 16 to 19 October to accept a cease fire because he knew every hour lost meant Is­ rael’s regaining that much more territory.

When Brezhnev invited Kissinger for "urgent consult­ ations" 19 October, he pressed for Kissinger to leave the same day. Kissinger was able to postpone departing for a half a day, but was negotiating with Brezhnev and other

Soviet officials within an hour of his arrival on the evening of 20 October. Kissinger’s plane trip from

Washington, D.C. to Moscow took a total of only fifteen hours. British Prime Minister Chamberlain’s trip from

London to Berchtesgaden took seven hours during the Munich

Crisis.

Throughout the Nuclear Alert Crisis, Kissinger com- 265 municated with Dobrynin by telephone in order to speed communications between their two governments. A few times

U.S. officials were able to speak "directly" to Soviet officials in televised statements such as Kissinger’s on

12 October and 25 October and Nixon’s on 26 October.

Given that the two protagonists were thousands of miles away from each other, while the area of their dis­ pute also a great distance from the decisionmakers, it is significant that the 1973 crisis lasted only fourteen days, shorter than the Munich Crisis which dealt with a dispute between Britain and Germany over an issue much nearer in Europe. The advances in technology which per­ mitted the crisis of 1973 to unfold within a two week period were the same as those which permitted the crisis to occur in the first place. CHAPTER NINE

CONCLUSION

The past is not dead. It's not even past.

William Faulkner'

I began this project a few years ago after discussing

several comparative foreign policy crisis case studies

with a friend. I believed that almost all authors of case

studies had chosen crises from no earlier than the late

1890s. I believed there were two possible explanations:

that foreign policy crisis (hitherto referred to as

crisis) as a type of event in international relations did

not exist before the 1890s; and/or most international

relationists were not comfortable with the historical

record much before the beginning of the twentieth century.

Neither explanation, it turned out, was quite correct.

I began studying crisis literature to acquire an

understanding of the conceptualizations of crises and the

historical record which had provided the factual referents

for the crisis comparisons. This search led me to modify

the explanations which motivated this research and to

' Faulkner’s observation is cited in Jewell Handy Gresham, "White Patriarchical Supremacy: The Politics of Family in America," The Nation 249:4 24/31 July 1989, page 116. 266 267

delve for a deeper understanding of the motivations of the

other crisis writers. Crises did exist before the 1890s,

but those that occurred before 1871 were different from

those that occurred after that date. Crisis, as a type of

event in international relations, originated at a specific

time in response to changes which occurred in the modern

international system. The origins and evolution of crisis

tended to be obscured because of the static conceptualiza­

tions writers had of the international system, their

positivist methodology, and their ahistorical reasoning.

My definition of crisis was derived from the most

important writings within the crisis subfield. The work of these scholars made this effort possible. There has been a great increase in understanding of crisis because of the insights of McClelland (1968), Herman (1972), Young

(1968), Snyder and Diesing (1977), Lebow (1981), Brecher,

Wilkenfeld and Moser (1988) and others. They provided a clarity which was missing from the diplomatic historical writings on crisis.

However, what those writers explicitly or implicitly assumed was that crises were a constant in the modern international system, along with normal diplomatic prac­ tice and war. Yet, the examples they used to develop their generalizations about crises were derived only from the most current 90-odd years of the modern international 268

system. Although all were "puzzle-solvers" and wanted

their work to have an ameliorating effect on the world, their "sample" did not seem as representative as it might

have been. How could they conclude that crises were a constant in international relations, having studied cases only from the late 1890s to the 1970s? Apparently they believed the international system's fundamental character had not changed during its history. What Waltz (1979) had called the "ordering principles" of the international system hadn’t changed in the view of the crisis scholars— the modern international system was composed of autonomous states in an anarchic system and had always been. In agreement with Waltz’s view the crisis writers had held the greatest value to be the avoidance of war and empha­ sized the "systemic determinants of state behavior" (Fei— guson & Mansbach 1988, 46, 165).

In order to use the insights of the crisis writers without being limited by their ahistorical static view of the international system, I turned to the critical theory of Robert Cox and the configurative method of Harold

Lasswell. C ox’s emphasis on origins and recursion and

Lasswell’s emphasis on replication and change provided a base from which I could attempt to inquire after the origins and evolution of crises.

Cox and Lasswell provided a means to view the intei— 269 national system dynamically and gave clues to the sources of potential changes in the characteristics of crises.

Both theorists pointed to social forces or the division of labor and world orders or instrumentalities of violence or forms of state or the symbolic environment as sources of change. Using these possible sources, I began to see how developments in weaponry and the organization of the armed forces (world orders/instrumentalities of violence), new transportation and communication technologies (forms of state/symbolic environment), and the rise of the nation­ state (forms of state/symbolic environment) could explain both the origins and evolution of crises. These dynamic theories caused me to believe that there could be such a thing as an origin of crises, that they had evolved and had not necessarily been a constant presence in the intei— national system.

For case studies to illustrate the similarities and differences which I believed existed among crises, I chose those representative of important conflicts between the

Great Powers over long standing diplomatic issues. They included the Anglo-French Near East Crisis of 1840, the

Olmütz Crisis of 1850, the Seven Weeks War Crisis of 1866, the Fashoda Crisis of 1898, the Munich Crisis of 1938, and the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Crisis of 1973. I believe that I have demonstrated that these crises were in fact crises but 270

that they also showed differences among themselves from

before and after 1871.

A crisis by my eclectic definition, was a situation

perceived by decisionmakers of two or more states to pose

a threat to the achievement of high priority of goals of

decisionmakers, to increase the possibility of war, and to

place time constraints on decisionmakers.

Crisis Similarities

The Anglo-French Near East Crisis arose from the

incompatibility of British and French goals. The con­

tinued independence of Egypt from the Ottoman Empire and

Egyptian power threatened the British goal of protecting

the routes to India through the maintenance of the in­

tegrity of the Ottoman Empire. India was important to

Britain as a market for British goods, as a recipient of

British capital investment, as a base from which to pene­

trate the Far Eastern market, and because India provided

Britain with a colonial army not subject to Parliamentary

financial control and which could be used for British

Imperial defense and expansion. The success of Ali of

Egypt threatened to lead to the partition of the Ottoman

Empire between France and Russia. This would have put the

Egyptian army and navy at the disposal of the French, and have threatened the British position in the Mediterranean 271

and the Indian subcontinent. The 15 July 1840 Convention

was therefore directed against Ali. What appeared to be a

nightmare to British officials was an imperial dream to

France. Control of Egypt would have made France dominant

on the southern shores of the Mediterranean. This, to­

gether with a merging of the Egyptian navy with their own

would have enabled France to challenge British dominance

in the Mediterranean.

These conflicting goals let to an increased possibil­

ity of war between Britain and France. After the Conven­

tion of 15 July 1840, the French government increased

defense expenditures, armed the navy, drafted different

classes of men, increased the size of the army and navy,

sent the army to the French frontier, began the fortifica­ tion of Paris, and all the while threatened Britain with war. Many in and out of the British government thought that war was probable. Britain continued its military actions against Egypt. Finally, the British Prime Minis­ ter threatened to ask Parliament to put Britain on a war footing. This caused the resignation of the French gov­ ernment.

Finally, the British and French governments were faced with time constraints. The Convention was a twenty day ultimatum to Ali, and the Great Powers had pledged collective military action to enforce this ultimatum. So, 272 the French government was faced with the possibility that within five weeks its goal of an independent and militar­ ily powerful Egypt would be lost to France forever. That is why the French government attempted to change British policy before the ultimatum went into effect and why the government continued to work to change British policy before the results of the military action in the Near East were known to Britain. Palmerston was faced with main­ taining British policy in the face of French war threats.

Those in the British government who worked against Pal­ merston were convinced that Britain and France would soon be at war, and that was why they believed British policy must be changed quickly.

During the Olmütz Crisis, Prussia and Austria came close to war. Both governments claimed exclusive juris­ diction over the same territory within the German con­ federation. Both backed up their claims with the dispatch of troops to the area. Each threatened the other with war. Austria signed a military alliance with important secondary German states and mobilized its army. Prussia responded with its own mobilization. Prussian and Aus­ trian troops clashed in the disputed territory, and war was averted in the end only by Prussia renouncing its claim to the disputed territory and ordering demobiliza­ tion. 273

War appeared as close as it did because of the con­ flicting goals of Prussia and Austria. Prussia wanted dominance in northern Germany, at the least, and to be accorded equality of status with Austria: the basis for the Prussian-proposed Erfurt Union. Austria wanted to maintain the power status quo within the confederation.

Austria had always been supreme within the confederation and the dominant German power, and the Austrian decision­ makers believed Prussian actions threatened Austria's position.

The decisionmakers were faced with time constraints.

Both claimed jurisdiction in Hesse. Each warned the other not to send troops there while both sides were readying troops for that purpose. After troops from both sides moved into Hesse, it became obvious to decisionmakers of both countries that it would be impossible to maintain troops indefinitely in a territory claimed by both.

Finally, Austria delivered a forty-eight hour ultimatum to

Prussia— acquiesce in the matter of Confederation control of Hesse, or face war.

The same goals motivated Prussia and Austria in the

Seven Weeks War crisis. The Prussians wanted the domin­ ance of northern Germany, while the Austrians wanted their preeminence within the German Confederation. This clash of goals led to a clash of arms. Prussia entered into a 274 treaty of alliance with Italy, threatened war with Aus­ tria, and mobilized its army. Austria mobilized its army, reinforced its fortresses, and called up its reservists.

Both sides ended the crisis when decisionmakers concluded that war was preferable to dishonor.

During the crisis both sides had operated within time constraints: the first involving the three-month time limit of the Prussian-Italian treaty. The second involved mobilization. Because of the expenses of mobilization,

Austrian officials believed that when it was completed,

Austria would enjoy diplomatic success or be forced go to war against Prussia. Finally, Prussia had threatened war against the Confederation if it mobilized. The Confedera­ tion did choose to mobilize, and the war came.

Britain and France again squared off over Egypt in the Fashoda Crisis. Egypt increased its importance to

Britain since 1840; British officials viewed the Suez

Canal as the lifeline to its empire in India. Britain had occupied Egypt in 1882 to protect the Canal, and Egypt itself had therefore to be protected. In the British view the main threat to Egypt arose from the prospect of Euro­ pean control of the Upper Nile: specifically a French claim to part of the Upper Nile basin. The goal of France was to expel Britain from Egypt and reestablish French influence. French officials thought the most effective 275

way to accomplish this, and at the same time round out the

French colonial empire in Africa, was to establish French

power in the Sudan. Both Britain and France claimed the

same territory in the Sudan.

These conflicting claims sparked the increased pos­

sibility of war. Del cassé warned Britain that its actions

were forcing his country to the brink of war while the

French government mobilized the navy and strengthened the

defense of it port cities. Britain mobilized its navy and

moved it to war stations, at the same time insisting on

the unconditional withdrawal of the Marchand expedition.

This implicit ultimatum was the final time con­

straint, and it resolved the crisis. Early in the crisis,

France had said that it could not reach a decision in the

crisis until after it received a report from Marchand and

had asked for the use of British facilities for that

purpose. Britain agreed, thus postponing the demand for

decision twenty seven days. Once Delcassé received Mai—

chand’s report on the final day of that period, British

pressure and war preparations increased to the point that

France announced its decision to recall Marchand eight

days later.

The Munich Crisis threatened to lead to a European war. Hitler’s demand for the Sudetenland was backed by mobilization, troop movements, and threats of war. Czech- 276

oslovakia mobilized its army and pledged to defend itself.

Britain and France mobilized their armed forces and prom­

ised to come to the aid of Czechoslovakia.

Each country had a different goal. Hitler’s long

range goal was German dominance in central and eastern

Europe with German annexation of the Sudetenland one stage

in its achievement. Czechoslovakia’s basic goal was

survival as an independent state. France’s goal was the

continued limitation of German power through bilateral

alliances with eastern European states. Britain’s goals

were to maintain the balance of power and to resolve

disputes between the Great Powers peacefully.

The last crisis reviewed was the U.S.-U.S.S.R. Nu­

clear Alert Crisis of 1973 when decisionmakers of the

Soviet Union feared that an Arab defeat in the Yom Kippur

War would reduce Soviet influence in the Middle East. For

the United States, the war first posed a threat to U.S.

influence in the region because of the risk of Israel

losing the war. Later in the war, Arab losses threatened the U.S. goal of improving relations with moderate Arab states, particularly when it appeared to foreshadow the deployment of Soviet troops in the Middle East.

These threatened goals caused an increased possibil­

ity of war. U.S. leaders felt a superpower war would result either from the Israeli use of nuclear weapons or 277

from escalatory support both superpowers gave to their

regional allies. The Soviet leaders, unaware of the

Israeli possibility, agreed that increasing support for

Mideast allies could lead to superpower war.

Decisionmakers operated within time constraints

throughout the crisis. U.S. decisionmakers believed the

only way to preempt a potential Israeli use of nuclear

weapons within hours of the implied threat was to increase

arms shipments to Israel. The reason the Security Council

cease-fire resolutions were so quickly agreed to by the

superpowers and approved by the Security Council is that

Soviet and U.S. decisionmakers believed that continuation

of the Yom Kippur War would lead to a superpower war.

Finally fear that Egypt would suffer a decisive defeat

caused the Soviet's to threaten to intervene militarily in

the Mideast on a unilateral basis. This in turn caused

U.S. decisionmakers to move to preempt what they believed

to be imminent Soviet action.

Crisis Differences

The Anglo-French Near East Crisis of 1840 and the

Olmütz Crisis of 1850 had very similar characteristics.

Both were of a much longer duration than the later crises.

The Anglo-French Crisis lasted three months and six days.

The Olmütz Crisis lasted two months and seventeen days. 278

These crises occurred before the transportation and com­ munication revolutions had fully begun.

Secondly, decisionmakers of this time did not have a clear understanding of crisis. The decisionmakers of

Britain and Prussia who most opposed the policies of their governments did so because they believed the policies would lead to war. For them, the activities a state took to prepare itself for war so as to demonstrate to the protagonist its serious intent were not distinct from war preparations. The Duke of Wellington, Queen Victoria,

Russell, Holland, and Clarendon all opposed Palmerston’s policy because they believed it would lead to war with

France. King Louis Philippe opposed Thier’s policy for the same reason.

On the other hand, Palmerston and Thiers each be­ lieved the other was using the threat of war, or in con­ temporary terms, crisis bargaining, instead of war itself to achieve state goals. Each believed the other was bluffing, and Palmerston proved to be correct. Yet,

Palmerston and Thiers were in a minority in their govern­ ments. Most did not view the situation as any different from the diplomatic maneuvering preceding a war.

This assumption of the inevitability of war motivated actions of decisionmakers which in turn reflected the weak nationalism of the pre-1871 period. Governments members 279 who disagreed with their government's policies communi­ cated this disagreement to officials of the opposing government. In the 1840 crisis, Holland was the most flagrant offender, constantly passing on details of Cab­

inet disagreements to the French ambassador. King Louis

Philippe and the French ambassador to Britain relayed to

British officials news of the King’s desire for peace and the removal of Thiers. This type of communication would be inconceivable after 1871.

The Seven Weeks War Crisis of 1866 reflected charac­ teristics of both the 1815 to 1850 period and the post-

1871 period. The 1866 crisis lasted two months and six days, less than either of the two previous crises but more than the succeeding three crises. Further, decisionmakers were more highly conscious that they were taking part in the type of bargaining associated with foreign policy crises. Both sides used diplomatic warnings, alliance agreements, mobilization, and the threat of war to achieve their goals. Their crises bargaining was done indepen­ dently of war preparations. Finally, the decisionmakers were motivated by national and dynastic concerns, although national concerns fueled and pervaded the crisis while dynastic and prenational concerns motivated those who attempted to forge a compromise to resolve it. Mens- dorff’s attempt to halt mobilization and the Gablenz 280 proposals to resolve the crisis were based on dynastic ties of the two states and a sense of monarchical solidar­

ity. Both failed and their failure marked the increasing strength of nationalist feeling.

The three post-1871 crises had common characteristics and also differed substantially from the earlier crises.

The Fashoda Crisis lasted one month and 16 days, the

Munich Crisis lasted eighteen days, and the U.S.-U.S.S.R.

Nuclear Alert Crisis lasted fourteen days. The innova­ tions in transportation and communication technologies, beginning with the telegraph and steamship and ending with television and the airplane, transformed the relations between states. The crisis over Egypt in 1840 lasted more than three months while the crisis over Israel and Egypt lasted only fourteen days.

Secondly, these three crises were marked by a percep­ tion by decisionmakers that the diplomatic situation they were in differed significantly from normal diplomatic practice. This perception dominated to the point that decisionmakers had anticipated a crisis and attempted to deter it before it occurred. Salisbury anticipated a crisis with France ten months before it happened while

Delcassé, having been in office only a few months before the onset of the crisis, anticipated it by a mere couple of weeks. 281

This understanding of crises motivated both Chamber- lain and Kissinger to practice crisis deterrence diplo­ macy, both unsuccessfully. Both understood the conditions in which crises could occur, and both tried to resolve disputes before they could become crises. Both failed, but made their attempts because of the perception of crises which the decisionmakers shared. The decision­ makers of the post-1871 crises reviewed here were able to conceptualize the situations they were in as a crisis.

This ability to conceptualize crisis as a distinct type of situation in international relations was based on their ability to see crisis as more than a prelude to war.

Crisis was different from war because threats of war were different from war. Salisbury, Chamberlain, Delcassé,

Hitler and Kissinger understood that threats of war and military preparations could be used as bargaining tactics to achieve goals and saw these actions comprising a dis­ tinct crisis situation separate from the diplomatic maneu­ vering before the inevitable war. Most of the decision­ makers in the pre-1871 crises could not conceptualize crisis as an independent situation in international rela­ tions. Thus they saw the threats of war which existed during the crises as leading inevitably to war.

Finally, these later crises were marked by a greater sense of nationalism on the part of decisionmakers and 282

others. Although Salisbury had disagreements with his

Cabinet, he did not communicate them to French officials

as Holland had done in 1840. Rather, he used the Cabi­

net's opinions to buttress his government's bargaining

position. Delcassé did the same. Delcassé did not undei—

cut opposition to his conciliatory policy but used that

opposition to press for British concessions. Opinions in

the British and French governments during the Munich

Crisis were divided, but those were not made public during

the crisis, so as not to weaken the government. In fact,

the disagreements strengthened the resolve of the govern­

ments, leading to a hardening of the Anglo-French po­

sitions between 24 and 28 September. The 1973 Crisis

exhibited the same pattern of strong nationalism. Any

disputes which have existed in the Soviet government have

never been made public. And the U.S. government showed

unaminity of opinions throughout the entire crisis.

Further Research

While I believe the crisis case studies I have ex­ amined illustrate the propositions I advanced in Chapter

Two of this dissertation, there are crises which were not reviewed here which if examined in the same light, could

increase our understanding of the evolution of crises.

From the 1815-1850 period, it would be illuminating 283 to study the Anglo-Russian Greek Independence Crisis of

1828-29 to see whether it conforms to the structure of the other crises between 1815-1850. The Greek Independence

Crisis involved Britain and Russia and occurred as a result of the Greek war for independence from the Ottoman

Empire. Britain wanted Russia to stay out of the Mediter­ ranean while Russia wanted increased influence in the

Balkans. The Crisis was resolved by the London Protocol of 22 March 1829 which recognized an independent Greece

(Albrecht-Carrie 1973, 45-46).

The period between the 1851 and 1871 period offers a greater number of crises to choose from. One might prof­ itably study the Crimean War Crisis of 1853-54, the Pied- mont-Austrian Crisis of 1859 (which ended in war between

Austria on one side and Piedmont and France on the other); the Schleswig-Holstein Crisis of 1863-54 (which ended in war between Denmark against Prussia and Austria); and the

Franco-Prussian War Crisis of 1870.

The post-1871 era offers such a profusion of Great

Power crises that selecting only those which involved the important issues of international diplomacy at the time might yield the best results. I would suggest for study the Near East Crisis of 1878 (between Britain and Russia over the diminution of the Ottoman Empire), the 1914

Crisis, the Formosa Straits Crisis of 1958 (between the 284

United States and China over the control of Chinese off­ shore islands), and the Cuban Missile Crisis of 1962.

These reflect important diplomatic issues, and all are acknowledged to be crises.

The six crises reviewed herein do, I believe, il­

lustrate the origins and evolutions of the phenomena of foreign policy crises. APPENDIX A

Table 1. Intervals between dates of events and dates when interested parties gained knowledge of the events during the Anglo-French Crisis of 1840

DATE OF KNOWLEDGE EVENT/DATE OF THE EVENT TIME LAG

Defection of the Known by French govt 23 days fleet - 3 July 1839 26 July 1839

Revolt in Syria Known by UK govt 29 days 26 June 1840 5 July 1840

Convention of Known by Ottoman govt 19 days 15 July 1840 3 August 1840

Known unofficially 23 days by Ali - 7 August 1840

Known officially 32 days by Ali - 16 August 1840

Sultan deposes Ali Known by UK govt 18 days 14 September 1840 2 October 1840

Anglo-Austrian Known by UK govt 23 days bombardment of Beirut 4 October 1840 11 September 1840

Defeat of Ibrahim in Known by UK govt 29 days Coastal areas 8 November 1840 10 October 1840

Acre taken Known by UK govt 20 days 4 November 1840 24 November 1840

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